“Livorno takes to the streets”. The students of the high schools of the city and of the province return to demonstrate next Friday 20 January. The initiative was announced by the Scuola di Carta collective through a shared statement released in recent days, a note in which all the reasons that led students to organize themselves to raise their voices are explained in detail.
In the crosshairs various issues concerning not only the conditions of the structures but also the funds for ATA and health personnel, paid internships and the abolition of school-work alternation. “First of all, we complain about various structural problems in every institution in the province – they explain -: lack of materials, defects and deterioration of the structures. We therefore ask for a significant reconsideration of the proposed cuts in funds destined for education. We also ask for a stop to the increase of military expenditure, compared with the latter”.
“Insufficient staff and poorly managed spaces, we ask the Province for a renewed commitment”
But not only. Other issues to be taken into consideration are the lack of ATA and health personnel. “In relation to this – they say – we express the need for the establishment of the figure of the pedagogical consultant in relation to the deterioration of the psychological conditions we have witnessed following the pandemic (a request already advanced in national consultations)”. Then the age-old question of spaces. “We expose the criticism in relation to the insufficiency of spaces and the bad management of those already available for which numerous laboratories, now used for are inaccessible. In this regard we request a renewed commitment from the Province”.
Also targeted is school-work alternation, which students are asking to abolish in order to introduce “paid internships” in technical and professional institutes, therefore work experiences similar to the course of study which are paid and which open up to the real world of work and not to the mere exploitation, as opposed to all those measures that now force us to spend hours and hours in situations far from our school address just to accumulate credits”. They conclude by highlighting: “It is our fight, we cannot delegate”.
Support from the CGIL trade union and Usb Livorno
The CGIL and Usb Livorno trade unions will also relaunch the demonstration on Friday 20 January, alongside the students. The CGIL has expressed its full and complete solidarity, reiterating its commitment to fight for the improvement of the school system. “We need – they added – serious investments and a real planning of the public school”. Usb has also made it known that he will be in the square with the boys and girls from Livorno.
“Against the cuts in education which result in a general deterioration of school facilities, lack of materials, absence of adequate spaces for laboratories and other needs for male and female students and above all a shortage of personnel. All this in the face of an increase of military spending. We will be in the square with the students of Livorno – they added – to reiterate our clear position on the so-called school-work alternation”.