Spain’s Education Authority admitted it is conducting a policy of “realignment” of secondary schoo

Spokesmen for the five main unions, USTEC-STEs, CCOO ASPEPEC PLC, FETE-UGT and CGT, have appeared together today at a press conference in Barcelona to reaffirm their call for strike action in state schools and added new grievances to the already long list to the Department of Education

Spain’s Education Authority has admitted that it is conducting a policy of "realignment" of secondary schools

The elimination of school groups in state schools next year has raised the indignation of the teachers' unions just two days from the strike called for 17 March, they have accused the Regional Minister, Ernest Maragall, of wanting to "destroy" the public education system.

Spokesmen for the five main unions, USTEC-STEs, CCOO ASPEPEC PLC, FETE-UGT and CGT, have appeared together today at a press conference in Barcelona to reaffirm their call for strike action in state schools and added new grievances to the already long list to the Department of Education. The main grievance is again, as has been reported, eliminating, in the forthcoming year, a total of 24 groups of high school in the schools in the city of Barcelona, and an unknown number in other Catalan towns.

The Department of Education has admitted that it is undertaking a realignment of school policy, but has ensured that only those groups that are deleted are located near colleges that their can absorb the students.

A spokesman for the Department has indicated that this is the case of thirteen groups in municipalities located in Catalunya, most of them concentrated in Barcelona, but has not ruled out that the number of groups could be higher depending on demand in the forthcoming year.

On behalf of the five unions, the representative of ASPEPC, Xavier Masso, has described as "alarming" the news of the reduction, "it seems Ernest Maragall wants to destroy the structure of public education in the little time he has left (at the Justice Department of Education)," he assured.

The unions see the call for what will be the first strike (the fourth in the last two years) as the only outlet that they have left to them against Maragall's education policy following the adoption of the Catalunya Education Act (LEC). The unions believe it is damaging to schools along with shrinking their resources due to the crisis.

Moreover, spokeswoman of the USTEC-STEs, Rosa Cañadell, has asked the families of school students to be in solidarity with teachers and has asked them not to take their children to school on Wednesday.



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