(Finance) – Tomorrow is World Teachers’ Day. In Italy there are almost 900 thousand teachers, 81% are women and over 20% substitutes: according to data updated only a few days ago by the Ministry of Education and Merit, there are 684,592 who teach the disciplines on common positions plus 194,481 of support for disabled students, given that the latter is expected to increase by a further 10-15 thousand places in the coming weeks. This is what is underlined byAnief on the eve of World Teachers Day.
“The problem – he comments Marcello Pacifico, national president of Anief – is that we cannot have 220 thousand temporary workers who continue to be deprived of many basic rights. Being a substitute teacher at school today still means finding yourself, compared to those who have been placed on the role, discriminated against on a legal and economic level, with fewer holidays and permits, zero salary increases, additional salary, penalties on career reconstruction and training. Temporary teachers – explains the independent trade unionist – are then underpaid compared to other public employees with the same quality and hours of work and do not take into account activities other than frontal teaching, so much so that the average annual salary of a teacher in Italy is between 29,000 and 30,000 euros, while a public employee receives, again on average, around 34 thousand euros per year. And again compared to public employees, teachers are more at risk of burnout: a statistically proven condition of psychological suffering, but which does not want to be recognized by the Mef through ‘windows’ for early exit from work, despite the requests of the Anief union supported by investigations specifications”.
Furthermore, teachers – underlines Anief in a note – are increasingly humiliated by students and parents. “A considerable number of students – he continues Pacific – they do not recognize its social function and many families have even violated the ‘sacred’ teacher-parent educational pact that had characterized Italian education for decades, forcing the current Government to intervene to repress criminal conduct. These are all clear signs of how that society that was born from the reflections of Plato’s Republic of Philosophers today denies itself and leads us towards the educational decline of the new generations. It seems that the value of teachers is recognized only during mournful or difficult events, such as Covid or the war in Ukraine, only to be forgotten with the first budget law with which further cuts to the school system are cyclically planned. Instead, for a cutting-edge and growing country, education expenses should be the main ones in the public budget. And respect for the teaching role – concludes the Anief leader – should be recognized starting from a fair salary”.