What changes happened in the Spanish school system due to the educational reform in the 80's and 90's?

Question

Hey Spanish people! I love you forever if you help me ;)! I'm giving a presentation tomorrow (in Spanish (scary))and I should probably mention this... but I don't have a clue about it! Please help!

Answer 1

In the 1980s the system had four different stages

Pre-escolar 5-6 year olds

EGB (which stands for Basic General Education) 7-14

BUP (Bachiller Unificado Polivalente, roughly translates as Multipurpose Unified Secondary -yeah, pretty silly name) 14-17

COU (Curso de Orientacion Universitaria, University Counselling Course) 18

And after that you sat an exam called "Selectividad" and if you passed, went University.

I work at a school and our last "old system" group started in 1987 (and finished in 2000)

The current system goes like this

Educacion Infantil: 4-6 year olds

Educacion Primaria: 7-12

Educacion Secundaria (also know as ESO): 13-16

Bachillerato: 17-18

and then you sit an exam called PAU (University Access Test) and if you pass go to University.

Both systems are pretty similar. The two big differences are:

-With the old system you had to stay at school until you turned 14, now it's 16.

-Old system had fewer subjects and less variety to choose from.