The Baccalaureate is one of the options for accessing university, two years in which students often feel pressured to achieve the necessary grade to study their desired degree. The access grade is determined by the average of the Baccalaureate grade, which represents 60%, and the university entrance exam grade, the remaining 40%.

The photo is striking. It's the schoolyard where several students are now playing ball and chatting. In the image, however, the soccer field is full of uniformed, stiff-looking men with their hands raised. "I find it very hard to imagine that ours inste "That's how it was," says Roc. "It's shocking," admits Blanca. Both are students at the Jaume Balmes high school, the oldest secondary school in Barcelona. The image the students are discussing is from the inauguration of the school's new—and current—building in 1942, during the Franco dictatorship. This historical period is not unfamiliar to them. contrary to what many statistics say.

The Spanish government on Tuesday approved, in its first reading, the draft bill that reduces class sizes—that is, the maximum number of students per classroom—in schools and high schools. Specifically, the government of Pedro Sánchez plans to set a maximum of 22 students in primary school classes, down from the current 25, and a maximum of 25 students in secondary school (ESO), five fewer than the current 30. These new class sizes will be rolled out gradually across the country in stages: starting with preschool and primary school in the 2027-2028 academic year; the following year, 2028-2029, the change will be consolidated in secondary school; and in 2029-2030 in upper secondary school (Bachillerato), "to achieve full implementation in the 2031-2032 academic year," the government stated in a press release. According to the Ministry of Education, the aim of amending Law 4/2019 on improving the conditions for teaching and learning in non-university education is to correct the inequalities detected between autonomous communities, improve teachers' working conditions, and achieve more individualized attention. After its approval this Tuesday, the Spanish government now expects the future bill to be processed by the Cortes Generales (Spanish Parliament) starting in January or February and is confident of majority support from all political parties, including Junts.

The percentage of students who drop out of school early in Catalonia is four points higher than the European average. These are students who have not completed compulsory secondary education (ESO) or, especially, who after completing it do not continue with any type of post-compulsory education such as upper secondary education (Bachillerato) or vocational training (FP). The proportion of Catalan students who leave school prematurely is 13.7%, while the European average is 9.3%. Although since 2017 Catalonia has reduced the dropout rate by more than three pointsThe rate remains far from the 9% target set by Europe. The Catalan government presented its new Action Plan against Early School Leaving this Friday at an event in Vilafranca del Penedès. Neither President Salvador Illa nor the Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, attended, but the new Secretary for Educational Improvement, Ignasi Giménez, was present. The strategy that the government intends to implement over the coming years has ten key areas, including a project to "reconnect" with students who have already left school, more flexible educational pathways, a focus on newly enrolled students, and a series of actions to create a network among various administrations for monitoring purposes.

A good friend, a teacher, sent me one of the math questions from the basic skills tests. These tests are given in the fourth year of compulsory secondary education to assess whether students have "achieved" the minimum knowledge required for their age. One of the questions begins with this statement: "Mario is 7 years old. On Saturday at 9:00 p.m., his parents detected that he had a fever. Since then, they have taken his temperature several times. The following graph shows the times they did so and the temperature obtained."

The drop in birth rates continues to be felt within the Catalan education system. The most obvious example is that next year in all Catalan schools and institutes there will be 30,956 fewer students, as explained this Friday by the Education Minister, Esther Niubó. The drop in students, added to the need to reduce the educational oversupply to fight against school segregation, will mean that next year Education plans to close 83 I3 and 1st year ESO groups between public and private schools. However, Niubó assured that 98 percent of the groups that are currently open in these two courses will be maintained.

The Education Department has backed down on some of the changes it was proposing in primary and secondary education curricula. After listening to the proposals by the educational community, the Department has finally presented the final proposal and, among the most important new features, the new bottom grade will no longer be renamed "in process of achievement", as had been proposed in the draft, but will remain "not achieved". In addition, "autonomous management", where schools can freely decide what subjects to teach, have been cut from 6 to 4.

From being the the Department of Education's favourite to having no space to teach. Three years ago, the Department of Education announced that it would double the number of all-through schools in Catalonia, a formula that brings together infant, primary and secondary education – as many chartered schools do – with the aim of trying to reduce segregation and absenteeism in secondary education. Most of the new centers were created by adding the first year of secondary education to a primary school, a measure that, as well as the pedagogical reasons, was also "of budgetary efficiency", since it is cheaper to have more groups in a school that already exists than to build one from scratch. Despite the fact that the Catalan Education minister at the time, Josep Bargalló, guaranteed that no prefabricated modules would be used, three years later secondary school students in some centres continue to be housed in temporary modules in the palyground.

The Spanish government has eliminated re-sits in compulsory education, meaning students will no longer take exams in September for exams they failed in June. The Minister for Education and Vocational Training, Pilar Alegría, explained that the new bill reinforces the government's commitment to "continuous assessment" and a "competency-based curriculum", in line with European standards. The new bill will allow students who have failed up to two subjects to move into the next year if the teachers believe it is appropriate.

The school year has started off on the right foot. At least, with certain normality despite the persistence of covid. Nothing to do with the commotion and uncertainty of a year ago. The most important problem has occurred in vocational training (FP), where the demand has skyrocketed and has taken the ministry by surprise and where there is much room for improvement. This is one of the basic problems we are dragging along. But there are more, including school failure. The data made public by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are devastating for Spain, including Catalonia: in Spain as a whole, almost nine out of every 100 secondary school students stay down a year (8.7%). This is the highest rate of the thirty-five OECD countries, where the percentage of students who stay down a year stands at 1.9%. Therefore, in Spain it is four times as high. In baccalaureate a similar thing happens: Spain is also at the top of the ranking in students who stay down a year, with a rate of 7.9%, well above the average of the OECD countries (2.9%). The number of of Neets (people who are not in education, employment or training), after a few years in decline, has also grown again during the pandemic: they already represent 22% of youngsters (in 2019 they were 19.2%).

The new 2021-2022 academic year will bring novelties to Barcelona's secondary school. One of the most important is that the vast majority of schools (93.5%) will recover their school canteen service. As the majority of secondary school students don't get a lunch break -classes finish at around 3 p.m., in time for lunch-, some of them have stopped offering canteen services or offered it only to some students. The service will now be redeployed in all centres to encourage students to stay in the afternoons to do school work or extracurricular activities. This measure, according to the Minister of Education and president of the Consortium of Education, Josep Gonzàlez-Cambray, improves "equal opportunities" for students. "If there is no dining room they do not have access to grants for school meals", he has warned. In fact, the Consortium will also expand this grant, which will go from being two days a week to cover all school days. Until now, only students from the most disadvantaged schools were offered grants for five days a week. In addition to the canteen allowance (€4.43 a day or €6.33 a day, depending on vulnerability), an extra €5 a day will be granted for the assistants for pupils who cannot eat alone.