The start of the new school year has not started in the same way for all students in the Canary Islands. Minors with special needs are in a critical situation due to the lack of educational assistants who can attend to the care needed by this group.
Gabriela Gallardo is part of the commission of students NEAE (Specific Needs for Educational Support) and NEE (Special Educational Needs) in Lanzarote and the Canary Islands. She is one of the many mothers and fathers who fight for their children to have the same learning conditions as other children who do not have special needs. "We have started a course with fewer resources than we had, empty words and breaking the law," they say from the commission.
Thanks to their work, the association has been able to echo the deficiencies in different educational centers in Lanzarote, although the reality is that it is a problem that affects the entire archipelago.
"It seems that the Ministry decided to change, from spring to autumn, the criteria and the way in which the centers should request these supports. These assistants must be inside the school, every morning, during school hours, closely helping the students assigned to their care," they say.
Specifically, there are two types of assistants. The clinical ones, who attend to children who mostly suffer from serious illnesses, which compromise their lives and require specific medication for their pathologies, and the support assistants, who do not necessarily have to be nurses, but rather companions of children with special needs.
Deficiencies compiled by the commission
In the CEIP La Garita, in the municipality of Haría, one of the deficiencies that parents denounce is the elimination of a children's group, so there will only be one group of 3-4 years and another of 4-5 years. This leads to the reduction of two places in the teaching staff and the loss of the Head of Studies position, which negatively affects Primary. Added to this is that educational assistants have not yet been assigned to attend to the needs of NEAE students in the Infant cycle.
For its part, in the CEIP Alcalde Rafael Cedrés, in Tías, they are pending the appointment of a kindergarten teacher, since there is a medical leave, and, in addition, the parents denounce the insufficient shade areas in the center that hinder outdoor activities.
Regarding the CEIP La Asomada Mácher, also in Tías, the hiring of the educational assistant of the Aula Enclave is done at 25 hours of work and not at 27.5 so that they can pick up the students who come in adapted transport. Likewise, from Aeromédica Canaria they made a hiring error of the educational assistant for students with Severe Behavioral Disorder. According to the NEAE commission, "they joined, we did all the adaptation and bonding with the student and then they told us that they had to hire another person and, as of today, no one has been appointed." they say.
The lack of vital educational assistants for the care of students with special needs affects the CEIP Ajei of San Bartolomé, the CEIP Güime, the CEIP César Manrique of Tahíche and the CIF Zonzamas of Arrecife.
On the other hand, they denounce that the CEE Nuestra Señora de Los Volcanes, in the municipality of Teguise, lacks nursing staff, which "is fundamental given the characteristics and needs of the students enrolled there," they declare. In addition, the necessary infrastructure works have not been carried out.
Regarding the IES Las Maretas, also in Arrecife, the schedule of the enclave classroom was from 08:00 to 14:00 hours, during the pandemic it was reduced from 09:00 to 13:30 and to date the previous schedule has not been restored.
In the IES César Manrique, in Arrecife, according to the commission, "the infrastructure does not meet the accessibility criteria that ensure the safe transit of students with reduced mobility, the courtyard being a huge danger to the physical integrity of students and teaching staff due to its deplorable state." In addition, they do not have an evacuation and emergency plan and there are also no shade spaces.
It should be noted that in all centers the ratio of students per classroom is exceeded.
Response from the administrations
The NEAE commission accuses the Ministry of Education of considering these deficiencies as 'minutiae' and not as what they are, a violation of the rights of people with functional diversity of students with special needs when the law includes the care of this type of student and to put the necessary resources".
Gabriela Gallardo, in addition to being part of the NEAE commission, is also secretary of the IES César Manrique. Gallardo denounces that at the infrastructure level, "the institute lacks absolutely everything that the law says in terms of accessibility, since we do not have adapted bathrooms and there is a service that the boys do not use because it has the barriers in the toilet and they can access it through the width of the door, but it is not a properly accessible and adapted bathroom as the regulations say".
From the Ministry, the solution they offered was the construction of bathrooms on each floor but it has not yet been carried out "We are already finishing the month and we have not yet seen these works being carried out," she laments.
Regarding the lack of evacuation plans in schools, Gallardo admits that the IES César Manrique also lacks them. "We had proposed and we had asked the Cabildo for help through Social Welfare and they committed, together with the Security and Emergency Consortium, to provide the center with evacuation chairs and I contacted the councilor, Marci Acuña, to ask him and he reiterated that they are committed to adopting the center of four chairs to be able to develop the evacuation plan, but at the moment as of today the situation remains the same," she declares.
Requirements to be an educational assistant in the Canary Islands
Another of the concerns of the parents of students with special needs in the islands is the qualification of educational assistants. "From the association we presented a petition to the Ministry, specifically to the General Technical Secretariat, who are in charge of the personnel issue because the Canary Islands is one of the few autonomous communities in which the requirements to occupy this position do not have to include studies or training in this area," she explains.
In addition, she says that she herself called several years ago to the company in charge of hiring to know exactly the necessary requirements to work as an educational assistant. "They told me that with a school graduate it was enough," she says.
That is why families face the uncertainty of knowing whether their children are going to be well cared for or not in schools, reaching the point, even, that some families have had to change their children's school because it does not have the necessary resources to meet the demands of this group.
"In fact, one of the mothers told me that last year she had to leave her job to be aware all morning outside the center so that when her son needed her, they called her and of course, that happens because there are no resources from the Ministry," she says.
And it is that the different associations of mothers and fathers of students with special needs have been for years, during all the beginnings of the course, trying to make visible the deficiencies and demanding that the Ministry apply solid and decent solutions so that their children have the same rights and conditions as the rest of their classmates.
"My son touched the water for the first time when I went to the relief of assistants"
Due to the lack of educational assistants to which is added a deficient infrastructure of schools, many students suffer unfair and unpleasant situations against which parents fight to avoid.
According to Gabriela Gallardo, "this translates into situations such as not knowing how to make chair transfers, and my son the previous year went to a water park with his classmates in Playa Blanca and the child, if it were not for me who went at one in the afternoon to make the relief of the assistants, because their schedule is until 2, that is, I had to stop doing what I needed, take my other daughter out before the schedule to be able to attend to Gabriel and my son touched the water for the first time when I went because the rest of the time he was sitting in his chair under an umbrella, while all his classmates were enjoying", says the mother.
Another of the parents, in addition, denounces that his 4-year-old son who has been recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and immediately presented a writing in the CEIP Ajei to request for the 2024/2025 course a clinical assistant for the relevant care. "As of today we still have no response and his mother has to be aware of him at all times and we would like to have some response and, above all, have an assistant as soon as possible, since it is not only for my son, but for many children with other types of needs", declares the father.
On the other hand, another of the cases is that of a student with a disability who has to travel more than 40km from Playa Blanca to the municipality of Arrecife. "The school transport picks him up at 06:15 in the morning and returns him at 16:00, almost 10 hours to be able to attend class because the transport passes through other localities", they expose.
