Spanish cabinet approves controversial law to improve education quality

The Spanish cabinet on Friday approved a controversial new bill which force pupils to choose earlier either an academic or a vocational path, as it tries to cut a youth unemployment rate of 57 percent. The Organic Law for the Improvement of Educational Quality (LOMCE) has caused controversy in the education sector. Last week teachers, students and parents in opposition launched a strike against the bill, which they insist it is "an abuse and will generate discrimination in the sector." Opponents of the bill highlight the fact that it ends the teaching of the subject of "Citizenship" and that in the Catalan region, in the northeast of the country, it will affect the use of the Catalan language, given that centers may be obliged to pay for private schools for students demanding classes completely in Spanish. The law also offers public finance for schools which want to segregate students by sex, making single sex schools and classes much easier, while at the same time providing state finance for church run schools. The LOMCE will also bring in national examinations at the end of every level of state education and two courses for students aged 15 or over, with one of the courses aimed at those who have made slower educational progress, aimed at allowing them to acquire a minimum professional qualification. Once again opponents affirm this will create a two-tier education system, forcing some students to the "educational dustbin" from an early age to low skill and low paid jobs. The protests against the law will continue, despite the fact Education Minister Jose Ignacio Wert insists that "no educational reform has had as much dialogue over it as this one." Opposition groups highlight the fact that strikes in the system show the lack of consensus, saying "the fact it is going to be imposed shows it cannot be the result of consensus" and "we cannot allow the luxury of changing the model of education every time there is a change of government." This is the seventh law affecting public education since the arrival of democracy in Spain in late 1970s.