On Sunday October 14th Iran’s teachers began their two-day nationwide strike. The protest, called by the Co-ordination Council of Teachers’ Trade Organisations of Iran, has already affected schools in Tehran, Mashhad, Esfahan, Yazd, Kurdistan Province, Fars Province and elsewhere. In the lead-up to the strike organisers said that teachers would be present at their schools but that they would not be going to any classrooms for teaching.
The teachers’ main slogan is: Health, livelihood and housing are our inalienable rights. The teachers have many grievances, including a number that criticise the regime’s education and social policies. The following is a Telegram post by Ms Fatemeh Bahmani on October 12th, explaining why she is joining the protest.
Fatemeh Bahmani, October 12th:
I am a teacher and …
I protest against the disparity between the inflation rate and teachers’ wages.
I protest against the failure to implement the National Services Law (after ten years).
I protest against the failure to implement the job classification scheme (after three years).
I protest against the plundering of teachers’ pension fund (18 million [$4280], the share of each member).
I protest against the monetisation of schools (contrary to Article 30 of the Constitution).
I protest against shed schools that sometimes have no roofs and Conex [shipping containers] school with no educational resources.
I protest against congestion in the classrooms [i.e., class sizes].
I protest against threats, exile, dismissal, sacking, and imprisonment of colleagues who make demands.
I protest against low wages.
I protest against the reduced budget and the trivial per pupil [funding] of schools.
I protest against putting the heaving burden of education and the cost of schools on the parents (contrary to Article 30 of the Constitution).
I protest against the poor quality of education and the living standard and the impoverishment of teachers.
I protest against the below-the-poverty-line wages.
I protest against the [national] security and police [criminalisation] response to my colleagues’ rightful demands.
The Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign condemns the Iranian regime’s treatment of teachers and jailing of teachers who speak out against this rotten and repressive system.
Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign
14 October 2018
Source: Co-ordination Council of Teachers’ Trade Organisations of Iran
Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign 