"I don't need to explain the difficulties we have in these territorial services and, throughout Catalonia, to cover many specialties due to the lack of teachers. I will remember possibilities in case any management has not remembered them", heads a letter that the educational centers of the region of Barcelona recently received. It sets out a series of recommendations, such as the possibility for management teams to look for possible replacements, with the necessary requirements, or even without any, and assessing their suitability.
There are no teachers to replace those who leave. In some cases, children are without a teacher for months. It is a situation that was already present last year, but which has worsened this year to worrying limits, Jesús Martín, of the UGT, and Marga Romartínez, of CC.OO, agree.
Since January, the Gabriela Mistral high school, in Sant Vicenç dels Horts, has been without a mathematics, English and visual arts teacher, this time from Christmas to Easter. And the subject of computer science teachers in FP (as in other specialties) is an agony. At Narcís Monturiol they have been without a maths teacher for a month, and the classes have been replaced by the management. In high school, absences hurt more because each week is a precious commodity. At the Llauna high school, in Badalona, timetables were disrupted in the middle of the year.
When a teacher communicates a leave of absence or a leave of absence, the data is entered into a template that automatically designates a substitute, the first on the job board list in that specialty. If it is not covered, it becomes "difficult coverage" and the Department of Education, through the territorial services, look for candidates through other channels.
In previous courses, the "difficult covers" corresponded to mathematics, Catalan and English for ESO. "Now there are almost no subjects that are not difficult to cover", says a director of Baix Llobregat.
The problem is centered on the ESO, high school and FP stages. "The department is working to improve the situation, but in the short term it is complicated. If the managements that have positions that have not been filled for some time value any alternative that is not provided for in this circular or want to comment on the situation of the center with the personnel service, we will talk about it. And I say let's talk because I don't have the powers to multiply the number of teachers".
Given this situation, directors use the agenda, contact teachers' networks, ask if anyone knows someone on social networks, call acquaintances or professionals who would not have thought of taking classes (to teach a language you need a degree and the level C2), but which could solve a withdrawal by expressing the commitment to take the master's degree in the next two years. "If you find one, you tell him to run to the territorial services", says a center director sotto voce.
In fact, every year there is a strong demand to take the secondary school master's degree, which is essential to take classes. But universities offer few places. Next year there will be 2,700 in total in Catalonia, 526 more than this year.
IT teachers in FP can extend their hours with overtime, but this exception, adopted only for this course, cannot apply to other subjects with urgent need, such as mathematics, physics and chemistry or technology, because it requires a Government agreement that has not been reached.
However, in practice, this is what happens. Teachers cover the classes of those who are absent, either with simple guards or teaching subjects in an extraordinary way. Thus, days, weeks or months. And this stresses the cloister, the families and also affects the teacher who is away. Jordi Colomer, a maths teacher, had an injury over the weekend and ran early on Monday to be discharged and to start the process immediately. He explains that he was nervous about whether they would give him two weeks (14 days) because they already know that if it is not 15 days they will not send a substitute. "Even if you send them assignments, you always have the feeling of leaving them hanging and you worry about a particular student," he says. "On the way back, you find them out of sorts and it's hard for them to pick up the pace again."
"We don't want the students to be the ones harmed", points out Carla Soler, Catalan language teacher at the La Llauna high school in Badalona, with 800 students and 70 teachers. In their case, the students received a double ration of Catalan classes during the three weeks that the Spanish teacher was on leave. And now that he has rejoined, this teacher will teach more Spanish. This, in exchange for the teachers' efforts. In high school, every week counts, because they have selectivity, Education knows this, which seems to prioritize substitutions at this stage, according to Soler, also coordinator of high school.
"I, and the head of studies, started teaching mathematics at the expense of management hours", says the director of a Barcelona centre. The alternative was for them to lose half a term. But what is taken from one place, is lost from the other. Or add more hours.
Education has announced that from September the interims will not be able to choose by municipality, but by county, to increase the possibilities of substitutes. The measure has outraged unions, who believe it harms people without a vehicle.
What has led to this situation? Is it a question of more casualties or less attractiveness of the profession? Poor planning? Has there been a special situation? In the absence of answers from the Department of Education, the directors of the centers believe that the absences have not been greater than in other years and that, instead, the course has been marked by the lack of teachers, more pronounced from January Precisely that month, the workforce was reinforced with 3,500 teachers, to compensate for the reduction in teaching hours agreed with the unions with the aim of de-escalating the strike called for the advance of the calendar. This could have emptied the job board.
"In June there are examinations, which is why many teachers prefer to resign or freeze their number in the stock market in order to study", says Víctor del Arco, spokesperson for Pindoc, an association of temporary workers who complains that the criteria of the merit competition to stabilize the places have left teachers with long experience.
