This morning, the president of the AMPA (parents’ association) of the school, Ana Domínguez, and the head teacher of IES Las Viñas, Mª Esperanza Cebrián, held a meeting in Málaga with the regional delegate for Educational Development and Vocational Training, Miguel Briones, and the head of the Planning service, Eva Sánchez, in order to find out first-hand why the project to build a new secondary school in Manilva has been halted.
According to the provincial delegation during the meeting, the delay in processing is said to be related to administrative issues linked to the land proposed for the future educational facility. Firstly, the plot initially offered by Manilva Town Hall was ruled out for failing to meet the technical specifications required for building a school of this kind.
Subsequently, in February this year the Town Hall made a new offer of land in order to speed up the procedure. However, as explained during the meeting, the documentation was sent to the regional delegation in Seville instead of to the provincial delegation in Málaga, a circumstance that would have meant the file has still not reached the relevant department.
Despite the explanations given, both the families and the school management welcomed having been able to learn first-hand about the state of the project, although they expressed their concern that no file or documentation formally confirming the commitment or the existence of a specific budget allocation for the construction of the new secondary school was presented at the meeting.
The meeting also addressed the infrastructure problems affecting the current IES Las Viñas building. In this regard, the repair of the school’s roof was discussed, and it was confirmed that the works have already been awarded for an amount of over 400,000 euros, 220,000 of it for the skylight and the remainder for repairing defects in the façade. According to the delegate, the work will begin shortly.
The construction of a second secondary school in the municipality is considered an urgent need by the education community. IES Las Viñas was originally designed for around 700 pupils, but it currently has close to 1,400 students.
This overcrowding has forced the school to operate for almost two decades with prefabricated classrooms and to convert spaces such as the canteen, the library and the laboratory into ordinary classrooms in order to cater for its pupils.
The AMPAs have warned that they will continue their protests until the new secondary school project becomes a reality and construction work on the school begins.
