During the United Nations (UN) Summit on the Transformation of Education, the Minister for Education, Yelitze Santaella, ratified the National Government’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goal in point four on Quality, Inclusive and Equitable Education in favor of teachers and students.
She stressed that in Venezuela education represents a fundamental human right and a social duty, and therefore it is democratic, compulsory and inclusive of all sectors of national life.
Likewise, it indicated that the Venezuelan State for approximately more than a year and a half, incorporated a plan of attention to teachers called “For Love to my Teacher”, with the objective of directly assisting educators, both active and retired.
Santaella highlighted that in March, as part of the improvements in the economic conditions of the Venezuelan teachers, President Nicolás Maduro granted an 835% increase in the salary of teachers.
Regarding the attention of the educational sector during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bolivarian Government incorporated 56,000 new teachers for a total of 434,892 active teachers to cover the needs within the educational system.
In the same way, she confirmed that the teaching classification according to her scale has been given to 173,000 teachers. She indicated that at the present time there is a discussion table for the third collective agreement called “Unique and Unitary”.
The minister also highlighted that in benefit of the Labor Rights of the workers of the Ministry of People’s Power for Education, 78 comprehensive health care centers have been set up, as well as pharmacy services for 667,000 teachers. Care has been provided in different surgical operations to 320,000 teachers.
In the field of specialization, Santaella stressed that during 2021, have participated in the National Training Plan 135,000 teachers who will be trainers for other teachers: “this will allow us to constantly update innovation, research, new technologies, new educational processes, they are going to become the great heroes for what is the educational transformation of the Venezuelan State”.
“We have created the Samuel Robinson National Experimental Teaching University and the National Research and Training System, offering more than 40 programs, both undergraduate and postgraduate, to all our personnel who are in service,” she added.
She denounced to the UN the illegal blockade of which the nation is a victim, and requested the organization’s solidarity so that the resources that have been illegally held by the United States are released: “We have been requesting that these resources be released, because the fifth objective of this Summit, precisely has to do with the financing of education, it is necessary to release these resources so that Venezuela and its government can legitimately make use of them for the investment we need to continue education”.
