The president of the Fundació Cercle d'Economia, Pedro Fontana, urged the Government to take forceful measures, such as the return at six o'clock in all public schools, to reverse the bad results recorded in Catalan education. "The latest evaluations show that we are not going in the right direction", Fontana expressed his concern on Monday before the Minister of Education, Anna Simó, who was invited to the presentation of the call for a new edition of the awards Foundation teaching.
At the event, which closed with a brilliant conference by the Portuguese Minister of Education, João Costa, a day before the crisis of his Government, Fontana set out a series of measures that the organization believes should be applied to improve the education Among which the so-called sixth hour, an extra hour of class per day that primary school students received in 2006 and which was abolished in 2011 due to the economic crisis.
The charter school maintained it, with the compensation of the families' fees. Nor was it eliminated in high-complexity centers where students are educated in a context of vulnerability. However, in 2020 the mandatory nature became voluntary and most public cloisters abolished it. This additional hour is equivalent to gaining, after the six years of primary school, one more year.
"The Cercle d'Economia Foundation considers that, in a context of normalization, it would be appropriate to recover the sixth hour to ensure equity between public and charter schools". The difference "is a cause of inequality that our educational system should not allow".
The foundation also recommended 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 cloisters, an issue that collides with the status of teachers as civil servants. In this sense, the Catalan Administration is promoting the choice of the profile of the teaching staff for the benefit of the educational project. The Circle also recommended evaluating the teachers in the classrooms, where, on the other hand, there should be a smaller number of students and more resources to attend to diversity. Finally, he considered it important that the Generalitat identify educational setbacks and act quickly. The minister thanked the Catalan directors and teachers for their work and made it clear that steps are already being taken towards improving the system.
