Where does it come from, how far does it go ahead?

In March 2022, on the basis of the Education Agreement signed by several parties, the Basque Government drafted the Education Act, which was submitted to public hearing in mid-September. This first draft took up the contributions and claims of 34 actors and all the signatories stated that the text needed amendments. The new text, theoretically taking into account the allegations and contributions, was expected to be adopted by the Governing Council last December, but it has been long overdue and will finally be adopted on 25 April as a draft law. Among them, there has been at least a second and a third draft, and some parties have been negotiating the text.

Once adopted by the Governing Council, the bill will arrive in the Basque Parliament probably after the municipal and foral elections, and the phase of amendments that the various parties may have will begin. Education counselor Jokin Bildarratz said the law will be passed in this legislature.

What changes will the bill incorporate?

The preliminary draft law received many criticisms and it is to be assumed that the draft law that will come to the Governing Council will incorporate at least a couple of amendments (we counted it in more detail in this article). On the one hand, it is linked to the so-called Basque educational service. According to this service, one of the pillars of the law, any centre responding to a series of obligations, both public and concerted, will receive 100 per cent public funding. Well, in the initial draft, all the parties made it clear that these obligations were not sufficiently defined, and the bill will most likely determine. Another thing is what the different parties understand after the educational service, as the PSE explained very well: “We see this service as a destination, if we put some obligations and if we fulfill them we are finally part of this service, but in the preliminary draft it is represented as a starting point, because it seems that all the concerted ones are automatically part of the service”.

On the other hand, the prominence of measures against the segregation of students in the Educational Agreement and the superiority it lost in the draft law, will surely make more and more concrete measures and criteria to promote a balanced schooling appear in the preliminary draft law.

The Basque Country has been the subject of numerous claims by the actors to the preliminary draft: some have exceeded the current models A, B and D and have requested a generalized model of linguistic immersion. However, the bill does not seem to pick it up, because both the Educational Agreement and the first draft are based on a “multilingual system centered on the Basque language”, not on a model of immersion. According to the agreement, the vehicle language will be the Basque language preferably, but not the only vehicle language – contrary to what various agents have requested.

It is also noticed if there are going to be changes related to secularism: in the first draft, the obligation of the school to be secular was very diffuse, to the point of allowing an educational center to be secular and at the same time Christian, because the draft law required “to develop an educational model based on secularism, respecting the character of private concerted centers”. Will the definition be sharpened? In addition, the Educational Agreement agreed on a time limit for the subject of Religion, but the preliminary draft did not contemplate any limitations. Will there be limits in the bill?

Will the draft law be given mechanisms for implementing the measures, as the agreement said? Will the new text give municipal councils and municipal school councils an important role that was attributed to them in the agreement or will it flood the role of municipal school councils as we saw in the text of the preliminary draft?

What points will open the parliamentary debate?

When the draft Law on Education comes to the Basque Parliament, I am sure that the issues mentioned in the preceding paragraphs will provoke a debate, but there is another issue that acquires a great centrality: the prominence that the public network has – to have – in the law. All parties say that public schools must be prioritised, but not everyone believes that the law truly reflects that: many require measures to guarantee public places and enable the growth of the public network. We will see where the new text offers the public network and how it is valued by both sides. The publication of the centers, the integration into the public network of private owned centers, for example, appeared in the preliminary draft as an additional provision, and the PNV told us that “where it appears is ok”.

How are the relations between the signatory parties?

The Education Agreement is signed by PNV, PSE, EH Bildu and IU-Elkarrekin Podemos, and it is clear that even when the time comes for the adoption of the Education Act, the government wants to vote in favour of all these parties to make it a law that symbolises broad parliamentary support. However, with regard to the Education Act, IU-Elkarrekin We have on several occasions made significant public discrepancies with the line of the Basque Government. He wishes to speak as a defender of the public school, and has recently criticized, for example, the Government’s planning decree and the six-year pact with the concerted centres: “Government decisions are not favourable to the public school. At the moment we are against the Education Act, and things will have to change a lot so that we have our vote.” But this is not over, and some chapters are still pending from the Education Act at this last stage.