Neither mathematics, nor physics, nor the much-desired medicine. The university degree with the highest cut-off mark in Catalonia this 2026 is the degree in Law and International Relations at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). In this way, with a 12.97, the degree makes the sorpasso to the degree in Physics and Mathematics, also from the UAB, which has topped the podium of Catalan cut-off marks in the last three academic years.

Administering insulin to a diabetic student or changing a gastric button are needs that teachers or school assistants at schools and institutes often have to manage. These are tasks for which many have no training and which generate insecure situations for families and also for the teachers who have to manage these types of cases. Now, however, in some educational centers these episodes will be reduced, as the Government has announced that next year half of schools and institutes – public and private – will have a nurse who will come to the center to provide care. This does not mean that each school will have a nurse permanently, but rather that the same professional will be responsible for this task in several schools and institutes in the area in a programmed manner. The forecast is that this Education and Health program will reach all centers in the 2027-2028 academic year.

With two months to go until the results of a new PISA report are known – the exams that sounded all the alarms about the level of Catalan students in 2023 – the OECD presented its analysis of the Catalan education system this Monday. A report that Salvador Illa's government asked the OECD a year and a half ago with the aim of finding the longed-for recipe to improve educational results. Although the recipe is new, the ingredients are well known: more inclusion of diversity within the classroom, incentives in the teaching career, strengthening of the role of management, and a "coherent" and aligned evaluation.

"We saw that they were finishing ESO without the title because they were very far from what the curriculum requires, and of course, they left with one hand in front and another behind," explains Loles Resa, head of secondary studies at the Sant Josep de Gràcia school. She speaks about what some students at the center had experienced, but it is not an isolated situation. According to the Equitat.org yearbook released this week, after many years of increasing or remaining stable, in the last five academic years the rate of ESO graduates has fallen consecutively. Despite being high, the percentage has gone from 93% to 86% in the 2024-2025 academic year, the lowest ESO graduation rate in fifteen years.

A minor has died after being shot this Thursday night in Barcelona. The events took place after 10:45 PM in Parc de la Pegaso, in the Sant Andreu district of the Catalan capital. Sources consulted by this newspaper explain that several witnesses heard between two and three shots and later saw some youths fleeing. A group of young people, some with their faces covered, approached another group and opened fire on them. The victim was 15 years old. When emergency services arrived, they found an adolescent with a gunshot wound to the stomach. Despite resuscitation efforts, the boy eventually died. The Mossos d'Esquadra have already opened an investigation and were able to arrest an adult man this Friday to Saturday night as the alleged perpetrator of the minor's death. This is the tenth crime of the year in Barcelona – nine occurred last year – and the seventh with a firearm in the country.

It's Tuesday and it's a quarter to eight in the evening. At the back of the Can Felipa Civic Center, in Poblenou, Barcelona, five men are chatting. They are discussing and pointing at a copy of the magazine Ciclismo a Fondo.. "We've all been part of the club for over 30 years and we do this every week because we love it," admits Jaume Llopart, president of the Penya Ciclista del Poble Nou, founded in 1929. "We're always talking about bikes, what they're doing, the stage, the start... and of course, now the Tour," explains Llopart.

Catalan teachers already know which school or institute they will be working in next academic year. This Tuesday, the Department of Education published the definitive destinations for teaching staff for the 2026-2027 academic year, known as the summer assignments. The publication of the position each teacher and professor will fill has been made one month earlier than previously done and after last year there was a major upheaval when a "deliberate" error by one of the department's employees forced the entire process to be repeated and its results to be delayed.

Complaints from some students and professors about the difficulty of this year's PAU mathematics exam have now been quantified. The Department of Research and Universities has received a total of 2,057 claims to review the scientific mathematics test for the selectivity exam. The number of reviews requested for the exam in this subject represents 9.46% of the total applications that students have registered for all PAU subjects held three weeks ago.

More poor students, more students needing support, and an investment that, despite increasing, is not managing to improve educational results. This is the radiography of the situation of Catalan education provided by Equitat.org – formerly Fundació Bofill – in its 2026 yearbook.

Carlos Magro (Madrid, 1969) is president of the Open Education Association. He works as an independent professional in innovation, technology, and educational policies and has been responsible for the Scientific Culture program of the Ministry of Education of the Community of Madrid. His latest book is AI and Education. A Relationship with Seams (Trama Editorial). He speaks to ARA at the Poblenou campus of Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), on the occasion of 35 years of teaching at the university.

Major setback in this year's university entrance exam mathematics test. This Tuesday, the average scores for all subjects were announced, and in the case of scientific mathematics, the average was 4.18: a failing average and, moreover, the lowest average since 2014, when it was a flat 4. In fact, in the last twelve years, the average for this subject has only been a failure on three occasions: this year (4.18), 2024 (4.87), and 2014 (4). Therefore, mathematics continues to be one of the PAU's nightmares, after the average score dropped by almost two points compared to last year (6.12).

