The Department of Universities of Catalonia has changed their minds twice in 24 hours about whether spelling fouls remain in selectivity exams. The slogan indicated that the lexical and grammatical incorrection, as well as spelling offenses, would reduce up to 10% of the exam note in “all subjects”, except in the subjects of language and literature, which would do it up to 20%. Yesterday, in a meeting with the press ,. “In physics, chemistry or mathematics, the correction criteria for offenses are not applied, and in other subjects where texts such as history or history of philosophy have been considered this year not to discount due to spelling faults,” said Mònica Garizuain, head of the University Access Office.
After the stir generated, the counselor has left the middle morning and in an interview on the 3/24 channel has re -rectified again and has assured that the spelling will be reviewed, but only in six subjects: Latin, Greek, history, history of philosophy, geography and dramatic literature. According to the Department of Universities, they are subjects “where the student has to write an elaborate text, somewhere in the test.”
However, there are many other subjects – art history, fundamentals of the company, musical analysis, environmental sciences – where the student is asked an explanatory and reasoned text, but that have been left out, at least, for now. And this Thursday, Corrector meetings of the PAU were held in which, inevitably, the issue of correction came out, but the test coordinators did not know how to answer: “I do not know,” the head of art history was justified, according to sources present at the meeting.
Royal Decree 534/2024 establishes penalty for offenses may not exceed 10%. But a subsequent agreement of the CRUE (which represents all Spanish universities) rose this percentage to 15% in the case of the foreign language and 20% to the subjects of language and literature (of any co -official language).
However, the counselor said: “No change in criteria has been made regarding state regulations. We are adjusting the evidence to what the regulations say.” Likewise, Montserrat wanted to send a message of tranquility to the concealers, ensuring that nothing had changed with respect to what was announced in October and, in any case, the final correction criteria will take place on the same day of the selectivity, which will be held from June 11 to 13.
These bandages are added to the uncertainty that the selectivity it presents, such as the fact that there will only be an exam model, this will be more competence and less memorial, there will be more open questions and disappear. “There are already enough novelties this year,” said the Coordinator of the PAU in Catalonia, Pilar Gómez, to justify that the correction criteria would be relaxed. And there is a widespread opinion among the professors of the selectivity, something that the department takes iron.
Teachers, angry
Maria Antònia Cabra, Baccalaureate Coordinator of the Vil·la Romana Institute of La Garriga, learned of the changes at 12 at night. “I got so angry that it cost me a lot to fall asleep. They are telling us that in the languages we must watch, but in the sciences, everything is worth it, and that does not help us teachers because we ask for efforts in all areas,” he complains. “We ask for coherence. We want students to write well, but they have to do it in all areas,” adds the director of this institute, Txell Maymó, who also regrets that “students end up assimilating the message that in the non -linguistic areas there is no need to strive so much.”
Núria, a baccalaureate professor at a Baix Llobregat Institute, also claims to be “deeply angry” with these changes in criteria that affected their subject for a few hours, history. In fact, Núria explains that since the beginning of the course they had already alerted students who would discount in this exam. However, the teacher regrets that it is “a repeated practice to change the rules of the game in the middle of the game.” “We were already very late for the new exams, we had to change the way of teaching when we already had the programming made,” he adds.
This teacher also regrets that this year the history exam will be “much more difficult.” “The type of questions have changed, the whole agenda enters, the questions are broader and implies a domain of the historical changes that the students do not have because it requires a preparation time that we have not had. We already warn that the exam was very difficult and that the changes had to have been made progressively,” the teacher affects, which has no doubt that the notes will download this year.
Cristina, Biology and Geology Baccalaureate professor, also defends the requirement of a good language level in all areas. “We cannot lower the level of demand anymore because the level of general culture of society is already lowering. Students have everything in a click and do not value the effort. Now, with the chat GPT they do all the works and do not take the trouble to reread them to see if it makes sense or not.”
