Sunday, March 26, 2023, 11:49
The schools on the coast are on the ropes. To the limit because more and more students attend and less space they have for it. And to show a data. In the last six years, the student body of the two Infant and Primary centers on the coast have gone from having around 700 pupils to 1,400. And despite the fact that they assure that they do not lack human means, statements such as those of the Minister of Education, Raquel Tamarit, who said last Monday that Orihuela was saying goodbye to the barracks this year, seem daring to say the least.
The IES Thader, in the urban area, has been one of the lucky ones who have been able to dismiss the barracks. In Los Dolses, however, they continue to operate with five of these prefabricated classrooms in the courtyard and the most illuminating thing is that, in just five months, the foundation of the future CEIP number 20 is planned, also in modular classrooms.
The cause that has motivated this expansion of the educational offer is none other than the students who enter outside the regular enrollment period, mostly of foreign origin and with no knowledge of the language. The case of Los Dolses is paradigmatic. With 56 nationalities, the second most spoken language is already Russian. In the other center, Playas de Orihuela, more of the same. 580 of the 720 students are foreigners. “And among the Spanish, the majority are of foreign parents and do not speak Spanish at home,” adds its director, Francisco de la Peña.
Los Dolses demands that the extension include an auditorium and a study room that also serves the residents
“Since September alone, 160 students have enrolled outside the term,” this teacher abounds, who, even so, he points out, does not have a situation as alarming as that of his counterpart school. Los Dolses received the news this week of the award of the works to fix the backyard wall, in a dangerous state and that they were forced to close.
But by no means does that solve their problems, at least not the main one. Apart from having to resort to the prefabricated ones, they have been left without a teacher’s room, library, workshop and psychomotricity classroom. “We are giving religion classes and reinforcement classes in the corridor,” describes the director of the school, Isaac Bonafé, fed up with waiting for an extension that, he says, he has been demanding “for 5 years.”
«This school started in the year 2000 on line 1, in 2005 we went to two lines. With the brick crisis there was a drop in the student body, but since 2017 people have not stopped arriving », he relates. “Now we are collapsed and overcrowded,” he denounces. A situation for which, more than Valencia, he blames the City Council. “In the Ministry they are for the job of giving the money through the Edificant, but there is no way for them to receive the project,” he sighs. “And words are no longer worth it.”
Auditorium and study room
From the Urbanism area they assure that they are already working on the drafting of the project. A work for which Bonafé also claims to correct some of the debts that, apart from with the school, he considers that the Consistory has with the residents of the coast. “We want a new Infant classroom, but also an auditorium and a study room, not only for us, but also for the kids from IES Playa Flamenca and so that the neighbors can have a place to hold their events,” he says. “The land is already there”
The Councilor for Education, María García, for her part, shows her understanding of the educational community, but assures that, sometimes, the enrollment data does not match the real pressure “since there are many students whose families return to their countries without deregistering their children.
However, he recognizes “the obvious need” for a new school to be created on the coast and claims to have already scheduled a meeting with the Ministry to set the plot on which the future barracks number 20 will be located. the plot that housed Playas de Orihuela in barracks until 2018, next to the Villamartín road, but now he assures that other options are being considered.
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