For a long time and in a persistent manner, various public
and private institutions have echoed proposals, emanating from the World Bank and OECD, which aim to be progressive and innovative, but that result in
negative consequences for our education system and the cultural and professional level of our citizens.
Concerned about these
facts, the people
who sign this document want to manifest
the following:
1. The access to culture and knowledge
is essential for personal and social emancipation, and thus contributes to reducing inequalities. Barring new generations from this access scams them and denies them the opportunity to enjoy a full life in the personal, social and work spheres. The education system must provide global training for understanding the world, its problems and provide tools to improve
it.
2. However, legal changes and policies from the education
administration pursue other objectives. In the line marked by bodies at the service
of multinational corporations and rising in the prestige
of the pedagogical renewal movement in Spain, the intention is now to expel the knowledge from the school, replacing it with
alleged competences that, without it, are empty and only useful for the exercise of unqualified labor. These changes in teaching
objectives and methodologies have not been the result of any debate with teachers, but rather an imposition, often channeled
through private organizations such
as Escola Nova21, Telefónica, Google
or La Caixa, with the support of some media outlets. On the contrary,
teachers, who work in difficult conditions, arising from budget cuts and the social environment, are denigrated and denied of scientific and academic authority.
3. The axis of the changes is to implement, at all stages of the education system, what is called competency
learning. This, although
it does not have an accurate and generally accepted
definition, is often manifested in proposing to students’ problems
that they must solve through
the knowledge they deem necessary and are able to find. Of course,
and the experience confirms it, that with this approach
it is very difficult for the students
to achieve a comprehensive training, which must include
the assimilation of a structured body of knowledge, with the appropriate level of each educational stage. On the other hand, this approach
increases teachers' dedication
to bureaucratic tasks of questionable utility, to the detriment of attention to the education and support for students.
4. To implement
the changes, the power of management has been strengthened, both in terms of the definition of the center’s
project and in selecting teachers
without objective criteria
or transparency. This presents itself as an improvement in the autonomy
of the centers. And makes it possible
that a part of the teachers, out of affinity or fear of endangering their jobs, to take on the orientations of management unwillingly. In addition, this policy increases
segregation within the education system in creating or deepening the differences between the public centers
themselves.
5. In this context,
during the last election campaign, the Department of Teaching of the acting
government announced that, under the LOMLOE (Spanish Act regulating primary and secondary
education), it was drafting
a decree to reform the baccalaureate. At the same time, and with equal media coverage,
it was brought to light that three high school teachers had launched the Change High School initiative and some information showed students in a state of distress at the prospect
of having to pass college
access tests.
6. Claiming ESO (Compulsory Secondary School) is about
competences and the baccalaureate is not,
it would be about changing
the baccalaureate and access tests as an intermediate step towards
eliminating them. And changing University later. But you can't see why one mandatory stage and one that
isn't, with very different objectives, they should be homogeneous. And, before making
further changes, we would have to evaluate
the results of what has been done in ESO. Because if the problem
is that if in an ESO
based on competences students don't
have enough knowledge to access the baccalaureate, the change needs to
happen in the first and not the latter.
7. Educational systems
should be open to content
and method renewal
in order for the student
to solidly assimilate the knowledge of each stage
and acquire the corresponding skills
and attitudes. Criticism is a necessary condition
for improvement. But this does not mean giving up the basic purposes of education: to train educated people, with solid and structured
knowledge and with a critical and supportive
spirit, and not a
“factory" of uneducated, submissive and flexible
people, at the immediate service
of the economic system.
8. We therefore
call for educational reforms not to be based on proposals by supposedly expert individuals or entities, which
are sometimes at the service
of objectives contrary
to those of education. And to avoid unmeditative changes and uncertain
consequences because in the field of education
they have hardly reversible and possibly negative
consequences for those affected.
We
also believe that the definition of
the objectives, content and forms of our education system should be the result of a participatory process.
Therefore, from the SIEC (Seminari Ítaca d'Educació Crítica) we ask that as professionals of education, as families, as people linked to education or as citizens, you sign this manifesto and share it, as a first step to open a debate on this and establish mechanisms to prevent the education system from ending up at the service of multinational corporation instead of people.