Objectives, contents, resources
INTENTIONS, CONTENTS AND OBJECTIVES OF ESO
The appraisal in the survey by the teachers of the objectives, areas and cross-curricular themes are very high, located between the appraisal "fairly important" and "very important" (graph 1).

Graph 1: Appraisal of the intentions of ESO
The appraisal made of the objectives of ESO, just as expressed in the LOGSE (art. 19) do not give rise to significant discrepancies in the data collected in the survey, nor in the Diagnosis Groups. The criticism made of the objectives refer mainly to the formal aspects, not to their sense: appraisals of the objectives as scarcely realistic and general, and the difficulty involved in their application to academic reality. In general terms, one must emphasise the level of the existing agreement.
The appraisal of the areas is also positive. There is critical analysis of the characteristics and peculiarities of the ESO syllabus, especially as to the high number of disciplines. The areas of the ESO obtain the Highest appraisal according to the importance granted by the teachers: they exceed 4 points on a scale ranging from 1 to 5 (graph 2).

Graph 2. Importance of the areas
A problem that is especially relevant is the time assigned to each one of the areas. Diverse interests are factors in this decision, from those attributable to the importance and appraisal of the contents of each area in the students' training to corporativist claims (graph 3).

Graph 3. Hours of class per week stated by the teaching staff
It is curious that there is hardly a relation between the importance granted to each area and the timetable they consider must be assigned to teaching the subject. Timetable and importance do not match.
The discrepancies between appraisal and timetable seem to be modulated by assignment of the teachers to the areas: the teachers in each area tend to demand a greater number of hours for their own subjects.
Greater attention to the time dedicated to the instrumental subjects is frequently claimed.
Activities considered as alternative teaching, such as Religion are closely related to timetabling problems. These activities that are playful at times, generally have a doubtful consistency and use up a considerable amount of the timetable. Inclusion of these activities on the timetable gives rise to disagreement. Emphasis is made on the lack of coherency of the time spent on these when so little time is dedicated to other disciplines considered essential.
The optional subjects also cause particular problems at schools, such as those related to teaching aspects (teaching quality, student performance, content of these disciplines, possibilities of diversification, teacher qualification). Administrative problems are also mentioned, such as scheduling, the conjunction of optional and obligatory status, or corporativist factors implicit in their optional nature at the schools. There is a very wide range of cases: from "obligatory optional subjects" at schools with a sole syllabus approach, to an offer of subjects that may be considered irrelevant. In any case, at the time the field study was carried out, the offer was considered excessive.
The solutions proposed for the problems detected as to their optional nature concentrated on the following basic groups:
- Encouragement of the material resources to attend to the optional subjects.
- Preparation of a sufficiently clear, explicit set of rules.
- Determination of clearly oriented itineraries.
- The formulas to select the optional subjects.
As to the last matter, selection of the optional subjects, there is a series of proposals of notable interest, that may be summarised as follows:
- Pointing out the priorities in the different optional subjects according to their interest.
- Delegation of selection - or priority setting - of the optional subjects by certain bodies at the School.
- Performance of surveys among the students.
- Simple functioning of the market laws.
The cross-curricular themes are evaluated and their contents considered important. However, in syllabus projects at schools and in putting them into practice, attention to these is scarce. These are not seen as a priority by teachers, who are more involved in implementation of their specific area. The great difficulty, or conditioning argued is for essential coordination by the diverse teachers so they may make a contribution from their area, that is coherent with the contributions by the others, in the cross-curricular theme concerned. This is recognised to be too complicated.
The work the centres perform as to the cross-curricular themes is carried out under several formulae: monographic day conferences, short period aimed at attempting treatment of a cross-curricular theme from different areas, interdisciplinary treatment of a cross-curricular theme during a year, and another the following year, inclusion among the tutorial plan themes, etc.