Catalan municipalities refuse to install air conditioning in schools due to lack of skills

Fans in a classroom of a school in Barcelona.Carles Ribas

Most municipalities in large Catalan cities have chosen not to take the gauntlet thrown by the Department of Education so that they are responsible for installing air conditioning in schools. They argue that the regulations are clear on this issue: "The City Council only has powers to maintain schools; the investment corresponds to the Generalitat", they say from Mataró, but it is an argument repeated by the great Consistories consulted. In fact, of the ten most populated cities, only Barcelona and L'Hospitalet are covered by the Education proposal, to which are added another fifty small and medium-sized municipalities.

The final stretch of last year and the beginning of the current one were marked by several heat waves that raised, in a generalized way, the thermometers above 30 degrees in the classrooms. Families and teachers have long demanded long-term solutions, beyond ventilators, to the problem of global warming. In May, the Department of Education presented the expected shock plan to deal with high temperatures in schools, which includes the installation of air conditioning, but in a limited way: only in one or two common spaces, such as libraries or gyms, and only in a hundred institutes. This year about five million will be invested so that the air conditioning is ready in September, but Education expects to reach the rest of 800 institutes in about five years. But the Department refuses to intervene in schools, because the buildings are municipally owned.

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The plan against heat in the classrooms starts with the installation of air conditioning in gyms and libraries in 100 centers in Catalonia

Education assured that it had spoken with the municipalities to authorize them to carry out this installation and that, so far, fifty (of a total of 947) had committed to do so. Among them is the capital Catana. In this case, the management of the facility falls to the Barcelona Education Consortium, co-managed by the Generalitat and the City Council. The entity has developed an Environmental Comfort Program in schools that includes, among other actions, the installation of air conditioning in 25 centers, of which 17 are schools (whose cost will be assumed by the City Council) and eight institutes (assumed by the Generalitat).

L'Hospitalet de Llobregat -the second most populated city- also decided to take action on the matter seeing the decision of Education and in the April plenary session approved a game of 2.5 million to install air conditioning in the dining rooms and common spaces of its 36 nursery and primary schools. However, the City Council is clear that this would correspond to Education. "The competencies are clearly the Department's. Air conditioning is an improvement action. An example of this is that in order to act we need the Generalitat to authorize us, "they argue from the Consistory.

The same is defended in Sitges, which plans to air condition the schools in the medium term – first it must renew the electrical installation of the old buildings – but in a new construction it has already mounted the air in all spaces, although it needs to be started. "It is an intervention that costs 20,000 euros. We have asked the department to pay for it, but it has told us no, "explains David Martínez, acting Councilor for Education of Sitges. The City Council admits that it is not its competence, but ensures that in the last three years it has invested 500,000 euros in improvement works, which would correspond to the Generalitat. "If we don't take care of ourselves, they [Education] don't take care of it. We see ourselves in the duty to do it, "says Martinez.

This newspaper has consulted with the dozen largest municipalities and provincial capitals their opinion on the proposal of the Generalitat. Apart from those who will assume the installation, and those who prefer not to respond -Badalona and Lleida-, the rest reject it because they consider that they are not competent. Although many are in a moment of interim due to possible changes of government, the municipalities make use of the regulations, specifically article 164 of the Education Law of Catalonia, which establishes that "the Department is competent in the works and actions of reform, expansion or adaptation and improvements of these educational centers, and finances them." "We consider that this [installation of air conditioning] is a great work of the centers that must be assumed, completely, by the Generalitat. This intervention can not be considered maintenance, so the City Council is not willing to take charge, "they sentence from Santa Coloma de Gramanet, in an argument that governments of multiple colors coincide, not only socialist, as in this case.

Terrassa and Reus -whose Education portfolio falls on ERC- also decline to act in schools. The co-capital of Vallès assures that it focuses its plans on nurseries, special education centers and municipal music schools. "The municipal competence is maintenance, and you can not maintain something that does not exist," explain from the City Council of Egarense, which also considers that the installation of air conditioning systematically is not sustainable, and advocate measures with less environmental impact.

In the same line of prioritization Tarragona is pronounced, which in addition to the lack of competences and the unsustainable solution of the air, argues that the City Council "would not have economic capacity" because apart from the installation in the thirty public schools, it would have to cover the electricity bills. "Any measure taken must be proportionate to the municipal economic possibilities, a small municipality is not the same as a large one," says the Consistory.

"We ask the Generalitat to comply with its competences and to air condition the schools, instead of doing what is usual: making the municipalities, which do not have resources, have to take charge of the powers of the Generalitat", censure from Sabadell.

In spite of everything, the municipalities do not sit idly by and are implementing plans to buffer the heat in the courtyards -hard concrete surfaces with hardly any shadows-, placing elements that can generate shady areas and climatic shelters, such as awnings, pergolas or trees, or water points, in addition to the installation of fans, Or even, facing the July Casals, small pools or portable air conditioners.

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