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Spain from Re.ViCa
Spain in a nutshell
Spain or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
The Spanish mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal. Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco. With an area of 504,030 km², Spain is the second largest country in Western Europe after France.
After serving as a granary of the Roman Empire, much of Spain was later conquered by a Muslim people, the Moors. Christian kingdoms gradually rolled back Muslim rule, completing this Reconquista in 1492. Spain became the leading world power, with a global empire on a scale and world distribution that had never been approached by its predecessors and a legacy today of over 400 million Spanish-speakers worldwide.
Napoleon's invasion of Spain in the early 19th century triggered independence movements that tore the empire apart and left the country politically unstable. In the 20th century it suffered a devastating civil war and came under the rule of a dictatorship, leading to years of stagnation. Democracy was restored in 1978 and the country has subsequently experienced a cultural renaissance and steady economic growth. Spain is now a constitutional monarchy organised as a parliamentary democracy and has been a member of the European Union since 1986, and NATO since 1982. It is a developed country with the eighth largest economy in the world based on nominal GDP.
Spanish education system
- From 3 to 5 years of age - Educación Infantil (Pre-school)
- From 6 to 11 years of age - Educación Primaria (Primary School) Years, 1º, 2º, 3º, 4º, 5º and 6º
- From 12 to 16 years of age - Educación Secundaria Obligatoria (Compulsory Secondary Schooling) Years, 1º, 2º, 3º, 4º
- From 17 to 18 years of age - Bachillerato (Post-Compulsory Schooling), years 1º, 2º
Children from 3 to 5 years old in Spain have the option of attending the infantil (popularly known as preescolar) or Pre-school stage, which is non-compulsory and free for all students. It is regarded as an integral part of the education system with infants classes at almost every primary school. There are some separate Colegios Infantiles, or nursery schools.
Spanish students aged 6 to 16 undergo primary school, primary and secondary school education, which are compulsory and free of charge. Successful students are awarded a Secondary Education Certificate, which is necessary for entering further optional education as is Bachillerato for their University or Formacion Professional (Vocational Studies). Once students have finished their Bachillerato, they can take their University Entrance Exam (Pruebas de Acceso a la Universidad, popularly called Selectividad) which differs greatly from region to region.
The secondary stage of education is normally referred to by their initials, eg. ESO (Educación Secundaria Obligatoria) for secondary education.
Higher Education
Spain's University system
There are 51 public and 21 private universities in Spain. They are distributed throughout the country but the cities with the highest number of universities are Madrid (13), Barcelona (8) and Valencia (4).
Madrid has the highest number of private universities located there. These universities are very interested in the admission of foreign students to a wide range of undergraduate and graduate programs.
There are four different types of university establishments in Spain:
- university schools (escuelas universitarias), where ‘short-term’ three-year courses are offered;
- university colleges (colegios universitarios) where the first three years of study leading to a licenciado is completed;
- faculties (facultades) where long-term courses are offered in all academic disciplines (except technical courses) and
- higher technical schools of engineering and architecture (escuela superior de ingeniería y arquitectura) where long-term technical courses are completed.
The Spanish university system is rigidly structured and students must choose a fixed curriculum and aren’t permitted to change universities during their studies.
Undergraduate university studies are divided into different stages known as cycles. There are three types of programs:
- Single-cycle programs (or short-cycle studies): These studies do not continue to the second cycle and degrees awarded are the Diplomatura (Bachelor degree). These are normally three-year programs.
- Two-cycle studies with an intermediate diploma: The first cycle leads to the award of the Diplomatura (Bachelor), or Arquitectura Técnica and Ingeniería Técnica (Bachelor degree in Architecture or Engineering), and students have the option of continuing to the second cycle for the award of the degree of Licenciatura (Masters degree), or Arquitecto and Ingeniero (Architect and Engineer). These are five or six-year programs.
- Two-cycle studies without an intermediate diploma (or long-cycle studies): These studies are divided into two cycles but it is necessary to complete both to be eligible for the award of the Licenciatura(Masters Degree). These are four or five-year programs.
