Education sends the first "specifications" of minimum learning outcomes two years after PISA

BarcelonaOne 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.

The current Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, He said in September in an interview with ARA that these specifications would arrive during this school year, and finally, this Wednesday night, the Department of Education published the specifications on the Xtec website so that all teachers, but also families, could consult them. For the moment, only the first two documents have been made public, which specify the basic knowledge to be achieved in mathematics and languages for primary and secondary school students.

Although they had been presented as "specifications," the published documents are actually more of a kind of clarification or expansion of the Catalan educational curriculum, since the volume of information is significant. Thus, the specifications are organized by cycles in primary education (initial, intermediate, and higher cycles) and by years in secondary education (from 1st to 4th year of ESO), but then each subject has more than a dozen sections.

In fact, just looking at the elementary math guidelines, you can see that there are 12 major sections, each with three to four subsections. Furthermore, all subjects have suggestions and examples of how to plan the course, taking into account the guidelines established by the Department of Education. These suggestions are divided into courses and also into knowledge blogs and include practical examples for classroom use.

Primary concretions

Among the many proposals for each grade, for example, there are specific ways to teach financial education at each stage of primary school. Thus, in first and second grades—when students are 6 and 7 years old—recognition of the European monetary system with euro coins and bills, their value, and equivalence is taught.

Then, in third and fourth grades, students should learn to apply calculus to estimate quantities and know how to respond to everyday situations, such as returning change from a purchase and understanding what income, expenses, and savings are, as well as knowing how to make decisions to manage money. And finally, in fifth and sixth grades, problem-solving related to responsible consumption (value/price, quality/price) and money (prices, interest, taxes, and sales) should be taught.

Regarding language, there are proposals for teaching the different topics in each grade. For example, if we focus on reading comprehension, instructions are given on how to work on individual and silent reading with fluency, intonation, and rhythm in reading aloud, or the application of comprehension strategies before, during, and after reading, in each course.

ESO Specifics

In secondary school, the specifics are also divided by grade level. In 1st-year ESO mathematics, it is specified that it is necessary to teach aspects such as the different types of numeration used throughout history, the application of operations with natural and integer numbers, the use of operations with decimals and fractions, as well as the interpretation of the results obtained in a given problem and context, among many others.

Among the language recommendations in 1st and 2nd year ESO is the section on reflecting on language, in which students must work on activities such as applying strategies to construct conclusions, practicing the independent use of dictionaries and grammar books, and understanding and analyzing the basic units of a language (sound and system).

New specifics next year

According to the Government, these specifications should serve to "support teachers when planning learning situations in the classroom; and at the same time, facilitate students' improvement of their knowledge." Furthermore, the regional ministry led by Niubó has also assured that the specifications for the remaining subjects that are missing will reach schools and secondary schools during the first quarter of the next academic year.