Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics - IEA

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PART 2: SPAIN 147 Teacher education Prospective teachers in Spain participate in one of two distinct systems of initial preparation. Those wanting to teach at the preschool or primary level undertake three years of training in the education faculties of universities and receive the degree of diplomatura, which is considered a “first-cycle” degree. This degree requires 180 credits of both theoretical and practical training in pedagogy. Prospective secondary teachers study toward a four-year second-cycle university degree in the subject they will teach, followed by a one-year pedagogical aptitude course (Sanz Vallejo et al., 2003). According to a recent report commissioned by the OECD, these two systems do not completely meet the needs of classroom teachers. While many commentators consider the primary-level training for the diplomatura to be inadequate in terms of practical experience and subject-matter knowledge, secondary-level preparation receives criticism for being too academic and not sufficiently oriented toward developing competencies for effective teaching. As a result of the perceived deficiencies of the secondary preparation program, the Ministry of Education and Science, along with collaborating universities, developed a replacement for the pedagogical aptitude course that will prepare teachers more fully for the realities of the classroom (Cros, Duthilleul, Cox, & Kantasalmi, 2004). Teacher recruitment and hiring Spanish teachers teaching in public schools (about two-thirds of students in primary and secondary schools attend public institutions) are hired on the basis of a twopart selection process that includes a competitive examination and consideration of candidates’ academic records and professional experience. The scores of prospective teachers are then used to compile a list of candidates, with the number of applicants on it not exceeding the number of advertised posts. Teachers are chosen from this list and assigned to schools by regional education authorities. Over the next six months, the new appointees are considered teachers in training. After this time, they officially become permanent civil servants (Sanz Vallejo et al., 2003). In practice, the design of the system is strongly weighted toward the evaluation of teachers’ subject-matter knowledge rather than their pedagogical skills or ability because teachers who do not pass the examination stage cannot continue through the process. Also, the period during which these teachers work as teachers in training does not winnow out any who are ineffective teachers (Cros et al., 2004). In addition to the formal hiring and evaluation process described above, Spain has a system of temporary contracts wherein candidates enter the system to fill short-term vacancies. However, these temporary teachers do not enjoy the same benefits, in terms of stability and salary, as civil servants. The teachers who fill these temporary posts are generally candidates who have not made it to the final candidate list via the competitive evaluation, but are nonetheless deemed competent enough to work in classrooms (Sanz Vallejo et al., 2003). Teacher salaries Spanish teachers are paid according to a fixed schedule in which teachers receive, every six years, points and commensurate salary increases based on their hours of inservice professional development and their teaching duties and activities. Teachers can also receive salary bonuses for participation in specific and additional professional development activities, assumption of managerial duties, and teaching in disadvantaged
148 TEACHER PAY AND STUDENT MATHEMATICS ACHIEVEMENT areas. Teachers wishing to increase their salaries can also, through a competitive process, become school inspectors or school administrators (Cros et al., 2004). Spanish teachers earn salaries that are generally above the average of OECD countries. In 2005, beginning Spanish teachers at the lower-secondary level earned, in terms of PPP dollars, $35,840, compared to the OECD average of $29,772. Spain’s salary complement at the lower-secondary level was, in fact, the fourth highest among OECD countries, below only Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Germany. Using the ratio of salary to GDP per capita, we established that Spain’s 2003 ratio of 1:52 at the lower-secondary level (after 15 years of experience) was higher than the OECD average ratio of 1:30. However, the premium for experience, as measured by the ratio of the highest salary (after 39 or more years of experience) to the lowest (beginning salary), was lower in Spain (1:45) than in the OECD countries (1:71) (OECD, 2007). Although Spanish teachers enjoy a relatively small premium for their experience, lowerand upper-secondary teachers earn considerably more than primary teachers for the time they spend teaching. In 2005, Spanish upper-secondary teachers with 15 years of experience earned $61 per hour of net teaching time, compared to $58 for lowersecondary teachers and $42 for primary teachers with the same level of experience. In percentage terms, upper-secondary teachers with 15 years of experience earned 46% more per teaching hour than primary teachers with the same experience, somewhat higher than the OECD average of 42% more (OECD, 2007). Of course, teaching hours are not equivalent to working hours: in 2003, both primary and upper-secondary teachers in Spain were required to work 1,140 hours at their schools each year (OECD, 2007). Despite the relatively good salaries earned by teachers in Spain, trends over time indicate that the fortunes of Spanish teachers are actually decreasing. Between 1996 and 2002, Spain was the only country among both OECD member and partner countries to experience decreases in real salaries at both the primary and upper-secondary levels. In fact, real salaries for Spanish teachers at primary and secondary levels fell by seven percent during this period. The ratio of teacher salaries to GDP per capita also decreased between 1994 and 2001 (OECD, 2004). While the discussion above uses national averages, there is considerable variation in salaries across Spain’s regions. For example, primary teachers in Asturias earn the highest salaries of all regions, while Ceuta and Melilla pay the lowest salaries. Among secondary teachers, the Basque Country pays the highest salaries, while Andalucía, Ceuta, and Melilla pay the lowest salaries. There are also interesting cross-regional differences in the salary range between beginning and experienced teachers. This difference is smaller in the Basque Country (25%) and the Canary Islands (nearly 26%) and larger in Andalucía (just under 50%), the Balearic Islands (57%), and Ceuta and Melilla (almost 50%). These differences suggest that, in the former regions, officials hope to recruit new teachers, while in the latter, they hope to retain more experienced teachers (Sanz Vallejo et al., 2003). Although we were able to obtain data from the 1995 and 2002 employment surveys for Spain in order to conduct comparisons of relative teacher salaries across the two years, we encountered a major problem with the 1995 data. For some reason, the survey excluded the education sector as well as public administration, agriculture, and one or two other sectors. So we had on hand only 15 “secondary teachers” (code 22 in the
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