Budgets
The budget for the concerted grows 4%, with 12 million more
The Ministry of Education has given up, for the moment, spending the money sent by the Ministry for the creation of public nursery places in direct aid or in financing arranged places, as was its initial intention. The budget for next year that the Minister of Education, Mabel Campuzano, presents this morning at the Regional Assembly, contemplates that most of the investment is destined to the municipalities, so that they are the ones who invest it by increasing the offer of places in municipal nurseries and childcare centers and points.
Part of the game, which should generate the creation of more than 1,300 free places from 0 to 3 years old, will be dedicated to works for the construction of new Children’s pavilions in schools in the Community and in some schools. The regional administration has thus distributed the item corresponding to this year, but does not rule out returning to its initial plan and, together with other communities, has resorted to the spending system imposed by the Ministry.
Spending on Infant places is one of the novelties of the Education portfolio accounts for next year, which will manage a budget of 1,445 million euros, almost 4% more than last year. The budget for regional education for the next fiscal year goes up in any case less than in the previous one, when it increased by 5.4%.
The network of subsidized centers will improve its allocation with a rise of twelve million euros, which represents an increase of 4%. The increase will be used to attend to the vegetative growth in the classrooms (the schoolchildren who are going up courses, and therefore, generating more units to be arranged) and to the salary increase of the teachers.
The increase in spending for the concerted program contrasts with the slight reduction in the budget for the Primary and Secondary sections, which is caused by the decrease in the personnel chapter, by not including the expense for Covid teachers and accommodating the fall in the birth rate . Nor does the chapter on current expenses of public centers grow.
Vocational Training is one of the most benefited by the accounts for next year. The budgets allocate an item of almost 23 million euros, six million more than last year, to this type of teaching. This remarkable increase, of more than 35%, will be destined fundamentally to the increase of places and the creation of new cycles and degrees, so that the centers can meet the increase in demand and improve education «also with the acquisition and renewal of the equipment necessary for the teaching of the cycles ”. On the other hand, the distribution of the Education allocation does not reinforce the chapters referring to the free book bank and dining room scholarships, which are frozen with respect to the current year. The aid so that families without resources can leave their children for lunch in educational centers without paying the service are endowed with just over four million euros, as last year, and will benefit only about 6,000 families.
The development of the free textbook plan, which had foreseen that next year all compulsory education students would have free manuals, still presents many uncertainties for the next year. The Ministry of Education has budgeted, at the moment, 7 million euros at the start, the same amount as last year, but the destination of the money is not entirely clear. Until this academic year, students from third to sixth year of Primary, those of first and second year of ESO, and those of Basic FP and Space Education have free books through the loan system.
The initial plan, which was already “broken” last year by not including, as appropriate, the purchase of books for the third year of ESO, contemplated that all students had free manuals the next year. However, Education has not yet decided if the seven million will be used next year to buy books for third year ESO students, third and fourth year students, or neither of the two options.
The cause of this uncertainty must be sought in the implementation of the new Lomloe curricula. The next course will go into effect for odd courses, which will have books with new content. In the even courses, Education doubts that the investment will be profitable, taking into account that the following academic year these manuals will not work either, which should be used for four years. To these conditions is added the fact that the educational reform is committed to digitization in the classroom, and highlights that textbooks will be just one more support in the classroom.
In this context, the Ministry of Education will plan the destination of the budget for books after meeting with the sectors involved (booksellers, families, centers) and assessing the situation. The students of the courses that are already included in the manual loan program will in any case receive the free books that were already purchased in previous courses.
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