Since the adoption of the new Education Law for Álava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, we are hearing/reading again and again that education will be free from now on. We have listened to different actors, including the Department of Education, and in the interviews we offer to the media, the mandatory question is how long we will continue to charge fees. The last thing we have read on this subject is a report by the Ombudsman of the Basque Country, according to which one of our schools, the Zurriola school in San Sebastián, charges “irregular fees” for “services that should be free”.

First of all we want to make a statement: For schools, the right to education must be universal, which means that everyone and everyone must have the opportunity to exercise it.

The students work in that direction.

We are not owned by the administration, we are owned by the citizens and although we receive funding from the administration, it does not finance us 100%. If this were the case, we would be his property and we were not created for it.

Today, the administration finances 70% of our regular practice through treaties, and we finance the remaining 30% on our own. That’s why we hold Ikastola Fiestas, the Tantas initiative, we put txosnas in many localities, we organize raffles, we carry out many improvement works in the neighborhood and we also ask our partners (both parents and workers) to contribute financially.

Most teachers receive a salary directly from the Department of Education. Not all of them. We receive a defined and closed amount of money for the maintenance, payment of supplies, cleaning and operation of the building. It doesn’t matter what the building is like (old, big, more than one building...) and how much we spend.

There are several figures that any school (even Ikastolo) does not pay us: ICT managers, for example. They also give us a certain amount of money in the case of administrative personnel. It doesn’t matter how many people we have working in the administration, it doesn’t matter what their salary is and what their seniority is like. The amount of money is closed.

The salaries of the catering, transport and non-school staff are paid in full by ourselves. As well as other transportation costs, dining menus, etc.; and anyone knows that if all these costs were attributed to users, it would not be feasible.

We have a 0 to 1 year offer. Which does not cover the cost at all.

Nothing to say about investments in buildings. From time to time (approximately every five years), we finance 40-50% of the loans requested to make investments thanks to a concurrent grant from the Basque Government. This grant is for all teaching cooperatives.

The latest report of the Basque Country School Council (Report No. 2021-2023 on Education in the Basque Country) shows that in the 2019-20 academic year, the Basque Government spent 7,073 euros per student, taking into account all the networks, while considering only the public network the expenditure was 9,868 euros. This means that a student from the public network cost the Basque Government 5,590 euros more than one of the agreed networks. The needs of schools, on the other hand, are similar in both networks.

Therefore, it is impossible to advance in these conditions without the efforts (economic, temporal...) of our partners.

This economic contribution is made only by those who can and we have mechanisms to ensure that this is the case. Have progressive income quotas in the Northern Basque Country, or own scholarship systems in the Southern Basque Country. We cover the contribution of those who cannot make this economic contribution in solidarity with those who can.

On the other hand, like many other popular movements, we are a network to which we also make an economic contribution. This year we have supported the Tudela, Lodosa, Argantzungo and Seaska Ikastolas thanks to the financial contribution made by our partners. Without that, there would be no school in those areas.

Our collective nature also has several other aspects: we create the learning material that we put at the disposal of the entire educational community, we have elaborated the General Educational Framework that we have put at the disposal of Basque society, we have created the Basque curriculum and we are about to update it... Our mission is also to make our contribution to the educational system and we also dedicate our donations to it.

There is another concept that we would like to clarify: irregular quotas/illegal quotas. Some people say that we charge “irregular/illegal fees” motivated by the will to discredit our name and our being. That's a lie. A complete lie. At Ikastolo we receive the contribution of partners to the development of concepts and activities that are not financed by the administration. Never after being funded by the administration to get overfinancing. The monetary contributions that are analyzed and approved in the school assemblies are legal, necessary and legitimate.

In the Basque Country we know very well what it means to carry out a project in the neighbourhood and with our financial contribution. How many contributions, fees, subscriptions... we pay to get several popular projects going. Ours is and will be one of them.

This is the reason and purpose of the financial contribution we make.

Nekane Artola and Agurne Barruso President and
CEO of the Association of Schools of the Basque Country