The Minister of Education, Vocational Training, Physical Activity, and Sports of the Government of the Canary Islands, Poli Suárez, announced this Tuesday the launch of a new assistance service for families of students with Specific Educational Support Needs (SEN), with the aim of offering advice, providing information on common procedures, and gathering proposals, suggestions, or complaints, thus opening a new channel of direct communication with them.
This resource, which is already operational, will allow families to have a contact mechanism, which joins the existing ones, "close and immediate with which to respond to their most common demands," Suárez explained. A measure that represents "a very important step towards the goal of advancing towards quality and inclusive education, a path that we must walk hand in hand with families."
In that same vein, the Minister highlighted that steps are already being taken to launch new SEN regulations, "where the Director-General himself is meeting with families and groups to update that document and ensure that it meets their expectations and the objectives we have set: care and inclusion in schools in the Canary Islands."
This direct attention channel, whose implementation responds to the express commitment of the Minister, is managed by personnel with specific training, which guarantees adequate and personalized guidance for each case in order to offer comprehensive and coordinated care to families. In addition, the new service will promote active and continuous support during the educational process of students with SEN.
Those interested in accessing this service can do so in the morning by calling 922 924 396, and via email [email protected] asynchronously and permanently.
More resources
This measure is part of a broader set of actions promoted by the Ministry of Education to improve care for students with SEN in the islands, with a significant increase in human resources.
Among them, the reinforcement of non-teaching staff stands out, whose staff has increased from 998 professionals in the 2022/2023 academic year to 1,278 in the 2024/2025 academic year, which represents more than 280 new hires. This increase includes 174 caregivers, 85 nursing assistants, in addition to the incorporation of several workshop assistants, physiotherapists, or university graduates in Nursing, to which would have to be added about 200 additional hires made by the General Technical Secretariat and the health personnel who provide service in the centers, to which the Ministry allocates 5.5 million euros.
The teaching staff dedicated to these students has also grown, from 2,590 professionals in the 2022/2023 academic year to 2,941 in the current 2024/2025 academic year. This reinforcement translates into the incorporation of 351 teachers since the arrival of the current team, as well as an investment of 15.3 million euros, which raises the total allocation for this area from 129.7 to 145.1 million euros.
The increase in the number of Enclave Classrooms has been another fundamental measure for improving care for SEN students. In the 2022/2023 academic year, there were 267 of these specific classrooms, a figure that rose to 300 in 2023/2024 and reached 339 in January 2025.
Thus, the opening of 72 new Enclave Classrooms and the creation of four new Special Education Centers (SEC) have been projected. In parallel, seven new ASD Centers have been promoted, with the aim of diversifying the educational offer and improving the territorial distribution of resources.
Budget for SEN support
In addition to the item allocated to the increase in teaching staff for the care of SEN students in the classrooms, the budget allocated to the contractor that provides the external service with non-teaching staff has also experienced a significant increase: it has increased from 13 million euros in 2023 to 21 in 2025, allowing the expansion of care from 2,900 students to more than 4,700.
This contract has been null since 2020, which prevents the Ministry from benefiting from the subsidy of 85 percent of the item by the European Union, about 17.85 million euros that are being assumed with own funds. To resolve this situation, the Ministry of Education is finalizing the drafting of the specifications to tender a new contract with better coverage as soon as possible.
The new document will allow establishing penalties for breach of contract, updating prices, improving the working conditions of staff, or increasing the number of hours of service provision, contemplating the presence of staff in the dining rooms, complementary and extracurricular activities, as families also demand.
