Finally, the Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, has acknowledged the error of plainclothes officers infiltrating a teachers' assembly and has apologized. Parlon described the incident as a "poorly planned operational maneuver" that has resulted in a breakdown of trust between educational unions and the Government at a time of maximum labor tension, and has committed to ending the inertia of the corps that caused it. The ministry has, therefore, completed the U-turn that was glimpsed in the early moments of the crisis, ruling out, however, any political responsibility or "bad faith" on the part of the corps.

Recover purchasing power and a shock plan to strengthen inclusive education. These are the two "main immediate priorities" of the negotiation framework that USTEC – the majority union in the education sector – has submitted to the Government with the aim of "unblocking the educational conflict". In a statement made public the day before the meeting between the Ministry of Education and the union forces, USTEC proposes a dozen measures focused on inclusive education and recalls that 40% of students have specific educational support needs, mostly for socioeconomic reasons. "Without a shock plan to strengthen staff and inclusive education, there will be no agreement," it assures. It also insists that "any proposal" will have to be ratified by the collective in a consultation and that it will not endorse any agreement "behind the backs of the centers or without the direct validation of the people who have sustained the mobilization".

Today is the first of the 17 days of strikes that teachers have called. Their stoppage not only impacts students and families who are left without classes: at a quarter past seven in the morning, the striking teachers have cut off traffic in places like Mataró, Manresa, Vic, and especially, at the entrances to Barcelona, very particularly on the Ronda de Dalt, and then in the city center. Among teachers there is the conviction that it is now or never, that they have been holding up the educational system for a long time, that they do not have reinforcements in classrooms, that they are increasingly complex, and that salaries are low considering the responsibility they have, and that while the salaries of the Mossos have been reviewed, those of teachers have not.Regarding this, today we publish this interview with the spokesperson for USTEC, Iolanda Segura, with a very clear headline: “With 400 euros per month we could talk about raising the protest”. Pay attention, however, to a couple of details. First, the nuance. The spokesperson says: “If it is scheduled that 200 euros are already this first year and then the rest in two or three more years, we could finish negotiating and see what the collective tells us. But what is non-negotiable is 200 euros in four years, which everyone knows perfectly well that it neither places us at the forefront of salaries in the rest of the communities nor reverses the salary loss”. And the other detail is that it's not all about salaries. What else could provoke the protest? The union leader says: “Regarding staff numbers, the agreement includes a series of measures that we negotiated ourselves, such as reducing ratios and providing resources for educational centers and for inclusive education. We are talking about figures that are both labor and teaching, special education educators, integration specialists, TEEI (specialist technician in early childhood education) and psychopedagogues”. It is important to note, therefore, that teachers are demanding improvements that go beyond economic ones. I say this because the polarization, for and against teachers, without nuances, which mixes things like having two months of vacation, has reached the dozens of comments the news has received.I believe it is fundamental that we look further, and of course, do so without starting from likes or dislikes. It may be annoying that they block traffic or demand more money, but teachers are focusing on a core problem, that of education. A problem means what is taught, how it is taught, and what educational and future job value for students the content taught in Catalan schools has. If we talk about education, for a long time now no one here is happy: the Government wants to reverse the results of the PISA report, we have concluded that the teaching career is neither sufficiently demanding nor sufficiently recognized, the postal district weighs heavily on the students' school reality, the job market cannot find well-prepared people... And it's not new, it's been a long time that with all kinds of governments, teaching has been fertile ground for the dissatisfaction of its protagonists. And thus, as a society, we cannot continue. And the Government, even less so. What a mistake it was to bring the spotlights and cameras to the signing of an agreement with unions that were not the majority ones, as if to say that everything is fine, madam baroness. Well, no, it is not, and we will hear about it during 17 days of strike, three of which are general education strikes, between now and the end of the school year.Good morning.

