SIAU accuses Education of doctoring teaching assignments: "Reality refutes the triumphalist headline"

PalmaThe SIAU union has responded to the assessment by the Minister of Education, Antoni Vera, regarding the allocation of teaching positions. After he remarked that "the best organized teaching management process of recent years" has been completed and stated that 99% of vacancies have been filled, the union accuses the Ministry of constructing "a propagandistic narrative" that "does not withstand a rigorous analysis of the data." According to SIAU, while the minister claims only 36 vacancies remain to be allocated, the Portal del Docent Interí showed 124 positions unallocated after the last procedure. Of these, 93 correspond to replacements, 16 are temporary positions for programs, and 15 are vacancies.

The union considers that the Ministry offers an incomplete picture of the situation because it focuses the balance on structural vacancies and leaves out other jobs that also require an assigned teacher. In this regard, it points out that "educational centers do not function solely with structural vacancies" and recalls that "both temporary positions for programs and replacements require an assigned teacher so that teaching activities can be carried out normally".

SIAU argues that "the debate should not focus exclusively on how many structural (or non-structural, which also exist) vacancies remain pending, but on how many positions continue without any teacher". Furthermore, it adds that, "from the perspective of educational centers, an unassigned temporary position for programs or an unfilled replacement also represents a teacher who is missing from the first day of the school year".

Criticism of how data is presented

The Ministry uses a biased definition of data, according to the union. In the statement, it affirms that the department "presents as the main indicator the number of structural vacancies pending allocation, but deliberately omits the rest of the positions that continue without teaching staff". According to SIAU, this approach "offers a deliberately manipulated image of the real situation in educational centers and allows for the construction of a much more favorable narrative than what reality reflects".

The organization also questions the administrative classification of many positions that the Ministry continues to consider as replacements. It argues that "a replacement presupposes, by definition, the existence of a titular teacher with a reservation of the job position" and that, when a position "has no owner or official with more administrative rights over that destination, it is impossible to justify that its nature is that of a replacement". In this sense, it adds that "it is quite evident that a teacher cannot replace themselves".

According to the union, this classification "has a direct impact on the official temporality data presented by the Administration and on the image conveyed to citizens regarding compliance with the temporality reduction objectives required by state regulations".

Positions not offered

The statement also maintains that the 124 unassigned positions "do not represent the total volume of outstanding needs to be covered, but only those that had been incorporated into the procedure up to that point". The union argues that, if the Interim Teacher Portal showed 15 unassigned vacancies after the last procedure and the minister later stated that there were still 36 left, this "can only be explained by the existence of other positions that had not yet been incorporated into the assignment processes or that the Ministry has reserved to offer them later". Consequently, it considers that "to this figure must be added the new vacancies, temporary positions for programs and the rest of the places that the Ministry has not yet put out for assignment and that will presumably appear during the month of September".

Another of the aspects that SIAU criticizes is the treatment that some positions have received during the assignment process. The union explains that certain substitutions for the entire school year were initially assigned with appointments until August 31, 2027, while the same positions, once re-offered after resignations or new assignments, are being assigned until July 31 of the same year.

According to the statement, this causes "two people who occupy exactly the same job position may perceive different remuneration, contribute for a different period, and accumulate different merits simply because the Ministry awarded them at different times during the same summer". The union considers that "there is no objective justification for the same position to generate different rights depending on when it is awarded" and maintains that this fact "constitutes a new example of the improvisation, lack of coherence, and comparative grievances that have characterized this entire awarding campaign".

Eyes on the start of the school year

The start of the course will allow us to check the real situation of the centers, points out SIAU. "Institutional propaganda will not start classes in educational centers," states the union, which considers that "it will be September that will show how many positions remain without a teacher, how many new vacancies suddenly appear, how many temporary positions for programs must be filled outside the ordinary procedures and to what extent the triumphant data presented during the summer reflected reality".

The union assures that it will continue "denouncing any lack of transparency, manipulation of public data and any administrative decision that harms the rights of teachers" and defends that "public education needs a responsible administration that stops mistreating teachers". "What it does not need is another deception while reality disproves, year after year, the triumphant headlines," criticizes the statement.