Early Childhood Education and Care Provision in Spain

1

Ibáñez, Z. And León, M. (2014) “Early Childhood Education and Care Provision

in Spain” in León, M. (2014) (ed) The Transformation of Care in European Societies

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (pp: 276-300).

Introduction1

This chapter looks at the evolution of Early Years Education and Care (ECEC)

provision in Spain since the beginning of the 1990s. The main objective is to understand

the way in which the introduction of three years of pre-school (for children aged three to

six) within the national education system has had an impact on the quality of the

provision and the working conditions of professionals. The chapter also compares this

progression of ECEC for the over threes children with ECEC for the under threes. Here,

the main question is if the development of a whole new sector of welfare in Spain could

offer a structural opportunity for a large number of good jobs and contribute to

reversing or at least cushioning some of the Spanish prevalent shortcomings in

employment, which was the case with the extension of public education in the 1980s

and 1990s; or if, on the other hand, there are trends and risks that set the main lines of

causality the other way around.

The chapter is structured as follows: part one looks at the main regulation and policies

shaping ECEC since 1990; part two studies the most recent trends in ECEC provision

and attendance, and part three deals with the employment conditions of ECEC staff. The

chapter draws on policy documents and secondary data to analyse the institutional

context as well as the findings of in-depth interviews with stakeholders and case studies

on public, semi-public and private nurseries (see Appendix 1a and 1b).

Driven mainly by the educational needs of children, pre-school (3-6) education has

improved remarkably, mostly within the public sector, and in a similar manner (for both

working conditions of professionals and quality of the service) to primary education.

Care provision for children under the age of three is, however, much weaker, due

mainly to budget restrictions, lack of political consensus and the low or contradictory

profile of work/family balance policies in main actors’ agendas. The austerity measures

1 The contribution of Agnès Roca as research assistant in this project is gratefully acknowledged

2

introduced, especially since 2010, have affected more seriously the development and

long-term prospects for ECEC for children under the age of three. While budgetary cuts

have not affected the core provision of pre-school (3-6) but rather the more

supplementary services such as school dinners, resources for special needs, staff

support, and so on, provision for the under threes has been jeopardised with a noticeable

withdrawal of public funding.

Childcare provision in context

Spain is usually considered, together with other countries of Southern Europe, as a

familistic welfare system whereby the family plays a key role in providing informal care

for children and dependent individuals. This ‘unsupported familism’ as Saraceno (1994)

has called it, since the active role taken by families is not mediated by specific public

policies, results in a lack of development of childcare and long-term care services and

insufficient measures for the reconciliation of work and family life. Both features

impact negatively on the reproductive capacity of Spanish women and on their

participation in the labour market (León and Migliavacca 2013).

Since the early 1990s childcare provision has evolved from a purely assistentialist

approach to a progressively greater emphasis on its educational and pedagogical

components (González, 2004). In a context of marginal public intervention, non-family

childminding was arguably the first spontaneous response to an incipient movement of

labour market participation of women during the 1960s and 1970s. The growth of this

mostly informal and weakly regulated sector was arguably spreading the seeds of some

of the present trends, with only very few private initiatives looking at the vanguard

movements of taking educational elements into this early years period. The 1970 Law

of Education offered one free full-time pre-school year (for five years old) within

primary school premises. By 1989, an official study on childcare and pre-primary

education concluded that this area was a default catch-all “mixed cluster of centres with

little supervision” (Berea, 1992: 23, quoted in González, 2004: 374), most of them

private, that included the whole spectrum of demand from elite nurseries at the top end

to little less than children-storage-flats in recently built neighbourhoods in the outskirts

of growing cities. These realities attracted little media or political attention at that time,

since cyclical economic crises with high unemployment, gender prejudiced attitudes and

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ideas, and the negative “Francoist” connotations of anything resounding as family

policy, made all the key actors relegate childcare in their political agendas (González,

2004; León, 1999; Valiente, 1997).

The National Organic Law of Education (Ley de Ordenación General del Sistema

Educativo: LOGSE), introduced in 1990, signalled the first significant regulatory move

towards recognising the educational and pedagogical component in early years

provision (see the Annex for a detailed description of administrative responsibility and

governance of ECEC). The LOGSE was very ambitious in embracing most targets of

the new pedagogical movements. Article 7.2 of the law contemplated a right to a day-

care place for every child as young as 48 months. Pre-school education (educación

infantil) was for the first time introduced into the national education system, comprising

two cycles: zero (four months) to three, and three to six (González, 2004; Rubio, 2002).

In practice, the new regulatory framework of the education system allowed for a sea

change in coverage and quality of ECEC public provision for children aged three and

older with the corresponding increase in levels of spending as a percentage of GDP.

