The enrollment process for preschool and primary school has revealed figures that highlight severe overcrowding in schools across Orihuela Costa. The number of students enrolled in the three coastal schools sits around 1,730, despite an official capacity of just 1,260 places.
Furthermore, one hundred applications have been left out for the moment until the schooling committee meets to find them a place. Another one hundred unscheduled enrolments outside the ordinary deadline are expected, based on emails and calls already coming in from parents planning to settle on the coast in the autumn. This type of late enrolment occurs throughout the school year in the coastal area.
Looking at individual schools, Los Dolses has a capacity for 360 students but actually houses around 650. CEIP Playas de Orihuela is designed for 540 students but receives 630. The same trend affects Number 20, which uses prefabricated classrooms designed for 360 children to accommodate 450.
With these figures, reality far exceeds official capacity, leaving a shortage of approximately 600 places on the coast. The educational community believes the solution involves expanding Los Dolses—which has waited a decade for an increase in space—and constructing a new building with three classes per grade level. Even then, a fourth school would be necessary. Alternatively, a four-classroom school could be built, though this proposal appeals to neither teachers nor parents.
Academic performance and infrastructure strain
A new school year is expected to begin with the overcrowding that has become characteristic of the area. Shortages have previously been addressed with barracks and by converting teaching spaces into warehouses, computer rooms, corridors, libraries, teachers’ rooms, or rooms for music and children’s psychomotor skills.
Academic levels along the coast also suffer due to a lack of language proficiency among more than 70% of the student body. Consequently, a shortage of staff, immersion classrooms for newcomers, and poor infrastructure means schools cannot afford to allow children who do not reach the required level to repeat a grade. They simply cannot because there is no space. School principals have raised this lack of classrooms for repeating students with both the education inspectorate and the regional education authority on several occasions, but no action has been taken.
Sources insist this situation violates children’s right to a quality education, noting that parents who enrol their children on the coast do not expect the circumstances to be so complicated and the educational services to be so under-resourced.
Summer school discrimination
Adding to the discontent, parents in Orihuela Costa feel discriminated against during the summer months compared to those living in the city due to the municipal summer schools, which only accept students from Orihuela’s schools. Many coastal residents attend school in San Miguel de Salinas or Torrevieja due to proximity. However, the summer schools in those municipalities are reserved only for registered residents, leaving these children unable to choose either option.
The Los Dolses school usually runs its own summer programme until September, but the initiative did not go ahead this year. Many families have been left without this service at a time when parents are at their busiest due to the tourism industry on the Orihuela coast.
Complaint about wastewater spills
The headteacher of CEIP Los Dolses, Isaac Bonafé, filed a complaint this Monday against the homeowners’ association of the neighbourhood adjacent to the school. The complaint follows the installation of a 12th drain on the terraces, which dumps wastewater into the children’s playground.
Faced with inaction from the Orihuela City Council, the educational centre reported spills into the courtyard from the adjacent houses. Bonafé stated that they are cornered in the middle of urine and faeces, and nobody is taking action.
The school has repeatedly submitted numerous written complaints to the Department of Urban Planning, warning that the schoolyard has become the drainage area for the adjacent houses.
The school administration and the Parents’ Association have protested against what they consider a health hazard at a school with over 600 students. The wall separating the school from the rear terraces of the surrounding buildings is so deteriorated that a third of the schoolyard has been cordoned off due to the risk of collapse.
Bonafé, who counted a new drain just a few weeks ago and the previous one in August of last year, recalled that this is an ongoing problem that has lasted for 15 years. His predecessors also reported it repeatedly to the City Hall, but no one has forced the residents to comply with the law and seal the holes with proper drainage inside their homes. He lamented that infrastructure and maintenance have always been a deficiency on the coast, but this situation actively allows illegal activity.
