When the Minister of Education herself describes the PISA blunder as "very serious", when she admits that the problem could have been solved in time, when she reveals that the State warned on seven occasions about the error in the sample, almost everything has been said.Even more so: when the disaster costs the number two of the department her position, a senior official is subjected to disciplinary proceedings for “omissions that constitute carelessness or negligence in the fulfillment of established obligations” and two more proceedings are opened for serious misconduct against two civil servants for a “presumed breach of their obligations and duties as public officials”, it is pertinent to ask what is happening in the Department of Education, because we are not facing errors, but attitudes, attitudes sustained over time, so sustained (seven warnings!) that we join the hypothesis formulated today in our editorial that it was not bad faith. Was it a matter of excluding students from the sample who would probably perform poorly? Was it a matter of protecting the Government from the disrepute of a fall to even lower positions in the European school rankings? Or an attempt to harm it, considering that President Illa focused on the PISA report as soon as he took office as president, when he signed a collaboration agreement with the OECD in January 2025 to improve the skills of Catalan students in four years and redirect the results of the educational system? Well, not only has there been no redirection, but there has been an international failure of our Government, an executive that came to demonstrate good management, opposed to the independence fervor of a whole decade that was considered lost.

The new Secretary General of Education – the number 2 to Minister Esther Niubó – will be Marta Clari i Padrós. As the ARA has learned, Clari will replace Teresa Sambola, who had held the position since the start of the legislature as the minister's right-hand woman. Niubó announced this very Monday that she was replacing Sambola, after explaining the conclusions of the investigation into the errors made in the PISA sample which have invalidated Catalonia's results in the OECD tests.

You had a primary school teacher who, to encourage you and your classmates, told you that anything you had done was wonderful, and congratulated you for working so hard. You and your classmates scribbled and doodled, and he applauded and displayed them.

The writer and secondary school teacher Roc Casagran doesn't have many memories of primary school. He would summarize it as a few years in which he had a good time, played and enjoyed himself with friends, "which is what it was all about," he points out, and learned from his teachers: "I barely remember specific activities, except for mental calculation exercises, which I really liked. The important thing there was speed, they gave us 10 mental calculation problems and you had to answer quickly." It surprises him to remember precisely that, considering that he later leaned towards literature. "You know that adults tend to compartmentalize learning, but I like and liked reading and writing and also calculation; it's not incompatible," he assures. Until the first year of primary school he was enrolled at the Escola Nostra Llar in Sabadell. His parents have spoken to him several times about the teachers he had, wonderful professionals with whom he began the process of learning to read and write. "It's a shame I don't remember them, because I learned a lot from them," he comments. Then he went to Joanot Alisanda School, a school with a huge playground compared to the previous one, and which he took advantage of to play football: "I always stayed for lunch; this meant having more time to play and do our own thing. Playing, sweating, and having a good time." What he remembers most from this stage is when he discovered Paco Ibáñez and poetry in general. "It must have been in third or fourth grade, in Spanish class, when they played a song by Paco Ibáñez, and I loved it," he admits. Just as he is unable to name any teacher who marked him from primary school, from secondary school, at the Institut Pau Vila, also public and also from Sabadell, he already has more memories. Here he has more present the classes of the language teachers in general, and more specifically those of Antoni Dalmases, who is also a writer: "He was one of those who not only spoke to you about language and literature. I really liked the teachers who dedicated time to other topics that were not strictly the subject, they spoke about current events and dropped reflections," he comments. At the time, it seemed to him that perhaps they were not very relevant, but, even so, he was interested in the less academic "content" and especially that they treated him not as a small child, but as an almost adult. Another of the teachers who went beyond the content was the writer and Latin teacher, Antoni Pladevall, with whom they spoke about current events and politics.

With only twelve days left until the start of the school year, and a teacher's strike planned for the first day, September 8th, with little chance of being called off, the majority union USTEC has called for the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, to negotiate with them. "If the minister [Esther] Niubó does not want to or cannot get this negotiation on track, President Illa should take charge," said Iolanda Segura, the union's spokesperson, in a statement this Wednesday. She also warned that subsequent mobilizations will continue as long as there is no political response to their demands.

When Regis Marques arrived at the school he now directs a decade ago, the nickname by which it was known said it all: "It was the Nightmare Park," recalls the Brazilian teacher. "Inside the school there was drugs, a lot of violence, and a degradation that, having been inaugurated in 2013, made no sense. They were robbed once a week and in three years everything had been destroyed," he recalls.

