"Even if our sole concern were national economic growth, we would have to protect humanistic education." This is stated by the American philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum (New York, 1947), according to whom, in schools and universities worldwide, the exact opposite is happening: the humanities (literature, history, philosophy, etc.), as well as the arts, are increasingly scorned, if not directly eliminated. What is happening to us? Nussbaum is in no way against hard sciences or technological knowledge. But she warns against the error of despising humanistic knowledge and the critical thinking associated with it. And she warns that, at the same time as the curriculum is being stripped of humanistic elements, the pedagogy of memorization is being reimposed (obviously, this does not mean she rejects all memorization).

Catalan teachers already know which school or institute they will be working in next academic year. This Tuesday, the Department of Education published the definitive destinations for teaching staff for the 2026-2027 academic year, known as the summer assignments. The publication of the position each teacher and professor will fill has been made one month earlier than previously done and after last year there was a major upheaval when a "deliberate" error by one of the department's employees forced the entire process to be repeated and its results to be delayed.

After the pandemic, this academic year that has just ended has surely been the hardest of recent years. The entrenched problems in the school world have finally burst the seams of a system that neither the government, nor teachers, nor pedagogues can manage to revive. Within the framework of the global educational crisis, marked by the loss of authority and the overprotection of children, the Catalan case has its own characteristics and tensions within a complicated negative drift.

More poor students, more students needing support, and an investment that, despite increasing, is not managing to improve educational results. This is the radiography of the situation of Catalan education provided by Equitat.org – formerly Fundació Bofill – in its 2026 yearbook.

A petition on the Change.org platform has collected over a thousand signatures in just 24 hours, calling for a review of the mathematics exam for the PAU (University Entrance Exams). On Tuesday, it became known that this year's test achieved an average score of 4.18; a failing average and the lowest since 2014, when it was a bare 4. In fact, in the last twelve years, the average for this subject has only been a fail on three occasions: this year (4.18), 2024 (4.87), and 2014 (4).

At the demonstration of the last school year strike and after the nowon the vote on the agreement with the Department of Education, one of the most repeated comments among teachers was that school assemblies should have a decisive role in negotiations with the Government. In fact, in the speeches at the end of the protest, the first to speak were the representatives of the educational assemblies and not the union spokespersons, as usual. Neither the comments nor the protagonists on stage are a coincidence: more than 500 school assemblies have been registered since the website of the Educational Assembly of Catalonia (AEC) opened in February. Furthermore, more than a hundred teachers attended the sixth assembly of the AEC held last weekend.the sixth assembly of the AEC held last weekend more than a hundred teachers attended.

The teachers' unions leading the mobilizations to demand educational improvements have once again warned this Saturday that the next school year will be turbulent and that protests will disrupt classrooms from the start of the first term.

Admired for its singular beauty, the town of Cadaqués resists losing one of the most cherished distinctive features by its neighbours and that makes them feel most proud: its particular "salty talk", with a vocabulary and expressions so genuine that it is considered a dialectal variety with its own name: Cadaquesenc. Although it is one of the fishing villages on the Girona coast where the "salty talk" has been best preserved, largely thanks to its geographical isolation, Cadaqués is finding it increasingly difficult to preserve its linguistic uniqueness due to the homogenizing power of social networks, the pressure of tourism, immigration, and demographic changes. "If Catalan is in danger, imagine Cadaquesenc!", warns philologist Pep Vila, author of the book Paraulari de Cadaqués.

New movement in the Department of Education. The ministry led by Esther Niubó has signed up the until now first deputy mayor of Rubí, Víctor García Correas, to join the Secretariat for Educational Improvement, as reported by Ràdio Rubí and confirmed by sources from Education to ARA. However, the new signing on Via Augusta has generated controversy and has been criticized by La Intersindical, as last year the person who was also responsible for Education in Rubí made statements against Catalan in a municipal plenary session and apologized shortly after.made statements against Catalan in a municipal plenary session and apologized shortly after.

Highly commendable: a university of science and technology like the UPC has awarded an honoris causa doctorate to a philosophy professor, Dr. Joan Manuel del Pozo, from the University of Girona, a person who has dedicated his entire life to education.

This Sunday's event was the last major mobilization of teachers before the end of the school year, and also the unions' final warning to the Government that the resumption of classes in September could be just as turbulent if an agreement is not reached. Thousands of teachers and professors took to the streets again this morning in Barcelona to force "a change in public education". This time, moreover, they had another objective: to show that they have the support of families and society.

Rereading Oriol Bohigas, I found in his diaries a reference to his time at the mythical Institut-Escola. He recounts an anecdote illustrating the civic spirit of that exemplary institution, which was meant to be the vanguard of republican educational change. The dictatorship destroyed it all. Damned authoritarian intolerance, which is returning... Educational optimism, tinged with an essential veil of naivety, remained buried for decades. But we must also return to it. Urgently.

