The Wert Law and the ‘Mcdonalization’ of Spanish -and Catalan- education

The law adopted by the Spanish Government, to take effect on 2014 – 2015 (known as Wert Law), has caused a heated public debate in Spain. We came across an essay of Ferran Ruiz Tarragó, chairing the Education Council of Catalonia, on this particular issue.

One point that Ferran rightly emphasizes is that the new law would substantially change the educational model of an entire country without a previous rigorous analysis and without the active participation of all agents involved in the educational system.

The goal of the law is not to guarantee a top-quality, social and democratic education system, which provides opportunities for all citizens, but to base the system in quantification, rankings and costs, without proposals for a new pedagogical models and/or new educational practices and without the will to improve personalization of education. It is hardly possible for students to become creative individuals with critical thinking when all that is expected from them is to follow straight academic careers and obtain scores based on strict standards, as Ferran Ruiz believes.

The law neglects the vision of educating citizens to simply produce students that get easily insertable into the labor market, regardless of their personal, social and personal motivations. Perhaps we should look at some positive aspects of the current education system, especially in the case of the Catalan schools, where, despite the existent problems, a successful model has been achieved, based in the integration of all communities and with a strong social function beyond following strict educational itineraries.

Read the article from Ferran Ruiz (in Catalan):

La llei Wert i la mcdonaldització de l’educació espanyola (26 June, 2013)
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