However, insufficient financing together with the unclear division of responsibilities

between the national, regional and local governments resulted in a meagre development

of ECEC for the under threes. Most children under three looked after outside the family

remained in ‘non-LOGSE’ environments (González, 2004).

In 2002 the centre-right government substituted the LOGSE by a new national law of

education (Ley Orgánica de Calidad de la Educación: LOCE), which re-defined the

zero to three cycle with an educative-assistance nature reinforcing its voluntary

character. In reality, LOCE refrained from specifying and regulating key issues such as

the qualification levels of educators, the child-to-staff ratio or of space building

specifications. Thus, given the role of regional and local governments, and their

disparities in demographics, resources and political agendas, the margin for territorial

inequality grew. As we will see in the next section, this contributed to considerable

regional differences in the level of public expenditure for childcare, in the balance

between various forms of public and private provision, and in actual enrolment rates.

The LOCE was, however, short-lived. Soon after winning the general elections

in 2004, the social-democrat government stopped the application of LOCE and

announced yet another national law of education. In Spring 2006, the Ley Orgánica de

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Educación, LOE was approved aiming at recovering much of the spirit of the 1990

LOGSE. Among other things, this new legal framework once again reasserted the

educative nature of the first pre-school cycle (0-3). The main ECEC political initiative

of the new social-democrat government was going to be the Plan Educa3. With a

budget of 100 million Euro for the period 2008-2012 the Educa3 Plan aimed at creating

300,000 new zero to three places to cover the growing unmet demand. The new Plan

also introduced schemes to improve the qualifications and skills of workers in the

sector. The underlying logic behind the Educa3 scheme was to stress the educational

and not merely assistential character of services for small children, in line with the new

‘social investment’ logic. The programme however was ephemeral in its real outcomes.

By 2011, only 71,000 new places out of the intended 300,000 had been created. The

economic crisis together with difficult coordination at different levels of government

put many obstacles for its implementation. Whereas the national government and the

Autonomous Communities shared the costs of creating new places in equal parts, the

management of the personnel and maintenance costs were to be borne by the local

governments; most of these already with serious financial problems. Educa3 has been

also criticised by trade unions for tacitly encouraging the externalisation of public

ECEC, since, even if claimed to promote public ECEC places, it allowed for public

schools to be privately managed, a trend that has spread with the crisis.

Just four years after the launch of the Plan, budget cuts introduced in April 2012

virtually cancelled Educa3, swinging the pendulum back to an assistentialist view of the

0-3 ECEC. The Secretary of State for Education at that time rested importance over the

halt of the programme by arguing that childcare for the under 3s had “scarce

educational value since it merely pursuits work/family balance objectives”.2

A new national law of education was yet to come. In 2013 and amidst a climate of huge

controversy, the centre-right government introduced the LOMCE (Ley Orgánica para la

Mejora de la Ley Educativa). Overall, the LOMCE did not introduce any changes to the

organisation of ECEC and therefore it is equivalent to the previous LOE law. Today

then, infant education is defined as a voluntary period that has an ‘educational intention’

and for which schools need to offer a specific pedagogic proposal. While access to the

second stage of pre-school education (3-6) is free, universal, and provided within

2 Interview with the Secretary of State Mr Wert in Cadena Ser 4-4-2012).

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primary school premises, availability of provision to the first stage (0-3) will vary

depending on the municipality, the private sector and income fees. The room for

manoeuvre in terms of curriculum design for centres and local authorities is larger in the

case of pre-school compared to the compulsory stages. Generally speaking, pre-school

education is conceived as promoting the development of general cognitive and non-

cognitive abilities with emphasis being placed on relational and social skills, emotional

development and personal autonomy. The second stage of pre-school (three to six)

incorporates a first approach to reading, writing, maths and foreign language building

up to an increasingly structured curriculum (LOE, art. 14).

Importantly, the current legal framework (LOE) does explicitly specify that the

second stage of pre-school should be universally available to all children of that age

range and that there should be sufficient supply from public or semi-public schools3 to

cover demand (LOE. Article 15. Point 2). In fact, to guarantee that there is budget to

fund school places for children age three to six, there is an additional disposition to the

law Incorporación de créditos en los Presupuestos Generales del Estado para la

gratuidad del Segundo ciclo de educación infantil (LOE Disposición adicional

vigesimocuarta). However the availability of the service for children under three is not

mentioned and confirms that access to the first stage of pre-school is not yet a granted

right and therefore it is not recognised as falling with the responsibility of the public

administration.

