The news is coming. This Monday the starting signal is given at school calendar 2024-2025(except the little ones, who already started last week), which presents several new features. For the oldest as well as the youngest. For the first, the new EBAU: this 2025 the format adopted in 2020 declines for university entrance tests, adopted during the pandemic to ensure maximum fairness and opportunity.
Thus, primary and secondary school students will begin this course on mathematical reinforcement And language who prepares them in the format of new entrance test. At the same time, these students will see the general use of mobile phones limited and prohibited (according to age) in classrooms, because until now this was the responsibility of certain communities. Yes indeed,
New rules on cell phones in schools
After the National School Board unanimously approved in January the veto of the mobile phone in primary school and its limitation in secondary school, the educational community continued to debate the problems of the use of mobile devices and this course. This will be the first in which applies from the start of the university year. THE Community of Madrid, Galicia, Castile-La Mancha, Andalusia and Extremadura Already They had prohibitions or restrictions and, after the approval of the text by the School Council, the others began to implement it, giving freedom to the centers for its application and granting greater freedom to the older ones.
While Cantabria has established a total ban both for schools and institutes, betting that they will be the centers that arbitrate control measurescommunities like Madrid or Castile-La Mancha are more flexible the use of mobile phones in secondary, baccalaureate and professional education. In Catalonia, for example, it is considered a good learning resource in secondary school, but They are not allowed in Primary.
Similarly, in Aragon, Andalusia, Valencian Community, Balearic Islands or Navarre Teachers have the power to require and turn off students’ phones until the end of the day school.
Strengthening free support courses
He school reinforcement plan in languages and mathematics announced by the government at the beginning of this year, this course will begin and will include measures such as free support courses In non-school hours or classrooms with fewer classmates and more specialized teachers. The program has a budget of 95 million euros, of which 64.8 million will be allocated to strengthening mathematics and thirty million to improving oral and written communication, a transversal skill that affects all subjects.
Its implementation was born after the setback suffered by Spain in latest PISA reportwhich assesses the academic performance of 15-year-old students from more than 80 countries, and which showed a further decline in mathematics and reading among young Spaniards, but softer than elsewhere.
The new EBAU is coming
In 2025, the new model proposed by the Government will make its way, which must be aligned with the objectives of the one known as Celaá Lawwhich forces a much more competent teachingthat is, more reflection and critical thinking and less memory extraction. In parallel, the communities governed by the PP have agreed on a common test that will unify the dates and criteria for correction, agreed by the popular barons, gathered by the party president, Alberto Núñez-Feijóo in Salamanca, at the beginning of the summer.
Teaching staff: temporality and ratios
In Spain, the number of teachers has increase of 758,594 teachers during the 2021-22 school year to 768 798 in 2022-23, record levelbut the stabilisation process approved by the government in 2021, in the midst of a pandemic, to reduce the temporary employment of teachers, is still very far from reaching the target recommended by the EU: 8%. Some departments and unions have proposed data in recent weeks, such as Navarrewho claims to have reduced a Interim rate of 14.8% of its teachers, going from 31.12% in 2021 to 16.3% currently.
In Castile and LeonThe interim rate this year stands at 10.14 percent for teachers and 17.8 percent for the rest of the profession, far from the 8 percent required by the EU and demanded by the unions. Also the improvement of student/class ratios This is another of the battle horses of the educational system in all communities, a debate that has also become more acute with the pandemic.
THE Xuntaafter the agreement signed with the unions in recent months, is faced with the progressive reduction of ratios, so that the objective is to move from a maximum of 25 students per class of 20. This course is covered in Primary 4. In the Valencian Community, the ratio is maintained at this level under the same conditions as in the past: 21 students in the second cycle of nursery and primary school; 24 in secondary school and 29 in baccalaureate. In Castilla-La Mancha, the main education unions called a strike on September 11 to demand the improvement of ratios, as well as the reduction of teaching hours and the simplification of bureaucratic tasks.
