One in two students who aspire to a place in a public vocational training center in the Community of Madrid is excluded. This year, there were a total of 92,521 applications, of which 48,255 were resolved negatively: there was no place for the student. In total, 44,266 people obtained the first option they had requested, according to a CCOO report on the registration process.
As this continues, the Community of Madrid does not have the resources to meet the growing demand for vocational training places in its public centers. For at least four years, every autumn, the same situation has been repeated, but with more and more students excluded from vocational training. Last year, 40,000 people were excluded. That is almost 50,000 people. For them, they must look for a place in another module in the extraordinary exam in September or move on to the private exam, which multiplies the public price by ten.
The head of CCOO Education of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Galvín, lamented that the government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso “promotes the private” – seasoned with the famous checks to pay rich families for private centers – due to the lack of public places and with the specific offer that it proposes: in family training such as health or those related to leisure, there are practically no places offered in the public, according to Galvín. CCOO also recalled the problem that arose last year with the practices of some health modules, when private vocational training centers monopolized the places in public health centers, leaving hundreds of students without the possibility of completing their studies.
News is piling up about the FP in the Community of Madrid, shaken in recent weeks by the scandal of the FP centers that the previous PP leadership built by hand and by cutting contracts. There are at least eight centers affected by this modus operandi.
Intermediate level takes the cake
The situation in the Madrid FP is uneven in stages, according to CCOO, which has compiled the data published by two thirds of the centers (the others are not made public). The basic FP, aimed at 15-year-old students, is the one with the best admission rate. Only One in three students who apply for a place are excluded. In the next intermediate vocational training (equivalent to the baccalaureate), the percentage of excluded people doubles the previous one and there are now two out of three (21,558 people) who cannot find a public center to continue their studies. Finally, in the higher level (higher education, university level), rejections decrease slightly, to 60%. But since this is the most requested stage, it is also the one where the greatest number of people are excluded: 24,998 students without a desk.
According to CCOO calculations based on information on excluded persons, 2,182 new groups would have to be created, with their 3,711 teachers, to serve the nearly 50,000 candidates without a place.
Faced with these data, the Ministry of Education headed by Emilio Viciana recalls that the PF has increased by 5.3% compared to last year and claims an increase of 4,600 places in public centers and 386 new teachers. The raw data indicate that the private sector is multiplying exponentially in the region while the public sector is barely growing. In recent years, the number of students enrolled in private centers has increased by 1,523% in middle levels and by 844% in higher education.
