The government delegate in Aragon, Fernando Beltrán, has positively valued the impact that the measures announced by the president of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, to strengthen reading comprehension and mathematics will have on improving educational and social equality. Beltrán recalled that according to the latest PISA report, Aragón is above the Spanish average and the OECD countries, and that the results for the autonomous community highlight the high level of equity among students.
For Beltrán, the PISA report “is a starting point for improving results, emphasizing equal opportunities for all students, regardless of the level of income of their families or their place of residence”. The delegate pointed out that this will be helped by measures highly valued by the education sector, such as the reduction of ratios and the increase in the hiring of teachers; the reinforcement outside school hours to support students with greater difficulties; the training of teachers to coordinate and adapt mathematical teaching; and the creation of a weekly reading plan in all schools.
For the delegate, “these three measures are going to be added to those already put in place by the Government of Spain and the Government of Aragon in the previous legislature to strengthen equal opportunities in education”, which are concretized in “a commitment to the rural environment, doing everything possible so that children can study in their localities, with the empowerment of rural integrated centers; the largest budget for scholarships in history; and, above all, as experts assure, the extension of early education, with budget to increase places of child education from 0-3 years”.
The figures in the PISA report in Aragon for mathematics and reading comprehension are 14 points above the Spanish and OECD average. PISA data reflect a decline in the levels of mathematics and general reading comprehension both in Spain and in the rest of the OECD countries, but Aragon is above the average in both cases.
“The great strength of the Spanish education system and of the Aragonese in particular is the level of equity. In this regard, we will continue to improve to achieve the 2030 agenda objective of having less than 15% of students at low level,” said Beltrán, who recalled that “many experts link the deficiencies in reading comprehension to the habits of children and adolescents who dedicate more and more time to screens, and this is going to be regulated in educational centers.”