The admission tests for Teaching, a firewall against lack of vocation

Palma“Before, we had around 1,200 applications to access the degrees of Early Childhood and Primary Education, and now, between 600 and 650”. This is how Miquel Oliver, dean of the Faculty of Education at the UIB, explains one of the consequences of the admission tests for these studies, established in 2021. For decades, access to these degrees has had certain conditions. There were people who wanted to enter because they considered them accessible. Others decided to study them when they were not really clear about their academic future. Now, this profile of students has been significantly reduced. “With selective tests, we manage to get people more motivated and, with this, we can work so that they come out more prepared and become good professionals. However, to enter the degree, they also have to pass the PAU and reach the cut-off mark,” explains Oliver. “We must prevent Magisterium from being a refuge for those who do not manage to enter other degrees. Precisely, the access exams have a dissuasive effect,” adds Bernat Sureda, professor of History of Education at the UIB.

The decision to establish the tests arises from the creation of the Initial Training Transformation Program. “From research and surveys, we determined what the priorities were that had to be implemented to improve education, through the sharing of ideas among university professors and school practice tutors,” says Oliver. From this came a document with 78 proposals, on which work is being done.

A communicative competence, critical reasoning, and reading comprehension exam opens the evaluation process. Mathematical logic, in which students must demonstrate knowledge of geometry, algebra, statistics, and measurement, completes the first phase of the process. Those who are deemed suitable undergo two more tests: they must present themselves in a video, offer their perception of the current world, and describe the skills they possess as teachers. This test is followed by a debate among six students on a current topic, while two examiners assess skills such as leadership ability and the capacity to offer a different perspective.

Motivated and imaginative students

After three years of exams, and without any graduating class having completed them, it is difficult to draw conclusions, but perceptions can be formed. “When we talk among professors, we see that the students now entering are more focused on the importance of education and have a greater sense of responsibility about what it means to go to school and the duties it entails,” explains Begoña de la Iglesia, coordinator of the admission tests. Maria del Mar Gayà, a second-year Primary Education student, agrees with these ideas. “The new students have a lot of imagination when it comes to activities, they give more dynamic presentations, and they are eager to do practical work,” she states. And she contrasts this: “You can tell the difference between the new students and those you find in class because they are repeating a subject, some of whom are the typical students who are just going through the motions of studying,” she opines.

For their part, Auba Fuster, a student of the same degree and year, applauds the implementation of admission tests. “They were very necessary to dignify the teaching profession and move away from the idea that it is a trivial career,” she points out. However, she also brings up a common issue in all degrees, which Magisteri also faces, despite the tests. “From my class, between 10 and 14 people have left the degree, out of a group of 60,” she says. She wants to debunk the myth that Magisteri is an easy degree. “It is not. I got a good shock, because I thought that if the mathematics of the degree were as easy as those in the entrance exams, I would be fine. But no. I came from the humanities Baccalaureate and I was lost,” she recalls.

Daniel Ruiz is, precisely, a mathematics professor in the Primary Education degree, and he reflects on the purpose of the tests. “They are not only done to improve the level, because the perception of the level always stems from a static position of the professor, who sees students pass from one promotion to the next,” he says. Students, he opines, do not know the same things now as they did five years ago, “obviously,” but “they know a different type of mathematics and work in a different way.”

De la Iglesia, for his part, explains that the tests aim to identify “red flags,” those competencies that a Magisteri student must have as a foundation and which, if lacking, are difficult to acquire during the degree. However, he makes it clear that applicants are not asked for anything they could not know according to their previous studies. “We are aware that they should not have any pedagogical competence from the start. We assess them on characteristics that have already been assessed previously,” he says. “A teacher is the student’s role model, and if they know how to write, the students will learn. In fact, if a teacher misspells a word, the student internalizes it, and that is what we must fight against and be able to prevent,” he states.