Small-Town Schools Are Being Neglected And Are Literally Falling Apart

‘Remember that time when the roof caved in at break? And we missed school for a week while they were arguing about what to do about it?’

‘Yeah..’

I wanted something light and funny for my first blog post, and had imagined something like ‘Why do you English people drink so much? Slow down!’ as my first article. But due to recent events I am instead writing about the dire state of some schools in the south of Spain. A few days ago, the roof literally collapsed in a music classroom of Maria Josefa Primary School:

Luckily, it was break-time, so no one was hurt. But this could have easily landed someone in hospital. And it made me wince thinking of how the little ones are always so eager to come to the front.

‘Where is the protest?’ I ask, slightly confused to find no one raging and shouting outside the school gates, which has now been shut since Monday.

‘Oh, it’s not a protest,’ a man tells me. ‘We are just meeting to ask the authorities what is going on.’

‘Oh,’ I am mildly disappointed, but around the corner there is a growing crowd of people with signs that read ‘School in danger!’ ‘Fix the roof!’ ‘A safe school for our children!’ and one that breaks my heart a little: ‘We need solutions. Children don’t understand politics.’

‘That little boy has a drum,’ I tell my boyfriend. ‘That means it is a protest.’

And soon enough, little girls burst out on their whistles, there are more and more people, and the little boy, who looks to be about six, is proudly banging on his drum.

‘That’s so cute,’ I gush. But it isn’t cute. Not really. A lot of the kids have brought school-bags; no one knows how long the school will be shut and have had no information so far. A lot of them are wearing helmets, but do not bring scooters or bikes. Presumably they are making a point about the dangers of roofs collapsing on small children.

The mayor has told the public that, although it is technically the town hall’s responsibility to maintain the schools in an adequate state, ‘the school has been forgotten for thirty years.’ This is presumably meant to clear him from blame. The parents are now demanding a full refurbishment of the school. It’s not just the roof that’s the problem, they point out; the heating doesn’t work, and the electricity often cuts out.

When concerned about the educational atmosphere, I have been told: ‘Don’t worry. Those who want to learn will manage to learn.’ This is an attitude we find in the UK as well: if you want to learn, you will work hard and do well. There are still many people very quick to dismiss enormous structural problems as individual faults of responsibility or effort. It is not that the children here do not work hard, or that the parents do not care. The problem is rather that to get through school, let alone to flourish academically, children need a secure environment (i.e where they do not have to worry about the roof collapsing on top of them) where they have the proper motivation to learn: the promise of a decent future.

Youth unemployment remains high in Spain, with many forced to leave the small town they grew up in in search of work. Young people go to Madrid, Seville, Mallorca, or other cities in search of the jobs they cannot find in their local area. Or they leave the country. ‘You’re from England!? My daughter is in England!’ Or my niece/nephew/son/whatever.

‘It is sad for us,’ one man told me. ‘That all our children must move so far away in order to find work. Some even have to go to different countries.’

If some children are not motivated to learn, just as much in Spain as in the UK, it is perhaps because they look around and see that their education is an ineffective shield against lack of opportunity and lack of infrastructure. Or, in other words, you can still work hard and be forced out of the town that you love, where all your family live, because there are simply not enough jobs for you. Of the young people that do decide to stay, many struggle to find a job or have to work part-time. A very limited bus schedule (and no buses at weekends) means that travelling to look for work requires a car. Which, of course, requires money. A recent protest (so far unanswered) demanded a renovation of the local health centre. Now knowing that some of the buildings in this town are on the verge of physical collapse, it is easy to see why people are so worried.

In this context that Andalucía, the sunny southern region of Spain, has one of the highest school drop-out rates. Not because the children are lazy or uninterested. But because of a system that is failing children. A caved-in roof is a dramatic literalisation of educational inequality, a symbol of a system in dire need of investment. But this is an extreme case, and educational inequality manifests itself in a vast number of daily struggles that do not receive the same kind of media attention.

Try doing well in a class of thirty very curious, but also very loud, teenagers, where you know that no matter how hard you work, there still may not be a job for you. Try being expected to pass an English exam above GCSE level (which you need in order to pass your University degree) without being given any classes or help to do this. Try to flourish academically when your school is closed because the roof has caved in. It’s easy to see how the massive potential of these children is being squandered.

How to fix it? Smaller classes, better pay for teachers, and perhaps placing teachers somewhere closer to where they live so that some of them do not have to travel for hours and hours everyday, or even to only see their family at weekends, so they have more time to spend preparing classes and dealing with their immense work-load. Invest in the town like it deserves – what I would do to have a bus at a weekend!

Over the past few weeks, parents have joined together to mount an impressive campaign, launching a page on facebook and protesting. The authorities have now agreed to carry out more extensive works, although AMPA, the parents’ protest group, writes that ‘we will remain vigilant and if the promises are not kept, we will return!’ The roof may be fixed – but these children are still not going to be given the education they deserve until education in small towns is made a priority.

Sources:

https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/2589613/0/abandono-escolar-temprano-andalucia-baja-mas-tres-puntos-ano-pero-se-mantiene-entre-mas-altos/