The next course 2024-2025 it is mandatory to implement the FP reform that the Spanish government has promoted. There are many points without concreteness that lead to uncertainties and worries. Let's talk a little about the main points of concern, how they are:

– Reduction of regular training hours and a general drop in the quality of training.

– Extension of practice hours to maintain the duration of 2 years has been done at the expense of regular training

– Precariousness of students' work in companies, although it is assumed that the internship will be contributed to the social security.

– Manifest privatization of professional training since a good part of the training is entrusted to private companies.

Reduction of training hours

The reduction of teaching hours at the institute means a drop in the quality of the training for the student, already with enough lack of knowledge. It shortens your preparation time more and more against what will be your long future working and personal life.

The contents completely disappear, which previously indicated the minimums that had to be taught throughout the territory and were a guarantee to be able to approve studies and ensure equal training. Now only RA=Learning outcomes are assessed. There is a gap in the specific content of each profession, which means that students arrive at the company with less basic knowledge to develop their career, and it makes it even more difficult for him to develop his progress in the world of work in his sector. This causes people to stagnate and make them dependent at all times on their companies.

All modules lose hours of training specific to the professional profile at the center, for the benefit of other modules that have been considered more important and that constitute up to 60% of the hours of the cycles:

– A part of it goes to fatten the DUAL, which ends up constituting between one 25 and one 50% of the total hours of the cycle.

– Another part goes to transversal modules that are found in all training cycles of both middle and higher degrees. Bearing in mind that the teaching hours are one 25 we have weekly hours:

– technical english (2 h) 66 h. In Catalonia it was already done at middle level, now it extends to a higher degree.

– digitization (1 h) 33 h. Without discriminating whether the cycle needs it or not, how can you be the computer science case, fully digitized.

– sustainability (1h) 33h. The materials for the module have been commissioned by the private company Naturgy, which is the second or third of them 10 companies that pollute the most in Spain. https://www.huffingtonpost.es/economia/estas-son-empresas-mas-contaminantes-espana.html

– Optional modules (2 a 3h) 66-99 h. They can have external Competence Units. That is, Learning outcomes of other training cycles.

As a comment, the name of some modules such as FOL is changed (Training and job guidance), OWN (Company and Entrepreneurial Initiative) i Synthesis (Final cycle project):

– “Personal itinerary for employability I” (3 h) 99 h

– “Personal itinerary for employability II” (2 h) 66 h

– “Intermodular project of 198 hours”

Another effect will be the decrease in the teaching staff in the short term, medium and long term. In Catalonia it is ensured that it will not affect the templates, at least the first year, since it is intended to replace the equivalent in deleted academic hours, for observer positions, as a casual visitor to companies and commercial projects. This denatures the teaching work that is his own, to replace it and probably eliminate it.

There is no guarantee that teaching hours can be maintained in the future and it is clearly where the cuts to come can be made. It seems like an infallible way to solve the teacher deficit that has been occurring in FP cycles in recent years.

Extension of practice hours

As has been said before, a large proportion of lost training hours go to DUAL:

– DUAL is the new name given by the Spanish government to the before they were unpaid internships or FCT=Work center training.

– Dual general (SENSE REMUNERATE): of the 25% a 35% of the hours (from 500 a 700 h). Catalonia is a pharaoh 515 h.

– intensive dual (PAID at the minimum): of the 35% al 50% (from 700 a 1000 hours of the cycle), with DUAL contract. In Catalonia 713 h (dual general+intermodular project).

The increase in internship hours in companies poses problems in finding additional places where you can do the DUAL with guarantees.

– Also in being able to carry out the achievement of these within the established deadlines.

– In addition, it favors the increase in bureaucratic and administrative tasks and makes it difficult for teachers to control them.

On the other hand, the vast majority of companies participating in the new model, they will not be able to ensure sufficient tutoring and that the learning achieved is not partial, specific, and intended to meet the urgent needs of each company. We do not believe that students learn the same in the company as in school i, as we previously agreed at a CGT affiliate assembly and following the criteria of trying to make it unitary, some hours cannot be substituted for others.

You are literally forced to start the DUAL in business in the first year with which:

– There is a lack of training for the student to start the internship.

