In January 2024, the State School Council unanimously approved the Spanish Government's proposal to regulate the use of mobile phones in educational institutions during the school year. This entails a series of recommendations and conclusions, such as zero mobile phone use in both Early Childhood and Primary Education. Additionally, these devices must remain turned off throughout the school hours in Secondary Education, and only allowed to be used if the teacher deems it necessary for a specific educational activity. However, exceptions are considered for reasons of health, safety, or special needs.

In January 2024, the Spanish Government launched the Mathematics and Reading Comprehension Reinforcement Plan, benefiting over five million students in Primary, Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO), Basic Vocational Training (FP Básica), and Baccalaureate (Bachillerato) in publicly funded schools. This plan includes teacher support to provide more personalized attention, more resources for schools, and extracurricular lessons. The programme will be implemented for reading comprehension reinforcement from the first year of Primary Education to Baccalaureate and, for mathematics, from the third year of Primary Education to Baccalaureate, including Basic Vocational Training.

As per the funding for this programme, specifics are yet to be finalised pending the negotiation of the State General Budgets. However, government sources have indicated that this educational measure will be supported by substantial funding. "The budget will be as ambitious as the goal," stated the Minister of Education, Vocational Training and Sports.

In December 2023, the Agreement of the Sectorial Conference on Education was published, approving the territorial distribution proposal and distribution criteria for the credits managed by autonomous communities, and destined for the Code School 4.0 Programme in the budgetary year 2023, totalling 1 600 000.00 euros.

The recipients of this programme are teachers who provide education in the second cycle of Early Childhood and Primary Education, as regulated by Organic Law 3/2006 on Education (LOE), amended by Organic Law 3/2020 (LOMLOE), and their students. Depending on the support needs expressed by the teaching staff, it may be extended to publicly funded schools that offer Secondary Education, provided the support needs of schools offering the second cycle of Early Childhood and Primary Education have been met.

The general goal is to implement the necessary mechanisms and processes to spread and facilitate the development of digital skills related to computational thinking and programming for both teachers and students in publicly funded schools.

The specific objectives of the Programme are:

• To improve the digital skills of students, especially those related to computational thinking and programming.
• To implement digital skills in the classroom, especially those related to computational thinking and programming, through teacher training, support, and the development of digital educational resources.
• To provide schools with the necessary equipment to develop students' digital skills, especially those related to computational thinking and programming.

2023

In July 2023, the project Combat antisemitism through education was issued. This Unesco project is part of the actions promoted by the European Strategy to combat antisemitism and promote Jewish life. The Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports (MEFD) has accepted the invitation to participate in this initiative led by Unesco, the European Commission and the OSCE, which will also be part of the recently approved National Plan for the Implementation of the EU Strategy for Combating Antisemitism (2023-2030).

This initiative is in line with Spanish education legislation (LOE-LOMLOE) that seeks to prevent any discrimination based on birth, racial or ethnic origin, sex, religion, opinion, disability, age, illness, sexual orientation or gender identity, or any other personal or social condition or circumstance. The law encourages the study and respect of other cultures, contributes to valuing cultural differences, as well as the recognition and dissemination of the history and culture of ethnic minorities in our country, to know them better and reduce stereotypes. In addition, it includes education on historical events that have seriously violated human rights, such as the case of the Jewish Holocaust.

In mid-June 2023, the Secretary of State for Education of Spain presented the report Proposals for an Action Plan to reduce Early School Leaving, prepared by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports (MEFD) and the Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support of the European Commission. The document details 15 recommendations, broken down into 44 proposals and divided into five areas of action, to prevent young people from leaving the educational system prematurely. Despite improved data over the past decade, more work is needed to improve opportunities for all students. The main lines of action of the plan are:

• identification of vulnerable schools;
• teacher training;
• support for students;
• curricular flexibility and competency-based learning;
• promotion of collaboration between educational administrations;
• support programmes: Pogramme for Reinforcement, Guidance and Support (PROA+) and Guidance and Support Units.

