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Maider Pz. De Heredia
Comparative Politics

Restoring the Spanish Education Based on
Brazil’s Example

The Spanish education requires a transformation in order to be trusted again. The
educational system is the most powerful tool that a country may have and its stability and
good performance are the key for future development. Due the crisis, in Spanish, the
education appears to have been stalled but there are many paths to follow to take it back
on track. “The Alliance for Education” done by brazilians might be a useful example to
Spain.
Key words: Spain, education, stability, quality, Brazil, future, competitiveness,
development, alliance, investment.

Maider Pérez de Heredia
maiderpzh@hotmail.com
Emagazine: http://www.scoop.it/t/restoring-spanish-education/curate
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=215970446&trk=tab_pro
Twitter: maiderpzh

Report prepared for McKinsey&Company

This article presents one of the possible solutions to the crisis of Spanish education. As a highly relevant
worldwide consultancy McKinsey & Company might observe the possibilities of the alternative proposed
and may take it into consideration when advising various companies, institutions or governments.

McKinsey&Company is more interested than ever in the issue of education as well shown in his last
website cover. Therefore this prestigious consulting firm would be a potential and interested customer.

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30/11/12
Maider Pérez de Heredia
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
NIU: 100277503
Doble Grado en CC.PP. y Sociología
Grupo 88
Curso: 2012-2013

Restoring the Spanish Education based on Brazil’s example

The stability and quality of education systems is one of the main focuses of any
democratic country1. In the case of Spain, the educational area is surrounded by a thick
mass of pessimism, so opaque that has led to a general skepticism about the future of
the Spanish education. However, the situation is not insurmountable, but the initiatives
that are being taken by the current political class are hardly the most appropriate way to
believe in the future of the Spanish education.

Spain might find incredibly interesting the initiatives adopted by Brazil’s goverment
and business class. This country was at the time in a similar situation as Spain, a deep
economic, political and social crisis. This is the main reason why Spain should consider
looking up to Brazil. Throughout this essay I will explain the current situation of the
Spanish education, the measures taken by Brazil and how those measures could be
adaptable to the Spanish case in a period no longer than 10 years.

The wreck of the Spanish education

As presented in the PISA2 reports, in recent years Spain has established itself as a
country mired in education, whose position within the global scale is below the average.
Besides the measures that have been taken by the current government have not improve
the situation. These are the main points of the adopted measures3 by the “Partido
Popular”4:

Permanent measures:

- The teacher substitutions for less than 10 days will be filled with resources of the
school itself.
- Elimination of the obligation for the schools to submit at least two types of pre-college
studies.

Temporary measures:

- Increase class sizes by 20% in primary and secondary education.

1
STEE. (2012), “Education: the main priority”.
2
PISA is an international study that was launched by the OECD in 1997. It aims to evaluate education systems
worldwide every three years by assessing 15-year-olds' competencies in the key subjects: reading, mathematics and
science. To date over 70 countries and economies have participated in PISA.
3
PP’s (People’s Party) official website. (2012) , “New measures for education inspired by Germany’s and France’s
example”; “ New measures in order to stop the educational failure”.
4
Partido Popular “The People’s Party in English”: is a conservative political party in Spain. In the elections of
November 2011 the People’s Party won a majority with 186 seats in the Deputies and they control the current
government.

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- Increase teachers' teaching hours: 25 hours in kindergarden and elementary schools
and 20 hours in the remainings.
- Postponement of the implementation of the 2000 modules of training cycles for
Intermediate and Advanced Level.
- Eliminate the creation of new salary bonuses for teachers, but keep the existing ones.

These measures not only prejudice students and teachers, but the entire society will
suffer the consequences. During the decade of the 90s Spain experienced a tremendous
boom in education and research. Unfortunately, the current crisis has left education
heavily injured and is running with all that hard-won.

