The majority of municipalities in the South demand more places in schools and institutes to face the demographic boom of recent years and thus adapt the educational offer to the needs of the population. The majority of mayors consulted by DIARIO DE AVISOS warn about the “saturation” suffered by the classrooms and some ask the Ministry of Education for a more agile response to carry out the projects and avoid unwanted situations.
José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga (PSOE), mayor of Adeje, described as “historic” the lack of infrastructure and educational services in the southern part of the Island. “Over the last decades, it has not been possible to adapt the demand generated by population explosion to the real educational needs of the region, and from the City Council we have assumed tasks that corresponded to other administrations”, said the councilor who, however, valued the plans and “good ideas” of the Ministry to solve in the short term and medium term the main needs.
In this sense, he cited the new Integrated Vocational Training Center, whose opening he hopes will take place next year, new key classrooms and the planning of a new Special Education center, although he clarified that these new facilities “will not be enough, Therefore, other more ambitious measures must be put in place to be able to meet all the demand and needs under equal conditions.”
Arona, the municipality with the largest population in the region, has been asking for years for the completion of the works of the IES Parque La Reina, in addition to the construction of another institute in the middle of the municipality. “We hope that the latest deadlines given by the Ministry of Education are met and the students of the Guaza institute – popularly known as “the barracks” – can move throughout the 2022-23 academic year, to put an end to a provisional situation that has lasted 20 years”, indicated José Julián Mena (PSOE), Mayor of Aronero, after recalling the transfer of land by the City Council. Regarding the project of an institute in the midlands area, Mena pointed out that “it is pending completion”, although he stressed the need for its construction, since the one in Cabo Blanco is “at its maximum capacity”. He also highlighted as priorities the expansion of the Official Language School and the Los Cristianos Secondary Education Institute.
José Domingo Regalado (CC), mayor of Granadilla, one of the municipalities that “has grown the most in population in the entire country”, assured that “schools have remained small and in many schools and institutes overcrowding is a reality” . The councilor recalled that “so far it has been palliated with the opening of institutes in the afternoon, but with the growth rate of 1,000 inhabitants per year it is necessary to expand and create new educational facilities.”
Despite having ceded municipal land in coastal and midland areas, Regalado pointed out that since 2011 no educational infrastructure has been built in Granadilla de Abona, and cited, as priority projects, a new school for Charco del Pino, a training center Professional in San Isidro, the extension to the fourth year of the ESO of the Los Abrigos school and the improvement of the four institutes of the municipality.
One of the most critical voices regarding the management of the current team of the Ministry of Education was that of Arturo González (CC), mayor of San Miguel, who is given a “suspense” for “not doing the projects.” In his opinion, the department headed by Manuela Armas “is not doing its duty to provide the municipality with new educational places.”
González maintains that most centers “are more than exceeded in enrollment” and gave the example of the IES San Miguel, with capacity for 500 students and in which 820 are studying. “We have been demanding that projects be written for five years, so least, to program the growth of schooling, but everything is going very slowly”, he explained, although he recalled that “the drafting of the project for the San Miguel institute, in Llano del Camello, has finally begun”.
The mayor of San Miguel pointed out that the City Council “does everything it can”, and in this sense highlighted the works to expand classrooms, undertaken by the Consistory, in the public center of San Miguel to alleviate the “saturation” of the Las Zocas institute .
Emilio Navarro (PP), councilor of Santiago del Teide, was in favor of the city councils assuming a greater role in the improvement and expansion works through agreements with the Ministry of Education. “We see that there are economic resources, but there is no management and, if that is the problem, it is preferable to agree with the municipalities so that they can carry out the necessary projects, among which he underlined the demands that “we have been claiming for years, such as the increase of the number of classrooms or the removal of asbestos plates”. For Navarro, the municipal administration has management capacity “and we can do it better than the Government”.
Sebastián Martín (Primero Arico) expressed the general feeling of the directors of the four schools and the only institute in the municipality. “In recent years they have conveyed to me the great concern that exists due to the lack of educational places and the need to increase the capacity of school canteens and school transport,” said the mayor of Arico, a municipality that has offered land to build educational centers and “everything has been obstacles and impediments”.
Martín assured that Manuela Armas “came to state that Arico was not a priority” and regretted that the Ministry had “lacked dialogue and commitment.”
Finally, the mayor of Guía de Isora, Josefa Mesa (PSOE), was satisfied with the educational infrastructure. “We are among the municipalities with the largest number of schools, up to 11, with four single schools,” she said. The center of Playa San Juan is the one with the largest number of students, “but we must be attentive to the evolution of the population in the nuclei,” she pointed out.
