Obtain a public place in the Vocational Trainingespecially in a middle-grade cycle, is one of the best instruments to fight against premature school dropout. And the fact is that two out of every three students who did not obtain a place this summer in the intermediate vocational training have chosen to abandon their studies, which amounts to 4,373 people. This is clear from the analysis of the registration and enrollment data in the FP for this course carried out by the Department of Education and Vocational Training to find out why some did not enroll despite having obtained a place. or what has happened to those who did not get a vacancy.
As detailed by Education this Monday, of the 108,289 applications received in July and September, 61,753 students have enrolled (the figure does not include those who registered in the play-off period opened in October). But 17,871 students did not enroll, both in middle and higher education, despite having obtained a place.to.
But Education focuses especially on students who aspired to attend a middle-grade cycle, which are mainly those who come from ESO and those who are interested in continuing their studies to avoid increasing the numbers of premature school dropouts, which are currently places in Catalonia at 14.8%. In this sense, it has monitored those who did not manage to enter one of these cycles, despite meeting the requirements. In total, 6,757 were left without a place, of which 4,373 (64.7%) have decided to throw in the towel and not continue their studies. Education has lost track of them because they are no longer listed in the Student Registry of Catalonia (RALC). These are mostly 16-year-old students who have possibly sought a way out in the labor market.
To these 4,373 must be added another 3,921 who have also disappeared from the system, but in this case they are part of the group of 8,476 intermediate-level applicants who did not get a place because they did not meet the requirements, many of whom because they did not pass the ESO. “The Department is committed to monitoring and looking after especially vulnerable students who are not in the system, so as not to lose them along the way,” highlighted the Minister of Education, Esther Niubó.
Although one of the solutions to the problem is to increase the number of places, Niubó did not want to specify this point. “The offer is below what it should be. The idea is to increase it, but now we cannot say how much it will increase,” said the counselor, who admitted that first they have chosen to find a way to concentrate the registration and enrollment calendar.
Virtual enrollment
The Minister of Education has also presented, in broad outline, the pre-registration calendar of the next school year, which is practically carbon copy of this year’s. The key is in the second half of July, a period in which the department hopes to make three registration roundswhen this year there were two and the third was already at the beginning of September. The department will manage to compress these deadlines for the implementation of online registration. “Until now, registration was done in person at the center and you had to wait for the student to present all the documentation. From now on it will be done online, faster,” explained Gemma Verdés, general director of Alumnado.
The repechage period, which this year took place during the second half of September, will be brought forward to the beginning of the month to allow students to be enrolled before the start of classes, and thus avoid what happened a month agowhen there were students who were enrolling and joining the classrooms when the course had started almost three weeks ago.
Niubó has advanced other innovations regarding the new registration process, such as simplifying the language of the instructions so that they are more understandable, making repeating students register earlier so that all available places can be offered, improving orientation and improving the communication to families about deadlines. And a survey among students who had obtained a place and finally did not enroll indicates that 25% did not do so because they missed the deadline or were away, while 20% claim that they opted for another type of education and 11% cite economic reasons.