In summary, progress in ECEC provision for children aged three and over has been

quite spectacular since the beginning of the 1990s, mainly thanks to its inclusion within

the national education system as a universal, non-compulsory learning stage embedded

in elementary schools. ECEC provision for children under the age of three is equally

contemplated in the legislation as being part of the pre-school cycle but universality is

not guaranteed by law and thus the development has been rather different. In the view of

several experts interviewed, ECEC (0-3) has become one of those topics that figures

very high in the political agendas of the main parties during the election campaigns, but

ends up relegated soon afterwards. Thus, the education system, and ECEC in particular,

has remained subject to an unintended path-dependency drift, immune to legislative

3The Spanish educational system is divided between public schools (escuela pública), private schools

(escuela privada) and semi-public (escuela concertada). The latter means that the ownership is private,

and traditionally of church affiliation, but that is subsidised by the State.

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initiatives. In the particular case of Spain these problems are aggravated by more

blurred boundaries between the public and private sectors than in the case of

compulsory education; a greater presence of the informal economy; unclear

decentralisation processes that mask institutional responsibilities; and territorial

divergences in the understanding and implementation of ECEC policies that add to the

already large regional disparities in the socioeconomic realities affecting small children.

Trends in ECEC attendance and provision

Departing from the very low levels of public spending in education and welfare of pre-

democratic Spain, increases in overall education budgets can be seen as part of a

European convergence process. By the early 1990s, Spain already had levels of public

expenditure in both education as a whole and ECEC in particular, close to that of Italy

and Germany (Espuelas, 2013; MEC, 1995; OECD, 2012). Despite the fact that it is not

possible to statistically differentiate expenditure within ECEC provision, it is reasonable

to expect that, by 2013, most of the public expenditure on ECEC went to the pre-school

stage (3-6) and considerable less so to childcare (0-3) provision.

The extension of free and universal pre-school education for three, four and five years

old at the beginning of the 1990s led the enrolment rate for children in this age group to

double from 40 per cent in 1991 to 80 per cent in 1998. ECEC participation among

children aged three, four and five had reached almost full enrolment before the end of

the 1990s. Although pre-school education is not compulsory, the huge majority of

children in Spain start school the year of their third birthday with the same timetables

and school days as children in elementary school. The three pre-school classes (P3, P4

and P5) are usually within elementary school premises although in a different building

and with a separate playground.

For the 0-3 group, the growth in ECEC provision was very slow during the 1990s, but

more than trebled in the following decade from ten per cent in the year 2000 to beyond

30 per cent in 2010 (MECD, 2013; OECD, 2013) a process that obviously accompanied

the spectacular rise in Spanish female labour market participation since the late 1990s.

In Spain, as in other European countries (see the chapter on Germany in this book), the

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growth of ECEC provision meant a significant departure from traditional male-

breadwinner policies and practices.

Compared with the pre-school (three to six) stage, the evolution of ECEC provision for

children under three has followed a very heterogeneous trend, with large territorial and

socioeconomic differences in participation rates. In relation to socioeconomic

inequalities and their relation with enrolment rates of the 0-3 children, it is striking the

difference between the much higher enrolment of children of mothers with tertiary

education and those of children with mothers with just compulsory education, 35

percentage points difference for one year olds and 30 points for those aged two (EU-

Silc, 2009, in Felgueroso, 2012: 8). Similar differences appear if family income is

considered. This might signal inequality of opportunities among children of different

family backgrounds. Felgueroso (2012: 12) links this unequal access to the fact that in

most regions (with the exception of the Basque Country where family income is taken

into account in the application process), priority is given to families where both parents

are in paid work, which tends to favour children from more privileged backgrounds. As

to territorial differences, the regions with higher enrolment rates (that is, Madrid, the

Basque Country and Catalonia) are richer (higher GDP) and have higher female labour

force participation than the rest of Spanish Autonomous Communities.

Whilst pre-school (3-6) provision is mainly public or private but publicly subsidised

(‘escuela concertada’), in a proportion that is similar to elementary education, private

for-profit involvement is much stronger in the case of ECEC provision for the under

threes. Across Spain, most of 0-3 ECEC provision is either fully private or public but

privately managed. Fully private nursery schools for children under the age of three

represent more than 50 per cent of total provision. The total costs of public places are

borne by the Autonomous Communities, the local authorities and the families, in a

hugely varied pattern of proportions across Spain. Often families cover around 33 per

cent of the cost. But the fees families pay for a 0-3 ECEC place also varies depending

on their income, with different bonuses and subsidies across the regions. In many

Autonomous Communities some of these bonuses and subsidies also support private

places. In 2010, the monthly fee for a place in a public ECEC in Spain varied between a

minimum of 71€ in Extremadura and a maximum of 221€ in Catalonia (and the average

prices for private places in these two Autonomous Communities was 128€ and 363€

respectively), with an extra fee for lunch services close to 100€ per month. The high

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fees for private institutional childcare have created a persistent unmet demand for public

ECEC places across all the regions. Since the start of the economic crisis, though,

regional and local governments have suffered severe funding constraints, reduced their

contributions to ECEC places, and, thus, heavily raised the fees of public ECEC, which

in just two years have often become between 10% and 60% more expensive depending

on the different local authorities.

