The pilot test driven by the Govern to introduce Mossos agents in several educational centers is starting to falter before its launch, scheduled for this week. Four high schools have requested the Department of Education of the Generalitat to withdraw from this plan, following the rejection by the teaching staff, who consider that their centers are not conflictive and that the measure is not justified. So far, the high schools that have requested it, after voting in the faculty meeting, are three from Vic and one from L’Hospitalet, but others are in the process of doing the same. The Department of Education assures that, “for now, it is not aware of the request.”
Read more Spain grows 2.7% in the first quarter under the shadow of the energy shock in the Middle East
The controversy broke out on Sant Jordi Day, when the pilot plan – advanced by EL PAÍS – to send a total of six agents to 14 educational centers – mostly high schools, but there is also some primary school – to promote conflict prevention and mediation policies, and thus improve coexistence, was made public. The police officers, who will be plainclothes and unarmed, will be permanently stationed in the high schools – except when an officer has to cover several centers – and will collaborate with the management teams. The plan involves two centers from L’Hospitalet, one from El Prat, another from Sabadell, and several from the areas of Vic, Tàrrega, and the Lleida Pyrenees. All of them are high schools, except for two school high schools and two vocational training centers. Education announced that the test would start progressively this week and would be evaluated at the end of the school year and at the end of the year to decide whether to expand it.
But in some centers, the agents have not arrived yet, and it remains to be seen if they will finally do so, because the pilot plan has not been well received by a large part of the teachers, who in recent days have mobilized and organized protests against it. In some high schools, extraordinary faculty meetings have been organized, where almost unanimously it has been approved to request to leave the plan. This has happened in three centers in Vic – La Plana, Jaume Callís, and Comtat d’Osona – one of the centers confirmed to this newspaper, and in Margarita Xirgu of L’Hospitalet, according to Ustec. However, more requests are not ruled out, since, according to what this newspaper has learned, others are in the process of calling the faculty meeting. “Teachers can force the organization of a faculty meeting and bring this point to debate. And if it passes by majority, it is a binding vote, so the management must request it from Education,” explains a teacher from one of the centers that has not yet requested it.
The Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, insisted on Tuesday, during the presentation of the pilot test, that joining the plan was “voluntary” and that it had been promoted at the request of the management teams. The president Salvador Illa also referred to it during the control session in the Parliament, insisting on this voluntariness. “Those who do not want it, will not have it: it’s that simple,” he emphasized in response to a question from the Comuns.
But some of the consulted centers insist that it has been an “imposed” measure and that they were not given the possibility to choose. In recent weeks, Education presented the plan to the management teams and Territorial Services. Subsequently, the management teams communicated it to their respective faculties. Those in L’Hospitalet were informed on Sant Jordi Day, when the plan was made public. The indignation of the teaching staff led to a protest in front of the high schools last Monday. And on Tuesday, the demonstration took place in Vic. In the capital of Osona, the teachers read a manifesto requesting more specialized educational staff to address the different needs in the classrooms, such as educators and social integrators.
“We have a lot of diversity in the classrooms and we have the typical conflicts of other high schools, but not conflictiveness. Adolescents are at a complicated stage, where they confront their parents and the world, but to attend to them we need resources that do not arrive, we do not need mossos. In fact, we need a nurse more because we have more anxiety attacks than insults,” emphasizes Anna Masllorens, a teacher at Comtat d’Osona. In this center, the proposal to leave the plan was approved by 59 of the 61 teachers.
The Department of Education assures that, for now, it is not aware of the request from these centers. But the management teams have communicated it to inspection and territorial services, and it should also reach Via Augusta, in Barcelona, the headquarters of the ministry.
