Among the sections addressed in the Preliminary Draft Law on Education, the main and most disturbing novelty is the incorporation of the concerted centers as part of the public educational service. They are granted a status similar to that of the public centers, equating the nature of both through legal and financial tricks, such as the “contracts program”.

In this way, the demands of the private concerted centers are met. These achieve greater public funding and a new, more “popular” status, which will be integrated into a “Basque Public Education Service” full of euphemisms, but maintaining private ownership and heritage, along with its elitist character, in most cases. A skilful move to confuse public opinion.

The text does not take into account the structural anomaly presented by our educational system, a dual, public and private model agreed, in which each school network covers about 50% of the students. This share of the public network is far from 80% of the European Union’s average. They have well-established public teaching systems, being the main reference in their educational systems, as well as guaranteeing the right to inclusive and quality education. Public school is the basic pillar of a plural and democratic society for a country that wants to reduce social inequalities, because it offers equal opportunities from there.

On the contrary, the preliminary draft acknowledges the status quo and considers that the excessive presence of the public-concerted network, which will be even stronger with this law, is normal. However, it refuses to correct this distribution and to adopt measures that promote the public network and progressively increase its schooling rate (to reach a qualified majority similar to EU levels). A Strategic Plan to strengthen public education, together with increased funding, would be essential to this end. Among other things, a new design of the School Map that would prioritize the public network, guaranteeing sufficient places for the entire population of school age, as well as the offer of public schools in each municipality. Unfortunately, there is nothing like this today.

On the other hand, there is no mention of the serious problem of segregation that occurs in the schooling of vulnerable students for reasons of origin, socioeconomic or any other kind, since the majority is concentrated in public centers. There is thus a strong imbalance which makes it necessary to make excessive efforts. But, although incomprehensible, the Administration looks still and on the other side, as if this flow of license plates, totally unbalanced between both networks, was a natural phenomenon, being it the main responsible.

Nor is there any mention of the collection of illegal quotas that occur in the public-concerted network, although it is made possible with the authorization of Lakua. Although this practice of irregular financing is known as vox popular, it seems that it has never been carried out, as something similar to fiscal amnesty will be hidden.

It is therefore a question of showing the alleged parity between public and private centres, even if they are completely different, as any analysis shows. You just have to go in and look at the center portal.

The most surprising and at the same time discouraging is that the Basque Government has the support of the political forces that are defined on the left, which are in favour of advertising in all areas, except in education. What does education have to equip the public with the private? It would be unacceptable in any other area, as an example of a clean model of neoliberalism.

In the field of health, a similar situation would be unthinkable, a law that equated Osakidetza with private clinics and hospitals. And following parallelism, when will we be able to read something similar on the Education website? “… Osakidetza aims to guarantee all people a public, universal and quality health system. Currently, Basque public health is a collective achievement of Basque society, a model of reference”. It can be said that the Administration does not want to see itself in the Basque Public School, even if it is its head and its chief responsibility.

In short, this law implies the beginning of a programmed dissolution of the public education system that, for the benefit of a public-concerted network, would guide public schools almost exclusively to the schooling of cases of social exclusion. And to give a legal channel to this trap, the Basque Public School Act of 1993 is repealed, leaving the public school free of legal coverage. This is a serious setback in terms of institutional recognition, because it is forgotten that it is a school of all, open, plural and equal to differences.

In other words, the Basque Public School melts into this “Basque Public Educational Service” fraud, tailored to the politico-concerted centers, to guarantee its economic future with public money in the coming decades thanks to a new legal and financial structure. Paradoxically, this law has come when the importance of public services throughout the pandemic has been identified in key areas. Education is apparently not a fundamental area for those who promote this law, but a service that can be sold and bought, even if the public education system is excluded.

Eli Lamarka Iturbe, Jon MOÑUX ARGOTE and Iñaki IZAGIRRE IRIONDO

(members of the Euskal Eskola Publikoa Harro platform)