The Balearic government is the first regional authority in Spain to lodge a challenge to the implementation of provisions under Madrid's law for the improvement of the quality of education (Lomce). Specifically for aspects as they apply at secondary and Baccalaureate levels, the regional education minister, Martí March, has described the curriculum as "highly elitist, segregating and taking us back to Franco's times".
One of the main objections that March has is to the introduction of external testing. While not opposed to tests as such, he fears that they will undermine and marginalise a greater emphasis on continuous assessment and thus be sole determinants of a pupil's progress. He isn't the only education minister to query the use of testing. For example in Castile and Leon, where the government is run by the Partido Popular, its minister has voiced concerns.
March believes that Lomce and its tests do not answer the needs of current-day society, and he may well be right in believing this, but the problem he has is in convincing society in the Balearics that he has a better solution to the problems that exist in the islands' system of public education. If he has, he might begin by establishing what the "needs" actually are.
Education, fundamental though it is, is an issue which is usually too dry to attract a great deal of public attention. Debates over curriculum can seem too removed. When educational affairs become more explosive, as happened with the trilingual teaching rumpus and the subsequent teachers' strike, they come firmly into the public domain. Otherwise, parents and society in general issue a collective sigh that expresses their ennui with the issue and with politicians endlessly kicking it around.
So even when March alludes to "needs", a constant enough word in any politician's lexicon, the reaction is firmly in neutral. No one much listens because no one is much interested. What might these needs be? Good education? Better education? As a teacher might request - define and discuss. And more to the point, seek to quantify. Increased percentages for this or that. Defined higher numbers going to university. Defined lower numbers dropping out. Defined higher numbers attaining higher scores in languages, maths and science. Target-setting, in other words, and performance measures - pupils, teachers and schools - plus testing. Where have we heard all that before?
People should of course listen and should of course be interested, and not only parents. And of these parents, in Mallorca there are significant numbers who are foreign. Not all can afford private schooling, so the kids go to the public schools and into a public education system that has constantly underperformed. It does perform in other regions of Spain, but the Balearics is one of the worst.
Might there be mitigating circumstances for the repeatedly low attainment in core skills and subjects, and might one of them be the foreign pupil quotient? The Balearics as a whole has the highest foreign population percentage among all the Spanish regions. It also has the highest percentage of foreign pupils, albeit this is not evenly distributed. According to data for 2012, foreign pupils accounted for 11.9% of the primary school population but 18.7% at secondary level, which is where international comparisons are made that indicate the underperformance in key areas.
But what these figures don't reveal is how many of these pupils are Spanish (and/or Catalan) speakers or the age at which they entered the local education system. (The greatest numbers of foreign pupils across the country are of Moroccan and Romanian origin.) Intuitively one has to accept that the age of entrance and native language may prove disadvantageous (and that almost seven per cent difference between primary and secondary might be considered to be very revealing). However, even allowing for this there is now information from the Balearic government itself which reveals failings in key areas, one of them being language.
The government's own institute for education system quality assessment reports that four out of ten 13-year-olds fail to reach required levels in both Catalan and Castellano. Moreover, this situation has been getting worse. For maths, the figure climbs to almost 60%. Such underachievement cannot possibly be explained by a foreign-pupil population.
The inabilities when it comes to the two official languages should be very concerning for March and his ministry. In other regions with two languages, such as the Basque Country where educational performance is vastly superior, there aren't weaknesses.
It might be tempting to consider government policies on language and the way they change to be at the heart of Balearic underperformance, but even these cannot provide a full explanation. The question, therefore, is what does. March can attack Lomce and may be right in doing so, but that, as was also the case with the trilingual teaching row, shouldn't divert attention from an underlying malaise, its identification and remedy. Those are the needs.
Showing posts with label Schools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Schools. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Thursday, January 07, 2016
Blasphemy That Dares Speak Its Name
In November 1976, her crusading zeal and indignation never greater, Mary Whitehouse announced her intention to bring a private prosecution because of a poem that had been published five months earlier. It was to become one of Britain's cause célèbre moral trials, of which those for D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and "Schoolkids Oz" had been earlier ones. But what distinguished this particular trial from others were the theme of homosexuality and the blurring of blasphemy and obscenity.
James Kirkup's "The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name" alluded to having sex with Jesus. It appeared in "Gay News" in June 1976. Five months later, having been shown the poem, Mary Whitehouse was on the case and on a trail that led to the trial at which the publishers were found guilty of blasphemous libel. A suspended sentence given to Denis Lemon was subsequently quashed, but it would be 31 years before blasphemous libel was struck from the list of common law offences.
Come forward almost 40 years since that trial and to a different place - Mallorca - there is great indignation at something which, in a multimedia incarnation of contemporary times, bears similarities with Whitehouse v. Gay News Ltd, with a touch of "Schoolkids Oz" thrown into the mix.
A 17-year-old male pupil at the Josep Maria Llompart school in Palma produced a video as part of his Baccalaureate art studies. He was awarded an "outstanding" mark of nine out of ten, which might have been the end of the matter, had the boy not posted it to his Twitter account, with the video on YouTube. Even in restricted viewing mode, it didn't prevent (one assumes) viewing by those with a Whitehousian flair for rooting out all things un-Christian and/or obscene.
Without going into detail, the video starts with taking a call from God and continues with a mixture of queerdom, swear words and references to sexual acts involving Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Perhaps only in this latter regard might it be said to fundamentally differ to the infamous poem from 1976.
To the fore in the outrage this has caused have been the moral custodians of the Balearic Institute of Family Policy and HazteOir, both of whom might have been expected to have made their objections clear, the latter having started a petition for which some 18,000 signatures have thus far been received. The aim of the petition is to call on the education ministry to act against religious hatred. The Association of Christian Lawyers is also up in arms, preparing a case against the teacher for offences against religious freedoms under Article 525 of the Penal Code and further offences of the corruption of minors and pornography. Its president says that the boy who made the video is a victim.
To their number have been added the voices of the Partido Popular's parliamentary spokesperson, Marga Prohens, and the Ciudadanos parliamentary deputy, Olga Ballester. They have both made similar observations regarding lack of respect of religious believers and for the gay community (there is an interpretation that the video satirises gay stereotypes).
As of the time of writing, the education ministry has had nothing to say on the matter, but it presumably will have to make some statement and not have to wait until parliament sits and questions are demanded of the minister, Martí March. Meantime, the dogs of the media have got the story firmly by the throat and are savaging it for all their worth, making it perhaps ever more imperative that the ministry steps in and at least offers its views.
I make no particular judgement on the affair, not least because it might end up in court, but it does perhaps offer an insight into tensions for a society that has increasingly been losing its religion in a manner not dissimilar to the way in which 1970s Britain had and is thus presented with a case that bears uncanny similarities to a combination of two celebrated trials - Oz and Gay News - which encapsulated much of what Mary Whitehouse deemed the devil of the permissive society.
Is this, therefore, an example of Mallorca playing catch-up? It's stretching things to draw such a conclusion, but what one also has is the tension that religious affairs cause at a political level. Administrations, many of them, might currently be characterised as being anti-religious, or at least indifferent. It's a very different example, but Palma's decision to exclude the mass from its Sant Sebastià fiestas programme can strike one as more than just the assertion of the fiestas being a "lay" occasion. Any response from the ministry, therefore, might be seen within this current context of dominant political ideology.
Meanwhile, there is probably a lesson. If you're going to get top marks for a video with arguably blasphemous content, don't put it up on Twitter. It doesn't take five months now.
James Kirkup's "The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name" alluded to having sex with Jesus. It appeared in "Gay News" in June 1976. Five months later, having been shown the poem, Mary Whitehouse was on the case and on a trail that led to the trial at which the publishers were found guilty of blasphemous libel. A suspended sentence given to Denis Lemon was subsequently quashed, but it would be 31 years before blasphemous libel was struck from the list of common law offences.
