During the governance of the Popular Party (2011- June 2018), education, culture and sport were the responsibility of a single Ministry. Thus, arts education in Spain has been, for the last eight years, the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, though the Autonomous Communities could also develop basic legislation and were in charge of implementing it.
One of the traditional problems in Spain has been the lack of integration of arts education into the general education system, which has affected the training of professionals and also the general population as potential audience.
The approval, in November 2013, of the Organic Law for the Improvement of Educational Quality (8/2013 Organic Act) involved changes in the organisation of artistic education in the academic year 2014-2015, initially at primary level. The act introduced a differentiation between core subjects (common to the whole territory, with a minimum weight in terms of teaching hours of 50%, and with contents set by the central administration) and specific subjects – whereby Autonomous Communities and educational administrations and schools have greater autonomy to set schedules, content and final programming of artistic disciplines. The act also introduced audiovisual education at the levels of compulsory secondary and upper secondary education and removed the possibility of studying performing arts at upper secondary education.
Nevertheless, the effectiveness of regulations depends on how such plans are put into practice in terms of time allocation, permeability between academic subjects and artistic disciplines, progress between the various cycles, and on the specific regulations implemented by the Autonomous Communities beyond the minimum national core curriculum.
For an updated vision of the Spanish education system, read the OECD Education Policy Outlook for Spain (2015).
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