A high school in L'Hospitalet, the first center to ask to leave the plan to send a mosso there

BarcelonaThe Margarida Xirgu Institute in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat has requested to withdraw from the plan by Education and Interior that foresees the integration of an undercover police officer in schools, as confirmed by center and union sources to ARA. The move was announced by the CUP in the plenary session of the Parliament this Wednesday, stating that a school in the municipality had requested to withdraw from the pilot program. For now, however, the Department of Education has not confirmed the step. In the same vein, sources from USTEC – the majority union in the education sector – also point out that some schools in Vic have also informed Educational Inspection that they wish to stop being part of the pilot program.

The Margarida Xirgu was one of the two centers in L'Hospitalet that had joined the pilot plan for school coexistence in the area of prevention and mediation that the Government made public this Tuesday and which had begun this same week in fourteen schools and institutes across the country. Exactly 24 hours ago, the Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, explained that, after the controversy generated around the plan, the department had contacted all the selected centers to apply the pilot test to find out if they wanted to continue in the program and that all had responded yes. Now, however, the management of this institute in L'Hospitalet has changed its mind and has asked to withdraw from the test.

This very Thursday, President Salvador Illa defended the pilot test in Parliament, reiterating that the program is voluntary and that "if no one wants it, it will not be implemented". Yesterday, Minister Niubó expressed herself in the same vein, insisting that "in no case has the plan been imposed on any center." In fact, the Government also explained that there were more centers that in the last few hours had asked to join the project, but that, for the moment, the plan cannot be expanded.

Without entering classrooms and unarmed

The plan that began to take shape at the beginning of the school year foresees integrating an undercover and unarmed agent of the Mossos d'Esquadra into schools to carry out mediation and coexistence improvement tasks. Niubó clarified that they are agents trained in coexistence and that they already had contact with educational centers. He also explained that the officer is not expected to enter classrooms and that their role will be subordinate to the pedagogical leadership of school and institute principals.

Regarding the centers chosen to test the plan, the counselor also detailed that "they have not been chosen because they are problematic," and that all types of schools and institutes had been approached. In principle, the plan is to be extended to fourteen schools and institutes in the educational areas of l'Hospitalet, Vic, l'Alta Ribagorça-Vall d'Aran, and Tàrrega; and also to two centers in El Prat de Llobregat and Sabadell.