As Iran is stuck in long-term strikes and protests over financial crisis and government’s lack of efficiency, teachers in different town and cities across the country started on Sunday a public strike over the decreasing life quality and low facilities in Iranian schools.
Thousands of teachers boycotted teaching classes today to show their anger over low budget to Iran’s Ministry of Education, arrest of the teachers who were protesting against the country’s failing education system by security forces, unfair and low salaries, and lack of facilities in the Iranian schools.
"Today, all the schools in Sanandaj were closed. Neither the teachers nor the students attended the classrooms," a student from Kurdish city of Sanandaj told Avatoday.
A video received by Avatoday shows a Kurdish teacher, speaking to the students and his colleagues in the city of Marivan on Sunday, explaining the reasons behind today’s public strike, which is reportedly scheduled for two days.
“Teachers, like workers and truck drivers, has a right to speak up against the dissatisfying situation for both the teachers as well as the students,” he said during his speech.
“We all heard the news on that student died from school wall collapse, or Shinave’s students whose faces were burned due to the failing warm facilities in their school…we reached a point where we must change things,” he explained, adding that the life standard of the teachers is sharply decreasing.
The Seven-year-old Donia Veisi from Garmash Village in Iran’s Kurdistan province died of school wall collapse last Monday.
Back in 2012, a group of female students in Iranian Kurdistan’s village of Shinabad suffered serve burns due to the school fire. Failing warm facilities was reported the cause of the fire.
“Today we are on strike also against the arrest of our collogues,” another teacher said in a separate video on Sunday.
A number of teachers were arrested by Iranian security forces in the past few months for their critiques.
