IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE
- The survey system, the teaching staff and the families allow us to glimpse that the educational system and, surely the whole of the Spanish social system still has not yet defined the values and fundamental objectives for education and the schools must aim as a priority at a pluralist, democratic, globalised society. It seems necessary for Spanish society to arrange debate on this important matter, demanding in any case a spirit of mutual comprehension and specific, practical analysis. It would be difficult to reach higher levels of quality if an agreement as to what these are is not reached.
- It seems necessary to clarify and harmonize, in Spanish obligatory secondary education, relations between the decision to provide students with a common educational sequence and life together to offer training channels to adapt to their personal characteristics. From the point of view of equality in substantial matters, it seems necessary and fair for the obligatory secondary school to open channels of differentiated treatment for students who are, in fact, different in capacities, interests and attitudes. In this sense, it is essential to obtain regular knowledge of the real, not approximate or supposed performance of each student, and to offer each one adequate means of improvement.
- The acquiescence by most of the school management, numerous teachers and some parents (at least those involved in the School Councils) to the legal provisions in force as to school management, should not be interpreted as a factitious consecration of the status quo and, thus, as a revitalisation of the great importance of the matter of educational leadership to the efficiency of schools. The existing difference in approach is obvious, as to this, between our educational system and that of all or almost all the countries with a high educational development. The data included in the diagnosis cannot demand that the matter be definitively silenced but, on the contrary, it must be opened up to public debate among diverse sectors of society and, in any case, apply the measures foreseen in the laws in force (the LOPEG) as to this point more strictly.
- According to their statements, Obligatory Secondary Education teachers do not feel sufficiently supported and valued by the relevant Educational Authorities. Although, as we saw, the diagnosis this time could not include a study on the role and functioning of said Authorities, one would have to reflect on the changes that perhaps must be included in their relations with the teaching staff to improve quality.
- The diagnosis carried out shows the existence of diverse inequalities. There is, for example, apart from some minor exceptions, greater academic performance in the private sector than in the state sector. This mainly suggests to the writers of this Report that it is necessary to raise the quality of learning and, thus, the academic performance at state schools, studying the causes properly and providing the necessary means. There are also differences as to this point, as well as in specific matters of application of the reforest, between some Autonomous Regions and others. This observation must also be taken advantage of to improve the situation of the apparently more deficient ones. We consider that this is the context in which the differences must be raised, considering very much, on the one hand, that the educational system already is and will be to a greater example, a territorially regionalised and sectorially plural system, and on the other, precisely due to that, it is becoming necessary to create compensatory mechanisms for the logical differences that may arise. This point should also give rise to profound reflection and debate.
- This has not been a diagnosis of "resources", but rather a diagnosis of "functions". However, the reference to resources has been present in the surveys and at many of the meetings held. As resources are, by nature, and will always be limited, an agreement as to these cannot be put off, attempting to ascertain without prejudices and utopias which are indispensable if one seriously wishes to improve the quality and performance of the educational services. This is also be another important factor in the debate.
- One of the most regretted lacunae in this diagnosis is that concerning relations between the school and the media which, as we have seen, could not finally be covered. However, the answers to the questionnaire administered to the parents most clearly show that, in their opinion, the social media have an important role to play in educational influence on our children, especially in the field of values. Although later evaluations by officers at the INCE intend to deal with the matter, we must now state how appropriate it is when duly approaching qualitative improvement of education in Spain. Right at present, one never knows, even as to pure academic knowledge, what students at school should and should not do, and through which of the said media, particularly television, which they spend so many hours watching. Society on the whole must definitively take note of this influence, making the media understand that their positive collaboration is unavoidable and, in the ultimate instance, call for the appropriate responsibilities.
- Our last reflection should be aimed at what we have really aimed to diagnose here. According to the objective we set ourselves, what we aim to know is the present situation of the Spanish educational system at this key moment, taking the last stage of obligatory secondary education as this specific subject for observation. At the end of our work, we realised that, after such a difficult, although imperfect portrait of schooling, operating even through any effort at diagnosis, there is a whole society that pressures and encourages it; that perhaps expects too much of it; that demands undefined results that so often are contradictory. A society that, to sum up, aims to burden schools with all its intransferrable educational responsibility. Thus, it has been so easy to confuse "educational policy" with "school policy". However, a careful look back at these pages will show that nowadays it is impossible to improve the quality of education, even of school education, if the educational policy goes no further than the walls of the classrooms and school buildings and is not determined to deal with other complex agents, whose real influence escapes diagnosis.
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