The Generalitat will deploy starting next week agents of the Mossos d'Esquadra in four institutes of Urgell and two of Val d'Aran within a pilot plan that will also reach other Secondary, Baccalaureate and Vocational Training centers in Catalonia. The measure will be applied in the Ribera del Sió of Agramunt, the Lo Pla d"Urgell of Bellpuig and the Manuel de Pedrolo and Alfons Costafreda institutes of Tàrrega, in addition to the Val d"Aran institute of Vielha and the Escòla d"Ostalaria of Les.
The agents will work undercover and will integrate into internal spaces of the centers, such as the coexistence commissions, of inclusive attention and of absenteeism. Their function will be to facilitate the detection and resolution of coexistence incidents, absenteeism cases and mediation needs.
Integrated presence in the day to day of the centers
The Government frames the initiative within the will to improve school coexistence and maintains that it does not respond to a situation of insecurity in the classrooms. The administration also emphasizes that leadership and decision-making will remain exclusively in the hands of the management teams.
In Urgell, a single agent will cover the four centers itinerantly and without a fixed schedule. In Val d'Aran, the change will be more visible because the police presence will cease to be uniformed and occasional to become integrated regularly and in plain clothes into the daily work of the institutes.
Tàrrega, Agramunt and Bellpuig among the included municipalities
The incorporation of Mossos in educational centers will not be limited to these two counties. The Generalitat plans to extend the pilot plan to institutes in L"Hospitalet, Vic, El Prat de Llobregat and Sabadell, within a broader test in different points of the territory.
From Tàrrega, mayor Rosa Maria Perelló favorably valued the initiative.
"Any measure to prevent and detect unwanted situations, and that serves to improve coexistence and the education of young people, is positive" - Rosa Maria Perelló, mayor of Tàrrega
The mayor added that Tàrrega grows exponentially and defended the need to maintain vigilance to reinforce security, education and civility.
Union criticisms and rejection of educational entities
The plan has generated rejection in part of the educational community. Ustec Stes accuses the Department of Education of responding with a police logic to a problem it considers educational and social. CGT maintains that police presence does not increase security and tends to criminalize the most vulnerable students.
Professors de Secundària has pointed out that the response must involve guaranteeing respect for teachers and their authority. CCOO, for its part, believes that the measure does not follow the correct approach. Also the campaign Desmilitaritzem l"Educació, integrated by one hundred entities, has demanded the immediate withdrawal of the pilot test.
The implementation will start next week and will serve as the first evaluation phase of a formula that places plainclothes agents within the ordinary dynamic of several high schools, although with daily management and final decisions still in the hands of each administration.