More than 500 history teachers issued a statement in which they expressed their disagreement with the transformation, promoted by the government and beginning to be applied this Monday, in various stages of primary, secondary and technical education.

The lack of professionalism, the lack of space for shared reflection and of real time for coordination and debate directly affect our work, generating discomfort and discouragement among the teaching staff’, so stated the document published by the newspaper La Diaria.

We do not share these authoritarian practices. We do not feel identified with this reform, adds the statement which also criticizes the ‘way the authorities work’ and the lack of dialogue and exchange with secondary school history teachers.

They also rejected the competence-based approach -the central focus of the reform- as the only way of teaching history, as it ‘denies the rich pedagogical and didactic tradition of our profession. But, especially, it denies the professionalism of teachers and ignores academic freedom as a frame of reference’, the text argues.

The teachers pointed out that the educational authorities carry out ‘a significant improvisation’, as they define ‘documents and regulations that are constantly changing’.

The statement affirms that the real problems of the educational system lie in the budget cuts, the lack of multidisciplinary teams, pedagogical support and material conditions, and not in the different ways of teaching the subject.

jrr/jav/mem/ool.