– Fierce competition is established between Primary FP students, middle grade and higher grade. Lower level students, especially the Initial FP, they will have a very difficult time doing the practices compared to those at higher levels.

In many towns there are no companies that can absorb so many hours of practice.

– In the end, the creation of miraculous solutions is seen coming, such as setting up projects on the fly with students who cannot be placed.

– There will be many students who will not be able to finish the cycle in 2 years, duration that they have agreed to maintain.

evaluation “joint” Institute and Company

Because the Learning Outcomes that cannot be done at the institute must be done and evaluated by the company, qualified professionals will be needed in the companies to be able to do the training, the monitoring and evaluation of students, which are for them, the learners.

So the “tutors” of company must evaluate the RA's “transferred” i:

– The company will put one in each module 10% of the note.

– Students may not develop all the RAs as they depend on the specific company in which they do their internship.

There are no legal guarantees since neither the company guardians nor the companies, they don't have any kind of:

– training requirement such as teachers who must be engineers.

– control by the administration such as the teachers who have a teaching inspection.

– sanctions in case of non-compliance such as teachers who may receive sanctions or files.

The effect is that until the company has put its rating, the student has not passed the corresponding module. That is, that until the stay in the company has ended, will not be graded for the module. So:

– It is unknown what will happen with the scholarships, since they depend on the grades of the previous year.

– Business tutors usually evaluate by indications, there is no specific procedure or goal.

Privatization of the FP

A trend has begun to be detected for charter schools to offer payment for each student they take on for internships. In this way, public money will once again finance private companies to maintain an illusion of their collaboration.

The extreme case is that multinational companies are offering FP training cycles entirely privately or in concert with practices that take place in their own facilities. In this way, they already select staff at the time of training and segregate the incoming students.

consequences

The main consequences of these policies:

– There is a drop in the quality of training for the person, already with enough lack of knowledge. Their preparation time is getting shorter and shorter compared to what will be their long future working and personal life.

– Professional courses are emptied of content specific to each profession. This means that people arrive at the company with less elementary knowledge to develop their career, and improve your qualification and chances to progress in your sector.

– Participating companies, in general they cannot ensure sufficient tutoring and that the learning achieved is not partial, specific, and intended to meet only the needs of each company.

– There are no controls or penalties for companies that do not comply with the DUAL agreements. The training is in the hands of tutors from the companies who do not require a minimum of quality and previous training as if it is done with the FP teachers. Those affected are the people in training.

– There are not a few cases in which companies validate as equivalent to the qualitative training previously carried out by teaching professionals common activities of the "internships" such as sweeping or making photocopies. They are not all cases but a majority, and with all impunity.

– People in practice become free or precarious labour, since there is no remuneration in the DUAL. And people in intensive DUAL become cheap labour, but demanding as if it were professional staff. The remuneration barely reaches 300 monthly €.

– And to finish, there is a de facto privatization in VET with companies that offer training and internships to get docile workers with the minimum skills necessary for their specificity.

WE CONSTITUTE UNION SECTIONS IN EDUCATIONAL CENTERS:

In Vallès Oriental, the workers in the education sector affiliated to the CGT union promote the organization in trade union sections of the work center.

Trade union sections are the basic tool for organizing workers and are not widespread in schools unlike any other company, where they are a regular organization.

The trade union sections enable the organization and real and autonomous direct participation of the workers of each work center to act, negotiate and improve working conditions, of particular safety and hygiene of the work center. An example could be the problems with the heating and air conditioning of the center in particular, which is well known that they will not be solved at the negotiation tables external to the reality of the center.

The constitution of the trade union section is not complicated and requires the participation of at least two affiliated people. The documentation is delivered to the Department of Labor and officially communicated to the work center if desired. From this moment on, there is the support of the union and it is even possible to call local strikes at the workplace.

Once the section is established, the mere fact of its existence makes the managements of the educational centers consider their decisions that affect the workers of the center. Conversations can be initiated to ensure that we are recognized as valid interlocutors and that we are informed of the decisions that are taken and have an impact on the working conditions of the workers.

lastly, to comment that our colleagues from other centers in Vallès Oriental, such as the Carles Vallbona Institute in Granollers or the ISMD in Mollet del Vallès have also set up trade union sections to try to make this right common to all centers.