Teachers across Catalonia are reporting extreme saturation and systemic mistreatment from administrations, leading to planned strikes in May and June. The educational community is demanding that respective ministries negotiate with major unions and address their concerns. Teachers describe a daily struggle with under-resourced classrooms and a lack of support, which is affecting their mental health and the quality of education for children and adolescents.
Many teachers speaking to VilaWeb feel undervalued by institutions. They describe themselves as burnt out and overwhelmed by a system they believe has abandoned them. Several teachers require psychological or psychiatric treatment to cope with their daily work. José Luis Piñeiro, a teacher at IES Enric Valor in Silla, Horta Sud, said, "We are subjected to great pressure and at the same time perceive that we have little social and political value. This generates great psychological suffering and dissatisfaction. In seven years of practice, I have gone from enormous enthusiasm and a desire to help improve the world to disappointment and demotivation due to the great responsibility we are burdened with, without anyone understanding the very difficult and stressful situations we face every day." Piñeiro added that he has been in psychological and psychiatric treatment for over a year for severe anxiety and depression related to his work environment.
Marta Prats, another teacher, confessed, "The system has overcome me, I am so overwhelmed that I barely get through the day without feeling dizzy or suffering too much anxiety." Roger Rovira, a primary school teacher and history professor at Escola Alexandre Galí in Barcelona, considered leaving the profession after two periods of anxiety leave. He explained that this was "not because of the salary or the number of students in the classroom, but because of the chaos caused by the erratic and absurd policies of the department."
Growing Classroom Complexity
Teachers report that their initial enthusiasm for the profession diminishes over the years due to a lack of support. Marta Sotorres explained that she starts each day with a smile but ends it feeling like she has lost a battle. "I have trained on my own to do my job better and better, but I am a teacher, not a psychologist or family coach, nor a punching bag. Public school is not sustained by our vocation or our smile, drive, and enthusiasm every morning." Ana Martínez García, an ESO teacher at Col·legi Sant Ignasi de Sarrià in Barcelona, described a tense classroom atmosphere, stating, "I have to deal with disrespect, insults, threats, and even some attempts at physical aggression. And, to fail a student, I have to provide justifications worthy of an investigating court. And then some talk about vocation!"
One of the most frequent complaints among teachers is the difficulty of teaching in classrooms with increasing diversity and complexity. They report high student numbers, which leave little room to properly attend to those with special needs. Teachers are demanding that administrations invest resources in providing more support staff, such as carers, psycho-pedagogues, speech therapists, and monitors.
Asier Merino, a Catalan teacher at IES Miralcamp in Vila-real, said, "This year I am a tutor in the first year of ESO, and we have four groups ranging from twenty-nine to thirty-one students. This is an absolute aberration if we want to offer quality public education, because it is much more difficult to attend to such a large group individually and personally. The ministry continues to cut staff, continues to delay covering substitutions... and this also results in a worsening of our working conditions."
Carlota B., a secondary school teacher in a Maresme institute, highlighted that in a second-year ESO class, she has three students at a primary school level who cannot follow explanations. "These are children who need constant attention; otherwise, they do not work. One has a borderline intelligence level, another has a severe learning disorder, and the third has ASD and ADHD. Besides, among the remaining twenty students, two have dyslexia, another has a severe behavioural disorder, and another is undergoing gender transition. Each needs a little time dedicated to asking questions, and at the same time, the other three children with special needs are completely unattended," she lamented.
Challenges with Special Needs and Social Issues
Arnau Rius i Bellosta, an IT vocational training teacher in Barcelona, noted the added difficulty when students have special needs, stating he has no training in diversity support. "I have twenty-one students in my tutorial, and they have clear difficulties speaking Catalan (and I have three with difficulties speaking Spanish, too). In addition, I have three students with dyslexia and three more with ADHD." Piñeiro added that in the first years of ESO, teachers face students diagnosed with ADHD, those who are unmotivated, or those who are disruptive, often making teaching tasks impossible and causing significant stress. He noted that verbal and even physical violence against teachers is becoming more frequent.
Piñeiro also explained, "It is not possible for us to pay attention to the personal problems of certain students while attending to the group as a whole. This is especially regrettable for newly arrived students, who are very numerous in our region and are directly included in ordinary groups with many students who do not master the language and without instruments, materials, or support staff to help them in the integration process." Rovira stated, "Currently, we find the same number of students with serious difficulties in one classroom as we previously found in an entire school. And we are not talking about a lack of training. There is no training that allows you to advance a class if you are alone with a group where there is a child with a marked autistic disorder who leaves the class when they want; another who opens the window to throw pencils several times an hour; another who cries desperately because they want to leave the class; and several who would need more standard reinforcement and you cannot look them in the face because you have to watch the others. We are talking about false inclusion; it is mistreatment for everyone, negligence, and a scam."
Classrooms also contain students facing other social problems, such as those living in occupied flats, those who have experienced eviction, or those who have suffered abuse or mistreatment. These are delicate situations that teachers often manage as best they can, without adequate resources or support.
Precarious Conditions in Subsidised Schools
The situation in subsidised schools is also challenging. Teachers in these schools reported very precarious working conditions. One teacher explained, "Little is said about subsidised schools, where teachers' working conditions are even worse than in public schools. We work twenty-four teaching hours compared to eighteen and do not have a two-hour reduction for being over fifty-five years old. I teach mathematics to first and second-year ESO and have six groups of twenty-two students. That makes a total of 132 adolescents, some with ADHD."
Teachers are calling for immediate action from the Catalan government to address these issues. The planned strikes in May and June aim to pressure authorities to engage in meaningful negotiations and provide the necessary investment and support to improve working conditions and educational quality across Catalonia's schools.