"Until now, it was an option I hadn't considered, but from this experience, I see it as a possibility," admits Andreu López. He is one of the students in the Government's Noves Vocacions program, which offers 2,000 paid internships in the Generalitat administration. The initiative plans to offer 2,000 paid placements to university and vocational training students until 2028, with the aim of incorporating new profiles into the administration in view of the generational change it will have to face in the coming years. According to Government forecasts, more than 24,000 Generalitat employees will reach 65 years of age before December 2030, which is 12% of the workforce.The students who have already participated in the initiative value the experience positively. The experience has served them to discover an option that was often far from their first career choices. This is the case of Andreu Garcia, a political science student at Pompeu Fabra University who did his internship in the Department of European Union and External Action. "We are a very new team, and being able to feel that you are doing useful tasks and that they have a real impact on people is very rewarding," explains the student. Andreu also states that the internship has allowed him to question the negative image that still weighs on public administration. "You still see civil servants as people who are in an office and do nothing, but there is a lot of work and I have been able to confirm the power of public administration," he says.Marina Folch, a graduate in fine arts and conservation of cultural heritage from the University of Barcelona, is undertaking her training internship at the National Archive of Catalonia. She highlights being able to access spaces that are generally not very accessible. "Working in a space like the archive is a privilege, due to all the machinery and products that small workshops do not have," she states, and also remarks on the amount of work there is. "They are not a very large team, which is why all of us students on internships work, and a lot, just like one of them," she says.An extra motivation

One of the elements that differentiates the program is that the internships are paid, a relevant aspect for the interviewees. "In my career, they have been the only paid internships. This, when it comes to working, gives you extra motivation," explains Ivo Vizuete, a microbiology student at the Autonomous University of Barcelona who did his training at the Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food. Ivo explains that, in the scientific sector, "the first option usually considered is the private sector." Nevertheless, the student assures that "he was worried about not having tasks to do," but that "from the first day he was involved, unlike many colleagues who do not enjoy the same experience".A similar situation is explained by Andreu López, a student who has been part of the Artificial Intelligence department. "In a first instance, in the world of AI, internships are focused on private companies," he points out. However, Andreu assures that efforts are being made in the department to incorporate AI and help workers. "The intention is to make the lives of the Generalitat's own civil servants easier, as there are often complaints about the speed of procedures, but they require a lot of time, and they involve work that used to be done by hand, and that we can now automate," adds the young intern.During the 2025-2026 academic year, 462 students enrolled in the program – 400 from university degrees and 62 from Vocational Training (FP) – and the Government plans to reach 2,000 places by 2028. In this regard, the program has a budget of 24.2 million euros over four years and more than a thousand tutors from various sectors to support young people, with the aim of making public administration "an attractive option". Marta Fonseca is an example, who, from the Public Agency for Professional Training and Qualification of Catalonia, tries to "open the gaze of youth" and convey "the vision of being a public servant" as an attractive career path. Fonseca explains that she had also been an intern in public administration, in this case at the Diputació de Barcelona, and that acting as a tutor for the project means "a kind of return to her training" to her.

]]>

The first aphorism that appears in The Wisdom of the Classics (Akiara Books), by Jordi Rincón and Núria Solsona, comes from a verse by the poet Horace: Incipere dimidium est, meaning, “to begin is half the way”. This is what this secondary school teacher thought when he was asked to write a book collecting some of the reflections he teaches in his Latin and Greek classes: thirty thoughts that, many centuries after being formulated, remain valid.

]]>

A new front is opening up for the Catalan education sector. Municipal music schools, with more than 50,000 students throughout Catalonia (15,000 more than 15 years ago) and under the management of city councils (in a system similar to nursery schools), are making yet another cry for help. With a new demand addressed to all parliamentary groups, the Catalan Association of Music Schools (ACEM) is calling on the Generalitat to substantially increase its budgetary allocation "for proper funding".

]]>

At just 28 years old, Marcela was already running a newspaper with almost a hundred collaborators in Colombia. Despite having to deal with threats due to border conflicts – several journalists from the area were killed – and promoting dozens of initiatives to revive her town's community, what finally blocked Marcela was motherhood. After fleeing the country pregnant and accompanied by her partner, she arrived in Catalonia a year and a half ago, and when her son, Fer, was born, she collapsed. "You have 20,000 personal things inside, but then motherhood arrives and it hits you like a slap," she admits.

]]>

Intersindical Valenciana (STEPV) has denounced the budget accompanying law and Article 155, which calls for "ensuring ideological neutrality in educational centers, supervising that teaching activities, curricular materials, and school events remain alien to any kind of indoctrination".

]]>

A video recorded in Brazil, showing parents making their son believe he has worms in his stomach from eating too many sweets, has generated enormous controversy. In the images, the parents show him a fake ultrasound in which a supposed worm appears to be moving inside his stomach. The boy, who still has a sweet in his mouth, ends up crying and promising to stop eating them.

]]>

The leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, has proposed a major political, social, and technical pact for a team of experts to lead the Department of Education for a decade, thus setting aside the partisan struggle and the professional bad blood in which the system has become mired. In the middle of August, the proposal has all the makings of passing without a ripple. The school year will probably start again in September with strikes. And the results of the botched PISA test will be made public. In other words, we will remain stuck in educational defeatism, which is the sure path to failure as a country. Does anyone else have any ideas to break the vicious cycle and enter a virtuous one?