Most interviewees agreed that the state funding that was put into 0-3 ECEC during the

years of rapid economic expansion went into private ECEC nurseries and externalised

public ones, so that quantitative growth was much more important than qualitative one.

This happened more or less across Spain, even if, as said above, the socioeconomic

differences between autonomous communities and their different political environments

produce significant regional variation. In most of them, however, the combination of

more funding coming from the state with the local governments’ externalisation of

public schools, and the concession of new licenses for private ones, often favoured a

disorganised growth. The costs of the building were paid mostly by the state, whereas

the local governments decided on location and numbers. This together with the fact that

public infrastructure such as nurseries was often part of the non-residential requirements

of much larger urbanising processes led by local governments, made three different

interviewees speak of a “nurseries bubble”, with closer links to the Spanish housing

bubble than one might expect. A top-ranking politician from Madrid stressed that in the

region, new nurseries were built as part of aggressive urban expansionist plans rather

than from actual need. The possible links or resemblance between the housing bubble

and the evolution of 0-3 ECEC go well beyond the limits of this chapter, but the erratic

growth of 0-3 ECEC may have contributed to the unbalances between supply and

demand that have been threatening the sustainability of the sector since the burst of the

housing bubble and the onset of the financial crisis.

Since the beginning of the economic crisis and especially since the implementation of

austerity programmes for public sector spending from 2010 onwards, two different

strategies for containing public and private costs in ECEC can be identified. For 3-6

children, the main strategy has been to keep high child-staff ratios, which, with more

than 20 children per adult, are among the highest in the OECD (Taguma et al., 2012:

96). This option has allowed maintaining good salaries for pre-primary schoolteachers

within the well-protected educative sector, although it also means stressful demands for

9

those teachers. For the under-3s, however, the cost-saving logic has been to combine

high child-to-staff ratios with very low salaries for teachers and carers working in this

quite disorganised sector. Staff working in private or semi-private nurseries often lack

the union density, strength and bargaining power of the teachers in elementary schools.

Thus, although so far the effects of the crisis do not seem to have affected absolute

enrolment rates, which until 2012 have kept growing (MECD 2013). This is consistent

with the fact that 0-3 ECEC participation has been linked to the socio-economic

backgrounds less affected by unemployment. However, the three levels of government

have reacted to the economic crisis with severe budget cuts for 0-3 ECEC spending,

which has meant drastic reductions in subsidies and other forms of fees-reduction

support, increases in child-to-adult ratios and fees, and the worsening of staff working

conditions as detailed in the next section. Furthermore, some local authorities have

completely rewritten the schedule of conditions for public contests of externalised

public ECEC schools, reducing the weight of the educative project in the assessments

and focussing on the final costs, which, according to both employers and trade-unions

representatives, have often converted these contests into downward auctions of prices.

In short, there are good reasons to claim that in the evolution of 0-3 ECEC provision

and enrolment during the last decade, it is the educational stage that better reflects the

mix of vices and virtues of the recent socioeconomic evolution of Spain. There has been

fast convergence with Europe, with expansive growth during the economic rise, but

with unclear institutional and political orientation, and little conversion of quantitative

growth into qualitative improvement. This did not allow for its sustainability and has

made this welfare sector highly vulnerable in the most recent economic crisis.

ECEC Workforce

About 70 per cent of pre-school (3-6) ECEC teachers work in public schools and enjoy

university-level public sector working conditions: 30-hour working weeks and close to a

2.000€ net monthly wage.4 The remaining 30 per cent work mainly in ‘escuelas

concertadas’ (state controlled private schools), whose working conditions have been

converging towards public sector teachers during the last decade. By contrast, the

majority of staff working in ECEC for children under the age of three work in private

4 The average net monthly wage in Spain for 2012 was close to 1.400 Euros (INE 2013).

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schools or in public schools, which have been externalised and are privately managed.

In consequence, the working conditions are not as good as the above group with longer

working weeks (around 40 hours per week) and earning about half the salary of pre-

school (3-6) teachers.

