Read Catalan version
The opening of rural schools is a key measure of the Government in the fight against the depopulation of rural municipalities. It allows families to send children ages 1 to 3 to school where they live, even if it is a small town, and not have to do so in other towns. For this reason, the Generalitat of Catalonia has opened 26 new rural "bressol schools" this year in municipalities with less than 2,500 inhabitants located throughout the territory and that did not have this service. In total, 144 towns have already implemented the first cycle of early childhood education for I1 and I2 in rural schools.
All of this is part of the Integration Plan for the initial stage in the rural school. This plan has made it possible to open new "bressol schools" in rural environments through the creation or integration of municipal nurseries located within the rural school buildings. The objective is to fight against the loss of students in smaller towns, which in many cases leads to the impoverishment of community life and even depopulation.
During the current legislature, a total of 101 "escoles bressol" located in rural school buildings are expected to be in operation. This 2023-24 academic year, 26 new ones have been opened compared to the previous academic year and another 23 "bressol schools" will open next September. In the 2021-22 academic year, eight new schools were opened and in 2022-23, 44 more.
This action is part of the Plan to revitalize the rural environment, which the Generalitat of Catalonia launched in October 2022. The objective is to promote the repopulation of smaller municipalities through the creation of "bressol schools" within the schools, in a firm commitment to reversing depopulation and facilitating as much as possible equal educational opportunities in rural areas.
The schools that have opened since the 2021-2022 school year in towns that until now did not have this service are Les Curculles-ZER Empordà school, located in Palau de Santa Eulàlia, in Girona, with 10 enrolled students, and the school of Campllong, in Campllong, Girona, with 18 students enrolled this school year. For the 2024-25 academic year, the Pedraforca school is scheduled to open in Saldes, in Central Catalonia, with a forecast of 3 to 5 students.
They are the only public schools in the town that do not have a group by educational level because they have few students. The school curriculum is worked with a multilevel student body, that is, grouping different courses. They are part of the rural school zones (ZER), institutions made up of rural schools in a close environment that are considered a single center and that respect the identity of the centers that comprise it.
In Catalonia there are 363 schools located in rural areas. This represents 22.3% of the total number of public schools. Of the 363 rural schools, 260 are cyclical schools in municipalities with less than 2,000 inhabitants (grouped into 86 ZER's), 95 are cyclical in municipalities with less than 2,500 inhabitants, and eight are cyclical in municipalities with more than 2,000 inhabitants. The latter must meet certain criteria: be in a singular entity or Decentralized Municipal Entity with less than 2,000 inhabitants and that there is more than one school in the municipality, and that it is located at distances greater than three kilometers from an urban area with more of 2,000 inhabitants.
