Education: Are we moving forward or going backward?

The Catalan education law (LEC) has been in force for just over fifteen years.This is a good time to move away from nostalgia and instead make useful reference to the debates and concerns of the present. It is certainly worth recalling that, together with Francesc Colomé, we accounted for what had been accomplished during that period and shaped it in the book New school, free townPublished in 2013, we explained what, in our understanding, it meant to govern a system with over a million students and nearly 100,000 teachers.

Today, I'm unsure whether I'm more concerned by what I feel and read about what has been done/decided/implemented, or by what I observe has been left undone/decided/implemented over this time. Let's be clear: let's talk about the education system as a basic, universal, and comprehensive public service. And I take note of the legitimate concerns that the recent strike has highlighted regarding issues such as student-teacher ratios and diversity, linked above all to the volume of actual resources available to schools and teaching staff. I look, therefore, beyond the curricular and pedagogical debates, which are absolutely essential, but which should not replace the governance of the framework that defines us as a country: stages, centers and teachers, educational community, rights and duties of the actors, organization and decentralization, linguistic and technological uses...

Rey, from the Clam Educatiu collective, "The taboo of public schools: choosing teachers"It compels me to follow the thread they open.

Indeed, school autonomy is a central element—though not the only one—of the educational system concept that inspires the LEC, especially regarding the key issue of the selection and stability of teaching staff based on the responsibility granted and demanded of school leadership. This is essential for building the necessarily diverse educational projects that real life demands if we want to address our growing social complexity with respect and intelligence."

All of this while facing opposing pressure that, in the name of perfectly describable interests, remains alive thanks to the main corporate union (USTEC) and the bureaucratic inertia of certain sectors. Rarely is the contradiction between theoretical egalitarianism and real equity, between the social demand for a vibrant and diverse education that gives us back citizens with full rights and the defensive offer of a self-referential system that protects itself from the social reality it claims to want to serve, as clear as the contradiction between theoretical egalitarianism and real equity, between the social demand for a vibrant and diverse education that gives us back citizens with full rights and the defensive offer of a self-referential system that protects itself from the social reality it claims to want to serve.

It is appalling to witness today the perversion of the educational debate, orchestrated by politicians or from within the system itself, for those who prefer comfort to risk, inertia to innovative effort, or worse, those who seek to regress to a supposed past paradise. And all this, of course, by denying the debate on how the educational system should address the real changes in society.

Thus, it is comforting, and I fully agree with the position of the aforementioned article, to see that there is life, rigor, and self-discipline in the world of education. But it is unsettling to see how, fifteen years later, school autonomy is far from being achieved and has even regressed in the daily life of our schools and institutes.

Finally, I recommend a careful reading of the LEC (Law on Education) to follow the unfulfilled provisions regarding available resources, the forgotten chapters, and the untapped potential of a set of articles that offer tools, flexibility, and freedom to be a useful framework for adapting to change. What has become of the renewal of language immersion and the proper presence of arts education? When will we establish the educational zones defined in the law, in shared responsibility with the municipalities, cities, and towns of the country? When will we have the necessary connection between education and work, linked to current vocational training? When will we open negotiations with the central government to finally have a Catalan teaching corps? When will we address the fundamental issue of teacher training and selection? When will we recognize them as essential public servants, worthy of the highest standards?

The path is clear and open. Now it's up to the institutions, starting with the department itself, to act with accumulated experience, but also with the reformist boldness we often forgo in the name of a supposed consensus that ultimately paralyzes us. The tools are there; many teachers willing to try are there too. Let's go.