"Excellence" is left without teachers: the IES Llorenç Villalonga resorts to a teacher who could be retired

PalmaThe new IES Llorenç Villalonga, which will offer the Excellence Baccalaureate in Mallorca starting next academic year, will have to complete a large part of its staff with interim teachers, after only five tenured teachers have obtained a commission of services to join the center. This is according to various sources consulted by this newspaper, who believe that the final result deviates from the initial idea of the Ministry of Education to configure a faculty mainly composed of experienced tenured teachers. The same sources also question some of the movements made during the staffing process, including the incorporation of a 68-year-old teacher who, by seniority, could be retired.

According to these sources, the call for service commissions prioritized doctor professors and civil servants with more than five years of seniority. However, the final result deviates notably from the ordinary procedure. Only four teachers applied to join the new institute and, as has been verified, of the five professors who finally obtained a service commission, only one was part of that initial group. The rest would have joined later during the processing of the procedure.

The lack of civil servant staff will force the Ministry to largely resort to interim teachers to fill the vacant positions. The final result deviates from the announced model. "We have gone from a model that, according to the call, prioritized doctors and civil servants with seniority to a system where itinerant interim teachers will end up arriving, who will work half-days at each center," they denounce.

Sources question whether this system can guarantee the excellence that the Ministry has presented as the main objective of the new institute. "Creating a center for excellent students is a pedagogical nonsense. It is an aberration. A similar model was already attempted in Madrid and it did not work," they assure. They also state that "families are being sold a product that will not exist. There will be no excellence if the teaching staff is mostly interim who come and go, and there may even be teachers who have never worked before." "Excellence cannot be dressed up with just a name," they conclude.

Curious movements

The process followed to configure the staff is also questioned. As far as is known, initially five teachers requested a commission of services to join the new institute. One of them, however, Professor Xavier Granados, resigned and disappeared from the list of admitted teachers, which numbered four. According to another source consulted, the Ministry later asked him to reconsider his decision because he has a double specialty, which will allow him to teach two subjects and facilitate staff coverage. Granados ended up rejoining the process and is among the five teachers who finally obtained a commission of services.

Doubts also surround the appointment process for the direction of the new institute. The name of the future director, Xavier Vadell, had already been circulating for months, as well as that of who, according to various sources, is expected to be the future head of studies, Silvia Moreno, who was also circulating long before the competition was officially resolved. The same sources assure that the call to select the director was published with very little dissemination and that only one application was submitted.

Among the moves that have also raised questions is the incorporation of Mathematics teacher María Ángeles Fullana, 68, into the staff of the new institute. Until now, she served as secretary of the IES Arxiduc Lluís Salvador and, according to documentation consulted by this newspaper, she was not on the list of teachers who had applied and been admitted to opt for a service commission, published on May 26. She did appear on a list of pending applications. Finally, she has been granted a service commission to join Llorenç Villalonga, where she will also assume the secretaryship of the management team.

Sources recall that the regulations generally establish mandatory retirement for teaching staff at 65 years of age, although the Ministry provides for exceptions, including for members of management teams with an ongoing project or for certain specialties that are difficult to cover, up to the age of 70. According to the sources consulted, Fullana continues to be active after obtaining an extension of her working life. For this reason, they ask the Ministry to explain under what circumstances her transfer to a newly created center has been authorized and if this circumstance is compatible with the conditions that justified the extension.

Segregate by ability

The need to create a specific institute for high-achieving students is also questioned. In their opinion, public institutes already have the necessary resources to cater to this profile of students without the need to create a new center. "When you have excellent students, what families ask for is that their center offers them more opportunities and more resources. This affects two or three students per center and can be resolved within existing institutes, which already have a consolidated educational project," they state.

They consider that the final configuration of the faculty evidences the contradiction of the project. "Creating a new center for supposedly excellent students, but with a staff made up mostly of interim teachers, is contradictory. I don't know what excellence a teacher can offer who arrives without stability and, even, without prior experience," they conclude.

Regarding the union response, SIAU considers that the low response from teachers evidences the "failure" of the new Baccalaureate of Excellence, which it qualifies as a "political marketing operation." The organization maintains that, while the Ministry promotes this project, public education continues to suffer from a lack of resources, staff, and infrastructure. Therefore, it argues that true excellence involves strengthening all public centers and improving the conditions of the teaching staff. In the same vein, STEI interprets the low participation of teachers as a "forceful" rejection of the Baccalaureate of Excellence, which it qualifies as a "segregating and elitist" measure. The union maintains that teachers have opted for a model of inclusive education and calls on the Ministry to withdraw the project and not transfer its deployment to interim teachers.

• L'ARA Balears has requested information from the Ministry of Education regarding the staffing configuration of the new IES Llorenç Villalonga, the number of civil servants, interim staff, and teachers who will share their working hours with other centers, the development of the service commissions process, the cases of Xavier Granados and María Ángeles Fullana, as well as the administrative situation of the latter and the legal framework that allows her to teach at 68 years of age. It has also requested explanations about the selection process for the center's management and about the impact of the new Baccalaureate of Excellence on enrollment in other institutes. At the time of closing this information, the Ministry had not responded to any of the questions posed. It had only been informed that the student data of interest "are totally satisfactory".