Government and communities will eliminate the requirement of the teacher's master's degree to teach in institutes during the epidemic

The Ministry of Education and the communities have agreed this Thursday to eliminate, while the exceptional situation of the epidemic lasts, the requirement of the Master's Degree in Secondary Teachers that is now necessary to teach in both public and private institutes of ESO, Baccalaureate and FP, as well as in schools of music and performing arts, plastic arts and design and language officials.

It is a degree that lasts one or two years and once replaced the Certificate of Pedagogical Aptitude (CAP).

Most of the autonomies had requested it after verifying that, after dividing numerous groups, they do not have enough teachers, or they cannot cover the losses or they fear that they will not be able to do so throughout a course that appears extraordinarily uncertain.

The concern, several autonomies coincide, is high in Mathematics and Professional Training, which has a very wide range of specialties.

"They have exhausted their lists of substitutes", summarized the Minister of Education, Isabel Celaá, at the end of the Sectorial Education Conference.

The new measures agreed to deal with the impact of the virus in schools will also include the simplification of the curriculum and the selectivity exams to make them simpler.

Professors who join without the master's degree must meet the rest of the requirements that are now required, the minister said, such as a university degree and, in a large part of the communities, accredit certain levels of languages.

“In the health field, something similar was done when the pandemic was at its worst.

Personnel were hired, who had not completed the residency but did have their degrees in Nursing or Medicine, who in other circumstances would not have been able to enter public health.

I understand that in exceptional circumstances exceptions are made.

If the alternative is to be left without a teacher, it is preferable that the student has one that lacks a requirement ”, says Raimundo de los Reyes, president of the Fedadi institute directors association.

Jesús Manso, Professor of Pedagogy at the Autonomous University of Madrid, emphasizes that eliminating a quality filter in access to teaching staff is “obviously negative”.

But at the same time he agrees with De los Reyes: “The question is whether it is possible to make another decision.

In other words, if the alternative is to leave children out of school, which cannot be ”.

The regional governments have not quantified in the meeting with the ministry how many teachers they need.

But when asked about it, Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha admit that they have the problem on the table.

And Andalusia, Catalonia, the Valencian Community, among others, acknowledge that they fear encountering it throughout the course, so they see fit to abolish the requirement.

"It is an extreme measure that we will only use if there is no other option and as long as [new teachers] are enrolled in the master's degree," says a spokesman for the Department of Education of the Generalitat of Catalonia.

Óscar Barberá, dean of Teaching at the University of Valencia, from whose classrooms a thousand graduates of secondary school leave each year, does not believe, however, that the problem lies in the lack of qualified teachers.

“Public universities have been training tens of thousands of professors for 10 years.

There are many, because the master's degree is also carried out remotely and because for private universities it has become a source of resources.

It is a lie that there are not enough, beyond a specific profile.

Another thing is that there are communities that have started looking for them late and offer conditions that are not attractive for graduates from other parts of Spain to attend.

If you have to go to Madrid, but they do not offer you sufficient economic conditions or they only guarantee you two months of work, it is normal that for many it is not worth it ”, he says.

The Secretary of Education for CC OO, Francisco García, considers it essential that "the absolute exceptionality of the measure" is guaranteed and that it be used to "open a debate on how to give prestige to the teaching profession so that it is more attractive and enjoys greater social consideration ”.

And the CSIF union has expressed, for its part, its concern about the decline in the quality of the teaching staff that may arise from the abolition of the master's degree requirement.

The director of the Federation of Ampas de Catalunya, Fapac, Lidón Gasull, questions, like other sources consulted, that the current master's degree in teaching staff is an ideal formula to guarantee the quality of teaching.

In fact, the Ministry of Education plans to introduce changes in the system of access to teaching, which will include a practical training system closer to that of the health residence.

But in any case, says Gasull, the master is a filter "that disappears."

“What all this reveals is a disorganized system that has not had sufficient foresight capacity, and that the teaching profession is not valued.

There is a lack of teachers, especially in certain specialties, because in private companies they are more recognized, better paid and suffer less temporary work ”.

The ministry and the communities have also agreed to simplify school curricula to reduce them by emphasizing essential competencies, an objective that, Jesús Manso highlights, has broad consensus.

The teachers have started the classes working with the students on the contents that they could not teach last year due to the closure of the centers.

And this makes it unfeasible to complete the curriculum for the current course, which under normal circumstances is already highly criticized for its great length.

Initially, it was thought to solve it with the adaptations of the schedules that the schools do each year.

But the formula has proven insufficient, Celaá has recognized.

The idea now is for the ministry to declare, it is considered that by decree, "guidelines" the so-called learning standards, that is, the specific elements that students must know at the end of the course, so that the communities and their own centers can adapt them.

A single quarter of Geography in the third year of ESO may have eight of these standards, which require the student to know, in one case, to point out on the map the main cereal areas of the world, and in another, to locate the main regions of production of minerals.

Easier selectivity

The government and communities have also agreed to maintain the simplification of the university entrance tests approved last year to compensate for the closure of educational centers and the great inequality that was generated among students depending on whether or not they could continue with certain guarantees the classes to distance.

The Minister of Education, Isabel Celaá, has not given details, but has announced that the model of the last call will be repeated, in which students were given more options.

Obligation to ensure training

The minister also recalled, after the complaints made by some families about the little attention their children have received after being quarantined with their class, the "obligation to ensure full-time training" for both the students who attend face-to-face form as well as those whose teaching is blended or confined.

Celaá and the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, who has also attended the meeting with the counselors, held in La Moncloa, have considered that the objective they had set before the classes began, and have affirmed that the sanitary measures approved "They're working".

"There has been a beginning of the correct course from the point of view of public health", has repeated Illa.

Regarding the slowness in the activation of covid protocols in schools when a positive or suspected contagion is detected, Celaá has stressed that the response system has to be fast.

Teachers and families, especially in the Community of Madrid, warn that they have to wait several days to be able to speak to someone in the health services.

Internship in FP

The Ministries of Health and Education have also presented this Thursday to the communities a document of recommendations for the practices that are carried out in VET centers and in which people outside the educational environment participate, that is, clients in hospitality training cycles or personal care, hairdressing, etcetera.

These practices, in addition to having all the safety and hygiene measures, "will be limited to those essential to guarantee student learning" and will be optional for students.

If they decide not to participate, "alternative activities will be provided [for them]," and if they do, they must "complete an express acceptance of the voluntary nature of participating in them."

Vocational training practices will be adapted by reducing the duration of training modules in work centers to the minimum established by law, which is 220 hours.

In the case of Higher Cycle Vocational Training, this training will be integrated into the project module.

And in the Middle Grade and Basic VET, project modules will be created, in which training in work centers will also be integrated.

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