Now that we are increasingly hearing the proximity of an Educational Agreement, on several platforms in favor of the Basque Public School, we have received with great surprise the statements made by the Education Advisor, Jokin Bildarratz, at the official opening of this course. The objective your Department envisages is to work for an Educational Pact as a step before the adoption of the New Education Act, which concerns us. In fact, Bildarratz said that this possible pact would be based on the “Agreement” that was signed in 2018 by the previous councillor, Cristina Uriarte, and that it was unanimously approved. On this occasion, it will be Eusko Ikaskuntza who carries out the process, and aims to reach a broad agreement that defines the character that the Basque school should have in the next 30 years.

On more than one occasion we have shown our disagreement with this document, which will be the basis of the new process that is to be launched, which was rejected in its day by all the players in the public network by the procedure and the contents that were used (the subjects and the participants were decided by the Government itself and the debate was limited and directed).

In addition, we would like to express our concerns and doubts about the possible close educational agreement:

- First, the Counsellor should clarify the process (times, participants, contents...). What is being proposed is too fast. It is not possible to reach an agreement that lasts 30 years in a year.

- There may be a political agreement, but what is needed is a comprehensive social agreement on education, a genuine democratic participatory process, which takes time. The 2018 “disagreement” is not valid.

- We are surprised that the Basque Government has not yet made a prior diagnosis of the system to determine its strengths and weaknesses, as any improvement plan requires.

- Counsellor Bildarratz still fails to mention the existence of school segregation, the most serious problem in the Basque education system. Nor does it reframe the need to review in recent decades the funding model that is consolidating the growth of concerted education to the detriment of the Public School.

A rapid process like this, without diagnosis, concrete objectives and essential content, will not change anything, it will only reinforce what we have now. The possible Education Act can only be to the detriment of public schools and to the benefit of concerted education. We do not want any agreement/law to legitimise the current dual system, but to make the public school the centre of the system, essential to move towards an inclusive, equitable and non-segregating system.

We ask the Education Advisor, Jokin Bildarratz, to bet on a public school for all and for all and to show a clear commitment to school segregation.

* Pride of the Basque Public School

by Basque public school in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Zabale

Bizirik (Amurrio), Oarsoaldea and Santurtzi platforms