Directors erupt against the dining hall decree: "Public schools cannot be the support of private companies"

PalmaThe Association of Directors of Early Childhood and Primary Education of Mallorca (ADIPMA) demands an immediate rectification of the Decree-Law that regulates school canteens. In a statement, the directors particularly criticize one point of the regulation: in centers where the canteen serves more than 50 users, the school council must mandatorily appoint a teacher to supervise meals or, failing that, a member of the non-teaching staff. Furthermore, the management team becomes absolutely responsible for the canteen service. "It imposes a new unassumable burden and transfers the responsibility from the private companies responsible for the service to the management teams," they explain in a statement. "Public schools cannot become the operational support for private companies," they argue.

As stated in the text, the directors lament "the obligation of physical presence during meal times, the forced assumption of supervisor roles, bureaucratic suffocation, and the failure of a volunteer model that, in practice, becomes an imposition for directors". They further criticize that the Royal Decree-Law attributes "administrative and economic responsibilities that exceed teaching competencies". "It is unjustifiable that, while contracting companies obtain economic benefit from canteen management, it is the management teams of public schools who must assume the operational consequences and personnel incidents," they continue.

The Royal Decree-Law, in effect since last June, represents "an unjustified extension of the working day" for directors, who must manage the procedures and incidents of the service and, in addition, assume the canteen supervisor's functions if necessary. "The regulations depend on the voluntary participation of teachers, but they oblige management to guarantee the service if this volunteering does not exist," they lament in the text.

Therefore, the directors call on the Ministry of Education to review the Decree to "eliminate the disproportionate attribution of operational functions to teachers", to preserve "the pedagogical character of management" and to guarantee that they will not have to assume management tasks "alien to the educational center", and to guarantee the "entrepreneurial responsibility" of the canteen service contractor.