Most investment in education in the last decade 'went on giving pay rises to teachers', claims ministry
Tuesday, April 29, 2014 @ 3:10 PM
MINISTRY of Education sources have responded to the nation's collective outcry over funding cuts in schooling which have led to excessive class sizes, tens of thousands of teachers being made redundant and facilities and grants reduced.
Secretary of State for Education Montserrat Gomendio says 'a great deal of money' was invested in schools in the 10 years prior to the PP government coming into power, but 'most of it went into increasing teachers' salaries'.
This and increasing the number of teachers employed in order to reduce class sizes means investment has 'not translated to improving quality' in education, Sra Gomendio stated during a world conference on adult literacy and numeracy in Brasilia this week.
The 'acquisition of competencies', or adult education, has 'stagnated' in Spain in the last 20 years, according to the Secretary of State, which is why the country produced some of the worst results in reading and maths among the 18-65 age-group in the recent Europe-wide PISA survey.
Sra Gomendio said teachers were given pay rises 'without this being linked to performance', meaning they had 'no incentive' to continually develop their careers and seek better results.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com