The poor PISA results in Catalonia have fallen like a bomb and the department’s explanation that attributes the cause of the failure to immigration has raised a political dust-up.
In 2015, Catalan students were at the top of Spain in mathematics, reading and science, reaching scores of 500 points or more. They are now at the bottom with 464 points in math, 462 in reading and 477 in science.
They have lost, during these seven years before and after the pandemic, the equivalent of almost two years in reading, and a year and a half in mathematics and science.
The department tried to play down the significance of the data, arguing that internal and external assessments already indicated the students’ academic regression. So, they agreed, that students are doing poorly is not new information.
When they put the causes in context, they alluded to the “high social and educational complexity” of this community, which implies the arrival of a “significant percentage” of students throughout the year, “very above the averages of Spain, Europe and the OECD”, according to the secretary, Ignasi Garcia Plata. He also criticized that the OECD sample includes an over-representation of immigration, which would explain part of the drop because, as PISA points out, low results correlate with socio-economic vulnerability. “In 2018 it was 14% and currently it is 24%”, he pointed out.
Catalonia “is one of the most complex territories” in terms of “poverty levels, incorporation of students throughout schooling and the high mobility of many of them”, which means that “they cannot complete a cycle education with the same opportunities as others”.
Indeed, the report states that Melilla (26%), Catalonia (24%) and the Balearic Islands (21%) have the highest proportion of immigrant students. The Secretary of State, José Manuel Bar, also linked the fall in the Basque Country and Catalonia to the rate of immigration and poverty.
Political parties and unions considered it intolerable that the Government was focusing on immigration and demanded a plan to reverse this situation. According to the secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa, this is the result of ten years of “not being focused” on the real problems of citizens. “Without water and in the dark, children don’t know how to read, write or add,” he said. JxCat announced that it will request the appearance of councilor Anna Simó. As for the commons, they stated that this was “a lost decade”. And they asked “to relaunch, redo and recompose” the national pact for education, so that education is “a priority”.
The PP and Vox saw xenophobic elements in the Department of Education’s explanation and attributed the educational crisis to linguistic immersion.
