Empire Rising: Spain

The purpose of Minister of Education, Gerard Wilson, in seeking audience with Carlo is not to report the steady progress made in literacy education annually, but to request Carlo to advance the next step in educational reform, which is to implement compulsory primary education throughout Spain.

Literate education and compulsory primary education are completely different levels of educational reform.

The current literate education implemented in Spain is merely a short 3 to 5-month training to ensure that those trained can grasp a certain number of common Spanish words and understand some basic, easy-to-understand knowledge and common sense.

Those who complete literacy education are essentially still a low-educated population, slightly better than illiterates.

What Gerard Wilson wants to push forward is compulsory primary education, which builds upon literacy education to ensure all children and young people of appropriate age in Spain receive at least primary-level compulsory education.

Since it is compulsory education, it is naturally free, which is why Gerard Wilson seeks audience with Carlo.

Judging by the current financial input towards education in Spain, establishing compulsory primary education nationwide is challenging.

Although Spain does not have a large population, it currently has close to 18.25 million people. Although over 65% of Spaniards have shed their illiterate status, the vast majority have completed this arduous task through literacy education.

Only about 20% of the entire Spanish population has completed primary education, and even fewer have completed secondary education, less than 10%.

This is also one of the main reasons troubling the expansion of Spanish University and higher education. With insufficient people having completed primary education, how can higher levels of higher education receive enough students?

This is the reason Gerard Wilson insists on advancing compulsory primary education in Spain, as more people receiving primary and secondary lower-tier education will result in more outstanding students applying to universities.

No matter how well a university is built, no matter how many laboratories and excellent educational talents it has, it is of no use. Only when more students have a high school education can a university have enough student sources to ensure its income and operation.

”Your Majesty, this is the development plan for compulsory primary education formulated by the education department. If this plan can be fully implemented, it will greatly change our current educational situation and help us level the gap with the powers in education,” stated Minister of Education Gerard Wilson, as he handed over a development plan for compulsory primary education to Carlo.

Carlo took the development plan for compulsory primary education and examined it carefully.

The current number of primary schools in Spain is certainly unable to bear the development of nationwide compulsory primary education, so before advancing compulsory primary education, the Education Ministry must first construct at least a thousand public primary schools, preparing adequate teaching staff to lay the groundwork for compulsory primary education.

Even if all these primary schools adopt comparatively simple construction methods, the total cost of building a thousand schools will not be a small figure.

Adding the preparation of teaching staff for a thousand primary schools, along with corresponding textbooks and book materials, this will be another significant expense.

Compulsory education is free, which also means these thousand primary schools will not bring any financial returns to the government.

Although this benefits Spain’s development, it is clearly difficult to expect the government to come up with such a large amount of money all at once to promote the development of compulsory primary education.

Carlo understood Gerard Wilson’s reason for seeking him out, clearly wanting to influence the government through him to let Prime Minister Duke Serrano and Deputy Prime Minister Earl Canovas agree to this compulsory education development plan.

After all, both of these Cabinet Government controllers belong to the Conservative Party and would theoretically follow Carlo’s orders.

The last Cabinet meeting indeed proceeded this way, which is probably why Minister Gerard Wilson submitted this development plan to Carlo first, rather than discussing it in the Cabinet meeting.

Carlo did not rush to inquire about the financial input needed for this compulsory primary education but instead asked several questions he was more interested in: ”How does the Ministry of Education intend to execute this plan?”

”Your Majesty, the consideration of the Ministry of Education is to prioritize children and adolescents aged 6 to 12 to enter primary school education. According to the principles of compulsory education, the Ministry of Education will waive tuition fees, ensuring the public’s willingness to accept the provisions of compulsory education.

For those aged over 12 but still needing to complete primary education, we still encourage them to enter primary school studies, and all Spanish primary schools must not refuse these overaged students.

After completing primary school, graduates can advance to a higher level secondary education through government-organized unified examinations.

If one obtains excellent grades in the unified examination, the Ministry of Education will waive part of their tuition fees at secondary school and grant certain scholarships to students with exceptionally outstanding results.

If one performs poorly in unified exams, there will be no tuition waivers or scholarship opportunities, but one may still enter secondary schooling to study.

Of course, students completing primary education can also enter technical schools for training, technical schools will have corresponding subsidies, and how to choose will not be interfered with by the Ministry of Education.