• Education Less Castilian, siege to the concerted and blow to excellence: the 15 most controversial points of the Celaá Law
  • Education The Government endorses the Celaá Law to dodge appeals before the Constitutional Court

The Constitutional Court has endorsed the entire Celaá Law. Despite the fact that the draft judgment of the rapporteur, the conservative Ricardo Enríquez, raised the unconstitutionality of two essential issues for educational freedom – the end of public funding to education that separates by sex and restrictions on special education – the majority progressive bloc has imposed the drafting of a new sentence in which these points are also taken for granted.

Not supported

nor the objections regarding the concerted school, the Spanish or the Religion that included the resource of

To:

. It is a blow to that part of the school that appeals to "educational pluralism" and the right of parents to educate their children according to their moral and religious convictions contained in the article.

27

of the

Constitution

, now unprotected after the change of forces brought about by

Pedro Sanchez

in the Council of Guarantees.

Find out more

Courts.

The Constitutional Court endorses the Celaá Law: schools that separate by sex will not receive public funding

  • Editorial staff:

    ANGELA MARTIALAY

    Madrid

The Constitutional Court endorses the Celaá Law: schools that separate by sex will not receive public funding

1. Special Education

The near

40.000

families who have children enrolled in special education centers interpret that the Celaá Law supposes "the end" of this teaching model, because the norm provides that in

10 years

the Government develops a plan so that "ordinary schools have the necessary resources to be able to attend in the best conditions to students with disabilities" and relegate special schools to a function of mere "reference and support centers" and only for those "that require very specialized attention"; that is, the most serious cases.

The norm clearly bets that children go to ordinary centers, in line with what the

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

or the

Spanish Committee of Representatives of Persons with Disabilities (Cermi)

. They call it "full inclusion." What happens is that ordinary schools are not always the best solution for these students. Their parents defend that they be allowed to choose the resource they consider, because they suspect that there is an attempt to refer all children systematically to ordinary schools, without their opinion, as proof that the Lomloe only talks about listening to the will of parents who decide to take their children to ordinary school, but not the rest. The presentation of the conservative Enríquez, now discarded, gave the reason to these families and urged that those who want to school their children in special centers, excluded from the Lomloe, also be heard. It proposed to declare unconstitutional and null the paragraph "that show their preference for the most inclusive regime" and urged to suppress it, but the progressive majority led by

Candido Conde-Pumpido

has knocked down this part.

2. Education that separates by sex

The additional provision

25

It points out that schools supported totally or partially with public funds "will develop the principle of coeducation at all educational stages" and "will not separate students by their gender". This part did not come in the law that came out of the Government. Isabel Celaá herself said that it was unconstitutionality, because the Justice has already determined several times that this modality of education does not have to go against equality between men and women if the service is provided "in conditions of equal quality". But

United We Can

he insisted on putting it "on principle" and "because, when the TC resolves, it will be more difficult to change it."

He was right. The paper said that the Constitution "does not impose" that all single-sex schools have to be financed, "but it does prevent excluding all of them, totally, from any kind of aid" for this reason. The progressive sector has imposed itself and this part will no longer be included in the sentence.

There are barely fifty single-sex education centers in Spain and all are religious. The model, which is in increasing demand in other countries (

Hillary Clinton

He has defended it as an element to enhance female leadership), is based on the idea that boys and girls mature at different rates and obtain better results if they are treated separately, although there are studies that show that boys improve their academic results when girls accompany them.

Because of its high symbolic value, the differentiated school has become a wild card that is put on and taken off every time the educational law changes.

Jose Ignacio Wert

He shielded it in his

Lomce

of 2013, following the doctrine of

Supreme Court

, although it was careful to specify that these centres should take measures to promote equality between men and women. To make a nod to its electorate, the PSOE-Podemos coalition government was quick to remove Wert's articles. Also the

Organic Law of the University System (Losu)

It obliges colleges that separate by sex to become mixed if they want to remain attached to public universities and receive, therefore, aid and other advantages.

3. English

The TC does not agree with the complaint that the Lomloe deprives Spanish of its status as the vehicular language of teaching. The wording of the new judgment is yet to be outlined, but the paper already considered that the Celaá Law does include "the right of students to receive education in Spanish and in the other co-official languages", although it recalled that "a reasonable presence of Spanish is essential" and urged that its use "is not reduced to an empty formula" and "is maintained as a real and effective right".

The reality is that the Generalitat of Catalonia does not allow more subjects in Spanish beyond that of Spanish Language and Literature and does not ensure, as required by law, to guarantee more teaching in Spanish. The only way left for families is to resort to contentious-administrative proceedings on a case-by-case basis.

4. Arranged

Vox and the PP, which has also appealed the Celaá Law, denounced that the rule left the concerted school in inferior conditions, where the concerted school studies.

25%

of students, by eliminating the concept of "social demand" that allowed more places to be enabled if families requested it. Again, it is a debate about the freedom of parents in the education of their children in which the programming of education, directed directly from the autonomous communities, now gains weight. The concerted does not disappear, but the centers will have more difficult their war in the courts if the ministries reduce units financed with public funds.

5. Religion

The subject of Religion has returned to the situation it had in 2006. His grade no longer counts for the average or to ask for scholarships or enter the university and no longer has an alternative subject, as with the Lomce of the PP: students who do not study this subject can not study anything academic or advance in the syllabus so as not to discriminate against the rest. PP and Vox considered that Religion was not "in conditions comparable to the other fundamental teachings", which was the rank given to it in the agreements

Church-State

and denounced that the State was neglecting its obligation to guarantee the right to religious freedom. Again, they invoked article 27 of the Constitution.