Esther Niubó: "We need more technical strength in the regional ministry."

BarcelonaThe Minister of Education and Vocational Training, Esther Niubó (Barcelona, 1980), spoke to ARA following the controversy over the allocation of places for the next academic year, with a teaching community that did not hesitate to express its displeasure.

He came here a few months ago, at the beginning of the term, and said he wanted to restore the trust and prestige of the education system. After what's happened these past few days, have we gone backwards?

— More than ever, I reaffirm that objective. And, certainly, this incident with the awarding of positions has not contributed to either prestige or trust. Within the department, we must strengthen the technical robustness and security of these processes that affect so many people. And above all, we must be able to implement much more time-bound planning so that by the end of June we can have the awarding of teaching staff and provide much greater peace of mind and certainty to school administrations, who must be able to prepare for the course with more time. And we must provide stability to the workforce, to all teachers, ensuring continuity in their jobs and a strong connection to the region, to a school's educational project; this will also contribute to the quality of the education system. It's a key component: we need to improve planning to improve the quality of the education system and, in turn, improve trust.

You're conducting an investigation into what happened specifically. What should come out of it?

— This isn't a trial. There's an open investigation file that could lead to disciplinary proceedings, but ultimately we're talking about a person who also has political responsibility. It's true that he's a public official, but he's someone who makes decisions. There was a dismissal due to a lack of trust. Once we learned of this serious incident, we did what we had to: repeat the process with all the necessary safeguards. In three days, a record time. The investigation file should also serve to implement measures to ensure this doesn't happen again.

Behind what happened, it seems that public school administrations need to consolidate staff, as constant changes are a problem. Has the school administration's option to strengthen staff been put on hold?

— This remains the case. The problem is that the objective that had been agreed upon, not only with the union committee—we had also communicated it to the management of all the territorial services—was to move forward with staff stabilization. First, they must select civil servants and then temporary staff, but from there, specific profiles were allowed to be maintained; for example, those focused on diversity, foreign language skills, or providing some added value to an educational project. Therefore, along with regular positions, profiles that enrich a specific project are important. And, indeed, private or state-subsidized education has greater room for maneuver. Public education must also have a system to maintain this diversity, this enrichment of the different positions that end up contributing to a teaching staff. The ultimate goal is to be able to stabilize these teaching staffs, to further consolidate the connection between the different teachers, whether civil servants or temporary staff, and to maintain their roots in the region. It doesn't suit us that there is so much teacher turnover every year. This way, the projects aren't consolidated.

Are you aware that this has been talked about for a long time?

— I've been in the regional ministry for 11 months. However, there has certainly been a stabilization process in recent years: the priority of the Directorate General for Teaching Staff has been to organize this core of civil servants to address workforce stability and move toward consolidating educational projects. This is what we want to do in the coming years. Next year, we will do this through, for example, the announcement of new competitive examinations—we plan to do this for March—so that by June we'll have the awards made and the directorates have greater planning capacity.

Instead, they've withdrawn the stable pool of substitutes for...

— It was a pilot proposal launched this school year. The goal was to try to make it easier to cover teacher absences, but it hasn't yielded the expected results: the most difficult absences to cover weren't filled, and in the end, more than 60% of teachers didn't move from a single school. Therefore, it hasn't been useful or efficient. This coming school year, we will switch to a daily appointment system so that schools are on leave for as little time as possible.

How do you plan to reverse the general climate of pessimism in education, which affects teachers and families?

— Certainly, there may be an atmosphere of pessimism and tension, but it's not widespread. The social reality is reflected in schools, which aren't bubbles; they aren't isolated from society, which is becoming increasingly complex. The relationship between teachers and schools and families may also have become more complicated; there's much more demand, which has a positive component. But it's complicated. The job of a teacher isn't easy. That said, I think we must focus on the students, on learning. If we all do this, we'll get ahead. In Catalonia, it already happened in the 1980s or 2000s, when very important work was done on integration, on improving equity and the quality of education. We'll do it again, I'm sure.