Come forward almost 40 years since that trial and to a different place - Mallorca - there is great indignation at something which, in a multimedia incarnation of contemporary times, bears similarities with Whitehouse v. Gay News Ltd, with a touch of "Schoolkids Oz" thrown into the mix.
A 17-year-old male pupil at the Josep Maria Llompart school in Palma produced a video as part of his Baccalaureate art studies. He was awarded an "outstanding" mark of nine out of ten, which might have been the end of the matter, had the boy not posted it to his Twitter account, with the video on YouTube. Even in restricted viewing mode, it didn't prevent (one assumes) viewing by those with a Whitehousian flair for rooting out all things un-Christian and/or obscene.
Without going into detail, the video starts with taking a call from God and continues with a mixture of queerdom, swear words and references to sexual acts involving Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Perhaps only in this latter regard might it be said to fundamentally differ to the infamous poem from 1976.
To the fore in the outrage this has caused have been the moral custodians of the Balearic Institute of Family Policy and HazteOir, both of whom might have been expected to have made their objections clear, the latter having started a petition for which some 18,000 signatures have thus far been received. The aim of the petition is to call on the education ministry to act against religious hatred. The Association of Christian Lawyers is also up in arms, preparing a case against the teacher for offences against religious freedoms under Article 525 of the Penal Code and further offences of the corruption of minors and pornography. Its president says that the boy who made the video is a victim.
To their number have been added the voices of the Partido Popular's parliamentary spokesperson, Marga Prohens, and the Ciudadanos parliamentary deputy, Olga Ballester. They have both made similar observations regarding lack of respect of religious believers and for the gay community (there is an interpretation that the video satirises gay stereotypes).
As of the time of writing, the education ministry has had nothing to say on the matter, but it presumably will have to make some statement and not have to wait until parliament sits and questions are demanded of the minister, Martí March. Meantime, the dogs of the media have got the story firmly by the throat and are savaging it for all their worth, making it perhaps ever more imperative that the ministry steps in and at least offers its views.
I make no particular judgement on the affair, not least because it might end up in court, but it does perhaps offer an insight into tensions for a society that has increasingly been losing its religion in a manner not dissimilar to the way in which 1970s Britain had and is thus presented with a case that bears uncanny similarities to a combination of two celebrated trials - Oz and Gay News - which encapsulated much of what Mary Whitehouse deemed the devil of the permissive society.
Is this, therefore, an example of Mallorca playing catch-up? It's stretching things to draw such a conclusion, but what one also has is the tension that religious affairs cause at a political level. Administrations, many of them, might currently be characterised as being anti-religious, or at least indifferent. It's a very different example, but Palma's decision to exclude the mass from its Sant Sebastià fiestas programme can strike one as more than just the assertion of the fiestas being a "lay" occasion. Any response from the ministry, therefore, might be seen within this current context of dominant political ideology.
Meanwhile, there is probably a lesson. If you're going to get top marks for a video with arguably blasphemous content, don't put it up on Twitter. It doesn't take five months now.
Saturday, September 07, 2013
Another Fine Mess: Balearics' trilingualism
The Balearics High Court did indeed move swiftly in responding to the call from unions to suspend the introduction of TIL ("tratamiento integrado de lenguas") and so prevent it from being applied from the start of the new school year. The court agreed with the unions, who had argued that the Balearic Government had not consulted in the way that it should have done in finalising the legislation that enacted the implementation of TIL (trilingualism) in June this year. The court considered that the appendix to the bill which set out the schedule for implementation amounted to a "fraud" in that relevant educational bodies were not involved in the scheduling decision.
The court's decision was made around midday yesterday. By late afternoon, the government announced that an extraordinary meeting of the government's council had ratified an amendment which annulled the offending appendix. The minister for education, Joana Maria Camps, explained that the problem had all been one of a procedural error but that it was one which had no political consequences as it was the type of slip-up any government administration could make.
Yes, she really did say this. Now, having realised that there had been a cock-up and having been told that there had been by the high court, the government has merely removed the appendix from the bill, said that consultation didn't matter anyway and that, as the court had only said that the scheduling was wrong, will still go full speed ahead with implementation minus any scheduling apart from that which will involve TIL being brought in at the start of the school year. The court did not consider that the principle of TIL was at fault, just the procedure.
If you are lost by the legal logic of all this, then you are not the only one. But regardless of this logic or absence of logic, the children of the Balearics will, as from 13 September (and then 16 September, which is when the school year really gets underway) be taught in three languages - Catalan, Castellano and English; those children to whom TIL applies, as it doesn't apply at all levels.
Whether this teaching does in fact start on time will depend on the unions, of which there is more than one, in addition to the assembly of teachers on the Balearics. It overwhelmingly called for strike action against the introduction of TIL. There has been some union movement to hold back on strikes because of a question raised as to its legality (a question mainly asked by the right-wing Balearics Institute for Family Policy), but this in itself has raised accusations that the government is acting in a "dictatorial" fashion in applying legal interpretations that wouldn't normally be applied to the notification of strike action.
One of the unions, STEI-i, believes that there has been "dictatorial" behaviour by the government in the way in which it has circumvented the High Court's decision, and all unions and the opposition PSOE party are in agreement that the government has acted in a unilateral fashion in not having come out and engaged in a full and proper debate over the past few months.
PSOE has called for all the leading politicians at the education ministry to resign or to be dismissed, which of course won't happen, and for President Bauzá to come and front up in public about the whole affair. Not untypically for political leaders in Spain (think Rajoy for example), Bauzá just melts into the background when the heat is on. Instead, he leaves the spin and the explanations to the unfortunate Joana María Camps; unfortunate because she is clearly out of her depth. It should be remembered that she only became education minister a few months ago when the previous minister, Rafael Bosch, lost his job in a cabinet re-shuffle. Bosch lost his job because he was not a fanatical proponent of linguistic policy that might undermine Catalan (and the fuss about TIL has less to do with English being brought in than with Catalan being downgraded). Camps was parachuted in because she would do she was told, even if she has little idea what she is doing.
The chances are that the new school year will witness total chaos and that the chaos will last. Who in all of this is most to blame? Both government and teachers. The government because of its mismanagement of its own policy and the teachers, who are just too obstinate to accept a system which might actually be of educational value.
It is a total mess, and the underperforming public education system in the Balearics is about to become more underperforming. It can't be anything else if the teachers are on strike.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The court's decision was made around midday yesterday. By late afternoon, the government announced that an extraordinary meeting of the government's council had ratified an amendment which annulled the offending appendix. The minister for education, Joana Maria Camps, explained that the problem had all been one of a procedural error but that it was one which had no political consequences as it was the type of slip-up any government administration could make.
Yes, she really did say this. Now, having realised that there had been a cock-up and having been told that there had been by the high court, the government has merely removed the appendix from the bill, said that consultation didn't matter anyway and that, as the court had only said that the scheduling was wrong, will still go full speed ahead with implementation minus any scheduling apart from that which will involve TIL being brought in at the start of the school year. The court did not consider that the principle of TIL was at fault, just the procedure.
If you are lost by the legal logic of all this, then you are not the only one. But regardless of this logic or absence of logic, the children of the Balearics will, as from 13 September (and then 16 September, which is when the school year really gets underway) be taught in three languages - Catalan, Castellano and English; those children to whom TIL applies, as it doesn't apply at all levels.
Whether this teaching does in fact start on time will depend on the unions, of which there is more than one, in addition to the assembly of teachers on the Balearics. It overwhelmingly called for strike action against the introduction of TIL. There has been some union movement to hold back on strikes because of a question raised as to its legality (a question mainly asked by the right-wing Balearics Institute for Family Policy), but this in itself has raised accusations that the government is acting in a "dictatorial" fashion in applying legal interpretations that wouldn't normally be applied to the notification of strike action.
