The Ministry of Education wants to lower by law the ratio of students per class to a maximum of 22 in primary education (now there are 25) and to 25 in ESO (now there are 30). Students with special educational needs (basically, kids with disabilities and ASD) will also count twice for the purposes of the ratio of students per classroom throughout Spain. Education proposed it this Thursday to the main teaching unions in the second specific meeting on the subject, convened at the ministry headquarters.
The document presented by the Government also foresees a decrease in ratios in early childhood education, high school and Basic Vocational Training, and, although it does not specify how much it would be, it does indicate that it would enter a year later than the decrease in primary and secondary education, scheduled for September 2026.
which he put on the table in September, contemplated reducing the ratios in centers that enroll a high number of students in situations of socioeconomic vulnerability, an option that also appears in this second proposal, which increases the cases in which said decrease would occur.
For example, educational centers enroll a high number of students with specific needs for educational support, a broad official category, which includes not only students with disabilities or ASD, but also those who have dyslexia, dyscalculia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), lack of knowledge of the classroom language, socio-educational disadvantage or other learning difficulties.
Bring the bill to Congress quickly
Education intends, if there is an agreement with the unions, to bring the draft bill to Congress before the end of the year, with the aim that the first measures (lowering the ratio in primary and ESO, and that students with special needs count double) come into force next year.
The document, which is written in articulated format, that is, as a draft of said future norm, includes in its third additional provision that “within 1 year from the entry into force of this law” the ratio of students in education, preschool, high school and Basic Vocational Training will be changed in a regulatory manner (by decree, without the need to go through the Cortes) and the system will be established to treat differently those educational centers that enroll a high proportion of students. vulnerable.
Said decree will include, specifically, “the reference indicators for the determination of those educational centers in which, due to schooling a high number of students with specific needs for educational support, because they are located in areas of special social complexity or to improve the rates of success, promotion, qualification and reduce school dropout rates, the adoption of specific measures is required to facilitate specific attention to the students, which may influence a greater adaptation of both the maximum ratios established as the means.”
The ministry’s first draft referred generically to the possibility of lowering ratios throughout the system. And, if this option was chosen, it proposed concentrating the decrease in those courses that are considered most crucial when determining educational success, because they coincide, for example, with the change of stage between primary and secondary school, or in which the number of students per class is now very high. Specifically, he proposed doing it in 5th and 6th grades of Primary, 1st and 2nd grades of ESO, Basic Vocational Training, and in Baccalaureate.
The Government – which formally opened the negotiation of the teacher reform with the unions at the beginning of the year, within which the issue of ratios is included – asked the unions at that September meeting to give it their formal opinion on that proposal, committing to try to incorporate it into the bill.
To approve it, the Government will have to obtain the necessary support in Congress. The legal reform will also include the reduction of the number of class hours that teachers must give per week to 18 hours in secondary schools and 23 in infant and primary schools.
The ministry and the unions will soon hold a third meeting on the matter.
