By Gillian Gillers
Tico Times Staff | ggillers@ticotimes.net

Thousands of Costa Rican high school students will return to school today after the Education Ministry and union leaders negotiated an end to a 25-day strike that has closed classrooms across the nation.

The ministry and the High School Teachers' Association (APSE) agreed on measures to raise teacher salaries, fix payment problems and reduce class size during a 10-hour meeting that lasted until 2 a.m. yesterday. APSE called off the strike later that day after 23 of the union's 28 regional groups accepted the accord.

The strike, which began March 31, has affected most rural schools, bringing some to a standstill. Ministry spokesman Jesús Mora said it has caused more harm than any teachers' strike since 1995, when the education sector was paralyzed for a month. APSE president Beatriz Ferreto said 19,000 high school teachers struck, while Mora puts the number at 6,000. 

The main sticking point was salary. Teachers were excluded from a January salary hike of 6% to 18% for about 7,000 government professionals. The ministry agreed to give teachers a similar pay raise in an April 8 meeting with other unions, including the 45,000-member National Association of Educators (ANDE).

But the ministry did not set a date for the raise, which would depend on “budgetary availability.” ANDE, which did not join the strike, accepted these conditions, but APSE vied for more.

Under yesterday's agreement, teachers will receive a salary increase beginning in July. A committee with representatives from the Finance Ministry, the Civil Service, the Education Ministry, and the teachers' unions will define amounts based on pay raises granted to other civil servants. The ministry also promised not to dock strikers' pay, as it had threatened, if teachers make up for missed work.

Walter Quesada, director of Unesco High School in the southern zone canton of Pérez Zeledón, has been rooting for an end to the strike. About 60 of the school's 75 teachers struck and most of the 1,670 students stayed home for three weeks.

“I respect the movement,” Quesada said. “(But) like any director, I was waiting for the strike to end on good terms…so that this uncertainty would end and things could return to normal.”