The assessment test season begins this Thursday, with the unions warning of the overwork of teachers and having decided to go ahead with a strike notice starting next week.
Between today and May 13th, schools can carry out assessment tests for the 2nd year of Physical Education and Artistic Education, which mark the beginning of another year of national tests and exams.
Then, between May 16th and 27th, it’s time for 5th year students to show their knowledge in Music Education and 8th year students to take tests in the English oral production and interaction component.
However, according to the National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof), Most schools will carry out these tests “at the expense of overwork and beyond the legal limit of teachers’ working hours” and that is why they have issued several strike notices.
According to the union federation, between May 9th and 13th and between May 16th and 27th, 2024, strikes are scheduled “for all tasks arising from the performance of assessment tests assigned to teachers who have not been released from the service scheduled in their schedule working week”.
This is because, according to Fenprof, there are many teachers who are being called up for tasks associated with exams, without having been released from any of the work they had already accumulated, “which constitutes an abuse of the temporal limits of the weekly teaching schedule”.
The first strike notices, which cover the period between May 9th and 17th, were delivered on April 30th, and today the strike notices for May 20th to 27th were presented.
The 2024 national tests and exams season already had a strike specifically scheduled for tests in digital format, the assessment tests for the 2nd, 5th and 8th years.
This is because the A new team from the Ministry of Education decided to take a step back from carrying out digital tests in the 9th year, announcing that these students would return to taking paper tests this year.
The guardianship’s decision came following warnings from teachers, school principals and guardians about failures in school infrastructure, lack of IT technicians and lack of sufficient equipment in conditions for all students to take the tests in digital format.
However, digital evidence remains the same for most measurement tests.
“Teachers who are assigned functions of support or maintenance of technological equipment and technical support for digital tests may go on strike, if they have to carry out this task, as it does not form part of the functional content of the teaching profession. They will, mainly , IT teachers. However, in this first phase, this strike has no impact on the assessment tests, as they will not be carried out digitally, but they will be carried out in the tests scheduled for June”, states Fenprof.
