Although World Teacher’s Day was celebrated on Sunday, October 5^th this year, Costa Rica chooses to observe this important, yet often ignored, holiday on November 22^nd. This year, the holiday fell on a Saturday, when most public schools do not operate, so the Ministry of Education (Spanish initials: MEP) decided to celebrate Teacher’s Day with a paid holiday break on Friday.

Costa Rica is hardly the only nation that celebrates a National Teacher’s Day while paying little mind to World Teacher’s Day on October 5^th. In the United States, there is an entire Teacher Appreciation Week, and rightly so. In Costa Rica, the MEP could have chosen to hold classes on Friday and pay teachers for an extra day since November 22^nd fell on a Saturday; alas, the MEP’s decision was not enjoyed by a couple of legislators.

During an otherwise festive Friday in observance of Teacher’s Day, Libertarian legislator Otto Guevara (a formal presidential candidate) became a wet blanket by not only confessing to not being aware of Teacher’s Day in Costa Rica but also criticizing the holiday planning skills of the MEP. Legislator Guevara told daily tabloid Diario Extra that:

I see it as unacceptable that there’s this paid holiday that no one knows about. I would like to know what law created this holiday (!) so that I can introduce a proposal to eliminate it.

Legislator Guevara was not the only killjoy on this day. There was also Karla Prendas of powerful National Liberation political party (Spanish initials: PLN), who represents Puntarenas:

National Teacher’s Day is fine, but what is not correct from any point of view is to hold during government working hours and using up public funds, because if they are getting paid a salary it is interesting to know that the current administration would accept such a measure while questioning so many other expenses.

Legislator Prendas is alluding to the rash of budget cuts that the current administration has encouraged for the purpose of trimming down the growing deficit.

The teaching profession is highly regarded in Costa Rica: President Luis Guillermo Solis teaches history at the university level, and quite a few former presidents have also been educators. “More teachers than soldiers” is an old patriotic slogan from even before the military was abolished a few years after World War II.