A hundred schools are at risk of closing due to the drop in birth rates

BarcelonaIn the last fifteen years, the birth rate in Catalonia has fallen by 37%. And next year, for the first time, this drop in births will affect all educational courses, from I3 to 4th year of ESO. This situation forces the Department of Education to decide: either the ratios are reduced –with the consequent need for more spaces and professionals– or lines are closed in schools and institutes that see how increasingly empty classrooms are. "School planning is what can end up making your child end up in a middle-class ghetto," said this Tuesday the director of the Bofill Foundation, Ismael Palacín.

The entity warns of a worrying situation: in Catalonia there are 116 centres between schools and institutes that are at risk of closing because they have only one line and in I3 and 1st year of ESO (the courses in which the educational stages begin) they have 25% of the places empty. According to a report made public this Tuesday by Bofill, the vast majority of centres that are at risk are schools (111) and only five are institutes. In addition, half of those hundred centres are segregated. "It is normal that if they see that they will have to close, they ask that the students with registered residence – who are generally vulnerable students – be sent to them so that they can keep the classrooms open," laments the author of the study, Maria Segurola.

Regarding the ownership of the affected centres, 63 are private and 57 are public. The foundation assures that this situation is due to poor planning by the Department of Education, which has made decisions regarding school planning without taking into account the demographic evolution of Catalonia. The country has suffered a significant drop (at least among minors), despite the constant arrival of foreign students.

As the study points out, all of this means that at present more than half (58%) of the schools in Catalonia have only one line of I3. This has a direct effect on competition between schools and the resulting school segregation. "It may seem like a technical issue, but school planning is a political gamble," Segurola insisted. The expert in school segregation has put on the table the fact that demographic changes will always affect schools. "The question is whether they will serve to enlarge the problems or to address pending challenges," she warned.

Unplanned planning

Segurola explained that at the moment the planning of school places is done every year "suddenly": "We look at the data in the register and we don't look at it again until the following year"; something that makes it impossible for there to be organisational changes, she laments. That is why Bofill urges the department to make a plan with a future horizon. "Years before school starts we already know how many students there will be; therefore, it can be planned," the expert reiterated.

The foundation insists that it is necessary for the department to have a plan that reorganises the places in each centre, which includes a control of the offer also in the concerted centres and which includes the possibility of merging schools or institutes with few students. "We know what will happen in ten years. Why don't we start planning, especially considering that we are experiencing a situation of underfunding of education? It is necessary that the department becomes aware and does not leave all the weight of managing the offer in the municipalities," Segurola insisted.

Bofill insists that the fall in the birth rate can serve to improve the educational system. "Having fewer students can be bad news if it is not planned well, but it can be very good news considering that we will have the same money for 30% fewer students. We can use it to improve ratios, extend the canteen service or lengthen compulsory education," Palacín explained.

One in three institutes above the official ratio

On the other side of the scale of poor planning of educational places is the situation of the institutes. According to Bofill, the combination of the boomThe demographic crisis of 2008 and the increase in the number of newly arrived students in the middle of the course meant that in the 2022/2023 academic year, one in three institutes offering 4th year of ESO (27%) had a group above the official ratio, that is, with more students than the course should have.

"This situation is due to the lack of a plan to attend to the boom studentsdemographic that arrived at secondary school, as well as the new additions that arrived from abroad, already announced in the official forecasts," says the study made public this Tuesday. They are only allocated to centers where there is a free vacancy, without taking into account the degree of complexity of the center or the specific needs of this student.