Junqueras proposes to agree on teams of experts with prestige who will lead Education for "8 or 12 years"

BarcelonaThe president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, has raised in an interview with Europa Press the need for Catalonia to opt for a broad agreement between all political parties of democratic tradition, social and economic agents –management teams, unions and teachers– to overcome the current deadlock in the educational system, evidenced by "the strikes of recent months and the incident that "has prevented Catalonia from participating in the PISA report. According to Junqueras, this pact should be based on a model of shared, stable, and long-term governance (he proposes it be "for 8 or 12 years") with the creation of teams of experts of recognized prestige and trust within the sector, regardless of their political affiliation and of who governs the Generalitat during these terms.

According to Junqueras, the proposal stems from the conviction that the education of this country needs to move away from short-sighted partisan battles and opt for a model based on a team of people with proven solvency and who generate consensus among all stakeholders so that they lead the department for a sufficiently long period to "provide tranquility and stability". The objective would be to guide the action of the Department of Education. "Great agreements beyond parties" are needed, he claimed.

It would be a team of people, validated by Parliament, who would work with a consensual plan, and with adequate resources guaranteed for the eight or twelve years of their term. "This can be agreed upon and we don't need to be constantly changing the Education teams, resulting in 3 different councilors every 5 years," he said. In his opinion, this agreement can be implemented in one or two years and would allow prioritizing the needs of the educational system and creating a schedule of solutions, associated with economic resources.

The fact of guaranteeing budgetary allocations, according to Junqueras, must translate into a commitment to allocate a certain percentage to the affected sectors and, if they cannot be approved, there must be secured credit extension decrees. "[This] should be common practice. Unfortunately, for a long time, in the world as a whole, another way of doing politics has been imposed, which is reproach, contempt," he said, and lamented as a main example the current presidency of the United States, with Donald Trump.

The leader of ERC also considers that the initiative can be applied in other areas within the Catalan environment, such as infrastructure or energy. In the first case, the president of the Republican party claims the need to prioritize the maintenance of the current railway network and to build more kilometers of track for conventional trains. In the case of energy, he advocates for the promotion of renewables and for major national agreements on housing.

"The educational community must be heard"

Responding to Junqueras's proposal, USTEC spokesperson Iolanda Segura explained that "rather than new formulas or inventions, the educational community needs to be heard." Segura recalled the "endemic underfunding" that the Education sector suffers from, and that they "already have" the solutions to prevent a problem like the PISA tests from recurring, but what is really lacking is more "political will" to implement them.