In the midst of a furious joint discussion, the government of Santa Fe released a series of data for 2023 that opened a new debate. During Friday, when The private school teachers union announced that they will hold a new strike on Thursday the 7th and Friday the 8th, From the Gray House, a document was published with absenteeism statistics for the last year, with information that is incredible: among other things, that The teachers and professors asked for 18 thousand days of leave to “take care of in-laws.”
According to the information provided by the Santa Fe government, Teacher absenteeism during 2023 was 25.3%10% more than it had been during 2022. For this reason, The State had to spend 100 billion pesos to pay substitutes. “Those 100 billion pesos are equivalent to two monthly salaries. Projected to 2024, that cost amounted to 250 billion, but we have already taken measures to reverse it,” warned Governor Maximiliano Pullaro.
But the data that generated the most debate was the number of days of leave for Family Care: in that area, There were 18 thousand days requested to “take care of in-laws”, 11,300 for “uncles” and 3,000 to be in charge of “nephews”. “Faced with this situation, it was established that in 2024 the current regulations be complied with, which only allows requesting leave for care of current regulations, for father, mother, children and partner,” they argued from the Province.
According to Pullaro, “absenteeism in our province doubles and even triples that of other provinces.” He also said that because of the teachers who did not go to work, Santa Fe had to hire 25% more staff. “Due to the same situation in the Province of Buenos Aires, 12% more was needed,” compared the governor during the presentation of the Open Schools program.
While Sadop (Argentine Union of Private Teachers) has already defined its strength, Amsafe (Santa Fe Teachers’ Association) will do so on Monday. The unions have not yet responded to the absenteeism debate that the Government established.
“Not all replacements are unfair. There are people who have health problems due to their function. We also understand that some may, at some point, have to care for a family member, but We believe that by not having controls in the last four years, the line was crossed and limits were broken,” said Pullaro. And he concluded: “The irregularities are not the fault of the teachers. I want to be very clear: it is the fault of the system, because there was a system here that allowed this.”
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