Tie an orange ribbon ... or fifty

Left by protestors against a new law, to be voted on tomorrow, makes some alterations to the rules surrounding grant maintained schools in Spain. At 26%, Spain has the fourth largest proportion of scholars in grant maintained schools 'colegios concertados' in Europe, after Malta, Belgium and the U.K.

These schools are largely funded by the state but independently managed, subject to various constraints. 60% are associated with the Catholic church.

One of the provisions of the new law is that 'religion' will no longer be a subject that counts towards a scholars final rating. That is obviously not going to be popular with many of the organisations running these schools.

One of the rules around the schools is that they are not supposed to ask for additional fees from scholars' families. Many however do and although supposedly voluntary some parents feel that schools discriminate in favour of families that pay the extra contributions.