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Education paralyzes the new EBAU for "responsibility" before the early call for elections
The Ministry of Education and Vocational Training has decided to paralyze the approval of the royal decree of the new Evaluation of the Baccalaureate for University Access (EBAU), whose implementation was to begin in the 2023-2024 academic year, after the President of the Government , Pedro Sánchez, has announced the early call for general elections and the dissolution of the Cortes.
The Department headed by Pilar Alegría, as sources from this Ministry have informed Europa Press, has
decided to paralyze the approval of the decree for "responsibility", understanding that it is "more logical" for the new government to push it forward, whatever it may be.
The Secretary of State for Education, José Manuel Bar, has conveyed the decision to the General Secretary for Universities, José Manuel Pingarrón, and to the rectors of Spanish universities (CRUE) during a meeting held this Wednesday.
Before the end of the Legislature, the Ministry will leave "completely finished" the processing of the royal decree of the new university entrance exam, which is currently in the Office of Regulatory Quality and must go through the Council of State. Although the decree will be ready before the elections, it will not go through the Council of Ministers, so the new government will be able to use it to approve it when it takes office.
The implementation of the new model of the university entrance exam was scheduled for the 2023-2024
academic year so that, after a transitory period, it would be definitively implemented in June 2028.
In the draft royal decree that regulates the basic characteristics of the University entrance exam for the 2023-2024 academic year and establishes the procedure for calculating the entrance qualification, published last February, the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training eliminated the maturity test and the multiple choice questions that were initially planned for this new test.
Likewise, Education increased the time for completing the exercises in the new test, going from 90 minutes to 105 minutes, since, as justified by the Department directed by Pilar Alegría, "the reading of the exercise, its analysis and production are taken into account ".
Another of the changes included in the draft royal decree is that students, at the time of enrolling for the entrance exam, will choose between taking the History of Spain or History of Philosophy exam. In addition, in communities with a co-official language, an examination of their own language is added. With the aim of testing the new EBAU, the Ministry carried out a pilot test last March in 50 centers in all the Spanish autonomous communities, Ceuta and Melilla, with the exception of those governed by the Popular Party and Aragon and the Country Basque. This pilot test included less memory exercises that reflect everyday life situations.
According to the correction guides for the pilot exams of the new university entrance exam, published by Education, the new EBAU would deduct 0.25 points for each spelling error and the tildes would count as half a mistake.