Intersindical Canarias denounces the situation in which the educational centers of the islands find themselves with respect to students with special needs.
"Since the beginning of the course, we have detected important difficulties in the different educational centers in relation to attention to diversity. These difficulties especially affect the specialist teaching staff involved in this area, including the body of teachers of the specialties of Specific Educational Support Needs (NEAE) and Hearing and Language, as well as the teaching staff of secondary education in the specialty of educational guidance. Without forgetting that there are other people and agents involved, who will be mentioned throughout the statement," they explain.
"Aware of the importance of the issue, we have carried out a comprehensive diagnosis that included visits to the affected centers and face-to-face meetings with the agents involved. To obtain a complete view of the situation, we have also reinforced communication through emails, WhatsApp messages and telephone calls addressed to the teams of the NEAE centers," they declare.
"As a next step, we have collaborated closely with the centers to facilitate the sending of reports prepared by the different coordinators of Educational and Psychopedagogical Guidance Teams (EOEP) and the management teams. The collection of this information is crucial to address the real needs faced by our educational centers in terms of attention to diversity," they continue.
Likewise, they state that "there has not only been a cut in specialists, but also the lack of personal resources (mainly assistants or workshop assistants), infrastructure and basic resources to carry out their teaching function. All these aspects are prioritized and very important, due to the characteristics of the students they serve on a daily basis. While the Ministry is not aware of the situation."
"The problem of educational auxiliary personnel and workshop assistants arises due to the outsourcing of the service by the Ministry, through the subcontractor Aeromédica Canaria, which has led to the precariousness of the same. This situation is reflected in the hiring of personnel without adequate qualifications and in schedules misaligned with those of the students they serve, which reduces the educational attention they require. All of this contrasts with the conditions of the same position when it is performed by the Ministry's labor personnel," they indicate.
"As it is outsourced personnel, to whom instructions cannot be transferred from the educational management team, it complicates daily relations and the organization of the educational center. The instructions are given by the private company itself, which knows nothing about the proper functioning of the educational centers and, what is worse, the management teams have instructions from the Ministry to deal with the company, not with the personnel directly," they explain from the union.
"As a fact, if a worker from Aeromédica denounces, they automatically access the list of labor personnel of the Ministry by sentence (lawsuit). An absurdity, if we understand that this service should be carried out directly by the educational administration, as the colleagues of the labor personnel have been demanding," they explain.
"To be able to understand more in depth the situation of professionals on attention to diversity, we have to add the excessive number of students per specialist and that, in many cases, a maximum number of NEAE/NEE students per specialist is not contemplated; which generates that the attention received by the students is not that established by regulations and they have less attention than what corresponds to them due to lack of time to materialize it," they comment.
"With all the above, we cannot forget that the geographical dispersion of the specialists in the EOEP of the area is not taken into account either, and much less in the specific EOEP. The specialists have the same workload, but reduced time due to the distances they must travel to carry out their teaching function," they say.
"That is why we have already started an itinerary of actions to involve the collective and be able to take the appropriate measures of struggle, and in turn, let the Ministry of Education and the NEAE managers of the same know in the negotiation table," they reveal.
"Attention to diversity is a fundamental pillar in inclusive education, and it is imperative that we work together to guarantee an equitable and accessible educational environment for all students. We call on the educational authorities and the community in general to join efforts in improving the resources and support destined for specialists in attention to diversity," they conclude.