Cast your minds back if you will to the so-called green taxes that the Balearic Government had proposed. You will remember that the proposal incurred the wrath, among others, of mighty retailers. These were taxes which had the full approval of the president, José Ramón Bauzá. Mysteriously, though, the economy had recovered sufficiently for them not to be introduced. Someone with an economics background had cocked up. Who was that? Ah yes, the former finance minister, Pep Aguiló. Stitched up like a kipper. He didn't resign, he was sacked as Bauzá sought to save face with natural supporters in bug business. Around the same time, another to be hung out to dry in the increasingly strong sun of Mallorcan spring was Rafael Bosch, the former education minister. He was at least partly honourable. He didn't buy in wholeheartedly to the trilingual teaching scheme. He was too much of a "Catalanist", chirped Jorge Campos of the way-off-to-the-right Circulo Balear and one with the ear of Joserra. Bosch was sacked as well but was given a nice little governmental earner buried away somewhere doing something related to the islands' economy. Off you toddle, Rafael, and keep your mouth shut.
Joana Camps, the education minister, has now resigned. Honourable? Nah, not a bit of it. The honourable thing would have been for her to have never accepted the education portfolio in the first place. As an estate agent, her knowledge of education was as deep as mostly everyone else's. She had once gone to school. (Bosch was more of an education expert.) But you can't blame someone for having ambition even if she was so far out of her depth that it was impossible to see the bottom and that she came to dig for herself a trench as bottomless as the Mariana.
Well, it wasn't all her fault, this business with the High Court declaring procedures to do with the introduction of trilingual teaching (TIL) illegal. Bosch had been minister when the first decree was introduced. So he was, but he wasn't when the Court pronounced procedures to have been illegal last September and he hasn't been while Joana has been failing to defend the indefensible. Dishonour barely does this government justice. Some other words that have been thrown around are "infantile" and "disobedient".
The government simply cannot just go around disobeying the Court or passing further decrees within hours of the Court finding against it, which is exactly what it did last September and thus produced the final straw which broke the teachers' back and sent them out on strike for a month. To carry on believing it can apply TIL while it seeks an appeal from the Supreme Court in Madrid is ridiculous. And who is to say that the matter would stop with the Supreme Court anyway? This is a government which has brought itself into disrepute. It is almost, through its infantile behaviour, allowing the radicals among the teachers to get off scot-free, which they most definitely shouldn't be. And at the head of this dishonourable government is Joserra. He should resign, but he won't. He has placed the very much more credible Nuria Riera in charge of education in the hope that he can save his skin. But his own party is full of those who are lining up against him. Will there be a putsch?
Showing posts with label Joana Maria Camps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joana Maria Camps. Show all posts
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Sunday, May 25, 2014
The Educational Week Of Madness
It was another week of total madness courtesy of the teachers and the education ministry. It did in fact start with sadness. The death last Sunday of Sebastià Serra, the leader of the STEI-i teachers' union, did not herald a period of respectful quietness, albeit that five hundred or so people stood in silence for half an hour on Monday in front of the government's Consulat de Mar HQ. They were being quiet by way of protest rather than by way of remembrance. Their silence, they hoped, would act as a means of finding a solution to the "Great Conflict", that of education.
One had started to think that all the carry-on over trilingual teaching and whatever other grievances the teachers could drag up was dying down. But no. He almost certainly won't die, or one hopes not, but Jaume Sastre, a teacher at Llucmajor's secondary school, has been on hunger strike since 8 May. It has been his way of seeking a solution to the "Great Conflict", whatever it is, because one fears we no longer really know. It certainly hasn't got anything to do with the teaching of English, or doesn't appear to have.
All manner of people and organisations got involved with the "Great Conflict" last week. They ranged from the United Nations to the Mallorcan hoteliers federation to the Balearics College of Lawyers to the Balearics Business Confederation. We haven't heard from Real Mallorca football club yet, but they have had other things to worry about, like getting relegated. Most of these organisations called for dialogue, but what is this dialogue meant to be about? Is it trilingual teaching, Catalan, the law of symbols, what exactly?
