Teachers will continue with the protests they ended last school year with, during which they accumulated 23 days of strike. After the summer break, and to leave no doubt about their determination in their fight to improve public education conditions, they have called a strike on September 8, the first day of the school year.
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A date, indeed, painful for the Departament d’Educació which would like to start the school year normally and, however, faces the challenge of the teachers, from 0-3 teachers to vocational training cycles, including Primary, Secondary, educational support staff, and leisure staff, with their demands for more resources and lower ratios. It also coincides with the publication of the controversial PISA report for which they still have to account.
But it is not only painful for the Govern. It will also overshadow the joy of the start of the school year for children and adolescents, prepared with their new backpacks and notebooks, happy to enter their new classroom, eager to meet their tutor, their guide throughout the year. For those starting school and stage (3, 6, 12, and 16 years), perhaps more insecure, the lack of teachers and the protest banners will add uncertainty to a moment when order, routines, and reference figures usually provide a sense of security.
The Govern clings to the pact agreed with CC.OO., UGT, and Professors de Secundària and signed by Ustec, although it was not later ratified. It believes that, with its deployment, there is room to withdraw the strike call, something that unions like Ustec, the majority in the sector, see as desirable but not possible. The Govern spokesperson, Sílvia Paneque, asked for patience this week while waiting for the Education Minister, Esther Niubó, to announce the new measures for the school year next week.
The problem is that the Govern is not facing a classic demand but a collective mood. An electric fury, fueled over years, armed with reasons, that will hardly turn into calm.
The sector’s demands
Commitment to allocate the equivalent of 6% of the gross domestic product to education.
In 2017, a decree of highest aspirations was published – all students in ordinary centers – but without resources or planning. According to teachers, many professionals are missing: special education teachers, counselors, social integration technicians, social educators, educational support staff, and caregivers.
In the face of demographic decline, they ask to avoid closing groups in the public network.
More teachers in the center and smaller class groups per teacher.
Improvement of school infrastructures.
Protection of Catalan as the vehicular language in the center as well as the language of reception.
Improvement of attention to foreign students.
Application of 35 hours with teaching load reduction.
Salary guarantee linked to the CPI for public staff.
Reduction of bureaucracy faced by management and teachers.
Reduce turnover of teaching and educational staff.
However, it is not only Catalonia that is burning red hot. Teachers in Madrid have announced an indefinite strike starting October 14, and protests are expected in the Valencian Community, Andalusia, Balearic Islands, or Cantabria. “The school year begins with an intense climate of demands,” says Teresa Esperabé, general secretary of the CC.OO. Education Federation. The anger forecasts a stormy autumn.
The Govern has not yet explained the causes that caused the PISA report fiasco
The sector demands deep structural reforms that require a complete overhaul in the distribution of finances managed by the Administration. The Govern has increased the Education budget by 25% and incorporated 2.7 billion in the educational pact.
“The small proposals that Educació has made so far – said the spokesperson of the Assemblea Educativa de Catalunya (AEC) in July – do not change the day-to-day in the classroom nor improve the public system: they keep it the same, with all its shortcomings.”
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Not even the unions that failed to understand the causes of the anger, attributing it to salary, manage to prioritize the demands: inclusive school, ratios, staff increase, Catalan, curriculum… Ustec tries to regain control of the conflict negotiation, affected by the rejection in the consultation of its preliminary agreement. The organization claims to have been available this summer to unblock the strike, but the Govern has not called them.
“There was a phase of union negotiation that ended with an agreement with four unions not ratified, but signed by Ustec. We are in the deployment phase of the agreement. It is the path to follow after signing it with three union forces and the chartered school,” the Govern spokesperson wanted to frame the legal framework. The truth is that the pact is signed and there are monitoring commissions in which only the signatories participate.
The Govern pushes forward the deployment of the educational pact. Its new measures, such as the presence of nurses in half of Catalonia’s schools, so demanded and awaited by the sector, are received as trifles.
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On the other hand, the actors who should participate in discussing issues such as curricula, Catalan, or inclusive school are being questioned since these are not only labor issues and therefore should not be – or not exclusively – at the union table.
The Education Minister will announce new improvement measures for schools this week
Families are worried about the course of the conflict – also caught between support and rejection of the 1,348 centers that will not hold camps –. The families’ association aFFaC does not want everything to be left in the hands of the unions and calls for opening dialogue spaces with all community agents to set topics, schedules, and budgets. The Consell d’Educació de Catalunya, which includes them all, is missing.
All this happens while the Govern will have to explain the fiasco of the PISA report. The investigation opened in April has not yet answered the reasons why 23% of students were left out of the sample when the limit was 5%. The Parliament plans to vote on a request for an appearance so that President Salvador Illa can give explanations.
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