In addition to these official degrees or diplomas, each university offers a wide range of unofficial degrees (Maestrias) as well as graduate programs in a wide range of subjects that qualify for the award of the degree of Doctor (Ph.D.). The unofficial degrees are typically one or two years and usually require having attained an undergraduate or graduate degree and are widely recognized for their labour market value, as these qualifications are highly practical in scope and geared to specialized sectors of the different professions. Spanish universities' offer of doctoral degree programs typically require four years of study and research.
The universities cover the whole spectrum of official degrees offered in Spain with the official recognition of its Ministry of Education, as well as a wide variety of non-official degrees in a large number of professional fields.
Costs
All non-university state education is free in Spain, but parents have to buy all of their children's books and materials. There also are private schools for all the range of compulsory education, and also Bachillerato. At them, parents must pay a monthly/termly/yearly fee. Most of these schools are run by religious orders, and include single-sex schools.
Schools supply a list of what is required at the start of each school year and which will include art and craft materials as well as text and exercise books. Expect to spend a minimum of around ninety pounds (GBP) per child,[citation needed] but in some regions, the autonomous government is giving tokens to exchange them in book shops for free, this is being adapted in 2006 in regions, such as Andalucia, where kids from 3 to 10 will get the books for free, on the following years it is expected for all compulsory years. School uniform is not normally worn in state schools but is usually worn in private schools.
Qualifications
The Certificate of Secondary Education is awarded at the end of compulsory secondary education after passing every subject but 2, and a student who achieves appropriate grades graduates from Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO) and can apply for one of the different types of (Spanish) Bachillerato.
The modalities of Bachillerato depend on each region, but are commonly, Arts & Letters (Bachillerato de Humanidades), Natural and Health Sciences (Bachillerato de Ciencias de la Naturaleza y la Salud), Technology (Bachillerato Tecnológico), Social Sciences (Bachillerato de Ciencias Sociales) and Arts (Bachillerato de Arte), having 3 different thematic subjects each, and several common subjects such as Spanish, Foreign Language, Philosophy, History, etc.
Middle or Superior Vocational training is also a common possibility after ESO or after Bachillerato, they are called Ciclos Formativos de Grado Medio for middle or Ciclos Formativos de grado Superior for Superior getting a Technician Degree, or it can be taken after Bachillerato, getting a Superior Technician diploma and direct entrance to several related University degrees, there are more than 200 different specialities.
Students with appropriate qualifications and wishing to enroll in University in Spain must usually take an entrance exam called Selectividad, that consists in 6 tests, 3 for each subject and a test for each History or Philosophy, Foreign Language (commonly English) and Spanish grammar and literature (Autonomous communities that have a co-official language, have also another test about co-official language grammar and literature), after passing their Bachillerato. The Spanish School Leaving Certificate is equivalent to a number of GCSEs. The Bachillerato is equivalent to A levels. Therefore, Spanish students obtaining the appropriate grades required for entrance into universities in Europe, including England, are not precluded.
The Spanish Academic Landscape
This paragraph is taken from the article 'Virtual Education and the European Accreditation System' by Domingo Sánchez-Mesa Martínez
The potential of new technologies in the complex but crucial itinerary to the European
Higher Education Area was stressed, in a national context in Spain, by the well known and
polemical Bricall Report, one of the basic preparatory documents for the subsequent Ley Orgánica de Universidades (L.O.U., 2001). In spite of the most critical aspects of this law, the fact is that the whole chapter IX was devoted to the potential of ICT and its consequences
for the next future of the Spanish university within the all pervading horizon of the European
convergence. Since then, a number of documents have pointed at the potential of eLearning,
while the development of distance learning programmes and units almost everywhere in
the academic environment and beyond, coincide with a series of important processes for
the Spanish universities:
• An increasing tendency to bring the academic world closer to society (as the proliferation of the number and relevance of the University-Enterprise foundations shows), including the general concern towards the need of an improvement of linguistic, communicational and computer-related competences within the university community;
• A clear invitation to shift the traditional teaching-oriented paradigm to a more flexible learning-oriented one;
• A determined will to reform the system of postgraduate studies and foster its importance in the education and better qualification of the professionals;
• The stress on the role that virtual education is to play according to the prospects of a lifelong learning kind of society.
