A thousand appointments in schools and institutes two weeks before the start of the school year
USTEC criticizes the fact that there were vacancies that were already available in July and were not included in the award lists.
BarcelonaAfter the chaos caused by the error that forced the Ministry of Education to repeat more than 50,000 teaching awards in the month of July, schools and institutes face the school year with an uncertainty that has been present for years: which teachers will be added to their teaching staff. One of the most unpredictable pieces of this puzzle is the number of teachers who, once the final appointments for the school year have been made (on June 11, using data from vacancies as of the end of May), are leaving their jobs. A situation that, according to data provided by the department to ARA, 1,319 teachers have experienced this summer, either due to retirement, because they have changed jobs, or because they have moved to other regions—many to the Valencian Country—leaving their positions empty at a time when the mechanism for filling them is halted during the summer holidays.
Despite acknowledging that this situation repeats itself at the beginning of each school year and clarifying that this thousand places is not a very high number compared to the vacancies that are actually filled, USTEC spokesperson Iolanda Segura criticizes the government for having better managed this dance of empty chairs. "Considering that they had to repeat 57,000 allocations in mid-July, they could have taken advantage of the opportunity to update the lists and add the vacancies that at that time were already known to be unfilled. If they hadn't been in such a hurry, they could have recounted," Segura insists.
Furthermore, the union spokesperson also assures that on other occasions, the bulk of teaching allocations had been made in June and, subsequently, in July, appointments had been made with the new positions that had remained unassigned during that period. "We're finding that professionals who have had to accept jobs hundreds of miles from home have seen appointments made in their municipalities for positions that may have been vacant two months ago," Segura laments.
Dozens of empty chairs
All of this has meant that, two weeks before the start of the school year—and with teachers still not back at work—some schools and secondary schools have more than a dozen unfilled teaching positions. For example, as of Tuesday, and according to data collected by USTEC and reviewed by this newspaper, a secondary school in Baix Llobregat had to make appointments to fill up to 15 positions. This has also been the case at a secondary school in Baix Penedès with 14 positions in Montsís del Baix, and at Baix Llobregat with more than a dozen unfilled teaching positions. Furthermore, there are also dozens of schools that had more than five positions up for grabs in these first appointments of the school year.
A priori, with the 1,319 appointments made this Tuesday, this problem should be resolved at the administrative level. However, even if all vacancies were filled, schools would still have to deal with the inconvenience of new teachers only having five days to adapt to the school.
However, according to the USTEC registry, in this Tuesday's appointments there are already around fifty vacancies that have not been awarded: These are mainly positions for vocational training (VT) teachers, especially in computer systems and applications, counseling, and personal image processes. It should be noted that this Tuesday's appointments only include positions that have become vacant in recent months, but not the replacements that schools may already need with teachers who have had to request leave in recent weeks and who will be appointed on August 28.
The MIR (Registered Internship) for teachers is extended by one year.
This Tuesday the Government also approved the extension of the Sensei program, the pilot test for one more year launch a MIR for teachersThe temporary initial residency program in Catalan educational centers was launched in 2023 and, although it remains in the pilot phase, 55 educational centers across the country have already participated, with a total of 247 new teachers selected and 85 mentors.
