Six months without work or salary for the former director of the Institut de l'Ebre

TarragonaThe Department of Education considers the irregularities committed with the internship contracts at the IES Ebre in Tortosa –the largest in southern Catalonia– and has sanctioned the center's director and its administrator with six months without employment or salary, according to sources from the CGT and the Intersindical. The department's file comes a year and a half after the ARA denounced this situation thanks to two protected witnesses who opposed this operation and who had the courage to make it public.

The modus operandi, which according to the complainants had been going on for 15 years, was as follows: the institute signed internship agreements with companies in the region, but the students worked for the institute. The students never set foot in the company with which they had signed the internship contract and, in fact, had never even spoken with any company representative. No one accompanied the students, as stipulated by the regulations, during their internship period. At the end of the month, the students received a salary from the company for which, according to the falsely signed contract, they were working. The company, which paid salaries without having any interns, billed the school at the end of the month under the heading Maintenance Following the complaint from the protected witnesses, the territorial services of the Department of Education prepared an information file that they sent to the central services of the regional ministry. With this information, the regional ministry commissioned an audit and, at the same time, submitted the confidential information to the services inspectorate. Four months later, The department opened a disciplinary case to the director of IES Ebre and another to the school administrator, and promised to resolve them within a maximum of six months, although the issue has now taken a year. Finally, both have been suspended from work and pay for six months.

During all this time, Social Security has also intervened, which, following a labor inspection, already confirmed these fraudulent practices and fined 50,000 euros The Department of Education, which is ultimately responsible for the school. According to union sources, the regional ministry has not ruled out claiming that money from those responsible for the scheme.

According to the same union sources, the department has opened a new case against the resigned director, Armand Pons, for allegedly ordering the suspension of all communication with the complainants.

At least 18 students affected

In addition to the accounting irregularities in Social Security, this practice has also caused harm to the affected students. One of them also reported, through this newspaper, the pressures they received and how, on occasion, the high school teachers had asked him to leave class to make him work.

The regulations not only prohibit students from doing internships at the school itself, but also prevent them from working in companies that have any ties to teachers' relatives, precisely to prevent professional evaluations from determining pedagogical evaluations. This scheme affected at least 18 students from the IES Ebre.