argia.eus
INPRIMATU
Review of the course at the Atxuri, Mugika and Solokoetxe Schools
Hainbat egile* 2021eko ekainaren 17a

We would like to stress that the schools of Mugika and Atxuri, as well as the Solokoetxe Institute, have completed the course with a positive assessment. The effort that the entire educational community has made has been tremendous. Despite the fact that there are many factors against, the course has come forward among all of us: with the involvement of teachers, with the efforts of families, with the good mood of boys and girls maintaining the confinement without losing their mood... We have done a congratulatory job. Cheer!

Although the course began full of doubts and fears in September 2020, from the beginning we saw that the right of children and young people in our neighborhoods to a dignified and quality education was a second order issue for our political rulers. Some of us started the course uphill, but from the first few weeks we took the measure and went out to the street both children and young people, families, staff of canteens, teachers... and also neighborhood associations in our neighborhoods.

At the beginning of the course everything was forbidden, everything was impossible and the requests we made from Mugika, Atxuri or Solokoetxe had no place in the agendas of our authorities. But the road is walking, and we've done it. We have managed to use spaces impossible to use, greatly improving the quality of life of the students. For example, we have made spaces such as Santa Maria Street, the Atxuri courts or the portico of Santiago useful for the children of our schools, and this will continue to be so until there is a comprehensive response to the needs of the schools.

"We cannot start the course that comes under the conditions that we are closing in June. It's not fair, our children don't deserve it, and we just ask for political accountability."

We have given the doors, all we have had at our fingertips, we start with the City Hall and all the political parties are aware of the shortcomings of the educational centres in our neighbourhoods, as well as our proposals for solutions. We have also been in the Basque Parliament, we have explained the shortcomings we have suffered and we have put forward proposals to the political representatives of the Committee on Education to overcome them. But no solution has come back. We have explained to everyone that we ask for a comprehensive solution so that the public educational service of 0-18 years in the neighborhoods of Alde Zaharra, Atxuri and Solokoetxe is of quality. And we've also told them that we can build the solution among all of us, that's our will. Therefore, our desire is to seek a consensual solution with the entire educational community, for this we have asked for the creation of a table that brings together all the actors involved. Unilateral proposals have no place. The PNV and the PSE have rejected in the Committee on Education the constitution of the table to deal with the issue, but in response to questions from the neighborhood schools, we have been told that our buildings have had enough arrangements in recent decades and that the courtyards we have now cover the needs of our children. ! We need a snout! !

Our centres need structural and organisational improvements which cannot be solved by patches. The plague has only exacerbated all these shortcomings and we have put and managed enough patches in this course which is about to end: At the entrances of the Atxuri school we have been the families cutting off the road with a fence, when we have seen the safety of our children in jeopardy. We have turned the gym and the library into canteens to guarantee the bubbles, but reducing the playing spaces.

Our basic requests are on the table: covered patio in Atxuri and open space in Mugika, creating new spaces for our children not to be forced to play in the hallways, and making the eight-hour learning activity not leave a noisy building. Or in the case of Solokoetxe, to overcome the deficiencies of having limited uses of spaces so necessary at these ages.

What is at stake is the well-being of our children and young people, and all we are asking is for public money to return to the basic public network, the public education of our neighborhoods.

We have put solutions on the table together with the requests, all viable, but they have rejected them one after the other: The premises below the Mugika school is available; one of the parking spaces of the Atxuri train station (which have two), turning it into a covered patio for the school setting is a real option, and let us not say the hall of the same station. We close Daughters of the Cross and the building will not be destined for educational services, as children have been “housed” in another concerted school.

We cannot start the course that comes under the conditions that we will close in June. It's not fair, our children don't deserve it, and we just ask for political accountability. We have been out on the street and we will continue to be out, the families, the service workers and the teachers who make up the educational community of these three neighborhoods, it is clear that we have to make our voice heard aloud. And that is that, once the plague has passed, the deficiencies of public education in our neighborhood will continue in the same place if we do not continue to work. We will continue to act with the responsibility our children and young people need!

 

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Associations of Solokoetxe, Mugika and Atxuri fathers and mothers.

Ikama (Solokoetxe Alumni Association),

Bihotzean Neighbors Association.