The reduction to a single educational zone of the entire Valencian Community is one of the main changes that the Valencian government will make for the next school year, which will already have new nuances after the change of political color in the Palau de la Generalitat. The first will be the admission by single district that this Tuesday the Plenary of the Consell will approve by decree and that, as the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, advanced yesterday, “gives parents back the ability to select the school they consider more suitable for their children's education."
Mazón, who highlighted his government's effort to ""expand the spaces of educational freedom", pointed out that this decree draws a "different future map" for young Valencians, in which the bill for change the linguistic model in Valencian schools that is processed in Les Corts Valencianes. Another novelty is that it gives more points to families with low incomes, large families, single parents, beneficiaries of the Valencian Inclusion Income and those who work in an educational center.
It is the second big novelty for the new course, after the announcement a week ago of free education in the 0-3 year old age group, and one of the measures that define the educational policy of the PP-Vox government in the Valencian Community. “The educational segregation that we have denounced so much is going to end,” said the head of the Consell yesterday, visiting the Vila-real City Hall.
Mazón advanced the main pillars of a decree that arrives while the educational community waits for the admission dates of the next course, still unpublished. The new measure will apply, starting with the new academic year, to public and private subsidized educational centers that teach Early Childhood Education, Primary Education, Compulsory Secondary Education and Baccalaureate and in the Special Education Centers of the Valencian Community.
Until now, the admissions process recognized areas of influence and created different school districts. Thus, those who lived in a certain area had a higher score to access the centers in their same district or neighborhood. But the Generalitat Valenciana argues that its proposal prevents a family from being unable to access a center that is close to them, but that is included in a different school district, due to the establishment of zones.
This way of assigning points in the admission process was launched in 2015 with the Botànic government and was developed by Compromís from the Department of Education, in the hands of Vicent Marzà, now a candidate for MEP. The Valencian formation yesterday called the measure "segregating" and accused it of promoting "educational ghettos", while criticizing that "it will now be the centers that choose the students and not the other way around, with a point of discretion," highlighted the Compromís Education spokesperson in Les Corts, Gerard Fullana, who also announced that they will consider filing an appeal against the decree after its publication in the Diario de la Generalitat.
And the new admission process will allow the centers to grant one point at their discretion, a measure recovered from the previous Popular Party governments, but which at this time was two points. The recovery of this “special point” is, according to Mazón, to be able to manage the capacity of choice “based on the educational line of each public or subsidized center in the Valencian Community,” he detailed yesterday.
Likewise, among the new features for the next academic year, according to Mazón, there will be “special priority” for lower-income families, for those who receive the Valencian Inclusion Income and “conciliation will be favored,” since anyone who has a family member working as teacher at the center, will have priority in admission. Until now, the area close to the work address of one of the student's parents was also considered an area of influence, so we will have to see what the modifications are once the regulations are published.
Another issue that the president emphasized is prioritizing large families and single parents. Although until last year points were given to students with siblings in the chosen center, the head of the Consell assured that starting next year these two families will have "more priority than until now."
