A noisy gathering of thousands of public school teachers ended inconclusively with their organization?s president being shouted down, and a call for an end to the ?honeymoon? with the Mejia administration. Olympia Gonzalez, President of the Dominican Teachers Association (ADP) called for an increase in teachers? salaries. While all present were in accord with her proposal, some factions called for greater militancy on the part of the organization?s leadership and strong measures to prevent teacher firings. The factions, closely aligned with national political parties, reflect their party?s policies and positions. Gonzalez, known to be sympathetic to the ruling PRD Party, was attacked by the PLD faction for not protesting the scores of teacher firings, alleged to be directed against PLD-oriented teachers. Gonzalez could scarcely be heard over shouts of ?Don?t give us history!? and ?What are you doing now?? Many complained of firings, demotions, and inappropriate re-assignments of teachers that have taken place without protest by the ADP. Education Secretary Milagros Ortiz Bosch has asserted several times that no one has been fired since she assumed office on August 16. However, some teachers were suspended due to ?irregularities? such as the selling of [free] textbooks and charging parents tuition. Gonzalez asked anyone present who had been fired to step up to the podium, and just three persons came forward. She identified the ADP?s principle demands as ordering an obligatory 5% of the national budget for education, including teachers in government housing opportunities, continuing education for teachers, improved social security benefits, credit for computer purchases, and refurbishing of school buildings, along with an across-the-board salary increase. ?We will continue struggling,? she said. On the higher education front, the Dominican Journalists Association (CDP) petitioned the National Higher Education Council (CONES) to evaluate the country?s six university schools of journalism. Their graduates ?lack the tools necessary to function in their careers,? according to the CDP?s President, Jose Tejada Gomez. ?All the high school graduates who want to study journalism are admitted without any evaluation of their aptitudes for such a career,? he said. According to Tejada Gomez, if Dominican journalism does not improve the professional caliber of its practitioners, it will loose out to international TV reporting and the Internet. The chair of CONES, Andres Reyes Rodriguez, expressed a willingness to study the journalism schools.
