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Win ye an amazing prize!
In Spain, children start Educación Infantil at three years old. Then, they start primary school when they are 6 years old. Primary school is from form 1 to 6. Then, when they are twelve, they start ESO ( Enseñanza Secundaria Obligatoria = Compulsory Secondary Education ). There are four forms, from first to fourth.They can get the diploma at 16 years old, which is just a decision taken by the student´s teachers, who have to assess if the pupil deserves it just by judging what he/she has achieved in that last academic year. If they´re lucky, they can do "bachillerato", which means two more years and if they are successful and pass the "selectividad" exam, they can study at university. Another choice, after getting the diploma at secondary education is to do "ciclos formativos", a sort of professional education. Those who failed to get the diploma, might try one more year if they haven´t repeated too many academic years before or can take an exam to do a "ciclo formativo". If they aren´t lucky, there are some programmes to learn a job or they can try to get a job, which is difficult without the secondary diploma or at least a "ciclo formativo" diploma.
Anyway,the level at schools in Spain has lowered a lot in the last years due to the "reforma", which has made secondary education compulsory until students are sixteen years old instead of fourteen as it used to be and the fact that students couldn´t repeat more than one year in primary education and another year in secondary education. It´s really amazing to see how low the students knowledge is. Besides, they have a lot of subjects with few lessons a week. As a conclusion, I can say that most teachers in Spain feel that education is nowadays very different from what it used to be and the role of the teacher is really harder since they have to fight against the lack of interest in many students to learn, finding it hard to motivate them and make them behave well. As an old teacher who I met long time ago - when education was much better than today- said : " Secondary schools have become teenagers´ kindergarten.
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