The document focuses on initial training, lifelong learning, access to the teaching profession and professional development, always bearing in mind that teachers are the most important part of the education system.
The Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MEFP), headed by Minister Pilar Alegría, today presented a document for debate at the negotiating table with the education unions and the General Education Commission of the autonomous communities, containing 24 proposals for improving the teaching profession. The proposals focus on initial training, access to the teaching profession, lifelong learning and professional development.
The idea behind the proposals is learning by doing and learning by doing, in the framework of lifelong learning as a way to improve the performance of any profession.
Among other measures, the document proposes the establishment of an entrance test for pre-primary and primary education, taking into account employability levels. It would assess communicative competence critical reasoning and logical-mathematical competence and would include aspects referring to attitudes and competencies of the teaching profession.
It also addresses the modification of access to the Master’s Degree in Teacher Training, in which it is proposed to establish basic requirements related to the area of knowledge of each speciality of the Master’s Degree.
Likewise, training complements aimed at ensuring basic knowledge related to the specialities of the Master’s degree may be established.
The document also raises the possibility of establishing an entrance exam for this Master’s similar to the proposal made for the Bachelor’s Degrees in Early Childhood and Primary Education. Finally, it is proposed to reinforce the Practicum in the Master’s Degree in Teacher Training as a whole.
The Ministry’s draft also proposes to establish a new model of initiation to teaching (PID) in initial training based on learning by doing. This proposal focuses on the improvement of Bachelor’s and Master’s degree internships, thus ensuring that anyone wishing to start a career in teaching receives the necessary training to be able to work in this profession, and from that point onwards, can gradually enter the profession.
The 24 proposals put forward by the MEFP also include five proposals to improve and guarantee in-service teacher training. These include ongoing training in teachers’ digital competence, promoting the use of information and communication technologies and training in this area. There is also a need to guarantee teachers’ right and obligation to in-service training, as well as to promote the diversity of in-service training modalities.
This initiative responds to the seventh additional provision of the Education Act, LOMLOE, which establishes the presentation by the Government of a legislative proposal to regulate initial and in-service training, and access to and professional development of teachers. It is also based on the idea that no education system will be better than its teachers.
“It is a substantial and delicate educational reform, which has not been addressed for four decades. But today it is more necessary than ever. Our teachers need sufficient and appropriate initial and ongoing training, to feel professionally accompanied in order to reflect on their work and to be able to improve it in a dynamic and changing social environment,” said the minister, Pilar Alegría, last Tuesday in the Senate’s Education and Vocational Training Committee.