About 200 people, including workers and families from municipal nursery schools, gathered in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat to demand changes in the public nursery school network. They are calling for improvements in educational quality and child care, with more staff in classrooms, interdisciplinary teams, and reduced ratios.
The protest comes as the City Council has not yet finalized the new tender documents for managing these centers, which is precisely the framework within which the staff wants to incorporate their demands. The conflict arises with a ratio of 20 children per educator in the two-to-three-year-old age group, one of the highest in Europe, and with salaries frozen for 14 years.
Staff demand two professionals per classroom and fewer children per educator
The L'Hospitalet Nursery School Assembly maintains that the current situation hinders both educational attention and the daily care of young children. Among their demands are two professionals per classroom and interdisciplinary teams to respond to diversity in a particularly sensitive stage.
In the two-to-three-year-old age group, each educator cares for 20 children. The staff places this figure at the center of the protest because it affects classroom organization and the ability to support the children.
Families joined the gathering alongside the workers to support demands that address both working conditions and the functioning of the municipal service. The mobilization brought together about 200 people in the city.
Sonia Vilagut denounces that salaries have been frozen for 14 years
The discontent also extends to the salaries of staff working with children aged zero to three, which have remained unchanged for 14 years. Sonia Vilagut, coordinator for the two-to-three-year-old group at the La Casa del Parc nursery school, linked this freeze to the lack of recognition for a job that involves caring for very young children.
"We have very basic salaries. We are talking about the fact that preschool teachers for 3 to 6 year olds, who are earning more than us, are also demanding an increase. We have had the same salaries for many years, which are very ridiculous, considering the job we do with very young and very vulnerable children in our care. They need more support and we believe we are not valued at all." - Sonia Vilagut, coordinator for 2 to 3 year olds, La Casa del Parc nursery school
The staff wants those claims to be included in the next municipal tender. For now, the City Council has not finalized those specifications, even though the management conditions of the municipal nursery schools will depend on them.
In addition to joining the educational strike for the zero to three years stage called for next Wednesday, the Assembly of Nursery Schools of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat has set a new mobilization for May 26, coinciding with the municipal plenary session.