The Government, on the proposal of the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports, approved in the Council of Ministers on Tuesday the distribution to Castilla-La Mancha of 20,985,931 euros, intended for inclusive education, support for students with more difficulties, programming and robotics, the acquisition of textbooks and the improvement of mathematical and reading skills. In total, the autonomous communities will receive 346 million euros.
Firstly, the autonomous distribution of about 95 million euros corresponding to the plans to improve mathematical competence (64.8 million) and reading skills (30 million), announced by the President of the Government last January, has been approved and will begin to be deployed next year in the educational centers with the worst results in these competences. Specifically, Castilla-La Mancha will receive 4 million euros for the improvement in mathematics and 1.8 million for reading.
These plans are based on four actions: the reduction of the number of students per teacher; the provision of reinforcement classes during non-school hours (which will be structured through the PROA+ programme); the granting of resources to schools to improve their autonomy; and cascade training, which provides for the creation of a network of coordinators (administration and centre) and teachers, specifically trained for the implementation of new methodologies that improve student results.
The implementation of these programs will be progressive over the next few months and will begin as early as September 2024. The reading comprehension programme will cover basic education (Primary, ESO and Basic VET), starting with the last Infant course; while the mathematics reinforcement course will be applied from third grade onwards (also including ESO and Basic Degree cycles). The program, which will be expanded, will be carried out in those centers that have a higher percentage of students with special difficulties in these two competitions.
To these two programmes we must add the allocation of 105 million euros corresponding to PROA+, a programme that has been extended until 2028 thanks to the financing of the European Social Fund and that will have an investment of 6.6 million in Castilla-La Mancha. More than one million students from about 3,700 schools in Spain participate annually in this reinforcement program aimed at improving the educational results of students with more difficulties and reducing early dropout rates.
The allocation of 58.5 million euros has also been approved, of which 3.5 million will go to Castilla-La Mancha, corresponding to the program of financing textbooks and didactic materials, to help the families of students from centers supported with public funds to face these expenses.
The autonomous communities will also receive 58 million euros from the School Code 4.0 program to train 3.7 million students from public and concerted centers in programming, robotics and computational thinking. Castilla-La Mancha will receive 3.1 million euros in this matter. These funds, which add to the 300 million that received the autonomies last year, are intended to provide support and accompaniment to primary school teachers.
Finally, the Inclusive Education program has been approved, which next year will be financed again with 36 million euros (28.7 million from the European Social Fund and 8 million more from the Ministry's budget) and will leave a total of 1.7 million in Castilla-La Mancha. The objective is to attend to students with a specific need for educational support