“Rovira and Mazón, resignation”, “The president, in prison”, “Escoles sense fang”, “La llengua no es tumba”, “Escola enfangada, Conselleria amagada”, “Carlos Mazón, in prison” or “the president, in Picassent”, where the most famous Valencian prison is located, are some of the songs that were heard again this Saturday in the streets of Valencia.
Just two weeks after more than 130,000 people demonstrated in Valencia to demand the resignation of the President of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, for the management of DANA which devastated more than seventy villages in the province of Valencia, causing death of 221 people, a new march with the motto “Rovira i Mazón, resign” once again filled the streets of the center of the Valencian capital to protest against the actions of the Ministry of Education in the crisis caused by the storm and demanding the resignation of Minister José Antonio Rovira. The protest took place the day it was learned that the Constitutional Court had admitted the appeal presented by Compromís against the Consell’s educational “freedom” law.
Called by the Platform for the Defense of Public Education, the demonstrators, some of whom came from schools located at “ground zero” of the tragedy, carried signs reading “Volem tornar aclass”, “Per un cole lliure de fang” , “Rovira, go home. Mazón is going home’, ‘Ara vos agranarem a vosaltres’, ‘Are you waiting for the fairy godmother? Enough stories,” and several senyeras were seen with a black bow as a sign of mourning and participants with green t-shirts with the motto “Estimem l’escola public.”
In statements to the media before the start of the march, José Manuel Casermeiro, representative of Fampa Valencia, criticized the “disaster” and the “rush” of the Ministry of Education for having “given the order” to open educational centers affected by DANA while “did not put in place the means of cleaning” or “disinfection” to leave the facilities in good condition after the passage of the storm.
In fact, he assured that it should be the families and the teachers themselves, in addition to the volunteers, who were responsible for cleaning the centers and warned: “You cannot return to a study center if you do not don’t do it. has been disinfected and, otherwise, a report has been drawn up attesting that the conditions in which it is opened are healthy and hygienic.
Casermeiro insisted on demanding Rovira’s resignation and maintained that DANA’s management “has accentuated its very poor management and lack of organization.” He also denounced “the closure of classrooms” and the lack of school transport. “It’s all so improvised that one seems aware of the poor quality of the work,” he said.
The demonstrators, among whom were the Compromís mediator in Las Corts, Joan Baldoví, or the spokesperson for PSPV Education in the regional parliament, José Luis Lorenz, demand a “safe” return to school after the tragedy and wanted show the “enormous” uneasiness. of the educational community. They consider that the head of the ministry is “incapable” of dealing with the crisis that has occurred, while they denounce the “lack of judgment” on the part of Education.
The ministry claims to have proposed “different solutions”
The regional secretary of Education, Daniel McEvoy, defends the work that the department is carrying out “from the first moment” so that students in centers affected by the floods caused by DANA “return to classrooms with the maximum guarantees of safety and health”. “.
The department headed by José Antonio Rovira insists that it has been in contact with town halls, educational centers and families “to listen to their needs”: “We have proposed different solutions that are adopted depending on the particular situation of each center and each municipality.”
Thus, they emphasize, the transfer of students to other municipalities has been launched, progressive entries and “other measures will even have to be adopted in the most devastated centers”, such as the installation of prefabricated classrooms. According to some reports, since November 11, around 32,000 students from municipalities affected by the storm have returned to classes.
“Extraordinary cleaning tasks are being carried out at the educational centers in Tragsa and Vaersa. The minister, directors general, inspectors and technicians of the ministry made several visits to the centers in the damaged areas. But we didn’t go take a photo,” says McEvoy.
Furthermore, the regional secretary insists on the fact that various measures have been taken to facilitate the education of children and young people, such as “an extraordinary welcome, aid for the replacement of textbooks and school materials”. “In this delicate moment, now is not the time for division. It is time for the entire educational community to unite, support each other and work together to return to normal in the classrooms,” he concluded.
