The debate on the teaching profession has been focused in recent times on matters such as student-professional ratios, salary conditions or the decreasing demand of the yesterday known as the degree of teaching. However, the Temporality of school teachers It is another of the problems that could be harming the quality of Spanish education, according to the last report of ESADEECPOL, the ESADE ECONOMIC POLICY RESEARCH Center.
Throughout the last decade, temporality rates in public school teachers have remained at very high levels. Despite the objectives set and with ongoing interim stabilization processes, a significant percentage of the teaching body of the educational centers still does not have a fixed contract or a placewhich has generated a dynamic of great instability, rotation in educational centers and huge difficulties in planning and developing center projects to improve results. In 2023, the temporality rate was, according to data from the Active Population Survey (EPA) of the 28% in public school and 14% in concerted and private centers. For public centers, this temporality rate was especially high in communities such as the Basque Country (with almost 50% of temporary teachers), La Rioja, Asturias, Extremadura and the Canary Islands.
But, in addition to public centers, interim has been concentrating on vulnerable students. 34% of teachers who work in 25% of the centers that bring together the most vulnerable students have been working in Luga himself for less than three yearsR, a figure that is reduced to 15% in the highest socioeconomic quartile. On the one hand, the concerted school has a much greater stability of its templates, While it is true that within the public school and the concerted school there is also that gap, although in a more moderate way. These would be data from 2018. According to the author of the report, Lucas Gortazar, to ABC, “we cannot continue making coffee for all in educational policy.” The problem of interim, he says, could be alleviated with destination accessories in those centers with more vulnerable students. In his opinion, the State should have the ability to assign places to schools that have more need for teaching staff.
The increase in the concentration of teachers with less experience in schools with more vulnerable students is generating growing inequalities. For students with a lower social index, teaching efficiency scores are well below the average of the OECD countries that participate in TIMSS 2023 in Primary. In addition, the fall is more pronounced in mathematics and in 25% with lower corporate conditions.
Worse learning climate in the classroom
In addition to the high interim, ESAD points out that the learning climate in the classroom has also worsened both in primary and secondary school, according to the analysis of Timss and Pisa microdatos. Both tests carry out students on how classes are developed, if there are Too much noise, if the teacher requires a lot of time to start class or if there are many interruptions. Developing an index that groups all these questions, on average, Spain has experienced a drop in these dimensions both in primary and secondary school. In Primary, the fall in Spain is greater than that of its neighboring countries, placing today in considerably worse classroom climate levels than that of the next states. In high school, while the OECD average remains practically constant, there has been a slight fall in the European Union average and, in Spain, the average has also fallen. It is especially worrying in Catalonia, Andalusia, Murcia and, above all, the Basque Country
To the worsening of the climate in the classroom, there is a greater complexity of the students. The proportion of students of foreign origin It has grown considerably and is already a 32% in 4th grade in 2023 (TIMSS 2023). The number of students in the mandatory (primary and that) stages of the system has grown in the last decade and a half, from 4.5 to 4.85 million students between the 2008/09 and 2023/24 courses reaching a maximum of 4.92 million in the 2019/20 academic year. In any case, Gortazar clarifies this newspaper that the presence of immigrant students does not necessarily imply a worsening of the classroom learning. This diversity, he says, is a greater challenge for teachers, a greater expectation.
An unattractive profession
The interim, the increase in migrant origin and worsening of the learning climate, blackens the attractiveness of the teaching profession. Are Spanish teachers more than those of other OECD countries? No. The number of work hours is found in the OECD average, although it is true that a school calendar with a long summer generates the perception of suffocation in the day to day of the profession.
On the other hand, Spain is the OECD country where high school teachers claim to be less prepared to teach in contexts of different levels of learning. In Infant and Primary, the mathematical competence and reader of the teaching staff is less than that of High School, while the teaching note has barely risen, being true that remuneration is lower in children and primary.
In addition, at all levels, a culture of isolation prevails where teachers cannot learn from each other: teaching observation by teachers of more experience is 34.1% compared to 81.4% on average of the OECD.
The author of the report states that not all improvements go through an increase in resources or state investment. In Primary, he says, goes through raising the level of teachers academic profile and, in Secondary, Gortazar points to pedagogical skills. “That teachers are not just teachers of their subject and nothing more,” he concludes.
Spain does not invest in reinforcement classes
Finally, the structural absence of individualized reinforcement programs limits teachers ‘response to students’ learning difficulties. Spain is not an investor country in reinforcement programs; Although in recent years the MEFPD and the CCAA have resumed reinforcement programs such as PROA+, Table 4 shows that the individualized support of the students is far from other countries. For example, response data of the directors in Pisa 2022 for ESO students show that, although initiatives have been implemented, the proportion of centers that offer additional mathematics classes (whether they are reinforcement or improvement) is only 30.7%, far from 65.6% on the EU-27 and 60% in the OECD average. All this in a context of increasing particular classes.
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