One of the unions, STEI-i, believes that there has been "dictatorial" behaviour by the government in the way in which it has circumvented the High Court's decision, and all unions and the opposition PSOE party are in agreement that the government has acted in a unilateral fashion in not having come out and engaged in a full and proper debate over the past few months.
PSOE has called for all the leading politicians at the education ministry to resign or to be dismissed, which of course won't happen, and for President Bauzá to come and front up in public about the whole affair. Not untypically for political leaders in Spain (think Rajoy for example), Bauzá just melts into the background when the heat is on. Instead, he leaves the spin and the explanations to the unfortunate Joana María Camps; unfortunate because she is clearly out of her depth. It should be remembered that she only became education minister a few months ago when the previous minister, Rafael Bosch, lost his job in a cabinet re-shuffle. Bosch lost his job because he was not a fanatical proponent of linguistic policy that might undermine Catalan (and the fuss about TIL has less to do with English being brought in than with Catalan being downgraded). Camps was parachuted in because she would do she was told, even if she has little idea what she is doing.
The chances are that the new school year will witness total chaos and that the chaos will last. Who in all of this is most to blame? Both government and teachers. The government because of its mismanagement of its own policy and the teachers, who are just too obstinate to accept a system which might actually be of educational value.
It is a total mess, and the underperforming public education system in the Balearics is about to become more underperforming. It can't be anything else if the teachers are on strike.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Failing Education In Mallorca
The schools have gone back and the arguments have already started. The great defender of Castellano, the Círculo Balear, has received complaints from parents whose children are not being taught in Castellano and has indicated that education minister Rafael Bosch should resign. In most schools (infant and primary, to which the new interpretation of "free selection" of teaching language applies), it would seem that there is no separation and that Catalan prevails.
The schools themselves say that they have had a lack of guidance from the regional government as to how they are meant to proceed with what are extremely low numbers of pupils whose parents wish them to be taught in Castellano. Three out of 400 at a school in Andratx, three out of 206 at a Calvià school, six out of 410 in Binissalem; these are apparently typical.
The numbers are unsurprising as there had been plenty of advance warning that parents would overwhelmingly wish to stick with Catalan. The government, however, appears to have been ill-prepared in knowing how to accommodate these very small numbers. The Círculo Balear may be making a meal of the issue but the government had put free selection at the centre of its education policy. It has fallen flat on its face.
State education in Mallorca is in a mess. The free selection issue is in truth something of a diversion from the greater issue of standards and performance. To the annual reports from PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), which repeatedly highlight under-performance in the Balearics (and quite serious under-performance at that), can be added data from the European Commission. Its report into educational inequality makes for alarming reading. It confirms what the PISA reports have shown, that there is a huge regional difference within Spain when it comes to educational standards, but it goes further in showing where regions across the EU stand relative to others.
The Commission has set out all manner of indicators. Let's take one of them, the percentage of the population in upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education (ages 15 to 24). Which region of Europe has the lowest percentage? The same region that is ranked eighth worst in Europe's regions in terms of attainment aged 15 or more. The Balearics. And bear in mind this is a comparison of 265 regions in 21 countries (six member states are excluded for statistical purposes, e.g. Malta and Luxembourg).
These findings are such that politicians should be hanging their heads in shame, and not of course just those in the current government. If it were a case of being able to explain them away on a disadvantaged populace, then one could have some sympathy, but there is no case for this. The Balearics are among the wealthiest regions of Spain in terms of GDP per head of population, rubbing shoulders with high educational performers such as the Basques.
And any sympathy at all goes totally out the window, when a leading politician comes out with a statement of embarrassing fatuousness as that uttered by President Bauzá. Responding to complaints about increased class sizes and so therefore a greater ratio of pupils to teacher, Bauzá has said that "there were 40 in (his) class and (they) haven't turned out so bad".
Bauzá is 42 years of age. He was in secondary education, therefore, in the mid-1980s. This may not be that long ago but in terms of the development of educational principles, it is a lifetime. In my first-year class at grammar school, in 1966, so 20 odd years before, there were also 40 pupils, but educational culture has changed enormously. Eras cannot be compared.
While there is an argument that class size doesn't matter and that all that does matter is the quality of the teacher, major and meaningful studies of pupil-teacher ratios all point to the same conclusion, one that intuition would lead one to make anyway; that smaller class sizes improve academic achievement. Instead, under direction from Madrid, class sizes are increasing.
What is troubling is that a president can make such a statement. It may be designed to appeal to people of his generation and older, but in its quasi-populism it shows a lack of regard for education as it now is and completely fails to recognise the failing nature of Balearics state education. And perhaps it fails to also recognise that the lack of attainment that both PISA and the European Commission have reported on creates a vicious circle in which the pool of potential (and exceptional) teachers is reduced and which therefore perpetuates the low standards of state education.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The schools themselves say that they have had a lack of guidance from the regional government as to how they are meant to proceed with what are extremely low numbers of pupils whose parents wish them to be taught in Castellano. Three out of 400 at a school in Andratx, three out of 206 at a Calvià school, six out of 410 in Binissalem; these are apparently typical.
The numbers are unsurprising as there had been plenty of advance warning that parents would overwhelmingly wish to stick with Catalan. The government, however, appears to have been ill-prepared in knowing how to accommodate these very small numbers. The Círculo Balear may be making a meal of the issue but the government had put free selection at the centre of its education policy. It has fallen flat on its face.
State education in Mallorca is in a mess. The free selection issue is in truth something of a diversion from the greater issue of standards and performance. To the annual reports from PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), which repeatedly highlight under-performance in the Balearics (and quite serious under-performance at that), can be added data from the European Commission. Its report into educational inequality makes for alarming reading. It confirms what the PISA reports have shown, that there is a huge regional difference within Spain when it comes to educational standards, but it goes further in showing where regions across the EU stand relative to others.
The Commission has set out all manner of indicators. Let's take one of them, the percentage of the population in upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education (ages 15 to 24). Which region of Europe has the lowest percentage? The same region that is ranked eighth worst in Europe's regions in terms of attainment aged 15 or more. The Balearics. And bear in mind this is a comparison of 265 regions in 21 countries (six member states are excluded for statistical purposes, e.g. Malta and Luxembourg).
These findings are such that politicians should be hanging their heads in shame, and not of course just those in the current government. If it were a case of being able to explain them away on a disadvantaged populace, then one could have some sympathy, but there is no case for this. The Balearics are among the wealthiest regions of Spain in terms of GDP per head of population, rubbing shoulders with high educational performers such as the Basques.
And any sympathy at all goes totally out the window, when a leading politician comes out with a statement of embarrassing fatuousness as that uttered by President Bauzá. Responding to complaints about increased class sizes and so therefore a greater ratio of pupils to teacher, Bauzá has said that "there were 40 in (his) class and (they) haven't turned out so bad".
Bauzá is 42 years of age. He was in secondary education, therefore, in the mid-1980s. This may not be that long ago but in terms of the development of educational principles, it is a lifetime. In my first-year class at grammar school, in 1966, so 20 odd years before, there were also 40 pupils, but educational culture has changed enormously. Eras cannot be compared.
While there is an argument that class size doesn't matter and that all that does matter is the quality of the teacher, major and meaningful studies of pupil-teacher ratios all point to the same conclusion, one that intuition would lead one to make anyway; that smaller class sizes improve academic achievement. Instead, under direction from Madrid, class sizes are increasing.
What is troubling is that a president can make such a statement. It may be designed to appeal to people of his generation and older, but in its quasi-populism it shows a lack of regard for education as it now is and completely fails to recognise the failing nature of Balearics state education. And perhaps it fails to also recognise that the lack of attainment that both PISA and the European Commission have reported on creates a vicious circle in which the pool of potential (and exceptional) teachers is reduced and which therefore perpetuates the low standards of state education.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Why Is My Friend Different, Mummy?
