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.