September 29, 2020
The spokesperson for VOX in the General Meeting of the Principality, Ignacio Blanco, today demanded that the Minister of Education eliminate interlevel groups immediately because, among other reasons, "they seriously violate the fundamental right to receive quality education and equality of conditions; it is discriminatory; The educational gap between public and concerted schools with private ones increases, it has an emotional and pedagogical impact for children, there are no complementary measures even knowing that the academic pace will be lower and, furthermore, the assignment of experienced teachers has not been prioritized in mixed groups ”. “What's more, Blanco continues, it has been done with a total lack of foresight and haste on the part of the counseling, lack of justification and, in addition, we do not know what health criteria, reports or committees are based on, since the contingency plan itself of the Ministry does not require a safety distance in stable coexistence groups, so for these purposes a group of 25 is the same as 20. In order to try to solve a problem they have created a much larger one ”.
Following the words of the counselor who has assured that “it is not a new model, which is used in rural schools. From VOX we ask ourselves, does the counselor want to export this model of need in rural areas to the entire system? He tells us that they are positive for the students, but then why don't they all make them interlevel ?, or that it affects few children, an excuse from who knows that these groups are not a good practice for children. If a negative measure for the students is justified in that they are few, it is evident that the interlevel groups should be eliminated. Neither are they positive, nor is the rural school model exportable to the entire educational system, nor is it an excuse that affects only 165 groups ”.
For this reason, the spokesperson has made VOX's position clear that “it is none other than to express itself frontally against the creation of interlevel mixed groups. Some groups that Education has established in all public and subsidized schools in Asturias to lower the ratio of students to 20-21 per class, currently it is set at 25, hiding behind health reasons, which we do not know. A measure that has not been adopted in the majority of autonomous communities and that we urge that it be eliminated immediately, because it brings together students of different ages and different educational programs in a class, ”says Blanco. However, "from Education they continue to defend the indefensible."
“If we asked Asturians what they think of sending their children to an interlevel group, which the Principality has not done, if we ask the board's staff, the media right now, I guarantee that no one would choose to send their children to these groups. If we asked the deputies who take their children to a private school, that there are no interlevel groups, what would they think? So why do you impose something on them that you don't want for your children? What matters is what the citizens want, not their latest occurrence. The decision, with the creation of interlevel groups, is a great nonsense. I came to qualify it again as an experiment that families and their children would suffer in these groups, but the AMPAS themselves quickly corrected me, not even considering it an experiment, but simply a botch ”, adds the spokesperson.
"And it is a botch because – Blanco clarifies -, an experiment is something much more serious, an experiment is a test that consists of provoking a phenomenon under certain conditions in order to analyze its effects or to verify a hypothesis or a scientific principle . Interlevel groups do not try to verify any hypothesis or scientific principle, it is simply a botch, which arises as a result of the desire of the President of the Principality to show that he has been doing a long time, without caring about the consequences for the families, either with the delay of the school year, the last community to open classrooms, even after private schools, despite having boasted of being the region with the lowest rate of opposites and the exception in terms of the reduction of ratios that has led to the creation of these heterogeneous groups ”.
During his speech, Blanco reminded the counselor that these groups “are going to generate learning problems. These are groups in which to the diversity already existing to date, little attended, is added the diversity of age and maturity of students of different ages and different subjects. It was already difficult to keep the rhythm of a classroom according to a single syllabus, enough to carry it with two different syllabi ”.
For all this, “his appearance of action, his posture, cannot harm Asturians. And in this decision as in many others, the great losers are the children of these groups and their families. And worst of all, you know. Because they recommend not incorporating students with delay during the pandemic in interlevel groups. No matter how tightly they look in these groups in the classrooms, these bubbles are punctured as soon as they leave the school door ”, concludes the spokesperson.