]]>

The president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, has raised in an interview with Europa Press the need for Catalonia to opt for a broad agreement between all political parties of democratic tradition, social and economic agents –management teams, unions and teachers– to overcome the current deadlock in the educational system, evidenced by "the strikes of recent months and the incident that "has prevented Catalonia from participating in the PISA report. According to Junqueras, this pact should be based on a model of shared, stable, and long-term governance (he proposes it be "for 8 or 12 years") with the creation of teams of experts of recognized prestige and trust within the sector, regardless of their political affiliation and of who governs the Generalitat during these terms.

]]>

Talking about sexuality at home is usually, even today, uncomfortable. Not to go any further, I invite you to remember how this topic was dealt with in your families of origin. Often, the answer is: “There was no sex education at home.” But not talking about it also educates. Transmitting to children that it makes us uncomfortable is, in essence, teaching them that sexuality is a taboo. And so, it will be difficult for us to become role models.

]]>

The Ministry of Education warned the technical services of the Ministry of Education more than a year ago that the OECD had detected a higher exemption rate of Catalan students than permitted in the PISA 2025 tests. While the international organization sets that, in the sample of a territory, the percentage of students exempt from taking the test cannot exceed 5%, in Catalonia this rate soared to 23.3%. As reported by La Vanguardia and confirmed by the ministry in a statement, the warning occurred in April 2025, when the tests were already underway – they were held between March 31 and May 16 – and it was the company in charge of managing their application for the OECD that informed the State of the anomalies.

]]>

The Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, is appearing this afternoon in Parliament to explain the Generalitat's incredible failure to organize the PISA tests. As we know, the story could not be more lamentable, no matter how you look at it: the OECD warned in March. No information was given until July, until a Friday at the end of July, to be exact, when they sent a director general to face the music and not the minister, and they describe an error in the sample of students examined, which far exceeds any explainable decimal error, as a specific and technical problem.As we explain today, the alteration of the PISA sample in Catalonia far exceeds that of any country in the latest report. It reminded me of the day when the Generalitat, under the presidency of Pere Aragonès, did not know how to correctly convene a competitive examination. With the difference that this PISA issue is an international embarrassment. And I prefer to believe it was a (serious) fiasco rather than have to think it's a way to circumvent results that will be poor given the problems that have been affecting Education in Catalonia for years. It is enough to remember that we finished the course amidst strikes and we will start it the same way. The problem with Education is in the classrooms, which are a reflection of all of society's problems, in the training of teachers, in the authority of principals, in the tension of an inclusive school that lacks the means to be worthy of the name, in a Catalonia that has been getting poorer, etc. But something is happening in the Department of Education and, by extension, in the Government, when it signs a union pact that inflames the unions, closes an agreement with the OECD to improve teaching, and, one year later, makes a big mistake in the sample for the PISA tests. And in another order of indignation, we have the multitudinous demonstration yesterday in Palma de Mallorca against the excess of tourism that has led the island, like the rest of the Balearic Islands, to collapse. There is no need for many explanations as to why the protest, because in Catalonia we know well what tourist collapse is, which affects ecology, mobility, housing, culture, language, etc. The manifesto of the call has a quite explicit paragraph on the effect of tourism: “It invaded our coasts, then our towns and our cities and is currently occupying our homes. Mallorca cannot fit any more hotels, cannot fit any more coffee franchises, fast food or cheesecakes, and cannot fit any more tourists! Mallorca at its limit! Less tourism, more life!” Such a demonstration is a sign that must be listened to and attended to with urgency. But everything suggests that it will not be so, for now, because the Balearic government and tourist interests are one. The proof is what happened in the end:

]]>

Forceful response from school principals in the face of an error that will make the PISA test results in Catalonia incomparable with other territories or previous years. The association of school principals issued a statement this Saturday in which they blame the error with the tests, warning that it will have a "devastating consequence": "Catalonia loses the possibility of comparing the evolution of its education system with the rest of the world," they warn in the text.

]]>

The crisis in education in Catalonia not only has consequences today. If the degradation continues, the country condemns itself to a future of economic irrelevance and social fracture.

]]>

1. This year, 45,800 Catalan students have taken the selectivity exams. Approximately 96% of these students have passed the exam to access university. Congratulations. Then, newspapers dedicate pages and more pages to publish the cut-off grade of each career, of each faculty. The result is that 6 out of 10 young people in the country have secured a place in their first university option in the July assignment. Or, in other words, there is a 40% of students who will not be able to pursue exactly the career they wanted. In one place or another, all these thousands of enthusiastic young people are starting a four-year journey, at least, that will take them to who knows where. How many walls are full of diplomas of careers with which you will never earn a living?

]]>