Poor academic results: Niubó reveals that the basic skills tests have not gone well.

BarcelonaYet another academic year with poor results in the basic skills tests, which determine the academic level of Catalan students. The regional minister of Education and Vocational Training, Esther Niubó, announced this Thursday morning that this year's tests have not gone well either. "We are just finishing the study, but I can say that they will not be the results we would like either," she admitted during a conference at the Europa Forum Tribuna Catalunya.

Thus, according to Niubó, the results—which should be made public at the end of June—will maintain the downward trend in academic standards in recent years and add to the "uninterrupted decline since 2015." However, the minister emphasized that improving educational results is one of the government's main priorities for this term. "What do we do? Well, we should focus on the key subjects, especially language and mathematics, on providing better teacher training, and also on maintaining ongoing training," she explained.

In this regard, Niubó has announced that the department has commissioned the Agency for the Evaluation and Prospective Analysis of Education to conduct an "exhaustive" analysis of all the centers to determine the reality according to different parameters such as complexity, ownership, whether they work with books or not, and what resources they use. "We want to obtain the maximum amount of data and evidence that will allow us to make informed decisions," stated the minister, who clarified that reversing this trend is not a "goal" of the Government but a "need for the country."

"Our education system has been dragging along many pending issues for a long time," Niubó continued. "We need better planning, less improvisation, and a global, long-term view, not focused on the next academic year but ten or fifteen years ahead," she stated. In this regard, the minister also reviewed some key "pending" aspects of the system.

Stabilization of staff

The regional minister admitted that "teaching staff turnover is too high" and pledged "to stabilize and reduce temporary staffing." "We will do this by improving criteria, advancing the allocation of staff so that schools have the equipment sooner, and also reviewing the classification of the complexity of the schools, which is very important for allocating resources," said Niubó, who emphasized the need to avoid making "linear" contributions of resources to all schools, but rather based on the reality and needs of each one.

The regional minister admits that this entire process may entail significant changes in staffing this academic year and next, but in the long run, says Niubó, "there will be a noticeable improvement and a greater sense of belonging."

Screens in classrooms

"We believe we should be able to differentiate between cell phones, for example, and other devices. We need to organize them." With this brief statement, the minister also addressed the debate on new technologies and their use in schools. The government will present a digitalization plan on Friday that will provide more details, and Niubó declined to provide any information in this regard.

The minister, however, did say that the goal is to "organize" everything in this area and summarized that the ultimate goal is for technology to be "at the service" of learning and for it to be used "ethically, responsibly, and healthily."

The deployment of inclusive schools

Niubó has provided some details on plans to continue advancing the rollout of inclusive schools. The regional minister announced that next year, 209 teaching staff and 352 educational support personnel (PAE) will be added to serve students with special educational needs. This increase in resources is part of the government's agreement with the Comunes (Comunary) for the third credit supplement. Furthermore, the department has set the goal of making all special education centers CEEPSIR (Centers for Education and Training)—which are also resource provider centers—to "help" the entire education system.