Minister Antoni Vera presented the draft of the new curriculum decrees for infant, primary, secondary and baccalaureate education, which will be applied from the 2025-2026 academic year.

The new decrees include an increase in the number of hours dedicated to mathematics and a reinforcement in languages.

The Catalan Minister of Education and Universities, Antoni Vera, together with the Director General of Vocational Training and Educational Organisation, Maria Isabel Salas, today presented the draft decree of the new school curricula. This document includes innovative proposals that mark a significant change in the education system of the Balearic Islands, to improve essential learning and ensure a solid foundation of knowledge and skills for students.

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Education presents the new school curricula that reinforce learning and introduce a change in the Balearic Islands’ education system

The new curricula aim to promote educational equity, responding especially to the needs of the most vulnerable groups. As explained by Vera, ‘this new curriculum framework is the result of close collaboration between experts, the educational community and the administration, and responds to the real needs of teachers, students and families’.

The draft, which is being sent today to all the members of the different education roundtables and which will soon be on public display, has for the first time benefited from the voluntary participation of more than one hundred teachers from all educational stages and from all the islands. It also includes 32 proposals from the report Análisis y propuestas para la mejora del sistema educativo y los currículos de educación infantil, educación primaria, ESO y bachillerato en las Illes Balears (Analysis and proposals for the improvement of the education system and the curricula of infant education, primary education, ESO and baccalaureate in the Balearic Islands), drawn up by education experts from different autonomous communities.

As the President of the Government of the Balearic Islands, Margalida Prohens, emphasised at the presentation of the experts’ report, “the time has come to recover the search for excellence and the culture of effort as values of the educational model”. According to Councillor Vera, this new approach ‘reflects the concerns of teachers and families, promoting an educational model that prioritises equity and the improvement of learning, adapted to the real needs of students’.

Main novelties by educational stage:

• Infant education: oral communication, reading, writing and mathematics skills are reinforced, and the use of screens is limited. In this regard, teachers will be able to use digital devices from the last year of pre-primary education, but not students.
• Primary education: the number of hours dedicated to mathematics, foreign language, art education (in the first two cycles) and knowledge of the environment (in the third cycle) is increased. Thus, priority is given to the learning of reading, writing and mathematics, disassociating digital competence from the intensive use of screens.
• Compulsory secondary education (ESO): the number of hours of mathematics is increased in the second and fourth years, and two optional subjects are created in the first and second years of ESO to reinforce Catalan, Spanish, foreign languages and mathematics. The new optional subject Digital and multimedia environments is also introduced.

Baccalaureate: the number of hours of modality and optional subjects in the first year is increased. In addition, the subject of Research work is transformed into an optional subject, as required by the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sport. It will be renamed Research Work, Analysis and Creativity and may be taken in the first year of the baccalaureate. The optional subjects of the European Union and Business Project are incorporated, and the subject of the History and Culture of the Balearic Islands is developed in greater depth. These new features mean an increase from 31 to 33 teaching hours per week in the baccalaureate’s first year, bringing the baccalaureate’s first and second year to the same level with 33 teaching hours. In the case of the second year, the optional Physical activity, leisure and health are included.

With these measures, the Government of the Balearic Islands is committed to a more modern education system adapted to current challenges, while ensuring a more personalised and inclusive approach for all students.

Furthermore, the councillor Antoni Vera stressed that the curricular adaptation aims to implement measures to improve the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, as well as the TIMSS tests, which assess performance in mathematics and science, and other assessment tests (such as diagnostic tests). It also reduces the bureaucratic burden to facilitate teachers’ work and gives schools greater autonomy. This autonomy translates into a curricular structure favouring programming and adaptation to the reality of each school and group of students. At the same time, basic knowledge is specified and assessment criteria are clarified under basic state regulations.