“Textbooks aren’t in all schools yet, and it’s January, almost a month into the second trimester.”
The Provincial Director of the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports (MEFPyD) in Melilla, Elena Fernández Treviño, in an interview given to the COPE network, has referred to the problems in the different contracting tables that the local government is having and that is translating into problems for the educational centers of the city.
Thus, he pointed out that, with regard to the Ministry of Education, there are many issues “that have not been implemented at the beginning of the course and that were necessary”. Likewise, the Ministry of Equality “has not done its job on issues that affect the educational field.”
Thus, he has referred to the morning classrooms that were opened very late. “We have favored, from the beginning, that reconciliation of work and family life. They, no,” he lamented. “They didn’t start the morning classrooms in time, they arrived a month and a half late,” he recalled.
Fernández Treviño has stressed that these issues affect the normal functioning of a center. Thus, the lack of textbooks “has made the management teams overloaded with photocopies” and that, in addition, has meant a “huge expense” for those centers. “They have that money to spend on education and yet they are spending a huge amount of money on photocopying, on getting that material for boys and girls,” he said.
No equality agents
Fernández Treviño has also referred to equality agents who have not been hired, which is harming the educational centers of Melilla. “Imagine those responsible for equality, who are primary and secondary school teachers in all the centres in Melilla who have teaching hours and need these equality agents, how they miss these people who come solely and exclusively to do work of equality and prevention of violence in the centres,” he said.
An agreement, he recalled, that was launched by Elena Fernández Treviño herself, in the previous government, since the Ministry of Equality, in 2019, when co-education agents started and that “they have been arriving at the centers every year at the beginning of the year”.
“Why not this year?”, he asked, and pointed out that the local government “has not done their job as they should, with the diligence they should have and right now, to this day, there are no coeducation agents”, he lamented.
At this point, the Provincial Director has made it clear that there are many issues that are not being done well, such as morning classrooms, textbooks, equality agents… all of this affects the educational field and, therefore, “you can see a lot in a center,” she said.
“We are talking about very important things for education and that have to be at the beginning of the course,” he insisted. “They are the government and they have to take responsibility for what happens,” he said, urging them to “get on top of it to start doing it right for next year.”