‘Dual system’ planned for schools

SPAIN’S school dropout rate of 28.6 per cent was “worrying”, said the EU’s Education commissioner, Androulla Vassiliou.

Spain’s Education minister Jose Ignacio Wert who met Vassiliou and his European counterparts in Brussels last week, explained the government intended to counteract this with the “dual system” like that of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Aware that youth unemployment in Spain is double the EU average, he was in favour of separating pupils, Wert said, so that some received an education focused on preparation for the workplace while others went on to university.

The system would be flexible and mechanisms would exist to assist pupils to switch from one system to another, Wert stressed.

“The countries with lowest dropout rates and where school-leavers adapted best to the labour market were those with this dual structure,” the minister said. Introducing the system to Spain will entail transforming what is now the last year of secondary education at 16 into an orientation course to help them decide which route to take.

In Germany or Switzerland pupils were tested at 12 to decide which of the options was more suitable for them, said Wert.

This, he admitted, could be a huge worry for parents who were aware that whether or not their children went to university was being decided at a very early age.

Spain would not impose this version on parents or pupils, Wert pledged, but planned to introduce a system adapted to the country’s industrial and social environment.

Referring to spending cuts in Spain and other crisis-hit EU members, it might not be possible to reach targets to reverse the school dropout rates, Vassiliou warned .

“If 14 per cent of pupils leave school early, that means something is wrong,” she said.

By Linda Hall

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