This Thursday the Congress of Deputies has definitively given the green light to the law that establishes and equates higher artistic education with university degrees. This bet by the Minister of Education, Vocational Training and Sports, Pilar Alegría, was already approved last year, but declined with the call for early elections. She received approval again this March, however, the amendments to the bill had yet to be accepted in the Senate. Now it has become the first Government regulation to go ahead during this legislature.
The law on artistic education equates this type of studies with that of university studies and homologates them to the European Higher Education Area. The same thing happens with professional artistic education, which enters the National Catalog of Professional Qualifications, that is, the new Vocational Training system, also opening the possibility of recognition and accreditation of these skills to workers in the sector. It will benefit more than 690,000 people working in the artistic sector in Spain, as well as 689 educational centers, 14,000 teachers and around 140,000 students.
It is also the first reform in the last thirty years to establish a legislative framework for the teaching of Music, Dance, and Dramatic Arts; Conservation and restoration of cultural property; Plastic Arts, Creative Writing and Audiovisual Arts. As a novelty, one of the approved amendments adds Video Games, Animation, Cinematography and Circus Arts as teachings. In addition, it considers the possibility that the communities propose to the Executive to initiate procedures to create new Professional Education related to other artistic disciplines.
Thanks to the approval in the European Union, students will have an easier time carrying out part of their studies in another European country and being able to practice their profession outside our borders. The dual modality is also introduced so that young people will be able to carry out part of their training as internships in companies, institutions… and will contribute to Social Security as happens with Vocational Training students.
Right to academic unemployment
It also expands the rights of students, who will be able to receive a scholarship under the same conditions as university students, including the payment of tuition fees, which until now were not compensated. It also recognizes, and for the first time, its right to academic unemployment – for example, the educational council may stop teaching activity to go to a demonstration without losing evaluation or teaching rights – which may be total or partial.
It also creates four new bodies of teachers – of professors and professors of Higher Education; and professors and professors of Professional Education—, who join the Workshop Teachers; and contemplates the creation of ‘Campus of the Arts’, where public or private centers and universities will be able to associate with each other.
In addition, an autonomous student representative body will be established per center, which defends the interests of the student body, ensures compliance with rights and duties, makes proposals and promotes student associations.
One of the changes introduced during the legislation contemplates the commitment to create a Basic Statute of Higher Artistic Education Students, which the Government must approve once the law comes into force and which will apply to all students, whether from public centers or private.
The “greatest consensus in the educational field” or “a step back”
For Minister Pilar Alegría, this regulation is the one with “the greatest consensus in the educational field in history.” «The entire educational community has been asking us for a long time to reach an agreement, to agree and to agree on the improvements that education needs, at least through partial agreements. With this law we have shown, we have shown that it is possible. This example has been worth it,” said Alegría.
The minister also wanted to thank the parliamentary groups for their “climate of collaboration” throughout the processing process, which, as she acknowledged, has contributed to “a better text.” And, since the Council of Ministers rescued the project from the drawer and sent it to the Chambers last January, the parties have been negotiating changes and corrections to the law, which received up to 200 amendments before landing in the Senate. .
The Upper House incorporated several of them, which meant that they had to return to Congress for final approval, but in this Thursday’s vote many of them have been left out, which has been the result of reproach by various groups.
An example of this has been the Popular Party, which finally abstained, and whose spokesperson Óscar Clavell has disgraced during the plenary session that it should take “a step back” when some of his group’s amendments were rejected, such as one in which they the powers of the Educational Inspection so that the State guaranteed respect for Spanish in all educational centers.
