Selectivity ends longest containment

Born in 2002, some have reached the age of majority confined in family, without being able to see their friends. They have run out of a graduation party and an end-of-year trip . Many had a place these days in a hotel in Mallorca or on a train to tour Europe with an Interrail ticket. In short, they have watered the festive part of a key year in their lives and the only event that has survived on their agendas has been Selectivity, postponed for almost a month, which has extended the agony of the course and the forced confinement.

The emergence of the coronavirus and the consequent modification of the evaluation criteria have considerably increased the number of approved students and raised the general marks, also in the 2nd year of Bachillerato. The percentage of students who have obtained the title has grown by 27% in Andalusia and 21% in Aragon and the Balearic Islands, for example. In the case of Andalusia, if in 2019 40.1% of those enrolled approved in the ordinary call for June, this year that percentage has risen to 52% .

Miguel González Dengra is director of the IES Mariana de Pineda de Granada and president of the Association of Directors of the Andalusian Institute (Adian) and blames this elevation of results on a varied casuistry but always related to the change in parameters derived from the pandemic. "The working students have continued to make an effort. But those who already had one or two suspended evaluations have had three months to recover, knowing that the third trimester could not penalize them since it had a summative nature . In these cases, many teachers have given up advancing with the subject and they have limited themselves to facilitating the review of what has already been given in class ". On the other hand there is the picaresque. "Taking online exams has multiplied the possibilities of cheating" and the means of teachers to monitor, detect and punish fraud have been limited, González Dengra also points out.

The director of a Sevillian IES (she prefers not to give her name), who participates in the preparation processes of the Selectividad exams, regrets that this general rise in grades is going to harm good students. She also points to the enormous social pressure, fueled by the authorities, to pave the end of the course and minimize the number of failures.

Students are very aware of how some circumstances that influence the final evaluation have been altered. "The main advantage has been not having to prepare the final exams, global exams with a lot of subjects that have been replaced by work. But that leads us to that, facing the selective, we are much worse prepared", explains Pedro Luis Alonso , student from the Port of Sagunto (Valencia).

The same questions

The Ministry of Education decided, in agreement with the autonomous communities, to modify the structure of the Selectividad exams, since it could not be guaranteed that the contents of the third trimester would be taught. Students will, in fact, have more options in each test, so that they will be able to circumvent those subjects in the curriculum that they have not worked with their teacher. But the bank of questions that is prepared each year, from which the exams are prepared, was already designed before the pandemic broke in the course, that is, its level of difficulty has not changed.

The entrance grade to the University , which allows you to compete for a position in a university degree, is calculated from the combination of the average grade for Baccalaureate (60%) and the average grade for the exams in the compulsory phase of Selectivity (40%). The grade obtained will be a maximum of 10 if the student only appears in the compulsory phase. If you also take the voluntary phase exams, you can raise your access mark by 4 more points, up to 14.

To know if the Baccalaureate grades have been inflated to a greater or lesser extent this year, it should be enough to compare the averages obtained this course with the scores resulting from the Selectivity exams. If, in addition, the communities agreed to publish these results by centers (the controversial rankings ), it would be possible to know to what extent there are institutes that have awarded their students in some way to facilitate their transit to the University. Andalusia, for example, has been publicly offering this information for eight years. On the other hand, in the Valencian Community such a comparison can be easily made, since the Generalitat offers enough information to prepare a complete diagnosis. In fact, it is easy to consult the number of students approved and the average of the Selectividad grades, but also the number of students presented and the average of the Baccalaureate files, all of which are essential data to obtain a reliable photograph of each center with respect to the whole .

Social pressure

Carlos Rodríguez Estacio is a professor of Philosophy at the Vicente Aleixandre Institute in Seville and stresses that the institutional and social pressure to be "generous" in evaluations has not arisen with the pandemic but is part of the "subliminal" messages that have been arriving for years insistently from the authorities to the teachers. "You cannot be generous with something that should be protected as a public good: objectivity in evaluating results . " "If a student needs support, let us give him advice and provide him with the tools. But giving the pass is tremendously unfair and generates lazy and victimized citizens. The problem is that these toxic habits are already installed among teachers, who do not want any control or objective evaluation of what your students are learning, "he adds.

Higher notes

Clara Olías has completed the Baccalaureate in a center of Seville capital: "I think that, like most of me, all the extraordinary circumstances have helped me to add a few tenths in some subjects. But, although I have been able to achieve a higher average, the marks will be equalized above, so it is not clear to me if in the end this situation could harm me when it comes to entering the career I have chosen. "

Miguel Ortiz , also a student of the 2nd year of Bachillerato in the Seville capital, thinks that the final stretch of the course has been "easier" as a result of the forced quarantine and the suspension of classes. But he does not feel worse prepared for it and he trusts that the adaptation that has been made of the Selectividad exams will compensate for the shortcomings, although the telematic training he has received has been very systematic, "with daily classes and video calls from 8.30 am to 3 pm " In his case, he affirms, the final grades coincide with the line that he had been maintaining during High School. "In Selectividad you will see if we have really benefited or not," he points out.

Uneven formation

But if students have responded unequally to the suspension of face-to-face classes, something similar has occurred among teachers, which has caused that the level of preparation is not even homogeneous even in the same center. "There are teachers who have made video calls, recorded videos, have provided us with their contacts for all kinds of questions and even YouTube channels have been opened. Others have limited themselves to passing the agenda. This inequality has made us spend many more hours on some subjects than others, "Clara explains.

"In general terms, I would say that [the teachers] have made a lot of effort. In general, the classes have been productive, although it is true that there has been a tendency to give less content to the classes and burden the student with more homework," he says. Pablo Denis , student from Malaga. On the contrary, it maintains that the flexibility of schedules has been an advantage. "With more flexible hours and reduced workload, I have had much more time to do other activities that, in my opinion, are just as instructive, such as reading or exercising."

Pablo studies in a British institute and, since the United Kingdom has canceled the entrance exams to the University (A-levels) , he has seen some relief from the pressure. On the other hand, it does present itself to the specific phase of Spanish selectivity.

End of course without rewards

Regardless of academic circumstances, the pandemic has also had a social and emotional cost for this generation. "For most of us, the plans we had for this summer were the reward for all the work and effort in the institute, especially in the last two years," says Clara.

"We have run out of the end-of-year trip, without graduation and practically without the summer of 18", recalls Pedro Luis, who adds: "We have experienced a global pandemic and we are well aware that what we have missed is nonsense at side of what other people have suffered. Therefore, we are not going to complain. "

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• Selectivity
• Andalusia
• Seville
• Valencia
• Aragon
• Balearics
• Valencian Community
• Malaga
• Education
• Coronavirus

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