Schools under military attack in the Philippines

The IEU was one of a number of unions that played host to visiting Filipino union leader Francisca Castro recently.

Castro is Secretary General of the Concerned Teachers Alliance. As a board member of Education International representing the Asia Pacific region, she was invited to speak at the National Tertiary Education Union annual council.

She also dropped into the IEU to talk about the issues facing teachers and their unions in her country. While she is head of a 100,000 member strong union, Castro said the decision to give up her job as a maths teacher to become a union leader was a difficult one due to the lack of resources. She has two sons and the union is only able to give her minimum support.

Only recently the Alliance has begun to collect membership dues from its members. The Alliance represents teachers from early childhood through to secondary education, in all sectors, and also represents support staff. There are about 600,000 public school teachers in the Philippines and 100,000 private school teachers.

Classroom conditions differ greatly from Australia. There could be as many as 100 students in a class. About 30% of children are not at school, often because they are working.

The Filipino government has recently announced it wants to extend secondary schooling from four years to six, to keep pace with the global economy, but Castro said this is a problem.

“There is a 45,000 teacher shortage in the Philippines. We do not have the funding, the buildings or resources for an extra two years of schooling,” she said.

The Alliance also tries to support the peasant population and the indigenous Lumad people of the southern island. Castro said schools for indigenous students have come under attack from the militia, because indigenous people are resisting foreign multinationals that wish to do mining, logging or plantations in their homelands.

Military personnel come into the schools and harass teachers and students, even using the schools as military barracks.

The Filipino Save our Schools Network (https://saveourschoolsnetwork.wordpress.com/) has called for the government to pull troops out of schools, and defend children’s rights to an education.

Castro said she would take back a “sense of solidarity” and some organising ideas from her trip to Australia.