In October, the Institute of Advanced Family Studies (IESF) brought the seventh edition of the Postgraduate programme in Marriage and Family Education (MEF) to a close. María Teresa López López, the director of the Special Department for Family Policy at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, was asked to give the keynote address under the title “Reconciling Work with Family: a Challenge for Our Children’s Education”.

The ceremony was presided over by Montserrat Gas, the director of the IESF, who welcomed the new students and gave them an introduction to the programme and its objectives.

During her address, López tackled one of the most pressing contemporary issues: how to reconcile family life with work commitments and the implications this has for our children. She approached the subject from a multidisciplinary perspective, taking into account economic factors, social and education policies, and paying attention to the human aspects of the issue.

On the subject of education, the Complutense lecturer declared, “In order to achieve true reconciliation, we cannot accept just any definition of ‘work’ or just any definition of ‘family’; nor can we accept just any definition of what it means to educate”. She concluded, “Education requires a great deal of time, and quality time at that”.

Among the new graduates attending the ceremony were Valessa Freiberger Tokarski and Guilherme Solino, representing students from Brazil, and Francisco Javier Castell and María Teresa Fernández, who had travelled from Madrid with their children in order take part in the graduation ceremony.