"The adoption of the bill as it stands will result in the loss of possibility"
- "If the bill approved by the Education Commission of the Basque Parliament is approved on November 29, we will miss the opportunity to transform the Basque Educational System," said the President of the Federation of Ikastolas, Nekane Artola, and the Director-General, José Luis Sukia, in her appearance to report on the valuation of the law.
"As a first assessment, and if the bill is passed as it stands, we can say that it seems to us a "missed opportunity," explains Ikastolen Elkartea. "We want to remember textually how we ended the previous appearance: 'We are facing an opportunity that we cannot miss and we call on political parties to take into account the contributions of educational actors to bravely address the real transformation that the education system needs.'
"The situation of the educational system has led most agents to join the diagnosis: The educational systems of the Basque Country need a radical transformation in all areas, in the Basque country, in the pedagogical and in the organization", added Artola and Sukia. "We believed that this new law for Álava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa would provide the framework for establishing a solid basis for this transformation. Base for transformation and starting point for an own educational system. The Ikastolas Confederation does not aim at the educational law, we consider it as a starting point. Yes, we want the best and most accurate law possible."
"We thought we had to contribute and we have done so," they say. "The educational agreement of April 2022 paved the way for hope, we believed that there was a will to build something new between the political parties and we believe that they showed courage both in defining a new advertisement and on the road to normalisation of the Basque country. The road has been long and we believe courage has lost strength."
In May, the Ikastolas Confederation made the assessment of the draft bill submitted: "We said it was acceptable, it took significant opportunities, but it also had many shortcomings. So far, however, we have considered that the process was still open and that there was a possibility of channelling various issues. So why do we now say it's been a missed opportunity? ".
The Ikastolas Confederation has given several reasons. Summarised:
The Basque culture, the Basque culture and the Basque curriculum: among other things, the bill gathers "the lack of concretion to achieve a model of generalized immersion and once again the linguistic models; in the draft law the Basque Curriculum does not appear nor the need to build an educational system centered on the Basque Curriculum".
Governance model. Public-private dichotomy and definition of the Public Education Service: "There is no guarantee that all the centers that will be part of the Public Education Service will be in the same conditions, and the obligations of the centers that will be part of the service, which creates the risk of perpetuating the public-private dichotomy, are not mentioned precisely".
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