Reform of the degree plan of the Bachelor's degree in Primary Education

The Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities has published a draft ministerial orders with the changes it proposes for the curriculum of the Primary Education Bachelor's Degree. Among these modifications, the order includes the organisation of the courses and the distribution of the credits to pass it. The order proposed by Universities adds more credits to subjects such as Fundamentals of Educational Inclusion and Attention to Diversity. In addition, there are subjects that were not mandatory and now become so as the Attention to Diversity. Similarly, this reform focuses on general issues such as “the digitalisation of education, personal skills or sustainability”. As for the subject called Digitalisation, 12 university credits are dedicated.

Scholarships and study aids for the course 2023-2024

The budget of scholarships and study grants has reached its historical maximum for the next year. In particular, EUR 2 520 million will be allocated to scholarships and study grants. It is the fifth consecutive year that has increased its funding. Since 2018, the budget has increased by 70 %.

All information on requirements, deadlines, amounts and procedures to be eligible for these scholarships and grants are available on the scholarship website of the MEFD and the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. The goal is to centralise information and make it more accessible. The deadline to apply for general scholarships begins on March 27 and ends on May 17.

In addition, in this new call there is a universal aid of EUR 400 for students of non-university education levels who demonstrate a disability of at least 33 %, serious behavior, communication or language disorder or the autism spectrum, in order to cover the additional costs that their families must face. In this case, the minister has estimated that the aid will benefit more than 214 000 students.

2022

School Code Plan 4.0

This plan will be structured as a Territorial Cooperation Programme between the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports (MEFD) and the educational administrations of the autonomous communities. Its purpose is to help develop the digital skills of students in early childhood, primary and secondary education with a special focus on computational thinking, programming and robotics.

Over the next two years, an investment of 356 million euros is planned for the incorporation of programming assistants in classrooms to help teachers implement robotics, programming and computational thinking in their lessons.

Likewise, this plan does not imply the modification of the new curricula which begin implementation in September, but rather their development. During the 2022/2023 school year, it will be implemented in child and primary education and, the following year, in secondary education.

Similarly, the plan includes the provision of equipment and teaching materials, specific educational resources and guides that will be prepared by the National Institute of Educational Technologies and Teacher Training (INTEF).

New curriculum for bachillerato

In March 2022, Royal Decree 243/2022 was approved. This decree sets the organization and minimum contents of bachillerato (post-compulsory secondary education). It establishes a competence-based curriculum aimed at facilitating the educational development of students; it also guarantees the comprehensive training of students, contributing to the full development of their personality and preparing them to the full exercise of human rights and active and democratic citizenship in the current society. This will never imply, by no means, a barrier that generates school dropout or prevents access and enjoyment of the right to education.

The purpose of bachillerato consists in offering training, intellectual and human matureness, knowledge, abilities, and attitudes that allow the development of social functions and the incorporation to the active life with responsibility and aptitude. Moreover, this stage must enable the acquisition and achievement of the necessary competences for their training and professional future and enable them to access higher education.

The purpose of the minimum education, established by this new legislation, is to guarantee the development of the key competences. At the same time, the curriculum established by the education administrations and their specification by the school centres carried out in their educational projects will have as a referent the operational descriptors detailed in it.

This new planning will start to apply in first grade of bachillerato in the school year 2022-2023 and the second grade on the following year.

New curriculum for compulsory secondary education

Royal Decree 217/2022 was approved in March 2022, which sets the organization and minimum contents of compulsory secondary education. It establishes a competence-based curriculum aimed at facilitating the educational development of students. It guarantees their comprehensive training, contributing to the full development of their personality and preparing them to the full exercise of their human rights, active and democratic citizenship in the current society. It will not imply, by no means, a barrier that generates school dropout or prevents access and enjoyment of the right to education.

The purpose of the stage of compulsory secondary education consists in the students’ acquisition of basic elements of culture —humanistic, artistic, scientific and technical, and motor side. Another purpose is to develop and consolidate study and work habits as healthy life habits, this way, they are being prepared for their incorporation to later studies and labour integration. The last purpose is to train them for the exercise of their rights and obligations as citizens.

