ESSAY

The Impact of Strikes Towards a Solution for Crisis in Education

Sebastian Silva

Universidad Surcolombiana

Crisis at public universities and its consequences

            Education is a field to highlight in our society because of its importance on every context. Culturally speaking, one can find education whether to be public or private. Both provide a big amount of knowledge to people who can approach a bunch of knowledge regardless their area of interest or age. Yet, there is something to consider beforehand. Public education is way too better and more important. Compared to the private ones, it is better to get into public services as they are always contributing to the social development of each person freely. That includes education. However, public education is the more affected as it has a lot of needs to solve and the laws and policies are not helping. Things such as funding for teachers or material, issues regarding infrastructure or financial crisis are sort of the type of problems that public education faces and that the government seems not be interested in solving but increasing. Also, the fact that the governments seek for the privatization of such institutions. It is not a thing of only a country. Indeed, this is a problem that spread world-wide in countries that are not endorsing the service public education offers. For that reason, the institutions and the members of these see themselves into starting a strike to force a dialogue with the government to get possible solutions. Nonetheless, as a matter of fact, private universities also go into strike. It is just that both. Hence, public institutions’ strikes should always be a strong mechanism to think of and enhance for solving any necessity presented and so, it cannot be penalized but legal.

Education should be a priority for every government. Its development encourages the way people struggle with real life situations, allowing students to get prepared for the real world, which are things that private institutions are not into. Besides, as Giroux says, schools are cultural centers that create resistance in the conciseness of individuals and collectives which is meaningful for extreme intransigence (1983). Teaching kids to be prepared for real life contexts is a way of gaining resistance in a certain future. Likewise, it can approach a higher grade on people’s resilience, which would be more effective than accepting everything just because the policies or the ministries say that education should be just as they want it to be. Moreover, when students from schools leave and get to college or university, their critical knowledge can be enhanced. By means of that enhancement, students, teachers, professor and staff in general immerse themselves in a cycle of identifying the problem, acting and reflecting. These three abilities do not come out from nothing. They need to be part of the process at schools and universities. It is a shame that the system tells teachers not to let students express what they think since they are just kids. Thoughts like that one only affect the development of someone who can make better in the future.

Along with these dilemmas, the priority should also have a scope on the financial crisis of not only education but also the poor who cannot access to schools, universities or institutes. Ortega (2010) claims that “Latin America’s education systems suffer from low levels of learning, limited opportunities for the poor, bureaucratic paralysis and chronic conflicts with teachers’ unions”. Funding education should focus to offer opportunities to everybody and with the same conditions. It will help countries to get better results from the different practices held at any institutions. Also, there is no need to leave someone out. If someone misses the chance of studying, then it becomes a failure in the process of fighting fo. Nevertheless, sometimes it is not because of the lack of money or opportunities but because some people who have the power say no to others. Those left behind tend to become the problems to control in the future because of the absence of ethic and moral. Things that one acquires at home and at schools, but that sometimes is difficult to get at home because the others are looking for money or job. The government must create programs for allowing everybody to go into schools to get an appropriate education.

One of the things to discuss of what Ortega says, is the conflict that a non-decent education has with teachers’ unions. To be against the rules of a system that does not think about the consequences of not funding education is always a good thing to do. Teachers, students, professors, staff and people are the one involved in the marches and the strikes. No budget and no solutions evoke the rebellion of the affected ones. Furthermore, Richardson says that in a strike that took place in England, teachers claimed that the budget cut leaded to firing teachers and courses being cancelled (2017). For things like this, the purpose of marching should be objective. Strikes do overcome certain necessities and as history shows, every field pursues something to get and after some time it gets to be something reachable. There must be objectivity on the strikes and the marches as rebellion brings damage and harmful consequences. That is why the government should not get to this point. Sitting to negotiate would be better for both parts. No harmed people or even casualties as happens in most of the strikes would be on the news, which show that students, teachers and sometimes relatives of the affected fight against the police. The big issue is that sometimes the media misinform and tends to label students and teachers as the vandal ones. Through dialogue and pure communication, the leaders and the government can find a solution for the things that are in need. Or well, partially, because each year we see teachers and students marching because of the same problematics and the getting the same answer from the government through violence. In Colombia there was a strike on   

The agreements that are signed do not mean that everything is solved. In fact, sometimes, it takes only some weeks or months for people to start marching again against the same exigencies that were supposed to be solved in the negotiation. Which means that the solutions are not likely to work. A negotiation’s conclusion ought to be quite better if the aim is solving the needs of education. Therefore, universities, schools and staff continue marching. In 2011, Colombian students went on strike because the government wanted to change the system through adding private rules and aspects to public institutions. They called that group of students “Mesa Amplia Nacional de Estudiantes” (Sara Lopera, 2018). Nonetheless, last year students went on strike again.  It was criticized, indeed. Even though, it demonstrated that there was no other way of forcing the government to sit and negotiate.  And if the negotiation is not successfully achieved, a strike should start.

