Families demand from Vera the inclusive education decree and more resources for the centers

PalmaThe family federations of Ibiza, Menorca, and Mallorca have demanded more resources from the Minister of Education and Universities, Antoni Vera, to guarantee educational inclusion and equity, in addition to progress in complementary services, the climate control of centers, and the real free nature of education. The entities, grouped in the COAPA Balears Confederation, have met with Vera and the Director General of Early Childhood, Innovation, and Educational Community, Neus Riera, to convey their proposals to them.

One of the families' main criticisms is that, at the beginning of the fourth year of the legislature, the processing of the inclusive education decree has not yet begun. COAPA considers this framework necessary to guarantee the rights of students with special educational needs and demands a review of whether the available resources and their organization provide an adequate response to educational needs that are "increasingly complex".

In this sense, the federations advocate for strengthening and expanding programs such as the PAE, the PROA+, and the improvement and transformation projects (PMT), and they propose that they also be extended to stages such as Vocational Training. At the same time, they reject the Ministry's commitment to creating new UECCO classrooms and to schooling in special education centers.

Families have also brought to the table the lack of certain professional profiles in schools. They demand not only that there be enough teachers, but that they have the specialties and training appropriate to the needs of the students. Among their concerns are positions that are difficult to fill and the lack of support professionals with specific training. COAPA proposes establishing mechanisms that facilitate the arrival and permanence of professionals in deficit specialties, in addition to guaranteeing their training in the Catalan language and in the cultural reality of the Islands. It also warns of the situation of high-intensity PTs, which in some cases are incorporated after the school year has begun and not always with the necessary profile.

Another of the proposals is to develop the figure of the personal assistant, which is not yet implemented in the Balearic Islands. According to the federations, this professional could collaborate with schools in specific cases of students with special educational needs. The minister, according to COAPA, has shown himself willing to study its implementation with the Minister of Families and Social Affairs, Sandra Fernández.

High school cafeterias

Regarding complementary services, families are demanding that high school cafeterias be turned into midday spaces that allow students to eat at school. COAPA suggests that this option would allow for expanding dining possibilities beyond the centers that already have this service, and points as a reference to what happens in charter schools and CEIPIESO centers.

The federations also ask to improve the application and monitoring of the healthy eating criteria established by regulations and to continue with the training of dining hall monitors. In this case, they propose that the training content be determined based on the needs detected by the schools and families, with special attention to inclusion, coexistence, and attention to diversity.

COAPA also considers that socioeconomic inequalities condition educational opportunities and that speaking of free education implies taking into account the expenses assumed by families for books, materials, devices, and digital licenses. For this reason, the federations have proposed creating an ethics commission that contributes to ensuring fair prices and moving towards truly free education. They also ask to promote book reuse programs and differentiate them from the expenses associated with materials, licenses, and digital resources. Families also consider that the participation of the educational community is a tool for equity and demand that schools be more open spaces and that new spaces for family participation be facilitated.

Against the climate control plan

The air conditioning of the centers is another of the points that COAPA considers pending. The federations maintain that the Air Conditioning Plan promoted by Education does not resolve the most urgent situations and point out that, three years after its announcement, the first projects are now being tendered, many of which have a high complexity of execution. Faced with this situation, they ask to strengthen the coordination between the Ministry, the town councils and the FELIB, to establish objective criteria to determine which centers have priority, to provide a specific response to the most serious cases and to make public the planning of the actions and the execution deadlines.

Finally, the three federations have also demanded more information on school absenteeism in order to develop preventive strategies and avoid the disengagement of students from the educational system. COAPA believes that families should have a more important role in academic guidance and in the prevention of early school leaving.