Around 10,000 people have today expressed themselves in the Spanish capital in defense of non-university public and secular education and against cuts, before a strike called by unions and educational assemblies for October 14.
© Lusa
27/09/2026
by
Lusa
Lled by a huge track with the slogan “We defend public education, we defend the future,” protesters marched from Atocha Square to Cibeles Square, wearing green T-shirts that required “public education for all, for all” and putting up posters against the courts and against the president of the Madrid Community, Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
The protesters also claimed fewer hours of classes and smaller classes, according to the EFE agency.
The protest, called by the Asamblea Less Lectivas platform, together with the main unions and organizations in the sector, is the prelude to an undetermined strike to demand wage improvements and teachers' working conditions, reduced workload and class size, and more resources to end segregation and promote diversity.
As stated in the protest manifesto, teachers and families have “supported policies that are deteriorating the public education system in Madrid” and worsen their working conditions “for too long”.
“ We are here because we are a united and organized educational community, ready to defend the public education system of Madrid, and we want to say loud and clear that we will firmly defend our list of demands and fight for each one of them”, reads in the manifesto.
Prior to the start of the march, the Secretary General of Podemos, Ione Belarra, said that protests, strikes and camps are “the way to achieve all that is necessary to achieve” and, therefore, stressed that her party would participate, encourage and mobilize in support of the necessary social changes.
The protest for education coincided with the camp organized in Puerta del Sol to demand measures to end the evictions and abuses by real estate investors.
For Belarra, these mobilizations “can change everything, because people realized that all social transformations, all the big changes”, happened when people mobilized and organized.
“ If we want public education, strike indefinitely of teachers; if we want decent housing, we will set up camps ", said.