On the other hand, it is pivotal to think of building and providing institutions with supplies that allow them to be safe in any part of each city. That way people from all around each country would have the same chances of getting a decent education.  Schools from the countryside budget is not as big as the budget schools from the cities have. This attitude shows the government’s neglect towards these institutions’ needs. Abandoning them increases the violence and the percentage of students’ desert from schools. The safer a place is, the better the people that interact with it would immerse. Money does not go first. At some schools, universities and institutes the surroundings and the inner devices are dangerous or harmful for the practices developed. Education needs no money if the guarantees are not giving students and teachers a safe and warm atmosphere for doing things successfully. Moreover, as a matter of fact, the institutions need to be safe enough for the people that work and attend these educative places. If not, then, money would have no value for covering moral issues. In Argentina from there was an incident that has to do with such problematic. The teachers and some parent complaint about the way a leak of gas could provoke a dangerous situation that indeed, happened. Consequently, there were two dead people. The controversy goes with the government not giving a solution to the school and fortifying the neglection towards helping academic places from small towns.(Pitchon, 2018)  the fact the government owes In Argentina the strike started because of an explosion. Aforementioned is a big initiative for people to force a dialogue between the affected and the one who are not providing solutions.

            Forcing the government to act is the most resourceful aspect to consider so that the needs become things of the past. Regarding that aspect, even if the strikes are peaceful, there will always be a piece of violence which makes the mandatories to rethink the no negotiation. The heavy art of a strike is the fact that if affects the economy of a country, making people and government to take actions against them (Las consecuancias a largo plazo del paro, 2019). Along with this assumption, a strike’s results just reinforce the validity of the process, making people deconstruct the way politicians manage everything without taking their needs into account. Although, people who go on strike claim that the security is not the best. We see people getting pursued for these practices as well as killed, and that cannot be accepted when these people are doing their best to keep things in order.  have worked for the most vulnerable to get what they want and need. Yet, as stated before, the less reachable feature should be the one who involves casualties. It cannot become a war when it is just people fighting for their rights.

            In that sense, our culture should keep on demonstrating resistance against the laws that affect the freedom and growth of people in every field. In fact, Giroux says that “the necessity for theoretical renewal in the educational field coupled with the massive number of primary and secondary sources that have been translated or published recently in English provide the opportunity for American and English-speaking pedagogues to begin to appropriate the discourse and ideas of the Frankfrut School” (1983, b.)  In that sense, the social emancipation that stands at the Franfkurt School gives strength to the argument that it is time to increase the resilience everywhere for creating a critical theory on education. The theory must deconstruct the pedagogies implemented at schools and any other academic place. Hopefully, the next generations will not be up to get detached of these practice that in one way or another, give reasons to believe that things are possible through cultural changes in education. Also, that changing a partial educational system to an impartial and enough for endorsing the system in which education is not safe due to the many policies that global organizations and groups stablish for countries in development to follow is not only a dream but an achievable issue. The teachers and students should continue carrying that fire of hope to society, to bring new outcomes to the contexts where the problematics cannot be always key aspects. Glory to the revolution and educational change for the benefit of the vulnerable and the privileged.

References

Giroux, H. (1983). Critical Theory and Educational Practice.

Giroux, H. (1983). Theory and Resistance in Education.

Las consecuancias a largo plazo del paro. (04 de february de 2019). El Imparcial .

Ortega, T. (2010, June). Focal. Retrieved from Focal : https://www.focal.ca/en/publications/focalpoint/258-june-2010-tamara-ortega-goodspeed

Pitchon, A. (3 de August de 2018). The Bubble . Obtenido de https://www.thebubble.com/explosion-moreno-school-la-plata-argentina/

Richardson, H. (15 de April de 2017). BBC News. Obtenido de https://www.bbc.com/news/education-39608487

Sara Lopera, E. P. (10 de Octubre de 2018). La Silla Vacía . Obtenido de https://lasillavacia.com/los-estudiantes-marchan-juntos-pero-no-revueltos-68325