The Balearic Islands' education system is once again revealing its structural deficiencies. This year, 644 substitute teachers are working class without having accredited the level of Catalan This figure, according to data from the Ministry of Education, which does not specify the affected stages or levels, is three times higher than in 2022 and demonstrates how the shortage of professionals has strained the system to the point of having to to make language requirements more flexiblewhich, under normal conditions, would be mandatory.

It's always been understood that the last teachers to arrive at a school are usually the ones who have to take on the classes and subjects that the other teachers don't want. It's an unwritten rule, but one that's fully accepted in school meetings. In second place are the substitute teachers, who take on the duties of the teacher they're replacing or fill any last-minute vacancies. These are the rules of the game, and everyone knows them.

The Regional Ministry of Education and Universities opened the public call this Tuesday to create the new pool of candidates for temporary teaching positions for the 2026/2027 academic year. The application period will remain open until February 24, according to the terms and conditions published by the department. In accordance with the regulations, on February 4, 2026, candidates already admitted to the 2025/2026 pool who meet the required criteria will be automatically integrated into the new pool. Specifically, those who, since September 1, 2025, have worked as temporary teachers for at least one day or have participated at least once in the standard substitution process will be included. This automatic integration will affect a total of 5,195 teachers.

School staffing levels are often comprised of nomadic teachers who long to return to their home islands—usually Mallorca. Schools and institutes have more than half their teams made up of temporary staff: young people arriving for their first job, sometimes with no prior experience in education. This is the reality in many schools in Ibiza and Formentera, where instability is the norm and where work is done on a day-to-day basis, with no possibility of planning beyond a single academic year because it's uncertain which teachers will be available or whether they will be committed to the decisions being made. One factor to consider is the impact on students, who have become accustomed to not building strong relationships with their teachers because they know that, perhaps next year—or even in a few months—they will no longer be there. Some teachers resign because they cannot live decently due to the housing problems plaguing the Pitiusas Islands, or they return to their home islands when they can.

The Director General of Teaching Staff and Subsidized Schools, Joana Maria Cabrer, acknowledged an error in the signing of the final resolution for the allocation of positions for substitute teachers, although she asserted that all submitted appeals were reviewed before the process was closed. The issue was that the final resolution was signed before the appeals period had ended. Cabrer appeared this Wednesday before the Parliament's Committee on General and Institutional Affairs, in a session requested by the PSIB-PSOE party, to explain her suitability for the position, which she has held since July 15th. During her appearance, Cabrer admitted there had been a lack of coordination in the administrative signing processes, but insisted that this error had been corrected and that the fact that the resolution's annex was not modified did not imply that the appeals had been disregarded. She explained that signing the resolution before the appeals deadline was an administrative coordination error. Furthermore, he asked the parliamentary groups not to question the procedure, because, he said, the system "was correct."

The Unió Docent collective, made up of temporary teachers from the Balearic Islands and established this September, has filed an administrative lawsuit against the Ministry of Education over the rules and resolutions published in the process of allocating teaching positions for the 2025-2026 academic year, led by lawyer Pablo Alonso de Caso. The main cause is the prioritization, according to their complaints, of dismissed temporary teachers for a vacancy over other teachers with higher scores in the temporary teacher pool, which they consider a violation of the basic principles of equality, merit, and ability that govern access to the public service.

Nearly 4,000 teachers, 1,533 of whom are assigned to Menorca, are forced to leave their island each year to teach. Temporary teachers must travel for a few years until they can secure a stable job and find a permanent position at a school close to home. This challenge has worsened in recent years with the housing crisis, forcing many professionals to take leave and work in private teaching or other sectors to avoid having to abruptly change their place of residence.

The UOB union has accused the Minister of Education, Antoni Vera, of "disdaining" the Education Sectoral Board. "This is a fact that UOB has repeatedly denounced over the last few academic years. After displaying a despotic attitude and attempting to transform the Board into a purely informational body, the only thing missing was for Mr. Antoni Vera to publicly express his contempt for the Sectoral Board," it says.

The Regional Minister of Education and Universities, Antoni Vera, has announced that he will draft new regulations for allocating staff positions and will change the software used to distribute them. This is one of the measures the Minister announced in response to criticism from PSIB MP Amanda Fernández regarding the personnel issues at the start of the 2025-2026 school year. These include, for example, the difficulties temporary workers have had in accessing the procedures, the fact that up to four different allocations were made in the first substitution process, and so on. Alba Borrasca, for example, had a position in the first allocation, and close to her home. In the last, she lost it. Vera explained that, in response to the criticism, he offered "respect, dialogue, and dialogue," but insinuated that Fernández had lied in her speech, asserting that "lying is a sin" and that, as a Catholic, he is "clear on that point."

The failures in the allocation of positions to temporary teachers have also given rise to critical humorous content. This Monday, Educació made up to four different allocations, with teachers who may have had a position in the first one, but were left without the last one, as is the case withAlba Storm. Creator Pere Jota has expressed his opinion in a video posted on social media. "For those who don't understand, it's like someone gave you an apartment, then took it away from you, then gave you another one, and then sent you an email telling you that what you experienced didn't happen," he explains. "If you have a spot, don't celebrate it. Wait, breathe, check your email, check again, be suspicious..." he summarizes.

The temporary teachers affected by the Education Department's failures in awarding contracts have taken a stand. Those affected, with the support of SIAU, have begun a petition through Change.org, to "demand accountability and an external audit from the Regional Ministry." The organizers are demanding "technical and political responsibility for the irregularities committed." They are also demanding "an external and independent audit to ensure transparency and fairness in the allocation of positions and an end to the institutional mistreatment suffered by temporary teachers in the Balearic Islands."

