Spaniards rap cuts in education sector

Tue Sep 20, 2011

Thousands of schoolchildren, parents, and teachers hold fresh protests in the Spanish capital against the regional government in Madrid's plans to enforce spending cuts on the education sector.

The Tuesday rallies saw the public voicing outrage at the decision planned to take effect on October 22 to increase weekly teaching hours, while cutting class preparation time, the Spanish news agency Buenos Aires Herald reported.

Rallying under the banner 'money that goes into education is not expenditure; it is investment,' the protesters said the measure would damage the quality of secondary education and mean less work for support teachers.

“There are other things that can be cut, where money can be saved. Education is an investment in our future,” Miguel Angel Nieto, a teacher at Juan de la Cierva high school in Madrid, told reporters.

Protesters held placards reading “Remember London: fewer teachers today means more police tomorrow.”

Spain has one of Europe's highest number of school dropouts nearly 30 percent of whom are students under the age of 16.

Officials, however, say the cuts are necessary to prevent the country from sliding deeper into the economic crisis -- a misfortune, which would in turn compound the eurozone debt crisis.

The budget cuts are expected to attract more protests.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/200284.html.