Home Elements for a Diagnosis of the Spanish Educational System
1 - Previous studies of diagnosis and evaluation (continued)


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Evaluation of the Spanish educational system according to the Annual Reports of the State School Council

N.B.: The INCE commissioned a study on this theme and title to Ricardo Marín Ibáñez, Emeritus Professor at the Spanish National Open University. The lines included here are based on that study, which may be requested from the INCE by those with a special interest in the matter.
 

At the beginning of his study, Marín Ibáñez points out that the Annual Reports by the State School Council are a privileged source of information as to the trends, hopes and shortcomings of the Spanish educational system and, thus, provide an ongoing effort at evaluation of the system. Their main feature is not so much that they provide scientifically verified information, as their providing the view of system and its operation held by the main sectors that are in fact involved in the every day running of Spanish education: Trade Unions, employer’s associations, administration, parents, students, prestigious characters. Due to such an amount of different opinions, these must be more descriptive than analytical, although they also include recommendations by the relevant politicians, in a most emphatic way. One of the most solid and much repeated complaints as to the Reports is that the relevant politicians do not attend to fulfilment of the recommendations by the Council in the way expected.

This is how Marín Ibáñez sums up the general tone as to educational policy adopted by the School Council since it was created:

"Before enactment of the Educational System General Organisational Act (LOGSE, 1990), there was a tone of general approval of all initiatives undertaken by the government, the only remarks being that they should be assessed and more funds assigned to each programme. A great number of the proposals and recommendations were aimed in the same line as that to be implemented by the coming Act. In the first five year period there was a general tone of agreement and applause of the governmental proposals. The second five year period brought more criticism and the Report of 1995 was a head-on rejection of the Organic Act on Participation, Evaluation and Administration of Teaching Centres (LOPEG), recording the fundamental opinion of the Trade Unions".

This is all correctly shown by the usual inherent approach of the Council and its reports, although in these pages we must concentrate on the points considered as the most substantial shortcomings of the system. One must point out as to this that, although LOGSE received a general majority backing from the Council, its members were very careful to state that they did not consider it the definitive solution to all the ills, some of them endemic, of the school system. The 1989-90 Report specifically states that "it would be a serious mistake to consider the Act as cure-all containing the solution to all the problems of the educational system". Such problems as school drop-outs, lack of motivation among the teaching staff, or irregular operation of the participation bodies, are considered by the Council members as factors that will be difficult to improve just by implementation of the new Act.

We shall now attempt to summarise the main lines of the shortcomings detected in the reports, in all cases according to the Marín Ibáñez study, although concentrating on those that to a greater extent affect the diagnosis these pages concern. One must say that in this brief summary we do not intend to reproduce the rich information and critical remarks set forth in the Reports, which undoubtably deserve a more exhaustive treatment elsewhere, but simply to see to what extent they point out some more or less chronic shortcomings of the system in the chapters we have examined in depth. On the other hand, the points we cover here affect the "official content" - accepted by the majority of the councillors - of the Reports, and not the numerous individual votes that frequently accompany them and which, in one way or another, are a response to the majority declarations or opinions collected.



STUDENT PERFORMANCE

In general terms one may say that this is the chapter that the Council Reports scarcely consider. However, the 1991-92 Report showed its concern for 14 year old students who do not fulfil the objectives set for the end of obligatory education and, thus, do not qualify to enter the Baccalaureate or the Vocational 2 Modules. The high rates of drop-outs, especially at the end of Primary Education, are emphasised in almost all the reports, although they also clarify that there has been a favourable evolution in this aspect: in 1980 only 62.4% of the students obtained the (Primary) School Graduation Certificate, while in 1995 the percentage had risen eighteen percent, that is to 80.1%. However, the fact that one fifth of the students still do not achieve the minimum objectives is a cause for deep concern. The percentages of drop-outs particularly affect children and youths in depressed areas and sectors, so there must be permanent insistence on the matter of compensatory education.

On the other hand, this and other reports refer to performance evaluations carried out by the Technical Inspection Service pursuant to the General Plan for Action approved in 1991, which we shall discuss later on.



SYLLABUSES AND TEACHING METHODS

As aforementioned, the members of the State School Council overall have stated their substantial agreement with the syllabus approach of the LOGSE, and the Reports does not contain major criticism of the provisions enacted thereafter as to the syllabuses. In general, the remarks and criticism by the Councillors are more aimed at guaranteeing the human and material resources required for the new study plans and programmes to indeed be carried out satisfactorily. Thus, for example, the 1993-94 report echoes, with no further comment, the wide range of material prepared by the Ministry for Primary Education, although it does "consider the lack of specialist teachers in Physical Education and Music established in the LOGSE in the first cycle of primary education very concerning".