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Table 12.1. Spanish ECEC Salaries and working time. 2011

Type of Provision Net monthly wage (gross annual wage) (1)

0-3 3-6

Public Sector

with Public

Management

Teacher (maestra)= 1,600€ (25,000€).

30 hours per week

‘educator’ (Advanced vocational training)

(educador infantil)= 1,300€ (20,000), 35

hours per week

Teacher (maestra)=1,900€ (30,000€).

30 hours per week

Private Sector

(state controlled

and publicly

subsidised)

Teacher (maestra)=1,300€ (20,000€).

32 hours per week

‘educator’ (educador infantil)= 900€,

(14,500€), 38 hours per week

Other employees (assistants, kitchen and

cleaning staff)= between 650 and 800€

(between 8,000 and 10,000€), 39-40 hours

per week

Teacher (maestra)= 1,700€ (27,500€)

Between 30-35 hours per week

Private Sector

(without public

subsidy) and

Public Sector but

with private

management

Maestra=1,300€, (20.000€),

32 hours per week

‘educator’ (educador infantil)= 850€

(11,300€), 38 hours per week, close to

75% of teaching staff in ECEC 0-3

Other employees (assistants, kitchen and

cleaning staff)= between 650 and 800€

(between 8,000 and 10,000€).

39-40 hours per week

Teacher (maestra)= 1,400€ (22,000€),

35 hours per week

(1)These figures include monthly net salaries and they are indicative averages for initial teachers and other staff

(total annual gross salary within brackets). They are based on our own estimation from three different sources:

current collective agreements (national and regional for different sectors and occupational status); confidential access

to payslips of employees of the different occupational groups; information provided by several of the representatives

and experts interviewed. The differences between public and private, and between the different stages become

aggravated with time, since public sector employees usually get much higher seniority premium.

As Table 12.1 shows, working conditions of ECEC staff vary considerably whether in

the 0-3 or 3-6 stage of infant education. In addition, the type of provision, that is,

whether fully public, private but state controlled or fully private also has an impact on

the conditions of workers. A striking fact is that whereas teachers working in 3-6

“concertadas” are converging towards the public sector in wages and working hours;

the reverse happens in 0-3, whereas teachers and educators working in public but

externalised 0-3 ECEC schools are suffering the same vulnerabilities and low pay levels

as those working in fully private nurseries. As several interviewees put it:

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Increasingly, public nurseries are being externalised so that although they remain public the

management is private and they start to function as a private school internally although not

externally. The face they present to parents remains public, but on the inside they function as a

firm, which basically means more pressure and worse working conditions. (CSA2)

If I give the management of a public sector school to a company and the working conditions

worsen, I am not to blame. I keep saying that I have a public service but the employees are no

longer my responsibility. I am not the one who has reduced their salaries by, let’s say, 40%, it’s

the external firm that needs to keep prices down. We are being deceived. This externalisation

business is a trick, but most people, starting with the parents, just don´t know it. (CSB3)

These quotes show the crucial gap between the organisational qualities of the 0-

3 and 3-6 sectors, which are directly related to how differently the provision is regulated

and managed. As said in the previous section, whereas all the education system is

decentralised, the pattern in the governance of the two cycles of pre-primary education

is very different. Most of the pre-school (3-6) provision is directly managed by the

public sector and quite homogeneous across the national state. On the contrary, the

decentralisation of the 0-3 sector has materialised in highly heterogeneous and atomised

realities depending on the different Autonomous Communities and local governments’

agendas. For 0-3 ECEC, the unclear distribution between different forms of public

(regional or local) and private management (public directly managed, semi-public,

externalised public, subsidised in different ways and levels, and private) reaches the

point of not having precise data about how many of each occupational group are

working in each municipality or region. The data is so blurry that a trade unionist

stressed how, in a recent labour tribunal, the judge questioned their level of

representation arguing:

“Very good, I know how many you are (trade unions) but I do not know how many workers there

are in the sector, and therefore I cannot find out what percentage of representation you actually

have. (TU2)

This confusion is compounded at the organisational level by the usual practice of

contracting 0-3 teachers as ‘educators’ but informally demanding qualified pre-school

education teachers, since labour inspection in this area is almost non-existent compared

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with the pre-school services within the elementary school settings. Several trade

unionists denounced this practice:

“It’s almost a common practice, especially among private schools. They ask for a teacher’s

degree but the contract they offer is for one category below. They know there are many teachers

specialised in infant education looking for a job (TU1).

