Civil education platform invites goverment to discuss demands

Budapest, March 29 (MTI) – The civil public education platform representing the teachers’ movement, which calls itself an alternative to the government-teacher roundtable on school reform, has initiated talks with the government on its 12-point list of demands. The platform has given the government a two-week deadline to respond to its invitation.

Aurél Puskás, the platform’s spokesman, told a press conference after a meeting on Tuesday that the government must respond in one way or another to the teachers’ demands before the start of the next schoolyear. If the government ignores the invitation to sit down for talks, the Tanítanék (I want to teach) teachers’ movement is prepared to organise further protests beyond the hour-long nationwide civil disobedience protest scheduled for Wednesday morning, he said.

László Miklósi, another spokesman for the platform, said their grouping of civil organisations and trade unions supports the teachers’ movement. Miklósi expressed hope that the movement would “not have to organise any more protests” and said he did not expect its members to be penalised for participating in Wednesday’s demonstration.

The civil public education platform’s demands include reducing academic burdens on pupils, such as cutting the number of physical education classes and eliminating mandatory moral and religious education classes. They have also called for the government to postpone planned changes to the secondary school-leaving exams and to stop all changes planned at the secondary level. A free choice of textbooks and the immediate suspension of the teacher evaluation system, as well as the legal possibility of employing teachers beyond the retirement age, is also among their demands.

The Tanítanék movement has called on teachers and supporters around Hungary to express their dissatisfaction by protesting in front of their respective schools between 8am and 9am on March 30 after the government earlier rejected a call to apologise to “teachers who suffered humiliation over the past six years”.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters