"We need the curriculum to tell teachers how to detect if a student will have reading problems." This warning from school principal Francesc Martín, which may seem obvious, is one of the main obstacles to improving reading comprehension results in Catalonia. This is the conclusion of the study. Reading comprehension: the pending subject, presented this Monday by the Bofill Foundation.

The regional minister for Education, Esther Niubó, had already warned that the results of this year's basic skills tests – now known as end-of-year assessments – would not be entirely good, and so it has been: the math level of 6th grade primary school students is the lowest in the history of the basic skills tests, which began to be held in 2010. This year, the average math grade of 6th grade students was a mere pass (70.4 points, when it is considered that to reach competence one must reach at least 70), the drop of almost four points compared to last year's results has meant that the math level of students who have finished school this year and are now starting. Similarly, in 6th grade, the level in science, technology and engineering is also very worrying, the only skill where the average has failed after falling from 74.3 points last year to 66.3 this year.

New measures announced to try to improve the math and language skills of Catalan students. After noting a "significant drop in the results of Catalan students in linguistic and mathematical competence," in the words of the Government itself, this Thursday the Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, presented the Framework for the Improvement of Language and Mathematics. The plan that Niubó explained from the Pau Casals School in Sabadell is a compilation of all the measures that have already been implemented in recent government courses, added to new actions that must be implemented in the coming months. All of this will have a budget of 129.3 million euros for the period 2025-2028 with the aim of "students leaving behind this very dark period in educational results," in the words of the Minister of Education, of actions to improve evaluation or make it more precise. "If we don't fully understand what's happening, we can't know how to act. The measures taken must be based on robust information," Niubó argued. That's why the Government intends to conduct a "more surgical" assessment, focusing on strengthening the inspections of schools and institutes, so that school administrators and inspectors from the Territorial Services can identify the weak points in the education system. "It's true that many operate on their own, but perhaps some need more tutoring," Niubó acknowledged. This reinforcement will be implemented in a pilot phase next academic year, 2025-2026, and the intention is to extend it for four years. However, at this point, the plan does not foresee hiring new inspectors. Educational inequalities. In this sense, the Education Ministry wants to reorient the training provided in the Educational Environment Plans of each municipality to offer free math and language reinforcement for vulnerable students, and robotics workshops.

This Monday begins one of the most decisive weeks for the Catalan education system. Although for students, basic skills tests are just another exam—in fact, the Catalan government makes it clear that these tests do not affect a student's final assessment or determine whether or not they pass a particular educational stage—when it comes down to it, they are the main indicator of how effective the measures applied in Catalan schools are.

One of the first measures that the then Education Minister Anna Simó announced after the Catalan disaster in the PISA tests It was a seemingly simple action: specifying the minimum learning levels that Catalan students should achieve at each educational level. Despite the apparent simplicity of the measure—and the surprise at the necessity of it—in reality, these specifications have taken two years to reach the schools and institutes of Catalonia.