Setback for Education Dpt: court forces six-year extension in contracts with single-sex schools
Government will lodge appeal as it still wishes to withdraw subsidy from Opus Dei centres
BarcelonaJudicial setback for the Education Department in its attempt to remove public subsidies to faith schools that separate students by gender. As ARA has learnt, the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TJSC) granted on Thursday the precautionary measures requested by the 11 subsidised schools that separate by gender, which makes it very difficult for the Government's plans to withdraw the subsidies, as had been announced by the Education Department ever since Josep Bargalló took office.
The TJSC thus puts on hold the resolution approved by the Education Department at the end of June this year in which it said that educational contracts would not be renewed with the schools Canigó, Benlloch, Les Alzines, Pineda, Xaloc, Institució Lleida, Esc. Agr. Campjoliu, Institució Tarragona, La Vall, La Farga and Viaró because "they do not comply with the principle of coeducation through mixed schooling, which must be given preferential attention". In the same resolution, however, it gave a year's margin to the centres and extended the contracts by one year, not six, as it did for all the other subsidised centres in the country. The department argued that with this extension, families who want to take their children to these schools "will know that this is the last year they will be able to complete" free of charge.
The courts granted these 11 schools the precautionary measures they had requested and forced the department to grant them the subsidy "in the same way as has been done for other faith schools with which the contract has been renewed, that is, for a period of six school years, starting from the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year". This would mean that until the 2026-2027 school year, these schools would be guaranteed the subsidies if the justice system finally agrees with them in the final ruling.
The centres take the agreement for granted
"The court has been very clear and once again ratifies the right of our schools to receive public funding like any other educational center in Catalonia," said Teresa Martinez, CEO of Institució Familiar d'Educació, the platform to which many of these centers belong, in which she assumes that "the concerts will be renewed for primary school for six years until the 2026-2027 school year.
Now, the Department of Education has five working days to appeal these precautionary measures, and it is already clear that it will go all the way in this matter. Sources from the department consulted by the ARA have assured that they will file the appeal because they maintain "the will not to renew these agreements, and more so now, when there is a majority consensus in the state demonstrated last week with the approval in Congress of the education law".
In fact, the news comes a few days after the Congress of Deputies approved the new education law, which among other modifications prohibits charter schools from separating students by sex, a practice currently carried out by 11 schools in Catalonia and 87 throughout the State, most of them linked to Opus Dei, and where boys and girls study separately. An amendment agreed by the PSOE, Unidas Podemos and ERC establishes that schools supported "partially or totally with public funds" have to develop "the principle of coeducation in all the educational stages" and "they will not separate students by gender".
The Celaá law as a backdrop
While the Education Department (in the hands of ERC) believes that the new law protects the decisions they have been making this year in the line of withdrawing subsidies, the sector warns that it will put up a fight. In the same circular, the centres that separate by sex send a message of reassurance to families: "This point is contrary to the Constitutional Court's judgments of April 2018 which recognise that 'the centres of differentiated education must be able to access the public financing system in conditions of equality with the rest of the educational centres, without the character of the centre as a centre of differentiated education becoming an obstacle to the aforementioned access'. Therefore, we are convinced that the highest judicial body of the State will declare the unconstitutionality of this article".
In the letter, the delegate councillor of Institució Familiar also assures that the courts "have always agreed" with the centres and recalls that the Celaá law "was born without consensus" and with "much controversy due to the strong ideological charge and its proposals contrary to charter schools and the right of families to choose a school".
