SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, July 18. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Ministry of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands and the trade union organizations with representation in the public education sector have signed an agreement today, Monday, to improve the Canarian public education system.
The agreement contemplates the provision of human resources and the adoption of measures that result in the positive progression of academic indicators and the efficiency of said system, which will begin its validity in the 2022-2023 academic year.
This will mean an increase in the teaching staff of more than 1,600 teachers from this school period, which is aimed at improving the quality, equity and inclusion of the educational system of the islands, as well as the working conditions of teachers in the framework for strengthening education in the archipelago.
The event was attended by the Minister of Education, Manuela Armas, and the General Director of Personnel, Fidel Trujillo, and, on behalf of the unions, Víctor González, for ANPE Canarias; Emilio José Armas, for the Canary Islands Teachers’ Union-Intersindical Canaria STEC-IC; José Ramón Barroso, for the Teaching Federation of the Canary Islands CCOO; Evelín Díaz, for Teachers of the Canary Islands-Insucan (DCI); Francisco Javier Bautista, for UGT-Canary Islands Public Services; and Nieves Alonso, for the Union of Secondary School Teachers- Union of Public Employees of the Canary Islands (USPS-SEPCA).
For Armas, it is a “magnificent” agreement that fulfills a “fundamental” objective of the Ministry, such as improving the educational system of the islands, and stressed that it is an important day for Canarian society in general, and for the education of the islands in particular, in order to ensure that it is in accordance with the needs of the society of the archipelago.
He also thanked the unions for their willingness to achieve these measures and stressed that the increase in teaching staff (1,060 last year and 1,600 this year) means that in two years the increase will exceed 2,600 professionals, who will be allocated to attention to diversity. ; improving working conditions for teachers; to the increase in Hearing and Language and Therapeutic Pedagogy specialists, and the drop in ratios at the “key” levels, all of which, he pointed out, will allow improving fairness and equality in the educational system of the Canary Islands, “and that no one stay behind.”
For his part, Fidel Trujillo reiterated his gratitude for the willingness of the unions to reach this agreement after many hours of work and achieve consensus on the criteria to apply “more than numbers”, so that a “more equitable” system is achieved. .
Among the objectives of this initiative, it is worth highlighting the prevention of absenteeism and early school leaving, the achievement of better performance and the reduction of inequality of opportunities in the transition phase of the student body, as well as the improvement of attention to diversity of the student body in centers with social, economic or cultural disadvantage, through the increase in teaching staff.
Thus, a new catalog is established for the determination of the templates corresponding to the Body of Teachers. Among others, it is pointed out that the teaching staff’s teaching hours are reduced from 25 to 23 hours. Those two hours that are reduced are compulsory permanence in the center, and will be used for coordination activities of a pedagogical nature, as well as the development and monitoring of the educational projects that each center carries out and that will be reflected in its management project. . Likewise, the minimum rotation of the teaching staff by group will be sought.
On the other hand, the improvement of the human resources endowments for the configuration of the organic templates of the Educational Guidance specialty is collected. Thus, it highlights that there will be one counselor for every 400 students in the 2nd cycle of Infant and Primary Education in Infant and Primary Education Centers (CEIP), Canary Islands Teacher Training Centers (CEP) and Infant Education Schools (EEI).
As for the Secondary Education Institutes (IES), there will be a counselor in centers with more than 275 students of Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO), Baccalaureate and Vocational Training (FP).
In the Compulsory Education Centers (CEO), the relationship will be of a counselor when there are more than 250 students, and another one will be added after 401 students. In the Special Education Centers (CEE) there will be a counselor when there are between 30 and 60 students, to whom another will be added after 61 students.
The agreement also includes measures aimed at improving the provision of human resources in the specialty of Therapeutic Pedagogy in CEIPs and CEPs. The number of specialists will be one when the number of groups is between eight and 16; two, if they are between 17 and 25, and three, when they are more than 25. In the IES, there will be a specialist when there are four or more groups of 1st and 2nd of ESO.
In the case of Hearing and Language, the ratio will be one or one professional for every 300 male or female students in Infant and 1st and 2nd Primary, and centers with 27 or more Infant and Primary units will have one teacher or teacher on staff.
The agreement sets, among other issues, new ratios. In CEIPs and CEPs, when there is at least one authorized group in each of the Infant and Primary courses, there will be no mixed classes in the third cycle of Primary. In the same way, mixed groups will be progressively eliminated in the first and second cycles of Primary.
The 1st and 2nd ESO levels maintain (this measure was implemented during the 2021/22 academic year) a ratio of 27 male or female students, and the 1st and 2nd Baccalaureate levels have 30 students.
Finally, in order to compensate for the inequalities in the centers with more unfavorable socioeconomic and cultural indicators, the allocation of human resources will be increased taking as a reference the Social, Economic and Cultural Index (ISEC) of the last evaluation of the Canarian Agency for Educational Quality and Evaluation (ACCUEE).
Thus, CEIPs and CEPs with a medium-low ISEC will have an additional provision of two teaching hours per group. In the case of IES and CEOs, when they have a ratio greater than 20 students, they will have a teacher if they have two to four groups of 1st and 2nd ESO; two teachers, for cases of five to eight groups; and three if they add up to more than eight groups.
The framework agreement ratified today can be consulted through the link: https://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/cmsweb/export/sites/educa…
