The Yaiza City Council approved this Thursday in plenary a motion in which it asks the Ministry of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands to expand and convert the Infant and Primary school into a center where students can also study Secondary Education. The motion, presented by the government group (PIL, PNL-NC and PP), was approved with the votes in favor of all the political groups of the Corporation.
The City Council hopes that its proposal will serve to "seriously consider" the construction project of the IES Playa Blanca. The City Council has demanded a center "spacious, orderly and with all the necessary infrastructure to comfortably develop the academic, recreational and sports activity demanded by the southern educational community."
The government group has recalled that the Supplementary General Plan for Urban Planning, which is being processed by the Government of the Canary Islands and which, according to representatives of the Executive, should be definitively approved at the beginning of 2014, contemplates the use of the land behind the CEIP Playa Blanca as educational and sports equipment. Therefore, that plot will be enabled to develop the project.
"We need the budget sheet from the Government of the Canary Islands and for it to adopt all the pertinent measures to draft it and carry it forward," said the mayor, Gladys Acuña, who already verbally advanced the proposal to the Island Directorate of Education.
"Overcrowding suffered by schoolchildren"
The government group has criticized the "overcrowding suffered by schoolchildren and teachers of the CEIP Playa Blanca", which is the "most populated" in Lanzarote and even in the Canary Islands, with 816 students. But, in addition, it has questioned the "four prefabricated classrooms installed for the current operation of six classes." These modules "reduce the recreation areas" of the students, according to the City Council itself.
It should also be noted that the majority of students who study from first to fourth year of ESO and from first to second year of Bachillerato at the IES de Yaiza, reside in Playa Blanca, a town located 19 kilometers from the institute. This tourist center concentrates 12,584 inhabitants, out of the 16,258 that the entire municipality of Yaiza has.
That is, the students must travel 19 kilometers each way daily, a reality that also implies an "onerous" transportation cost for the Government of the Canary Islands, as the government group has recalled.
The City Council maintains that, despite the economic crisis, the municipality maintains "not only the growth trend in the number of inhabitants, but also the growth of residents of school age." Playa Blanca, for example, will have 124 children to enroll in the first year of Infantil in the 2014-2015 academic year.
A 1991 building
The current building of the CEIP Playa Blanca was put into service in 1991 and "does not have physical space nor is it equipped to meet the needs of students and teachers." The Yaiza City Council wanted to specify that its interest "is not the mere expansion of the building", but that students of all levels can "enjoy spacious, dignified and modern facilities" in Playa Blanca.
