The Audience of Accounts asks municipalities to invest in improving “educational quality”
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The maintenance of educational infrastructure in the Canary Islands is distributed between the Ministry of Education and the municipalities. So, City councils are responsible, by law, for preserving, maintaining and monitoring early childhood, primary and special education centers.. Now the Audit of Accounts goes one step further and recommends to the 88 councils of the Canary Islands that invest in improving educational quality. This is what the institution has left in writing in the last three audit reports on the spending of Canary Island councils on the conservation, maintenance and surveillance of public centers relating to the years 2016, 2017 and 2018, although signed in January of this year. .
The Audience of Accounts points out in its recommendations to the town councils that “sand provide credits also intended for extracurricular activities, early and late reception, help for associations of mothers, fathers and students and other actions aimed at increasing the quality of education that the students of these centers receive, as well as to mitigate the costs that they had to bear for going to the center.
UNEQUAL INVESTMENT
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1.3 million
This is the money that in 2018 24 of the 88 municipalities allocated to extracurricular activities in preschool, primary, and special education centers. -
744,000 euros
This is what the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria City Council contributed, compared to the 75 that it told the Audit of Accounts that Ingenio allocated. -
Granadilla de Abona
It is the city council that contributed the most to early or late collection, 75,654 euros. The capital of Gran Canaria did not contribute anything. -
Mogan
It contributed 120,000 euros to the AMPA, the highest budget of the 88 municipalities.
Higher quality educational offer
The institution reaches this conclusion after analyzing the documentation provided by the municipalities. “40 town councils have carried out different expenses derived from the powers expressly attributed to them”, in reference to expenses on activities outside school hours, aid to the AMPA or early and late collection. “This ensures that preschool and primary school students can have a higher quality educational offer,” which aligns with objective 4 of the 2030 Agenda, says the Audit of Accounts. “In contrast to the counterpart students from other municipalities who have not been able to count on a city council that has planned these actions.”
The differences are so considerable between one another such as the 744,000 euros that the city council of the capital of Gran Canaria allocated to extracurricular activities in 2018 to the 127,000 that the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife dedicated.
“Voluntary” contributions from town councils
Poli Suárez, Minister of Education of the Canarian Government, recognizes that the report indicates these differences between municipalities, but remembers that the Contributions made by town councils for extracurricular activities or aid to AMPAs and early and late collection are “voluntary”that is, “they are not obliged to do so.”
Poor maintenance of educational infrastructure in the Canary Islands
But the Audit of Accounts also draws attention to the poor maintenance of school infrastructure carried out by certain councils. «The municipalities have not had a plan, protocol or manual to carry out conservation and infrastructure maintenance of public early childhood, primary and special education centers of their municipality,” says the report.
In fact, he adds, the Ministry of Education reported that there were town councils that “made requests to it for the execution of works and works that are a consequence of the fact that maintenance has not been carried out by them in public centers.” of education of your municipality, which subsequently implies larger works undertaken by the Government of the Canary Islands».
According to Suárez, there are indeed municipalities that invest “on one side and less in the surveillance of the centers. There is a difference in the investment”, but where the most problems have been found, he adds, “is the maintenance”, even of the special education centers, “The solution is to clarify the competencies and, on the other hand, allocate a percentage to facilitate municipalities that can invest in educational infrastructure because sometimes they encounter problems doing so,” he adds.
The Minister of Education, Poli Suárez, during a speech in the Canarian Parliament.
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Education seeks a plan to ensure municipal investment in school infrastructure
The Minister of Education, Poli Suárez, wants to draw up a plan with the town councils to ensure that a certain percentage of the Canarian Municipal Financing Fund is obligatorily allocated to the improvement of educational infrastructure and its maintenance. Suárez, who has acknowledged in the Canary Islands chamber that a good part of the educational centers are in “deplorable conditions”, is holding meetings with municipal officials both through the Canarian Federation of Municipalities (Fecam) and with the councilors themselves. “Wherever I have the opportunity, I launch this proposal without entering into the debate of what percentage,” he explains.
«We have to be realistic. Many times mayors encounter limitations or objections from the legal services or the secretariat or intervention. To give them legal certainty, we are putting on the table not only that percentage that must be dedicated to educational infrastructure, but also clarifying through a document that we are developing the powers so that they have instruments to deal with these inconveniences because many want to invest in the centers, but do not “they can” assures the Minister of Education.
According to the report of the Audience of Accounts, of the 62 of the 88 municipalities of the Canary Islands that informed the institution about how they carried out the conservation, maintenance and surveillance of preschool, primary and special education centers, 43, 5% do it by combining their human resources with the private sector, 345.5% do it with their own staff and 21% do it through agreements with third parties. Of the ten municipalities with special education centers, only four are responsible for their maintenance.
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