About education law

The Education, Culture and Sports Minister Wert has promoted a law which shows many reforms in education. Here we can find some of the characteristics which refer to Lomce (Ley orgánica para la mejora educativa) which was endorsed by the Council of Ministers.

The subjects in primary and high school are grouped into trunks, specific and regional free configuration. The Government will determine the content and the minimum trunks hours (such as Spanish Language, Mathematics, Science or Foreign Language). Communities will set the curriculum of specific assessment criteria (such as physical education or music). Furthermore, the subject ‘conocimiento del medio natural, social y cultural’ will be divided into natural science and social science as it was long time ago.

On the other hand, the Government will advance the private school money to families who want their children to be taught in “Castellano” and then it will be discounted to Cataluña, to guarantee parents’ rights to choose the language in which their children study in autonomous communities which have a co-official language.

Another important change is highly related to school board, it keeps on being the government of public and aided schools but it loses powers like approval of the budget, educative projects or admission of pupils’ processes. And from now on, state schools will not be able to choose the headmaster, who will be elected by the administration.

The government deletes the selectivity and introduces external national assessment of basic skills for all students at the end of compulsory secondary education (ESO) and high school, who will overcome in order to achieve a degree. According to primary education, every student will be submitted for early detection of learning difficulties to finish third and other one at the end of stage (sixth grade), defined by the CCAA. Moreover, at the end of the fourth course of ESO, there will be an external individualized assessment of bachillerato or FP, so students will have to pass it in order to get the title and be able to access to bachelor. In that sense, bachillerato will have the modalities of science, humanities, social sciences and arts. The final evaluation will be used to obtain a bachillerato certificate, which will allow students to access to university education, although universities may convene additionally specific tests.

In my opinion, some of the changes could be successful ideas but the problem is that we care continuously changing our education laws and this is not good for our education system. Moreover, politicians do not take into account teachers’ opinions and experience and I think they are so important to get a better education. Finally, from my point of view, what I really miss is the incorporation of history of art in some periods of primary education because it is necessary for children to have knowledge about its importance in our culture.