Madrid (EFE).- A little more than a month after the 28M elections, the parties differ little in their great educational commitments, such as advancing in the free range of 0-3 years and granting more scholarships for the dining room and school transport , but they collide on issues such as concerts and language.
The municipal and regional elections will convene some 36 million voters, who will have to decide what educational model they want their mayors and regional governments to implement, autonomous communities, competent in this matter.
concerted education
Among the features that distinguish the proposals are the concerts, a system that was implemented in Spain in 1985 and by virtue of which the centers receive public funds for their operation. In 2021, they totaled 7.3 billion euros, 12.2% of total spending.
Thus, the PP proposes “adequate” financing for centers supported by public funds, by “increasing operating costs”, in contrast to IU, which is in favor of its progressive suppression.
In the case of the PSOE, its program for the 28M does not mention these subsidies to private schools, but in its latest educational law it already stops their extension and prohibits that the aid can be received by centers that separate by sex. Podemos and Cs have not yet presented their proposals.
Promises of the political forces
Below is a summary of the promises of the political forces in education for the electoral appointment:
PSOE
It will collaborate in the provision of land and municipal resources to create, expand and improve public centers.
It will participate in the improvement of infrastructure, air conditioning and the use of renewable energy in schools.
It will reinforce control, monitoring and coordination tasks against school absenteeism, and will promote the opening and use of school facilities outside school hours.
It will promote aid for school canteens, textbooks and school supplies, including technology.
It will advance the universality of schooling in the stage from 0 to 3 years and will support the creation of free public places.
Will work to achieve a dropout rate of less than 8%.
It will reduce educational segregation, guaranteeing a progressive increase in public places.
It will stagger the drop in ratios in the classrooms.
People’s Party
Extension of conciliation services available to families, both nurseries and toy libraries and childcare services in workplaces.
It expresses “its will” to establish free education for children from 0 to 3 years old and advocates facilitating, “to the extent of our possibilities”, reconciliation resources for families in non-school periods.
It will defend “the freedom of parents to choose the center” within the existing possibilities and according to their schooling model; that is to say, ordinary, preferential or special education center. It will ensure “ideological neutrality in the classrooms”.
It proposes adequate financing for centers supported with public funds, by increasing operating expenses, as well as expanding scholarships and grants.
Educational reinforcement so that all students achieve the objectives.
It will guarantee the right to education in Spanish, the official language of the State, as well as in the other co-official languages in the communities in which they are recognized, “under the principle of balance and in all educational stages”.
It will promote an expansion of the scholarship policy, and will promote the creation of social protection funds in subsidized programs that allow the participation of students with few resources in complementary services and activities.
United Left
It will expand the public network of Children; it will ensure the maintenance of the existing one and will universalize the free one from zero years.
It will guarantee that publicly owned buildings, places and dependencies, even when managed by private entities, are free of “any type of symbology, acts or religious proselytism or of another particular ideological nature”.
It will promote an Autonomous Education Law that guarantees an investment floor of 7% of GDP.
Progressive suppression of the concerts until their complete disappearance, through the voluntary and negotiated integration of private concerted centers into a single public network.
Inspection so that the concerted ones do not impose “illegal rates” on families.
Improve the public infrastructure that adapts the centers to extreme temperatures in the classrooms.
Eliminate the single school area that favors the proximity of public squares to the family home to promote economic savings and environmental sustainability.
Free school transport including post-compulsory education.
Ensure progressive free public education, from early childhood to university.
Progressively expand the number of centers equipped with directly managed or self-managed canteens.
Establish scholarships that respond to progressive taxation.
Eliminate tax deductions on private education expenses (uniform, transport, complementary…).
Reduction in the ratio of students per group.
Vox
It does not present a framework program for the 28M. Their proposals are included in the “Agenda España”.
In it they advocate “immediate return” to the State of powers in education and thus “put an end to the separatist design of using it as an instrument to destroy the unity of Spain.”
“Ensure teaching in Spanish in the educational system of all regions, so that the duty of all Spaniards to know it can be fulfilled, as well as to protect the right of all to use it.
Repeal any rule that violates the right of parents to educate their children and choose the center that is in accordance with “their own moral and religious convictions.”
Exclude content inspired by “the ideological sectarianism of the government coalition”.