State Education and ‘Bananafication’

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Xavier Massó

From the earliest days of the LOGSE¹, it was painfully obvious: while state schools were being stripped of any semblance of academic structure and force-fed every variety of pedagogical nonsense, with private schools—whether state-funded or not— a complete and shameless blind eye was turned. The contrast was stark: excessive scrutiny in one case and an unashamed laissez-faire attitude in the other, courtesy of an inspection service that had transformed itself into a militant pedagogical police force. And let’s be clear: this wasn’t mere favouritism towards state-funded private schools but, above all, an overt and explicit policy of disfavouring state schools. It was imperative to dismantle and dismember them.

At the same time, administrative reforms turned school leadership into a political commissariat, where the perks of the job—and any potential for career advancement—depended on blind obedience to official directives. In practice, ideological loyalty became the sole criterion for appointing key personnel, turning school leadership into a transmission belt for political mandates thanks to the LEC² and various ‘autonomy’ decrees on school leadership and recruitment—resulting in the de facto defunctionalisation of the public teaching profession in Catalonia. The same principle applied to school leadership and educational projects: as long as they toed the official line, anything went. To be fair, there have been—and still are—honourable exceptions, and due credit should be given. But when civil servants surrender their ideological independence to political power, the inevitable result is an administration packed with sycophants and second-rate mediocrities, each more desperate than the last to ingratiate themselves with their superiors.

A different approach could have been the consolidation and improvement of the previous model, where heads were elected by the teaching staff and ratified by the school council, acting as managers and administrators, leaving academic matters in the hands of subject departments and curricular experts. Alternatively, a professionalised model could have been adopted, creating a new body of civil servant headteachers with functions identical to those of the previous system, much like the French model. Obviously, none of that happened. Instead, the well-worn system of political watchdogs and obedient overseers was cemented, propped up by the much-vaunted and utterly ridiculous notion of ‘pedagogical leadership.’ The same logic was applied to school inspection: not only was subject-specialist inspection scrapped and primary and secondary inspections merged—an unmistakable statement of intent—but competitive examinations for inspectors were conveniently abolished. Positions were handed out arbitrarily to the ‘chosen ones’—those with the right political credentials—under the euphemistic label of comisión de servicio (temporary secondment). Then, after more than two decades of blatant nepotism, the authorities were finally forced—against their will and by court ruling—to hold competitive exams (thanks to legal action by ASPEPC·SPS³). And what was the principal ‘merit’ considered? The number of years spent as an acting inspector, of course. Not even Juan Palomo, the I cook it, I eat it archetype, could have scripted it better. And as for the everyday teachers? Don’t even get me started.

This restructuring of school leadership produced a rather paradoxical outcome. By turning state-school headteachers into mere administrative enforcers—entirely dependent on the very administration they serve—the system made them far more subservient than their private-school counterparts. The latter, not being civil servants, are answerable only to those who hired them: the school’s owners. This creates a labour relationship model that may align with the logic of private enterprise but is fundamentally incompatible with the very nature of public administration. When applied to the public sector, it inevitably degenerates into clientelism, dragging along its usual entourage of nepotism, simony, undue privileges, and sinecures. In other words, this is what happens when the administration embarks on what we might call its own bananafication⁴.

To be fair, many state-funded private schools have eagerly jumped on the bandwagon of extravagant pedagogical experiments—total scams, every last one of them—and there’s no doubt more to come. But the real issue is this: to push dodgy tech gadgets and half-baked teaching methods, education first has to be turned into a business. And for that to happen, the state education system had to be neutralised—because for all its flaws, it was still doing what it was supposed to do: teaching.

It’s worth remembering that not too long ago, state schools held more prestige than private ones. They provided a better education, staffed by university-trained specialists in their respective fields. Then came LOGSE and its successive mutations, and that was the end of that. The problem had to be artificially created to justify the monetised solution—fraudulent or not, as long as it turned a profit. And, of course, none of this could happen if students were still managing to add up without computers or educational apps. First came the pedagogy of entertainment, followed by the great leap to digital screens. Only once real learning had been thoroughly dismantled—once actual teaching had been abandoned—could the miraculous new solution be unveiled. And if students still failed to learn anything? No problem at all. That was part of the plan. The beauty of the model lies in its endless cycle of failure. New, inevitably doomed solutions will keep rolling in—segmentation, consumer product renewal, planned obsolescence. It’s simply market logic applied to education.

What’s particularly striking is how many of those who once made a tidy profit dressing the emperor in imaginary new clothes—actively shaping the very educational model we now endure—are suddenly shocked and outraged by the closure of state school classes while new ones keep opening in the state-funded private sector. I share their outrage, though for entirely different reasons: we’ve been dealing with this for decades, and it never took a genius to see it coming. Many just swallowed the paper moon that the finger pointed to, without noticing that the finger itself was revealing its intentions. Even in the case of some of today’s mourners, the pointing finger was theirs…

Frankly, it’s baffling to witness such surprise from those who’ve spent over three decades swallowing something hook, line and sinker—or cashing in on its manufacture. I’m not sure what they’re so outraged about, unless it’s their own gullibility. It all feels a bit too much like round up the usual suspects, as Captain Renault put it in Casablanca—except, of course, that these usual suspects already have their next commissions lined up. Their credibility is shot; they’ll have to peddle their indignation elsewhere.

Let’s be clear: additional resources are always welcome, but the fundamental problem with our state education system isn’t just a lack of funding—it’s how that funding is allocated, and more importantly, the principles underpinning it. As long as we remain trapped in the logic of the market, with pedagogy playing the role of its obedient lackey, there’s no way out. As I said, the real issue with our education system is one of concept— and a government with a taste for bananas.

¹ The last Spanish education law

² Catalan education law

³ Secondary school teachers’ union

⁴ i.e., the processes of corruption and inefficiency typical of a ‘banana republic’

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons