The figure of coordinator of coeducation, coexistence and well-being (Cocobe) established by the Department of Education for this course is generating a lot of discomfort in schools. In many centers it was difficult to find a teacher on the faculty who wanted to assume the role of coordinator, due to the responsibility they had to assume in having to prevent and respond to issues of bullying, sexual harassment and mental health.
But when the centers already have their coordinator and he has completed the corresponding training, the department has informed them that schools and institutes must review the assignments of cocobe coordinators before November 7 since they must necessarily fall to a teacher who has already been assigned a management position, coordination or ESO tutoring. All these positions already charge extra when fulfilling these functions.
In an email addressed to the management, Educació clarifies that there will be no charge and that the position should be assumed by a teacher who already earns a bonus.
The coordinator is a figure created by state regulations and the Generalitat announced that it would be created from this course. The Ministry of Education distributed an insufficient amount for its creation, about 5 million euros for all the autonomous communities. Apparently, the Government planned to pay this figure starting in the 2024-2025 academic year, by including it in this year’s budget.
At the same time, the councilor, Anna Simó, declared in an interview with this newspaper that “he is a good figure who will represent a before and after in the issue of violence inside and outside of schools.” Likewise, it has unified all those that existed on coexistence and violence into a single protocol. And a record has been created.
For Simó, teachers have more coordination time since in January the reduction of one teaching hour was approved, which meant the entry of 3,500 teachers.
The State Observatory of School Coexistence prepared a guide with recommendations on the figure of the coordinator that it published in November 2022. Among other things, it proposed that each center develop a risk mapping of conflict situations to determine the workload that the well-being coordinator will have. , who will report to the management team, and, therefore, the number of hours of dedication and the convenience of having one or more people
Junts has registered today in Parliament a battery of questions for the councilor about this figure and the lack of budgetary forecast for its implementation.
The coordinator assumes the tasks aimed at the early detection of situations of violence and the activation of the protocol at the time of suspicion. To do this, it must build a network of internal collaborations (management team, teachers, administrative and service staff, families, students and guidance services) and external collaborations (social services, health, security forces and bodies, justice).
It must also take on the prevention of violence and emotional discomfort through awareness-raising work and training of the entire educational community.
Since the pandemic, a worsening of the mental health of children and adolescents has been detected, as well as problems with school coexistence.
According to the latest Survey on School Coexistence in Catalonia, prepared by the Department of the Interior and Education and published last August, 75% of students believe that they experience situations of lack of respect, if not abuse, at school.