The Council also approved the syllabus provisions established by the Ministry, and their greatest warnings were initially aimed at avoiding early implementation of the ESO (Obligatory Secondary Education) until the schools had fulfilled the minimum requisites for teaching staff and material resources, also providing a reminder of the importance the Act grants to the Orientation Departments, and the slow, insufficient implementation of these in the relevant schools. It also warns as to the disproportionately high number of optional subjects and lack of specialists to cover these leading, among other things, to it being impossible to teach such subjects at many High Schools.

As to specific subjects, the 1994-95 Report refers to the need of reinforcing foreign language teaching in obligatory education, even proposing that one of them may begin optionally during infant’s education, and obligatory from the first year of Primary, which would perhaps make introduction of a second foreign language widespread during Obligatory Secondary Education (ESO).

Frequent reference is made to Religion as a subject, and to religious education overall, noting that in the years prior to the LOGSE there was a posture largely opposed to it being included in the syllabuses as a normal subject (the 1986-87 report expressly states "it must not be part of the school syllabus"). Although always from a similar viewpoint, the 1992-93 Report details the matter even more: "diffusion of religious faith should not necessarily have a place in school syllabuses and it is expected to take place outside the school timetable. On the contrary, one considers that emphasise should be placed on ethical training and on historical and social knowledge of the religious phenomenon, in general terms at all schools".

Very interesting remarks are made by the Council as to the need of reinforcing the actions and content of intercultural education. This matter, which is covered at great length in the 1990-91 Report, and is also mentioned in other later ones, insists on the inevitable increase in immigration rates and in the adequate treatment still received by minorities such as, for example, the Gypsies, among which there is a high rate of school leaving or drop-outs at the end of obligatory schooling.

Some Reports, especially those in the years previous to the enactment of the LOGSE, insist on the importance of physical education for health and regret the shortcomings in such matters at most of the public and endorsed institutions. Meanwhile, they praise the investment dedicated to this in 1988 and the following years.

Although Vocational Training is one of the sectors that has attracted the greatest interest among the councillors in recent years, especially after approval of the LOGSE, their reflections, however, are scarce as to basic vocational training, which is what fundamentally affects the content of the diagnosis we are now performing. However, one may consider the insistence of the councillors as to the difficulties involved in article 23.2 of the LOGSE as background criticism, this providing that pupils who do not achieve the objectives of the ESO may only obtain access to the Social Guarantee programmes. To sum up, it seems to miss these students receiving adequate vocational training for them also to be able to join the labour market, in spite of their insufficient general results, through some types of vocational modules.



EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND SCHOOL FUNCTIONING

An important percentage of the content of the Reports by the Council refer, in one way or another, to this vast sector. Firstly, it concerns the councillors that such a low proportion of public funds are assigned to education, lower than that in the countries around us, above all those in the European Union. However, over the years, the councillors have noted a gradual increase, which was cut back in 1993 and not sufficiently compensated in the years following, and they recommend that the percentages of the GDP achieved up to now (according to the years) be about 6%, which would surely place us among the standard for developed countries.

The process of devolution has given rise to many comments over the years. Deep concerns have been noted from the early days, as to the possibility of the new State structure allowing discriminatory circumstances between the Regions in educational matters. The 1986-87 Report insists on the need for "non discrimination and solidarity in a treatment that avoids the present circumstances to the contrary". It also insists on completion of the process of devolution to the Autonomous Governments so all of them may reach the same competency ceilings, while attempting to avoid overlapping and duplication of the services with relation to the actual bodies of the Central Administration.

A great deal of attention is also called to the legal and real failings in participation by the local corporations. The 1986-87 Report suggests that this matter has not been duly solved by the LODE, or by other legal provisions, although later reports praise some initiatives taken by factual means, specifically specific agreements entered into for collaboration between the Ministry and numerous municipalities. In this sense, there was a special welcome for the Royal Decree 2274/93, which allows state schools to be used by the Local Governments after school hours for educational, cultural, artistic, sports or social activities.

Due to their importance as Educational Administration instruments, these reports contain frequent references to the Technical Inspectorate, expressing general insatisfaction as to its activities, although without providing completely coherent guidelines thereon, especially in the reports prior to 1990. On the one hand, these state that "there should be a time limit on their function" (1986-87 Report), which guarantees the legal provisions established beforehand, as of the LODE; and on the other, it provides a crowded list of functions and demands professionalisation of the service. After the new regulation of the service brought about in the Royal Decree 1524 of 1989, the 1990-91 Report again referred to the matter in a very ample manner, suggesting a series of improvements, among them those related to advice and evaluation of the schools.

As to the actual schools, the Reports by the State School Council go into very few details as to their functioning. In general, the greatest concerns expressed in the reports are to favour an increase in the public sector and hardly mention the progressive decrease in the number of endorsed schools.

