In the classrooms of Madrid’s institutes there are already teachers without qualified training. They do not have a master’s degree in teaching, but they teach mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science, language, Latin or Greek due to the shortage of teachers. Although the Executive of Isabel Díaz Ayuso has not seen a response to its recent request to the Ministry of Education so that pensioners, graduates and third-year students of the degree in Mathematics or any engineering can teach this subject in educational centers, it resorts to extraordinary interim lists to fill the vacancies with professionals who do not have the training required by national educational legislation. This is the case of Jesús Ruiz, 53 years old, who teaches in the Blanca Fernández-Ochoa public institute, in the Montecarmelo neighborhood.
In 2017 he graduated in Classical Philology and always worked in the private sector until he discovered the existence of this specific public scholarship. This is how Maestro Rodrigo de Aranjuez began teaching at CEIPSO last year, taking care of the subjects of Latin and language and literature. “It was a bit chaotic at first. They called me and told me I had to sign up the next day, just like that. I had to start collecting material and look for an effective methodology based on trial and error,” he says.
This measure from the Ministry of Education displeases the president of the Association of Directors of Public Schools in Madrid, Rosa Rocha. In his opinion, this reduces the quality of teaching. He thinks that teachers must have basic knowledge, starting with the legislation that regulates the institutes: “We are very worried. They arrive on the first day and they don’t know how to teach. In the end we give them that training so that the classroom is not a hostile space, but in a hurry and in a hurry.”
He ensures that in this course the arrival of professionals without qualified training is recurrent, while in previous years it was exceptional. “An emergency context to apply this measure could be the pandemic, but we cannot normalize it. We will need more and more teachers, many retirements are coming and we must attract them with better working conditions and with the promotion of this beautiful professional opportunity,” he says.
The permanently open extraordinary lists of temporary teachers were launched at the end of 2023. The Ministry of Education claims to take the necessary measures to guarantee the right to study. “Both the Community of Madrid and the rest of the regions, given the shortage of teaching professionals in subjects such as Computer Science, Mathematics or Physics and Chemistry, have repeatedly asked the Ministry of Education to allow this possibility on an exceptional basis, without obtaining any kind of response”, they express.
Meanwhile, the deans of the faculties of Education Sciences have planned important innovations in the secondary school teaching masters, in which more than 40 thousand students enroll every year because according to national educational legislation it is essential to teach in secondary schools, high schools and in professional training. One of the changes is the establishment of a postgraduate entrance test to assess academic knowledge and other skills. Also expand internships and strengthen their supervision, as well as extending the duration of studies to two years.
An engineer arrived at the Vallecas I Institute this year to teach Physics and Chemistry. “His specialty is not linked to the subject he teaches. Education is not easy and he did not know how to handle it, he asked us for books to study. The head of the institute’s department accompanied him on the first day of class, but he is not prepared”, declared the management of the La Ser centre. Sources from the high school confirmed this to the newspaper. “We had a problem related to the lack of qualified teachers, but after several protests from families and the center, we managed to assign a new teacher who meets all the requirements established by current legislation,” they say.
Jesús Ruiz has been on vacation this year since October 15 and teaches students in the third and fourth years of secondary school, as well as the first year of high school. “Now everything goes more smoothly, I always try to offer teaching with the best possible quality,” he comments. For this reason, the teaching master’s course began in September with the aim of being able to take the exam in the future. “I apply in the classroom in the morning what I learned in the afternoon at graduate school. When I finish the qualifying training I will be a better teacher, but that doesn’t mean that those who don’t have it are a bad professional and those who have it will be a good teacher”, he insists.
He believes that it is necessary training, although in his opinion it should be modified because it is very theoretical. José Ignacio Méndez, 38, agrees with him. He is also studying for a master’s degree, but without this he was able to teach mathematics at the Elisa Soriano Fischer Institute in Getafe, after a working life dedicated to the private sector. “Show up at the center and see if they’ll let you start today,” they told him after he registered as a job seeker. He began teaching in the final stretch of last year.
The kids had been without a teacher for days: “I started off great, with the role of department head held by the person I was replacing. The first two days were overwhelming. In the private company, when you arrive you are guided by a mentor, here they release you into the classroom on your own and you have to make do,” he explains. He had taught private lessons, an experience that stood him in good stead during his time at the institute. “He knew how to reach kids pretty well. It was all very hot,” she says.
He is skeptical of these extraordinary lists. “As a temporary patch, they are a good measure, but even if I took advantage of this situation, I don’t agree that it has to be this way. If people don’t want to teach, it’s because of the working conditions. It’s very sad that there were vacancies in September, when there were oppositions,” he says.
The president of the Society of Mathematics Teachers of Madrid, José Luis Muñoz, criticizes the regional strategy. “We condemn the teaching of mathematics,” he insists. He believes that it is as important to master them as it is to know how to transmit them, not just transmit them. “How do they want to improve the level of students with less trained teachers? They will make the problem worse. Public education in Madrid needs prestige and good working conditions,” he continues.
Elio Soria, professor of Latin and Greek until last week at the Palomeras-Vallecas Institute, where he took a leave of absence after studying classical philology, does not agree with this point of view. “I don’t have a master’s degree in teaching nor do I plan to,” says the 25-year-old. He believes he dealt with 33 compulsory secondary school and high school students without difficulty. “They hadn’t had lessons for a month and the families were desperate, they welcomed me with joy,” he says.
He defends the measure of the Ministry of Education, even if he criticizes the fact that graduates in other careers such as Hispanic or French philology choose to teach Latin and Greek before him just because they have a master’s degree as a teacher. “It’s really a disaster,” he complains. Ana Alonso, 25, who is now studying for a master’s degree in pedagogy after teaching last year at an institute in Alcobendas that she prefers not to identify, agrees with this.
“I was the substitute’s substitute,” says the woman, who graduated in History and Classical Philology. He taught Latin, Greek-Latin language and lexical foundations. “The teaching master’s degree is a process, anyone can obtain it,” he dares to say. It promotes shorter, more practical training, similar to the old Certificate of Pedagogical Aptitude.
The president of the National Association of Mathematics Students, Javier Polo, regrets the lack of public places to obtain a master’s degree. Private campuses went from serving 38% of students to 54% in eight years. “Last year, 500 new places were offered at the Complutense University, but the application rate was 337.4%,” explains Isabel Galvín, professor of Teaching and School Organization at the Faculty of Educational Sciences of that institution.
The situation worsens in FP
The situation worsens in Vocational Training Centres. Since the pandemic, they have suffered a significant shortage of teachers. A teacher, who prefers not to identify himself, with more than 20 courses of teaching experience in an institution that teaches these courses, assures that approximately 20% of the teaching staff does not have the qualifying master’s degree or equivalent in their high school. “The situation becomes so desperate that directors compete with each other, resorting to social networks and word of mouth to obtain certain profiles of engineers who want to join teaching,” he points out.
Tomás Alonso, director of the Francisco Tomás y Valiente Institute, confirms that the lack of teachers in professional training is structural. It has at its center a teacher without a master’s degree. This course started without four teachers and still has one left. 60 students have been without lessons for two months.
