The Right to Education is recognized in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as a human right, which is being affected by some new measures that are putting at risk the future of people.
Primary and Secondary education has been affected by a new Education Law in Spain, called Ley Orgánica para la Mejora de la Calidad Educativa (LOMCE), that holds the aversion of most of society, especially the education community: teachers, parents and students. This new law makes public education development difficult and limits economic resources. Jobs are eliminated and the consequence of this is that there are fewer teachers and more children in a class, and the professional attention that the children need for their correct learning is very low. In addition, the grants are going down and the conditions to gain them are getting harder.
Higher education is not any better off. Prices for vocational training and for University studies have increased. And the number of grants for students has decreased significantly. The Erasmus Programme has stumbled on difficult times. All of these problems result in social class discrimination.
First employment is one of the main difficulties for European young people. For example, in November 2012, the number of unemployed Aragonese without previous employment was of more than 7500. And the statistics do not improve, because the rate of young unemployment in Aragón at the end of the first quarter of 2013 was 52,83 %, with a more dramatic situation for young people between 16 and 19 years old: only nine hundred people of the six thousand and eight hundred who wanted to be employed at the Aragon territory have a job.
As we have seen, now more than ever, young people need to be supported by Governments to build a thriving future. The European Union tries to promote youth employment; an example of it is the European Youth Guarantee. The European Youth Guarantee is a tool that ensures that every young person under twenty-five years old in Europe is offered a job, further education or work-focused training at the latest four months after leaving education or after becoming unemployed. The aim of this is to avoid that a young European goes more than four months without a job, education or work-focused training. Furthermore, it is necessary to complete the Youth Guarantee with supported tools that should include imperatively the linguistic areas, as well as the labor practical experience, and to supply geographic mobility.
In these difficult times for the youth, we desire that the society supports the improvement of the measures for young people and a plan to establish acceptable conditions to everybody. EFAy urges the Spanish government not to implement the LOMCE law, by respecting the powers of autonomous governments in education.