This Tuesday, Milagros Tolón succeeded his predecessor, Pilar Alegría, in the Education portfolio, praising “all those who worked and fought for a public, just and egalitarian education system”. Toulon has before it the objective of carrying out the educational reform launched by the socialists after their coming to power in 2018. Particularly with regard to teachers, whose teaching unions expressed their impatience this Monday and urged Toulon to close the negotiations opened since the beginning of the year. The new minister assured that she was confident in her ability to reach agreements with the autonomous communities (most of which are in the hands of the PP) and with the educational community.
A graduate in Education and Geography and History, Tolón, 57, was until now a delegate of the Government of Castile-La Mancha, she was an autonomous deputy in said community and in Congress, and mayor of Toledo. During the handover of the Education portfolio, she was accompanied on stage, in addition to Alegría, who will be the socialist candidate in the Aragon elections scheduled for February, by several of her new cabinet colleagues: the Minister of Equality, Ana Redondo García; that of Territorial Politics and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres Pérez; that of Housing, Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez García; and that of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, who added this Monday a new responsibility also with the help of Alegría. Next to them, on one side, was the former Castilian-La Mancha president José Bono.
Before starting her political career, the new minister was an adult teacher for 14 years. And this Monday, he recalled this stage as one of the most important of his life. “I had the privilege of teaching reading and writing to older people, especially women. Women who were ashamed of not knowing how to read and write and who had very low self-esteem. Every word learned was an achievement for them, every sentence written, an act of dignity and freedom. They taught me that it is never too late to learn and that education is not a question of age, but of will and hope. The future of our country starts in the classrooms,” he said.
Union request
To begin with, the new minister will meet certain teaching centers which will face union elections in less than a year and which are impatient after almost a year of negotiations with the ministry on a vast reform of the teaching conditions of more than 800,000 teachers. The deal has progressed at a very slow pace in recent months. And although at present an agreement in principle has been reached regarding the reduction in the number of students per class and the reduction of lesson hours for teachers in public education, even the application of these issues is uncertain, since the government will introduce the changes through a bill for which it will have to obtain the support of Congress.
After congratulating her on her appointment, the unions decided to set their priorities. CC OO demanded that in addition to finalizing the reduction of ratios and hours, it hurry to address other aspects of education reform that are on the table. Such as the equalization of teachers’ salaries with those of secondary school teachers, the resumption of early retirements abolished after the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008, and the improvement of infrastructure and air conditioning of educational centers. “If the minister is committed to public education, she will have us at her side, otherwise she will find us in the street,” warned the general secretary of the CC OO Education Federation, Teresa Esperabé.
The UGT also called on the minister to accelerate the negotiations with “determination and energy”; “The (negotiator) groups are established and the legacy work team has the necessary experience and knowledge” to reach new agreements in a short time. The CSIF urged Toulon to act taking into account “the height of the legislature and the urgency of the pending files”, while considering “that the habit of making the ministerial portfolio compatible with the Government spokesperson is broken”.
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