The reform of Selectivity is postponed and each autonomy will correct in its own way | Society

At least one course will have to be waited for unifying criteria to correct the Selectivity, a test of access to the disparate University in Spain and that marks the future employment of those who present themselves. Finally, the Government, which committed last July to a selective reform, He has not called the parties to meetings. They were going to attend representatives of the autonomies - responsible for developing and correcting the evidence based on their own agendas -, the ministries involved (Universities and Education), students and rectors.

Sources of the Ministry of Education explain that the whole process has been delayed by the electoral stop and formation of the new government. The first meeting of the technical commission had to have been held in mid-November and not even the parties were called, says Laura Alcaide, of the Coordinator of Representatives of Students of Public Universities (CREUP).

Socialists and universities resisted addressing the controversy they considered sterile. “To raise the issue of Selectivity is to put noise into the system. They want to create greater tension, ”said José Carlos Gómez Villamandos, the president of the rectors' conference, in an interview in EL PAÍS. But, as every year, the nth wave of outrage broke out in 2019 due to exams that are allegedly of great complexity. In Madrid, high school teachers denounced that the Technical Drawing test did not respect "the principles of equality, merit and ability" of the evaluation ", while in the Valencian Community the average grade in Mathematics was 4.5 and the students collected 45,000 signatures against the exam. With those wicks, the Government announced that the system would be reviewed.

Best and worst grades

Cristina Rueda, Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Valladolid, is outraged that in her class in Medicine there are not many students in her community, Castilla y León, despite being the one that gets better results in PISA, at the height of Finland. That is why it has analyzed the results in detail. The most obvious difference is between the outstanding ratings. In 2015, 23% of Canarian high school students achieved an average of between 9 and 10 in the Selectividad, compared to 6.16 in Navarra. So, Rueda emphasizes, that that year a student from the Canary Islands had three times more options than a Navarrese to enter a medical school and twice that of a Castilian-Leonese.

“It is nonsense that there are 17 different accesses from the University. As long as there are 17 different educational systems [el número de comunidades autónomas] This has no solution. Does anyone imagine 17 different MIR exams? It is unimaginable outside of Spain, ”Rueda gets angry.
"We more than homogenize content, what we want is to establish a minimum level of demand in all autonomous communities and not disparities in exams," argues Alcaide, the spokeswoman for CREUP. “We have studied exams and we have seen irregularities. There are very generic and others with very specific questions, ”he continues.
Professor Rueda believes that the only thing that can be done is to assign the same percentage of places to each community according to its population. "The way to put the batteries in Castilla y León has been to put higher marks and that is not the solution, because if you dedicate yourself to putting all of you harm your best students." In the global mark, the average is made between the Baccalaureate notes placed by the schools and the Selectivity score.

The figures prove Rueda right. Sixteen of the 17 autonomies —Baleares no— have slightly increased their average grades. Those who pass in June have gone from achieving an average of 7.16 to 7.28, a decisive difference in heavily contested positions. In addition to this general test of compulsory subjects, students who want to choose very close grades are submitted to a maximum of four exams in elective subjects and scores up to 14, not 10.

The Minister of Education, Isabel Celaá, who met Monday with the advisers of the branch of Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León, did not want at a press conference to advance her plans regarding the reform of the access test to the College. Enrique Ossorio, the Madrid counselor, took the opportunity to request a single Selectivity common to all the autonomous communities, something unfeasible with the current education system and pursued by PP and Citizens. The ultra-right Vox goes further and demands a single system common to all