Councilor Anna Simó, responsible for Education in Catalonia, considers that the distribution of the educational reinforcement plan announced yesterday by the President of the Government should include criteria such as the student’s income and origin. “It should count the percentage of students with the most needs (NESE B) out of the total as well as provide more resources to highly complex centers,” he explained during a press conference held this morning in which he presented a content platform audiovisual educational programs in Catalan with universal access, shared with 3Cat.
Simó has positively valued the Government’s announcement to invest in a plan that reverses the PISA results, although he has recalled that competition in the field of education is autonomous. “We start from an announcement and, at the moment, we do not have more information until we meet,” said Simó, “but we celebrate the alignment of the ministry’s proposals with the Generalitat.”
Simó explained that this announcement comes after the minister met with Minister Pilar Alegría on December 28, a meeting in which she presented a four-year bilateral plan with territorial cooperation measures, establishing a budget and calendars.
Among them is the best provision for reception classrooms and language learning acceleration classrooms for immigrant adolescents. Catalonia is one of the communities with the highest proportion of immigrant students compared to the total.
“These students who arrive in the middle of the course or at the end, with personal backpacks that are very different from the students who have started in I3,” said Simó, who recalled the immigration fund promoted by President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who stopped providing in 2011.
The distribution of the budget increase is not defined. The ministry will meet with the State School Council this Thursday to begin defining measures and criteria. It will also do so with the regional governments. In this context, Simo has stated that Catalonia’s proposal will be in line with improving the attention of students with the greatest needs and providing more resources to the municipalities with the highest immigration, information that is included in the latest report of the Ombudsman of Greuges. . He also hopes that the 250 centers identified with more room for improvement in basic skills (mathematics, reading comprehension and language) will be provided with more resources.
At the meeting, the minister also outlined the importance of promoting induction into teaching (a MIR program for teachers that the Government has already started this year with the Sensei program), the fight against school dropouts (with more counselors in ESO ) and the promotion of inclusive education.
“We understand that the Government has started working on this line,” he indicated, rejecting finalist measures such as the division into classrooms. “There are centers that prefer splitting and others co-education. Just as we ask that our competence in education be respected, we believe that we must respect the initiatives of the centers. We must be able to offer a catalog of opportunities for resources and support (technical integration, educators, educational psychologists…) so that the center can choose based on the profile of its students.”
Sánchez announced yesterday a plan to improve mathematics and reading comprehension for Spanish students with a planned investment of around 500 million euros, subject to the approval of the next budget.
Early in the morning, President Pere Aragonès in a radio interview criticized Sánchez for launching an educational reinforcement plan “without entrusting it to anyone” and asked for respect for the powers in this area.
Precisely, Catalonia has promoted a group of experts to recommend concrete measures to reverse the PISA results that have registered a sharp decline in the community. This group of experts has barely started meetings, although it plans to give a first report at the end of the month when they will meet with the parliamentary groups. In this sense, the minister has denied the risk of contradictions between the government’s proposal and the experts’ recommendations. “They are teachers, they know the day-to-day life of the classroom.”
Pedro Sánchez announced on Sunday that the Government is going to deploy a reinforcement plan in mathematics and reading comprehension for students that it wants to agree with the educational community. This Thursday, the minister will meet with the State School Council.
The program is aimed at students from 3rd grade to the end of ESO, which benefits 4.7 million students.
The plan will be applied, during school hours, with the splitting of classrooms, so that there are fewer students per class. Also outside school hours, with reinforcement teachers for students with difficulties. The plan includes training for teachers.
Government sources have indicated that, pending the closing of the project of the new general budgets of the State for this year 2024, the program could exceed an investment of more than 500 million euros.
