Normally, with the summer officially over and Spain waking up from its self-induced prolonged siesta, protected from anything remotely political, the first notable event is “la vuelta al cole”: millions of youngsters returning to school, or for some at the age of three, suffering their first experience of classrooms and education. The costs of providing returning and new students with the texts they will need to complete the 2016 curricula in the public and other state assisted schools preoccupies the Spanish electorate at the start of each new school year.
Even this year in late August and early September, with the elections in Catalunya imminent and the plight of the political refugees trying to reach Europe dominating the media, the return to school claimed its usual central position in the lives of many Spaniards. The latest new Law on Education, known as LOMCE, requires that students must obtain new editions of many school texts although there are few changes in the material, year on year. Publishers have jumped on the bandwagon by withdrawing earlier editions of a number of texts.