That chapter also stressed the integration of ICT and the need to trust international cooperation through university networks, casting additional interesting arguments under the conviction that “Society expects from the new university graduates an awareness of the influence of the various forms of management of these technologies in their respective disciplines, as well as the requested knowledge and qualification to make use of these technologies” (Bricall 2000, 454). The three wide areas of the university environment where the impact of ICT was to be perceived were:
• the production and distribution of contents, both in education and in research,
• the teaching/learning models, and
• the organisational model.
Among the most symptomatic issues and observations raised by this text, we would like to
underline the following:
• The ‘pressure’ or competition from the non-academic providers of ICT in higher education, become increasingly intensive in these organisations;
• The many actions taken by traditional universities concerning the integration of ICT, are not well supported by explicit and clear institutional general policies. In this sense, it is very much recommended to have a clear educational policy, based on the screening of addressees and the identification of the goals and the choice of the kind of technology to be used;
• The strong resistance of teaching and administrative staff to the introduction of ICT in the academic pedagogical and organisational model;
• The recommendation of the search for models combining traditional face-to-face teaching with distance learning modules (blended formulas);
• The prospects of future growth for higher education will emerge from the continuous professional education needs;
• In order to maximise the investments needed in this process of innovation, the engagement of universities in larger networks or consortiums with other universities in an international framework, and/or with public institutions and/or with private organisations was promoted. ICT is perceived as a means to facilitate the organisation and implementation of international ICT based courses. The idea of a virtual Erasmus is already into motion and one of the major challenges in this process.
Spain in European Higher education space
Since 1999, Spain has been immersed in a transformation of its higher education system, along with more than 30 European countries, with the aim of creating a European Higher Education Space (EHES). This process will culminate in 2010 and its objectives are to harmonize qualification frameworks and the credit system (units for measuring academic achievement), as well as to guarantee the standards and recognition of qualifications, in order to increase student mobility and facilitate the integration of graduates into the European labor market.
Spain is implementing legal measures for the adoption of the European credit and qualifications system, as well as the European qualification supplements. This facilitates the recognition of official Spanish qualifications in over 30 countries participating in the EHES project, as well as the official recognition of Spanish qualifications in other countries outside the European framework, such as the United States, Asia and Latin America.
Virtual learning initiatives
Here are just some of the virtual learning/virtual campus initiatives in Spain:
http://www.uned.es/webuned/areasgen/info/english2.htm (English)
- La Universidad a Distancia de Madrid
- CEVUG, Centro de Enseñanza Virtual de la Universidad de Granada
- Campus Virtual de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid
https://www.ucm.es/campusvirtual/CVUCM/index.php
The book "Buenas Prácticas de e-learning" by Ana Landeta Etxeberrí gives an overview of interesting e-learning and distance learning initiatives and projects in Spain (and some other countries).
Available in Spanish at http://www.buenaspracticas-elearning.com/
Sources
Bricall, J. Informe Universidad 2000. (Report commissioned by the CRUE, Conferencia de Rectores de las Universidades Españolas). Available at <http://www.crue.org/informeuniv2000.htm>.
Sánchez-Mesa Martínez D.,Virtual Education and the European Accreditation System. In: Boonen A. & W. Van Petegem (eds.). European Networking and Learning for the Future. The EuroPACE Approach. 2007, Garant, Antwerp-Apeldoorn. p. 137-146.
Landeta Etxeberría A., Buenas Prácticas de e-learning. 2007, @nced, Spain.
http://www.tostudyinspain.com/
http://www.expatica.com/es/survival/education/higher-education-in-spain-1896.html