The small concerted centers are the ones that are most in danger of closing the door
In the next 10 or 15 yearsdue to the low birth rate, the infant, primary and secondary classrooms will be diminished with a 20% less male and female students, according to the forecasts of the economic policy center EsadeEcPol. The closure of schools -point out specialists in educational policy- is a clear consequence of the demographic decline. The most penalized are the small concerted ones, something that in Catalonia is already beginning to happen. Some will close and others will be able to integrate into the public network as long as they meet the conditions set out in the center integration decree. Two of the main requirements are that there is a need for places in the area and that the state of the facilities is optimal.
For example, the concerted school Our Lady of Mount Carmel of Barcelonain the neighborhood saintscommunicated last February to the Consorci d’Educació that it will close the next academic year. Founded in 1927, the center has a single line (one classroom per course) and this academic year welcomes 185 students between infant education (15 in the first cycle and 40 in the second) and primary (130). The reason for the closure is the loss of students, aggravated by the pandemic. The management considers it unfeasible to propose its transition to the public network, given the wide offer in the neighborhood and the precarious situation of the facilities. It also announced its closure last year Roig Tesalia school (Barcelona)a concerted and secular school of a line, very familiar and historically rooted in Horta-Guinardó.
Barely a month after the Parliament approved modifying the decree law that regulates the incorporation of educational centers to the public networkwhich saved the closure of the Culture Academy of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, andhe Department of Education integrated this subsidized center into the network of Catalan public schools. Put forward by the families of the 319 infant, primary and ESO students, the fundamental argument for the reconversion was the need for schooling in the Torrassa neighborhood.
This course, the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi Project School also became part of the network public schools with the name of Institut Escola Projecte and an offer of 340 infant, primary and ESO places. Since 2019, it is the sixth concerted center integrated into the public circuit. The 30 professionals who worked at the school, including teachers and administrative and service staff, also switched to the public network.
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For the next course, the Department of Education has announced the incorporation of other four new schools concerted until today, which will move up to 15 the number of schools that change ownership. The last one announced is the Mare de Déu de la Soledat, in the district of sant andreuin Barcelona, a single-line school with 206 students enrolled this year 22-23 and which includes the stages of the second cycle of infant education (51 students) and primary education (155).
0-6 schools
The drop in the birth rate is a factor that the Department of Education is already considering in its plans for the future. A year ago, the ‘councillor’ Josep González-Cambray assured that the ‘department’ was open to studying an idea proposed by the Marc Unitari of the Educational Community (MUCE) according to which, taking advantage of the fact that the birth decline is going to leave spaces in public schools, they could be promote early childhood education centers from 0-6 years with their own identity, so that stages 0-3 and 3-6 are closely linked. The MUCE argues that this 0-6 cycle is a consolidated conceptual realityand proof of this is the new curriculum for early childhood education that includes precisely this segment, which would help to underline the importance of early schooling. “These are decisions that we have to discuss with the town halls and we will take them with them,” he said, recalling that rural schools already contemplate the 0-6 stage as a unit.