Besides the two existing systems of provision and governance, the way

professions are regulated also helps to understand the gap between 0-3 and 3-6 staff

conditions. The 1990 Education Act (LOGSE) in its reform of ECEC also wanted to

upgrade the professional qualifications and salaries of the staff working in this field, and

this was a target again in the 2006 regulation (LOE). Currently, the law establishes that

teachers of the second stage of pre-school education (3-6) should be professionals with

the same career specifications as teachers of primary education, what contributes to

their similar working conditions. But in the case of 0-3 professionals, they can be either

infant education teachers or ‘educators’ (those who have vocational qualification

without university degree), so that while the law does not draw a clear distinction

between infant teachers working in 0-3 and 3-6, in practice, different qualifications and

credentials do exist.

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Table 12.2 Professionals in ECEC and Elementary Education

EDUCATION

LEVELS

PROFESSIONAL

FIGURES

INITIAL

EDUCATION

INSTITUTIONS LENGTH

First Stage Pre-

School

Education

(0-3)

School Teacher

specialised in pre-

school education

ISCED 5A

University bachelor in

Pre-Primary Education

University Schools for

teachers’ education.

Education faculties. Teacher Education institutions

attached to these faculties.

Since 2008-2009 (1):

4 academic years

university education 240 ECTS** (30-60

ECTS of the qualifying

mention)

Before 2009:

3 years at a University college for teacher

education.

“‘Educator’* Advanced

Technician of Pre-

Primary Education (teaching in the first

cycle: 0-3 years old)

ISCED 4A

Advanced Vocational Training (FP)

Public or private institutions authorised by the Education

Authority.

National reference institutions in the jurisdiction of Vocational

Training (FP).

Integrated institutions of

Vocational Training (FP).

2 academic post-secondary level, non-

tertiary vocational

education years (2,000 hours)

Second Stage

Pre-school

Education

(3-6)

School Teacher

specialised in pre-school education

ISCED 5A


Pre-Primary Education


teachers’ education. Education faculties.

Teacher Education institutions


Since 2008-2009:

4 academic years university education

240 ECTS (30-60 ECTS

of the qualifying mention)

Before 2009: 3 years at a University

college for teacher

education.

Primary

Education

(6-12)

Elementary School

Teacher

ISCED 5A


School Teacher of

Primary Education


teachers’ education.

Education faculties. Teacher Education institutions


Since 2008-2009:

4 academic years

university education 240 ECTS (30-60 ECTS

of the qualifying

mention)

Before 2009:

3 years at a University college for teacher

education.

Source: Own elaboration based on Eurydice Spain-REDIE (National Centre for Educational Innovation and Research

(CNIIE, MECD).

*Educator: Professional qualification achieved on successful completion of Vocational Training. Intermediate Vocational Training

leads to ‘Technician’ qualification and Advanced Vocational Training to ‘higher Technician’ qualification. The ‘Technician’

qualification gives access to ‘Baccalaureate’ or Advanced Vocational Training after having completed a specific training course, and the higher ‘Technician’ qualification to university studies on pre-school education. (in http://bit.ly/1hw1CXY)

** One ECT equals 25-30 hours of student working time.

Professionals directly responsible for children in pre-school (3-6) education are

qualified teachers with university degrees (see Table 12.2). In the case of childcare 0-3,

the immense majority (70%) of the nearly 50,000 teaching staff are “educators” (with

advanced vocational training, see Table 12.2); the other 30% being ECEC teachers.

The significant expansion in enrolment and in private and public spending in ECEC

(including Plan Educa3) during the pre-crisis years (2000-2009) as shown in the

http://bit.ly/1hw1CXY

15

previous section meant some significant improvement for employees, especially for

teachers and educators in pre-school education. However, expansion in ECEC as in

most sectors of the Spanish economy that benefited from the economic boom, translated

more into absolute growth in the number of employees than into better employment

conditions. For 0-3 ECEC qualified professionals, the main improvements were in terms

of formalisation of their employee status, but their income remained quite far from that

of elementary school teachers, as indeed from 3-6 pre-school teachers, even if the

salaries of educators slowly started to detach from the dragging effect of the minimum

wage. Trade unionists claim that the previous situation was so bad it could only

improve, by whatever small amount; also several employers conceded that the reality

was unbelievably dire:

“It is true that the situation improved in the years before the crisis, but it was such a precarious

world, with so little public money and well, now, with the crisis, it’s coming back to what it was.

I felt ashamed to sign some of these collective agreements” (EMP4).

Be that as it may, improvements in the 0-3 ECEC sector were not accompanied by any

serious structural redefinition of the institutional environment, whether in the

governance of provision or in the design of the profession, which might have helped to

consolidate a long-term path of incremental upgrading. The fragmentation and loose

regulation regarding the 0-3 sector remains, again in huge contrast with 3-6, which did

benefit enormously from its inclusion within the education sector. 0-3 ECEC continues

to be not only the worst off of the main educative sectors, but its vulnerability has also

made it a clear target for the austerity measures that have been implemented since 2010.

