PSC Education, worried about Francoism while Catalan students hit rock bottom
Will the government dare to break with the lobbies that have ruined education in Catalonia?
The education portfolio was one of the hottest topics for Salvador Illa's new government. The catastrophic policies of the last decade led to a disaster that Pere Aragonès's administration ended up making even worse. After the warning from the PISA report in December 2024, this year's competency tests have confirmed the worst.
The average math score for 6th grade Primary students was the worst since these tests began in 2009. Meanwhile, 10th grade (4º ESO) students didn't reach basic knowledge in English, math, and science. It's a collapse of colossal proportions.
It's clear that the problem with education in Catalonia is very deep and structural. The new government, which hasn't even been in office for a year, can't solve it overnight. But some things stand out.
It may seem anecdotal, but just two weeks ago, Minister Esther Niubó said she was "very concerned" about young people's anti-democratic tendencies. She warned that many young people believe life was better under Francoism. "Essential democratic values are being questioned and discourses that glorify openly racist regimes are being normalized," the minister warned.
The competency test scores confirm that the problem isn't Francoism or the far right, but rather the resounding failure of the education system in Catalonia. This responsibility now falls on Niubó, and it demands radical changes.
The minister announces new measures
After the results became known, the minister acknowledged that "they aren't good" and announced new measures to strengthen education and improve results:
- Expansion of training offerings in science didactics aimed at teachers.
- Hiring of twelve specialized regional coordinators to improve science teaching and learning in schools and high schools.
- €250,000 for reinforcement in English language and more resources for assistance and linguistic support in this language.
- Announcement of 30 primary school positions to train teachers who are experts in school mathematics instruction.
This adds to the improvement framework for language and mathematics, which was approved a few months ago and has a budget allocation of €130 million. According to the minister, this is a sign of this government's commitment to reversing the situation. The question now is whether the approved measures will be enough.
Breaking with the foundations
The failure of the education system in Catalonia began with the change in the pedagogical model. Catalan governments handed education over to lobbies that opted for pseudoscientific, progressive, and well-meaning approaches. This new paradigm replaced concepts like effort and authority with relativism and student empowerment.
As if that weren't enough, it promoted the introduction of a system based on viewing education as an "experience" tailored to each student's needs. But it did so without considering its complexity and the lack of resources to carry it out.
The result: chaos that has led to disaster and has sunk an entire generation of students.
The question now is how long it will take to reverse this situation. It seems clear that the problem isn't the far right, Francoism, or even economic investment. To recover, structural transformations will be needed, although it's worth asking whether this government is willing to break with the educational lobbies and their pedagogical paradigm.
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