The Assembly of professionals of the Institut Eduard Fontserè has rejected the decision of the Departament d'Educació to permanently incorporate Mossos d'Esquadra in educational centers within a plan of prevention, mediation, and coexistence that the Generalitat plans to start testing in April in several public high schools in Catalonia.
Pilot test in six zones
The deployment will start in 13 public centers of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Vic, Alta Ribargorça Vall d'Aran, Tàrrega, Prat de Llobregat and Sabadell. The forecast is that the agents will work in a coordinated manner with the faculty to address conflicts and participate in prevention, mediation, accompaniment, and intervention tasks.
The measure places the Mossos within the ordinary functioning of some institutes, with a stable presence linked to school coexistence. The plan, as it is proposed, will debut next April in these publicly owned centers.
Rejection of the teaching staff of the Eduard Fontserè
The professional collective of the Institut Eduard Fontserè has made public a statement in which it shows its opposition to this incorporation. The assembly considers it unacceptable to allocate budget to police forces in schools and institutes while, they maintain, the social teams made up of social integration technicians and social educators are not reinforced, a demand they claim to have maintained since last year.
"The social conflict experienced by the students is not solved by putting police, but by solving social problems and guaranteeing equal opportunities" - Assemblea de professionals de l'Institut Eduard Fontserè
In the same position, the teaching staff insists that the response to coexistence problems and to the social situations affecting students must involve strengthening educational and social resources within the centers themselves. The criticism focuses on budgetary priority and on the intervention model proposed by the educational administration.
The debate now remains open a few weeks before the start of the pilot test, with 13 public high schools called to debut a permanent presence of Mossos in coordination with the teaching teams.