Next week, schools and high schools will reopen their doors. Thousands of children and adolescents will reunite with their classmates, meet the education professionals who will accompany them every day, and resume a routine that is much more than going to class: it is learning, growing, socializing, and finding a space of protection and opportunities.And like every year, we return to talk about the cost of materials, whether there will be enough teaching staff, the available public places, the school canteen, and the conditions of the educational centers. This year, in addition, we are talking about mobilizations. And also about what will happen with the field trips that many centers will stop doing.But it is not enough to take inventory of shortcomings every month of September. It is necessary to ask oneself what Catalan public education really needs. The problems that we will face again this September are not new, they are not unforeseen, and they are not solved with patches. They are the result of political decisions accumulated year after year.Public education does not need gestures. It needs a clear, sustained, and honest political commitment. And this commitment begins with how we plan the educational offer. It is necessary to guarantee a sufficient public network in each territory, for all children and adolescents, and to strengthen it instead of weakening it. Year after year, groups are closed in public schools, and, paradoxically, educational grants that do not respond to the country's real educational needs are maintained, or even expanded.And it also involves a matter that can no longer be postponed: the free nature of public education. It is not normal, nor has it ever been, for families to have to bear costs linked to schooling. Every euro that a family pays to educate their son or daughter in the public system is one more inequality that the system tolerates. Access to quality public education cannot depend on the income of each household.This issue goes beyond the expenses strictly linked to what happens inside the classroom. Let us think, for example, about the school canteen, which should be free and universal and form part of an educational policy that guarantees equity; or about the outings and activities that schools incorporate into their educational project, and which currently can depend on financial contributions from families or on the availability of professionals to make them possible depending on the school.

“It must be admitted that, today, governing is not easy at all. At least, not as easy as years ago”. I write the sentence in quotes because I hear it more and more often said in private by politicians from different parties, both from the Government and the opposition. They cite the impoverishment of workers, the lack of housing, media atomization and the impossibility of directing the narrative due to the multiplication of emitters, the hostile environment of social networks, the harm caused to people's pockets by political or economic decisions made thousands of kilometers away, the magnitude and frequency of natural disasters, etc. Some add bureaucracy, which slows down (when it doesn't drown) administrative processes, and the labor consequences that the deployment of AI may entail (Bill Gates has just stated that it is socially more dangerous than the technology industry admits).

There are some heroes. They are real and moral heroes. In the square. You won't see them. You won't hear them either. Let me introduce you: they are the teachers of the reception classrooms. But, hey, the ones who always speak in Catalan. Hello (in Catalan).

Perhaps the worst move by the Isla administration so far is the phantom agreement reached with the teachers' unions. This agreement, which only involved the minority unions in the sector—UGT and Comisiones Obreras—was nevertheless announced with great fanfare, hailed as "historic," and given extraordinary publicity. This left teachers feeling not only neglected but also mocked, thrown to the wolves by a public opinion all too receptive to the caricature of the teacher who takes two months of vacation and then complains. It was a tactically disastrous move because it left the major unions no option but to demonstrate their strength in the streets, in the most forceful way possible.

Every so often, the educational debate returns to the same point: the increase in conflicts in schools and the growing sense of vulnerability among teachers. The latest study by the Spanish teachers' union STEs-I, which found that 83% of teachers perceive an increase in verbal and physical aggression from students, has revived a familiar narrative: that of the school as a space in permanent crisis.

We are experiencing intense weeks of strikes, protests, and agreements in education. There is concern, uncertainty, and exhaustion within the sector, but also commitment, enthusiasm, and an admirable determination to continue providing education.

Quality education accessible to all, regardless of a student's family's economic status, is one of humanity's greatest achievements. It is essential for building a society of free citizens who think for themselves and understand the many alienating strategies employed by political and economic powers. Emancipatory education is not instruction aimed at producing functional, efficient, and obedient adults who can easily integrate into the productive machinery of capitalism. Good education equips children with the necessary tools to understand themselves and their place in the world, to be aware of the importance of the bonds that unite us with others, and of the human and humanistic values ​​that make collective life a good life. It is an education that fosters kindness, that nurtures and develops each child's innate abilities, that empowers them to stand firmly on the ever-shifting ground of existence. It is not about curricula or projects: it is about connections and coexistence, about recognition and respect. And we will have role models who guide us beyond the family sphere.

Education today is a system as complex as it is crucial for our collective future. Classrooms are a melting pot of inequalities, shifting expectations, and decisions that will shape life trajectories. But complexity isn't just what comes through the door: it's also how the system organizes itself to respond.