This is a well-known methodology that is already underway in some educational centers, but legally the Spanish government will extend it to the entire educational system, and in this sense the regulation aims to be a pedagogical revolution also in Hego Euskal Herria. The Department of Education of the Basque Government has explained that the “new curriculum” developed in the CAV on the occasion of the LOMLOE is a qualitative step in the competency learning that has been developed in the Basque Educational System in recent years. Educational centers are called upon to progressively implement the work organized in the different areas (rather than by subjects), especially in primary and first cycle of ESO.”

The new curriculum also attaches special importance to the figure of the tutor, emphasizing the tutors and tutors who seek to “guarantee the well-being of students”.

The next course will begin the application of the new methodology at the odd levels of each stage (1st, 3rd, 5th Primary Education; 1st, 3rd Compulsory Secondary Education, 1st High School). In the course 2023-2024 it will be extended to the other levels. The Basque Government has explained that both for the elaboration of the new curriculum and for the training of teachers, the participatory process has been underway since 2021.

According to the Department of Education, the new curriculum aims at a more flexible school, “adapted to the forms and interests of learning”. They stress that more critical and more humane citizens will be needed: “We want to educate people who are able to seek solutions from the perspective of social transformation, from equality and social justice. Of course, people who are properly trained in the areas that belong to them and who have the initiative and the ethical view to innovate in our community”.

New subjects and more optional

In ARGIA we have reported on the changes that LOMLOE will bring: for example, students will have more elective subjects to choose, new subjects will be implanted, and in Baccalaureate students will have to choose between five branches, now there are three.

In Primary Education, for example, students will teach “Civic and ethical values” in the sixth year – and in the first of the ESO the same lesson will be taught – and the subject “Knowing the natural, social and cultural environment” will emerge, combining the Nature Sciences with the Social Sciences.

In Compulsory Secondary Education, in the 2nd year the subject of “Nature Sciences” – which includes Biology, Geology, Physics and Chemistry – will be taught, students will have “Technology and Digitalization” in the 2nd and 3rd year and the offer of optional subjects will be expanded at all levels (Second Foreign Language, Philosophy applied to personal and social development, Scientific Culture, Digitalisation.

The Baccalaureate is divided into five branches to be chosen by the students: Science and Technology, Humanities and Social Sciences, General, Plastic Arts, and Music and Performing Arts. As in the ESO, the offer of optional subjects has been expanded (Second Foreign Language, History of the Basque Country, Applied Anatomy, Photography, Painting, Laboratory Techniques, Social Anthropology, Oral Communication in Foreign Language…).