Four of the 14 institutes included in the pilot test of the Government to deploy plainclothes Mossos d'Esquadra in educational centers have withdrawn from the plan. These are the Institut Margarida Xirgu, in l"Hospitalet de Llobregat, and the institutes Comtat d"Osona, Jaume Callís, and La Plana, in Vic. The decision was made after discussing the measure with the teachers of these centers.
The exit of these institutes occurred after the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, defended in Parliament that participation in this initiative is voluntary. After that intervention, the managements of the four centers agreed to withdraw from the pilot plan.
"volunteer" - Salvador Illa, President of the Generalitat
"It is a proof of concept made at the request of some educational sectors and will not be applied to centers that do not want it" - Salvador Illa, President of the Generalitat
The Government defends a measure focused on prevention and mediation
The Catalan Executive maintains that this initiative seeks to move from a reactive scenario to one of prevention. The intention is to go beyond the figure of the tutor agent, who goes to the institute when the management reports an incident, a model that has already been working for several courses.
The proposal involves turning that role into that of a coexistence agent integrated into the center, with the capacity to closely understand difficulties and anticipate situations that may arise. Education rejects that it is a sanctioning scheme and frames the police presence in prevention and mediation tasks.
"We are not talking about a punitive model, but about a model that works on prevention and mediation" - sources from the Department of Education
From the Department of Education it is emphasized that the 14 selected centers had voluntarily submitted to the test and that the withdrawal of four of them weakens the measure. Even so, the Government maintains that the project responds to a demand from part of the educational field.
Plainclothes officers and without access to classrooms
The Catalan administration insists that the agents planned for this pilot test would be Mossos d"Esquadra with experience in prevention and mediation. Their presence is considered plainclothes, without uniform, without weapons, and without entering classrooms.
The defense of the measure is also supported by the value of that external experience. The Government considers that these professionals can provide a complementary vision of social reality outside the center and work in coordination with existing teams.
"The agents are coming to add. We want them to work jointly with the professionals we already have at the center, in all the structures that are already in operation" - Departament d"Educació
"Educators can have very similar training, but experience in reality outside the center can also add up" - Departament d"Educació
With the withdrawal of the centers from L'Hospitalet and Vic, the pilot plan loses four of the 14 institutes initially planned. The debate on the fit of the Mossos in the school environment remains open, with the Government defending prevention as the axis of the initiative and several faculty boards distancing themselves from its application in the centers.