Aragonès supports Cambray and refuses to mediate in the teachers’ protest

At third day of strike –the last one this week– in protest at the management of the Minister of Education, Josep Gonzàlez-Cambray, some 10,000 teachers of the public school They have demonstrated through the center of Barcelona until they reached the gates of the Palau de la Generalitat, where they have demanded the mediation of the ‘president’, Pere Aragonès, in this conflict. The unions calling the strike (Ustec, CCOO, UGT, Aspepc, Intersindical, USOC and CGT) consider that Cambray “is no longer a valid interlocutor” and, directly, they now ask, not for his resignation, but for his cessation. From Germany, where he is on an official trip, the ‘president’ has refused to be an interlocutor and has supported his ‘conseller’. “He has the experience, knowledge and confidence” to dialogue with the educational community and generate “the maximum possible agreements”, with “the entire Government by his side”.

The unions have not been discouraged by the reaction of Aragonès. “We already expected it. At the political level they have to show unity. We understand that the ‘president’ does not want to disavow Cambray in public. But we’ll see how things evolve,” said Iolanda Segurathe spokesperson for the Ustec union.

At the end of the demonstration this Thursday, and before knowing the ‘no’ from Aragonès, the union representatives entered the Palau where they delivered a letter addressed to the ‘president’ to the secretary general of the Presidency, Núria Cuenca. In the letter, they remind him of the 10 years of cuts in education and expose the attitude of “contempt” that Cambray has shown towards the educational community. They refer to the meeting they held with him on Tuesday and point out that the ‘minister’ “demonstrated inefficiency and inexperience” and did not accept any proposal for negotiation or dialogue, making it impossible for them, they say, to unblock the situation. And they add that Cambray’s “authoritarian” attitude is unacceptable, so they ask Aragonès to personally take over the negotiation and call the strike committee, something that the ‘president’ has already ruled out.

Pending whether or not a negotiation is opened, the next strikes called will be on March 29 and 30. This third strike has had a follow-up of 9.8% according to Educació. The Aspepc union has raised it to 47.8%

New controversy with the curriculum

The discomfort of the teaching staff with Cambray has no sign of appeasing, quite the opposite. The Department of Education, which has not yet sent the schools the draft of the new Baccalaureate curriculum –which includes the new General Baccalaureate–, has presented in the Saló de l’Ensenyament a leaflet with “provisional” information on the Baccalaureate for the 2022-23 academic year, in which the various types are exposed, including the General, which indicates that it will be in the “pilot phase”, as well as the common subjects, those of modality and the optional. And there is even the hourly distribution of each subject. The same information has also appeared on the website of Educació.

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But, and there is the discomfort, the directors of the centers have not received anything related to the new curriculum as of March 17. This has again irritated the teachers. “It is an absolute contempt for the entire educational community,” said the general secretary of Aspepc, Xavier Massó.

Precisely, one of the aspects that has led the teachers to strike has been the “little consideration” that Cambray has for them. They have had to find out about the curricula and the new calendar, for example, through the media, without Educació consulting or communicating anything to them beforehand.