James Bryce
THOUSANDS of parents will be forced to pay for their child’s textbooks after the government slashed its education budget by €1 billion.
The cuts mean around 500,000 pupils will no longer be eligible for state aid to buy essential reading material, according to figures released by the education ministry.
Official statistics show there are eight million students attending classes this year, representing a 1.7% increase on the previous school year.
However, this year’s budget of €50.4 billion is €1.1 billion less than last year – and €2.1 billion less than in 2010.
The ministry insists 15,000 more students will receive grants this year despite the budget for such payments being cut by €185 million compared to the 2011-2012 academic year.
“The only explanation for this is that the average grant amount will be lower so that they can be spread out to more students,” said Juan Martinez, from the trade union CCOO.
When is the government going to “slash” the budget for politicians salaries?
We need to get the priorities right here. Paying the bankers is much more important than children’s schoolbooks.
Makes sense. If they can’t read and write they’ll be easier to fool.
Ben, I can see where you are coming from but the consequences of doing that may be less than desirable. If the government “slashes” politician´s wages, there will simply be far fewer politicians. Now you might say that would be a good thing, but think about it for a moment.
Believe it or not, there are some very good politicians whose only wish is to work for the good of the people. Cut their wages and they will look for something else to do.
Either that, or the political class will be drawn exclusively from those who can afford to live on a pittance. In other words, those who are already rich.
Does Spain still operate the scam set up under Franco whereby children are forced to write in the books meaning that they have to be replaced every year and can’t be handed down to younger siblings or sold s/hand and is the printing company still the same one appointed by Franco as it was a staunch Fascist supporter?
Not so much slash the politician’s salaries, but slash the number of politicians here, not sure of the exact numbers but there are way too many of them with jobs for life and healthy pension funds. Re Stefanjo, my husband and I have a theory that the government here wants to keep people poorly educated as they are easier to control that way (sheeple).
now textbooks are reused for up to six years or until they fall apart. Parents have to cover them, but only pay for their childs obvious vandalism.
Tony do you know how many politicians there are per head of the population? The average salary including benefits? The benefits available? The ridiculously few number of years served to be able to claim a full pension, for life, on leaving office? The multitude tiers of office, local, provincial, regional, national, each layer bringing more benefits and pensions? How the civil service system was set up to generate red-tape then income and ultimately jobs?
No. I didn’t think so. Give it a few more years or ask the editor of the OP to tell you. You deserve to know.
Paco,
that’s nice to know and not before time.
Functionarios – have you checked out the UK MOD – 80,000 – Israel has a big army and an MOD of – 80.
The UK has so many quangos set up by parasites of both the left and the right (there is no real difference, they are all corrupt and expert theives)- these UK functionarios work a few days per month and get paid hundreds of thousands a year.
What will the final bill be for the Leveson Enquiry which ‘call me Dave’ said he would implement in full “unless it is bonkers” and of course he lied – what a surprise.
The sham enquiries over the years into the cold blooded murder of unarmed Catholics on Bloody Sunday stands at £300 million and counting.
The multi billion fiasco of a computer system for the NHS – the 500 million + fiasco of a new system for air traffic control – these are just a few of the many ways our taxes are syphoned off to the professional class for no benefit whatsoever to those mugs who actually pay their taxes – wait a minute this sounds a lot like Spain – now there’s a thought Ben!