On October 26, 1978, the first edition of EL PERIÓDICO DE CATALUNYA opened its front page with the news that the provisional Government-Generalitat mixed commission had agreed that the management of the Catalan schools would pass into the hands of the Government chaired by Josep Tarradellas. He has been almost 45 years old, although this attribution of powers in education to the Generalitat it was not formalized until the promulgation of the Statute in December 1979, the transfer of educational services was not approved until a decree of October 1980 and these did not become effective until the January 1, 1981. They are, in any case, more than four decades in which education has been the responsibility of successive ‘governments’ and, as in few other cases, the responsibility for successes and errors must be assumed as their own rather than attributed to external factors .
skills
To what extent are these powers attributable solely to the Generalitat? According to the constitutional framework, Catalonia has “full” but not “exclusive” powers. The Government was confident that the setting of the general framework reserved by the State would be “minimum”, that “study plans” would not be set [que corresponderían a la Generalitat] but rather the conditions of the study plans”, as the ‘councillor’ Guitart maintained in that October of 1980, months before assuming educational powers. However, the Organic Law for the Organization of Educational Centers (Loece, the first of the many organic educational laws of democracy) generally reserved “the organization of the educational system” to the State, an interpretation that the governments of the PP (and some of the PSOE) applied expansively in their successive reforms and only some socialist executives accepted to regulate This pulse between the exhaustive fixation of the curriculum or not by the Ministry of Education has been a continuous tug of war during these four decades.
Spending in the middle of the table
Regarding resources: the characteristics of the regional financing system have meant that the volume of resources dedicated to education can be variable according to the commitment of each community, but within very limited margins. Catalonia, in 2022, dedicated 1,094 euros per capita, 40 above the average. Below seven communities, above nine of them, 200 euros less than the one that heads the classification, Navarra, and 154 above the one that dedicates less public resources to education, Madrid.
Within this framework of powers and resources, the Generalitat has had room to define its own educational policy.
Language
The mainstay of the Generalitat’s school policy was to make the school the tool for normalizing Catalan. For many years he could be reproached for being almost the only one. But in 1978 only 14% of students had a Catalan subject, and that’s enough. In 1989, all of them, with 16% in an immersion regime. As of the 1992 decrees and, above all, the 1998 language policy law, it became the language of normal use in teaching, with Spanish as the subject. The result: in 1986, 64% of the population could speak Catalan and 31% could write it. In 2022, 88% and 82%. Although the limited ability to linguistically integrate the latest generations of new Catalans and the fact that the language of interaction in high schools is increasingly Spanish has set off alarm bells.
Vocational training
The Generalitat was one of the administrations that applied the LOGSE reform more to the letter, unifying the network of baccalaureate and FP institutes into a single IES model that theoretically should combine ESO, baccalaureate and FP and eliminating specifically professional centers. The bet diluted FP, the mistake (which other communities avoided) was paid for and it has taken years to rebuild a FP network linked to the company and in specifically professional centers. An impasse that leaves us light years away from communities like the Basque Country.
Template management
In this field, apart from the early renunciation of the old pyramidal structure based on the figure of high school professors, the main particularity has come from the latest decree that allows the directorates of the centers to intervene in the selection of their own teaching staff to adjust it to the particular pedagogical project. An advance in the autonomy of the center for some, an open door to arbitrary actions for others.
educational innovation
The legacy of the pedagogical renewal movements of the 70s and their reformulation in recent years (the competence approach, and the integration of new technologies) has distinguished Catalan schools, making part of the innovations that come with the latest educational reform in other communities they already sound normal here. But not always with consensus, nor going beyond applying pedagogical fashions but not their foundations, nor with encouragement from the Generalitat. Jordi Pujol was always suspicious and in 2005 he made a critical review: “The discipline and dynamics of the effort were rejected outright. Pedagogical experimentation has fostered creativity and initiative but we have distanced ourselves from essential values (…) such as morality of effort, hierarchy, responsibility”.
Support for the concerted
The Generalitat de CiU opted from the outset for a mixed model with the leading role of the subsidized school. A model in which the lower public financing of the concerted one was compensated by turning a blind eye with strategies (such as the collection of presumably voluntary fees that discouraged access to lower-income families and facilitated a better offer to these centers) that promoted the social segregation. Some counterbalances (such as a centralized pre-registration system or the creation of areas for registration) took years to apply. However, it cannot be forgotten that at the same time, the percentage of students in the public system has gone from 47% to 65% in this period. In Barcelona, from 26% to 41%. In the areas of population growth due to immigration and the real estate ‘boom’, the bulk of the creation of new public centers fell on the years of tripartite management.
child education
One of lime and one of sand. The Generalitat was advanced in applying the universality of education between 3-6 years in schools. But in stage 0-3 it left the initiative in the hands of the city councils (more intense in some than in others), and when it ended up assuming the partial financing of that service it has been, to say the least, unreliable in its payment commitments.
special education
Related news
Another peculiarity of the Catalan educational system has been the emphasis on integration in ordinary schools instead of schooling in special education centers. A bet that has not been accompanied by sufficient resources for the centers to attend to all this diversity.
National Pact and Education Law of Catalonia
One last quirk. As a result of the 2004-2005 national education pact, it was possible to agree between the tripartite and CiU on an education law, that of 2009, agreed upon (as was the language normalization law), in clear contrast to the alternation of educational reforms at each change of government in the whole of Spain.