Javier Imbroda dies at 61
Javier Imbroda last January, when he already knew that the cancer had reproduced. /
Cancer ends the life of the Minister of Education and former basketball coach, who managed to calm the bench of Andalusian education
Javier Imbroda Ortiz, Minister of Education, has died in Malaga at the age of 61. Accustomed to facing great sporting and business challenges, he has not been able to overcome the disease, prostate cancer that was diagnosed in 2017, a disease that he himself described as "intelligent and treacherous" that has finally won the game.
Teacher, doctor in Educational Sciences from the UMA and master's degree in Senior Business Management from the San Telmo International Institute, he came to politics from his great passion, sports. With an extensive career and track record as a basketball coach, where he managed the Spanish National Team, and an entrepreneur – he founded two companies: one in the field of health and another, in the field of training, the official institute of Professional Training MEDAC– , Imbroda's first political experience was in 2011 when his partner in sports and then a PP councilor in the capital Damián Caneda called him to take charge of sports policy in the City Council as director of the municipal company Málaga Deportes y Events and the Sports Foundation.
Four years he was in this position of the second political line. The leap to the former occurred in 2018. In June of that year, this Melilla born in the 1961 harvest participated as a representative of civil society in an event organized in Malaga by the 'Spain Citizen' platform promoted by Ciudadanos. At that time he already had a good relationship with the then orange leader Albert Rivera, who encouraged him on several occasions to get involved in the project. The step was taken at the end of that year when he led the liberal party's candidacy in Malaga for the regional elections on December 2.
Javier Imbroda, whose brother Juan José presided over Melilla for several years under the acronym of the PP, was number one as an independent and was elected as an orange parliamentarian by the province. In January 2019 and by virtue of the pact between the PP and Ciudadanos to govern the Junta de Andalucía, he joined the cabinet chaired by the popular Juanma Moreno as one of the five councilors of the orange quota; he assumed the portfolio of Education and Sport. In June of that year he took a further step in his involvement with the liberals and joined the orange party at a particularly turbulent time for the formation due to the resignations of some relevant positions and internal criticism.
dialogue capacity
In his public activity, Javier Imbroda has been an 'atypical' politician who has stood out for his capacity for dialogue and for reaching consensus with the agents of the educational community. Although the left-wing parties and unions considered that his arrival at the Ministry was going to lead to the dismantling of public education, the reality of the data belies those initial misgivings: never before has Andalusia had so many teachers or such a high budget for Education.
Its negotiating capacity has left its mark and in this legislature it has been possible to unblock pending issues for decades: negotiations have begun to achieve equal pay for Andalusian teachers with the national average, early retirement for teachers of the concerted one or the first collective agreement was signed for the professors of Religion.
Curiously, with the passage of the legislature, the greatest criticism has come from trade unions and business organizations of concerted education: Imbroda has so far refused to subsidize the Baccalaureate, although this measure was in the PP-Ciudadanos government agreement: «we have other priorities", he stated to justify this delay.
Against the 'parental pin'
And brave was his decision in the face of attempts to impose the so-called 'parental pin' in schools, one of Vox's great objectives, which the counselor flatly rejected. Unambiguously, he sided with the teachers, to whom he showed his "absolute trust" and categorically denied that there is ideological indoctrination in Andalusian classrooms. Abascal's party responded by withdrawing its support for the coalition government in some of its legislative initiatives.
Over the years, some educational sectors and the media have highlighted his relationship with a private VT company, MEDAC, of which he was a founding partner, although he always defended that he left the company in 2018, before go into politics.
Another recurring criticism of his management is related to the elimination of units and the drop in the ratio in the classrooms. Although Imbroda always offered positive data on both issues. Thus, in the 2018/19 academic year, in the public school the average ratio in the second cycle of Infant was 20.66 and now it is 19.88. In the case of Primary, three years ago, the average ratio was 21.55 and today it is 20.71. Regarding the units, the counselor reported in Parliament that Andalusia has 101 more units in the 2021/22 academic year, reaching a total of 78,687 classrooms. 394 more since the beginning of the legislature.
The results in educational policy cannot be assessed in the short term: decades are necessary to verify the fruits of certain decisions. But there are data that confirm the firm commitment of the team headed by Javier Imbroda for public education. This course, Andalusia has reached the largest teaching staff in its history, 109,000 teachers and professors (in 2018 there were 101,000). And this when the number of students has not stopped falling, almost 50,000 less in the legislature.
The commitment to public education is reflected in unprecedented budgets, more than 7,400 million for the last year. The stabilization of the teaching staff has been another of the great objectives of the legislature, with 12,684 places called for civil servants in these years.
The efforts of recent years (and previous legislatures) are bearing fruit and the latest data on school dropout in Andalusia reflect unprecedented results: for the first time in the historical series, the school dropout rate has been lowered by 20 percent early (young people aged 18 to 24 who drop out of school without having obtained at least a Baccalaureate or VET degree). At the same time, the rate of graduates in Secondary has increased.
The pandemic was another difficult test for the counselor and strained the education system, with many teachers and parents opposed to going back to school in September 2021. However, the measures and protocols worked and the reinforcements allowed the course to take place normally. Almost 7,000 teachers were hired for the 2021/22 academic year, and 4,600 in the current one.
Imbroda can be described as an atypical politician. Or as a person from civil society involved in politics due to a commitment to public service. In the daily sessions of the Andalusian Parliament there are no strident, out-of-tone or disrespectful interventions with political opponents. Instead, his emotional tears remain when a socialist parliamentarian, Juan Pablo Durán, wished him strength and courage from the bench when he learned that the cancer had recurred.
There is also a lesser known social profile. He created the Javier Imbroda Foundation, which daily cares for about 100 children in the Trinidad neighborhood, with sport as a tool for inclusion.
Javier Imbroda claimed that sport had taught him to win and lose. After many victories, cancer has defeated him in the final match.
