Teachers’ offices have been converted into classrooms, children are crammed into classrooms and there are still 80 students that have not started school because there is no room. This is the dramatic situation in Orihuela Costa public schools, especially the CEIP Playas de Orihuela . The educational community has grown considerably, saturating this educational centre to the extreme, and now, Teachers and parents have once again taken to the streets to protest and demand that the Ministry of Education take urgent measures.
The Orihuela Playa area has seen its population increase in recent years. It is estimated, based on water consumption, that 45,000 people live there on a regular basis, far more than in Orihuela city. There are more inhabitants and, therefore, more children enrolled in the public school in the coastal area while for two years, the construction of a new educational centre has been promised, but without any progress.
Since May 2023, many of these new students have been enrolled “in an imaginary school”, the one that is still waiting to be built, as explained by the CEIP Playas de Orihuela School Board in an official letter to the Minister of Education, José Antonio Rovira .
However, as a ” fix ” 109 more children are being accommodated at the CEIP Playas de Orihuela and another 79 at the CEIP Los Dolses, as a consequence of this “failed promise” of opening a new school. And 80 students are still on the waiting list, that is, 80 students who at this stage of the school year still do not have a school to go to and are not receiving compulsory education. And the coastal schools are warning that more registrations are expected, which, although the school year is underway, are usual.
Currently, not only do the classes exceed the ratio of students per classroom established by law, but in addition many spaces have been enabled using teachers’ offices, staff rooms, multipurpose room, library , etc.
There should be 20 children in each class, taking into account that it is a centre of Special Singularity with 25% of the students having special needs. But in the CEIP Playas de Orihuela at this moment there are classrooms of 40 students, double what the law establishes, and an average that exceeds 18% of the capacity of the educational centre.
The saturation is such that there is no longer a single empty room, all the corners of the building “that are not optimal” have been converted into improvised classrooms and there is not a single free place where the teachers re able to meet and prepare the subjects that are to be taught.
The School Board is demanding “exceptional measures for exceptional situations.” Not only are they demanding the promised third school that “will not solve the problems,” but also a “third, a fourth and even a fifth school.”
Meanwhile, our political leaders continue to ‘sit on their hands’.
