Striking teachers block roads as first day of school starts with protests

The first day of the new academic year began on Tuesday with strikes in the education sector.

The Department of Education has placed the number of workers following the strike at 9.3%, with 65.68% of the schools having reported by 11.30am.

The USTEC union, meanwhile, indicates that the strike following is closer to 20%.

Around 1,800 people, according to the local police, and 5,000 according to the USTEC union, participated in the demonstration in the centre of Barcelona.

The mobilization was led by the banner 'Against the educational emergency, we continue in the streets,' and posters and chants were displayed against the government and minister Esther Niubó, and in favour of an increase in salaries, reduction of student-teacher ratios, and improvement of inclusive schools.

In the early hours of the morning, mobilizing teachers blocked roads and cut train lines in a display of their anger towards the education department. 

Further protests and demonstrations are planned throughout the day. 

The first roadblocks got underway at around 7:30am on the Barcelona ring roads, first the coastal one at Barceloneta and later at Santa Coloma de Gramenet.

A few minutes before eight, about 150 people also blocked the C-58 in Sant Quirze del Vallès in the direction of Barcelona.

In the early hours, another group blocked the Gran Via in Can Batlló.

Later, the protests also blocked the AP-7 in Granollers in the direction of Tarragona and the C-60 in Argentona in both directions.

In Tarragona, the N-340 has been blocked, while in Lleida about twenty people occupied the high-speed train tracks before police cleared them off.

Strike

In Santa Coloma, around a hundred demonstrators shouted slogans such as 'Educational strike' and called for the education minister's resignation, and displayed banners with slogans such as 'The government is cutting, the school is not quiet', or 'By fighting, we are also educating'.

Nacho Rico, a primary school teacher told the Catalan News Agency that the school year begins with “incomplete templates,” shortcomings in attention to special educational needs, and temperatures of more than 30 degrees in some classrooms.

“We cannot allow it to be a normal day, that photos are taken in schools as if nothing happened,” said Rico, who has demanded that the government continue to negotiate.

Minister rejects calls to resign

The Minister for Education, Esther Niubó, has assured that she will not resign "because it would be the simplest thing to do in the face of a complex scenario."

"I am very clear about what my mission is, what system we want, and my obligation is to work on this", she told RAC1.

She wished for a good start to the school year and hoped that this one would be "more serene and more constructive" than the previous one.

Niubó admitted that the strike is an indicator of "discomfort" but she defended leaving this scenario of "union unrest" and having a "serene" debate.

Unions have also called for her resignation related to the recent controvery over the PISA tests, the results of which were published on Tuesday morning as well. 

Catalonia's results have been left out of the international report as they have been invalided after the average exemption rate of Catalan students was over 23%, far exceeding the OECD recommended limit of 5%.