Teachers and school administrators are set to take to the streets in seven cities Tuesday as part of a nationwide strike to protest Premier Matteo Renzi's so-called Good School reform bill, union sources said Monday.
The main rally takes place in Rome, where CGIL and UIL teachers union leaders will speak, while CISL and other union leaders will speak in Bari.
Marches will also be held in Aosta, Bari, Cagliari, Catania, and Palermo.
Students will also join in the rallies, the sources said.
Education Minister Stefania Giannini said Monday that she was "frankly perplexed" by the reasons for the action. Giannini said the reasons given by those who intend to protest the reform "are absolutely foreign to what we want to do with the Good School, which is(fostering) scholastic autonomy and strengthening the education on offer". Speaking from the sidelines of an Expo 2015 event she was attending, Giannini said she has "respect for all strikes, especially this one," and that "it's good to enter into discussion, to evaluate the content of this reform". Organizers of a similar strike that took place just two weeks ago, on April 24, at that time said, "We will continue our struggle until (the government)withdraws its 'Good School' bill". On April 29, Renzi said on his website that it was time to move past anger to reforms, as "schools are too precious to be (left) to ideologies and slogans". Susanna Camusso, leader of trade union CGIL, has called the education reform one which "favors the richest and divides the precarious," referring to those without permanent contracts. The permanent hiring of around 100,000 school staff currently working on temporary contracts is linked to the bill, although unions say many more have been excluded.
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