Cuts? What cuts? Education in the Balearics is supposedly being attacked with a governmental knife, but you wouldn't think so. Not when the government can afford to employ around 100 new teachers at a cost of three million euros.
This was the figure that was bandied around when the regional government's education minister, Rafael Bosch, was announcing the rolling-out of "free selection" of teaching language. A hundred doesn't sound that many when you consider what this free selection is going to amount to.
From the start of the next school year, parents will be able to opt for their children to be taught, as the main language of education, in either Castellano or Catalan. The government had created some confusion with previous announcements as to the extent of this language selection. Originally, it had excluded secondary education, then it included it (though not for the baccalaureate), but only from 2013. Whether selection at secondary level is indeed introduced next year is questionable, but for now - or rather from this September - the free selection will be confined to infant schools and the junior primary level.
What this means is that there will be separate classes, those conducted in Castellano and those in Catalan. It will not mean separate schools, for which the taxpayer should be immensely grateful. But the taxpayer is going to have to foot the bill for all the additional teachers that will be needed, of which there will need to be even more, as and when free selection is extended upward.
At a time of financial constraint, it seems perverse that the government should be embarking on an expansion of parts of the education system, while slashing budgets from others, e.g. the university. It is reasonable to argue that education is an investment in the future, but is it really wise to be doing this right now? In fact, is it wise to be doing it at all?
The government was committed to formalising free selection. Ideologically wedded to being pro-Castellano and anti-Catalan (or at least less pro-Catalan than pro-Castellano), a promise would have been broken had it not now gone ahead. But there are serious questions that arise from free selection, and not just ones of cost.
Firstly, the endless argument over Castellano or Catalan skirts around a more important issue in terms of the investment in the future, which is that of introducing English as a language of instruction and of cementing a system of trilingualism. Bosch and President Bauzá recently visited Switzerland to see how multilingualism operates in the school environment, something for which they copped some flak, unfairly in my view.
Trilingualism would require a far greater additional investment, but the benefit from such an investment could be immense. The Castellano-Catalan argument also helps to obscure the fact that the public education system in the Balearics is rotten. Performance levels are below the Spanish average and well below most European countries. Trilingualism wouldn't alone transform the system, but it might go some way to doing so. Fundamentally though, the government should be addressing the standard of education as a priority and not whether kids are taught in Castellano or Catalan.
Secondly, free selection means a system of educational apartheid, one that could have consequences for the normal functioning of schools as social organisms. Infant and primary children might not be aware of the politics that are involved, but they will be aware that other children are "different". "Why does little Juany go to that class, mummy?" Extend the system upwards to secondary level, and bolshie teenagers, very much aware of the politics and of tribalism, could see this apartheid as an excuse for all manner of rivalry. It's a system that could end up creating trouble within schools and fomenting even more the tensions between Castellano and Catalan outside of schools.
Thirdly, the Partido Popular may have won the last election and may have had a mandate for free selection, but support for free selection among the people of the Balearics, including therefore parents, resides with a minority. A general survey of opinion has shown there to be majority opposition to free selection and more specific research has shown that a majority of parents do not wish to switch or intend to switch from Catalan to Castellano as the language for their children's education.
Apart from costing more money, avoiding the key issue of educational standards, potentially creating social division and enjoying less than majority appeal, free selection is a brilliant idea. Or so the government would argue. But it is free selection predicated not on educational principles but on political dogma.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
This was the figure that was bandied around when the regional government's education minister, Rafael Bosch, was announcing the rolling-out of "free selection" of teaching language. A hundred doesn't sound that many when you consider what this free selection is going to amount to.
From the start of the next school year, parents will be able to opt for their children to be taught, as the main language of education, in either Castellano or Catalan. The government had created some confusion with previous announcements as to the extent of this language selection. Originally, it had excluded secondary education, then it included it (though not for the baccalaureate), but only from 2013. Whether selection at secondary level is indeed introduced next year is questionable, but for now - or rather from this September - the free selection will be confined to infant schools and the junior primary level.
What this means is that there will be separate classes, those conducted in Castellano and those in Catalan. It will not mean separate schools, for which the taxpayer should be immensely grateful. But the taxpayer is going to have to foot the bill for all the additional teachers that will be needed, of which there will need to be even more, as and when free selection is extended upward.
At a time of financial constraint, it seems perverse that the government should be embarking on an expansion of parts of the education system, while slashing budgets from others, e.g. the university. It is reasonable to argue that education is an investment in the future, but is it really wise to be doing this right now? In fact, is it wise to be doing it at all?
The government was committed to formalising free selection. Ideologically wedded to being pro-Castellano and anti-Catalan (or at least less pro-Catalan than pro-Castellano), a promise would have been broken had it not now gone ahead. But there are serious questions that arise from free selection, and not just ones of cost.
Firstly, the endless argument over Castellano or Catalan skirts around a more important issue in terms of the investment in the future, which is that of introducing English as a language of instruction and of cementing a system of trilingualism. Bosch and President Bauzá recently visited Switzerland to see how multilingualism operates in the school environment, something for which they copped some flak, unfairly in my view.
Trilingualism would require a far greater additional investment, but the benefit from such an investment could be immense. The Castellano-Catalan argument also helps to obscure the fact that the public education system in the Balearics is rotten. Performance levels are below the Spanish average and well below most European countries. Trilingualism wouldn't alone transform the system, but it might go some way to doing so. Fundamentally though, the government should be addressing the standard of education as a priority and not whether kids are taught in Castellano or Catalan.
Secondly, free selection means a system of educational apartheid, one that could have consequences for the normal functioning of schools as social organisms. Infant and primary children might not be aware of the politics that are involved, but they will be aware that other children are "different". "Why does little Juany go to that class, mummy?" Extend the system upwards to secondary level, and bolshie teenagers, very much aware of the politics and of tribalism, could see this apartheid as an excuse for all manner of rivalry. It's a system that could end up creating trouble within schools and fomenting even more the tensions between Castellano and Catalan outside of schools.
Thirdly, the Partido Popular may have won the last election and may have had a mandate for free selection, but support for free selection among the people of the Balearics, including therefore parents, resides with a minority. A general survey of opinion has shown there to be majority opposition to free selection and more specific research has shown that a majority of parents do not wish to switch or intend to switch from Catalan to Castellano as the language for their children's education.
Apart from costing more money, avoiding the key issue of educational standards, potentially creating social division and enjoying less than majority appeal, free selection is a brilliant idea. Or so the government would argue. But it is free selection predicated not on educational principles but on political dogma.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Education language choice from May
The Balearic Government, reforming teaching languages in the islands' infant and primary and secondary schools, has announced that the process enabling parental choice of the preferred language of teaching - Catalan or Castellano - will start on 2 May. The government had previously suggested that secondary schools (or at least ESO education, meaning obligatory secondary education to the age of 16) would not be included, but now is.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Friday, February 03, 2012
Poor Grammar: English teaching in Mallorca
Prepare yourselves for a grammar lesson.
Ok, so you haven't switched off. Then I shall begin.
Amidst the debate as to the language of teaching in the Balearics, a third language has appeared. English. Its appearance is not new, but the regional government intends to formalise this appearance by having certain subjects taught in English; again, not a new idea.
According to the government's education minister Rafel Bosch, "it is evident that society demands a commitment" to the teaching of the third language, one that goes beyond its being taught as a subject.
Bosch is one of the more impressive of the government's ministers. He comes across as reasonable and as being prepared to listen. For all the jibes that he is attempting to take the Balearics back to the days of Franco, he has never once proposed that Catalan be eliminated as a teaching language. There is to now be parental choice as to the language of teaching as part of a system of trilingualism, in which English will be the third part.
