“That the municipalities do not provide land for new schools provides the perfect excuse for the Ministry of Education not to make them,” says Pepita Costa, president of the Federation of Association of Families of Students (FAPA), who recalls that there are four centers that have been needed and planned for years and of which not a single stone has been laid: schools in Vila, Santa Eulà ria and Sant Jordi and a high school in Vila. “We continue with a lack of educational infrastructure, the only thing that will come into operation this year is the expansion of the Isidor Macabich, which is for Vocational Training, which means that Secondary and Baccalaureate in the municipality of Ibiza will continue to collapse,” continues Costa, who stresses that “the second phase of the institute Quartó del Rei” in Santa Eulà ria is still pending. “While the municipalities aren’t providing the land we can not put pressure on the Conselleria”, says Costa.
Pere Lomas, delegate in the Pitiusas of the Sindicat de Treballadors de l’Ensenyament de les Illes (STEI) emphasizes that in the case of Ibiza, the infrastructures are always “behind” the demand for school places because of the years that the projects are delayed: “When the centers are made, they are not enough to cover the needs”. In this sense, he emphasizes the need not only to speed up the procedures but also to increase the budget of the Regional Ministry of Education.
Population increase causes urgent need for new schools
“We are at the bottom of Spain in the percentage that is allocated to education,” says Lomas, for whom the most serious problem is in the municipality of Santa Eulà ria: “It has had a brutal population growth and needs a new center urgently”. For Lomas, the intention to build these centers is not enough, they have to be built.
This lack of new infrastructure results in an overcrowding of classrooms says Lomas. “The situation has not changed, we remain in the same position, or worse,” says the unionist, who insists on the importance of reducing the number of students per classroom to improve the quality of education. “It is very evident,” reiterates the STEI spokesman before indicating that solving this only involves building new centers and this, in turn, is impossible without “significant” budgets for education.
“The vast majority of centers have very high ratios and continue to occupy spaces that should be for other uses, such as music classrooms or physical education rooms,” says Joan Amorós, spokesman for the Associació Professional Docent d’Ibiza (APDE), who regrets that after the pandemic has not improved this situation. “We started from a situation in which it was seen how the reduction in the number of students per classroom improved the quality of teaching.” Amorós describes the constant delays in construction of new centers as a “hindrance”, which means, each year there is a greater saturation of existing centers: “All educational spaces have a high occupancy. In addition, the world has changed a lot. There are 25 or 30 students in a classroom, with diversity, with family problems, with special needs. Practically each one would need a teacher”. Amorós regrets that at the beginning of each school year he has to reiterate these same criticisms.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.