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18 August 2012| last updated at 09:11PM

Obama calls for making education priority



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WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Saturday called on local and national lawmakers to prioritise education and stop firing teachers as a way to balance budgets.

 

“At a time when the rest of the world is racing to out-educate America,  these cuts force our kids into crowded classrooms, cancel programs for  preschoolers and kindergarteners, and shorten the school week and the school  year,” the president said in his weekly radio and Internet address.
 
Since 2009 the United States has lost more than 300,000 education jobs,  mainly because of budget cuts at the state and local levels, Obama said.
 
“That’s the opposite of what we should be doing as a country.
 
“States should be making education a priority in their budgets, even in  tough fiscal times. And Congress should be willing to help out — because this  affects all of us.”    Obama said that last year he submitted to Congress a jobs bill designed to  prevent further teacher layoffs and to rehire educators who had lost their jobs.
 
But the bill stalled in Congress, with Republicans accusing the president  of out-of-control spending.
 
Obama said that an economic plan Republican lawmakers instead approved  would make the situation worse by cutting more teacher jobs and reducing the  number of college students with access to financial aid.
 
“That’s backwards. That’s wrong,” the president said. “That plan doesn’t  invest in our future; it undercuts our future.”     Obama said that if Americans want to lead in the 21st century, nothing was  more important than giving everyone the best education possible. -- AFP
 
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