A teacher by profession, Luis Guillermo Solís, hours before being inaugurated as Costa Rica’s next president, said teachers din’t have to protest him on Friday and assuring them that he will deal with their demands quickly.
Since Monday (May 3), teachers have taken to the streets of downtown San José to protest the lack of payment of their salaries by the Ministerio de Educación Publica (MEP).
Some 7.000 teachers have not received their salary due to a technology upgrade that omitted to include new teachers in the MEP payroll.
Despite assurances by outgoing education minister, Leonardo Garnier and outgoing president, Laura Chinchilla, that payment in full would be made by the next payday cycle, March 15, teachers and their unions decided to continue their protests.
On Friday, on his first day of his presidency, Solís met for hours with teacher union representatives with no solution reached.
For now, the teachers and their unions vow to continue to protest. But that may change before Monday.