"A new attack, no longer so veiled, on public and quality education"

Public healthcare and education are the backbone of a democratic and advanced society; without them, the social organism collapses into inequality and privilege. Everyone understands that public healthcare guarantees the right to life and health for all citizens, regardless of their origin or bank account. No one would accept that, while public hospitals suffer from waiting lists or staff shortages, the Government would use everyone's taxes to pay severance packages for doctors from private clinics or to finance the expansion of their real estate assets. What would seem like a scandal in the healthcare sector is exactly what the draft of the new decree on educational contracts from the Government of the Balearic Islands proposes.

This regulation is a political project that reverses the hierarchy established in the Balearic Islands Education Law (LEIB), which defines public schools as the "foundation of the educational system." Under the guise of "free choice," we are faced with an unprecedented attempt to transfer resources from the public network for all towards the private interests of a few.

The first pillar of this attack is the shielding of contracts for ten years. In a context of declining birth rates, this measure ties the Administration's hands for a whole decade. While planning in the public network must be reviewed according to real demographic needs, the decree grants the private sector a stability that blocks any attempt by the Administration to prioritize public provision, as required by the LOMLOE. Related to this, the artificial survival of private units with low ratios is proposed by introducing mechanisms such as 'level unification' (grouping students from different grades into a single unit) to prevent the closure of classrooms in the private sector. This allows contracts to be maintained by a narrow margin, diverting resources that should be used to strengthen the backbone of the system.

But where the draft crosses all the red lines of public ethics is in the socialization of private labor risks. The decree provides for the Administration to finance with public funds the severance payments for teaching staff in subsidized schools in cases of reduction of units or resources. We will be paying with everyone's money for the business risk that should correspond exclusively to the owning entities. It is a 'resistance fund' for employers' associations, a blank check to dismiss staff without costing the center's owner a single cent, a measure that finds no support in the subsidy module defined by state regulations.

This preferential treatment becomes particularly perverse when we analyze the economic shielding of the Pilot Language Program. The draft includes a specific provision to finance –a posteriori– the severance payments for staff linked to this program if it ends. This is nothing more than an attempt to use public funds to prop up a project that directly attacks Catalan as the backbone language of education. Incentives and economic security are offered to centers that choose to fragment the linguistic conjunction model, placing the Ministry's checkbook at the service of linguistic segregation and against the criteria set by the LEIB, which recognizes the Catalan language as the vehicular language of education and an essential element for maintaining social cohesion and the transmission of the cultural and historical identity of the Islands.

The attack also extends to the 0-3 stage, the most delicate for ensuring early equity. Instead of focusing on the creation of places in public centers – a priority objective of the LEIB – the Government enshrines the subsidy as the main path to universalization. And it does so, moreover, by devaluing quality, opening the door to the financing of staff without complete enabling qualifications, creating a first-class and a second-class system that violates children's right to an excellent education.

Finally, the decree allows profit, prohibited by the LODE in complementary activities, to enter through the back door: it is foreseen that the profits from services such as dining or transport can be reinvested in the maintenance and improvement of the private property. That is, together we will increase the value of private property assets with family contributions and public funds.

Defending public schools is defending social cohesion. This decree does not seek equity, but the privilege of a few and the maintenance of a dual network where the public one is condemned to subsidiarity. If we do not want a commodified education, we must reject this attack which, each time, is less veiled and more dangerous. The right to education is not sold; it is defended.