Vera and the art of defusing educational conflicts with money

PalmaThe policy of distributing resources to everyone that the Department of Education has applied since the beginning of the legislature has been gradually extinguishing any spark of mobilization in defense of public and Catalan schools, as well as the denunciation of the massive diversion of resources to subsidized schools, at a time when public education urgently needs oxygen. The contrast with what is happening across the sea is difficult to ignore: in Catalonia and the Valencian Country, similar educational realities have ignited strong mobilizations and strikes that have shaken the respective governments. In the Balearic Islands, on the other hand, the tension has been dissolving without a bang, as if it had evaporated before turning into conflict. It is true that island teachers, at least before the agreed or pending improvements are finalized, earn more than their Valencian and Catalan counterparts. But money, often, does not explain what happens in classrooms.

In private conversations, the diagnosis is recurrent and uncomfortable: “We should mobilize, they are dismantling public schools and favoring subsidized ones.” The phrase circulates with insistence, but it almost never crosses the threshold of action. And so, while the discomfort remains halfway, the system is silently reconfiguring itself.

Since the change of government in 2023, subsidized schools have been gaining ground on public ones. In parallel, 0-3 education has been progressively becoming subsidized, in a scenario that many families experience with pragmatism: more places, less cost, immediate decisions. The Ministry insists that it also supports public 0-3 education, but the minister Antoni Vera made a statement that could condition everything: "We will not build public places where there are subsidized ones." It was very unsubtle.

Even concrete decisions, such as the closure of IES Politècnic while subsidized places are being expanded, have fueled a hard-to-erase feeling: that the system is moving, but not in the announced direction. The arrival of private university projects, such as that of CEU Beato Luis Belda, also suggests this, which for the first time has led UIB to face real competition, forcing it to defend its space.

And yet, the great political winner of this stage seems to be the same counselor Vera. The legislature began with tension, with the still recent memory of a period of open confrontation and with the campaign ‘The language is not touched’ that set the pace for the schools. But that initial intensity has been dissolving until it has almost completely disappeared.

The concrete measures have helped: the increase in the tutoring allowance, bonuses for hard-to-fill positions, improved compensation for early morning school, the incorporation of educational psychologists (with a weight that tips the balance towards subsidized schools), good harmony (at least apparent) with the UIB, and a climate control plan that is still more promise than reality. All of this paints a picture of a policy of big announcements and slow rollouts, some of which will hardly see the light of day within this legislature, not even the next, such as the ambitious ten-year infrastructure plan and the planned 600 million euros.

Meanwhile, structural problems remain intact: overcrowded classrooms, teachers at their limit, centers that have accumulated years of lack of investment, and buildings that no longer withstand the passage of time or temperature. And a school canteen system dominated, for the moment, by a company marked by malpractice and risky situations.

And so, the course ends as it began: with an apparent calm that is not peace, but suspense. A dense, almost uncomfortable stillness, as if everything had stopped just before imploding. A storm that does not break out, but also does not disappear. And which, for the moment, only unloads on the other side of the sea, in the brother territories of the Catalan Countries.u