The streets are full of "The dignity of education", written on huge banners. This is what the demonstrations and teachers' strikes are demanding. The resounding no to the agreement reached by the union representatives, with the loud booing of the representative to tell her "We are the ones who are in the classroom" and "It was not a matter of salary", reveals to us the moment we are in. No, it wasn't about working conditions alone, because what teachers want is to be able to exercise their profession properly. They have said it very clearly: well-being is not solely a matter of working conditions; what is being claimed is to exercise the profession with dignity.The teacher unrest is now compounded by a fracture in union representation. Who represents the teachers? Jordi Muñoz's analysis is very accurate regarding the loss of institutional mediations, which in the case of education translates into a crisis of the school itself as an institution: when the classic forms of representation and conflict management falter, the school's capacity to sustain a shared framework of meaning, authority, and professional trust also becomes more fragile. Jordi Muñoz's analysis regarding the loss of institutional mediations, which in the case of education translates into a crisis of the school itself as an institution: when the classic forms of representation and conflict management falter, the school's capacity to sustain a shared framework of meaning, authority, and professional trust also becomes more fragile.

It's time to talk seriously about school. There is a lot of work to be done. In fact, the important task begins now. If, indeed, as the teachers who demonstrated said on Friday, the protests "were not about money", it is time to delve deeply into the problems of the system. Today in the newspaper we give voice to the experts. They all advocate for bold changes. For a new educational pact. To restore hope to school. And it is clear that money doesn't fix everything.

The day has arrived. After 72 hours of voting, teachers revealed this midday that they reject the preliminary agreement of the majority unions and Education. They did so in a consultation in which more than 60,000 teachers participated (approximately 60% of the teachers and professors in the public education system). Of these, 65.1% rejected the agreement and, therefore, have committed to continuing to mobilize. In contrast, those who viewed the preliminary agreement favorably remained at 34.9%.

Teachers' protests have been going on for months at various points in Catalonia, with blockades on the country's main roads and numerous slow marches through the capitals of each province. Although some of these blockades and obstructions have seen tense scenes with drivers who were trapped, the vast majority of mobilizations have passed without incident. All, however, have been closely monitored by agents of the Mossos d'Esquadra, deployed to ensure that there were no significant disruptions. These agents, normally public order officers, have had the directive during the latest protests to be especially sensitive to these mobilizations, according to sources consulted by ARA.

On the second day of the consultation on the agreement with the Department of Education, one-third of teachers have already cast their vote. Specifically, more than 32,000 teachers—out of a total census of almost 97,000 people—have voted in the consultation which will close on Thursday at 12 p.m. Meanwhile, teacher protests continue, albeit with much less mobilization capacity. This Tuesday, the strike called in Barcelona had a 12.2% turnout, according to data from the Department of Education.

The emotions of teachers in the classroom play a fundamental role in student learning. Until today, this hypothesis had been defended theoretically and on a small scale, but now, researchers from the University of Munich have been able to demonstrate this relationship with students and teachers from eight different countries. Research by the American Psychological Association published this Monday in the journal Journal of Educational Psychology has shown that when teachers experience enjoyment, they offer higher quality instruction that increases students' confidence in their abilities, interests, and academic performance. In contrast, teacher anger is linked to deficient teaching and poorer student outcomes.

After the preliminary agreement on Friday night between the majority unions and Education, teachers are called from this Monday to express their opinion on the pact, which foresees a gross monthly salary increase of 450 euros over four years. The consultation, which has been sent to teachers' corporate email, started at 12 noon and will last until Thursday at the same time. By 8 p.m. on the first day, more than 17,000 teachers out of a census of 94,490 had participated, 18%. Teachers must vote whether to accept the agreement, as proposed by USTEC, or to continue with the strikes planned until the summer holidays, the option defended by CGT, Intersindical and COS. In fact, these three unions have promoted new actions. This very Monday, about 200 teachers carried out a slow march in Montserrat and occupied the atrium of the Basilica of Santa Maria de Montserrat to hold an assembly and debate the preliminary agreement with Education. It is an unusual image, as a demonstration had never entered this space before. Around four in the afternoon, they ended the protest. In parallel, tonight about 300 teachers have set up a camp in front of the Territorial Services of Education in Girona and, later, organized a debate on the preliminary agreement, called by the Coordinator of Educational Assemblies.

For years, Kazui Sato unsuccessfully explained what was happening to him at school. Some classmates shot him with air rifles, sprayed insecticide in his face, and even threatened him with a knife. They also extorted hundreds of thousands of yen from him. But the school dismissed those episodes as simple "pranks" among teenagers. It took Japan fourteen years of legal proceedings for an independent investigation to officially recognize that Sato was the victim of severe bullying.