Spain

Quick facts

Course:

Independent ethics course: 'Valores Éticos'
Compulsory for those students that do not attend religious instruction
15-16
144.000
2 hours a week (64-70 hours a year)
Written tests throughout the course
Part of the course 'Filosofía'
Elective
15-16
144.000
2 hours a week (64-70 hours a year)
Written tests throughout the course
Part of the course 'Filosofía'
Compulsory in the first year of the Bachillerato
16-17
53.000
4 hours a week (124-130 hours a year)
Written tests throughout the course
Part of the course 'Historia de la Filosofía'
Compulsory in the Humanities and Social Sciences track of the second year of the Bachillerato
17-18
17.000
4 hours a week (124-130 hours a year)
Final evaluation at state level

Ethics curricula in Spanish (secondary) education should be understood generally in the context of no less than eight different educational laws concocted over the span of nearly 40 years. In 1980 the L.O.E.C.E. was the first update regarding education, now within a democratic environment –Spain voted its constitution in 1978. But the L.O.E.C.E. only lasted for five years. Two important landmarks are to be noted at this point: in 2006 the L.O.E. (Ley Orgánica de Educación [Education Organic Law]) and in 2013 the L.O.M.C.E. (Ley Orgánica para la Mejora de la Calidad Educativa [Organic Law for the Enhancement of Education’s Quality]) determined the current moment in the organization of the educational programmes for next years. This is so because the present day education law is to be substituted maybe even next course 2021-2022 by a modification of the former L.O.E. called precisely L.O.M.L.O.E. (Ley Orgánica de Modificación de la L.O.E.) which was voted in the Spanish Parliament on November 19, 2020. At his moment the content of the general curriculum is uncertain, but apparently the ethics curricula with its subjects will be changed in status losing its compulsory character.

At the present L.O.M.C.E. governs the educational frame in which academic life at high schools is developing right now. The ethics curricula –starting at around 6 years old in primary school with a subject on ‘Valores Sociales y Cívicos’ [Social and Civic Values]’– are presented as an alternative to religion in the first stages of the educational ladder. Either in primary school or in the compulsory secondary education (E.S.O.) that goes from 12 to 16 years old, the ethical subjects are offered –an offer made mandatory by the state for all schools– as an alternative to religion.

‘Valores Éticos’ [Ethical Values] is a compulsory subject along with religion in the four courses of E.S.O. and in the last one the ethics curriculum gets an improvement in the fashion of a new subject, ‘Philosophy’, programmed as an elective subject in a pool of 10 other subjects that include again ‘Ethical Values’ in the case the student chose religion as a core subject. Students have to choose then depending on the region in which they study one to four of these elective subjects. In regard to ‘Social and Civic Values’ the community of Madrid –each community has the right to modify the curricula of these type of subjects– establishes that the curriculum of the subject must grant the development and illustration of the values included in the Spanish constitution. The development of the students’ personality has to be presented against the background of democratic principles as respect, dignity, rule of law and freedom. Every one of these values and contents should promote the student’s autonomy and reinforce the idea that we have to live together in a community (B.O.E. 3 de Enero de 2015, pp. 534-ff.). While ‘Philosophy’ as a matter should improve the competence to abstract from the contents to which each discipline is devoted and to think and understand them critically. Inquiry should be ‘radical’ and balanced with dialogue. The aim is to clarify the human experience (Ibid., pp. 249-ff.)

This very subject is also present in the first year of the Bachillerato as compulsory for all three modalities (Arts, Sciences and Humanities and Social Sciences) for 16-17 year-olds. The pre-College course (2° Bachillerato) gives its space to a second philosophical subject, ‘History of Philosophy’, only for those in the academic itinerary for Humanities and Social Sciences, but as a core subject for them. Planned in continuity with ‘Philosophy’ the contents are presented like a history of ideas in which the ethical drive works as transversal with each classical thinker (Ibid., pp. 328-ff.).