Furthermore, this legislation establishes the students’ output profile when they finish basic education and sets the key competences they must have acquired and developed. It constitutes the maximum referent of competence performance, both in the evaluation of the different stages and modalities of basic training and the qualification in Graduate in Compulsory Secondary Education. The purpose of the minimum education established by this act is to guarantee the development of the key competences seen in the output profile. At the same time, the curriculum established by the educational administrations and their specification by the school centres carried out in their educational projects will have as a referent said output profile.

This new planning for secondary education will start to apply in the odd grades of the school year 2022-2023, and for the rest of the grades in the following school year.

New curriculum for primary education

Royal Decree 157/2022 was approved in March 2022, which sets the organization and minimum contents of primary education. It establishes a competence-based curriculum aimed at facilitating the educational development of students, and it guarantees their comprehensive training. This stage will have again three cycles of two school years and will attend first and foremost the effects of the different disadvantages that exists in the education and children’s evolution.

The purpose of the stage of primary education consists in providing the learning of speaking, listening, reading, calculation, and logic and mathematic abilities. Another purpose is the acquisition of basic notions of culture, and the coexistence, as the study and work habits, the artistic sense, creativity and affection, with the aim to guarantee an integral formation that helps their fully development of their character. The last purpose is their preparation to start compulsory secondary education. There are eight key competences established for this stage:

• competence in linguistic communication;
• competence in multilingual communication;
• mathematics and science competence, technology and engineering;
• digital competence;
• personal, social and learning to learn competence;
• citizen competence;
• entrepreneur competence;
• awareness and cultural expression competence.

Aside of these competences, the act establishes the areas in which they are organized:

• Natural, Social and Cultural Means Knowledge;
• Artistic Education;
• Physical Education;
• Spanish and its literature, and Co-official Language and its literature, if any;
• Foreign Language;
• Mathematics;
• Education in Civic and Ethic Duty, in some of the academic years of the third cycle;
• Second Foreign Language, area of transversal character, depending on each Autonomous Community.

Currently, the Autonomous Communities have the responsibility to establish the curriculum of this stage from the minimum education set by the Government in this act. The schools and teachers will adapt the teaching to the children that are a part of the group.

This new primary education planning will start to apply in the odd grades in the school year 2022-2023.

Evaluation, promotion, and certification new legislation

In November 2021, the Royal Decree 984/2021, which regulates the evaluation, promotion, and qualification of the different educational stages, was published.

This decree arises from the need to regulate evaluation, promotion and certification in the transitional period until the new curricula come into force. Therefore, it will be in force exclusively for the 2021/2022 school year and, only for even courses, in the 2022/2023 school year. As of 1 September 2022, the new curricula will begin to be applied in odd courses and the evaluation, promotion and qualification will be regulated by the royal decrees of primary, secondary and bachillerato.

Its purpose is to promote students’ positive evolution guaranteeing their learning process and keeping their expectations of achieving a training as advanced as possible.

In compulsory stages (primary and secondary education), the students’ evaluation is continuous. The promotion is not subordinated to the number of subjects not passed, the decision of the promotion to the next grade and qualification fall entirely to the teaching staff. In primary education, the decision will be made at the end of the second, fourth and sixth school year, the promotion will be automatic in the other school years. In secondary education, the teaching staff will decide if the student’s global evolution will let them promote to the next grade with positive prospects of recuperation of the subjects not passed. All in all, the repetition is an exceptional measure, taken only if the other reinforcement and support measures have been exhausted. In any case, the student can stay in the same school year once, and two times maximum along the compulsory education.

This evaluation system lays emphasis on the early detection of the possible difficulties, the adoption of reinforcement measures as soon as they are needed and measures of recuperation to assure the learning not very settled.

The new legislation eliminates the extraordinary calls for retaking exams in June or September.

The promotion at bachillerato, between first and second grade demands a maximum of two subjects not passed, continuous evaluation and different in each subject. To obtain the tittle, a positive evaluation in all subjects will be necessary, though it is foreseen the possibility to obtain it extraordinarily with a subject not passed only if the student hast reached the objectives and competences of the stage, has pursued the subject with normalcy (class attendance, examination, etc.) and the arithmetic mean of every qualification is 5 or more. This decision will be a college decision taken by the teaching staff.