“We guide all of us to form a European Pastoral Community that is both subject and an environment of education and evangelization.”

“Pastoral Plan hau Ikastetxea, azken orientaziorako: honored hiritarrak eta good cristianoen prestakuntza”.

“Oratory initiation gyro appropriatua methodology, Jainko experiendizaje bat egiteko eta batez ari da”.

“Egun on on-egunean: atal hau DBko ikasleen eta Batxilergoa egiten dugu datzu ere galdatzeko aukera”.

“Seeing God in all things. We want to educate ourselves from internal freedom.” “In addition, the evangelizing process of our school aims to help students enter the community of faithful to Jesus, find the sense of belonging to the Church, the people of God on the way, with him and in him.”

“It is the Christian youth movement of our schools, which seeks people in the style of Jesus.”

“Pastoral care is the heart of the College. And that's the reason for our work. For the purpose of all our activities is that every student feels that God wants him in his deep existence…”

“On the Christian development of the human being: To know Christ as a person and to approach him, to awaken the sense of solidarity, to initiate commitment, to promote belonging to the ecclesiastical association”.

We can read these phrases on the websites of the randomly chosen Catholic schools of the CAPV (some are in Spanish because they only open the website in this language! ). Currently, these types of schools account for 35% of the Basque educational system (a surprising figure in an educational system! ); the educational network that the church developed with the support of the Franco dictatorship has come to this day without the intervention of the public authorities of democracy. Because all of these centers are funded with public money, but with private management, the management of the Catholic Church.

The PSE-EE, Elkarrekin Valencia-IU and EH Bildu signed an educational agreement with the PNV in March, and if this agreement continues, that is, if they continue to support the parties, this type of schools and messages will be maintained over the next 30 years (that this agreement is the basis of the new Education Act).

We wonder how some of the parties that have signed this pact with the PNV can say that they are left. In exchange for what have they accepted it? What are they exchanging in the education trade? With the signing of the agreement, the political groups for secular education have approved a pact that includes private Catholic and doctrinating schools funded with public money. These catechist messages do not at all conjugate with the diversity that our time demands.

As if this were not enough, in the centers of the Christian network there are the highest proportion of educational models that do not guarantee the knowledge of the Basque Country, models A and B.

Once the new law is in place, nothing will change, the centres mentioned will continue to benefit to the detriment of secular public education. Some of the measures that demonstrate this have already been implemented: despite the fall in the birth rate, this year the economic pacts for the period 2022-2028 for concerted schools (“fewer pupils, fewer concerted places” would be most logical, wouldn’t it? ), a new planning decree reduces the opening ratios of classrooms in the concerted centres, and now, at the beginning of August, teacher modules are increased by around 6%, Child Education to Baccalaureate modules by 8.5% and maintenance funding by 25%.

With this new law, it is possible to stabilize and shield a system that rejects, evangelizes and segregates.

We are still convinced that our education system is upgradable, but we find it difficult to believe that politicians want it.

Elena Cárdenas Fernández de Pinedo and Kattalin Legarda de la Fuente

For the platform for the Basque public school in Vitoria-Gasteiz