A survey published this Monday by the STEs teachers union reflects the causes of the . According to the survey, nine out of ten consider that bureaucracy “suffocates” them, that the ratios of students per class prevent them from adequately addressing the growing diversity of classrooms, and that they have lost purchasing power in the last decade. Eight out of ten describe the climate in the centers as “conflictive” or “complicated” and affirm that the “verbal” or “physical attacks” they suffer from students have increased. Three-quarters consider that these types of attacks by families have also increased. And seven out of ten denounce a “privatizing offensive” of public education, a percentage that grows to 90% in the case of Madrid, Andalusia, Euskadi and Extremadura.
The survey has been answered by 13,213 teachers of pre-university education, both general and special, from the 17 autonomous communities and is therefore expressive of the feelings of many Spanish teachers of public pre-university education, in which a total of 610,465 work. The survey report admits, however, that its design (distribution through corporate mail and “professional networks”) “does not guarantee strict inferential statistical representativeness.” As was the case, the way the survey was carried out suggests an overrepresentation in the responses from members of the union itself (which has a total of 52,000), which stands out for its protest profile from the left flank.
This probably contributes to explaining why the results paint a more critical scenario than that offered by the Commissions survey, and, above all, that in Spain it had a sample of 18,000 teachers and directors of public and private education. The STEs survey, although it covers all pre-university education, is, on the other hand, very inclined towards ESO and Baccalaureate teachers (the teachings where, according to other studies, teaching discomfort is greater), who constitute almost half of the responses, and interim teachers are also overrepresented (36% of the total number of respondents).
When those surveyed by the STEs are asked – in a question with several answer options to choose from – what worries them most about their profession, the most common responses are: excessive bureaucracy (78%), high ratios (67%), lack of respect from students and families (61%), lack of institutional support (59%) and lack of resources and materials (54%).
And, in another question, in this open case, about what in your opinion are the biggest problems facing education, the most frequent answers (you can give more than one) are: “lack of involvement on the part of families, delegating everything to the school, and questioning the teaching work” (25%); “lack of material resources, infrastructure, support, adequate technological means…” (24%); “bureaucracy, paperwork, reports that displace the time to prepare classes and attend to students” (21%), and “ratios and overcrowding and impossibility of providing personalized attention” (20%).
“The increase in students with specific needs for educational support, whether due to disabilities, disorders, a situation of vulnerability or lack of knowledge of the language, has not been accompanied by the necessary support resources,” says the union, which also claims to be able to teach “without having to tolerate insolence, inconsideration, offenses or humiliation, and without feeling unprotected in increasingly common conflict situations; the normalization of these behaviors is generating unsustainable professional burnout and a worrying increase in sick leave.”