Teaching certain subjects in English raises a number of questions. Which subjects? Do the pupils already have sufficient understanding? Are the teachers proficient? And would the teachers become teachers in both language and subject?
It is not an easy system to introduce. Ideally, it would start from the earliest possible age at primary school and be used for instruction in something like art which, because of its visual content, would be ideal. A combination of sound and vision is a powerful means of instruction.
A problem would be in now introducing it for older pupils. The standard of English, as has been well reported, is not good in Balearics schools. It isn't particularly good at university level either.
The British Council is already involved with the teaching of subjects in English in some schools. If this means that it supplies either native speakers or those proficient in English and trained satisfactorily as language teachers, then fine. What you cannot have are teachers who are not armed with the necessary language skills.
When I was 14, I attended a school in Germany, a country that even back in the late sixties and early seventies placed great emphasis on the teaching of English. The lady who taught English, nice enough, wasn't that good. She made mistakes, mostly of a grammatical nature.
More recently, when working in Germany, a female colleague (American and herself a language teacher) was obliged to take issue with the English teacher at her son's school. The boy had been marked down for a grammatical error that wasn't. He understood more about the use of the past continuous tense than his teacher did.
A couple of anecdotes don't prove a point, but if it is the case that in Germany, with far superior standards of English than in Mallorca, teacher mistakes can be made, then how would English instruction be in Mallorca? Who corrects the teacher?
The more complex a subject is, the more complex the language has to be, which means that the grammar is likely to be more complex. English grammar, at a basic level, appears far more straightforward than, say, Spanish or German, and this is due partly to simpler verb conjugation. It's when you go beyond the basic level, that it becomes anything but straightforward.
With English, you can seem to get away with things grammatically, but this is no reason for a teacher to think that he or she can, especially in a teaching environment where rules of grammar are more formally taught, as is the case with Spanish or German, and where pupils are used to a structured grammatical approach. Unfortunately, and even for some native-speaker teachers, English grammar is not well understood.
Grammar is only one aspect of the teaching of language, and for pupils in the Balearics, those reared on Spanish (and to a lesser extent Catalan), there is a major issue when it comes to English pronunciation. This is the far lower number of sound registers in Spanish compared with English. Tackling this should be a fundamental in teaching English in schools, but if not, the result will be that, for all the good intentions, the standards of English will not rise as much as minister Bosch might hope. I wish him luck.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Ok, so you haven't switched off. Then I shall begin.
Amidst the debate as to the language of teaching in the Balearics, a third language has appeared. English. Its appearance is not new, but the regional government intends to formalise this appearance by having certain subjects taught in English; again, not a new idea.
According to the government's education minister Rafel Bosch, "it is evident that society demands a commitment" to the teaching of the third language, one that goes beyond its being taught as a subject.
Bosch is one of the more impressive of the government's ministers. He comes across as reasonable and as being prepared to listen. For all the jibes that he is attempting to take the Balearics back to the days of Franco, he has never once proposed that Catalan be eliminated as a teaching language. There is to now be parental choice as to the language of teaching as part of a system of trilingualism, in which English will be the third part.
Teaching certain subjects in English raises a number of questions. Which subjects? Do the pupils already have sufficient understanding? Are the teachers proficient? And would the teachers become teachers in both language and subject?
It is not an easy system to introduce. Ideally, it would start from the earliest possible age at primary school and be used for instruction in something like art which, because of its visual content, would be ideal. A combination of sound and vision is a powerful means of instruction.
A problem would be in now introducing it for older pupils. The standard of English, as has been well reported, is not good in Balearics schools. It isn't particularly good at university level either.
The British Council is already involved with the teaching of subjects in English in some schools. If this means that it supplies either native speakers or those proficient in English and trained satisfactorily as language teachers, then fine. What you cannot have are teachers who are not armed with the necessary language skills.
When I was 14, I attended a school in Germany, a country that even back in the late sixties and early seventies placed great emphasis on the teaching of English. The lady who taught English, nice enough, wasn't that good. She made mistakes, mostly of a grammatical nature.
More recently, when working in Germany, a female colleague (American and herself a language teacher) was obliged to take issue with the English teacher at her son's school. The boy had been marked down for a grammatical error that wasn't. He understood more about the use of the past continuous tense than his teacher did.
A couple of anecdotes don't prove a point, but if it is the case that in Germany, with far superior standards of English than in Mallorca, teacher mistakes can be made, then how would English instruction be in Mallorca? Who corrects the teacher?
The more complex a subject is, the more complex the language has to be, which means that the grammar is likely to be more complex. English grammar, at a basic level, appears far more straightforward than, say, Spanish or German, and this is due partly to simpler verb conjugation. It's when you go beyond the basic level, that it becomes anything but straightforward.
With English, you can seem to get away with things grammatically, but this is no reason for a teacher to think that he or she can, especially in a teaching environment where rules of grammar are more formally taught, as is the case with Spanish or German, and where pupils are used to a structured grammatical approach. Unfortunately, and even for some native-speaker teachers, English grammar is not well understood.
Grammar is only one aspect of the teaching of language, and for pupils in the Balearics, those reared on Spanish (and to a lesser extent Catalan), there is a major issue when it comes to English pronunciation. This is the far lower number of sound registers in Spanish compared with English. Tackling this should be a fundamental in teaching English in schools, but if not, the result will be that, for all the good intentions, the standards of English will not rise as much as minister Bosch might hope. I wish him luck.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, November 04, 2011
Educational Apartheid: Languages in schools
It's the day of the "vuelta al cole" next September. By the school gates you wave goodbye as junior enters primary school for the first time. A tear in the eye but joy in the heart, as you will have decided that junior is to be taught in ... taught in which language?
From the start of the next school year there will be free parental choice as to the main teaching language at the voluntary nursery level and at primary level, but not at secondary level. This will be in line with the election manifesto of the Partido Popular government. After a fashion. There was meant also to have been free choice in secondary schools. There still will be, but not yet. It's all a question of money.
Electoral promises are fine, but they do require that the money exists to back them up. The Círculo Balear, the fiercely anti-Catalan and staunchly pro-Castilian organisation, reckons there is the budget, but then it probably would. The government says, however, that the education ministry needs to shed a 35 million euro debt before secondary schools are included. So this - 35 million, if you follow the government's logic - is what it costs to be able to offer secondary school teaching in the language of parents' choice.
The budget for education, and the ministry includes culture and university, will be down in 2012 by 55 million euros. With its budget already under strain, it could do without the complication of administering this choice. Because complication is what it is. The education minister, Rafael Bosch, has yet to decide exactly how the choice model will operate, though it would seem that he has in mind a mixture within the same school.
Let's get this straight, because I am struggling here and you may be able to help. Bosch has, mercifully it would seem, dismissed the possibility of separation into different centres along language lines, but he appears to be saying that there will be separate classes within one school for those being taught in Catalan or Castilian. Have I got this right? Because if I have, it may be good for parental choice but isn't when it comes to how schools function.
Schools are terrible places when it comes to "being different". And what you would arrive at with this system is one of apartheid based on language choice. The potential for us and them should not be underestimated.
Moreover, it is an us and them that has the potential to carry on beyond school years. If you want to create a situation of tension between Catalan and Castilian speakers, where better than to foment it than in schools. The notion of splitting along language lines goes against principles of child socialisation that schools should be aiding, not inhibiting.
The Círculo Balear believes that the PP has bowed to pressure from the "anti-democrats of the Catalanist minority", which it almost certainly hasn't. Give the PP its own fully free choice and it would probably happily get rid of Catalan from schools, but it is enforcing the provisions of the 1986 act that recognised the right of language choice, but which has since come to mean Catalan taking precedence.
