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EDUCATION

Salzburg kindergarten teachers plan strike

According to the ORF, kindergarten teachers in the city of Salzburg are planning a one-day strike for Wednesday, July 2nd.

Published: 25 June 2014 11:41 CEST
Salzburg kindergarten teachers plan strike
The chairs will be empty in Salzburg's kindergartens if the strike goes ahead. Photo: Abhiney/Wikimedia
The staff committee issued a press release, in which they outlined their grievances.
 
"For more than five years, we have fought to ensure that our teachers are fairly compensated for the increasingly tough conditions, and want them to have better working conditions. Downtime is no longer accepted," trade union chairman Hans Auer said.
 
A collective package had been previously negotiated with the responsible minister, Tina Widmann, but after the change in government in 2013, there were no improvements.
 
Envisaged in the package was a better salary for existing teachers, plus a new salary scheme for new employees, and more preparation time for teachers.
 
 

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EDUCATION

Sweden’s Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

Sweden's opposition Social Democrats have called for a total ban on the establishment of new profit-making free schools, in a sign the party may be toughening its policies on profit-making in the welfare sector.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:09 CEST
Sweden's Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

“We want the state to slam on the emergency brakes and bring in a ban on establishing [new schools],” the party’s leader, Magdalena Andersson, said at a press conference.

“We think the Swedish people should be making the decisions on the Swedish school system, and not big school corporations whose main driver is making a profit.” 

Almost a fifth of pupils in Sweden attend one of the country’s 3,900 primary and secondary “free schools”, first introduced in the country in the early 1990s. 

Even though three quarters of the schools are run by private companies on a for-profit basis, they are 100 percent state funded, with schools given money for each pupil. 

This system has come in for criticism in recent years, with profit-making schools blamed for increasing segregation, contributing to declining educational standards and for grade inflation. 

In the run-up to the 2022 election, Andersson called for a ban on the companies being able to distribute profits to their owners in the form of dividends, calling for all profits to be reinvested in the school system.  

READ ALSO: Sweden’s pioneering for-profit ‘free schools’ under fire 

Andersson said that the new ban on establishing free schools could be achieved by extending a law banning the establishment of religious free schools, brought in while they were in power, to cover all free schools. 

“It’s possible to use that legislation as a base and so develop this new law quite rapidly,” Andersson said, adding that this law would be the first step along the way to a total ban on profit-making schools in Sweden. 

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