The start of the school year on September 8th pits Education and unions against each other

BarcelonaFirst clash between unions and Education since the PSC entered the Palau de la Generalitat. This Tuesday the ministry led by Esther Niubó has put on the table the proposal of the always controversial start date of the school year, and has already encountered union opposition.

As announced in an interview with the ARA, the intention of the ministry is that the course begins before the Diada, a date that Niubó described as "reasonable", because it should give teachers enough time to prepare without the need for students to return to the classroom almost in mid-September. Thus, as SER Catalunya has advanced and ARA has been able to confirm from various union sources, this Tuesday the Department of Education has communicated its intention to the union table: that the 2025-2026 academic year begins on Monday, September 8.

This proposed date for the start of classes would be for infants, primary and secondary school, while in high school and FP they would start after the Diada, on Friday, September 12.

Education sources are currently limiting themselves to saying that they will not confirm the start date of the course until they have formally communicated it to the unions and the board of directors of schools and institutes.

This proposal would mean that the school year would start just one day earlier than the current one, when the school year started on Monday, September 9. With the new date that the department must propose to the unions on Tuesday, teachers and professors would have a whole working week, from September 1 to 5, to prepare for the course before the students return to the classroom.

No room for negotiation

Before the meeting this afternoon, several unions had already explained to ARA that they do not look favorably on the proposed calendar that Educació is putting on the table, but after the meeting with Educació both USTEC and CCOO have raised the tone. "The negotiation has been conspicuous by its absence," said the spokesperson for USTEC, Iolanda Segura, who said that "just by entering the meeting they have already warned that they could not change these dates because it was an investiture agreement."

In the same sense, the person in charge of teaching staff at CCOO, Marga Rodríguez, has assured that in the meeting this Tuesday "there was no negotiation, but it was only an administrative procedure," and has warned that two years ago, with the advance of the course, "the teachers and the centers have not been prepared."

Both unions and also the secondary school teachers' union ASPEPC insist that they want the return to school to be after the Diada, and they assure that they will "press" to try to "start some more days of preparation."

From ASPEPC, its secretary, Xavier Massó, explains that they do see it as a good thing that in high school and FP it starts on September 12, but they also do not share the intention that in ESO it starts on September 8. "More hours does not mean an improvement in the results," he warns. He criticizes that starting before the Diada "will not leave room to prepare the course because there will be many teachers who will join on September 6 or 7, since after the various stabilization processes There will be many temporary positions that will take time to be filled."

In any case, a priori we will have to wait until Thursday, after the meeting of Education with the board of directors, for the Government to confirm the definitive date on which Catalan students will return to the classrooms next year.