The Círculo, however, may not be right in assuming that an overwhelming majority of parents want Castilian teaching. Back in June it was reported that parents, for the most part, were happy enough for Catalan to prevail. In which case, they'll be able to choose for it do so.
Apart from a budgetary constraint, the government's position may have been watered down (albeit perhaps temporarily) by the presence of Sr. Bosch, described as a moderate when he was made education minister.
But this moderation, while it ensures a greater role for Castilian while maintaining Catalan, creates a different problem; two in fact - greater expense plus the linguistic apartheid. The cost of education will have to increase, though not by as much as Sr. Bosch might have wanted, as his plan to add an hour to the school day has had to be held back for now because of lack of money.
Accommodating the two languages, to be fair to the government, is a thankless task. The purely pragmatic approach would be to make Castilian the language and make Catalan a language taught in specific lessons. Where many Catalan-preferring parents would probably have to agree is not with the Círculo Balear's posturing but with the notion of greater opportunity arising from Castilian.
But pragmatism is too simple when set against culture, history, arguments and tensions. Unfortunately, the government, while it is right in its free-choice policy, might find that it ends up exacerbating these tensions.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
From the start of the next school year there will be free parental choice as to the main teaching language at the voluntary nursery level and at primary level, but not at secondary level. This will be in line with the election manifesto of the Partido Popular government. After a fashion. There was meant also to have been free choice in secondary schools. There still will be, but not yet. It's all a question of money.
Electoral promises are fine, but they do require that the money exists to back them up. The Círculo Balear, the fiercely anti-Catalan and staunchly pro-Castilian organisation, reckons there is the budget, but then it probably would. The government says, however, that the education ministry needs to shed a 35 million euro debt before secondary schools are included. So this - 35 million, if you follow the government's logic - is what it costs to be able to offer secondary school teaching in the language of parents' choice.
The budget for education, and the ministry includes culture and university, will be down in 2012 by 55 million euros. With its budget already under strain, it could do without the complication of administering this choice. Because complication is what it is. The education minister, Rafael Bosch, has yet to decide exactly how the choice model will operate, though it would seem that he has in mind a mixture within the same school.
Let's get this straight, because I am struggling here and you may be able to help. Bosch has, mercifully it would seem, dismissed the possibility of separation into different centres along language lines, but he appears to be saying that there will be separate classes within one school for those being taught in Catalan or Castilian. Have I got this right? Because if I have, it may be good for parental choice but isn't when it comes to how schools function.
Schools are terrible places when it comes to "being different". And what you would arrive at with this system is one of apartheid based on language choice. The potential for us and them should not be underestimated.
Moreover, it is an us and them that has the potential to carry on beyond school years. If you want to create a situation of tension between Catalan and Castilian speakers, where better than to foment it than in schools. The notion of splitting along language lines goes against principles of child socialisation that schools should be aiding, not inhibiting.
The Círculo Balear believes that the PP has bowed to pressure from the "anti-democrats of the Catalanist minority", which it almost certainly hasn't. Give the PP its own fully free choice and it would probably happily get rid of Catalan from schools, but it is enforcing the provisions of the 1986 act that recognised the right of language choice, but which has since come to mean Catalan taking precedence.
The Círculo, however, may not be right in assuming that an overwhelming majority of parents want Castilian teaching. Back in June it was reported that parents, for the most part, were happy enough for Catalan to prevail. In which case, they'll be able to choose for it do so.
Apart from a budgetary constraint, the government's position may have been watered down (albeit perhaps temporarily) by the presence of Sr. Bosch, described as a moderate when he was made education minister.
But this moderation, while it ensures a greater role for Castilian while maintaining Catalan, creates a different problem; two in fact - greater expense plus the linguistic apartheid. The cost of education will have to increase, though not by as much as Sr. Bosch might have wanted, as his plan to add an hour to the school day has had to be held back for now because of lack of money.
Accommodating the two languages, to be fair to the government, is a thankless task. The purely pragmatic approach would be to make Castilian the language and make Catalan a language taught in specific lessons. Where many Catalan-preferring parents would probably have to agree is not with the Círculo Balear's posturing but with the notion of greater opportunity arising from Castilian.
But pragmatism is too simple when set against culture, history, arguments and tensions. Unfortunately, the government, while it is right in its free-choice policy, might find that it ends up exacerbating these tensions.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Educating Rafa: Mallorca's schools
One of the names I'm afraid you're going to have to get used to over the next few years is that of Mr. Bosch, Rafael of this variety. As new education minister for the Balearics, can we expect Mr. Bosch to promote instruction in engineering? Will Mallorca's schools be subject to his use of power tools or will they be set to a gentle wash and softened by a fragrant conditioner?
Mallorca's state-run schools aren't very good. Or at least, what they produce underperforms in comparison to most of the rest of Spain and therefore most of Europe. In key competences, such as maths and comprehension, Mallorca and Balearic school children rank among the bottom four of Spain's regions. The standard of English is such that two-thirds of students at the Universitat de les Illes Balears admit to not understanding it, despite instruction at the university and years of teaching at school.
The education spokesperson at the CCOO union has a point when he suggests that, of the ministries in the new Bauzá administration, education should be given the greatest priority, above even that of tourism. Mallorca's future lies with well-educated and motivated raw material that can help to shift the economic emphasis away from a reliance on tourism and to change an attitude among young people that they can aspire to no more than being waiters and hanging out on the beach.
The union has expressed concern that the new administration might be targetting education for privatisation. It is probably a touch of scaremongering, but it is just one issue that confronts Rafael Bosch as he takes over the education ministry. The CCOO, and the other two unions representing teachers, have, however, given Bosch's appointment cautious approval. They describe him as "moderate and communicative".
And being perceived as moderate might well be a blessing, given that President Bauzá had suffered, some time before the elections, his now infamous, self-confessed "mental lapse" in respect of language, one that has, ever since, dominated discussion as to the PP's attitude to language and the party's potential for scrapping Catalan as a language of teaching. This will be an issue that will dog Bosch, though, for his part, he is saying that there needs to be greater effort in the teaching of language - three languages in fact: Spanish, English and Catalan. Hierologically, the hitherto anonymous Bosch does not appear to adhere to the notion of Castilian being the sacred language.
He recognises that the law as it stands allows parents freedom of choice between Spanish and Catalan as to the main language of teaching. For the most part, Mallorca's parents are happy enough for Catalan to prevail, while schools and pupils have expressed their preference for Catalan, and on occasions vociferously so.
The language question does threaten to overshadow all other matters in Bosch's ministerial in-tray, but it is way less important than the main one - that of improving standards and combatting what he has described as the "intolerable" situation regarding the high level of year repetition that pupils in Mallorca are obliged to undergo. To this end, Bosch is planning to create a "social pact" between the teaching profession, unions and others to develop a model of education in the islands. Which sounds all rather grand, though we will have to see what it actually means. More practically, he is hinting at adding an hour to the school day, which, pact or no pact, the unions might find a tad hard to swallow.
At the same time as Bosch has got his feet under the ministerial desk, the schools have broken up for the long summer break. It might seem that Bosch, if he believes that longer hours and more schooling are necessary, should perhaps shorten the holidays. The fact is, however, that adding hours isn't necessarily a solution and nor would be a shortening of the holidays. In Finland, for example, there is an eleven-week break, a lower annual number of school hours than Spain (quite appreciably so) and a way higher standard of achievement than anywhere in Spain.
Mr. Bosch is not only education minister. He also has responsibility for culture. And perhaps here lies a clue for him. Improving educational standards in Mallorca is less a matter of longer days and more one of changing cultural attitudes to education. The people he really needs to be educating are parents.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Mallorca's state-run schools aren't very good. Or at least, what they produce underperforms in comparison to most of the rest of Spain and therefore most of Europe. In key competences, such as maths and comprehension, Mallorca and Balearic school children rank among the bottom four of Spain's regions. The standard of English is such that two-thirds of students at the Universitat de les Illes Balears admit to not understanding it, despite instruction at the university and years of teaching at school.
