Educating Rafa: Mallorca’s schools

One of the names I’m afraid you’re going to have to get used to over the next few years is that of Mr. Bosch, Rafael of this variety. As new education minister for the Balearics, can we expect Mr. Bosch to promote instruction in engineering? Will Mallorca’s schools be subject to his use of power tools or will they be set to a gentle wash and softened by a fragrant conditioner?

Mallorca’s state-run schools aren’t very good. Or at least, what they produce underperforms in comparison to most of the rest of Spain and therefore most of Europe. In key competences, such as maths and comprehension, Mallorca and Balearic school children rank among the bottom four of Spain’s regions. The standard of English is such that two-thirds of students at the Universitat de les Illes Balears admit to not understanding it, despite instruction at the university and years of teaching at school.

The education spokesperson at the CCOO union has a point when he suggests that, of the ministries in the new Bauzá administration, education should be given the greatest priority, above even that of tourism. Mallorca’s future lies with well-educated and motivated raw material that can help to shift the economic emphasis away from a reliance on tourism and to change an attitude among young people that they can aspire to no more than being waiters and hanging out on the beach.

The union has expressed concern that the new administration might be targetting education for privatisation. It is probably a touch of scaremongering, but it is just one issue that confronts Rafael Bosch as he takes over the education ministry. The CCOO, and the other two unions representing teachers, have, however, given Bosch’s appointment cautious approval. They describe him as “moderate and communicative”.

And being perceived as moderate might well be a blessing, given that President Bauzá had suffered, some time before the elections, his now infamous, self-confessed “mental lapse” in respect of language, one that has, ever since, dominated discussion as to the PP’s attitude to language and the party’s potential for scrapping Catalan as a language of teaching. This will be an issue that will dog Bosch, though, for his part, he is saying that there needs to be greater effort in the teaching of language – three languages in fact: Spanish, English and Catalan. Hierologically, the hitherto anonymous Bosch does not appear to adhere to the notion of Castilian being the sacred language.

He recognises that the law as it stands allows parents freedom of choice between Spanish and Catalan as to the main language of teaching. For the most part, Mallorca’s parents are happy enough for Catalan to prevail, while schools and pupils have expressed their preference for Catalan, and on occasions vociferously so.

The language question does threaten to overshadow all other matters in Bosch’s ministerial in-tray, but it is way less important than the main one – that of improving standards and combatting what he has described as the “intolerable” situation regarding the high level of year repetition that pupils in Mallorca are obliged to undergo. To this end, Bosch is planning to create a “social pact” between the teaching profession, unions and others to develop a model of education in the islands. Which sounds all rather grand, though we will have to see what it actually means. More practically, he is hinting at adding an hour to the school day, which, pact or no pact, the unions might find a tad hard to swallow.

At the same time as Bosch has got his feet under the ministerial desk, the schools have broken up for the long summer break. It might seem that Bosch, if he believes that longer hours and more schooling are necessary, should perhaps shorten the holidays. The fact is, however, that adding hours isn’t necessarily a solution and nor would be a shortening of the holidays. In Finland, for example, there is an eleven-week break, a lower annual number of school hours than Spain (quite appreciably so) and a way higher standard of achievement than anywhere in Spain.

Mr. Bosch is not only education minister. He also has responsibility for culture. And perhaps here lies a clue for him. Improving educational standards in Mallorca is less a matter of longer days and more one of changing cultural attitudes to education. The people he really needs to be educating are parents.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Comprehension Lessons: Education in Mallorca

Hype, spin, fantasy. Ill-informed, wrong, misleading.

Pick any of the above. Now interpret it. Comprehend it, in other words, by using other words, and also be able to use it in context.

You are probably not a student at a secondary school in the Balearics. Were you to be, you wouldn’t be much good at interpreting or comprehending. And this is not an English test. Interpretation of text, any text, is something you’re pretty lousy at.

Why choose the above words? It can often be revealing to discover what is trotted out on the internet in the name of Mallorca and the Balearics, and which can be any of the above. “Fantastic.” “High standards”. Just two examples of what is said about education in Mallorca. You can interpret these examples as being indicative of these words. Or rather, you should interpret them thus, if, that is, you take time to look at the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) report into educational standards which is produced under the auspices of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).

This report looks not only at national standards. In the case of Spain, it breaks them down by regions. Not all, because not all are covered, but most. In three main categories – mathematics, reading comprehension, science – the Balearics are in the bottom five. In fact, only in maths do the Balearics climb out of the bottom four, and only the Canaries and the “autonomous cities” of Ceuta and Melilla, the Spanish enclaves in Morocco, are worse than the Balearics.

Fantastic? Doesn’t sound like it, does it. Of the three measures, the Balearics are below the Spanish average and, by quite some margin, the OECD average.

The findings are significant. They give a wholly different impression of educational standards than the “hype” would have it, and there is an unmistakable pattern to them. The four non-mainland parts of Spain are the worst places for children to be educated. This raises its own question. Are these places somehow disadvantaged when it comes to the provision of education? There is another possibility. Maybe they’re just not very good. The teaching unions would suggest that there is a disadvantage and an inequality between regions of Spain.

If one considers economic performance and levels of wealth as indicators of advantage or disadvantage, there is something to be said for this argument. Ceuta and Melilla have the lowest GDPs of all the Spanish regions. The Balearics rank only 12th out of the 17 regions plus the two autonomous cities, but there is a very different picture when you consider GDP per head of population. The Balearics are one of the wealthier regions, up there with the big earners such as Madrid, the Basque Country and Catalonia.

Living and educational standards do not necessarily coincide, but a generally accepted principle is that the higher the standard of living, the better the education. So what’s going wrong in the Balearics?

For some, the low standards being achieved will be evidence of the politics of language. Possibly so. The problems with comprehension could indeed be evidence of this, as may also be the level of immigration. But there is arguably a more important issue, and it is one that contradicts the “fantastic” image. It is one of indiscipline and poor motivation and one, moreover, which debunks the notion that higher standards of living automatically mean better education. Or better pupils at any rate.

In state schools, and one probably should distinguish between public and private education, a complaint that is made is that disruptiveness is often the product of children of the better-off. Why should this be? A reason lies with the wealth and with the knowledge that an education doesn’t matter if there are over-indulgent parents who will see the kids right when they leave school. A further issue, and particularly so in coastal areas, is the lifestyle. The beach, the summer and all that goes with them are seductive in creating a laidback atmosphere. It might sound great, but not if it inculcates an attitude whereby school is an inconvenience prior to papa setting you up in a bar or the family business or your taking a job as a waiter or on a boat.

It is no coincidence that the best-performing regions are the likes of Castile-Leon and Madrid. It is also no coincidence that two other regions with strong sun-and-beach connections aren’t that much better than the Balearics, namely Murcia and Andalusia.

The language of education and the constant fuss that surrounds it will probably be singled out as the reason for poor educational performance, but to do so would be to disguise other factors which may be the real reasons for this performance. Whatever the reason, interpret the words correctly and don’t believe the hype.

* The findings of the report relate to 15-year-old pupils. All regions of Spain were included except for Valencia, Extremadura and Castile-La Mancha.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.