Education: the pros and cons of an important agreement

The agreement reached by the Department of Education with a minority of union representatives is important, despite not having secured the support of the majority of negotiators. In principle, it marks a turning point in the labor dispute with the administration by a highly relevant, sensitive, and strategic sector—we are talking about 129,327 workers—a group of professionals marked by a sense of grievance that extends beyond labor issues. Finding a way out of this teacher discontent is an essential step to face the future of education for Catalan children and adolescents with a modicum of hope. The country urgently needs to give education a new impetus.

It is a shame, and a weakness of the agreement, that the largest teachers' union, Ustec—along with Secondary School Teachers and the CGT—has distanced itself from the pact, which was signed by CCOO and UGT. The agreement is the result of tough negotiations and, as always, leaves no one entirely satisfied, but it undoubtedly represents progress in the working conditions of Catalan teachers—from being the fourth lowest paid in the country they will become the third highest paid—as well as in the funding—300 million euros—to make schools relevant; in other respects, it does not.

In any case, there has been a shared effort and a result that would be good if it allowed us to turn the page. Next week, depending on the turnout for the strike days called by the unions opposed to the agreement, we will know to what extent teachers accept the signed document. In other words, we will see how much strength the unions that remained outside the agreement still hold. The need to establish a position for the upcoming union elections has surely weighed heavily on the stances of both sides, with CCOO and UGT demonstrating their pragmatic ability to reach agreements, and others, especially the majority union Ustec, asserting their radicalism. The agreement, in any case, is not contingent on the approval of the Generalitat's budget. So, in principle, it will go ahead. This includes, among other things, that by 2029 teachers—both in public and private schools—will receive approximately €3,000 more in gross annual pay than they do now, a slight reduction in student-teacher ratios in classrooms, and compensation for teachers when they go on summer camps—€50 per night. However, there is a clear setback in the Department of Education's commitment to promoting school autonomy by empowering principals to select specific teachers suited to their projects. They are being stripped of the ability to conduct interviews for their selection process, and, in fact, the so-called "profiled" positions—vacancies reserved for teachers to be filled by selecting them—are being limited to a maximum of 3%, whereas previously the education law allowed up to 50% of a school's vacancies to be of this type. At this point, there is a clear step backward that harms public schools, which, unlike private schools, are once again constrained by an overly rigid bureaucratic system.