Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms

IS FREEDOM OF THOUGHT IN EDUCATION RESPECTED?

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Summary

• The Government develops an educational reform plan guaranteeing directive positions at educational institutions, to professionals identified and committed with the Bolivarian process.
• The reform includes officials supporting the revolutionary process, notwithstanding that they do not meet the requirements set forth in the Regulations for the Exercise of the Educational Profession.
• Another pretension of the reform is to introduce some structures irrelevant to education itself, but accepted as part of "Educational Communities".

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1. The Government has been carrying out an Education Reform Plan geared towards what is called the Bolivarian Educational Community. Such Plan is based on a document (Inquietudes y Propuestas de Tabor) that the Minister of Education and Sports acknowledges as a mere draft aimed at enacting a resolution, which the Minister also defines as a draft, that would lead to the establishment of the said Bolivarian Educational Community. The document points out the need to insure that "strategic directorial posts are reserved to those professionals who identified with and are committed to the Bolivarian Process. They will guarantee the implementation of policies and measures in favor of an education of excellence for all, capable of inducing transformations and geared towards the creation of the New Bolivarian Republican". The drafters of the project state that " . those teaching positions already gained, as well as the knowledge gained in order to assist the transformation, may be lost if their consolidation is done through the existing mechanisms", that is to say, through the 'Rules and Regulations for the Practice of the Profession of Educator'. They thereby urge the Minister to " . grant legal grounding - whether by way of a Ministerial Decree or Regulation - to those activities carried out by temporary personnel, who are, at large, committed to the transformation and will allow the process to continue with lower professional requirements, experience and professional level."

2. The idea is to control all public and private educational institutions by way of granting permanent status to all temporary personnel named by the Ministry of Education, who might not comply with the Regulations for the Practice of the Profession of Educator but are committed to the revolutionary process. Such Rules and Regulations are an old achievement of Venezuelan educators, dating from the mid 20th Century. They establish the principle that, whatever a teacher's political position, promotions will be based exclusively on professional qualifications and on satisfaction of the established excellence requirements.

3. Another goal of the Draft Resolution on the Organization and Operation of Educational Communities is to engage non-educational actors into the process by declaring them to be members of the Educational Community.