Copying Brazil

Brazil is the country where we will find more educational innovation potential over the
next ten years5. These forecasts are based positive because Brazil has created an alliance
called "Education for All", which is an important development in Latin America6. It is a
partnership led by entrepreneurs, with a lot of public sector involvement, which was
founded on the idea that education is too important for the future of their country so that
it only deals with the government.

Unlike what happens in the vast majority of Latin American and European countries,
where the most relevant businessmen have each their own educational foundation, in
Brazil the main magnates formed a coalition with a number of common objectives.
This alliance was founded in 2007 by the presidents of various medium and large
companies, the president of the multinational Gerdau Group7 and in collaboration with
major banks. The coalition established five specific and measurable goals 8 to be
achieved by 2022. The alliance also recruited the owners of the major media, academics
and artists to launch a campaign in order to convince the public and the government
about the need for a better education. Given the social pressure, the government of Lula
da Silva took the five priorities of "Education for All".

Thanks to this partnership new schools have been created, there are more and better
facilities for parents, they offer more educational opportunities and more jobs for
teachers who have come from all over the world due the initiative. But mainly, through
this partnership is intended that all the children that go to school continue their studies
until age 16.

5
Inamorato A. (2011), “Open Educational Resources in Brazil: State of the art, challenges and prospect for
development and innovation”.

6
International organizations and Latin-american Universities (2012), “Innovative Strategies for Higher Education in
Latin America and Europe: International Collaboration and Regional Development”.

7
Gerdau is the largest producer of long steel in America with steel mills all over Latin America. Currently, Gerdau
has an installed capacity of 26 million metric tons of steel per year and it offers steel for the civil construction,
industry and agricultural sectors. It is Brazilian biggest multinational.
8
Rodriguez A. and Dahlman C. (2007), “Knowledge and Innovation for Competitiveness in Brazil”; 247 p; ed, The
World Bank.

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Adapting Brazil to Spain

Although it may seem utopian, the initiative taken by Brazil can be perfectly adapted to
the Spanish case. This is why is so interesting and it should definitely be something that
the Spanish institutions ought to study. The problem of the case revolves around the
organization of a similar alliance, the control and structuring it. It is also important to
consider who might be involved in this partnership and what are the objectives to be
achieved in the educational area.

Undoubtedly the public sector and the private sector must work together on this
initiative. On the one hand, the public sector would be responsible for the organization
and the more theoretical and structural part of the alliance, as the public sector has all
the purview in the educational area9. On the other hand, the private sector and the
companies who want to collaborate, would adhere to the most pragmatic part of the
alliance and would be in charge of its control.

Refering to the public sector, in the case of Spain the best way to adapt an idea like this
would be through the collaboration of the nineteen regions. This way the initiative
would stick to the needs of each region. Therefore, all the Spanish regions should
collaborate with the alliance as all of them would get profits out of it.

Regarding to the private sector, Spanish banks would be the linchpin of the entire
alliance as well as multinationals and companies envolved in the Ibex 3510 for instance.

Conclusion

The creation of an educational alliance in Spain could immensely benefit not only
students, teachers, parents, educational institutions and society in general, but those who
collaborate in it would gain as many profits. On the one hand, they will be working for
maintaining Spanish welfare state and Spain would re-experience a boom in education
and research. The long term benefits of this investment would be that Spain will get out
of the crisis having created the most qualified young generation of its history.
Furthermore, such an alliance would ensure that the poor image and lack of confidence
in the business class and government disappears and would display the importance of
citizens to the political class.

Definitely, this alliance would bring back hope to the Spanish society and could help to
step out of the decadence and pessimism of the crisis. It would make people trust in
education again and more importantly it would make people believe in their future.

9
Education Ministry. (2012), “ Educational System Organization”.
10
Ibex 35: Is the benchmark stock market index of the Bolsa de Madrid, Spain's principal stock exchange.
*Picture from the cover: Logo for “Alliance for education Brazil”.

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