For 24 years, the Consistory has delivered free textbooks to its students and, in addition, rewards the best records, finances transportation and pays support classes for 220 minors
The municipality of Tenerife The Massacre of Acentejowith just 9,114 inhabitants and a municipal budget of around 12 million euros per year, has been able to maintain itself since the end of the 90s of the 20th century in a vanguard position in the support for public and free education. From kindergarten to college. In 1998, it became the first City Council in Spain to provide free books to all students in its public schools and, a few years later, it extended the measure to students in its institute, both in Secondary and Baccalaureate. He opened the first nursery school in the region, 25 years ago; awards the best academic records since 2011; finances transportation for undergraduate and graduate students; offers free school support to more than 220 boys and girls each year, and has not stopped investing in exemplary educational facilities such as the Study Center and Library or in the self-sufficiency of energy with solar panels in its educational centers.
La Matanza has become an example to follow in educational policies through initiatives such as the Child Care Centers (CAI), which work in coordination with the schools of the locality and offer “education in values, healthy socialization and free educational support”. It is another “pioneering, free service, supervised by professionals and with a presence in all neighbourhoods”, where each course attends between 200 and 250 boys and girls. The CAI facilitate family and work reconciliation in the afternoon, in addition to helping to reduce inequalities in a key issue such as support classes outside of school hours. A tool so that “personal development and success in studies is based on the intellectual capacities of each one and not on the economic conditions and barriers of families.”
An additional resource for reconciling work and family life, with the game as a learning tool, is the Ludoparque El Boliche, created in 1998 and relocated since 2017 in the Municipal Sports Complex. The Acentejo Nursery School, the first in the region, improved its facilities on March 1, 2019, when it went from 80 to 125 seats, and is now self-sufficient with photovoltaic solar energy.
The star measure of educational policies of La Matanza has been, since 1998, the delivery of free textbooks to all students of CEIP Acentejo and Atalaya and IES La Matanza, together with additional annual subsidies for the replacement of educational material. This municipal involvement has required a significant investment effort, with years in which the northern Consistory alone assumed the purchase of more than 1,100 copies of different textbooks. Subsequently, other public administrations were added to the measure.
The prizes for the best academic records, in force since the 2011-2012 academic year for Primary, Secondary and Baccalaureate, serve to “make public recognition” of the most brilliant students, who also receive prizes such as tablets, laptops or subscriptions to the sports complex municipal.
The Study Center and Library, a building renovated and expanded in 2019, has become a space equipped with extensive bibliographic collections and technological resources for students, full of references to historical figures, phrases and inspiring thoughts. It has five rooms for collective use with capacity for almost 200 people, seven group work offices with capacity for 70 users, an assembly room and its own university library, designed to “meet the specialized demands and high demands of students higher education”.
For years, the City Council of La Matanza has also paid the voucher for the bus and the tram (Card Ten +) to university and postgraduate students, who in this course are a total of 63. The Consistory of the people is not forgotten either seniors who still want to train. The Adult School, located in the old unitary classrooms of San José, renovated in the summer of 2019, also offers initial basic training classes to acquire or improve reading, writing, calculation, social and natural knowledge, foreign language or computer skills. .
“A true social elevator”
The mayor of La Matanza de Acentejo since 1983, Ignacio Rodríguez Jorge (PSOE), considers that “it is very easy to verify that education has been one of the main pillars of our management for decades, despite the fact that education for a municipality of our characteristics is not a delegated competence. However, we have never wanted to turn our backs on it or ignore it by considering, out of personal conviction and multiple and unquestionable evidence, that it is an essential pillar to build a freer society with equal opportunities, a true social lift. For Ignacio Rodríguez, “education makes it possible to structure fairer and healthier societies, capable of achieving greater rights and well-being. So everything we do for her is the best possible investment.”