Her name is Laura Tallada Fàbrega, she is from Banyoles and she did her baccalaureate at the public high school Pere Alsius i Torrent. Furthermore, she is the one who achieved the highest score in the PAU exams this 2026. With a 9.9, Laura wants to study humanities; specifically, she wants to enroll – and will be able to – in the double degree in translation and interpretation and applied languages at Pompeu Fabra University. "Since I was very young, I have liked languages and reading has been quite important in my life. Therefore, I have always valued the humanities," she tells ARA by phone from Menorca, where she has taken a trip with friends to celebrate the end of her baccalaureate.

At the demonstration of the last school year strike and after the nowon the vote on the agreement with the Department of Education, one of the most repeated comments among teachers was that school assemblies should have a decisive role in negotiations with the Government. In fact, in the speeches at the end of the protest, the first to speak were the representatives of the educational assemblies and not the union spokespersons, as usual. Neither the comments nor the protagonists on stage are a coincidence: more than 500 school assemblies have been registered since the website of the Educational Assembly of Catalonia (AEC) opened in February. Furthermore, more than a hundred teachers attended the sixth assembly of the AEC held last weekend.the sixth assembly of the AEC held last weekend more than a hundred teachers attended.

The judicial process to clarify whether the death of Mango founder, Isak Andic, was an accident or a homicide is advancing. This Monday, the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) confirmed that the judge from Martorell investigating the case has accepted the Public Prosecutor's Office's request to reconstruct the fatal fall, which took place on December 14. The businessman fell during a hike in Montserrat, accompanied only by his son, Jonathan Andic, who is currently the only person under investigation for the case. On the other hand, the magistrate has summoned Jonathan's sisters (and the businessman's daughters), as well as the family's therapist, for questioning, as confirmed by Europa Press.

When you enter the classroom, it's hard to know exactly what level of Catalan is being taught. In less than half an hour, they go from clarifying when a perquè is written together or separately to explaining how to justify that there is a left-hand topicalization in a sentence — when an element of the sentence is moved to appear later and give it more emphasis — as well as deciding whether a verb is copulative or if a sentence is missing the pronoun that refers to the circumstantial complement of place. In fact, the way the session is conducted resembles a review class, were it not for the fact that we are in a classroom on the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) campus and that the person at the blackboard is Aina, a fifth-year degree student.

New movement in the Department of Education. The ministry led by Esther Niubó has signed up the until now first deputy mayor of Rubí, Víctor García Correas, to join the Secretariat for Educational Improvement, as reported by Ràdio Rubí and confirmed by sources from Education to ARA. However, the new signing on Via Augusta has generated controversy and has been criticized by La Intersindical, as last year the person who was also responsible for Education in Rubí made statements against Catalan in a municipal plenary session and apologized shortly after.made statements against Catalan in a municipal plenary session and apologized shortly after.

The controversy surrounding the pilot test to integrate police officers into Catalan schools continues. This morning, the Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, admitted that the plan is in "paralysis", but minutes later, from the same Ministry of the Interior, it was clarified that the words had been "decontextualized" and that the pilot test "continues with the changes that were initially made". However, they did clarify that no new centers will be added "until a clear evaluation of how it has culminated is obtained". In this regard, sources from the Interior point out that the conclusions will be available during the first quarter of 2027. "It will be then when the future of the proof of concept will be decided", they assure.

"I have an average of 9 throughout high school and this has been the worst exam of my life," assured one of the students last week after leaving the exam – which some described as "terrible" – in mathematics of this year's PAU. Next to her, her teacher assured that this year's test "was affordable, but it asked things differently than how it had been done in class" and also said that nerves had to be taken into account. While waiting to see what happens with the grades of this exam, this scene can be an example of how the difference between the average high school grade and that of the general phase of the PAU is further away each year.

Housing problems, saturation of public services, road collapse, closure of local businesses, and a rampant increase in low-skilled and poorly paid jobs. This is the result of the "anything goes" and "only growth and making money matters" mentality behind the exorbitant explosion of tourism in the Balearic Islands, but also in cities like Barcelona or Florence. How to regulate tourism – without giving it up, but also without dying from success – and how to minimize the damage of one of the global industries are the topics addressed by Guillem López Casasnovas, Professor of Economics at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), and Joana Maria Seguí, geographer at the University of the Balearic Islands, at the event From Paid Holidays to Tourismphobia, organized by the newspaper ARA and the Institute of Catalan Studies (IEC) and moderated by the deputy director of ARA, Elena Freixa.

End of the 2026 PAU exams, marked by the coincidence with the Pope's visit to Barcelona and the premiere of new detectors for electronic devices —mobile phones, watches, and smart glasses, etc—. Despite this novelty, the Minister of Research and Universities, Núria Montserrat, assured this Thursday that no electronic "device" has been detected in the random checks carried out throughout the tests.