Teachers in Catalonia’s private-public schools are joining strike action over workload, funding and staffing, with the dispute centred on conditions across the sector rather than pay alone.
The schools make up about 30% of Catalonia’s education system. María José Ariño, spokesperson for the Federation of Education of the Workers’ Union (FEUSOC), said teachers feel overlooked and that one of the main complaints is the gap in teaching hours compared with public schools.
In primary education, private-public school teachers work 25 teaching hours a week, compared with 23 in public schools. In secondary education, the difference is wider, 24 hours in private-public schools versus 18 in public schools. FEUSOC says this leaves teachers with less time to prepare lessons, mark work and support pupils.
Ariño said Catalonia’s 2009 education law already set out a path towards standardising working conditions with the public sector, but that this has still not been delivered. The law did not set equal teaching hours directly, but it did commit to gradual alignment, with funding and regulation left to the government.
About 70 private-public schools have now formed the Coordinator of Private-Public Schools of Catalonia. The group says it wants to tackle precarious conditions in the sector and fill what it sees as a gap left by larger unions, the administration and employers. One of the schools involved is Nostra Senyora de la Consolació School in Tortosa, where teacher Jordi Castellà said the sector relies heavily on staff dedication.
Castellà also raised concerns about student intake during the school year, bureaucracy and support for reception classes. He said schools need more resources to help new arrivals learn Catalan and take part fully in lessons, and criticised the current system for often only providing reception classes from the third year of primary school onwards. He also said teachers are spending too much time on paperwork and repeated legal and policy changes.
FEUSOC says the Ombudsman warned in 2020 about severe underfunding in private-public schools. Ariño said a March agreement with employers included plans to increase teaching staff over three years, but did not solve the core issue of excessive teaching hours. Negotiations with the Department of Education have not produced a deal that the union considers satisfactory. For more Catalonia education coverage, see our news tag.