Thousands of students and teachers marched in Madrid and Barcelona Thursday to protest public spending cuts that are set to deepen under the conservative party expected to win Sunday's general election.
Hundreds of striking teachers and students marched in Madrid, while in the northeastern city of Barcelona some two thousand students demonstrated against the threat of cuts spreading to the region's universities.
"Education is not for sale, it is for defending," read the banners carried by chanting students down a major thoroughfare in the capital.
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"Public, yes, private no!" yelled the students marching through Barcelona, heading for the headquarters of the regional government.
"I am here to defend public education and universities, which are in danger," said Isabel Rubio, a 20-year-old medicine student at the Madrid demo.
The election "will not change anything. Things are going to get worse," she complained.
The Madrid students joined with teachers, who have been staging strikes and protests since the start of term in September, when the latest crisis cuts came into force.
Spain's regions have been forced by the central government to cut their spending to bring down Spain's deficit. The conservative opposition Popular Party (PP), expected to win Sunday's election, has promised even deeper cuts.
Protestors complain that spending cuts by PP-led regional governments are part of a drive to expand the role of the private sector in education.
"They are trying to commercialise public universities," said one Madrid demonstrator, 20-year-old journalism student Pablo Rodriguez.
"Education is a right, not a business. We are the future of the country and we feel undervalued."
The regional Madrid government has imposed some of the steepest cuts on education.
Madrid teachers have been ordered to give 20 hours of lessons per week, up from 18 previously, to save money on supply staff.
"I am here because I am a childhood educator but also as a mother, because the quality of public education has deteriorated greatly," said Isabel Cobo, 30, who came with her partner and their two-year-old daughter to the protest in Madrid.
Many protesters, like 19-year-old art history student Alexandra Jaksic, predicted the education cuts would just deepen under a Popular Party government.
"It will be the same thing with the change in government, if not worse. The Socialist government was not at all socialist. They have imposed budget cuts for the past two years and the others are going to do the same, it not worse," she added.
"They should make cuts in other areas. Education and health are the most important things."
The Socialist government cut public sector salaries by an average of five percent in May 2010.
Despite his unhappiness at government austerity measures, 43-year-old high school maths teacher Ricardo Burrillo said he still intended to vote for the Socialist Party in Sunday's general election.
"My voting intention has never changed. It does not matter which government comes to power because the crisis will be the same for any government," he said.
"They will all have to make cuts, it is the way that they make them that could be different."
