The flows and changes in demography directly affect educational planning. Only 15 years ago, although the birth rate of the indigenous population continued to decline, in Catalonia we lived a saturation of the school demand due to the children of migration. In a few years, the classrooms were filled beyond what would be pedagogically recommended and a thousand barracks were installed, the vast majority of which are still in operation. Beyond the large cities, in rural municipalities with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants this increase in population was also noted.
The real-estate crisis stopped the migratory flow and schools, little by little, saw their saturation reduce in early childhood education and later, in primary education. When this drop reached secondary school, the covid epidemic period occurred, which showed us the importance of being present in the classroom.
Population movements due to climatic, economic or military conflicts, together with the reorganization of work linked to the new economic drivers, the reconversion in industry and services, make it difficult to forecast educational needs and plan the training offer to medium term.
The right of children and young people to public education in quality conditions, as well as access to adequate post-compulsory training, must define the road map in the adequacy of the offer. In this sense, I want to emphasize that in the last three years, there is a lack of vocational training places for thousands of young peoplea totally foreseeable fact that leads to early school leaving or to the privatization of training.
We have learned that the population drop in Catalonia is not the same everywhere. It is necessary to study territory by territory, and observe changing trends due to unforeseeable circumstances. Flexible educational center models are imposed, which allow classrooms to be increased or decreased based on these changes, minimizing student travel times, with good adaptable equipment and teaching staff with the capacity to meet the needs of the centers.
This has been understood in the majority of the autonomous communities that have legislated to create Compulsory Education Centers, Integrated Public Centers or Basic Education Centers, various denominations that are equivalent to our institute-school, which the LEC already included and which brings together to a hundred centers.
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This is how the MIF (Improvement of Teacher Training) advanced, proposing some initial training studies with training complements to facilitate the necessary flexibility. This is also how the LOMLOE has understood it when it promotes teaching by fields and with different methodologies, overcoming the idea of ’teacher-subject-classroom’. This is how they practice it More than 80 rural school areas in Catalonia that allow access from small towns to infant and primary educationworking by cycles and not courses. We need to bring compulsory secondary education closer to all towns with less than 3,000 inhabitants with experienced formulas, gaining in quality and equity.
A new impetus and rethinking of an educational map is urgently needed to achieve an inclusive education. We have the legal tools, the LOMLOE itself and the courageous development of the LEC – municipal powers, educational zones, consortiums in large cities – and there are economic resources. Political will is necessary to reach consensus between the Department of Education and the municipalities. We’ve already taken too long!