Four long months of work, models that are delivered six weeks late… and to leave everything the same. The Selectivity designed in the Community of Madrid fails to comply with the Royal Decree of minimums that the Government approved last June and ignores the competency approach that it advocates, as can be seen from an analysis of the models, unions and some teachers have denounced. And as admitted – although she understands – Rosa Rocha, the president of the association of high school directors in the region (Adimad).
“The tests contain very few changes. In several areas only the model has changed. There is unease because the criteria of the universities have prevailed, resulting in a type of exams that do not adjust to the changes that were planned, especially in relation to being competency-type tests rather than rote tests,” CCOO explains.
“Indeed, it is not too competitive. Changes are taking place little by little, but can you imagine what could happen if the exam had completely changed? It is better to first see the results of this course,” Rocha, president of Adimad, reflects understandingly. Elisa, a Language and Literature teacher who is a member of the I studied in the public platform, explains that “they have put in place the same structure that existed before the pandemic. [el coronavirus y el cierre de los centros llevó a suavizar la prueba]but with the titles of the new blocks of the subject. “Same questions, new names to justify that they fit Lomloe.” The problem, adds this teacher, is that the Ebau model conditions how classes are taught in the 2nd year of Baccalaureate and this type of exam can cause the curriculum to be breached.
The Government chaired by Isabel Díaz Ayuso boycotts (again) the implementation of the education law, the sources consulted regret. It is a common maneuver in the regional government in recent years: an ad hoc law was made to protect the charter school from the articles that limit it in the Celáa law, the resumes were denounced, attempts were made to change the rules for course promotion , the law is skirted to give public land free of charge to schools that are created with a concert (a doubly illegal practice). Now the application of the jurisdictional approach advocated by the new law is avoided.
The Ministry of Education is cautious at the moment. A spokesperson explains that the jurisdictional approach will be applied little by little, but also remembers that the State High Inspection is there for this type of issues and that, if it detects any conflict, it will act.
the same exam
The Selectivity (or Ebau, Evau, PAU) addresses a change of model this year and, following the postulates of the Lomloe, should in theory move from a rote exam to a competency one. From a test in which previously studied answers are vomited out to another that invites reflection, in which that knowledge is applied practically to posed situations.
For this teacher, the conflict goes beyond a simple exam. The 2nd year of Baccalaureate, remember, is basically dedicated to preparing students to take this exam. Now, with the model proposed by the Community of Madrid, teachers will have to make decisions: either curriculum and Lomloe, at the expense of the Selectivity, or Ebau at the expense of the law
This was established by the Government in Royal Decree 534/2024, with which it defined in June the minimum requirements for the test. Beyond issues such as the number of exams and their duration, establishing common correction criteria or how much spelling is penalized, the Royal Decree of the Government establishes that “the exercises will require students’ creativity and capacity for critical thinking, reflection and maturity in resolution. in writing of a series of questions or tasks appropriate to the specific competencies evaluated.”
But it has never been the ministry’s intention to radically change the type of exam from one year to the next. Thus, the rectors – one of the parties involved in preparing the tests – proposed with the approval of the communities – the other part, once the Government has already done its thing – that this first year of application the competency part be will be limited to 25% of the test. This is reflected by the majority of the communities that have presented examples of exams. This is not the case of Madrid, maintain the professionals consulted.
In the examples published by Madrid universities there is no trace of the competencies, despite the fact that the Evau Organizing Commission in Madrid published a note in which it specified that 20% of the test should correspond to this approach. At least the Philosophy, History or English tests basically maintain the same structure as in previous editions.
“They are the same as before the pandemic”
Elisa R., a teacher, assures that teachers are “outraged” because the exams “are the same as before the pandemic,” which means ignoring the adaptation work they have done in recent years. “We teachers have been training in skills for four years, trying to incorporate the new paradigm into our practices, striving to innovate and adapt to a teaching model that takes into account everything that neuroscience and pedagogy have contributed in recent years to learning. significant… And we found this,” he laments. “Helplessness” is the word for this teacher.
“The PAU 2025 model proposed by the Commission comes into collision with the LOMLOE legislation, flagrantly violating current regulations (…). The majority of the questions do not respond, in any way, to the evaluation criteria established for 2nd year of Baccalaureate, which leads one to think that the commission has not even had them before them at any time,” analyze their colleagues Guadalupe Jover and Rosa Linares. , Language and Literature teachers.
Elisa goes down to a more specific analysis: “They have maintained the syntactic analysis of a sentence. We thought they were going to remove it because there is no reflection, it is a mechanical task. An example of a competency question in this area could be, he explains, posing two different press headlines about the same news and asking the student to use their morphosyntactic knowledge to analyze why the two are different, how they were constructed and what they wanted to convey. with each of them. “The same thing happens with literature, which is approached in a pure and simple rote way in which the student is asked to vomit up a previously memorized topic without this proving that he has understood anything about, in this case, Lorca,” he continues. The competitive alternative? “That they were given any text and they could analyze it, comment, highlight its artistic value, the resources used by the author, and relate it to others.”
Director Rocha maintains that there is effectively no trace of the skills, but she is understanding. Making a big change, he explains, could excessively alter the results, and “no one wants bad results: not the teachers, not the universities and, of course, the students. It is better to first see the results of this course,” he says.
Isabel Galvín, general secretary of the CCOO education federation in Madrid, is more forceful. “The new test, which has arrived very late, has little new. The published proposal contains very few changes, fundamentally maintaining its rote nature without becoming competent as expected,” he assures.
For some teachers, the problem is the distance between what is supposed to be being worked on in the classrooms, following the Lomloe, with what is going to be asked in the Selectivity. CCOO speaks of an “obvious gap.” Elisa maintains that the conflict goes beyond a simple exam. The 2nd year of Baccalaureate, remember, is basically dedicated to preparing students to take this exam. Now, with the model proposed by the Community of Madrid, teachers will have to make decisions: either curriculum and Lomloe, at the expense of the Selectivity, or Ebau at the expense of the law.
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