Society

Pedro de Luna High School Mobilizes for Quality Education: “Schools Are Deteriorating Due to Lack of Funding”

The public education sector is renewing its demands one month after the start of the school year. The Pedro de Luna High School education assembly in Zaragoza will gather outside the school this Wednesday during recess to demand that authorities provide the “necessary” resources for “quality education.” It is calling on teachers, students, families and non-teaching staff to mobilize.
Pedro de Luna High School Mobilizes for Quality Education: “Schools Are Deteriorating Due to Lack of Funding”

Among their main demands, they point to “high” student-to-teacher ratios that, according to the group, “worsen” the teaching and learning process and prevent diversity from being addressed “as it should be.” They also denounce the “constant absences” of teachers and non-teaching staff due to positions not being filled “on time”: “The burden falls on colleagues and management teams.” They also reiterate the lack of classroom assistants, support staff, reception classes and Spanish-language instruction.

The need for investment in climate control is another of the education community’s demands. “Given the increasingly harmful effects of climate change, for more weeks the environment has become unbearable in more areas of the school,” they stress.

CONCERN OVER EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES AND THE FUNDING OF UPPER SECONDARY EDUCATION

The school assembly denounces the fact that the administration has “limited itself” to “imposing procedures and protocols” in response to problems surrounding extracurricular activities instead of providing “solutions.” Teachers consider these trips “necessary” and of “high educational value,” as well as a distinctive feature of the school.

Finally, the assembly rejects the possibility of non-compulsory education being funded through agreements with private companies and warns that this formula would “increase privatization by diverting millions of euros in public money to privately run schools receiving public funding.” The group believes that, at the same time, public schools are deteriorating as a result of insufficient funding, and says the gathering aims to highlight its intention to continue organizing in defense of quality public education.

About this article: Originally published in Spanish by AragonDigital.es and—following a selection process by our journalists—made available to the international audience of AragonDaily.com. Both newspapers belong to companies within the ARAGON DIGITAL GROUP.