The education spokesperson at the CCOO union has a point when he suggests that, of the ministries in the new Bauzá administration, education should be given the greatest priority, above even that of tourism. Mallorca's future lies with well-educated and motivated raw material that can help to shift the economic emphasis away from a reliance on tourism and to change an attitude among young people that they can aspire to no more than being waiters and hanging out on the beach.
The union has expressed concern that the new administration might be targetting education for privatisation. It is probably a touch of scaremongering, but it is just one issue that confronts Rafael Bosch as he takes over the education ministry. The CCOO, and the other two unions representing teachers, have, however, given Bosch's appointment cautious approval. They describe him as "moderate and communicative".
And being perceived as moderate might well be a blessing, given that President Bauzá had suffered, some time before the elections, his now infamous, self-confessed "mental lapse" in respect of language, one that has, ever since, dominated discussion as to the PP's attitude to language and the party's potential for scrapping Catalan as a language of teaching. This will be an issue that will dog Bosch, though, for his part, he is saying that there needs to be greater effort in the teaching of language - three languages in fact: Spanish, English and Catalan. Hierologically, the hitherto anonymous Bosch does not appear to adhere to the notion of Castilian being the sacred language.
He recognises that the law as it stands allows parents freedom of choice between Spanish and Catalan as to the main language of teaching. For the most part, Mallorca's parents are happy enough for Catalan to prevail, while schools and pupils have expressed their preference for Catalan, and on occasions vociferously so.
The language question does threaten to overshadow all other matters in Bosch's ministerial in-tray, but it is way less important than the main one - that of improving standards and combatting what he has described as the "intolerable" situation regarding the high level of year repetition that pupils in Mallorca are obliged to undergo. To this end, Bosch is planning to create a "social pact" between the teaching profession, unions and others to develop a model of education in the islands. Which sounds all rather grand, though we will have to see what it actually means. More practically, he is hinting at adding an hour to the school day, which, pact or no pact, the unions might find a tad hard to swallow.
At the same time as Bosch has got his feet under the ministerial desk, the schools have broken up for the long summer break. It might seem that Bosch, if he believes that longer hours and more schooling are necessary, should perhaps shorten the holidays. The fact is, however, that adding hours isn't necessarily a solution and nor would be a shortening of the holidays. In Finland, for example, there is an eleven-week break, a lower annual number of school hours than Spain (quite appreciably so) and a way higher standard of achievement than anywhere in Spain.
Mr. Bosch is not only education minister. He also has responsibility for culture. And perhaps here lies a clue for him. Improving educational standards in Mallorca is less a matter of longer days and more one of changing cultural attitudes to education. The people he really needs to be educating are parents.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Losing Their Religion - religious study in Mallorca
Good news for Mallorcan agnostics. Religious education is less popular than it was. The Balearics have fewer students taking religion than any other autonomous region in Spain. And for religion, read Catholicism. There is a vast discrepancy between private and public educational institutions and between primary, secondary and the higher level of the Baccalaureate, but the trend for religious education is downwards. Less than 15% of those in public secondary schools undertake such study.
There are various reasons being advanced as to this growing irreligiousness among the youth of Mallorca and the islands, such as other courses and a growing cosmopolitan population, but the findings of the ministry of education seem indisputable - religion, Catholicism, is in retreat, at secondary school anyway.
Is this so surprising? Why the Balearics might be less religious than elsewhere is curious, but the islands are subject to the same dynamics as elsewhere in Spain, these dynamics - for the young - being what you might expect: youth culture, normal adolescent rebellion, and the like. The findings might be good news for agnostics, but they don't necessarily mean that religion and Catholicism are in a freefall of disinterest. However, there are other dynamics, not least of which are political. Spain, and the Balearics, have been kicked into greater secularism on the back of social reforms, those that have caused outrage among the conservative, Catholic right - itself a natural target of rejection for the young. These reforms - liberalised abortion, gay rights, easier divorce, assisted suicide (possibly) - sit unwell with that conservativism, but they are in tune with a modern societal impulse propelled by the Zapatero administration which has, some say, been hell-bent on a collision course with the Church.
While attitudes of the young may well continue into adulthood, there is - perhaps - one factor that endures and which favours an essential religiosity, and that it is the family. Religious studies may be in decline, but the traditions that surround families' rites of passage - from baptism through the communion to marriage - do not necessarily show signs of being undermined. Nor does the power of the family, despite the liberality of gay marriage or termination.
Nevertheless, it is undeniable that strong criticism is reserved for the Church, especially among younger Mallorcans, those into adulthood. It is seen as an obstacle and even anachronistic. It has also, thanks to the publicity surrounding the law of historic memory and the rejection of all things Franco, been exposed - for many - as a reactionary force, supporting nationalism and authoritarianism during the Civil War and its aftermath.
For outside observers, such as myself, one from an irreligious background, the trappings of some local religion seem bizarre, such as the zeal of aspirants to the role of Santa Margalida's Beata, young-ish girls lining up for a public, fiesta statement of modern-day sainthood and devil rejection. It's easy to see such a tradition as oddly quaint, but tradition does still pervade - up to a point. The fiesta, and its religious basis, has undergone a transformation. There is a debate in Palma regarding the San Sebastià fiesta - whether it should actually be held in summer, rather than winter, and also whether it has gone too far in the direction of being some youth-fest of rock bands and DJs. For the Mallorcan young, many of them, fiesta is not a religious celebration, but an opportunity to get off their face and to dance to the pagan of the turntable and mix. Ironic, but the religious justification of the fiesta in its current-day party guise may have actually done as much, if not more, than Spanish politics to have diminished religious studies and religion - period.
QUIZ
Yesterday: Goldfrapp, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEV7IhRw8Ck.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
There are various reasons being advanced as to this growing irreligiousness among the youth of Mallorca and the islands, such as other courses and a growing cosmopolitan population, but the findings of the ministry of education seem indisputable - religion, Catholicism, is in retreat, at secondary school anyway.
Is this so surprising? Why the Balearics might be less religious than elsewhere is curious, but the islands are subject to the same dynamics as elsewhere in Spain, these dynamics - for the young - being what you might expect: youth culture, normal adolescent rebellion, and the like. The findings might be good news for agnostics, but they don't necessarily mean that religion and Catholicism are in a freefall of disinterest. However, there are other dynamics, not least of which are political. Spain, and the Balearics, have been kicked into greater secularism on the back of social reforms, those that have caused outrage among the conservative, Catholic right - itself a natural target of rejection for the young. These reforms - liberalised abortion, gay rights, easier divorce, assisted suicide (possibly) - sit unwell with that conservativism, but they are in tune with a modern societal impulse propelled by the Zapatero administration which has, some say, been hell-bent on a collision course with the Church.
While attitudes of the young may well continue into adulthood, there is - perhaps - one factor that endures and which favours an essential religiosity, and that it is the family. Religious studies may be in decline, but the traditions that surround families' rites of passage - from baptism through the communion to marriage - do not necessarily show signs of being undermined. Nor does the power of the family, despite the liberality of gay marriage or termination.
Nevertheless, it is undeniable that strong criticism is reserved for the Church, especially among younger Mallorcans, those into adulthood. It is seen as an obstacle and even anachronistic. It has also, thanks to the publicity surrounding the law of historic memory and the rejection of all things Franco, been exposed - for many - as a reactionary force, supporting nationalism and authoritarianism during the Civil War and its aftermath.
