Although it was no surprise, it is still remarkable the fear that has been struck into the political class, teachers and education unions over facing what, in my opinion, is the main cause of the PISA results made known last Tuesday, which placed Catalonia at the tail end of Spain in reading comprehension, mathematics and science. It is true that there is a problem of economic underfunding, just as it is also true that immigration has grown significantly in the last five years. There are dangerous levels of child poverty and there are also prefabricated classrooms which, having been there for so many years, are already part of the school centres. Some classrooms have too many students and the school dropout rate is too high. There is also demoralization among the teaching staff, who, amid the current wave of social opinion asserting that the most important thing was not to educate, have lost their authority and, more importantly, their vocation has been so battered that their initial enthusiasm has fallen into despair.
All this is true and well-known both in the education ministry and in the different sectors involved in the education of our children or, for many of us, grandchildren already. But I'm very much afraid that by putting all these things in the different showcases of the shop window, all we're doing is putting more and more filters so that we don't have to face the major problem head on. Catalan education minister Anna Simó, who has only been in charge of the department since June, cannot be held responsible for the problem. It is obvious that, aside from the assessment of her first months in office, she has indeed inherited a calamitous situation. Having said that, it is often forgotten that the previous two holders of the portfolio were also from the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), which has led education since 2018, just as it was previously led, from 2010, by Convergència i Unió and the PDeCAT and, even further back, between 2003 and 2010, by ministers from the PSC and ERC.
Everyone has their share of responsibility for the past, but the renunciation of excellence, the prioritization of the curriculum, the reduction of teaching hours in core subjects and a certain abandonment by administrations of the need for students to be well prepared are the heart of the problem. However, the energies that should have been devoted to all this have been much more focused on inventing a false conflict between public and charter schools and on trying to endanger a unique educational model in Catalonia which has not exactly given the country bad results. It is clear that education has been politicized here: you don't have to be a great expert to realize that. You only need to listen to the victims of this to know exactly what happened.
Let's provide an incentive to learn again, return authority to teachers, make it necessary to pass the course and have an unequivocal goal to train and educate
In the same way that minister Simó is not responsible for the current situation, she will be responsible for the measures that end up being adopted from now on. In this regard, the ten measures announced at a press conference on Monday are far from being the solution that the country needs in the face of the current emergency. It's understandable when she says that you shouldn't improvise, but she's wrong to point out that you shouldn't radically change direction. Nothing could be further from the truth: when you're heading off the cliff, a rapid swing of the wheel is exactly what you need to do. This Tuesday, Catalonia's School Council approved the report asking the ministry to ban the use of mobile phones in primary education, to restrict it at lower secondary level (ESO) and to allow it in upper secondary and vocational training (FP). Other autonomous communities adopted measures restricting mobile phones ten years ago, even stricter than those currently being considered in Catalonia. Italy legislated a ban in 2007 and other countries have been adopting one during this decade. Why have we waited so long here?
Basic consensus agreements must be reached, of course. But these must be more than cosmetic and must improve the preparation and training of our students. Let's provide an incentive to learn again, return authority to teachers, make it necessary to pass the course and have an unequivocal goal to train and educate. If not, the new consensus will only make us fall even further.