The problem is that many teachers are burned out; fatalism prevails. What would you say to them for the upcoming school year?

— I tell them: hope, confidence, and determination. They're doing a great job. Sometimes there's this catastrophic rhetoric, but we have excellent educational projects, excellent professionals. And it's true that we can't sustain everything solely on goodwill and volunteerism. Therefore, we must transform this into professionalization. The system can't be sustained solely by highly involved, highly committed people, who are very good and fantastic, and we should be very grateful for their work. We need technical strength, especially from the department, which must be able to support this entire process, and therefore, we must move toward a certain professionalization of all of this. Of course, the teachers already are, right? But there must be systems that allow us to free ourselves from perhaps more administrative, more bureaucratic, more managerial work...

This is another complaint from teachers: excessive bureaucracy.

— Indeed. From the regional and central services of the regional ministry, we must free schools from this type of work. We've taken this seriously. We have a dedicated person focused on reducing bureaucracy in schools so teachers can focus on their teaching tasks.

Intensive workday or split workday? You were in favor of the latter.

— What we haven't done is go backwards. I say this because there's also some pressure to have compacted schedules in preschool and primary school. This can't happen under any circumstances. This coming school year will be when we can lay a little more groundwork: talk about planning, schedules, schedules. These are elements we must be able to assess.

So you want to move towards split-day schooling in secondary school.

— I don't want to go backwards under any circumstances. It would be very detrimental to equity and the quality of education in primary school. In secondary school, for example, we have the school-institute model, which provides continuity between primary and secondary school. In these cases, we don't always have compacted school days. From there, we can work in many ways. Now, for example, thanks to an agreement on the third credit supplement with the Comuns parliamentary group, we have worked on reinforcement programs and restoring secondary school cafeterias in certain schools in areas with difficult equality. Not everything is about extending the school day; learning reinforcement can be provided outside of school hours, but free of charge.

Another topic that generates a lot of noise is the methodological debate, which is sometimes simplified and distorted by a false clash between skills and knowledge. It creates a lot of confusion. What would you say to families? And what would you say to centers?

— First, we must ensure—and I think schools are doing this—methodological consistency. If we are teaching reading in a certain way in the first grade, we must maintain this methodology in the second grade. From there, there are no good or bad methodologies. What remains to be seen is which one best fits a given context. There may have been ways. In other words, we are not against innovation, far from it, but we must always be clear that the goal is not innovation for innovation's sake, but rather innovation to improve student learning. The problem arises when, at times, a teacher may have felt that a method was being imposed on them without being convinced. And at the same time, we must be able to preserve the autonomy of schools and guarantee competencies and knowledge. In this sense, the role of educational inspectors is also important. With the new master plan, for the first time, inspectors are tasked with focusing on competencies.

The results are not quite right: neither in basic skills nor in the PISA tests.

— Since 2015, we've seen a steady decline in results. This year, in the end-of-year tests, it's true—and I say this to highlight the positive—that language proficiency has improved. But, certainly, in science and mathematics, we're still in a situation that needs strengthening. The framework for improving mathematical and linguistic proficiency, with 30 budgeted measures for the next four years, is moving in that direction. If we can guarantee these skills—reading skills, mathematical language, and computer language—students will have a much more solid foundation.

Does the mobile phone ban serve this purpose?

— It's the restriction on its use in the classroom. Neither in preschool, primary, nor secondary school does it make much sense to work with a mobile phone; we can do it with other digital tools: computers, tablets... In fact, we excel in digital competence, both at the Spanish and international levels. We will not back down on this, on the responsible digitalization of learning services. However, we cannot pretend that there are no effects on health and emotional well-being. Next year, we will produce a guide for families, because in early childhood, we see an overuse of screens, which do have an educational effect, leading to less oral skills and less vocabulary.

What will come out of the agreement with the OECD?

— We've done very well starting to work with the OECD. We've been able to reactivate the Evaluation and Foresight Agency. We have centers with equivalent resources and similar staffing levels that don't function equally well. What are the pedagogical and organizational elements that make the difference? In 2025, there will be a first diagnostic report from the OECD. And in 2026, we'll have the first measures and recommendations to begin implementing a two-year plan.

