SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 9 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Confapa Canarias has criticized this Monday that there are no minimum services in school transport in the face of the employer strike called in the Canary Islands and that it has left more than 37,000 students without service on the islands, for which it urges the Canarian Government and employers to find a solution .
The group of fathers and mothers details in a statement that school transport is considered a “complementary service”, not essential, something that it does not understand because when there is a strike in public transport, minimum services are set, among other things because they serve to access education and health.
However, they continue, “when transport is specifically for schools, and its provision corresponds to the regional public administration itself, the denomination of ‘complementary service’ does not even guarantee the use of minimum services”.
Confapa appeals to article 20 of the Canary Islands Education Law, which states that complementary educational services are the instruments through which the principle of equity is made effective.
It also maintains that “complementary educational services are intended to compensate for social and economic inequalities by facilitating access and permanence of students in the educational system under conditions of equity, in addition to contributing to the reconciliation of work and family life”.
In his opinion, “it is so basic to be able to access education under equitable conditions, that the regulations oblige public administrations to guarantee the gratuity of said services or the provision of aid for transport, as the case may be.”
Along these lines, they detail that “essential services such as access to education cannot be guaranteed, not even the principle of equity, through tools that are not equally declared essential.”
Thus, “regardless of the causes that motivate the employer strike, or the reasons used by the staff of the canteens in claiming their labor rights, what corresponds is to guarantee the fundamental right to education of minors, which in the case of Primary and Secondary Education is also an obligation for families”.