While 3-6 ECEC, despite some significant cuts, remains an enviable position for

qualified ECEC teachers; many 0-3 workers are back to the region of near-minimum

wages after the combination of cuts and “externalisation” policies followed by local and

regional authorities have worsened their situation.

Therefore, despite the expansion during the years preceding the crisis, policy-

making around pre-primary (0-3) education has not had major effects in terms of

improving the employment conditions of its workforce, largely female (>95%) and low

paid. Here, as it often happens in other areas of welfare with mix provision in several

countries (Kaine 2012), collective bargaining with weak and low levels of

16

representation does not produce good working conditions through traditional labour

law. In Spain, a good proportion of pre-school (3-6) teachers working in public schools

are civil servant employees, which allows for strong trade union affiliation just as

primary school teachers. By contrast, staff working in 0-3 ECEC, are weakly unionised,

and trade unions find it almost impossible to convince anyone to become a union

delegate in ECEC nurseries that often have fewer than 10 employees and where those

employees are reportedly afraid of dismissal as a reprisal.

In a context of funding constraints, how to overcome the issue of low pay is going to be

a major challenge not only in terms of the staff working conditions but also to guarantee

the good quality of ECEC. In this regard, several interviewees agreed that it is important

to raise awareness about the link between quality of the service and good working

conditions. In this respect respondents claimed that public tendering procedures for the

private management of nurseries need to be assessed and evaluated. However, many of

these interviewees argued that, since the beginning of the economic crisis, in the service

concession of public nurseries the current trend is actually the opposite: the lowering of

the staff pay has become a competitive strategy in order to win the concession of

municipal nurseries.

Other strategies to improve the situation of low-paid employees in the labour

market in general and, more specifically, in various domains of the welfare sector,

include ‘qualification policies’ (Alaby, 2005; Simonazzi, 2009; EU, 2010), for example

through measures to increase flexibility in the validation and credential systems in order

to recognise on-the-job training, informal and non-formal knowledge. Nevertheless, in

the case of Spanish ECEC, the severe dualisation that exists between the 0-3 and 3-6

stages narrows the margin for improvement. Staff working in the 0-3 sector often have

the same qualification as 3-6 staff (pre-school teachers) and yet salaries are much lower.

It is therefore not so much a question of qualification levels but of stage-segmentation

in the sector.

It is worth noting, however, that flexibility in access to credentials and

qualifications certainly paid an important role in the extension of pre-school education

in the early 1990s. A variety of transitional regulations and training routes (a

combination of partial validations, post-secondary vocational courses, and part-time

fast-track university modules) were offered to those employed in ECEC before the 1990

17

LOGSE legislation. Numerous alternatives included options to obtain or top up their

credentials. A flexible repertoire of qualification routes that was very generous in taking

into account accumulated work experience, allowed some practitioners without any

academic certification to obtain formal qualifications. Those with vocational training

degrees, the so-called ‘educators’, were also given the opportunity to become pre-

primary schoolteachers. Similar initiatives do not seem to be currently available. In fact,

some of the employees interviewed complained about the difficulties in combining their

employment with studying for an ECEC or primary school teacher degree, given the

temporal inflexibility in both their work and the university teaching schedules.

Theoretically, it should be possible to follow a university course on a part-time basis,

but several of the experts interviewed agreed that all the teaching degrees have not only

become more demanding but also that they are often designed following exclusionary

schedules therefore only suitable for full-time students.

At the general level of agenda setting, the 2011 Spanish National Plan for Reforms5

included the target of advancement for the recognition of capacities and skills acquired

through work experience, with the possibility of obtaining a professional certificate by

undertaking complementary training. Childcare was among the first occupational

categories to be focussed on.6 This target, though, given the situation of the sector, was

more in line with discovering new sources of labour to face the growing unemployment

levels than with improving the conditions of those already working in the sector.

Up until today, the major surge in ‘good’ employment in ECEC took place in the early

and mid 1990s, when public sector education had to accommodate the spectacular

growth in the demand for pre-school places at schools. At the same time, however, one

could argue that if a similar service with equivalent professionals is provided both

within the public and the private sector, this could open opportunities for lifting labour

standards of private sector employees in the medium and long term. In fact, a similar

process took place during the 1990s as regards the convergence in pay and other

working conditions of teachers in pre-primary, primary and secondary publicly

5 As part of the measures for the comprehensive improvement of the vocational training system included

in the Social and Economic Agreement for Growth, Employment and Pensions, which was signed by the

government and social partners in February 2011. 6 The government earmarked 59 million euro to implement the assessment and accreditation procedure.

