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Education in Crisis

Poor working conditions for teachers, frustrated pupils and students, and little prospect of improvement. Hot on the heels of the economic crisis, Europe has now declared an education crisis.

A wave of protests - the "onda", as the Italians call it - is rocking Italy. Pupils and teachers, students and professors, youths and their parents have united to fend off what they see as a massive austerity package in the guise of educational reform. By axing 131,500 jobs in education - 87,000 teaching posts and 44,500 posts in school administration - Minister of Finance Giulio Tremonti hopes to reduce government spending by seven percent over the next three years.

Photo: .marqs

And Italy is not the only state planning to take such steps. Cuts are on the agenda in other European countries too. Although economy measures are understandable in times of economic crisis, the question arises as to why the education system, of all sectors, should be affected. Europe's press discusses the problems of individual countries and the potential dangers of cuts for the future of the next generation.

Italy and the "onda"

The wave of protests began in early September when Italian Minister of Education Mariastella Gelmini presented the school reform, which above all affects primary schools. The protests were mainly directed against the reintroduction of a system in which one teacher teaches all the different subjects. There are fears that the dismissal of specialist teachers for the different subjects will jeopardise the diversity of lessons and the future of all-day schooling, which is standard in Italy. Commenting on the situation on September 6, the left-wing daily L'Unità wrote: "People from Turin to Rome have risen in protest. With her 'Counter-Reform' Mariastella Gelminini threatens to make 100,000 employees redundant, while families will be left with no one to look after their children in the afternoon hours." The worst affected by the shortage of teachers are children with learning difficulties and the children of immigrants. Hence by October 14, the Italian daily La Repubblica was already talking of "discrimination that borders on racism". But despite the protests the reform was passed on October 15, albeit with a few "mitigating restrictions", as the daily Il Sole 24 noted.

Following the passing of the controversial school reform by the Senate on October 29, the general strike turned into a mass demonstration against Silvio Berlusconi's government. The "onda" received political backing. The centre-left opposition party, the Democratic Party (PD), endorsed the protests, or as the government preferred to put it - "rode the wave". In the run-up to the PD's rally on October 25 the daily La Stampa warned of the risks of politically exploiting the "wave" in the face of Berlusconi's threat to deploy law enforcement officers against the students. His sabre-rattling, the paper contended, would only lead to the "consolidation of the different movements into a united front," adding that whether this was precisely what the prime minister intended in order to force the "onda" into a radical position was not yet clear. "But what is certain is that this is not the right way to convince students, teachers and parents of [the merits of] the school reform," La Stampa concluded.

On October 26 Il Sole 24 Ore gave the opposition credit for the success of the rally, but made the point that laws are not made on the street but "in parliament through concrete proposals". According to the daily, the "reformism of the masses" invoked by the leader of the PD, Walter Veltroni, remained "an ideal, a suggestive goal".
The universities became the next targets of the government's reform policy. On October 30, the day of the general strike, La Repubblica declared that fixed-term contracts and precarious working conditions at schools and universities were the key problem: "The victims of the cuts ... are employees without unlimited contracts." For their part students bemoaned the "lack of a new generation of professors and cronyism at universities." After the leader of the Lega Nord party Umberto Bossi warned of a new wave of revolts like those in 1968, it was announced that, contrary to previous statements, there were no plans for cuts at universities.

There can be no doubt that a general decline of the overall mood in Italy played a role in the protests, wrote the Swiss paper Le Temps on October 30: "It has been a long time since Italy experienced a social climate this toxic. ... The mass protests ... are an indication that the school reform is only a symptom of a more deep-seated malaise. The rebellion of the Italian students is not just a passing mood. It is the cry for help of a young generation that seeks a future other than that of an angst-ridden Italy."

Yet Italy is not the only country plagued by fear of the future and austerity measures. In other European countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Portugal and France, above all the issue of poorly paid teachers is a source of controversy.

Low pay for teachers

On October 30 the Bulgarian weekly Kultura reported on the desperate situation of Bulgarian teachers: "The contempt of society and miserable pay" had triggered a great bitterness among teachers, it noted. "Schools have come to be seen as a threat by young graduates, a symbol of shame and a place for losers," the magazine added. The teachers are humiliated and filled with "fear of unemployment." In Romania the situation initially appeared to be better after the parliament approved a 50-percent increase in teachers' salaries. But in early November the government decided to postpone the raise until next spring. The teachers' union promptly called for a token strike. "It doesn't take a mathematical genius ... ," the Romanian weekly Revista 22 wrote, "to work out that you can't live on 700 lei (195 euros) a month." It added that it's therefore no wonder schools are forced to employ supply teachers with inadequate training. For their part critics point to "the lack of competitiveness of the didactic cadre, the lack of a professional mentality and corruption."

