//
you're reading...
Spain

Spain’s students and their families turn up heat on Rajoy

Rising student fees, regressive education reforms, a €4 billion cut to state education and the firing of thousands of teachers are set to be contested by students and their families as they step up protests in the coming week.

Until now, it has been the teachers who have been leading the defence of state education, which has long suffered from underfunding but is now under unprecedented attack from a Government accused of seeking to turn the clock back to the dark days of the Franco Dictatorship.

But now students and their parents are making a stand against the administration of Mariano Rajoy.  They are planning over the coming week protests across Spain against what Jesus Maria Sanchez, president of a national parents association, CEAPA, described in a press conference Wednesday as ‘deeply ideological’ reforms to the education system that will engrain privilege and deprive the next  generation of working class kids of decent chances in life.

‘Young people are tired of being told there is no money for education and health, then the governing Popular Party  allocate 33% of the budget for the payment of the debt,’ added student union general secretary Tohil Delgado. It was critical to maintain the protests against a government that ‘in nine months has sent us  back decades of social progress,’ he said.

The reforms include a protection of state funding to private schools while money to publicly-run schools is slashed, channelling the money of hard up Spaniards’ into the pockets shady ultra conservative institutions like the Opus Dei and the Legionaries of Christ, who run the private institutions.

Under reforms unveiled in the Spring, university tuition fees rise from to 25% of total study costs, up from 15% at present, teachers’ working hours increase as will classroom sizes, by 20%.

Other changes giving rise to deep concern are an increase in formal testing and an effective narrowing of the curriculum as subjects such as arts and humanities are downgraded in favour of the ‘basics’  demanded by big business.

But concerns are much wider than education per se. Students are becoming increasingly indebted as not only fees go up and access to grants is curtailed, but the ability to top up incomes has evaporated along with future job prospects in a country with youth unemployment is over 50%. 1,500 young people weekly are emigrating to survive, many of them are faced with being left with no roof over their heads, with figures showing that hundreds of families are losing their homes daily – despite the fact that 6 million homes lay empty.

Thursday students will take nationwide action*, ahead of a general strike on 16-18 October.

* photos

About revoltingeurope

Writer on Europe's Left, trade union and social movements @tomgilltweets or email [email protected]

Discussion

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Twitter Updates

  • #Syriza's alternatives to #austerity cuts| Interview with Panos Lamprou | Revolting #Europe wp.me/p1bMfw-1R8 8 hours ago
  • French Rail: A Short History of Liberalization - L'Humanité in English humaniteinenglish.com/spip.php?artic… 13 hours ago
  • #Women's rights, #health being rolled back in Eastern #Europe as curbs on abortion spread. IPS shar.es/kgsJk 14 hours ago
  • Why Greece is slashing public sector jobs wp.me/p1bMfw-1R3 1 day ago
  • Flash mob performances hit #Italy's beaches, as #women campaign over domestic violence, deregulation . ANSA ansa.it/web/notizie/ru… 1 day ago
  • While the #EU frets over #Hungary #Italy's democracy burns. My piece on Left Foot Forward leftfootforward.org/2013/07/it-is-… 2 days ago
  • #Troika destroys 500,000 jobs in #Portugal | Revolting #Europe wp.me/p1bMfw-1QW #imf #ecb 2 days ago
  • Close to half #Portugal's population running the risk of #poverty as #inequality increases. Portugal News theportugalnews.com/news/close-to-… 2 days ago
  • Copying UK's #austerity cuts sets us on a road to ruin: A view from Australia smh.com.au/federal-politi… via @smh 2 days ago
  • #Austerity suicides: Since crisis began, 16 police officers have taken own lives ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_artic… #Greece 2 days ago
Follow @tomgilltweets

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

WAGES SLIDE

Key facts and figures on wages across the EU

Wealth Inequality in Europe

Get the key facts and figures

RADICAL VOICES

A different take on European issues

Italy’s Healthcare Crisis

Health services are ‘close to collapse’ in Rome, Turin and Naples after years of cuts and privatisation.

NO TO WATER PRIVATISATION

99% of the 167 000 Madrilenos who signed a petition rejected the sell off local water company

Filthy Rich

France's Bernard Arnault of the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) empire is worth $41 billion. Check out Europe's rich list

SANTA DRAGHI’S COMING

Private banks receive half-trillion-euro gift from ECB

POPULAR FIGHTBACK

Workers and citizens stand up for themselves

FLORENCE’S BUS LUMACA

Workers are on a go-slow over privatisation

Massive Spanish protest

Half a million take to the streets over labour market deregulation

FRENCH FACTORY OCCUPATION

Hundreds of workers occupied the factory of ArcelorMittal in Florange in the north of France

International Workers Day

International Workers Day 2012

DATA

Anti-social Europe in numbers

RSS Watching Corporate Europe

  • From cigarettes to coconuts: Dalli’s Bahamas trips and the Commissioners’ Code of Conduct
  • Eurobills: Not a progressive solution for the European debt crisis
  • MEPs code of conduct failing to prevent potential conflicts of interest

RSS Hate Crimes in Europe

  • An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.

RSS Fight discrimination in Europe – Amnesty Int’l

  • Listen to Roma Rights
  • Peaceful Budapest Pride March, but a worrying hate attack following the march

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

in Italy the home is a very dangerous place to be

LABOUR RIGHTS

Workers down tools over PM Monti's attack on labour rights

FORTRESS EUROPE

Concentration camps and a massive migrant marine cemetery

Archives

Subjects

Meta

EUROPE NEEDS A CITIZENS’ REVOLUTION

Read the statement by Lafontaine and Melenchon

PM Rajoy One Year On

Spaniards are not impressed

FRANCE

GERMANY

GREECE

ITALY

PORTUGAL

SPAIN

THE EURO

The Dossier