Teachers’ strike challenges IMF imposed spending cuts

Teachers across Bulgaria have been on strike since Monday following the failure of talks between the teachers’ unions and government officials to find a compromise concerning the teachers’ demands. 1850 schools and 560 kindergartens are believed to be taking part in the action. In Sofia alone 150 schools and 102 kindergartens have been closed. This latest action followed an earlier rolling hunger strike by 2500 teachers and a national 1 hour stoppage in which 80% of teachers participated. A national protest will be held by teachers today in front of the National Assembly building in Sofia. The teachers are demanding a 15% salary increase, a number of reforms in secondary schools, including optional full-day education programmes, reinstatement of supplementary teaching programmes and appointment of school psychologists.

The teachers’ demands have caused divisions within government circles. President Georgi Parvanov has voiced his support for their claims, as has Education Minister Daniel Vulchev. Parvanov appealed to the Bulgarian government to put education and sciences among its policy priorities and to consider higher investment in these sectors. Vulchev said in an interview with the private Darik Radio that he was ready to join the initial hunger strike by teachers. However, Bulgarian Teachers Union leader Yanka Takeva reported a "cold reaction" from Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev.

As Stanishev himself has made clear, at the heart of the dispute is government budget cuts imposed by the International Monetary Fund who are demanding "major structural reforms" in Bulgaria. These entail cutting the education and health budgets, a move that has been attacked by the unions as increasing the most serious problems in Bulgarian society. Takeva suggested that the government should take 95 million leva (€50 million) from the EU funds meant for Bulgarian business and use this to increase the teachers’ salaries.

The Ministry of Education had originally made plans to distribute 4.92% of the country’s GDP to the education sector and effect a 20% increase of the teachers’ salaries, but the IMF imposed draft budget for 2006 rules this out. It proposes that the funds provided for education should come to 1.9 billion leva, 29 million leva less than the funds allocated for 2005. The Education Ministry has refused to agree with this proposed budget and has labelled it as the budget in which education "is no longer a priority for Bulgaria".

IMF Mission Leader for Bulgaria Hans Flickenschild, arriving in Sofia on an "unofficial visit" shortly before the strike began, called for a decrease in the number of employed teachers and schools in the country. If the government gave in to the teachers’ demands for higher pay it would be bombarded with similar claims from other sectors as well, he said.