Navarra withdraws the Baccalaureate concert to segregating schools

The Department of Education of the Government of Navarra has notified this Monday the Irabia-Izaga and Miravalles-El Redín differentiated education centers of the extinction of the concerts of the Baccalaureate stage with both schools for failing to comply with the 25th additional provision of the educational law ( Lomloe) by keeping the students separated by sex. In fact, it goes beyond the classroom, since the men continue to study in the Irabia and El Redín campuses, while the women do so in Irabia and Izaga. The Provincial Government renewed this agreement in April 2022, but the centers have not fulfilled the commitment made and the department, after analyzing and rejecting their allegations, has concluded that they do not meet the requirements to be able to agree and has withdrawn public funding. Thus, from the next course, families who want to enroll their sons and daughters in this post-compulsory stage (17 and 18 years old), must pay the private fee established by the center.

The department details that, when the centers expressed their willingness to renew the concerts, they promised to comply with the requirements established by state law, which oblige them to provide an education in which men and women share the classrooms. However, the Educational Inspection Service verified last September, at the beginning of this school year, that the two centers maintained segregation in the classrooms. The department then began the administrative procedure, to which both centers presented their respective allegations. In December, they were sent a resolution proposal in which they were warned of the extinction of the concerts at this stage, opening a new term to allege. However, after analyzing these second communications from the centers, Education has decided to remove public funding. In any case, it will not be an immediate extinction, but rather it is suspended until August 31 for pedagogical reasons, so as not to harm the students in the middle of the course.

Primary and ESO

In this case, the schools have not come up with any intermediate and transitory solution, as they did to maintain the agreement in Primary Education (6-12 years). At this stage, the single-sex education centers opted to adapt progressively, without consulting the department: at the moment, the first two years of the stage are mixed, but not the rest. Education has allowed it ―applying the regional norm― given the impossibility of relocating from one course to another in other centers all minors whose families cannot or do not want to pay the new quotas and to allow students who began their studies in these centers with certain conditions (free registration and separation by sex) you can finish the stage in the same way. The two segregated centers will surely face a similar situation in Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO, from 12 to 16 years old) starting next year, when it is their turn to renew the public concert for this stage. In fact, the term to request it has begun this same month of January.

In the case of the Baccalaureate, apart from the fact that the schools have not initiated any changes, the Navarrese Department of Education explains that it is no longer a compulsory education stage -it ends at age 16- and that the immediate extinction of the subsidy It does not have significant consequences, since there are only two courses. In addition, since there are a small number of students, they can all be relocated, if their families so wish, in institutes and schools in the public and subsidized network.

In fact, the concerts in the Baccalaureate stage have a scarce or anecdotal presence in a good part of the communities, such as Andalusia, Asturias, the Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha and La Rioja, while in Galicia they do not exist. . In Navarra, however, their presence is somewhat greater due to the high percentage of students who study in the concerted network, 36%. The Autonomous Community is only surpassed in this indicator by Euskadi, with an even greater presence of subsidized centers.

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