At the beginning of September 2024, the Ministry of Education published its summer teacher awards for temporary teachers in the early hours of the morning. A year later (this August), temporary teachers with fewer points were passed over by others with more, but who had not been removed from any vacancy, something that has caused discontent among those affected. This Monday, in the first regular substitution procedure (covering absences, leaves of absence, etc.), the Ministry published up to four versions of the awarded positions due to a "computer error," and on Tuesday, the urgent procedure was also postponed from the scheduled time. Alba Borrasca has experienced all of the situations described. "I'm about to go to the police and report the Ministry. I think if I took it to court, I would win," she explains. On Mondays, before 5:00 PM, she had secured a position at the Mitjà de Mar Primary School, close to home, a position that made it easier for her to balance her family life. Hours later, the Regional Ministry removed her and now she has no position and no clear future. The affected woman addressed the Regional Ministry through Instagram in a message in which she expressed her displeasure: "You are proud of your work, but I would be ashamed," she told them, among other ideas.

The Ministry of Education has cancelled the allocation of temporary positions in the first regular weekly substitution process on three occasions this Monday, according to ARA Baleares through SIAU, who has stated that nothing like this has ever happened. "They have cancelled more than 800 positions (858 to be precise)," said Secretary General Joan Crespí. "They have awarded positions to teachers who barely had any points, and to others who did not. They made colossal mistakes, such as granting resignations to people who had not resigned. We have received many calls, and people are fuming," he added. "I find it hard to remember anything like this ever happening," said Miquel Àngel Santos of Alternativa. Educació attributed the cancellation of the process to a "computer error." The new allocation will be made public "shortly," he said, initially. Educació has awarded the contract again at 17.08, but has subsequently withdrawn the list of contracts again.awardsA new grant was submitted at 6:14 p.m., and the final grant arrived at 6:30 p.m.

The Balearic Islands are the Spanish region with the highest proportion of unfilled vacancies in this year's secondary and vocational education competitive examinations, at 54.9%, according to the CSIF union. This year's teaching competitive examinations for secondary and vocational education have left 3,818 of 15,947 vacancies unfilled across Spain, a "serious problem" for the new academic year, as it means that 23.8% of the state's vacancies have not been awarded. These are data compiled by CSIF, whose president, Mario Gutiérrez, denounces the fact that "a quarter of the competitive examination places have been left unfilled, which in itself is serious." "But if you add to this a temporary employment rate above 30%, a shortage of staff in certain specialties, and the low attractiveness of new teaching graduates, this denotes a very serious problem for the Spanish education system," he explained in statements to EFE.

The STEI (Spanish National Education and University Administration) has accused the Ministry of Education and Universities of "failing to respect" the rights of temporary workers and has requested "urgent" explanations from the Director General of Teaching Personnel and State-subsidized Schools, Joana Maria Cabrer. The union made this demand this Friday in a statement in which it publicly denounced the fact that the Director General signed the provisional resolution before the deadline for submitting complaints. The union did not rule out referring this matter to the legal services to guarantee the right to defense and the corresponding claim of the candidates affected by what they consider to be "negligence" on the part of the Administration.

MÁS por Mallorca has warned of "serious irregularities" committed by the Ministry of Education in the process of awarding positions to temporary workers. In a statement, the eco-sovereignists indicated that the Director General of Teaching Staff and State-subsidized Schools, Joana Maria Cabrer, signed the provisional resolution before the deadline for submitting complaints.

The Ministry of Education has awarded 98.5% of the vacant teaching positions for the 2025-2026 academic year in the series of temporary teaching positions held this summer. In the urgent process, which closed this Thursday, 131 positions were awarded out of the 186.5 positions pending in the first process, which closed last Friday. By island, 59.5 positions were awarded in Mallorca; 17 in Menorca; 44.5 in Ibiza; and 10 in Formentera. Between both processes, 2,408 of the 2,464 positions offered in schools in the Balearic Islands have been filled. Considering all the placement processes carried out during the month of July, the total number rises to 4,064 places awarded out of a total of 4,127.5, representing 98.5% coverage.

The process for interim teachers for the summer of 2025 has begun in a hectic manner, and for many it has been a déjà vu of what happened last year, when computer errors The teachers had to wait until dawn to find out their fate.This year, hundreds of applicants have once again suffered due to the difficulties they encountered in viewing available positions and applying, with one server crashing numerous times throughout Tuesday, until the final one was released at dusk. "I completed the process once and only four positions were shown. I started it again and now there are 44," read one WhatsApp message from an affected person, to which ARA Baleares has had access. The SIAU union has also denounced the fact that Educació has published "falsified positions." For example, vacancies (without an owner) that appeared as replacements, even though no one actually filled them. Therefore, it has encouraged those affected to write to the Education Department and report the errors.

Once again, the process for allocating positions to temporary teachers is controversial. The SIAU union has denounced that the General Directorate of Teaching Personnel, now headed by Joana Maria Cabrer, "has decided to censor the PDF of available positions for temporary teachers in this summer's provisional assignment process, unlike what happened in previous years." SIAU explains that "the loss of transparency and opacity are still advancing at a rapid pace while teachers see their rights continually curtailed." "SIAU demands the immediate publication of the PDF of available positions." For its part, the Regional Ministry has assured that temporary teachers completing the process can consult all available positions, and that schools can also view them. "The PDF has not been posted early in the morning to avoid a website crash. It will be posted throughout the morning."