THE SCHOOLS OF SPAIN

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21961, 9 December 1936, Page 9

THE SCHOOLS OF SPAIN

DIFFICULT POSITION PROGRESS IN RECENT TEARS The Government which eventually emerges from the present struggle in Spain will have to give serious consideration to the educational problem, states a correspondent of “The Times" Educational Supplement. Further reform is clearly necessary in an educational system which leaves one-half, of the total population illiterate. Conditions have been worse, and still are, in the country districts. Even in the province of Madrid there is an almost total lack of primary schools. Most of the hamlets are so small and so scattered that it is in any case difficult to decide where the school should be situated. Primary school attendance has long been compulsory, but as no free meals or transport are provided the law has remained a dead letter. In order to cbey it children in many districts would be obliged to walk six or seven miles in the morning, return home for the midday dinner which is the staple meal of the Spanish peasant, and walk back the same distance in the afternoon. It is easy to understand that such impossible conditions are never enforced. , In the towns, where things could so easily have been better, it is only recently that serious improvements have been made. During the last school year there were still 10,000 to 12,000 children in Madrid for whom the elementary schools had no accommodation. Barcelona tcMay is proud of her educational facilities, from the university downwards; yet under the monarchy her State primary schools had room for only 2000 children —and that in a city of well over 1,000,000 inhabitants.

Lack of buildings and of suitable equipment was not, unfortunately, the only defect. The quality of the teaching staffs was a matter of still graver concern. The delivery of teaching diplomas followed no standardised plan, and remuneration was almost unbelievably low. An elementary schoolmaster in country districts and small towns was given a house and an annual salary of from £SO to £75. Admittedly Spain is a land of frugal living, but this sum was totally inadequate for a married teacher. Small wonder that, constantly harassed by financial troubles, unable to travel, to buy books, or to associate with people of his supposed cultural level, the schoolmaster counted little as an instrument of progress. Actions of Republic " It is to the credit of the Republic that one of its first acts was to tabu-

late the most urgent • reforms and to set about raising the material status of the elementary teacher. His salary was trebled and sometimes quadrupled. so that in the most favoured districts it is now as high as £3OO a year, which in Spain is a considerable income. This reform was not questioned by the 1933-36 Government, although other projects in the original programme were allowed to lapse. Three months 'before the present civil war broke out, the new Minister for Education, Don Marcelino Domingo, had promised to give permanent status to both primary and secondary teachers, and to correct tne abuses of which some of the university examining boards were accused. The teaching profession, already well paid, was to be made safe for the properly qualified man or woman. It was beginning to attract, the most suitable type of student, aind as a corollary was able to demand a higher standard of entry.