El fracaso escolar en España y sus regiones: disparidades territoriales

Resumen:El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar uno de los grandes problemas educativos al que se enfrenta España: el fracaso escolar. Siendo un país bien posicionado en renta per cápita, dentro de la UE ostenta la mayor tasa de abandono escolar temprano. La corrección del fracaso educativo lograda desde finales de los setenta se paralizó durante la última fase expansiva (1995-2007) como consecuencia del dinamismo de la construcción. Dada la dispar estructura productiva de las regiones españolas, el perfil geográfico del fracaso escolar muestra contrastes, comportándose mejor las áreas del norte. En este resultado inciden también las diferencias territoriales en gasto público educativo, nivel económico, cultural y laboral.Abstract: This essay describes and analyzes one of the main problems that exist in Spain nowadays, the problem of early school leaving. The human capital endowment is seen as a key to promote growth and competitiveness of a country. Although Spain has made significant progress in the educational level of its population in the last fifty years, even today remain two major problems: a high deficit of training in the international context and large educational disparities between regions. Territorial differences are linked, among other factors, to the gradual decentralization of the education system in our country in recent decades. The Spanish educational neglect is a structural problem that can hinder both accesses to the labor market of young people as their own job stability, with the risk of economic and social exclusion. This scenario makes the acquisition of compulsory education levels is a necessary but not sufficient condition, as required also continue post-compulsory education for better opportunities. In addition, the education system must not only transmit knowledge, but also other skills that foster innovation and creativity, preparing students for a complex and changing future. Among the indicators related to school failure, we will focus on early school leaving, which is measured by the percentage of people aged 18 to 24 who are outside the education system or have not completed compulsory education. It is considered that this indicator is best to carry out international comparisons because of its homogeneity. Making a comparison between the countries of the European Union-28, it draws attention to the position of Spain, which has the highest rate of early school leavers despite having an intermediate level of income. The persistence of this educational problem in Spain, which has maintained dropout rates at very high levels, around 30% for 10 years, is related to the economic and employment situation experienced by the country during the last economic boom phase (1995-2007). In that period, Spain had significant growth mainly driven by the construction sector and especially among the male group. At that stage, many students left school without completing compulsory education, to work in real estate. In addition to the impact of the construction sector, frequent changes in education laws, especially the change introduced by the LOGSE, which raised the number of years of compulsory education and established a more rigid curriculum. Although the dropout remains high, since the beginning of the economic crisis is shrinking due mainly to two factors. First, the measures taken by the government through programs aimed specifically at combating failure, and secondly, the economic crisis that has hit the construction sector. The presence of dropout affects unevenly the Spanish regions and has also been different behavior. The Mediterranean and southern regions have a problem more pronounced than those of northern Spain failure, highlighting in particular Baleares in the first case and País Vasco as the best region. Although there are many factors related to the differences regions, one that stands out to explain this gap are the job prospects and the importance of some low-skilled sectors, such as tourism and construction, where they can locate people leaving school early. Therefore, insular and Mediterranean regions where there are more jobs of this type have higher rates of school dropouts. Another element appears to be influential is the educational level of the population. In this sense, the regions the proportion of people with higher education is higher, usually having less risk of students leave school early. The explanation for this is that when students are under the influence of the best-educated adults, will find it easier to continue their studies, being more reluctant to leave school early. We should also mention the public expenditure on education or income level of the population by region. In terms of public spending, it has shown that regions have more resources for education, have better educational indicators than those regions that spend less, while it is true that this factor alone does not explain the school failure. Considering now the per capita GDP, the regions with the lowest per capita income are more likely to have higher dropout rates. In short, school failure may be motivated by a lot of factors, among which the sectoral structure of the area, the ease of finding without higher for young degree work, the income level of the population, public investment in education, the importance of human capital or higher or lower rate of unemployment, and other more personal factors such as the innate ability of the individual, which is more difficult to act. To raise the academic performance further impetus seems necessary both guidance and support programs and curricular diversification for those students with a greater personal difficulties, family or socioeconomic and therefore most at risk of school failure. These programs can promote educational equality and motivate students more likely to dropout, usually directing their training and interests to the subsequent realization of a course of vocational training to open the doors to the world of work them. It is important that the measures to strengthen and expand begin from early childhood education, as educational delay symptoms are detected. Support activities may be more effective during the early years of teaching at older ages, when these deficiencies are already settled in the student; therefore, we must establish preventive measures to try to avoid educational failure. For this it is necessary to intensify efforts towards personalized assistance to help identify potential learning problems and provide both educational support and personal, especially those groups with the worst social and economic situation, especially focusing on regions with higher dropout rates. In addition, it would be a proper familiarity with centers greater autonomy in regards to your organization and try to the best possible student diversity. Since students have different skills and abilities and have different family and socio-economic environments, it is important that schools try to develop and guide the characteristics of the students, a goal that may be achieved through greater flexibility to group. It could also help reduce the school drop a configuration of a more flexible curriculum during the years of compulsory education. This would be to offer several alternatives, so that students do not have to walk the same path during the ten years of this stage.