Whilst the mayor of Torrevieja, Eduardo Dolon, walked the red carpet to welcome in the new school year, behind the scenes it was “chaos”, according to the spokesperson of the municipal executive of the PSOE, Joaquín Cos, as a result of the continued cuts by the Ministry of Education.
This chaos has been clearly evidenced by the lack of planning at the start of the school year, according to the PSOE, and whereas Orihuela saw 200 children left behind, in Torrevieja the result was the non-enrolment of more than 700 students, who will have to wait several weeks to be able to start the course.
In addition, the fact that the works at the CEIP Inmaculada began late has caused this school to still not be finished, so the prefabricated classrooms provisionally used by its students have not been freed, which if finished would allow many students without schooling to use these prefabricated classrooms from now on.
It should be noted, according to the socialist group, that the start of the works was postponed for a few months due to the electoral interest of the PP, which did not want to change the location of the polling stations that were usually set up at the Inmaculada School so as not to see its electoral results disrupted in the municipal elections of 2023.
Therefore, amid the usual trumpets of praise from the local government to themselves, the socialist party denounce this lack of planning so manifest that it directly affects something as important as the right to education.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Education has fulfilled the objective that it set itself at the beginning of the last academic year by cutting bus lines at night and with malice aforethought, which has left families with no room for manoeuvre.
The spokesperson for the socialist executive recalls that the poor urban planning of Torrevieja has meant that the majority of schools are located on the outskirts. In addition, the implementation of the single district by the Ministry of Education has meant the elimination of the mandatory criterion of proximity of the home to the school for the admission of students. These two factors accentuate the effects that the cuts in bus lines will have on students. Joaquín Cos denounces the inaction of the council, and in particular of both the education councillor and the mayor in the face of this cutback perpetrated by the Ministry.
Finally, the socialist party denounces the effects of the cuts in education that have been evident at the beginning of this school year, both in the lack of staff (with centres where there is a lack of staff to care for students with educational needs, counsellors, etc.), cuts in the number of hours available for action plans for improvement (which means the elimination of educational reinforcements for students who have a greater difficulty in learning and with a greater risk of dropping out of school) and an oversaturation of schools with student-to-classroom ratios above the rest of the community. All these cuts result in a reduction in the quality of teaching, assuming a disadvantageous situation for Torrevieja students compared to the rest of the community.
