Reacción a "The temporary nature of teaching staff in Spain remains above the OECD average"

I am not particularly in favour of international tests and assessments. Their logic – deeply technocratic and neoliberal – reduces education to that which can be measured, thereby impoverishing its meaning. Rather than tools for understanding the reality of education, they become instruments that distort it: they simplify phenomena, create hierarchies within systems and, above all, fuel the cultural battle. Each new report is used as ammunition to reinforce positions: the narrative of educational apocalypse or that of systemic success. Sometimes I think that this is, in fact, their true function: to legitimise positions.

TALIS 2024 is no exception. However, beyond the apocalyptic or success headlines, what the report reveals – if the data is read in context – is the persistence of a technocratic and bureaucratic model that prevents the system from evolving towards a truly inclusive and pedagogically coherent school.

Spain has one of the highest rates of teacher satisfaction in Europe, accompanied by unusually low levels of stress. But this apparent stability does not reflect professional well-being, but rather a demobilisation of teachers and a deep institutional inertia. Teaching is done with formal autonomy, but without real autonomy; with freedom to decide methods, but without the ability to question structures. In practice, autonomy is experienced as an individual burden under the guise of freedom.

Similarly, collaboration is reduced to bureaucratic coordination: sharing materials, adjusting criteria, complying with regulations. There is a lack of time, recognition and structure for deep cooperation. Educational centres function as small islands governed by administrative logic rather than by shared educational projects of the community.

This scenario paints a picture of teachers caught between two opposing forces: the pressure to adapt to new school requirements and the absence of a structural framework to support that change. They are required to be creative, adaptable and committed, but are offered a system designed for technical and bureaucratic obedience. It is therefore not surprising that reactionary discourse is on the rise among those teachers whose professional identity – based on disciplinary instruction and selective education – conflicts with a comprehensive and inclusive school system.

The core of the problem lies in the very architecture of the system, which is the heir to a long tradition of curriculum engineering: a model that organises education around objectives, standards and indicators, where learning is confused with compliance and quality with technocratic management. This approach permeates the entire school culture, from initial teacher training to educational inspection.

The result is a school system that modernises its language but not its foundations. Active methodologies and discourses on innovation are incorporated, but within the same timeframes, curriculum and assessment as decades ago. It is a change of packaging rather than logic: the language changes, but practices rarely do.

Beyond apocalyptic or triumphalist interpretations, TALIS 2024 highlights something essential: teachers are not the problem, but the victims of a system that requires them to be pedagogically creative in a structurally technocratic and bureaucratic environment. But they are also the starting point for any possible change. Rebuilding their professional identity on solid pedagogical foundations that are collaborative and consistent with the inclusive nature of the school is the only real path to transformation.

Until we understand that education is not transformed by decree, but by systemic coherence – and by rebuilding the teaching profession within that coherence – we will continue to change the rules without changing the reality of schools.