No 502
Monday, 13th January, 2014
Tel: 96 673 0057
NEW YEAR BUT SAME EDUCATION CUTS AND PROMISES!
The government of Valencia announced this week that it will eliminate 75% of portacabin schools in the region “before the end of the current term”. A statement says that during the current academic year, 329 temporary classrooms will be removed with the construction of five new schools and, before the end of the administrative term they will complete 14 other colleges and institutes that will eliminate another 300 more. The statement also says that in total there are 24,756 public classrooms in public schools in the region, of which only 1.2% will be housed in temporary units, “according to the commitment of the Council under the Plan to eliminate portable classrooms”. Although nobody would complain about a commitment to eliminate portacabin classrooms, not least the people of Orihuela, some of whom have spent their entire school lives being taught in inferior build-
ings, but the reduction in these units is seemingly not simply based on replacing purpose built and new facilities with the old. For the third consecutive year the PP run Valencia Government plans to completely eliminate up to nine classrooms across Orihuela for the 2014 academic year. The councillor for education in municipality of Orihuela, Rosa Martínez of the PSOE, made the announcement around Christmas time saying that Andrés Manjón school will lose a primary and nursery class, La Aparecida will lose two primary classes, whereas the schools of Antonio Sequeros, Villar Palasí, colegio de Desamparados, La Campaneta and San Bartolomé will lose one each. This figure must also be added to the thirteen classes already removed in the 2011 academic year, plus the six in this, which collectively has been described as an “attack” against public education by Martínez, which has also seen 36 teachers suffer the loss of employment. Continued on Page 2