In the newly released 2019-2020 course, we continue with more force than ever this claim that has more and more resonance in society. Every day schools are built in our neighborhoods and villages, each from their area: educational personnel, families, students... we have increasingly strong groups and the public school shows its public and universal character every day. We wrote "Gora, let's say what we have and what we want to have," because we have a lot of work for the members of the educational community: we have to strengthen participation, we have to open many schools more to the community, we have to make decision-making bodies more participative and, without falling into the mercantilist tendencies, we have a lot to do in the pedagogical sphere. The responsibility lies with everyone.

Unfortunately, however, the parties that have formed and are part of the CAV and Navarre Government cannot be mentioned among those who promote these demands which should be a popular bet. The government of the change in Navarre failed to honour many of the commitments made to public education staff and schools: hundreds of substitute teachers have been left unpaid in the summer and, in addition, other paragraphs of the pact have not been developed. That is why we immediately started with the mobilisations. The agreements signed at the CAV in May 2018 are also at issue, so the possibility of recovering short-term mobilisations is increasing.

Both governments continue to be the focus of educational policies “social demand” and “the right of families to choose the center” that LOMCE gathers, the basis of the capitalist paradigm of education. Euphemism of privatization and deregulation n.Segthe LOMCE, “administrations must take into account the current supply of public and private concerted centres and the demand of families, as well as ensuring the supply of sufficient places”. In other words, one of the main means of privatising an educational system and an undeniable resource used by educational institutions that do so. To do this, there are many other tools: Universal financing of private haurreskolas 0-2 years old, fraud in secondary enrollment, looking away at illegal quotas, leaving Vocational Training to entrepreneurs... The University should have a space extraordinario.La where the UPV/EHU lives is equivalent to the growth experienced by the private university. In Navarra, the overfinancing of private universities and the exclusion of the Basque Country are the axes of educational policies. In any case, clientelism policies to prioritize the private network prior to LOMCE have been common among the concerted centers, universities and Education departments.

The consequences of this are well known, among other things, segregation and social exclusion. Another notable consequence of the privatization policies of the Government of Navarre and the Basque Government is the precariousness of the educational workforce. That is why it is not enough at the moment to say that the public school must be the axis of the system, we must demand a single school for the entire Basque educational system, betting on the public as a people and on collective rights and equal opportunities for all our children and young people. Private initiative cannot be a refuge for those who do not want Euskera for their children, a refuge for those who do not want to confuse it with the different or a fortress for those who want to impose religious education on their children. The public administration cannot be an accomplice to these attitudes.

At the CAPV we also knocked at the door the Education Act, which, apparently, will be done under the umbrella of the LOMCE and will be the float of the private centers. Although there are many problems that need to be solved, we still do not know for what purpose the law is going to be done. It seems that the PNV wants to build a “Basque Education Service”, a neoliberal invention that integrates public and private schools and perpetuates the private network. With the argument of increasing the autonomy of the centers, they will seek the deregulation of the system to increase competitiveness: strengthening English to the detriment of the Basque country or increasing the unconditional financing of the private network. We say unconditional, because Cristina Uriarte insisted that, if there is a demand, the PNV will continue to agree on the private centers.

All these measures that perpetuate social graduation, once completed and certified with the new Education Act, will continue with appearances to repair segregation. If the aim of the LOMCIBERRI that comes to mind is not to respond to “social demand” and deregulate the system, but to guarantee the right to education and resolve segregation, the measures and the law would be different.

The strategy of our administration is hypocrisy, let us say what we say and do not know what to do. Despite the fact that in our centres there is a lack of will to ensure equal rights between different parties. In order for our education to be the cohesion instrument it should have, there is only one look at what happened last year around SKOLAE. For all these reasons, we will continue to fight for a Basque public school for all, for a feminist pedagogy.

Signatories:

Nagore Iturrioz López

Ana Pérez Pérez

Aitor Idigoras Lasaga

Raúl López Ekai