The debate on the right to education in the preparation of the Spanish Constitution of 1978

Abstract

Forty years have passed since the approval of the Spanish Constitution of 1978. At a time when the works of the last Parliamentary Subcommittee for a Pact of Social and Political State for Education have come to an end without any concrete decision, the Editorial Team of Tendencias Pedagógicas wants to recover the origins of these difficulties to come to agreements on education in Spain. To this end, we put at the disposal of the entire educational community a selection of texts that accounts for the debate on the content of the article on the right to education, from the minutes of the constitutional presentation, through the work of the parliamentary committees and the heated debate that resulted. Reading this selection shows how the difficulties we find today were already present. Also how the tensions on the territorial model overlapped and intervened in the articulation of the right to education. It is possible that until these issues are not solved, we will not free our educational system from the political ups and downs.