An Education Department error forces 50,000 teaching positions to be rescinded for the next academic year.

BarcelonaLess than two months before the start of the school year, the Department of Education has halted the allocation of teaching and professor positions for the next academic year, which was due to close this week, and has admitted that it will have to start the entire process from scratch. According to the report, The Vanguard As ARA has been able to confirm, the reason behind this decision is that there has been a "detection of unjustified incidents" that have led to a pool of positions that were supposed to be awarded to civil servants being assigned to temporary staff. All of this requires a redo of the entire allocation process, which cannot be completed until at least next week. This year, there were at least 50,000 positions at stake.

The Department of Education has not yet specified the extent of the impact of the incident, although everything indicates that hundreds of teachers will be affected because it has also been identified that hundreds of positions have not been included in the list of available positions for distribution. For the moment, the regional ministry has explained that it has opened an information file to determine why the instructions given were not followed, what the specific problem was, and whether there is anyone responsible who can be held accountable. The regional ministry has also apologized to those affected and requested the urgent appearance of the regional minister, Esther Niubó, in Parliament next Tuesday.

The error and its consequences have sparked a wave of criticism among the teaching sector. Sources from the central board of directors of public schools have lamented the situation, as they still do not know the staffing levels required to prepare the new school year. Key issues remain, such as the organization of schedules, tutoring, and the different specificities of each employee. For example, whether there are teachers who want a reduction in working hours that must be adjusted with the rest of the school's staff. "We will try to respond by making an additional effort that is not our responsibility, but either we get involved or the situation enters a crisis," assure the same sources consulted by ARA.

More time for the start of the school year

All of this means that public school principals will have to work through the month of August once the department fixes the problem, as they cannot report to September 1st without prior planning less than a week before the start of the school year. Faced with this problem, calls for a delay to the school year have quickly been raised.

In fact, USTEC, which was the first to react and described this incident as "the most serious situation experienced in the Department of Education in recent times," has requested that the start of the school year be postponed to September 12th in order to "compensate" those affected and the principals. The union made this request in a statement after meeting with Department of Education officials, demanding that they be held accountable for this "negligent" management.

Ignasi Fernández, general secretary of the secondary school teachers' union ASPEPC-SPS, explained to ARA that the organization has also requested a delay in the start of the school year in light of this new "disarray." "There are thousands of colleagues waiting again to see what happens; it's a disaster," he criticized, recalling that the errors in filling positions are "continuous." As the union's lawyer, he also announced that they will study all possibilities to see if responsibilities can be established through legal means.

All in all, the central board of directors sees it as highly unlikely that the department will delay the start of the school year to give them more time to organize, although they would welcome this measure. They explain that they recognize that the situation Educació has had to manage for the next school year is "extraordinary," and they understand that everyone can make mistakes, but they warn that this Friday's will have a "very serious impact" on the schools.

More than two hours a day on the road

Vero is one of the affected teachers who, as of mid-July, still doesn't know where she'll be working next year. She's an early childhood teacher who lives in Banyoles and has two young daughters. This year, she used to commute to Roses for work, but this time she was assigned to a school in Terrassa, meaning she would have had to leave home two and a half hours before school started to get there on time.

Having reduced hours to balance work and family life, she believes that working so far from home will be impossible: "I asked for reduced hours so I could take care of my daughters, not to be on the road. This isn't work-life balance." Now that the hiring process will have to be repeated, she admits she has a "glimmer of hope" that she'll get a position closer to home, but even so, she admits she has very little confidence in the department. "Educació says there are positions that haven't come up; that's our great hope, but I can't quite believe it," she laments.