Seville, (EFE).- Andalusia will have half an hour of compulsory reading a day in Primary and Secondary education starting next year to reinforce reading comprehension and will dedicate more hours to instrumental subjects, that is, Mathematics, Language and First Foreign language.
The Minister of Educational Development and Vocational Training, Patricia del Pozo, has presented this Wednesday the new Andalusian curriculum, which complements the state LOMLOE and which will begin to be applied in the 2023-24 academic year, making reading “the backbone of the system”, with 875 mandatory and planned hours.
Both in Primary and Secondary, Andalusian students will study, within Civic Values and Geography and History, the Spanish empire; the transition; the 1978 Constitution; the terrorism of ETA, the Democratic Memory; rights and duties recognized to Spaniards and the Community of Andalusia, through its Statute.
These are the highlights of the new Andalusian curriculum.
Compulsory reading and more Mathematics and Language in Andalusia
Both Primary and Secondary students will have 2.5 hours a week of compulsory reading “with a transversal nature”, that is, they can be taught in any subject and not necessarily in Language. They will be carried out “with activities directed and designed to promote reading in the areas determined by the center” and with the aim of enhancing reading comprehension and improving results.
In Andalusia, the number of hours for Mathematics, Language and first Foreign Language are reinforced, so that, at the end of the Baccalaureate, at least one student has 298 more hours in the curriculum from the next academic year, of which 123 correspond to Language, 105 to Mathematics and 70 to the first Foreign Language. Only in the compulsory stage will they have studied 7.2% more hours in Mathematics and 6% in Language.
In addition, the centers, within their autonomy, can increase more hours in these subjects, so that they could reach an increase of 543 hours between Primary and Baccalaureate and 470 at the end of Secondary Education, so that Andalusia “is going to be situated among the communities that dedicate more time to these subjects”, according to Del Pozo.
As a novelty, both the sixth grade students, in the subject of Civic and Ethical Values, as well as the same subject in the second year of ESO and Geography and History in the fourth year, will study specific contents linked to democratic principles, the State of welfare, respect for public property or the rule of law as a guarantee for democracy and freedom, as well as ETA terrorism. “They have to know who Miguel Ángel Blanco was,” said the counselor.
Voluntary subjects and Baccalaureate
In this mandatory stage, the curriculum includes new content such as the Flamenco Culture subject, which will be taught in the third year of ESO as an elective, which can be taught by teachers with music teaching powers, and in the first year the second Foreign Language will be compulsory.
On the other hand, in third year it is also incorporated as a novelty among the optional Philosophy and Argumentation, which joins the catalog of oratory, computing and robotics or entrepreneurial initiative, and in second year of ESO there will be an optional Plastic Education Workshop, which will be taught by teachers Drawing specialists.
As for the Baccalaureate, one more hour of Language and the first Foreign Language is increased per week in the first year and one more hour of Philosophy and History of Spain in the second. The second Foreign Language becomes optional in the first year of Baccalaureate.
In addition, in Baccalaureate, students will have one less elective subject next year, with the aim of reinforcing common subjects, avoiding curricular dispersion and that this stage is focused on preparing for the EVAU.
Evaluation, degree promotion
The need to reach, if there is no consensus, a two-thirds majority in the decisions of the teaching team to provide greater guarantees to students, families and teachers, is maintained for promotion and degree decisions. This measure responds to a demand in the hearing process of the teachers’ associations, “with which they are offered legal certainty and their work is supported,” said the counselor.
In the case of three failed subjects or more, the guidelines that are transferred to the centers are that the teaching teams will jointly take into account the positive evolution in all evaluation activities and that the student, in the application of support measures, participate with involvement and positive effort in the activities.
Although the LOMLOE does not contemplate it, the numerical notes in the Primary and ESO information bulletins for families will be maintained, since the Board considers that “parents have to know if their child has a 4 or a 1 and it also serves to find out if there’s a problem.” EFE