The incorporation of Mossos d’Esquadra agents in secondary schools in Catalonia to deter violent outbreaks and attacks has the radical opposition of educational unions, student organizations and the parliamentary partners of the Government (ERC and Comuns) and Junts. This Monday, officers are scheduled to join the respective schools assigned to them and, at the same time, the first demonstrations have already been called. The teachers, students and families of the Eugeni d’Ors and Margarida Xirgu institutes in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat have called on the communities of their institutes to gather in front of their centers first thing in the morning. A teacher at Eugeni d’Ors has summarized the reason for these protests: “Students are people, not criminals. In high schools we need social and pedagogical resources, not police.”
This 2026 has already become one of the years in which the most teacher mobilizations have been recorded in Catalonia. Teachers demand not only salary increases but also reductions in the student ratio and an increase in staff. The Government reached an agreement with improvements with CC OO and UGT, but the majority union in public education, USTEC, has distanced itself and is leading a loud opposition. In the midst of this labor conflict, last Thursday – Sant Jordi Day – the Comprehensive Plan for Safety and Well-being in the educational environment (EDUSEG), promoted by the Department of Education and the police force, was announced. Promoted by EL PAÍS, the program experimentally incorporates agents from the mossos to 13 Catalan secondary schools.
Last Thursday, Sant Jordi’s Day, a very important date in Catalonia, was strange at the Eugeni d’Ors Institute. “They called us and announced to us that starting this Monday (for today) a move in civilian clothes,” a teacher from the center reported to this newspaper. After this announcement, indignation took over the entire educational community. Hours later, they learned that this same agent has also been assigned to the nearby Margarida Xirgú institute where rallies are also planned.
The majority of the young people in both centers – both classified as highly complex due to the disadvantaged social environment of their students – come from the Florida, Torrassa and Collblanc neighborhoods of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. This area is known as Samontà and occupies two square kilometers where nearly 150,000 people live in a very dense area and where 87% of the population lives in homes that are more than a century old.
Álex Cisneros (18 years old) is a second year high school student and is the spokesperson for the student committee of the Eugeni d’Ors institute. In his personal story the police play a prominent role and not for the better. “They want to put police in the classrooms. It is a direct attack. In 2023, they evicted my family from our house. They were the mossos those who kicked me out and now want to put them in my institute,” he explains, visibly indignant. And he adds: “Our center is extremely complex. The majority of students are migrants and vulnerable. They are not only criminalizing us, but also stigmatizing.” This Monday, at 7:30, he will be in front of his school and at 7:50 he will be in front of Margarida Xirgu.
The teachers and workers of both centers have formed assemblies. They want to demonstrate on behalf of these platforms without providing their identity: “They want to send us police officers without any consensus. At the beginning of the course, the Department applied personnel cuts to us in figures that we need, we have walls that are falling into pieces, shattered blackboards… and what they do is send us to mossos“With the concentrations that will be held this Monday, they intend for the department to abandon the initiative of placing agents in institutes and, on the contrary, to provide more social and labor resources to the staff.
Iolanda Segura is the national spokesperson for Ustec, the majority teachers union. He denies any agreement with the Government to apply the measure: “It is surprising. The incorporation of mossos It was neither discussed nor agreed upon in the classroom aggression commission that we set up months ago. A police officer will never replace the figures of integrators, social educators, educational psychologists, psychologists, counselors… who are cut back year after year,” he laments. “It has been proven that only by reducing ratios do you reduce conflict. Furthermore, to have security you must have a decent life, eat adequately, and schools must be of quality and can meet educational needs; that there is economic security… A moved It is not an educational figure. In fact, in the United Kingdom they have been removing police officers from centers for years because they aggravated the conflict,” he denounces.
