At the start of the 2025–2026 academic year, Inèdit: agència de notícies interviewed EPIC’s president, Àlex Cerdà, to discuss the main challenges and opportunities facing private schools.
Among the key challenges, the president highlights the decline in birth rates, which affects the entire education system. Another major challenge is the lack of institutional recognition: although member schools educate around 50,000 students and employ over 5,500 professionals, they are often excluded from education policy discussions and support measures, such as the €60 school supplies voucher. Furthermore, some state-subsidized schools with higher fees and greater resources create unfair competition that makes it difficult to compete on equal terms.
Regarding families, there is a growing number of international families arriving in Catalonia for professional, economic, or safety reasons, seeking an education aligned with global standards. At the same time, more Catalan families are choosing private education, motivated by academic excellence, multilingual competence, and the innovative pedagogical environment offered by EPIC schools.
In response to the demographic decline, the president emphasizes that private schools are well-equipped to adapt thanks to their methodology, personalized support, and expanded services, including residential programmes and education from 4 months to 18 years of age. This situation, he notes, also creates new opportunities: smaller class sizes allow for more individualized attention, greater competition among schools fosters innovation, and families actively choose educational excellence.
Regarding the relationship with the public and subsidized systems, Àlex Cerdà advocates a vision of collaboration and complementarity. “Public, subsidised, and private schools each have an important role to play, and we share the same mission: to offer the best possible education to the children and young people of our country,” he explains. EPIC calls for private schools to be recognized as full participants in the education system and to build synergies with the rest of Catalonia’s educational network.
The full video of the interview conducted by Inèdit: agència de noticies is available below: