A new front has opened in Ateneu Barcelona. after the unexpected dismissal of the director of the library A few weeks ago the teachers of the Escola d’Escriptura del Ateneu protested the way in which Isona Passola, president of the emblematic cultural association, is holding the reins. Specifically, they criticize the alarm that Passola’s statements about the ruin of the Ateneu have created among her students. “It is irresponsible to declare, as he has said, that the association is in danger and that he has considered closing it,” says Pau Pérez, director together with Jordi Muñoz of the Escola d’Escriptura, which was attended by, among others, Ildefonso Falcones, author of the best -seller ‘The cathedral of the sea’.
Together with many teachers at the school, both signed a forceful statement sent to the media through which they want to reassure all those who start classes this week. “We are absolutely committed. We will not let their training and their interest in culture in general and literature in particular be affected by unfortunate statements or by ways of doing and managing outside those of the group of professionals at the School of Writing” .
the school works
This new course more than 1000 people have already paid for their studies in advance but the alarms have jumped among them before the apocalyptic vision of Passola before the economic deficit of the Ateneu Barcelonés. In that building on Calle Canuda 6 is where the face-to-face writing courses are held. For her teachers, the restlessness generated by Passola is a danger. “We want clear, precise explanations to be given and for it to be made clear that our jobs are not at risk,” says Pérez. The school works.
The decision to set up a Board of Directors in the company that legally manages the School with members of the current Board of the Ateneu has led the workers of the school to be on their guard and set up their first company committee. Everything is changing and prepare for the fight. Historically, the School’s relations with the Ateneu have not always been smooth. The statement recalls how after the years of the covid in which everything was reorganized to be able to maintain online teaching, the Board of Directors of the Ateneu Barcelonès, then chaired by Jordi Casassas, prohibited the entry into the headquarters of the Ateneu Barcelonès to School teachers alleging that ” teachers are not partners. Most were people with an indefinite employment contract and had been working at the Ateneu headquarters for years.
the numbers sing
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The teachers of the School want to put the dots on the i’s as they have made clear through a statement sent this Tuesday. In it they recall, among others, that “since its foundation in 1998 and incorporated as a Unipersonal Limited Company in 2012, the school company has obtained positive economic results in recent years, despite the COVID-19 pandemic”. Your data is clear: The School is sustained thanks to the enrollment of its students. This has gone from just over 300 enrollments during the 2004-2005 academic year to almost 2,400 enrollments in the 2021-22 academic year. The numbers speak for themselves. The annual turnover of the School has gone from earning approximately 140,000 euros in the 2004-05 academic year to those close to 1,400,000 euros from the last financial year, 2021-22.
“Beyond the School’s own accounting, our educational center has become from many years ago one of the main sources of income for the Ateneu Barcelonèsabove, for example, the contributions that the entity receives from each of the four public administrations that subsidize it”, say the workers of the school that includes authors such as Mercedes Abad, Laia Aguilar and Melcior Comes. The obligation that Since 2006-07, the School’s on-site students pay membership fees for the duration of their course, which has led to incomes of many hundreds of thousands of euros, which have been decisive in the budgetary balance of the Ateneu Barcelones. But with covid and online teaching, everything changed. The Ateneu School continues to enjoy enormous prestige. But the Ateneu needs money.