- EL MUNDO | Suplemento cronica 647 - El dilema del colegio de la Infanta
Infant Leonor is student of the infantile school of the Brown, in Madrid, a not at all elitist day-care center, subsidized by the Community, where children of real and working guards of Zarzuela go. But the 31 of October turns three years and will begin the infantile education in a school. Although the Real House secret guard -"aún has not made decision some", assure many Madrilenian centers dream about having it in its classrooms.
From prevailed with cache of around 500 euros to the month, like San Patricio, where the children of Infant Elena go, to own Santa Maria of the Rosales, where the Prince was educated, happening through the School Base, the SEK, or the European Grammar school. Also arranged, like San Pablo, or the Agustinianos. And public, even located in the zone the west (near Zarzuela), like the Cantizal, Tiling, Garci'a Lorca or the Encinar. The question is: to that type of school must go Leonor? To a deprived center, like its father, or public, like its mother and most of European heirs?
Felipe de Borbón began his studies with three years in Santa Maria of the Rosales. An election breaker in pro-Franco Spain, since one was a lay school. Example of it is that the attendance to mass was free, according to confirms to Chronicle its then director, Manuel de Terán. The prestige of the Rosales raised as the foam, but had to adapt to the peculiarities of the new student.
"It came with two or three bodyguards who remained in the corridors. Its presence did not alter the rate of the school because they were discreet and they got dressed like the professors. They even played soccer with the children in the recreations. A patrol of the Civil Guard watched at night in the door being of guard in the interior ", remembers Of Terán.
The obsession of its parents because outside treated "as" it required certain jugglings one more. "There were some threats of pump. The slogan of Zarzuela was to take with the Prince identical measured who with the rest. So we evacuated and the police came to make a registry. For the small ones it was a celebration ".
The life schoolboy of the Prince did not change either when his father became King Teni'a eight years. "Doña Sofía used to take it and to gather it and continued it doing. It did not increase its security either. Afternoon of 23-F it was even said to me that it remained in class ", says Of Terán.
Very different it was the scholastic stage of the Princess Letizia, who attended the EGB next to her sisters in the public school Develops 1 of Oviedo. Their parents alternated themselves to take it her and their sisters and to gather them in 600 Seat relative, since both worked. He studied 1º of BUP in the Institute Alfonso II, also public until 1987 destined to their father to Madrid and entered in the Ramiro de Maeztu. By shortage of seats, he had to go at night to the turn, that finished ten and the average one.
A problem that will not have the Infant, whose scholastic life will follow guidelines similar to those of its father as far as security and protection of its privacy.
But, to what type of center it must go? The Princes laboriously look for the answer since most of the schools close this month the term of preinscription. The decision is not easy. They have to move between which he is better for the education of its daughter and the example that is demanded to them when being the future heiress to the throne. Don Felipe and Doña Letizia study all the possibilities and ask opinions experts. They even consult studies like published the past Wednesday by the WORLD, titleholder the 100 schools.
Tie personalities to the formation of the Prince and the Monarchy, consulted by Chronicle, like Sabino Fernandez Field, ex- head of the Real House, Manuel de Terán, director of the school where he studied, the Antonio constitutionalist Towers of the Moral, Aurelio Menéndez, its university tutor, or the university professor Ramon Lopez Vilas thinks in their majority that Leonor must study in a public center. Except for Menéndez, that he clarifies: "the school to which it must go is the one that their parents choose".
Fernandez Field shows preference for the public: "Far from living in a bubble, he would mix themselves with current children and he would coexist with the citizens who will be their reality. Paralalemente, in their home must form it for their future mission, teaching to him that from his privileges they derive obligations and its life has to be exemplary. It must go also receiving slight knowledge of history and protocol ". Also the Lopez Vilas bet by public education -"eso would locate in the orbit of the rest of the European monarchies" - and Towers to us of the Moral: "the monarchy would approach the town, having surpassed the concept of Kings related to the aristocracy", says soon to clarify; "there are elements of public education in Spain that does not convince to me, like the security, and mainly the quality. For that reason it would understand that it go to a private school ".
Certain it is that, according to the OECD, the level of our public education it is below other countries of the UE. It would explain that most of the European monarchies, except the English, (the princes have studied in the exclusive Eton College), they educate to his heirs in centers public. Thus it happens in Holland, in Denmark, in Norway, in Belgium and Sweden, for example.
A peculiar data is that many of the schools public where they study the heirs are religious. Luteranos those of Victory of Sweden; catholic the one of Belgian and Anglican confession the one of the English. Here, except for Fernandez Field, that bets at least for Leonor by a school "with religious direction", the rest shows preference for lay education. Lopez Vilas warns: "the religious centers in Spain have accentuated the catholic formation, like reaction to the immigratory current that brings citizens of other religions. Many are into the hands of the Opus Dei or the Legionaries of Christ, which would not be good for a future Queen whose reality will be a mixture of ethnic groups and religions ".
Another outstanding aspect is the languages. For the Infant, the experts incline by bilingual education: "It is better than he alternates Spanish and English also in the school so that he acquires total fluidity", he says Towers of the Moral. Important he is if he would have to follow the example of Belgium, where the children of the Heir learn the three languages - neerlandés, French and German who coexist in the federal state. He must Leonor know and euskara Catalan, Galician? Towers of the Moral consider it basic: "As future Queen, would be a gesture that dominates the languages of its mother country".