The Federation of Associations of Mothers and Fathers of Students of the Canary Islands (Confapacanarias) has expressed through a statement "its discomfort" and has accused the Ministry of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands of denying the truth. Thus, it refers to what happened last Thursday, February 20, when the families of students with special needs gathered "in front of the different headquarters of that same Ministry to make their anger, discontent and disagreement with the treatment received" evident.
After learning about the "synthetic response" of the Ministry of Education to these protests, served by Minister Poli Suárez on the same day, who assured, and here it is literally recalled, that "it is admirable [what they do] and supports them", it is understood that the anger of Confapacanarias "cannot be greater" for the mobilized families that Thursday.
At this point, the Federation of Associations of Mothers and Fathers of Students of the Canary Islands has reminded the Minister that "he is not a private individual and that pats on the back are fine from anyone else, but not from those who have his position, as he is none other than the person responsible for obtaining and managing the budget of his area to ensure that people with NEAE diagnoses have a quality and inclusive education, much better than the current one". It also stated that "instilling encouragement, always from his position as the highest public manager in Education, is an act that may perhaps be described as cynical or mocking".
In addition, both the Ministry and the Government of the Canary Islands "cannot pretend not to notice the general disagreement of families in relation to the work carried out from the public sector for the optimal service to this group of students, especially due to the lack of attention that NEAE families in the Canary Islands are suffering from the Autonomous Administration".
"This, it can be assured, is a clamor, even more so when all the demands made in those concentrations on Thursday, along with some more, are included in the document NEAE: Proposals for Education and Inclusion, a text registered in the Parliament of the Canary Islands on July 30 last year and whose elaboration has been coordinated by Confapacanarias". Thirteen different organizations from the NEAE field from all the islands participated in the same report. In addition, this document "has been defended before the Education Commission of the Parliament of the Canary Islands, so they should be aware of what is included and argued in it".
The list of "real absurdities", no matter how much the Ministry "tries to disguise or distract with propaganda and good words, is long and, at this point in the current legislature (2023-27), with almost half of the time already expired, it is time to take responsibility. It is no longer acceptable to blame those before".
Below, some of the requests and arguments included in the aforementioned report, known by all parliamentarians of the islands and by the Government of the Canary Islands itself, are recalled. As a starting point is "the reduction of the Education Budget, which moves away from 5% of the regional GDP this 2025, a benchmark set by law and whose non-compliance is at the origin of much of the rest of the problems".
In addition, in the NEAE field, program NEAE 21+, it is "an occurrence that opts for hidden nurseries that do not promote inclusion or training: there are no teachers in the Enclave Classrooms, there is no staff with the appropriate profile, real inclusion is not being promoted due to the lack of resources, especially economic ones, and there is also a clear intention to privatize" the NEAE sector, something that "means making it more precarious, which is equal to more discrimination".
It is evident that the Government of the Canary Islands "is not creating a training offer" professional adapted to NEAE students. And, to make matters worse, in infrastructure "there is no investment in what is urgent. As an example, the slowness or refusal to rebuild the centers destroyed by the volcano in La Palma and the barracks installed in different islands, to which is added the absence of roofs, shade, access for people with reduced mobility, etc.".
To all this is added that the program of Ecological School Gardens, which is a powerful pedagogical-didactic tool, started in January last year, and in the current one this initiative has not yet started, when it should have started last September. And one more question: in public centers the program Caterpillars and Butterflies is not being applied, which consists of giving psychological assistance to students, teaching staff and assistants in the event of a possible misfortune in the educational environment, leaving the centers and the educational community to their fate. Unfortunately, there have already been a few cases this year.
Eco-canteens and support from the Island Councils
The Eco-canteens program, to make matters worse, "is not being developed due to the lack of an executive order that requires the purchase of ecological products of local origin", something that does not increase the costs of the canteen for families and that also "offers healthier and healthier food to students", while contributing to strengthen the local economy, with what this means for the settlement of the population in rural areas.
It should also be mentioned that the Ministry "refuses or delays in time, which is currently happening, the signing of agreements with the island councils (those of La Palma and Lanzarote) that have offered to put their own funds for NEAE education and/or for the associated educational infrastructure in those islands".
The "battery of absurdities of the Ministry of Education is long", but, despite this, and this is "the most striking thing, in return only good words are had or distributed, the truth is lacking and there is terrible management, which from the outset discriminates against families and leaves them out of the equation of solutions, without taking them into account. Therefore, it can be said that this Ministry does not give one".
To conclude the statement, Confapacanarias has indicated that "given the few objective advances achieved in the optimal care of NEAE students in the archipelago", it reiterates to the Ministry "its maximum willingness to work on a rigorous plan that provides the necessary solutions for this group of structural component, much more already detected the deficiencies, something that should be done from the political conviction in the suitability of that path and with the prior definition of the necessary human and material resources, all linked to the budgetary availability, and not without evaluating the impacts of the defined actions and measuring the results obtained, its effectiveness".
