The core subjects in a school, languages and mathematics, are those that have fared worst in the results of the basic skills exams that were presented yesterday by the president of the Consell Superior d'Avaluació, Carles Vega, and the secretary of Educational Transformation, Ignasi García Plata. He asked teachers of younger students to focus on instrumental subjects, especially reading comprehension and mathematics, so that students do not go to secondary school with deficiencies.
The tests were carried out in May to students in 6th grade of primary school and 4th grade of ESO. The greatest setback has occurred in languages, especially in Spanish in both stages. On a scale from 0 to 100, in primary school, two points were lost compared to the 2022 data (from 74 to 72 on average) and in the last year of secondary school, 3.6 (from 75.2 to 71.6 ). The Catalan also lost almost two points in secondary school, although he increased two tenths in primary school.
However, the figures reflect the historical lows of the statistical series in both languages, with an increase in students with the worst performance (now more than 17%) and a decrease in those with the highest performance. Specifically, the little ones perform less in Catalan (with the loss of up to 8 percentage points of children with a high level) and the older ones, in Spanish, with 8 points less also of adolescents with high performance compared to the previous year. Neither of the two languages reaches the desirable 30% of excellent. Of all the communicative skills, written expression is the one that presents the worst result (15% do not reach the basic level).
In the oral test, which was added this year, they pass satisfactorily. The council compares the orality of Catalan and Spanish, despite the fact that the data for the first language was collected on a census basis and the data for the second was collected on a sample basis. In this comparison, ESO students end up with good skills in both languages, although slightly better in Spanish.
In mathematics, there has been improvement in primary and secondary school but without the energy to return to pre-pandemic levels and, in the case of ESO, exceed the average of 70 that is found in other subjects. Furthermore, 24.4% of students who are no longer in basic education (this course corresponds to them, if they have passed, baccalaureate or vocational training) do not achieve the minimum mathematics skills while only 15.5% reach the excellence, a percentage much lower than desired.
It should be noted that the average result of mathematics evaluations in secondary school is more than 11 percentage points lower than the average for primary school (62.3 and 73.6). It so happens that mathematics teachers, along with Catalan teachers, are the most difficult to cover and, in the absence of philologists and mathematicians, the professions that can teach in these subjects have expanded.
The really qualitative leap has occurred in English. It is the grade that scores the most in primary and secondary school. The improvement is significant among adolescents with a 5-point difference compared to 2022, and there are less than 15% low performance (that is the objective stipulated by the EU) and almost 30% outstanding.
Secretary García Plata evaluated the entire evaluation, pointing out that the data still reflects the setback caused by the pandemic, and that, as in other educational systems, the recovery is being slower than expected. He added that the results have a direct relationship with vulnerability. Catalonia, he pointed out, is the second autonomous region, after Andalusia, with more migratory movements, which affects the composition of classes and current enrollment. “That is why we are giving more resources to highly complex centers,” he concluded.
“The general academic results do not satisfy us and we have to improve them as a priority,” he continued. In this sense, she sent a message to teachers and especially to preschool and primary school teachers, to focus their work on consolidating reading even before the child begins to read. “The difficulties of each student must be identified and those who are not doing well must be reinforced as soon as problems are detected,” she added. The same in mathematics.
To achieve this objective, it offered schools and institutes that believe they need it (the management teams have the center's results) support from inspection and territorial services, as well as training. And intensive, non-mandatory tutoring for the 250 centers with the worst results.
“It is in each center where they have to see what is happening and what changes they must make,” added the secretary.
Regarding the decline of languages, the secretary pointed out that "it is necessary for Catalan to have more strength in the centers to achieve good linguistic competence in a significant way, or the level of oral competence will become worse and worse."
In this way, Educació “will reinforce programs to improve the use of the Catalan language in educational centers”, since the objective is for students to finish compulsory education with full command of Catalan, Spanish and a foreign language.
He also argued that if the Catalan language is improved, linguistic competence in Spanish will inevitably improve, for which there are no specific measures planned or extending the oral test to all centers.
“Learning is transferred directly,” he said. According to studies, the level of exposure to Spanish is much higher, so the school must compensate.
