Teachers and students staged big rallies in seven Italian cities Tuesday as part of a nationwide strike to protest against Premier Matteo Renzi's so-called Good School reform bill.
The main rally kicked off in Rome, which organizers said was 100,000-strong, while marches were also taking place in Aosta, Bari, Cagliari, Catania, Milan and Palermo.
"There are lots of people protesting. Some say they always protest," Premier Matteo Renzi said.
"But we listen to the protest. It's right to face it and debate the issues".
The government is "ready to listen and debate" on its hotly contested school reform bill, he said. "We will continue the debate...about which categories get hired and about the organization of the school system".
The premier also stressed, however, that he saw his government on side of those who want to "do things" in a derby match against protestors and moaners.
"We are at a crossroads," Renzi said during a visit to the northern city of Bolzano. "On the one side there are those who only protest and moan and make lists of the problems. Sometimes they are right. We can't say everything's fine. But they are destined to wallow in their protests.
"On the other side there are those who do things".
"The government is ready to promote its grand intuition that autonomy - or the possibility for each school to be in the hands, not of ministry or union memos, but of families and students - is what will change Italy,"Renzi said. "If not, we're going nowhere".
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". 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.
The unions are also unhappy about the fact the reform will give greater powers to school head teachers.
But Giannini on Tuesday defended the government's plan on Tuesday. "They haven't won a (selection) competition," she said refering to the people who have been excluded from the plan even though they have won certification that they are fit and qualified to teach. "It's one thing to have a driving licence, it's another to buy a car," Giannini said.
Meanwhile, Senate Speaker Pietro Grasso said that the Upper House was ready to listen to teachers.
"Solutions must be shared" on education issues, said Grasso.
Teachers protesting the government's Good School reform bill "deserve answers", Lower House Speaker Laura Boldrini said Tuesday. "The teachers' protest...deserves to be considered with great respect and attention," Boldrini wote on her Facebook page. Boldrini added she hopes lawmakers will take teachers' objections into account while debating the bill in the House culture and education committee and on the floor of the Lower House, where it is slated to land May 15.
Education Minister Stefania Giannini said Tuesday there must be respect for strikers as well as lawmakers. "Respect for the (school) strike...but also respect for the government as it does its job, and respect for parliament which is bringing motions to amend (the government's school reform bill)," she said as tens of thousands of teachers and students took to the streets throughout Italy in a nationwide strike and rally against the government's proposed Good School reform bill. "Our bill would bring temporary teacher contracts down to 2.5% (from 18% in 2007). We're removing that portion of instability that has hindered the Italian school system..and violently affected so many lives". Teachers are protesting, among other elements, a measure contained in the bill that would concentrate what they say is excessive power in the hands of school principals. "We're conferring functional responsibility on principals in a formal and recognizable way," Giannini explained. "The bill is open (to being amended)," the minister added, appearing to downplay the possibility of calling a confidence vote to ram the bill through parliament. "We believe education to be a central tenet of the government's political agenda and the central good of the community", she said.
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