The conflict in education has made evident the unrest felt in schools and institutes, as well as the difficulties in finding solutions. An increasingly unequal society is bringing serious social problems to educational institutions. Growing inequalities, extreme poverty, social violence, and mental illness generate conflicts that teachers must face without the necessary resources and with a sense of isolation and abandonment. Signs on the doors of some schools express this clearly: "We are outraged that the educational psychologist is not part of the school staff"; "We are outraged that we have to train ourselves in our free time and at our own expense in dyslexia, autism spectrum disorder, specific language impairment, ADHD, dyscalculia..."

"Either negotiation or resignation." This has been the main message repeated by the 35,000 teachers and professors – 100,000 according to the organizers – who demonstrated this Friday in Barcelona to show their rejection of the agreement that the Government signed with CCOO and UGT to improve teachers' working conditions and the situation in classrooms. Their refusal has resulted in what the unions have called a "total strike": almost half of the teachers (43.77%) have joined the strike – although the unions put this percentage as high as 85%. This figure is slightly higher than the participation reported by the Department of Education during the last strike the sector staged in Catalonia last February, when the final tally was 40.94%.

On the second day of the week of strikes in the education sector, the teachers' protest not only maintained its momentum but actually increased. This Tuesday, the strikes were called in the territorial services of Penedès, Tarragona, and Terres de l'Ebre, and according to the tally provided by the Department of Education, participation rose to 38.48%, six and a half points higher than Monday's strike in Barcelonès and Baix Llobregat (31%). However, the unions calling the mobilization (USTEC – the largest in the sector – Secondary School Teachers, CGT, and Intersindical) again reported a much higher number of professionals participating in the strike: they claim that 70% walked off the job on this second day of protest.

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.

Massive, historic, or resounding are just some of the adjectives used to describe this week's strike in the education sector. After years of limited mobilization, this February many teachers have said enough is enough and made their discontent with the system known with more than 70,000 professionals demonstrating across the country and a strike supported by almost half of all teachers (40.94%), according to the government's figures, and 85% by the teachers themselves.

All the unions in the sector, associations of families from both public and state-subsidized private schools, and various teachers' platforms have called for a demonstration this Saturday to demand improvements in Catalan education. The mobilization, which for the first time since 2022 – when Josep González-Cambray was Minister of Education under the ERC government – will be a unified one, kicking off at 12 noon in Plaça Urquinaona in Barcelona. Initially, the demonstration was called by the teachers' unions USTEC, ASPEPC, CCOO Ensenyament, CGT Ensenyament, and UGT Ensenyament to demand improvements in the working conditions of teachers. However, other organizations and platforms have ultimately joined the mobilization, each with their own specific demands.

The majority of teachers in Catalonia's public schools and institutes are dissatisfied with the educational curriculum they teach their students. This is one of the conclusions of a survey conducted by the Ustec union of 10,000 teachers in the system. Specifically, 73 percent responded that they are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the curriculum because they consider it "inadequate or disconnected from real needs." In this regard, Xavier Díez, coordinator of the Study Group on the State of the Teaching Profession (GEEPD), criticized the fact that "you can't create a curriculum without teachers' participation in its design" and indicated that the curriculum should be concise so that each individual curriculum is concise. Díez insisted that "teachers see the curricula as increasingly long and unattainable" and that "everything should be simpler" and "not have so many indicators to evaluate." In fact, one of the first measures announced by the previous government after the PISA test debacle was that a "specification of the learning objectives" would be sent to schools. The first concrete results came in April —two years later—, under the leadership of the current Minister, Esther Niubó. Furthermore, the spokesperson for Ustec, Iolanda Segura, also raised the issue of the reduction in teaching hours for subjects such as Catalan language and literature in high school in recent years. "If you want quality, you can't cut back," she insisted.

Changes to school and college teaching staff for the new academic year: teachers over 55 years of age will be able to request a reduction of two hours of class per week. As specified in the Official Journal of the Generalitat (DOGC) this Monday, teachers who benefit from this benefit will have to have reached the required age before September 1st and, for the first time, will not be required to remain at school during these hours. However, USTEC, the largest union in the sector, has expressed dissatisfaction with certain conditions of the agreement, and there is uncertainty about how all the staff who adopt the proposal will be replaced.