The implementation of the Children’s and Primary Education Center (CEIP) ‘Encarna León’ will take place during this month of April, after the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports (MEFPyD) formally received the license of first occupation of the Autonomous City, the last administrative procedure that remained to be able to operate as a school.
This was explained by the Provincial Director of Education, Juan Ángel Berbel, in an interview granted to Televisión Melilla, in which he pointed out that this month of April the electricity and water will be discharged, since, right now, that building has a provisional discharge, and the contract will be placed in the name of the Autonomous City, since, being a primary school, ownership becomes of the local administration.
“At the moment when the electricity and water are discharged, which is also not complicated because the corresponding Ministry has already been provided with all the documentation of the book of the building, of the different tests and procedures that it takes to associate the discharge of both of one thing and of the other, the move will be made by the management team,” said Berbel, who added that, as soon as the management team of the center communicates that they are ready to go to the new facilities, the families will also be notified.
As Berbel has pointed out, in the current building there are 400 people among students, teachers and administration and services staff, maintenance team, cleaning staff… “All that staff is already transferred to the new facilities”, he has made clear.
In fact, he has indicated that many of the materials have already been packed and taken little by little to the new building, so “there are not too many things left to do the move,” he said.
Berbel has stressed that families “are excited about the change to the new school,” given that it is “a new, much broader, more open center.” As he recalled, it is a center of four lines, although for the moment it is not going to be implemented in its entirety, but it will be done progressively, and with families that are from the area where the school is located. “In the different levels we will first complete what are two lines and, progressively, expand to three lines, if necessary,” he said.
20 million in infrastructure
During the interview Juan Ángel Berbel pointed out that, as has happened in the whole country, the birth rate in the city of Melilla has dropped and, with the current facilities, plus this new one that is going to be implemented, “what is the Infantile-Primary stage, we believe that we can already give a quite optimal response in terms of ratio, which was one of the scourges that the educational system had here in Melilla”.
To expand on this issue, the Provincial Director has pointed out that right now the ratios in Early Childhood Education are 22 students, while in Primary there are 25 students per classroom, a figure that drops to 23.5 students per classroom if we refer to public centers.
“In the city, in the education system, there were several aspects that we had to improve. One was the educational infrastructure, another was the issue of the ratio, which is directly associated with the educational infrastructure, and another, the working conditions of teachers,” he said.
In all three areas, he said, “significant progress has been made.” Specifically, as far as educational infrastructures are concerned, “in this period of six years more than 20 million euros have been executed, through the different General Budgets of the State,” he revealed.
Thus, he referred to the ‘Central Market’, “which was a work that was finished, at the expense of remates, could be launched in 2019”; the Modular Classrooms, “which were also practically finished in the first phase, then the second was done, and which has had an endowment of two million euros”; the IES ‘Virgen de la Victoria’, in the plot of Jardín Valenciano, which was launched in 2020; and the CEIP ‘Encarna León’.
But, in addition, “in parallel to that, there have also been small remodeling of spaces and repairs in centers,” he reported. Thus, he has referred to the remodeling of spaces of the IES ‘Leopoldo Queipo’, once the Official School of Languages left the Central Market; to the works to address the subject of leaks of the IES ‘Miguel Fernández’, including the domes at the front door, or to the sanitation works in the tracks of the IES ‘Juan Antonio Fernández’.
But Berbel has made it clear that they will continue to make improvements. “We are going to start the remodeling of the workshops in the Victoria Adult District, which is where you are learning about patronage and clothing and hairdressing,” he announced.
Also the remodeling of the use of the library of the ‘Central Market’, after the first occupation license is already available after processing by the Accessibility Commission, and which is going to be executed this year.
Or also the new classroom of the ‘Rusadir’ Institute, which “the director has been asking for since the 2008-2009 academic year and which is an area for the Workshop of Cold and Heat, where this professional family is being taught that demands facilities more in line with the expansion they want in this professional family”, he has apostilled.
“They have the Middle Degree, but they also wanted to expand to the Higher Degree, and that howl, when done, will also give that response to that particular professional family,” he said.
Future of modular classrooms
Asked about the use that will be given to the Modular Classrooms once the move to the CEIP ‘Encarna León’ materializes, Berbel has clarified that it is not something that is within the competence of the Provincial Directorate, since, in the case of schools, demanial ownership passes to the local administration.
“I do not know what the Ministry of Public Works has in relation to this plot, which is 50,000 m2”, he acknowledged, but recalled that, the previous local executive talked about the possibility of making a park in this space. “We understood that a park could be done perfectly next to where the facilities are and continue to give an educational purpose to those infrastructures,” he said.
And Berbel has recalled that the 0-2 section has a great claim and that, in fact, last year around 300 families were left unattended. “This space, which is already equipped for this age group, can be given an educational purpose, and thus takes advantage of the investment that, at the time, was made, and that gives us a guarantee of useful life of 20-25 years,” he said.
Another possibility for its use, in the words of Berbel, could be a center of attention to people who have some kind of functional diversity, especially when in the city we only have the Center of Attention to People with Intellectual Disability ‘Gámez Morón’.