The Department of Education will send a draft in the coming days that reformulates how it should be addressed in Catalonia high school, the two-year stage after compulsory secondary education (ESO). The new curriculum provides for a new general baccalaureate, which does not predetermine from the day the 16-year-old ESO student enrolls what their subsequent academic itinerary should be. And above all, a rethinking of the subjects that the acquisition of skills prevails over that of knowledge, which could be summed up by saying that it does not aim for all students to reach a certain level (maximum or minimum, depending on how it is understood) but rather the maximum level they can access. And that they do not reproduce contents that they will soon forget but that they learn to solve problems, tasks and debates, those that arise now or those that they find in the future.
The first difficulty that the initiative will encounter is that of time. Not enough, but quite the opposite, to submit the proposal to consultation, finish off and approve the decree that must specify it and start it up next year. Especially if it is necessary training work between teachers –and here comes a second stumbling block– divided on the philosophy of change that is proposed. Not all secondary educational teams share the approaches of the educational technicians who have designed it and of the centers that have assimilated the practice of training focused on processes and abilities that is generalized in primary school and of unequal and discussed implementation in ESO. Nor does it seem immediate the intention of the universities of adapt university entrance exams.
The reform, to begin with, is necessary. The baccalaureate should be, in the current structure of the educational system defined in the already distant Logse and only retouched in successive regulatory fluctuations, something more than a pre-university stage aimed at passing the entrance exams and the dismissal of students who are considered unprepared. Without forgetting that it should not be considered as the only path to success after ESO, a misunderstanding that harms the necessary prestige of intermediate level FP. It is a stage that should train and integrate, not frustrate, and offer the instruments required by students who may not yet be clear about their academic future or who may be oriented towards other forms of higher professional training. And here the current high school has a lot of room for improvement. As well as (this stage and high school in general) in offering common bases of scientific culture, knowledge of our recent past or understanding of civic and democratic values.
Another question is the pedagogical orientation that inspires the reform. The baccalaureate should not only be the preparatory stage for access to university, but it should continue to be. The defenders of the new model consider that, applied in a demanding and innovative way, it can make students more critical citizens and better equipped academically to set themselves challenges, getting rid of mechanical and unmotivating learning. But an evaluation should be made without a priori of what results this approach, or other more traditional ones, have given in primary and ESO. Innovation also requires demand and ambition, and breaking comfortable routines. But it cannot become the opposite, a comfortable renunciation of knowledge and effort.