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The opening of rural schools is a key Government measure in the fight against the depopulation of rural municipalities. It allows families to send children from 1 to 3 years old to school wherever they live, even if it is a small town, and not have to do it in other towns. For this reason, the Generalitat de Catalunya this year has opened 26 new rural nursery schools in municipalities with fewer than 2,500 inhabitants throughout the territory that did not have this service. In total, 144 villages have already implemented the first cycle of early childhood education for I1 and I2 in the rural school.
All of this is part of the Integration Plan for the initial stage in the rural school, which has allowed the opening of new nursery schools in rural environments through the creation or integration of municipal kindergartens located within the rural school buildings. The aim is to fight against the loss of students in the smallest towns, which in many cases leads to the impoverishment of community life and even depopulation.
During the current legislature, a total of 101 nursery schools located in rural school buildings are expected to be up and running. This year 2023-24, 26 new ones have been opened compared to the previous year and by next September 23 more nursery schools will be opened. Eight new schools were opened in the 2021-22 academic year and 44 more in 2022-23.
This action is part of the Plan for revitalizing the rural environment, which the Generalitat de Catalunya launched in October 2022. The aim is to promote the repopulation of smaller municipalities through the creation of children’s homes within the schools, in a firm commitment to reverse depopulation and facilitate as much as possible equal educational opportunities in the rural area.
The schools that have been opened since the 2021-2022 school year in towns that until now did not have this service are Les Curculles-ZER Empordà School, located in Palau de Santa Eulàlia, in Girona, with 10 enrolled students, and the Campllong School, in Campllong, Girona, with 18 students enrolled this school year. For the 2024-25 academic year, the Pedraforca School is scheduled to open in Saldes, in Central Catalonia, with a forecast of 3 to 5 students.
Rural schools are unique public schools in the village that do not get to have a group by educational level because they have few students. The school curriculum works with multilevel students, that is, grouping different courses. They are part of rural school zones (ZER), institutions formed by rural schools in a nearby environment that are considered as a single center and that respect the identity of the schools that make it up.
Currently, in Catalonia there are a total of 363 schools located in rural areas. This represents 22.3% of the total of public schools. Of the 363 schools, 260 are cycle schools in municipalities with less than 2,000 inhabitants (grouped in 86 ZER’s), 95 are cycle schools in municipalities with less than 2,500 inhabitants, and eight are cycle schools in municipalities with more than 2,000 inhabitants. These latter must meet certain criteria: that the school is in a singular entity or Decentralized Municipal Entity with less than 2,000 inhabitants and there is more than one school in the municipality, and that the school is at distances greater than three kilometers from any urban center with more than 2,000 inhabitants.
