The institutional visit to the works of the La Florida institute was so pregnant with current issues that concerned both leaders of the local (Canteli) and regional (Barbón) governments that the educational center was almost on the verge of going into the background . The President of the Principality made sure that this was not the case, highlighting the importance of the work and what “one of the best institutes that we are going to have in Asturias” will be set up there.
It will be, he insisted, because the building is designed in accordance with “new, groundbreaking educational models that are identified with the educational trends of Northern Europe.” A center, she summed up, that “puts us in the flag.”
But it’s not just Florida. The Minister of Education, Lydia Espina, who accompanied the President and the Mayor on the visit, gave the other example and gave the other headline. If the one in Florida is one of the most advanced, the one in La Corredoria, whose works will start in the first quarter of this year, as announced yesterday, will be “the largest institute in Asturias.”
With this forecast and with the drafting of the project for the new special education center in Latores “about to be awarded”, Barbón pounced on the educational investment of the regional government in the Principality capital. “We are making a commitment to education in Oviedo of the highest level with certain data,” he said. “The investment amounts to a figure of around 8 million euros here and the performance of the Brokerage is at 17.3 million, these are very important figures.”
The regional president wanted to highlight the effort made by everyone to carry out these works despite the problems. “Before these works, they were not going well, the neighbors told me that the work was stopped, and it was true. Now what I notice is that there is trust, and that is what the neighborhood association also conveys to me, that this is going.”
Barbón admitted that the IES of Florida is one of those works that “more headaches, gray hair or hair loss” have caused him. It was a “historical and just demand” from the neighbors that “unfortunately” accumulated several problems. The President cited some: increase in the price of raw materials, increase in the prices of adjudication… But he also wanted to recognize the work that the companies in charge of erecting the structure are now developing. The works, he insisted, are on time, 25% has already been executed and the forecast is that it will end in February 2024. “It is on time and the first thing we have to convey is that we are happy, and we want to convey to the citizens of this area that the institute is finally moving forward,” he reiterated.
The group then made a visit led by the architect Eduardo Fernández y, from Inspyra, and by the director of works of the Principality, Julio Vallaure. They were able to imagine how the structures that rise on top of those pillars that are taking shape will be like, how special materials will give their final finish, polycarbonate with random holes that will provide an outer skin with a lot of design and lots of light.
Barbón also stressed the “totally groundbreaking nature of the building’s structure” and its response to the new canons of the educational system. It is not a question, the President of the Principality joked with the technicians, of that “progresses adequately or needs to improve from our time or to get in line in front of the teacher.” These new institutes, he explained, are designed for multidisciplinary systems, in which everything can be moved, separated and grouped more easily. Some spaces, in short, more flexible and capable of absorbing a less rigid education, with the capacity for transformation.
Although Barbón wanted to celebrate the good rhythm of the works, he also had his moments of contrition and asked for “pardon” for the delays. “They have not been easy years, we have had the most difficult legislature of democracy and we are finally going to give satisfaction to the neighborhood with this top-level quality service.”
Canteli, in good harmony with Barbón, also expressed “full satisfaction at how well the Ministry of Education is doing” and hoped that “there would not be a stoppage.”
President, Mayor and Councilor then visited the car parks and accesses that the City Council has executed. There, some neighbors greeted them, delighted to shake hands with Barbón, whom they knew from seeing him in the media, and Canteli, who had been, they told him, a customer of his daughter’s store, “where he bought something for the grandchildren he has in Dubai”. “More than once,” Canteli recalled. And so, as if the Mayor and President were rehearsing the start of a hypothetical electoral campaign together, they said goodbye at the foot of the work.
