The Government of Spain, through the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports (MEFPyD) and the European Social Fund, is going to allocate 3 million euros for the development of the program for orientation, advancement and educational enrichment PROA+, for the centers of Primary and Secondary Education, for the 2024-2028 courses.
The Head of the Educational Programs Unit (UPE) of the Provincial Directorate of Education, Victoria Menchacatorre, and the advisor of Attention to Diversity of the UPE, Antonia Cabrera, in an interview granted to Onda Cero, have addressed this program, which is intended to offer support and guidance to students in situations of educational vulnerability and reduce the rates of school dropout and early school dropout.
“In our city, this program entails significant funding, because among subsidies that go to educational centers, the hiring of a very important quota of intern and training, it amounts to almost one million euros per year,” he said.
“The goal is to reduce dropout and failure rates in schools, and also to serve the most vulnerable students. But when we talk about vulnerable students within PROA+ we are not only referring to students with special educational needs or with educational support needs, but we are talking about a student who has conditions of educability in worse circumstances than other types of students,” explained Menchacatorre.
Thus, the Head of the UPE has set an example to students who do not have at home a computer or a suitable place to study, or who do not have access to educational resources during non-school hours. “All these conditioning factors know that, although they do not determine the success of the teaching process, they do condition it quite a lot. And in this line, PROA+ affects this type of conditioning,” he explained.
In the words of Mechacatorrre, “it is about improving the school results of all students, because the PROA+ program affects vulnerable students in a special way, but it is intended for all students”. “What it is also about is increasing the percentage of students who remain in the education system,” he added.
Training and accompaniment
As explained by Cabrera, a total of 16 educational centers in Melilla have presented a project to participate in the program and the maximum amount that each participating center can obtain is 15,100 euros.
An economic amount, which, as he has revealed, the schools use to cover an educational project of improvement and also a plan of activities lever, which the center proposes after an internal review of the situation of its center, depending on the needs it has, both to obtain didactic resources and for fungible material and everything that is necessary for the development of the plan.
This school year with a total of 11 public Infant and Primary Education Centers to which must be added a concerted center, and a total of four Secondary Education Institutes.
In addition, “there are also other centers that, right now, are not in the program, but that have already shown us the interest in participating and that have decided to use this school course to start their journey, but starting with training,” he said. “They want to train in PROA+, to access with that training already the next call,” he said.
The training, he added, and the accompaniment to the centers “is a key point of the program”. “He has always been present in the program, both from Madrid, through the Subdirectorate General of Territorial Cooperation and INTEF, and from the UPE in Melilla.”
Thus, as he said, all this training is aimed especially at teaching reflection on the importance of an inclusive school, “a school that leads to the success of all students, and through, above all, the exercise of pedagogical leadership exercised in the centers by the management teams”.
“Much emphasis has been placed over the years on the importance of a diagnosis of the situation of the center, to be able to develop a strategic plan of improvement and a plan of activities lever that drives the center towards educational improvement,” he said.
Cabrera has recognized the enthusiasm that arouses the work that the centers are doing “for their involvement, for perseverance and enthusiasm and conviction to achieve an inclusive school that reaches all our citizens.”