Online vocational training will have to have an in-person part: this is the decree to curb private beach bars

Barcelona"This project is not against private VET; on the contrary, it will strengthen the quality of private centers". With this statement, the Minister of Education, Milagros Tolón, has presented the draft decree with which the Spanish government wants to put an end to the privatepop-up businesses that have found a business path in the world of vocational training (VET). With the new decree, presented this Monday and which is expected to be approved before the end of the year, Pedro Sánchez's executive seeks to place specific limits and requirements on this type of private training, which in the last decade has grown exponentially, especially in the online modality. For example, in Catalonia, in the 2024-2025 academic year, there were already twice as many students taking a VET degree in the private sector as in the state-subsidized sector.

The new decree plans to require a minimum of in-person attendance in all VET, including online modalities. In this second case, the new rule establishes that there must be between 15% and 39% in-person attendance. Although it has not yet been detailed how, the idea is that for titles that directly enable one to practice a profession, such as nursing assistants, the maximum in-person attendance (39%) should be required, but this will be decided qualification by qualification.

Still in the case of distance learning, a limit of 50 students per teacher is also set, which must be reached, at the latest, by 2030: the forecast is that in the 2028-2029 academic year it will be reduced to 80 students per teacher, in 2029-2030 to 65, and in four years' time to fifty students per teacher.

Regarding company internships – a part of VET in which there has been a trickle of complaints because in some private online degrees they were not guaranteed – all centers that offer VET will have to prove that they have "a sufficient, stable and adequate relationship with companies". This verification will have to be done every four years and, in case of non-compliance, the institute or company will see its authorization as a VET center revoked. If this happens, Minister Tolón has explained that it will be the autonomous communities that will have to establish the mechanisms to relocate the affected students.

Regarding in-person VET degrees, the future decree establishes that there may be a maximum of 25 students per teacher in classrooms. Finally, regarding the semi-presence modality, the new rule marks that between 40% and 60% of its teaching activity must be offered in-person.

70% of students in the private sector are trained online

In Catalonia, according to the latest data for the 2024-2025 academic year, up to 82,000 students were enrolled in a private vocational training degree, while about 21,000 were enrolled in a state-subsidized private center and 119,000 went to a public one. Of those who chose to take a cycle in the private sector, about 59,000 enrolled in non-face-to-face degrees, which implies that 71% of students in the private sector study remotely. In contrast, in the case of the state-subsidized sector, Catalonia does not offer the non-face-to-face modality, and in the public sector, only 13,000 students opted for the non-face-to-face modality (11% of the total).

Regarding the most requested cycles in the online modality in the private sector, in the 2024-2025 academic year, the vast majority of students (30,000 out of 59,000) who opted for this option studied a health-related cycle. Of these, about 10,000 took an intermediate degree in nursing assistant technician and about 8,000 a higher degree in diagnostic imaging and nuclear medicine. In contrast, in the public sector, the most successful distance learning cycles were those related to sociocultural community services and computer science.