The main private educational centers that impart Professional Training cycles, such as Ilerna and IFP (Grupo Planeta), have been retaining their teachers for years with professional agreements that do not correspond to them by category, applying worse working conditions to them. As EL PAÍS and SER Catalunya have learned, the main player in the sector, the Ilerna company of Lleida – which concentrates 66% of distance students in Catalonia – began the regularization process this September – moving from the consultancy contract to the private teaching contract – after several complaints to the Labor Inspectorate by the UGT union and several former workers. The IFP is following the same path, but in this case with its teaching staff from the centers in presence – with headquarters and headquarters agreements -, after pressure from the CGT and the workers’ organisation. Other large companies in the sector, such as Ceac (incorporated by Planeta) or Medac, have the specific agreement.
The private vocational training sector has grown like wildfire in the last decade, driven by interest in this type of study, but also by the lack of places in the public sector. The most impressive growth was in the remote mode, which accumulated 66,270 places in the 2022-23 academic year, according to Department of Education data, tripling the figure for the private in-person mode. Catalonia is the undisputed leading community in private professional distance learning, and most of the business is concentrated in Ilerna, the Lleida-based company, which registered around 44,000 students in the same year, far above its closest competitors, such as the Planeta Group’s IPF (5,000 students) or the Center d’Estudis Catalunya (2,300). The problem is that this explosion of the sector was carried out without exhaustive control by the Department: it approved a decree to regulate it in 2021, suspended after a complaint from Ilerna, even if Education has been working on a new regulation for a year, recovering the spirit of the first, which will soon be made public.
As revealed by an investigation by EL PAÍS and SER Catalunya, students in private vocational training centers report various shortcomings, such as the lack of places for internships or the poor preparation of some teachers. Now it is the teachers of these centers who denounce the terrible working conditions, starting with an inadequate agreement. In Ilerna’s case, the branch teachers online They have always worked in marketing and consultancy, a situation which was reported to the Labor Inspectorate on the one hand by the UGT union in April and on the other by a group of seven former workers in July.
This year Ilerna made a move. In early September he unexpectedly informed workers of the move to the agreement with that of non-subsidized regulated education centers. «Before the company dinner they sent us the new contract and forced us to sign it within 24 hours, they told us that either we all signed or it couldn’t be applied», explains one of the many teachers consulted, who prefers to remain anonymous. From Ilerna, they explain in a letter that the modification of the agreement was made “in response to the request” of the workers, “to regularize the situation of the staff according to the agreement that corresponds to the activity of the teachers”. The company adds that this is “an outstanding matter” and is now being addressed “due to the reorganization of the companies”. In 2024 Ilerna was purchased by the Swiss investment fund Jacobs Holding.
The change represents few changes in salary level, given that Ilerna paid supplements to equalize the salary with that of teaching, but it does so in terms of annual hours: from 1,780 it rises to 1,376. Fewer hours, but “the same workload”, say the teachers, which implies, they admit, a lower quality of care. “We have to correct the same volume, but in less time, so we do it more superficially,” they add. In this sense, the teachers consulted report that each can be responsible for around 2,000 students: “Imagine the quality of teaching. Personalized learning does not exist.”
This is not helped by the context in which the exams are held, which take place in person, renting large spaces such as hotels, since students from all over Spain, and also teachers, have to travel to take the tests. Teachers admit their limitations in monitoring students. “During the exam the teacher resolves doubts and answers e-mail…Sometimes you check exams for other subjects, so if the student has a question, you have to write to his teacher via chat and answer immediately, so you are constantly on your cell phone,” they say.
Teachers say they feel unprotected because there is no cohesion among the staff, there are no current works councils or even union sections. “There are many difficulties because the company doesn’t make things easier to elect a works council. And the workers don’t want to stand out either for fear of being fired,” explains Santi Balcells, head of public services at the UGT in Lleida.
In the case of VET, the VET training center created by Grupo Planeta, teacher training online They are self-employed workers, and the problem is concentrated in those with in-person training, with office and headquarters contracts, according to the CGT union section. “Many workers turned to management to demand an adequate agreement and last year the union section was created. When the company saw that the unrest and workers’ organization was growing, it started to negotiate”, explains a union representative. Planeta did not want to make a statement.
The same sources say that there is an agreement according to which, between now and the end of the year, the company will progressively transfer all workers to the specific agreement, for a total of around 82 teachers from the centers in Barcelona and L’Hospitalet, according to union data. “They have been breaking the rules for 10 years and have saved half a million euros in salaries,” he adds. However, they admit that they did not file a complaint with the Labor Inspectorate.
However, these types of cases can go unnoticed by inspectors. Sources from the education inspectorate admit that when they visit the centers they check that the teachers have the required qualification, but not that the specific agreement is applied to them. For its part, Labor assures that the Inspectorate does not plan to sanction a company for not applying the appropriate agreement, but can alert it when this harms workers’ working conditions.
An association for online teachers
The rapid growth of the sector has also highlighted the regulation of the teacher figure onlinewhich has its specificities beyond the agreement on private education. With the aim of defending this group, the Anproe association was born this summer, created by some former Ilerna workers, which has developed a guide so that teachers know their rights, since in many cases teleworking and the distance between teachers represent a wall when it comes to establishing working relationships or promoting the creation of union sections. They also met with the Ministry of Education to ask for common standards. “There are students from many places and the regulations of each community are respected. We ask for a minimum state regulation that details the ratio of students or the conditions for taking exams,” explains Pablo Díaz, president of the institution.
