For a state pact on education rooted in political and parliamentary coherence

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Pablo Rodríguez Herrero

A recurrent demand in the field of education is the achievement of a state pact among Spain’s major political parties. At various moments in the country’s democratic history, this issue has emerged in the political and educational debate—sometimes fuelled by a spirit of rapprochement and flexibility that seemed to bring the long-awaited pact within reach, and at other times used as an argument to denounce the partiality of the governing party’s education policies. In any case, a state pact on education remains today an unresolved challenge in Spanish politics—one that, after nearly fifty years of democracy, seems not only difficult but verging on utopian.

So much has been said about this matter that both readers and writers may find the call for yet another state pact on education somewhat wearisome. For that reason, I shall put forward other demands—preliminary or perhaps radical ones—grounded in the pedagogical principle of exemplariness. Confucius, in the Lun Yu, is said to have remarked that “the superior man puts his words into action before he speaks, and thereafter speaks according to his actions”. Many thinkers, including educators and philosophers, have reflected on the value of exemplarity in public life and governance. We might recall Manuel García Morente, who saw exemplarity as a fundamental virtue of the teaching profession; more recently, the pedagogue Agustín de la Herrán, who identifies personal coherence as a defining trait of the conscious educator; or the philosopher Javier Gomá, who has developed a philosophical theory of public exemplarity.

From this perspective, those who bear the responsibility of shaping education policy—and, ideally, of reaching a state pact on education—should begin by attending to their own education. To cultivate it and to embody it in their service to the citizenry ought to be a politician’s first essential task. And yet, what we often witness in Parliament—an institution that presumes to represent the Spanish people—would scandalise schoolteachers and university lecturers alike, were such human interactions to take place in their classrooms. The archives are full of examples that transcend party lines: a brief search would suffice to uncover instances of disrespect, insults, mockery, shouting, betrayal, and countless other behaviours unbecoming of an institution that ought to prioritise education. The opposite of such conduct would be flexibility, the full acceptance of others, an awareness of shared purposes, the respectful exposition of arguments, the acknowledgement of the possible partiality of one’s own ideas, and the readiness to reconsider initial positions—qualities characteristic of men and women who tend to their own education.

Consequently, the last thing we should be asking for is a state pact on the education system. To do so, when viewed from a truly pedagogical standpoint, is nonsensical—perhaps even deceptive. It might make far more sense to begin, first, with an inner pact of every politician with his or her own education; second, with a pact for education within Parliament itself; and only then, as the natural evolution of the previous two, with a genuine state pact on education. It sounds difficult, and yet it is simple: one need only put first things first.

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons