By María Dolores Corujo
On May 17, the Council of Ministers of the Popular Party's Government gave the green light to the educational counter-reform known as LOMCE (Organic Law for the Improvement of Educational Quality), which enshrines one of the demands...
On May 17, the Council of Ministers of the Popular Party's Government gave the green light to the educational counter-reform known as LOMCE (Organic Law for the Improvement of Educational Quality), which enshrines one of the most obsessive demands of the most retrograde clergy in Europe: the imposition by law of the Catholic religion in public schools in our country. In a matter of hours, the time it takes for an ordinary Council of Ministers to be held, the Spanish education system regressed four decades.
To the astonishment of many parents, pure ultraconservative ideology has returned to the classrooms at the hands of a political right that, in addition to being submissive to economic powers, is servile to the ecclesiastical hierarchy, perhaps to pay for the permanent "escrache" that the bishops practiced on the socialist government during the process of approving marriages between people of the same sex, or equality policies for women.
With the excuse of the economic crisis, this LOMCE seeks to enshrine an unequal society. The rich will study, but the most disadvantaged will not be able to because they are deprived of scholarships; the reválidas of Francoism return, the segregation of students in the classrooms is allowed and the hiring of teachers is slowed down; the subject of Religion gains strength, because the bishops demand parishioners, not free citizens, so now the Catholic catechism will count towards the curriculum or to apply for a scholarship.
Boys on one side and girls on the other. With the Wert Law it will be possible to study separately with public funding in subsidized schools, a perversion favored by the particular agreements signed with the Holy See. And this despite contrary rulings by the Supreme Court and the Council of State, which oppose unlimited support for private schools versus the dismantling of public schools advocated by the PP. And the icing on the cake: Minister Wert and his people kneel before a satisfied Episcopal Conference, as the Education for Citizenship of the PSOE has been eliminated.
From the Socialist Party we say loud and clear that this educational law is that of cuts and the prostration of public education. It is a retrograde law that violates the secular spirit of the Constitution. Spanish education does not need more catechisms. It needs more teachers, more scholarships and more researchers.
*María Dolores Corujo, general secretary of the PSOE of Lanzarote.