Spain

Overview of Education System

The Spanish constitution of 1978 created a highly decentralized education system in which the Spanish government oversees legislation, basic structure, and cooperative initiatives among all autonomous communities and with other nations.^9,10,11 However, the communities are responsible for all other aspects of the education within their respective territories (e.g., schools, curriculum, financial and personnel management). Current educational regulations, including the Organic Law for the Improvement of Educational Quality (LOMCE) in 2013, guarantee the uniformity and unity of the education system, and allow individual communities to make decisions that meet their needs.¹² This law includes an additional provision for state and regional cooperation to promote an adequate description of the relationships among competencies, content, and assessment criteria of the different stages of education. Thus, the curriculum has a centralized common framework that is developed and implemented by the autonomous communities and schools.^13,14

Schools are classified according to whether they are state or private. State schools are owned and run by a public authority, while private schools are not. However, the majority of private schools also are publicly funded; the state finances these schools’ operational costs under the general system for grant maintained schools, in return for the public education service they provide to society.

The basic structure of the Spanish education system was validated in 2013 by LOMCE, which did not modify the organization that was established in 2006. The system is organized into school years (grades), cycles, and levels of education. The levels of education comprise preprimary education (ages 0 to 6), primary education (ages 6 to 12), and secondary education (ages 12 to 18).

Preprimary education is organized into two cycles—one for ages 0 to 3 and the other for ages 3 to 6—with the second cycle free of charge. During the 2014–2015 school year, 34 percent and 97 percent of the population enrolled their children in the first and second cycles of preprimary education, respectively.

Primary education (Grades 1 to 6) and secondary education (Grades 7 to 10) comprise Spain’s basic education system: 10 years of schooling (generally for students ages 6 to 16) that is compulsory and free of charge. LOMCE modified the objectives that describe what competencies students should develop at the primary level. The goal of this level is to facilitate the learning of oral expression, comprehension techniques, reading, writing, numeracy, and cultural skills. The development of social skills, work and study habits, artistic sense, creativity, and affectivity also are developed at the primary level. These skills are instilled with consideration of students’ individual needs for the purpose of developing their personalities and preparing them for secondary education.

Secondary education is divided into two stages: compulsory secondary and post‑compulsory secondary education. The four grade levels of secondary education aim to provide students with the basic elements of culture (e.g., humanistic, artistic, scientific, and technological) that will make them conscientious citizens and allow them to pursue subsequent studies or enter the job market. The main goal of secondary education is to provide students with a common core education with consideration of student diversity. Schools have the flexibility to organize the curriculum with the necessary measures to cater to their students’ needs. In doing so, however, schools must ensure that all students can attain the secondary education objectives without discrimination that might prevent them from achieving their final qualification.

The primary and secondary school curricula are organized into subject areas as regulated by law. Each subject area contains objectives, content, assessment criteria, and a particular contribution to the common basic competencies recommended by the European Union. Post‑compulsory secondary education (Grades 11 to 12) includes the baccalaureate and intermediate vocational education levels. Higher education includes university (UNESCO’s ISCED Level 6 and above), higher level vocational education, higher level arts and design, and higher level sports education (ISCED Level 5).¹⁵