In this line, the important matter of school management is generally considered in the context of democratic participation, there always being those who regret the scarce or insufficient payroll of principals really chosen by the School Council and, thus, the persistence of numerous appointments by the respective Authorities. In all the Reports, there is an explicit or implicit reiteration of defense by the Council of the democratic model of election by schools (state and endorsed). On the occasion of the Organic Act on Participation, Evaluation and Administration of Teaching Centres (LOPEG), the council considered it did not agree with the previous accreditation required of the candidate to become principal because, in its opinion, this would limit the capacity of election and would imply "a setback in the degree of participation that had made our educational system one of the most advanced in the world in that aspect" (1994-95 Report). However, there are also references to important tasks entrusted to the principal (bureaucratic, management, pedagogical encouragement, teacher training, external relations, etc.)

Likewise, the Reports provide abundant considerations as to participation by all the educational community in organisation of schools. As Marín Ibañez writes, "perhaps the point that has taken up most pages in the Reports by the State School Council is that of participation in the decisions of the schools through the Councils. The political model hovers over the recommendations and reflections by the Council. When a difficult matter arises, a debate is invariably proposed". In other matters, the Reports detect existing anomalies in the operation of the School Councils, especially the scarce participation in the elections to these by, above all, parents and students (a participation that, curiously, is greater at endorsed schools).

School life is scarcely covered by the Reports, although it seems more, directly or indirectly in the latter. In general, it does not seem that it should be a matter for deep concern, at least at present. Compared with problems of life together, the Council proposed increasing training in certain values. Thus, for example, in the Report of 1987-88, one reads that the Council "wishes to express its conviction that the safest and most solid instrument to achieve school life is training action in the values of tolerance, mutual respect and solidarity".



THE TEACHING STAFF AND THEIR TRAINING

On the basis of the Report on academic year 1989-90, Marín Ibañez summarises some of the main shortcomings then found by the State School Council as follows:

"From academic year 82-83 to 88-89, there has been a 36% increase in staff. Teachers were required for languages, physical education, music, as well as substitutes. There is an evident disproportion between teaching staff and posts. Moreover, the high number of intern teachers awaiting posting or provisional posting, who teach related subjects, creates uneasiness among the teaching staff. One must gain access by competition and not by serving in the posts stated in relation to the jobs available. The mobility and lack of stability among the teaching staff contributes in the annual competitions to scarce consolidation of the teams. In academic year 88-89, more than 10,000 teachers obtained new postings thus and there were at least three times more applicants. Stability among the teaching staff should be encouraged".

Even though one may admit that the student-teacher ratio in secondary education at the beginning of the nineties reached a percentage somewhat above 16/1, the Reports then and after have continued to call for an increase in staff and for access to permanent posts for the intern teachers, although without these blocking the way for other candidates. Considerations as to salary rises and working conditions are frequent and such measures as the approach to the retributive analogy between the state and endorsed sectors were positively valued.

Along with this general, repeated opinion, the Council has also repeatedly called for unification of all the non university teaching staff in a sole body, to which there must be access with identical initial preparation and initial qualification. Thus, the approach of the LOGSE was not positively valued as to initial training, which was rather an attempt at avoiding the matter, leaving it the way it was. Thus, the Report of 1989-90 points out that "the (legal) text does not deal with the matter of initial training of the teaching staff. By ignoring the matter, a chance is lost to facilitate the way to achieving a sole body of teachers, which requires the same qualifications". The demand on the teaching staff, by the Act, of a professional qualification in Didactic and Psychopedagogical Specialisation seems to the Councillors to be a repetition of the present Pedagogical Skill Certificate (CAP), and they offset this against real integration in university studies (at second cycle level) of teaching specialisations,for secondary teachers and the others.

On the contrary, the Reports have usually referred in positive terms to the service or practice training model provided by the Teacher Training Schools, being satisfied with the increase in available resources for these institutions and insisting that the majority of teacher improvement must be carried out within the teaching timetable. No reference is made to such actions also carried out by the Educational Science Institutions and Universities in general.



FAMILY AND EDUCATION RELATIONSHIP

This is another of the matters in which the Reports do not provide too much data. The considerations made mainly provided within the framework of participation by families through Parent’s Associations. These usually regret that the subventions granted to these Associations are small and that, moreover, they drop by percentage in some years, as happened in 1993.

There are also some references to the need the orientation teams have, apart from their duties of psychological evaluation and advice to the students, to also liaise with families.

***

A final consideration: the evaluations by the State School Board, as shown in its annual Reports, are greatly due to the composition of the Council itself and the real distribution of strengths by the sectors represented within it. There is no doubt that the Reports provide elements that are of great interest when detecting the achievements and shortcomings of the educational system, and it will be most useful to carry out a deeper study of that aspect, a matter that cannot, and may not, be attempted here. However, there is no doubt either that such achievements and shortcomings are mainly defined by the specific political, social and professional expectations of the majority sectors within the Council.


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