Isabel Celaá admits a problem with textbooks a year later

• Education «Each region presses to strain its whims in textbooks»
• The editors. "Catalonia presses for us not to talk about the Catholic Monarchs in textbooks"

A year ago, coinciding with the return to the classroom, the editors denounced that there were 10,839 different textbooks - only if the manuals for the student were counted in paper format - because of the curricular peculiarities of the autonomous governments. The Minister of Education, Isabel Celaá, then downplayed this disparity and came to say that there was not much difference, because, in practice, schools resort only to the manuals of "four or five editorials" and because "the diversity of books does not mean that there is diversity of curricula ».

Yesterday, the spokeswoman for the acting Government changed her position and made it clear that there is a problem in relation to school manuals, recognizing an "excessive proliferation of all textbooks", for which she held the Wert Law of the PP.

The editors had detailed the day before the pressures they receive from councilors, vice-councilors and regional general managers to "cast their territorial whims" in the textbooks. «Catalonia does not want us to talk about the Catholic and Canary Kings , about the rivers», they set an example.

In the press conference after the Council of Ministers, Celaá was asked if his Ministry should take any action through the High Inspection so that these school texts have scientific rigor and do not suffer this type of pressure from regional administrations. Celaá replied that "this is nothing more than a consequence, an undesirable derivative, of a law, the Lomce, which spoke of core subjects, freely configurable and specific", and has caused, in his opinion, an increase in the different versions Autonomous of each manual.

"I don't know what the Lomce has to do with the pressures," replies the head of the Lomce, former PP minister José Ignacio WerT, in conversation with EL MUNDO. "Neither the Lomce, nor the LOE , nor the Logse , nor any other law authorize anyone to press the publishers, an action that goes against the freedom of professorship and common sense," he adds.

The Government values ​​returning to the 2006 LOE system

Celaá argues that the competence distribution brought by the Lomce has, in practice, given more freedom to the autonomous communities to put their own content on the curriculum and that, by extension, would have led the regional councilors to press harder. That is why he defended yesterday that in his new law they will return to the 2006 LOE system, which provides for a percentage distribution of the curriculum between the central government and the regional executives. In the territories without co-official language, the State will decide 65% of the contents again, while the communities will take care of the remaining 35%. In the autonomies with co-official language, the Ministry will fix 55% of the curriculum and the regional governments will take care of the remaining 45%.

"This cast has worked very well since the 1990s and we want it to continue working well," said the acting minister. Wert assures, on the contrary, that precisely to avoid a decentralization of the contents, his law elevated the History of Spain to the core subject category. “The subject was being subject to biased interpretations, there were examples of indoctrination in textbooks and the content was being pressed; for that reason, he was given rank of trunk ”, said the former minister, denying that his model has brought more dispersion to the system.

Celaá, on the contrary, implied that this PP system has produced disorder and called "to continue maintaining the cohesion mechanisms of what a State is." “We have only one educational system that has its variants in the 17 autonomous communities - by the way, fewer variants than the German, Swiss or Canadian education systems - but we are going to take care and safeguard because it is a treasure, and we have to maintain those systems that allow us to maintain state cohesion, ”he said.

His words were striking, because until now he had always defended that the State was sufficiently cohesive and yesterday it seemed that he was threatened because of the Lomce.

The truth is that Celaá has modified its discursive line in relation to these types of issues. For example, to deny the existence of indoctrination in Catalan schools a year ago and say that it cannot do anything about it, because it is the responsibility of the Generalitat , it has gone on to make a “political reproach” to the Platform for the Llengua by their spies of the courtyards and to ensure that they are "informing" about what happened.

It has not taken any action, but at least recognizes the existence of the facts, a turn that coincides with the feeling of a part of the Government and that is probably due to the fragility of the Executive in the absence of agreement with United We Can. He does not want to close the road to understanding with other parties, especially with Citizens, which has had a very strong line on these issues. In the orange formation, however, they are skeptical of the new attitude.

In any case, Celaá announced yesterday that next Wednesday he will meet with representatives of the Federation of Publishers Guilds of Spain (FGEE) and with the National Association of Textbook Publishers (Anele) to "get to know firsthand" everything what they denounce In his words there was, of course, some censorship, because he said that the publishers said "months ago there was no problem with the books."

Citizens ask the minister to appear

The Parliamentary Group Citizens formally requested yesterday in the Congress of Deputies the appearance in commission of the acting Minister of Education, Isabel Celaá, to give explanations on the "manipulation" that the 'orange' party understands that there is by the Autonomous governments in textbooks, as the publishers have denounced. In addition, the Central Independent Trade Union and Officials (CSIF) said, on the other hand, that "the State High Inspection has the obligation by law to control the curricular content taught in the communities." The national president of Education of the union, Mario Gutiérrez, lamented the attempts of the autonomies to "falsify the reality" and blamed this situation on the lack of a State Pact for Education to regulate the sector, after criticizing that from the beginning of democracy there have been seven different educational norms, according to Efe.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• LOMCE
• PP
• José Ignacio Wert
• Isabel Celaá
• United We Can
• THE WORLD
• Citizens
• Catalonia
• Canary Islands
• Education

Education «Each region presses to strain its whims on textbooks»

EducationThe editors: "Catalonia presses for us not to talk about the Catholic Monarchs in textbooks"

Basque Country Euskadi is the community with fewer students in public schools