For outside observers, such as myself, one from an irreligious background, the trappings of some local religion seem bizarre, such as the zeal of aspirants to the role of Santa Margalida's Beata, young-ish girls lining up for a public, fiesta statement of modern-day sainthood and devil rejection. It's easy to see such a tradition as oddly quaint, but tradition does still pervade - up to a point. The fiesta, and its religious basis, has undergone a transformation. There is a debate in Palma regarding the San Sebastià fiesta - whether it should actually be held in summer, rather than winter, and also whether it has gone too far in the direction of being some youth-fest of rock bands and DJs. For the Mallorcan young, many of them, fiesta is not a religious celebration, but an opportunity to get off their face and to dance to the pagan of the turntable and mix. Ironic, but the religious justification of the fiesta in its current-day party guise may have actually done as much, if not more, than Spanish politics to have diminished religious studies and religion - period.
QUIZ
Yesterday: Goldfrapp, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEV7IhRw8Ck.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Happens All The Time
"Vuelta al cole". Back to school. It's that time of year, and tomorrow will see the mass return to the reality of education after the months of beach and play. As every year, the newspapers will doubtless be full of photos of the munchkins returning after having spent a quarter of the year on holiday. Last year when I reported on the "vuelta", I mentioned that the press had reported that the return had gone off "with normality". I'd love to know what abnormality would be, and, as chance would have it, there will be some served up in Puerto Alcúdia. Nothing like a bit of parental direct action, as school will still be out tomorrow if they have their way. There is a touch of local difficulty regarding the temporary classrooms at the new secondary school and their safety. The governmental body for education and culture is getting it in the neck for failing to meet promises. Back to school and back to the beach, it would seem.
The length of the holiday as much as the act of the return adds power to the news that is the "vuelta", and so it will, as always, make the news. A summer holiday double in length of that in England might suggest a pretty relaxed educational regime. It would be an incorrect perception. The total number of hours spent per annum in Spanish schools is not that far behind that of England which not only has some of the longest hours it also has the shortest summer holidays (along with Wales and Germany); the difference is in the region of 450 hours per year. This may seem a lot until one appreciates that, for example, the number of hours in Finland is 1700 less than England; and Finland is a country with a higher level of educational achievement than in England or Spain. The Finns, by the way, have 11 weeks of summer holiday. Spanish kids spend more time in school than do their German counterparts by a factor of 600 hours, despite the twelve-week summer holiday.
The new school term will also see the introduction of English (or French or German) as the language of teaching for certain subjects, the choice and discretion of individual schools participating in the scheme. English, for instance, could be used for maths, art or biology. Hmm. I remember biology. We started with the amoeba, if memory serves, and then the memory fades. I never really graduated much beyond the simple single cell. To have been instructed in Spanish would have made it even less comprehensible. I don't know quite how this English or other foreign language teaching is meant to help. Perhaps simple English lessons might be the answer. To explain relatively complex subjects in an alien language will depend enormously on the skill of the teacher as well, and some crash courses in English for teachers do not necessarily arm them with all those skills.
FLOODS AND ROADS - EVERY TIME
The early arrival of autumn in the form of the storm that struck on Friday left, no surprise, the coast road into Puerto Pollensa awash with flood water. Happens all the time. There was me thinking that they were meant to have done something to have alleviated the flooding problem. Come the rains, and it's going to happen. Mind you, this is a useful way around the road closure-or-not conundrum. Just summon up a few storms and nature takes the decision out of the hands of the town hall.
As the debate about the road rumbles on, I am less and less clear as to quite why there is a desire to pedestrianise it. Or at least pedestrianise the whole length up to Llenaire. There is a perfectly adequate form of pedestrian mobility as it is: the pavement. If the plan were to ban vehicles as far as, for instance, Sail and Surf and La Gola, I could see some sense. This would mean that the areas of Puerto Pollensa's frontline with the main concentration of pedestrians would become more easily negotiated by those pedestrians. But up as far as Llenaire? Why? It can only be as a justification for the new road, which is fair enough - up to a point. The new road is, or should be, to alleviate some of the congestion in the centre of the port, so a partial increase in pedestrianisation would achieve this. To close the road for the whole length, however, would merely create a problem that does not exist.
AND MORE ...
Teach me to put together features a day in advance. So this is by way of an almost immediate update. It now seems that the road will be closed between the Calle Elcano, which is the road opposite the entrance to the wharf (Moll Sur), and the Avenida Paris, which is just a bit past where I had suggested. This means that there will be no pedestrianisation as far as Llenaire and that the bit between the nautical club roundabout and the wharf will remain open. That indeed had been another thing I couldn't quite understand - access to the wharf and nautical club and also to the parking area. Now, it would seem, it is to remain open, though it will also mean entering from Calle Juan XXIII. The compromise closure is to be effected over this coming week. That's it then. For now.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Yardbirds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUZg6VHfcLM). Today's title - Northern Irish.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
The length of the holiday as much as the act of the return adds power to the news that is the "vuelta", and so it will, as always, make the news. A summer holiday double in length of that in England might suggest a pretty relaxed educational regime. It would be an incorrect perception. The total number of hours spent per annum in Spanish schools is not that far behind that of England which not only has some of the longest hours it also has the shortest summer holidays (along with Wales and Germany); the difference is in the region of 450 hours per year. This may seem a lot until one appreciates that, for example, the number of hours in Finland is 1700 less than England; and Finland is a country with a higher level of educational achievement than in England or Spain. The Finns, by the way, have 11 weeks of summer holiday. Spanish kids spend more time in school than do their German counterparts by a factor of 600 hours, despite the twelve-week summer holiday.
The new school term will also see the introduction of English (or French or German) as the language of teaching for certain subjects, the choice and discretion of individual schools participating in the scheme. English, for instance, could be used for maths, art or biology. Hmm. I remember biology. We started with the amoeba, if memory serves, and then the memory fades. I never really graduated much beyond the simple single cell. To have been instructed in Spanish would have made it even less comprehensible. I don't know quite how this English or other foreign language teaching is meant to help. Perhaps simple English lessons might be the answer. To explain relatively complex subjects in an alien language will depend enormously on the skill of the teacher as well, and some crash courses in English for teachers do not necessarily arm them with all those skills.
FLOODS AND ROADS - EVERY TIME
The early arrival of autumn in the form of the storm that struck on Friday left, no surprise, the coast road into Puerto Pollensa awash with flood water. Happens all the time. There was me thinking that they were meant to have done something to have alleviated the flooding problem. Come the rains, and it's going to happen. Mind you, this is a useful way around the road closure-or-not conundrum. Just summon up a few storms and nature takes the decision out of the hands of the town hall.
As the debate about the road rumbles on, I am less and less clear as to quite why there is a desire to pedestrianise it. Or at least pedestrianise the whole length up to Llenaire. There is a perfectly adequate form of pedestrian mobility as it is: the pavement. If the plan were to ban vehicles as far as, for instance, Sail and Surf and La Gola, I could see some sense. This would mean that the areas of Puerto Pollensa's frontline with the main concentration of pedestrians would become more easily negotiated by those pedestrians. But up as far as Llenaire? Why? It can only be as a justification for the new road, which is fair enough - up to a point. The new road is, or should be, to alleviate some of the congestion in the centre of the port, so a partial increase in pedestrianisation would achieve this. To close the road for the whole length, however, would merely create a problem that does not exist.
AND MORE ...
Teach me to put together features a day in advance. So this is by way of an almost immediate update. It now seems that the road will be closed between the Calle Elcano, which is the road opposite the entrance to the wharf (Moll Sur), and the Avenida Paris, which is just a bit past where I had suggested. This means that there will be no pedestrianisation as far as Llenaire and that the bit between the nautical club roundabout and the wharf will remain open. That indeed had been another thing I couldn't quite understand - access to the wharf and nautical club and also to the parking area. Now, it would seem, it is to remain open, though it will also mean entering from Calle Juan XXIII. The compromise closure is to be effected over this coming week. That's it then. For now.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Yardbirds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUZg6VHfcLM). Today's title - Northern Irish.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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