Opposition, unions and parents reproach the regional government for not yet having released a plan for a safe return to classrooms, for not having put the budget to develop it on the table and for not having drawn up protocols for the incorporation of teachers and teachers. students to their posts. “They have regulated and established what the return would be like in the League, on the beach and on the terraces, in all sectors except education. We have already lost 10 weeks without planning the next course, the Community seems installed in the most optimistic and improbable scenario, that it is possible to return to the classrooms as if nothing had happened “, criticizes Isabel Galvín, secretary general of teaching at CC OO Madrid, the majority in the sector.
“Currently, the Community of Madrid is working on the organization and measures towards the end of this course. Regarding the next and the organization measures of the educational centers, we still cannot advance anything, ”responds an Education spokesperson, with the parents in an ay, wondering if their children will start the course with a certain normality or if they will continue telecollegiate, with many companies already resuming face-to-face work.
“Organize the end of the course, but if we are in phase 1 and it is only allowed to return to the classrooms in 2! The course has already finished, “deputy Marta Bernardo, spokesperson for Education of the PSOE in the Madrid Assembly, gets her hands on, convinced that the problem is that the regional government has a” no plan “. The PSOE calls for the “creation of an urgent technical table, to develop a protocol, in which the educational community, families, social agents, teachers, Administration, occupational health and safety and health are present” and underlines a clear idea: “The teachers they are not toilets ”.
The PSOE and the unions point out that, in addition to improving the servers of the platform that is being used for distance classes, EducaMadrid, tools and content should be created for an eventual continuation of the online model and to train and provide resources to teachers, students and families. “There are changes in the organization that will only be effective if they start to be implemented immediately and cannot wait until September.”
The point where all the parties involved agree is that the primary objective is to resume face-to-face education. “The school is irreplaceable”, proclaims Camilo Jené, from the FAPA Francisco Giner de los Ríos. The regional executive is in such a hurry that it even came to ask, with the rejection of the educational community and the not of the Government, that the phases be made more flexible and that certain students be allowed to return to school in 1. Parents, for their part, emphasize the right of children to education and the need for reconciliation, while the unions put the health and safety of teachers and students and demand “a return with guarantees, not in any way.” “It cannot be left, as has been claimed with the failed return of the students of Second Baccalaureate in phase 1, to put everything in the hands of the management teams, it is reckless, it is to leave them at the feet of the horses,” denounces Galvín .
The Gordian knot is the ratio. At the moment, the only thing that seems clear is that Madrid rules out reducing it by half, a measure pointed out by the minister, Isabel Celáa, which the Minister of Education and Youth, Enrique Ossorio, considers “impossible to put into practice”. CC OO estimates a reduction range of between 30 and 50% depending on the educational stage – in Madrid there are 28 students in Primary and 35 in Secondary and Baccalaureate – and the Giner de los Ríos contemplates the Celaá starting number, Although it qualifies that it is necessary to make a prior evaluation of each center because the final number will be determined by the size of the classrooms and common spaces and by how crowded or not the center is. Teresa Jusdado, Secretary of Education of the FeSP UGT Madrid, agrees: “It will be 25, 30 or 50% less, depending on the course and the center.”
To more classrooms and combining face-to-face and distance education, more teachers are needed, because “teachers cannot be expected to double their days”. Does it involve duplicating the template? No, responds the Giner de los Ríos, who would apply “new methodologies, such as the assistant student of higher courses or the interactive groups of parents”. It would also recruit sports and cultural center and library workers who are occupied by education.
FAPA estimates that these measures would require a third of additional teachers, that is, about 31,380. UGT believes that the current staff should be increased by 50%, which translates to some 47,500 more teachers, while CC OO has made an estimate for the entire public network in Spain of 33% more, which in Madrid would be 15,000 new teachers. Extrapolating the calculation to the concerted, 14,000 more. “The school can be in person for everyone if the staff is increased and if methodological changes are applied. A positive effect is that you can take advantage of the dividers to recover compensatory education, “emphasizes Galvín. At the moment, nobody translates the scenario into euros.
All the sources consulted point to Children and Special Education as the greatest challenges, since in these stages maintaining social distancing is an “impossible mission”, admits CC OO. UGT has elaborated specific protocols for both stages and works to adapt to education the one agreed for the civil service in Madrid. Between ratio, budget and mask, there is a fear that school failure and dropping out will increase, that the digital “and food” gap will widen, that the inequality of the system will skyrocket.
The figures of education in Madrid
– There are 1,227,255 students enrolled in non-university education, of which 54% are enrolled in a public center, almost 30% in a concerted school and almost 16% in a private one.
– The stage where the greatest number of students is concentrated is in primary, with 432,889, followed by ESO, with 280,356.
– The capital contributes the highest number, 523,667 students, followed by the south of the region, with 297,493.
– There are 3,650 schools, of which 1,891 are public, 558 private and 1,201 private. The most common are line 2, with around 45% of the total, so the type school has about 450 students, 30 teachers, a custodian and an administrative staff. Unions and parents denounce that they are very old, very crowded and that there are many pending phases of construction in the new centers.
– The teachers amount to 95,102, of which 52,097 work in public and 43,005 in private-concerted. The largest age group in the public is 40 to 49, while in the concerted and private age it is from 30 to 39. The non-teaching staff is around 8,300 people.
– Of the 34,880 classrooms, 60.3% have interactive digital systems.
– The budget for non-university education in 2018 was 3,629 million euros.
[Datos obtenidos del anuario oficial Datos y Cifras de la Educación 2019-2020 y de la Consejería de Educación]
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