Overview of Education System
The Spanish Constitution of 1978, in accordance with the autonomous territorial structure of the state, has allowed for a great degree of decentralization of education. The central administration is responsible for overseeing legislation, basic structure, and foreign relations to guarantee the unity of the education system. Andalusia, like the rest of Spainʼs autonomous communities, is responsible for all other aspects of the education system, such as financial management and management of teachers, schools, and curriculum in its territory.3 The process of transferring responsibilities to the autonomous communities concluded in 2000 (some years earlier in Andalusia). Subsequent education legislation has attempted to reconcile this distribution with the interregional cooperation necessary to guarantee a coordinated effort in developing educational policies throughout the state. The Organic Law on Education of 2006 modified by the Organic Law for the Improvement of Educational Quality (known by its Spanish acronym, LOMCE) of 2013 guarantees the necessary basic homogeneity and unity of the education system and highlights the broad legislative and executive frameworks available to the autonomous communities to achieve the goals of the education system.4,5 This law includes a proposal for regional cooperation among the education authorities in order to develop projects and programs of general interest, share information, and benefit from best practices.
According to Andalusian Education Department statistics, public expenditure on education totaled €5.6 billion in 2014.6 This expenditure is distributed as follows: preprimary, primary, and special education (43.19 percent); secondary and professional education (38.78 percent); and artistic education, adults, and other (18.03 percent). According to 2016–2017 data, 1.83 million students are enrolled in these types of schools (public and private) in Andalusia, excluding universities.7
Public schools are owned by a public authority. However, the majority of private schools also are publicly funded, since the autonomous community finances their operational costs under the general system for grant-maintained schools in return for the public education service they provide to society.
The basic structure of the Spanish education system was established in 1990 by the Organic Law on the General Organization of the Education System. The system is organized into stages, cycles, years, and levels of education. The levels include preprimary (ages 0 to 6), primary (ages 6 to 12), comprehensive secondary (ages 12 to 16), baccalaureate (ages 16 to 18), and vocational (ages 16 to 18 at the intermediate level and age 18 and older at the higher level).
Primary and comprehensive secondary education are called basic education, which is compulsory and free of charge and lasts 10 years, generally from ages 6 to 16. Secondary education is divided into comprehensive secondary education and post-compulsory secondary education, which includes the baccalaureate level, the intermediate level of vocational education, the intermediate level of vocational education in arts and design, and the intermediate level of sports education. Higher education includes university education, higher arts education, the higher level of vocational education, the higher level of arts and design, and the higher level of sports education.
The primary stage comprises six years and typically includes students ages 6 to 12. The goal of this stage is providing all students with an education that allows them to consolidate their personal development and well-being, and for students to acquire basic cultural skills relating to oral expression and comprehension, reading, writing, and numeracy. Primary education also focuses on the development of social skills, work and study habits, and creative and emotional growth. The education provided in this stage must integrate different experiences and knowledge, and adapt the instruction to individual students’ needs. LOMCE has established objectives that describe the student competencies to be developed for the primary stage. The primary stage emphasizes responding to student differences and supporting individual students, preventing learning difficulties, and putting remedial mechanisms into place as soon as difficulties are detected.
The preprimary stage of education is not compulsory. It is organized into two cycles (ages 0 to 3 and ages 3 to 6), the second of which is free of charge.