“After four years, that center is finally a reality. It has very good facilities and home automation and qualities that are currently the most advanced in the market in the construction of educational centers.”
The Provincial Director of the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports (MEFPyD) of Melilla, Juan Ángel Berbel, has highlighted the new Infant and Primary Education Center (CEIP) ‘Encarna León’ that Minister Pilar Alegría inaugurated two weeks ago. “It has been a very powerful investment, with 12 million euros and right now it is the largest CEIP we have in the city, prepared to respond to a thousand users once it is fully operational. It is a reference center,” he said.
In an interview with Onda Cero, the head of the Provincial Directorate of the MEFPyD has stressed the importance of the center being named after Encarna León, a teaching professional for 40 years who, in addition, has a very important intellectual and personal trajectory, as well as great human values.
“It is important that students know who Encarna León, a poet, a narrator and illustrator, in short, a person of great intellectual stature,” he said.
36 units
Regarding the capacity of the centre, Berbel explained that, in the short term, it will not be necessary to use all the facilities of the centre. “It’s going to expand progressively. When the last course started, they had 12 units and the idea is to create the next course one or two more, that is, 14 units,” he said.
“The center is prepared to house 36 units, plus the corresponding unfolding areas, but right now we are not going to reduce the ratio in the neighboring centers, which already have it below the one established by the regulations,” he reported.
This system, he explained, is the same that was followed with the IES ‘Virgen de la Victoria’ when it was inaugurated. Thus, “from 675 students has passed, in 4 years, to 950 students,” he said. With the ‘Encarna León’ right now there are the students that were in the Modular Classrooms, which are 310, and next year it will be raised to 340 or 350 students and, progressively, those units will be expanded, it has advanced.
New infrastructure
As Berbel explained, within the Comprehensive Socio-Economic Development Plan for Melilla of the Government of Spain is included the expansion of the school ‘Hipodromo’ as well as the construction of a Vocational Training Campus.
Regarding the first infrastructure, the head of the MEFPyD in Melilla has pointed out that next to the school there is an adjoining plot that, due to its dimensions - 7,500 square meters - lends itself to the square meters that would be needed for the construction of a three-line center.
“At the time, the previous Councilor, verbally, told us to have that space, that there was indeed a plot and he even gave us a few meters more than we need,” he recalled. However, “the MEFPyD cannot start building if it does not have a formal answer that, effectively, that plot is unaffected for the services sector and can start building,” he warned.
“The same thing was done in the Gabriel of Morales, or every time a center is built. First you have to have a plot available to give it that task”, he indicated and recalled that the City disaffected 10,000 square meters of Gabriel de Morales in 2014 for the construction of the center.
Regarding the Vocational Training Campus, Juan Ángel Berbel stressed that a fairly large plot is needed and pointed to the possibility that the Ministries of Education and Defense can reach an agreement to use the space of barracks that are in disuse. “If the land is made available to the Ministry of Education, we will have one of the star measures since we talk about 55 million euros of investment,” he said.
Bet on FP
In another order of things, during the radio interview, the vocational training and the commitment to it made by the Government of Pedro Sánchez has been addressed. “We have moved from 1,825 students to 2,900 students in 5 years, thanks, in part, to the authorization of 25 new professional cycles,” he said.
“If you diversify and expand the offer, you make it possible for students, who used to go to Baccalaureate because of inertia or who did not finish ESO, to have an alternative educational response,” he said, while also asserting that it is a “country need.” “In 2021, when the new VET Law was launched, Spain needed 3 million workers in sectors where there was not enough people to be covered,” he said.
Oppositions
“The competitions were convened on December 30, 2022, and the resolution, which announces that the tests were being carried out, came out on March 15,” Berbel recalled, when asked about the Primary competition process. In particular, there are 63 places of all specialties and the Royal Decree that governs them is that of 2020 for the stabilization of employment in the public sector.
Berbel recalled that, due to the cutting policies carried out by the former Executive, between 2012 and 2017, 60 places were convened in five calls. That is, an average of 12 places per call.
With the Government of Pedro Sánchez, seven calls have been held, from 2018 to the present, and 434 places have been called, which means an average of 62 places per call. Something, said Berbel, that has caused the rate of interinity to be reduced