Read Head of Line, anyone could consider that the purpose of this paper is to support the possible right of families to choose the center. That is not the intention, not from afar.

For some, this is a fundamental right, but for those of us who claim public education for all, and all this discourse serves only to maintain privileges.

What do we have to demand in a society? Health system, surveillance, education… public, universal, quality… On the pretext of the vulnerability index of recent months, some students have been denied access to public education. The argument has not been that the public school concerned was full, but that the reason has been that this centre already had the number of injuries imposed by the administration.

Our administration is beginning to worry about segregation, in these years of lack of students, in which there are no “clients” for all. Therefore, perhaps the source of concern is not the degree of segregation that our educational system experiences, but the result of a low birth rate.

Both the parliamentarians of the Basque Parliament and other leaders came to Catalonia in search of clarity to deal with segregation, where they apparently found answers. The consequence of this has been the exclusion of some students from the public education system.

The administration gets the vulnerability rate through a survey, so a survey can make a family vulnerable and deny the fundamental right to public education. Old formula: apartheid, exclusion, administration in the place of the vulnerable, in the place of the least resourced deciding what suits them. The Hertzainak group, in its version of Christian Moore’s song No time for love, perfectly explained its laws for us apartheid… some families in our region have lived like this, wanting or not to study in public education.

Since 2021 we have been able to see the trajectory of the new Education Law, the main parliamentary groups that from the beginning reached an agreement. This law has not been drafted from the bottom to the top, on the contrary, they wanted to give the basis and the varnish of participation for a new law that was cooked between various aspects.

In this participation process, Sasi was also supported by Eusko Ikaskuntza to reflect diversity and participatory process, but without leaving the initial script. From the beginning the public education community has shown its total disagreement, its mass demonstrations, its disagreement in some forums and its contributions have been made by EHIGE (Association of Fathers and Mothers of Pupils of Euskal Herria), HEIZE (federation of associations of the management of the Basque Public School), platforms in favor of the Public School...

On 18 October, the president of EHIGE gave the opinion of the public education community in the newspaper Berria: “For the Basque Public School and against the Education Act, to the street”.

In short, everything that was cooked in a closed room will advance, although in this pilgrimage the PNV is changing partners.

Returning to the head of line, in the Argentine film Family Law (2006), a couple states: “What do we do to bring our son to a Swiss school? My ancestors are Polish and yours Spanish.” Reality usually overcomes fiction and that is what will happen among us, because a family wants to educate their children in public school and in a Swiss school or in a Christian school… The Basque Public Education Service equals everyone.

As bertsolari has sung, sometimes life costs little by little, so we will not stop on this abrupt and reverent path, and the next appointment will be on October 29 in Donostia, at 12:30 in the demonstration that will depart from the Boulevard in favor of the Basque Public School, not this Education Law! under the slogan.

Koldo Zabala Atxa, Professor and Father of the Public School