Catalonia will need to attract teachers trained outside the community given the expected wave of teacher retirements and the lack of Catalan graduates. This situation emerges in a complex context of the educational system with an increase in the weight of immigration and poverty, students more disenchanted with their schools and teachers demotivated by excessive objectives.
This “worrying” photograph, despite the expanding educational budgets, is the one presented yesterday at the Cercle d’Economía by the professor of Sociology at the UB, Xavier Bonal, and the analyst Lucas Gortázar, director of EsadeEcPol and Education consultant to the Bank. World.
And they did it one day before – today – the group of experts to whom the Government entrusted measures to improve education delivered their conclusions to Minister Anna Simó. This is a list of 16 measures to apply in the next academic year, among which the most important ones are strengthening the centers with the largest vulnerable students, promoting more stable and better-paid staff.
Regarding yesterday’s debate, Gortázar stated that “it is worrying to compare graduates versus retirees in Catalonia, and we are already on sales,” he simplified. In his opinion, there are still young Spaniards who want to be teachers, but in Catalonia, for whatever reason, interest is lower.
Some communities, as he explained, select one candidate out of three and being able to choose is the best way to guarantee quality. On the other hand, in Catalonia the oppositions are not well covered and it is difficult to replace those who are absent. “You have to ask yourself uncomfortable questions. It is not questioning the linguistic model, but rather the linguistic profiles of the teachers. You have to ask yourself how you are going to get teachers and professors.”
From another point of view, Bonal defended “the principle of incumbency” which implies that all agents in a territory are concerned with what happens in that area and, from that point of view, the professor could, not without raising union blisters, occupy not a place in a center but in an educational area.
Bonal agrees with the group promoting the incorporation of incentives in the teaching profession. “Working conditions are good at the beginning of the career if we compare it to other countries, but there is no incentive system or promotion strategies throughout the career and that does not help to diversify the profiles.”
And diversifying profiles is important to serve the most disadvantaged because an educational system improves if the most vulnerable improve. “The best teachers must be in the worst schools because of their social composition,” she declared. In his opinion, one should be radical and defend center autonomy and labor policies that favor quality.
In this sense, PISA gives clues about the resistance to change of Catalan teachers or their demotivation that influences the low level of learning support for students and the loss of a feeling of belonging to the center and well-being, especially among the most vulnerable, both indicators reflected in PISA.
The directors of the 51 centers analyzed by the OECD were asked how they see their people and responded with disaffection. “This suggests that there is a big mismatch between the expectations that have been placed on education in the last decade – with many transformative decrees – and what really happens in the centers,” said Gortázar.
For both researchers, there are social factors that explain what has happened in PISA, such as the pandemic or the social composition of the sample. It is not that this was incorrect, they suppose, but that it reflects a complex diversity, with a high rate of poverty and immigration. They assured that Catalonia is the advance in Spain.
Immigration (more arrivals and more offspring in foreign women) will increase (from 24% to 33% in 2030) and, unlike Madrid, which attracts Latin workers (with linguistic continuity) dedicated to services, those who settle in Catalonia come from from Latin America and other cultures and their socioeconomic and cultural character is lower. However, it was highlighted that the North African learns the Catalan language sooner than the Latin language.
“We can blame immigration or assume that they bring a benefit to society,” Gortázar reflected.
In any case, “we have a social composition that will force us to work in a context of special precariousness,” Bonal warned.
Educational leadership
Responding to a question from the audience that exposed the difficulty of teachers in responding to what the mandate of society is, the purpose of education, Bonal pointed to a general disorientation.
“I ask the groups of teachers, How are students better served in heterogeneous groups or homogeneous groups? By levels or mixed? 50% raise their hands in one option and 50% in the other,” said the sociologist to demonstrate the differences in opinions about teaching in diversity. “The school invests a lot of time in being efficient, with bureaucratic burdens, but there is no space to know why we are here.”
Language
In the PISA results, the effect of the language at home does not influence the results in Catalonia, but it does in the Basque Country.
However, the professor pointed out that the Linguistic Normalization Law, with great importance in the eighties and nineties, “it is time to rethink it and not be Taliban.” “It is a complex and sensitive issue,” he admitted, but “at some point it will have to be addressed and common sense policies applied.”
Unions
Bonal deplored the role of unionism, especially the majority union installed in a position not of a class union but a corporate one. “And it doesn’t help the system.” He was referring to Ustec. He pointed out that he did not sign the pact against school segregation, he has a simple message about the binomial of public and charter schools. In his opinion, there are apparently no alternatives. “The two political responses, the confrontation, illustrated by the previous councilor, or the attempted transfer, are not giving results.” On the other hand, abstention in the elections was very high.
Families and school
For researchers, family participation in schools is very positive. However, in recent times, a phenomenon has occurred that has blurred the line between the role of families and schools. Bonal referred to the case of middle class families who move to live in neighborhoods with low-income social compositions and decide to enter a highly complex school, with a high level of concentration of students with special needs. The students mix.
“What we call school colonization occurs, groups of families that enter together, with the idea of ??leading a process of change, transformation, which is very positive, but then, participation is often confused with intrusion or appropriation” . Thus, he said, volumes of activities are organized that look like schools more similar to a charter school than a public one.
Politics has given scope for some family associations to become service companies (they manage the dining room, extracurricular activities, outings…). If you create mechanisms that give so much power and the faculty delegates, you can end up generating that.
WhatsApp groups also undermine the authority of teachers. “Just for a parent to say ‘Look what happened in class today’ already triggers something harmful. Bonal suspects that the level of teacher attrition is related to
Methodologies
These experts agreed in pointing out the rigidity in secondary school evaluation. PISA approves some students that their teachers fail, they commented and showed their disagreement with those who believe that education is getting out of hand, they pass without passing and we should return to past models. “In Catalonia, PISA students say that rather than solving problems, what they are presented with are quadratic equations. And that type of learning continues to be the majority. We are still in the old world and what PISA asks for is competency learning, related to the student’s reality.”
That is why there are students, according to Bonal, who, due to the lack of relationship with their life project, respond to the question: What have you learned during your time at school?: “I have learned to be patient while I wait for school to finish.” ”.
