Article published by José Alberto León Alonso in El Día on 04/03/16.
The Lisbon Strategy indicates that the formation of human capital is essential to turn it into a productive resource that not only contributes to economic growth, but is also one of the basic pillars to achieve equal opportunities in our society. However, according to the penultimate PISA report, a 15-year-old Canarian student is one year behind in schooling in language, mathematics and science compared to the national average student of the same age. In these three concepts, the Canary Islands is the region that obtains the worst results in all of Spain. When compared with the rest of the developed countries, the reading performance of students in the Canary Islands only surpasses that of Mexico and almost reaches the level of Chile, which ranked 33rd out of the 34 members of the OECD. Quite a suspense for our education.
I say penultimate report because, given the embarrassment produced by our results, our region declined to participate in the last PISA evaluation of 2012. Out of sight, out of mind heart seems to be our maxim, since the slogan of our authorities focuses solely on improving statistics and not the knowledge and competence of our students. Since we can't reach the bar, we lower it so we can jump over it. Thus, teachers are pressured to reduce the number of failures and the University Entrance Test (PAU) correctors are recommended to “be generous” with the grades. The facilities do not end there, since in a good number of university degree subjects, to pass it is enough to obtain a score of 3.5 (out of 10) in the exam, as long as you attend class regularly. And if you resist the last subjects that are missing to graduate, you don't have to make an effort either. That is what the compensatory evaluation is for, which allows the student to “overcome” the last subjects without passing them as long as they have been taken and failed during a set number of calls. With all this, some people still talk about the “most prepared generation in history”, when the reality is that some graduates are almost functionally illiterate, no matter how many degrees they have hanging on their wall.
As a result, the level of competence of our graduates continues to reduce, and so it is not surprising that more and more companies, including ours, are forced to carry out a writing test in their personnel selection processes before hiring a graduate. Their ability to understand a text, express themselves in writing clearly and not make spelling errors is no longer assumed.
Despite all this, far from trying to improve competition problems, for example, our regional educational authorities have not thought of anything other than to reduce by 25% (from four to three hours per week) the teaching load of the Language subject in the second year of high school starting in the 2016-2017 academic year (the next one). This is a measure adopted in 2015 by the team of the previous regional government that has gone completely unnoticed by citizens, and that evidently will not contribute to improving our results in reading comprehension. With the adaptation of the LOMCE for the Canary Islands, all core subjects maintain the same weekly time allocation dictated in the LOE, the previous educational law, except for Spanish Language and Literature. This fact does not occur in any other autonomous community as far as I am aware, and will have its consequences when the first final evaluation tests (revalidation) are held at the end of the 2nd year of Baccalaureate in 2017. The revalidation will be a common and standard test for the entire Spanish territory that will evaluate only the core subjects. Although the first revalidation will not have academic effects, in subsequent years its failure would cause the student not to obtain the title of Graduate in Baccalaureate, with obvious personal harm. Not to mention that the comparison of our results in that test with those of other regions will be negatively affected by this fact. It is worth remembering, for those who believe that the LOMCE is going to be repealed in a short time, that since it is an Organic Law it cannot be modified by decree, which even if new elections were not held would require a long legislative process that would last well beyond the beginning of the next school year, which de facto prevents the revalidation from being applied.
For what reason was this decision made? Well, basically to increase by the same amount (one hour per week) the teaching load of the religion subject, going from one to two hours per week in the second year of high school. And no, it is not about the perfidious LOMCE forcing the number of hours of the religion subject to be increased, since in the majority of the rest of the regions no hour will be taught weekly in religious subjects in the second year of high school, and in the rest one hour at most. Nor is it that the educational team of the outgoing government, socialist to make matters worse, was affected by a strange mystical-theological virus at the time of its farewell. They have done nothing more than every high-ranking educational official in our archipelago: prioritize the demands of the teachers' unions on the quality of education, since otherwise they could jeopardize the jobs of some religion teachers, who have not passed any competitive exam that would allow them to teach any other subject. And the ideological debate about whether or not to teach religion in public education is one thing, and confronting teachers' unions is another matter.
In short, not only are we bad but we are getting worse. Country.
U!