In the results crisis (PISA, basic skills), is inequality very significant? Do high-complexity schools significantly lower scores?

— No. Obviously, we must work to ensure equity; this is a fundamental objective. And we must aspire to excellence, an excellence that is not elitist. And, in fact, we have highly complex centers with above-average results and others that, in a more standard situation, sometimes fall short of the desirable level. The Evaluation and Foresight Agency is important in monitoring what's happening. Often, the key is a committed faculty that is clear about the objectives and all working in the same direction: this is fundamental.

How to incentivize good work. Can teachers in highly complex schools be paid more?

— We must be able to incentivize them, especially to ensure the stability of the teams is not disrupted. There can't be centers that start from scratch every year.and, with almost new equipment. This is very complicated. We need incentives for teaching careers: we can't treat people who have been in the education system for two or three years the same as those who have been there for twenty-five.

Are there enough reception classrooms?

— There's a very significant increase in student arrivals during the school year: the "live enrollment" program. This year, we've seen a significant increase in the number of reception classrooms. We had 1,500, of which 1,200 will continue. And depending on the number of students arriving, we'll open more throughout the school year. They're essential: language is an element of structure, of cohesion, and if they falter, the rest of the learning process won't be achieved. We've also begun to create accelerated reception classrooms, and not only in Barcelona.

Regarding language, how will the Constitutional Court's position on the 25% Spanish language be addressed?

— We are fully confident that the 2022 law, which was the subject of a significant consensus-building effort, will be validated by the Constitutional Court. It would strengthen and guarantee the linguistic regime of the Catalan education system. The idea of linear percentages doesn't make much sense; we need to know the social composition of each place and the competency results.

What if the ruling is negative?

— Fortunately, we have a language pact that clearly states that, in a difficult time, if for whatever reason the foundations of our linguistic and social model were to be shaken, there will obviously have to be a national response.

Another delicate issue: sixth hour. Will it be reinstated in public schools?

— This is closely related to the issue of school hours. An extra hour of school hours everywhere doesn't improve quality or equity. We want to move toward progressive equality between public and private schools, which means eventually talking about funding, staffing, and school hours.

Talk to the unions?

— With everyone.

How is vocational training working with the new system?

— No one will go on vacation until we have the vocational training places assigned by the end of this month. We have created 7,500 additional public vocational training places for the next academic year. There will be more public offerings than ever, and we have modified the pre-registration process, which is working well. We have made it simpler: it is the potential student who confirms or rejects the place they have been awarded.

How can there be more subsidized places than private ones?

— This is an issue that must concern us. We must be able to regulate all aspects of vocational training. This increase in public offerings is already a step forward. We have also emphasized the importance of new opportunity centers and schools, which are essential in the fight against early school dropout rates, the reduction of which is also one of our key goals.

Are there not enough companies for dual vocational training?

— We want to involve 10% of companies across Catalonia... Right now, we're four points short. And of those we have, 70% are SMEs.

We have, once again, destroyed the prestige and cohesion of the educational community.

— This is the main objective we're working toward. I would like to return to the ARA at the end of this term having reversed this negative trend in results, which in the end is a snapshot, fair or unfair, but it's the snapshot that people, society, have. I'm convinced that in this way we would improve the pride in the teaching profession. There are many teachers who are surely very tired, somewhat disappointed, sometimes somewhat frustrated because they're not achieving the goals they want. Therefore, we must do everything in our power, from the Government and, of course, from the Department of Education, so that they can focus on that and not on these tasks that are not theirs.

We have gone from fighting school dropouts to witnessing teacher abandonment.

— It's a reality we share with neighboring countries. There's a certain crisis in the teaching profession because the reality is very complex. The profession needs to regain its pride and prestige, and society needs to trust this country's education system. To achieve this, we simply need to focus where it may have been lacking: by reinforcing learning, ensuring students learn under the best conditions, with a solid foundation in mathematics and reading comprehension.