In 2010, study number 29 of the Obra Social de La Caixa collection was published, entitled “School Failure, a Social Tragedy”, and its authors were Mariano Fernández Enguita, Luis Mena Martínez and Jaime Riviere Gómez.
In our country school failure reaches rates of 30 percent, and has been measured in different ways, and located in the calculation of European and world results, in many other ways. But it is not just about figures to fill our mouths with, as if by saying them we wanted to demonstrate our knowledge of the subject.
School failure is a tremendous social scandal, and a drama for hundreds of families with school children, but are measures taken to fight him? Jorge Osma (from Jaume I University in Castellón) told us in this interview three years ago that at present 'he is educated with methods similar to those of 30 years ago' despite innovation in materials and technology.
Today, the Other School Association is possible, draws attention to this issue that should be in the spotlight (ahead of football events); stating - among other things - that 'the Spanish education system is unable to compensate for the social origin of the students'. This is a determining factor of school failure, and the attention given from the Public School to individual needs is far from being up to other countries with better results.
We are well above the European average (12.8 percent), and for the first time the seriousness of the situation of the Spanish education system has been recognized from the Ministry of Education, though: the proposed solutions are not aimed at the core of the problem.
How to understand school failure?
According to Enguita, 'one third of the youth population is not able to achieve the goal of achieving a regular post-compulsory degree that would enable them to enter the labor market for a job with an estimated minimum qualification'.
At present, people's opportunities depend on their training and their qualification. So How not to expect teaching to be at the service of each child receiving a quality education?
The social alarm situation is evident
It is necessary to change the ways of teaching, and give it to students a central role in their learning processes (something like this happens in the 'school lab' that we talked about recently, or in the Vittra). Having quality and highly competent teachers (in the Finnish style) should also be an urgent objective in the educational change agenda.
In a world that will cease to be ours in a few years, because our children will inherit it, we should reflect and act with a little more responsibility.
Actions that don't work
In the text of Another School is possible, prepared by Virginia Baudino, some decisions are analyzed that in the opinion of the entity they are wrong and do not work, they are just a representation of the problem:
It all starts in Primary. There are indicators that alert students with difficulties. These students are, as evidenced by their subsequent school career, abandoned to their fate by the system.
The Course repetition is a useless measure, a routine without pedagogical justification, a waste of resources.
Disciplinary problems, contrary to the topic only affect 28% of those who leave. And, in addition, the parents of these students usually give more answers to the requirements of the center than the rest of the parents.
Diversification measures or attention to students with special needs have proven interesting in diagnosis but inefficient in treatment. Through these it is not possible that not a single one of the analyzed files continues in the center and does not abandon.
I keep this phrase from Mariano Enguita: 'the rigidity and eventual sterility of the subjects makes the school institution and experience a boredom experience, which becomes its main and ubiquitous facet'.
And I invite you to reflect on the fact that we are 'forcing' our children to train in a slightly changing educational system, which contrasts sharply with an immediate environment and society in continuous evolution.
Returning to School Failure, in a broad definition of school failure, we could understand this as'any form of non-achievement of the school objectives proclaimed by society and that can be estimated as reasonable minimums depending on the labor market, namely a regular post-compulsory degree'.
Education is one of the main resources of the social structure, not facing social failure in all dimensions directly affects not only to equal opportunities, but also to future social functioning.
Images | Liz, USAG- Humphreys Source | Another School is Possible In Peques and More | Great article by Miguel Jara on school failure, parents' abilities to influence school success: interest in children's studies and active involvement
