Two weeks after knowing the results of the PISA 2022 report, which has triggered an educational emergency in Catalonia, the Government and the parliamentary political forces met yesterday at the Palau de la Generalitat at the proposal of President Pere Aragonès and agreed to create a committee of experts, made up of professionals from the educational community, who develop a work plan in a short period of time. The objective is for educational actions to be completed before March to implement them next academic year 2024-2025.
The Minister of Education, Anna Simó, explained after a meeting of more than two hours that the committee will consist of 15 people and that they wanted them to be experts and actors in the educational community. The profiles were agreed yesterday, but the names will be known soon.
The expert committee will consist of a coordinator who will lead the group and work on the data and analysis. Two active teachers in the last five years, four school principals, proposed by the Central Board of Directors. Three representatives of educational entities (Rosa Sensat Association, Federation of Pedagogical Renewal Movements of Catalonia and Official College of Doctors and Graduates in Philosophy and Letters and Sciences).
The group will be formed by a representative of the Faculty of Education, three retired members of the educational community (inspection, teachers, directors), as well as a representative of the families and another from the local world.
The composition of the members of this committee will be balanced between the different educational stages (primary, ESO and post-compulsory) as well as the diversity of disciplines.
They will commit to having a plan of proposals with two types of contributions by the end of February. First of all, measures for the 2024-2025 academic year. Secondly, needs and prioritizations in the medium and long term.
Thus, the working group will have an intensive calendar: it will be established at the beginning of January. At the end of the month it will present its lines of work to the parliamentary groups and they will have two more meetings in February with the political parties that will follow up.
The conclusions of the work will be submitted to the School Council of Catalonia (which if the decree relating to its constitution is approved today will be called the Educational Council of Catalonia). Representatives of unions, universities, educators... etc. are present there and, according to Simó, can enrich the document.
The councilor was confident that this measure, which has obtained the support of all parties, will help the educational system to reverse the poor results of Catalan students reflected in the basic skills tests and PISA, as well as other evaluations.
The socialist Esther Niubó valued very positively that the committee of experts arises from the educational community, from teachers "at the foot of the classroom", directors, inspectors and pedagogical associations who are the ones who have to "respond to the educational emergency", with measures specific actions that require a calendar, and to recover the prestige of the system.
Instead, the rest of the opposition charged against the Government. Albert Batet, for Junts, a party that produced a document prepared with 20 proposals, including that of the committee of experts, highlighted the lack of leadership of the current Executive, and its prominence in promoting the monograph on education last June, after school dropout data, and contributions to the debate.
JxCat proposed abandoning the desire to “transform the system for the sake of transforming” that “has only served to get worse,” and recovering the values of the Catalan educational system that had been a “model of excellence and reference.” He stressed, like the socialists, that the solution comes from within the system, not from outside.
Batet blamed the Government of the Generalitat not only for the drop in results but also for poor communication management, which has generated more discouragement and confusion among teachers. “There is no need to invent more programs taught by the department that have already been shown not to work.
Let's let the teachers work”, removing bureaucracy from them to dedicate themselves to the essentials such as the transmission of knowledge, values and a culture of effort. Junts withdrew confidence in the Consell Superior d'Avaluació, which "does not have the expertise or the capacity to make a diagnosis" and supports the creation of an Agència d'Avaluació i Prospecció whose management, however, wants to reach a consensus. He advocated reestablishing the 6th hour in highly complex centers.
Likewise, he proposed structural changes – some of which have succeeded in Portugal – to bring to the Spanish Government, such as extending education until the age of 18 and primary education until the age of 14, or de-judicializing education.
The CUP, for its part, has not opposed the creation of this committee, but criticized the Government for avoiding urgent decisions to respond to a "very serious educational crisis" in which "bad signals" are emerging both in terms of knowledge and of inclusion and inequality. “We have abstained” – Carles Riera justified – because it is a way of shifting responsibilities to other areas.”
The commoners, for their part, are willing to “roll up their sleeves,” but expressed skepticism and concern about the chosen method. The president of the ECP group, Jéssica Albiach, regretted that the composition of the new group is not sufficiently representative and that it runs the risk of “closing itself in an office.”
For his part, Carlos Carrizosa, leader of C's, has called the proposal "mere makeup" of an "inbred" procedure, without much hope for its results. For Lorena Roldán, of the PP, the “failure of immersion” has not been recognized in the decline in academic results.
