Education Dpt backs down: "in process of achievement" grade binned and "autonomous management" hours cut
It argues that "it is more informative" to keep saying "not achieved"
BarcelonaThe 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.
When the draft arrived at schools, the change in the name of the grades aroused much criticism and even mockery. Even so, defenders of the measure, including the department itself, claimed that calling the bottom grade "in process of achievement" reinforced the idea that student learning does not end with a grade, but is continuous. The secretary of Educational Transformation, Núria Mora, has defended this Friday that the new name "meant that the student was learning", but they have decided to backtrack and not apply the new nomenclature because "grades have to be understood". "Surely it is more informative to say Not achieved than to say In process of achievement", she argued.
