Compromís has denounced that the Valencian Government has renewed until 2031 the educational agreements of 7 schools linked to Opus Dei that, although they “try to artificially justify” that they do not segregate by sex, in practice they continue to separate students between boys and girls. The coalition demands that these agreements be revoked, to which, they emphasize, the administration allocates 72.6 million euros, or they will go to court because it is an “illegality.” This was stated this Monday by the coalition’s spokesperson in Les Corts, Joan Baldoví, and the Education spokesperson, deputy Gerard Fullana, who have denounced this “malpractice.”
The Valencianist party has today filed a request to the Ministry of Education where it warns of alleged illegalities committed and demands the cancellation of said agreements, as well as the restitution of the affected public money. “The PP has broken the law and the Pérez Llorca government contradicts itself because it claims there is no money for public schools and to improve teachers’ salaries, but finances with many millions schools that separate boys from girls in the classrooms,” Baldoví warned.
The renewal of these educational agreements represents a cost of at least 12 million euros annually for the Generalitat Valenciana and a minimum of 72.6 million euros of public funds during the years of the agreement. The beneficiary schools are: Torrenova and Miralvent in the Castelló regions; Vedat, Vilavella, and Guadalaviar in the València regions; and Aitana and Altozano in the Alicante regions.
The data requested by Compromís through parliamentary means and provided by the Ministry of Education itself show that these 7 centers currently have 4,347 students, of whom 3,951 continue to be enrolled in sex-segregated dynamics, which represents 91% of the total student body.
“Their modus operandi consists of formally maintaining a mixed enrollment to appear to comply with the law, but then they pressure families of the sex they do not want to admit to change schools. In some cases, it appears that only one boy or one girl is enrolled in the entry stages to try to artificially justify that they do not segregate,” Fullana explained.
For Baldoví, “this illegality has names and surnames,” which are those of the current Education Minister, Carmen Ortí, who last year renewed the agreements until 2031 as deputy director of educational planning. “She is both judge and party,” he denounced. But he also pointed to the conseller José Antonio Rovira, who is now the head of Finance: “He says there is no money for public education, for teachers, but he does say there is money for these concerted centers that break the law.”
Fullana detailed that this investigation began last summer following a complaint from some relatives who were “pressured” by one of these centers for their son to leave “because of gender.” Faced with this situation, the coalition has requested a series of documents from the Ministry of Education and has a legal report showing “evident illegalities” in this matter.
The deputy specified that these are six centers of the Fundación Fomento de Centros de Enseñanza, “linked” to Opus Dei, and one more. According to Fullana, it is a matter of “extreme seriousness.” Furthermore, he warned that in some cases segregation is 100% of the students. In this regard, the deputy accused some centers of trying to “persuade” families to end up leaving the center by telling them that their son or daughter will be “alone” in a class of the opposite sex. In other cases, he suggested, they choose to keep the enrollment for 3-year-olds private, since then segregation “is legal.”
The Education Minister, Carmen Ortí, replied that the state law states that students must not be segregated “because of sex” and defended that in the Valencian Community there is an admission process that ensures “equal opportunities for all families who request a school place for their children in educational centers.” “The admission process is telematic where no type of application can be rejected,” she pointed out.
Therefore, she indicated that families who have applied for enrollment in those centers, “if they have met all the corresponding scores, have a place in those centers.” “The right of families to do so is fully guaranteed,” she concluded.
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