Schools across Catalonia are bracing for a turbulent start to the 2025-2026 academic year, as the Assemblea Educativa de Catalunya (AEC) signals an escalation in teachers’ protests. After a meeting in Barcelona, the group announced plans for large-scale mobilisations from the first term. The warning comes amid continuing disputes over pay and class sizes, alongside demands for more investment in public education.
The AEC brings together teachers from schools and grassroots collectives and has gained influence amid repeated strikes and demonstrations. It has also coordinated with USTEC and CGT, while Intersindical, COS and CNT have joined efforts to organise mobilisation through a broader coalition. In October 2026, the unions and assembly opened a consultation asking education workers whether protests should continue. It also asked whether families and students should join the effort, and which strike format workers preferred. Options ranged from a single Catalonia-wide strike day to four days combining territorial and all-Catalonia stoppages. USTEC said the consultation would help decide how to continue the mobilisation.
Teachers are seeking better working conditions and higher salaries. They also want lower student-to-teacher ratios and more resources for public schools. Another demand is an increase in education funding to approach 6% of Catalonia’s GDP. A second agreement between the Generalitat and unions offered a €400 monthly pay increase phased over four years, along with a commitment to bring in 6,413 teachers by 2030. But USTEC, the largest union with 35% of the vote, rejected the arrangement after teachers voted against the preliminary agreement in an online consultation. The pact so lacked support from the entire union movement.
The latest unrest follows a school year that ended with 23 strikes in six months. The Department of Education and several unions, including CC OO and UGT, along with Professors de Secundària (Aspepc), had reached an agreement on May 29, while USTEC refused to sign. Renewed strikes and pressure later brought the Generalitat and unions back to negotiations, producing the second agreement. The split has continued to fuel mobilisation, with many teachers arguing that the agreements leave their core concerns unresolved.
Pressure has extended beyond strikes to school activities. In October 2026, 1,300 centres, more than half of Catalonia’s public-school network, backed a refusal to organise excursions and residential trips, information from reporting. Teachers have tied the action to inadequate resources and high pupil-to-teacher ratios. They also cite bureaucratic overload and the extra work and responsibility involved in supervising trips, including overnight stays. More than 1,000 public basic and secondary schools had decided not to schedule excursions or overnight stays during the school year.
The dispute over trips reached the Catalan Parliament, which urged the Generalitat to set compensation that reflects extra hours and night-time duties, as well as the responsibility staff take on outside the ordinary timetable. Its resolution called for “sufficient and proportional” compensation. The intervention addressed a specific operational grievance in the wider pay and staffing dispute. Schools’ decisions to suspend activities had made the conflict visible to students and families.
Teachers’ protests have spread across all four Catalan provinces, with educators citing lost purchasing power and increasingly complex classroom environments as major grievances. The AEC’s focus on consultation and collective decision-making reflects an effort to widen participation beyond established union structures. The October mobilisation consultation also asked whether teachers should join a potential statewide education strike. It followed a general strike scheduled for 11 November 2026.
Catalonia’s education sector has faced recurring disputes over funding and staffing for more than a decade. The region’s public education budget has struggled to recover from cuts imposed during the financial crisis, while inflation has further eroded teachers’ real wages. Spain’s Ministry of Education says Catalonia’s per-student spending remains below the national average, despite repeated calls for greater investment. With USTEC rejecting the second pact and further mobilisation under consideration, the dispute remains unresolved. School activities could face disruption unless teachers, unions and the regional government reach a broader agreement.
