«We urge profoundly transform the educational system», defended the first Minister of Education of Sanchismo, Isabel Celaá in 2019 during a Catholic Schools Congress. I then tried to justify the questioned and controversial educational reform (Lomloe) who ended up adopting the name of the former minister. “We have a lot at stake,” he said. It was about transforming the Spanish educational model, not just changing subjects or content. The reform went further. The aim was to change how it is taught, betting on a more competitive model that would allow the knowledge to be applied to real life, how it is evaluated and under what conditions it is promoted from the course. Contents were introduced that opened a ideological battlesuch as affective-sexual education from Primary, gender perspective in Mathematics, democratic memory or ecofeminism and the focus of subjects such as History was changed, giving greater prominence to the contemporary stage, a decision that generated intense controversy. HE They made the criteria for passing the course more flexible (Secondary students could promote even with three or more failed subjects if the teaching team so decided) and repetition became an exceptional measure. The door was opened to obtain the ESO degree without having passed all the subjects and the Baccalaureate with a pending subject, under certain conditions.
The concerted teaching and special education They were two of the sectors that felt most threatened by Lomloe. The concertada, where one in four Spanish students is educated, became the protagonist of one of the largest mobilizations in education.
eight years later and after an educational reform, several decrees and three ministers (Isabel Celaá, Pilar Alegría and Milagros Tolón), the OECD has been giving the Spanish educational model an increasingly worse rating through the Pisa Report. Last September, the latest report was released that did nothing more than certify the Spanish educational disaster to the point that it could be said that students have lost the equivalent of two courses in a decade by registering the worst data in its history in mathematics, science and reading.
But academic results are only part of the balance. In the classrooms these years also leave a great pending subject: the teaching staff. «It does not need more announcements or more promises, but facts, investment, negotiation and fulfilled commitments. “You cannot presume to defend public services while those who support them continue to wait for real improvements,” laments the president of the teachers union. ANPE, Francisco Venzalá. In his opinion, there have been “three ministerial officials, but the same pending issue: truly placing teachers and public education at the center of educational policies.” And he reproaches that the Lomloe was approved “without prior consensus” and without resources to be able to apply it. “Once again, legislation was legislated without sufficiently addressing the conditions under which teachers had to develop these reforms,” he laments. An opinion shared by the national president of Education of CSIF, Mario Gutiérrez. “Twenty lost years, and these eight have been no exception.” Three organic laws, no educational pact and a teaching staff that, according to the union, continues to bear the consequences of the cuts of 2010 and 2012. “The problem with Spanish education is that its fundamental flaws are always covered up by partisan noise,” he laments. Gutiérrez also does not give a good assessment of the Celaá law, to which he attributes a increase in bureaucracythe flexibility of the criteria for promotion and ownership and a commitment to inclusive education without guaranteeing the necessary resources. “Inclusion is not decreed: it is provided,” he says.
Pilar Alegría He came to Government with the idea of converting his mandate into “the teachers’ legislature”. However, “we are still waiting for a real Statute of the Teaching Public Functiona recognized professional career, the recovery of purchasing power and basic working conditions common throughout the State,” complains Venzalá.
CSIF recalls that Lomloe obliged the Government to present a proposal for Teaching Statute within one year. Six years later, it is still pending. The reduction of ratios and teaching hours in Primary and ESOwhose legislative project declined with the dissolution of the Cortes on 29-N. “The teachers’ legislature was called and it closed without a Teaching Statute and without lowering the ratios in Primary and ESO,” Gutiérrez complains. The union considers that the Executive could have resorted to a royal decree law. «If the royal decree law serves for housing, it served for education. Not using it was a political decision, not a legal impediment. The Government has announced that it will approve this royal decree before 29-N, but it arrives late, in the middle of the campaign, and leaves the main thing unresolved,” he denounces. Venzalá adds another demand: ending the labor differences between autonomous communities. “Educational decentralization cannot become inequality.” Added to all this are increasingly complex classrooms, with more bureaucracy, coexistence problems and needs to address diversity. “The main problem is that more and more is demanded of teachers without providing them with the means.”
The concerted, a Cinderella
But if teachers report unfulfilled promises, the concerted education has felt relegated. Luis Centenodeputy secretary general of Catholic Schoolsdenounces that the Executive’s economic priority has been public education. “The concerted one has been Cinderella.” Criticism that The commission in charge of studying the cost of the school position has not been convened, nor has the Concerted Education Board been convened.. And he makes a clear assessment: «The Celaá era was tense with mobilizations against Lomloe, but there was some dialogue. With Pilar Alegría, good words but no progress on anything. And with Milagros Tolón, without time for anything. Centeno also criticizes the delays in the regulation of mobile devices, bilingualism and the lack of coordination between ministries. And not only that, he denounces the attempt to approve three decrees that affect private education in the final stretch of the legislature. “Without dialogue, without time, with imposition.”
The unions recognize advances such as new FP Law, the Artistic Education Law or the integration of part of the FP teachers in Secondary. But he sees the balance of these eight years as insufficient. «Public education does not deteriorate from one day to the next. It weakens when the problems become chronic,” says Venzalá.
The impossible and necessary pact
►The education sector considers that there are issues that have been going on for years and that require stable agreements that transcend changes in minister and legislative reforms. The educational pact was discussed, but with a political environment as polarized as the current one, it has become an almost impossible objective. The temporality of the teaching staff constitutes another of the pending issues of the educational system. CSIF denounces that the interim rate exceeds 30% in some administrations, very far from the objective of 8%, and demands measures to stabilize the workforce. ANPE adds labor demands that remain unanswered, such as the integration of all teachers in the A1 subgroup, the recovery of early retirement at age 60 and the updating of salaries.