The letter to the UN, sent by supporters of Sastre at the Assemblea de Docentes (teachers' assembly), did at least shed some light. His hunger strike is "in defence of public education, of its quality and in Catalan". Ah yes, in Catalan. The regional government, the UN has been informed, has been acting in an "authoritarian and repressive" manner and has been doing so for the past nine months.
With the UN unwittingly dragged into the affair, the "Great Conflict" began to assume crisis proportions of a potentially global scale. Into the fray, therefore, stepped Inma de Benito, newly elevated to the vice-presidency of the Mallorcan hoteliers federation. It, the "Great Conflict", does not offer a good image of the islands to the outside world, she announced, but didn't add any words of advice as to how the conflict might be resolved. Quite why she came to be involved is a mystery, but she might just reflect that mugger-prostitutes on the streets of resorts and total hotelier antagonism to the rental of private holiday accommodation also don't offer the best of images to the outside world.
She did, however, suggest that President Bauzá knows what he has to do. Of course he does. He once said so, as in: "We know what to do and what we do and why we do what we say we are going to do, and we will continue doing what we have to do even though some do not think that we will do what we said we would do." Yes, he really did say this. Donald Rumsfeld would be proud.
Bauzá's infamous we know what we're doing monologue was hauled out by the Assemblea in one of a series of videos it put out during the week under the general theme of "de-constructing Bauzá". They were intended to reveal his demagoguery, his lies, his "contradictions, dialectical traps and rare oratorical skills". And the president wasn't the only one to be accused of lying. There was, as always, also Joana Camps. She is constantly lying, said an Assemblea spokesperson, noting that the turnout for a strike on Thursday was 15% and not the 0.7% which Joana claimed. Oh yes, there was a strike, and then another one on Friday.
Joana, meantime, found that another battle front had opened up, one that involved her native Menorca. It was a "personal attack", she explained, in saying that a "denuncia" by the Assemblea had no chance of succeeding. The attack had to do with thirty-two trips she had made during eight months as education minister. Of the thirty-two, thirty had been to Menorca.
Sadly also for Joana, the leading member of the parliamentary awkward squad, Manacor's Antoni Pastor, also had a pop at her. The one who is responsible for the application of TIL is the president, he said. "You are a simple, necessary collaborator." The front, the fallguy (woman), the stooge. At least Pastor speaks some sense amidst the madness.
One had started to think that all the carry-on over trilingual teaching and whatever other grievances the teachers could drag up was dying down. But no. He almost certainly won't die, or one hopes not, but Jaume Sastre, a teacher at Llucmajor's secondary school, has been on hunger strike since 8 May. It has been his way of seeking a solution to the "Great Conflict", whatever it is, because one fears we no longer really know. It certainly hasn't got anything to do with the teaching of English, or doesn't appear to have.
All manner of people and organisations got involved with the "Great Conflict" last week. They ranged from the United Nations to the Mallorcan hoteliers federation to the Balearics College of Lawyers to the Balearics Business Confederation. We haven't heard from Real Mallorca football club yet, but they have had other things to worry about, like getting relegated. Most of these organisations called for dialogue, but what is this dialogue meant to be about? Is it trilingual teaching, Catalan, the law of symbols, what exactly?
The letter to the UN, sent by supporters of Sastre at the Assemblea de Docentes (teachers' assembly), did at least shed some light. His hunger strike is "in defence of public education, of its quality and in Catalan". Ah yes, in Catalan. The regional government, the UN has been informed, has been acting in an "authoritarian and repressive" manner and has been doing so for the past nine months.
With the UN unwittingly dragged into the affair, the "Great Conflict" began to assume crisis proportions of a potentially global scale. Into the fray, therefore, stepped Inma de Benito, newly elevated to the vice-presidency of the Mallorcan hoteliers federation. It, the "Great Conflict", does not offer a good image of the islands to the outside world, she announced, but didn't add any words of advice as to how the conflict might be resolved. Quite why she came to be involved is a mystery, but she might just reflect that mugger-prostitutes on the streets of resorts and total hotelier antagonism to the rental of private holiday accommodation also don't offer the best of images to the outside world.
