The ombudsman proposes closing schools to combat segregation.

BarcelonaAlthough very slowly, it appears that the measures adopted within the framework of the 2018 pact against school segregation are beginning to bear fruit. This is indicated by the report presented this Wednesday by the ombudsman.Twenty priorities for action to combat school segregation in Catalonia." According to this document, in the last seven school years, school segregation in Catalonia has been reduced by almost 25%: it has fallen by 27.9% in elementary schools and 22.9% in high schools.

To understand this trend, it is important to keep in mind that while in the 2018/2019 academic year, to ensure balanced schooling, it was (hypothetically) necessary to transfer 43% of foreign students in primary school and 35% in secondary school, at the beginning of the current school year these proportions have been seen at 27% in secondary school.

Another way to assess the evolution of segregation is with the number of schools that have a very high proportion—higher than that of their neighborhood or city—of foreign students. In this regard, in the 2023/2024 academic year, there were still 76 schools where more than half of their students were newly arrived, a proportion not found anywhere in Catalonia, demonstrating the continuing problem of school and urban segregation in the country. Of these schools, 57 are elementary schools and 19 are secondary schools. Furthermore, there are two schools where this proportion exceeds 70% of the student body.

One of the reasons why school segregation is not being eliminated is the oversupply of education in Catalonia. A situation that has been aggravated by the drop in the birth rate and has not been offset by the arrival of newly arrived families. For this reason, the report by the Ombudsman suggests that one of the options to consider to reduce this educational inequality is to close schools and secondary schools. Always carrying out a prior analysis of the situation in each educational area, the study proposes closing three types of centers: public schools and institutes housed in prefabricated modules, subsidized schools that do not meet educational needs, and, "where appropriate," highly complex "highly ghettoized" schools.

In fact, the report makes a significant criticism of the Department of Education's handling of problems in a "ghettoized" school or institute. It states that the agency "has received complaints of ongoing conflicts surrounding the closure of highly complex centers in several municipalities" where educational and local authorities have taken "unsuccessful" measures to reverse the segregation of these centers. "In many of these cases, the ombudsman notes that the department does not incorporate changes in the programming of services due to pressure from the school community," the document states.

Therefore, it insists that "the closure measure, although it may be legitimately discussed by members of the school community of the affected centers, falls within the functions of educational programming assigned to the educational authorities." Furthermore, it also points out that the ghettoization situation itself represents "a violation of the right to equal opportunity for students."

Live registration is not taken into account

The report also refers to the management of live registration, that is, of students who enter the educational system mid-year and who this year have lived up to 74,328 students in CataloniaIn this regard, the document denounces that the maximum proportion of students with specific educational needs is not always considered in the management of active enrollment. They explain that although the proportion of active enrollment in highly complex schools has been reduced from 40% to 30%, this reduction has stagnated. Therefore, among the twenty measures they propose to address school segregation is the need to protect schools and institutes by ensuring that active enrollment students are not assigned to these schools altogether.