Vocational training (VT) classrooms reopened this Friday after the summer break, but they still had some empty seats. The VT registration period ended on September 8. with more than 15,000 vacancies (15,232), a figure that has been reduced over the days and with the arrival of live registration: in three days, 3,000 people have signed up and the number of empty seats has been reduced to 12,000. In August, 14,840 students did not have a placeto the studies they wanted.

The new Vocational Training (VT) law wants to revive a previously very common position in our businesses: the apprentice. The regulations, approved three years ago by the Spanish government and which the autonomous communities have begun to implement this year, increase the number of internship hours students complete in a real work environment and aim to give the entire model a dual character, regardless of their degree. However, this transformation requires much greater involvement from companies, and this is where it has encountered its greatest stumbling block.

The Government pledged not to repeat last year's episode, in which More than 30,000 students started the course without a place in vocational training, And this Wednesday, it will launch an essential measure to achieve this. According to ARA, for the first time, the Education Ministry will publish the cut-off marks for vocational training (FP) degrees.

The crisis in Vocational Education and Training (VET) enrolments at the beginning of this academic year will have finally ended, despite the administration's efforts, with a significant mismatch between demand and supply. On the one hand, 1,323 students will not have a place where they wanted, while there will have been 4,000 vacancies in undersubscribed courses. The two most oversubscribed have been nursing assistant (for obvious reasons: the pandemic) and microcomputer systems and networks, the second most requested in Catalonia. In both cases the job prospects are practically guaranteed, which are of great value given the level of youth unemployment we have: it affects 33.5% of young people aged 16 to 24. On the other hand, there are also courses that are very attractive for young people but have worse job prospects, such as sports technician or DJ. And finally, there are specialties that are in great demand in the market but which incomprehensibly do not find young people who want to train in them, such as electronics, mechanical manufacturing or energy efficiency. These basic distortions, added to a sudden increase in the post-pandemic demand for vocational training, have led to the undesirable situation of leaving young people (and their families) in limbo, with no alternative but to study something for which they have no vocation or to miss a year. The possibility of opting for telematic training through the Institut Obert de Catalunya, as has been offered in exchange, has an obvious limitation in a type of training that is closely linked to experience.

The information on enrolment for Vocational Education and Training (VET) has been made public. After two rounds for students to sign up, up to 1.323 young people have been left without a spot on the course they had applied for. Nevertheless, they could take a different course, as there are still almost 4,000 spots left on courses with lower demand. This data has been given by the Catalan Minister of Education, Josep Gonzàlez-Cambray, in an appearance in Parliament in which he took pride in achieving the commitment he made a fortnight ago: no applicants who signed up in the normal period was "left without a place on a VET course". However, he did not say that this might mean students end up studying something different to what they originally applied for; or that they will study in overcrowded classrooms, thus increasing the risk of drop-outs.

The year has already started for Vocational Education and Training (VET) students, but it is still unknown how many applicants have been left without a spot. Consulted by the ARA, the Education Dpt explains that they are still collecting enrolment data and they expect to have more or less definitive figures next week. It will be the moment to see how many students have not found a place, but also how many have ended up enrolling at the last minute at the Institut Obert de Catalunya (IOC), the emergency solution found by the Catalan Government so that young people who do not enter the two most sought-after degrees can study telematically. For now, the rest are impressions. Thousands of families waited until last Friday to find out if their children had a spot in one of the 6,539 vocational training places that the Government created in an extraordinary way in the face of the very strong increase in registrations, which exceeded all forecasts. Most of the families that the ARA spoke to during the anguished wait have found a place, but this newspaper is aware of several cases of young people who are at home, without studying, because they have no space in any of the institutes they wanted to go to.

The Department for Education will resolve the large increase in demand for Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses by removing caps on numbers at the Open Institute of Catalonia (IOC), which only offers distance education. In a press conference for the beginning of the school year, Minister Josep Gonzàlez-Cambray claimed that this way "no student who wants to study a VET course will be left without a spot". This will allow to offer more places on the two courses which received the most applications: micro-IT systems and networks, and auxiliary nursing. The Department for Education believes about 4.000 students would end up taking one of these distance courses.

The Spanish government wanted to make a statement of intent from the outset with vocational education and training and placed it, for the first time, in the name of the ministry. After the approval of the education law -popularly called the Celaá law-, this Tuesday the council of ministers has approved in second round the Organic Law for the Organisation and Integration of Vocational Education and Training (VET; in Spanish, FP). It is one of the main commitments of the Spanish government, which hopes that the reform will be an educational and, above all, employment boost for thousands of people: on the one hand, the executive wants to increase the number of students who opt for vocational education and training (it is still 12% in Spain, compared to almost 30% in the rest of Europe) and, on the other, to reduce the alarming figures of youth unemployment, which has shot up to 37%. The fact is that it is estimated that half of all new jobs will require technical training such as the one provided by vocational education and training and, as the Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría, has pointed out, the unemployment rate among vocational education and training graduates is six times lower than amongst other young people of their age.

With only a week left to start the course, thousands of young people still do not know whether or not they will be able to study the vocational education and training (VET) course they want. Today, the number of those affected who could be left without a place is not known. The uncertainty is maximum: the avalanche of applications to take lower and upper VET courses left hundreds of applicants without a place and the Government was forced to create new ones urgently. However, during the process there have also been 8,000 resignations. Thus begins a decisive week for the educational, labour and personal future of thousands of young Catalans.

The days of the current selectividad (university entrance exams) are numbered. Whether they will be few or many depends on the department of education and the universities, but for the moment the former seem determined to reform the current university entrance system. "We won't be able to hold out much longer with the current selectividad. The current university entrance exams (PAU) are unsustainable", said the Minister of Education, Josep Bargalló. The bachillerato (A-levels), said Bargalló, is the level of education that has remained most on the fringes of the wave of educational transformation that has shaken the education system in recent years, and this has meant that two entire academic years are conditioned by an exam. "The bachillerato has a corset called PAU", he said, and reviewed the grievances: he said that it is an exam that has "nothing to do with" skills-based work, that is based on "the old memorised study" and that "causes anxiety" to students. Despite the "reticence" that exists, the Education Ministry assures us that we are getting closer and closer to reforming this stage of education.