She did, however, suggest that President Bauzá knows what he has to do. Of course he does. He once said so, as in: "We know what to do and what we do and why we do what we say we are going to do, and we will continue doing what we have to do even though some do not think that we will do what we said we would do." Yes, he really did say this. Donald Rumsfeld would be proud.
Bauzá's infamous we know what we're doing monologue was hauled out by the Assemblea in one of a series of videos it put out during the week under the general theme of "de-constructing Bauzá". They were intended to reveal his demagoguery, his lies, his "contradictions, dialectical traps and rare oratorical skills". And the president wasn't the only one to be accused of lying. There was, as always, also Joana Camps. She is constantly lying, said an Assemblea spokesperson, noting that the turnout for a strike on Thursday was 15% and not the 0.7% which Joana claimed. Oh yes, there was a strike, and then another one on Friday.
Joana, meantime, found that another battle front had opened up, one that involved her native Menorca. It was a "personal attack", she explained, in saying that a "denuncia" by the Assemblea had no chance of succeeding. The attack had to do with thirty-two trips she had made during eight months as education minister. Of the thirty-two, thirty had been to Menorca.
Sadly also for Joana, the leading member of the parliamentary awkward squad, Manacor's Antoni Pastor, also had a pop at her. The one who is responsible for the application of TIL is the president, he said. "You are a simple, necessary collaborator." The front, the fallguy (woman), the stooge. At least Pastor speaks some sense amidst the madness.
Wednesday, December 04, 2013
Treading On Balearics' Educational Performance
It's not quite like the anticipation of waiting to hear who has won an Oscar or which countries England have drawn in the World Cup finals, but anticipation there was ahead of the announcement of this year's PISA (Programme for International Student Achievement) survey, published for the first time since 2009 by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It might be said, however, that there was a similar sense of impending doom to that surrounding England's draw for those countries which knew full well that they were far from being seeded and were languishing in the educational international rankings league. Spain, unlike its football team which can look forward with optimism to the World Cup draw, was bracing itself for the worst. Though the Spanish media has suggested that the PISA results show a slight improvement in educational standards, the actual text of the PISA report says otherwise. Mean performance since 2003 remains below average in the key areas of mathematics, science and reading comprehension and is not improving. Indeed, the report suggests that despite improvements in student socioeconomic status since 2003 there is a negative trend in performance.
There has been, you might have noticed, a fair amount of recent interest in education both nationally in Spain and in the Balearics. The new national education bill was introduced and greeted with widespread criticism and protests. The introduction of the Balearic Government's trilingual teaching (TIL) programme has been an utter disaster and is likely to become more rather than less disastrous.
TIL, many appear not to have noticed, has taken the spotlight off what really matters in Balearic public education: its performance. Governmental spin might suggest that TIL is the solution to performance ills, but it has made this suggestion while ignoring a fundamental issue - just why is this performance so bad? The government has made no attempt to address this. All it has done has been to bring in a highly questionable solution of flagship educational reform without tackling the underlying problem.
PISA ranks 65 countries' performance. It also details performance within regions of countries. The Balearics remains in the bottom four in each of the three key areas. It shares the dunces' corner with Murcia, Andalusia and Extremadura. This continuing underperformance is shocking not just because performance remains stubbornly poor in the Balearics but also because the Balearics is an altogether wealthier region than the likes of Extremadura. If general economic performance is supposed to equate to educational performance, then the Balearics is proof that it doesn't.
The estate agent Joana Maria Camps, who just so happens to be the Balearics education minister, stoked up the anticipation for the latest PISA survey results by speaking in the Balearic Parliament the other day about PISA. Or rather, she didn't speak about PISA. Some of you might know that there is a Spanish verb "pisar" which means to tread on. As such, this verb has nothing whatsoever to do with the PISA survey. There is a Catalan verb "trepitjar" which also means to tread on. Somehow, the estate agent managed to mistake PISA for the Spanish verb and then translate it into the Catalan verb. "Trepitja," she said. More than once. Parliamentary deputies, it is understood, were in fits of laughter.
