The New Unified School Council (Catalan: Consell de l'Escola Nova Unificada, CENU) was an education institution that was created on July 27, 1936 in Barcelona by Joan Puig i Elias, who was also its first president.
The aim was to create a new free, secular and co-educational school, with classes in Catalan, based on libertarian principles.
[3] The pedagogical purpose was "to promulgate to all [students] a basic and solid culture that would convert them into men developed in all aspects, able to contribute on concrete activities, to the benefit of the individuals themselves and of the society in general".
[4] The libertarian pedagogue and anarchist Joan Puig i Elias (1898–1972) was the initiator of the CENU, continuing the work of Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia.
[6] Most anarchist educators referenced the pedagogue Francesc Ferrer i Guardia, who had been executed in 1909 as a scapegoat for the insurrection known as the Tragic Week.
The New Unified School Council was created as a result of the Spanish Revolution of 1936, its goal being to organize the new teaching system, "ensuring that it responded, in all the aspects, to the new order imposed by the will of the workers”.
CENU was created in the spirit of anti-fascist unity, which had led to the creation of the CCMA itself as well as its Economic Council, which little by little would be in charge of promoting industrial communities and the socialization of the economy.
Its decree of creation affirmed its will to suppress the confessional school (in the hands of the Church), which was accused of being the type of educational system that had caused the military coup.
In addition to these intentions, the anarchists - in charge of this council - realized that they did not have enough teachers or sufficient infrastructure to offer a teaching based on libertarian ideas.
It was created and supported by the State and the Generalitat, and directed, by the technical and administrative part, by a Superior Council made up of people who represented all levels of education.
The aim was a General Education Plan that contained very innovative aspects such as the approach of a common cycle of unified compulsory studies that begins from the nursery school, the relationship between primary and secondary education, a solid humanistic training in all university studies including technicians, the integration of the disabled, the care of those with learning disabilities and professional orientation aspects, the attempt to generalize the renewed teaching, etc.
This institute was not only inspired by the philosophical work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but also by the scientific psychology of Édouard Claparède, Pierre Bovet, Jean Piaget, Mina Audemars and Louise Lafendel.
At that time, teaching was often given in any building, not very adapted to the pedagogical needs: stable, the ground floor of a hospital, or in high-rise rooms, with poor hygienic conditions[4] and acoustics, and so overcrowded that only absolute silence and discipline could guarantee some order.
It was planned to create a network of learning and working schools, called Technicum and to encourage active teachers to pursue university training in parallel.
Joan's brother, Josep, responded to these accusations by saying that the CENU put into practice with facts and not with vague statements the program that had been approved at the Zaragoza Congress of the CNT, in May 1936.
On March 7, 1921, the president of the Culture Commission of the Barcelona City Council authorized the construction company Ribas i Pradell to build wooden pavilions for the future Escola del Mar [ca], on Barceloneta beach.
[4] The Escola del Bosc [ca] was built on the mountain of Montjuïc by the architect Antoni de Falguera who had studied similar buildings in Rome and Charlottenburg.