The 2023-24 school year begins next Monday in the Valencian Community with a total of 802,198 students, 0.5% more than the previous year. However, the increase does not hide the decreases recorded in the first educational stages, Infant and Primary, where there will be 117,000 and 289,800 students, respectively. There are 2,444 and 1,248 fewer boys and girls in both stages, a drop that the Minister of Education, José Antonio Rovira, argued at the press conference is due to the drop in the birth rate. There is also an increase in ESO and Baccalaureate students and, significantly, in Vocational Training.
However, the Department of Education speaks of "stabilization of students" and also highlights the increase in teaching staff in this course - with 3,077 more teachers, an increase of 3.91% - which they call the "transition" course towards the educational model that the Valencian Government will enable starting in the following year.
The average ratio of each educational stage will be 21 students in Infant and Primary, 24.4 students in Secondary and 29 students in Baccalaureate, an educational stage to which this year the 'Xarxa llibres' program is extended. This is one of the social aid created in the previous stage that this year reaches a total of 470,000 students.
The other social aid that will be developed this year is school cafeteria, which will benefit 150,000 students, and school transportation, which will mean a total of 3,400 individual aid. This also includes the one that will reach the 39,900 beneficiaries of the child bonus for their schooling in the 0-3 year age group.
FP is the educational stage in which the student body grows the most, although the registration process is still open. This year there are 9,263 more places offered than last year, 6.5%, and a total forecast of 107,675 students. Currently there are already 100,345 students enrolled.
As for the students who will take official language courses, at this time there are 31,299 students enrolled and 84,125 places offered, but these are provisional figures, given that, as in the FP, the process is still open and the official data are not available. They will know until October.
