Dissatisfaction In The Classroom

I'm starting to think that all the statistical mumbo-jumbo that spews out of press release orifices of government and non-government might actually be of use, if only in that it can give me the hook for an article. Following on from the recent purchasing power revelation (it's down in the Balearics, despite economic recovery), there's another one of a consumer nature. Most of the Barclaycard-IESE (business school) report into consumer spending over the years of crisis was as you would have expected - huge falls in purchases of jewellery, furniture, household goods, for example - but it was the item for the greatest increase in spend which caught the attention. Up by 37% over the period from 2007 to 2014 was what was being forked out for education. It seems an extraordinary rise, especially given that the next highest rise (of 21%) was for utilities, and they were subject to steep increases in certain instances anyway, e.g. electricity, while internet provision would surely have played a part in higher telecommunications spend.

In third place was a 13% increase in health spending. Taken with that on education, a conclusion that might be drawn - and it's probably an accurate one - was that the public was fearful about cuts to public provision of the two sectors that consume far more of regional authorities' budgets than anything else: in the Balearics, health and education account for not far short of 80% of everything the government spends in a year.

But if we take the 13% on health to be a reflection of an increase in private health insurance, then perhaps we could have expected a similar sort of increase in spend on private schooling, but no, the figure was significantly greater.

Not all the 37% would have been on private schooling, as there would have been a fair amount going on training courses and higher education, but a goodly sum would have been going towards schools, and in looking for clues as to why, there are some lurking in the latest survey of opinions regarding education in the Balearics undertaken by the Gadeso research foundation.

Unsurprisingly, the survey reveals that overwhelmingly there are beliefs that education is vital for future job prospects and that education shouldn't be considered an expense but an investment in the future. It depends as ever, however, on who it is doing the investing, and herein, one suspects, lies the rub of that increased educational spending.

There was a perception, a fairly widely held one, that in the Bauzá years of crisis, there was a deliberate but unstated policy to drive parents towards the private sector. Though education spending remained comparatively high, there were cutbacks to education, and on top of these was all the fuss that was to break out over language policy. Allied to this was the far greater and regular attention that media circles were paying to performance of the Balearic public education system. The news was almost invariably less than positive.

The Gadeso survey shows that there is a continuing decline in satisfaction with this system. It also shows that it is believed that the system does not adequately address the needs of the workplace and that there is under-investment.

Put all this lot together, throw in the awareness of the need for a good education, and the greatly increased private spending on education over the years of crisis is understandable.

The survey doesn't particularly lay any blame with problems with the education system on the teachers. There is a concern about teacher motivation, but this can be taken as a consequence of a variety of things: lack of investment, the trilingual teaching (TIL) debacle, cutbacks. In fact, there is support for the teachers and their continuing to put pressure on the government. A majority of those surveyed believe that the decision not to call off the indefinite strike (or the possibility of taking strike action) is right.

But the teachers do need to be taken to task, some of them at any rate, and to be questioned about an ongoing struggle for power between the established unions and the Assemblea de Docents, the teachers' assembly. The unions seem inclined to accept that it is time to call off the strike and to be willing to give the new government a chance: the government is, after all, appointing over 350 additional teachers. The Assemblea isn't willing, and so threatens to kill at birth the government's desire for a grand "pact" to address and seek to solve the problems of the Balearic education system once and for all.

The survey does provide some clues as to why there was that huge increase in private spending on education, but it might also provide clues as to why this spending will continue. Until all parties come together and genuinely do create a pact for improvement, the dissatisfaction and underperformance will continue.