Poor working conditions - too much bureaucracy

Not only low salaries, but also teachers' working conditions and the growing bureaucratisation at schools are a problem. In Portugal 120,000 teachers recently took to the streets to protest the introduction of a new teacher assessment programme that they say is so complicated it leaves barely any time for teaching. "We thought the Ministry of Education was there to help schools teach pupils. But in the course of time the Ministry of Education has turned into Franz Kafka's castle, where even the Minotaur is lost. The Education Minister is digging a grave for the Portuguese education system," Portugal's Jornal de Negócios wrote on November 10.

Under the slogan "Education is our Future" and with the backing of the socialist opposition, French teachers, pupils and parents also took to the streets to demonstrate against planned job cuts and the school policy of Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative government. In an article for the daily Le Figaro published on October 21, Paul-Henri Du Limbert wrote: "The striking thing here is not so much the huge number of teachers who took to the streets on Sunday but the presence of socialist politicians like Bertrand Delanoë, Martine Aubry, François Hollande, Benoît Hamon and of course, Jack Lang." The French government has already axed 11,200 posts nationwide in this school year alone, and plans to cut a further 13,500 jobs next year.

In the Netherlands, too, there are signs of unrest. Arthur van Leeuwen commented on October 15 in Elsevier magazine on the announcement of a teachers' strike aimed at a reduction in working hours: "So basically school managements would face two problems: higher wage costs and teachers who are allowed to work less. In an international comparison, Dutch teachers work the most hours per week. ... The pledges of education minister Ronald Plasterk to pay teachers higher salaries, make the profession more attractive and improve quality are gradually taking on the character of empty promises."

In Germany tens of thousands of students demonstrated against the education crisis, teacher shortages and poorly equipped institutions. On November 13 the left-wing German daily die tageszeitung endorsed the students' key demands. "Schools need to be better equipped. More teachers are a pre-requisite for this. And tuition fees are nothing but unsocial nonsense which the neo-liberal elite fans have hammered into the brains of politicians working in the area of education."

Devastating Consequences

The European press has discussed not only the strikes and protests, but also the effects of neglect of the education system. Not least in Finland, Denmark and Germany, there are fears that the cuts could have a long-term impact on the labour market. A blog in the Danish daily Politiken on October 28 contended that given the financial crisis and growing unemployment figures it was high time for reforms. "In view of the inter-generation contract it is particularly important that politicians set new reforms in motion that bring about a marked increase in the level of education of the younger generation and increase the willingness of middle-aged people to work longer."

With reference to an education summit which took place in Germany in October, the German daily Frankfurter Rundschau stressed on October 19 that in addition to funding, structural reforms were also important for the education system. "What counts is the output: what children and youths actually learn. Taken on their own, all the euros spent on education will not produce more growth. What matters are the skills that are acquired. ... If the education summit turns out to be an empty bubble, in the long term we could end up paying a much higher price for this than for the burst financial bubble."

Dan Alexe, Brussels correspondent for the daily Romania libera, wrote on October 30 that for Europe's education sector in general, things were looking gloomy at present: "In many countries, in France, the UK, Belgium, etc., people already know that the coming generation will experience a shortage of teachers and educators."

In an article in the daily newspaper Luxemburger Wort on 26 September, Roger Nilles stressed the importance of education for the future: "Thus, at an early point in the life of an individual it can already be determined whether he is on the path to success or failure - provided one defines success in terms of knowledge, skills and making full use of opportunities. ... So if in a context that is as global as it is complex, education ... decides whether a person will be among those who help shape society in the future and those who, owing to a lack of education, fall by the wayside, ... then the full dimensions of the task facing schools and other educational institutions becomes clear. ... In many countries of the 'third world' we can see for ourselves each day the extent to which states are run down when educational structures fail to function."

Eva Clausen

Eva Clausen is euro|topics correspondent in Italy, where she works as a freelance journalist. She has worked among others for RAI, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Handelsblatt, ...
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