You might say that this was a simple enough mistake, and if you were an estate agent who knows nothing about education, then it probably would be. If, however, you are meant to be a minister for education, it is more than just a mistake. It is an embarrassing howler of such gargantuan size that you should be shamed into returning to selling flats. Not Joana, however. It was, after all, only an error.
While Joana has womanfully been helping to tread on ("trepitjar" or "pisar", depending on your free selection of teaching language) common sense and trample it into floors of Balearics classrooms by insisting on an educational policy that defies common sense, she has failed to respond to the finding that a mere 18% of secondary school children are able to understand English sufficiently well enough to receive oral instruction, i.e. be taught in English. It may, though one can't be certain, that this 18% includes at least some children with one or two English-speaking parents. Furthermore, there has been no good explanation offered as to why testing of English ability has only now been done.
The part of the PISA report which deals with Spain speaks of low morale among teachers. "One in four students in Spain attends a school where the principal reports low teacher morale, compared with one in ten students across OECD countries." The report doesn't detail morale levels by region, but it is not difficult to conclude that in the Balearics this morale might be lower still and is only getting lower along with educational performance, as determined by PISA or "trepitja".
There has been, you might have noticed, a fair amount of recent interest in education both nationally in Spain and in the Balearics. The new national education bill was introduced and greeted with widespread criticism and protests. The introduction of the Balearic Government's trilingual teaching (TIL) programme has been an utter disaster and is likely to become more rather than less disastrous.
TIL, many appear not to have noticed, has taken the spotlight off what really matters in Balearic public education: its performance. Governmental spin might suggest that TIL is the solution to performance ills, but it has made this suggestion while ignoring a fundamental issue - just why is this performance so bad? The government has made no attempt to address this. All it has done has been to bring in a highly questionable solution of flagship educational reform without tackling the underlying problem.
PISA ranks 65 countries' performance. It also details performance within regions of countries. The Balearics remains in the bottom four in each of the three key areas. It shares the dunces' corner with Murcia, Andalusia and Extremadura. This continuing underperformance is shocking not just because performance remains stubbornly poor in the Balearics but also because the Balearics is an altogether wealthier region than the likes of Extremadura. If general economic performance is supposed to equate to educational performance, then the Balearics is proof that it doesn't.
The estate agent Joana Maria Camps, who just so happens to be the Balearics education minister, stoked up the anticipation for the latest PISA survey results by speaking in the Balearic Parliament the other day about PISA. Or rather, she didn't speak about PISA. Some of you might know that there is a Spanish verb "pisar" which means to tread on. As such, this verb has nothing whatsoever to do with the PISA survey. There is a Catalan verb "trepitjar" which also means to tread on. Somehow, the estate agent managed to mistake PISA for the Spanish verb and then translate it into the Catalan verb. "Trepitja," she said. More than once. Parliamentary deputies, it is understood, were in fits of laughter.
You might say that this was a simple enough mistake, and if you were an estate agent who knows nothing about education, then it probably would be. If, however, you are meant to be a minister for education, it is more than just a mistake. It is an embarrassing howler of such gargantuan size that you should be shamed into returning to selling flats. Not Joana, however. It was, after all, only an error.
While Joana has womanfully been helping to tread on ("trepitjar" or "pisar", depending on your free selection of teaching language) common sense and trample it into floors of Balearics classrooms by insisting on an educational policy that defies common sense, she has failed to respond to the finding that a mere 18% of secondary school children are able to understand English sufficiently well enough to receive oral instruction, i.e. be taught in English. It may, though one can't be certain, that this 18% includes at least some children with one or two English-speaking parents. Furthermore, there has been no good explanation offered as to why testing of English ability has only now been done.
The part of the PISA report which deals with Spain speaks of low morale among teachers. "One in four students in Spain attends a school where the principal reports low teacher morale, compared with one in ten students across OECD countries." The report doesn't detail morale levels by region, but it is not difficult to conclude that in the Balearics this morale might be lower still and is only getting lower along with educational performance, as determined by PISA or "trepitja".
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