The president of the Cercle d'Economia Foundation, Pedro Fontana, urged the Government to take forceful measures, such as returning to the sixth hour in all public schools, given the poor results that Catalan education is presenting. “The latest evaluations show that we are not going in the right direction,” Fontana expressed his concern last Monday before the Minister of Education, Anna Simó, who was invited to the call for a new edition of the foundation's Ensenyament awards.
At the event, which closed with a brilliant conference by the Portuguese Minister of Education, Joao Costa (one day before the crisis in his government broke out), Fontana presented a series of measures that the entity considers should be implemented to improve education. Among them, the so-called sixth hour, one more hour of class a day that primary school students received since 2006 to improve school performance. However, it was abolished in 2011 as a compensation measure for the cuts suffered by the educational system due to the economic crisis.
The charter school maintained it thanks to the fees paid by families. Nor was it eliminated in highly complex public centers where students in highly vulnerable contexts are enrolled. However, in 2020 this mandatory nature in these schools became voluntary and the majority of public schools abolished it. This additional hour is equivalent to gaining, after six years of primary school, an entire additional year.
“The Cercle d’Economia Foundation considers that, in a context of normalization, it would be advisable to recover the sixth hour to ensure equity between public and subsidized schools.” The difference “is a cause of inequality that our educational system should not allow.”
The foundation also recommended other measures. Some aimed at strengthening the leadership of center directors by giving them more management freedom and autonomy with subsequent accountability. Likewise, he considered that they should be able to form their own faculty, an issue that conflicts with the status of teachers as civil servants. In this sense, the Catalan administration is promoting the choice of teacher profile for the benefit of the educational project. But the unions do not see it favorably and litigate against it.
The Cercle Foundation also recommended evaluating teachers in their practices to promote better professional development. On the other hand, in the classrooms there should be, in the opinion of the entity, a smaller number of students and more resources to address diversity.
Finally, he considered it important that the Generalitat identify and act quickly in the face of educational setbacks.
The councilor thanked the Catalan directors and teachers for their work and explained that steps are already being taken towards improving the system.
Minister Joao Costa explained that the educational reform in his country was based on a broad political and social consensus at the beginning of the century on the need to raise the quality of education. This was at its lowest, with 65% of the population without an ESO degree.
The changes focused on the objective of improving the academic results of students, creating the conditions to achieve true inclusion and educating citizens, the guarantor of democracy.
From an economic point of view, the justification for achieving consensus and improving the educational level of the population was clear. "A higher educational level is correlated with more income, more productivity, less dependence on public subsidies, a higher tax rate and other aspects such as more voters, better health rates and lower costs of social security," said Costa.
From the democratic point of view, the higher the educational level, the lower the adherence to conspiracy theories, the beliefs of fake news and the lower the following of populist and far-right parties.
From a human point of view, the inclusion in all areas of life of people with disabilities or who live in contexts of poverty is a matter of social justice.
Therefore, measures were taken to change the system. The entry of students aged 0-3 years was reinforced, since receiving educational stimuli at that age is a predictor of success. The age of compulsory education was extended to 18 years. At 15 years old they can choose the equivalent of high school, vocational training or artistic studies.
"But if you force minors to be in school you have to give them something in return." The teachers were tasked with ensuring that the students progressed as a whole and that they were eager to continue learning at the end of compulsory school.
The curriculum changed, slimming down compared to the previous period, moving from content to competencies, and invested in the professional development of teachers. Center management was reinforced by giving them more autonomy and linking them to learning networks.
Likewise, the education of those who had already dropped out of school was increased with the aim of re-engaging them no matter what age they were, knowing that educated parents want educated children.
Highly complex centers were also provided with more economic and human resources.
The school dropout rate in Portugal, which in 2000 was 50% of the population, currently stands at 6%.
