This 2023-24 academic year that has just started has been the most expensive in history, according to data from the OCU. And Catalan families are especially noticing this because they pay the highest dining menu in all of Spain and have a school voucher (100 euros per child for the primary stage, which starting next year will be 70 and will be extended to secondary) "ineffective". This is how the president of aFFaC (Assoaciacions Federades de families d'alumnes de Catalunya), Belén Tascón, summarized it in a press conference to assess the start of the 2023-23 academic year. "It is a measure that is designed to maintain consumption, but not to encourage family savings," Tascón lamented.
The "alarming" premature school dropout is another of the issues that they wanted to put on the table, since in one year it has gone from 14.8 to 16.9% when in Europe it does not reach 10%. An "unacceptable" increase that requires "drastic" measures, Tascón explained. Furthermore, he has also regretted that Catalonia is the third autonomous community in which its students have the worst reading comprehension in all of Spain, only behind Ceuta and Melilla. In this sense, he explained that many countries with better results in this area have already begun to study the relationship they have with the use of electronic devices, but he regrets that in Catalonia there is no self-criticism.
With the debate on the use of mobile phones in schools, Tascón has said that the aFFaC "is not in favor of prohibiting them", although it is "in favor of limiting their use" with "clear and general instructions for all educational centers by the department" both in the classrooms and outside of them. Lidón Gasull, director of aFFAc, regretted that the digital plan of the department headed by Anna Simó "has been limited to introducing mobile phones in classrooms, but not to critical education." Gasull has asked for the intervention of experts in this area and has also pointed out that teachers do not have sufficient preparation to address problems such as cyberbullying.
Without official data on the start of the course, the aFFaC has denounced the low supply of public places in early childhood, primary and secondary education and has confronted them with the "oversupply" existing in private-concerted education. Thus, according to the entity's calculations, there are 776 groups missing in public education to respond to demand, while this 2023/4 academic year, the private-subsidized classrooms have 117 groups that will not be occupied.
The same happens in the secondary stage where, according to the association's calculations, there are 14 groups missing in public institutes compared to the 208 left over in private schools. Gasull has also regretted that all these students are not allowed to continue in public education and are "forced" to go to private-subsidized education. The director of aFFaC considers that there is an "intentionality to maintain" the private-concerted system "to the detriment" of the public.
With regard to NESE students (Specific Educational Support Needs), Gasull recalled that one in four students has this need recognized and, when asked by journalists, he recalled that "inclusive education is a legal obligation that "it cannot be subject to a budget." The director has said that the schooling effort for NESE students is being done by the public system, when subsidies to the concerted system have tripled from the 2019-20 academic year to the 2022-23 academic year, while students with these needs only They have risen 3% in these centers.
The private-concerted network "not only does not take responsibility in a balanced way for schooling the NESE", but "it also receives more economic resources", stated the director of the aFFaC.
Finally, with regard to affective-sexual education, the family association has ironically stated that this is the third course that Education has made the announcement of introducing it in the classrooms without anything having been done yet and they have recognized that there is a "deficit" that must be covered.