This is an objective that falls under the European Commission flagship initiative "An agenda for new

skills and jobs” http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/pdf/nrp/nrp_spain_en.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/pdf/nrp/nrp_spain_en.pdf

18

subsidised (concertada) education with the more privileged situation of those in fully

public education. In this case, the more or less transparent correspondence in the nature

of the job and the qualifications required favoured this convergence process, which

underlines the main implications for how the qualification, accreditation and bargaining

mechanisms concerning care jobs are designed.

In this sense, integrating provision for children of two years old within the core “free

provision” stages of pre-school (currently for children aged 3 and older), as some

Autonomous Communities have done, would be a way to universalise and improve

ECEC provision for children under the age of three. However, this is also a

controversial movement, where it is still unclear whether this means a step forward in

the convergence in the ECEC provision as a whole, or if it is mainly a recruitment

strategy, that is early entry to guarantee a place in highly demanded private and semi-

private schools.

To conclude this section, as the situation currently stands, in 0-3 ECEC, as in other

areas of care, the main reason behind good or poor pay and working conditions for

almost any level of qualification is mainly dependent on whether it takes place under

direct management within the public sector or not. Outside the direct management of the

public sector, bargaining power, either individual or collective, is either weak or non-

existent, be it within the completely private provision or within externalised public

ECEC schools. For most of the employees working in ECEC 0-3, the main direct or

indirect reference for salary setting still is the minimum wage, which often functions as

a real wage floor, and, thus, as happens in low-paid and weakly unionised sectors

(Askenazy et al., 2012; Kaine, 2012), their situation is strongly shaped by national

employment models. In the Spanish case, a minimum monthly wage of 645€ in 2013,

less than 40 per cent of the average net wage (far from the 60 per cent of average net

wage recommended by the European Social Charter), drags down the income of many

ECEC employees.

CONCLUSIONS

Political consensus built around the need to universalise the right to education has

allowed for a quite spectacular expansion since the early 1990s of pre-school provision,

19

especially for children aged 3 and older. The evolution of early-years childcare (for

children below three years of age) has been considerably weaker, in terms of supply as

well as in quality indicators. Still, enrolment rates have increased since the beginning of

the 2000s along with rapid economic growth and massive entrance of women to the

labour market. We have argued in this chapter that the drive with which the pre-school

stage was designed at the beginning of the 1990s as three non-compulsory years but

fully universal and subject to the same regulations and conditions as elementary

schooling have allowed for consolidation in terms of enrolment (virtually 100% of

children start full-time pre-schooling at the age of three) and public funding. The drastic

austerity measures introduced since 2010 have been a good ‘resilience’ test for the

survival of ECEC provision. Budgetary cuts have not affected 3-6 pre-school core

provision although some of the supplementary services such as school dinners and

special needs resources have been affected. Childcare provision for children below the

age of three has, however, followed quite a different route. The much weaker public

sector intervention, the less clear division of administrative responsibilities between the

central, regional and local governments, and the looser definition of quality standards

and working conditions of professionals have clearly jeopardised the long-term

prospects of this sector. We conclude that in a context of scarce financial resources and

weak political consensus the development of services for the under threes in similar

terms to those for the three to six group is rather unrealistic. It might appear as more

realistic to look for the synergy effects of combining policies in the different realms of

welfare, labour market and education.

Coverage and quality of early-years provision for children aged 2 can radically improve

if placed within the education system (so lowering the entry age into pre-school

education by one year), as some regions have already done. However, this would need a

reappraisal of how the cognitive and non-cognitive needs of pre-school children of

different ages are met. For this, the main issues to be considered include a feasible

softening of the disciplinary and ‘schooling’ elements for younger children, lower child-

to-adult ratios and more flexibility in all the schedules involved.

As for childcare from birth to the age of two, it seems reasonable to depart from one-

size-fits-all type of policies, and to consider a mix of effective work-family life

measures. Given that Spain is clearly lagging behind most of its European neighbours

in working time policies, much more could be done to extend paid maternity, paternity

20

and parental leaves, to increase options for flexible and secure working time, as well as

policies targeting vulnerable families.

The working conditions of ECEC staff reflect the main lines of segmentation deeply

entrenched in the Spanish labour market. And this is despite various labour market

reforms attempting to shift the Spanish labour market from a situation that combines

rigidity at the core with vulnerability at the margins, to something more reminiscent of

the flexicurity argument favoured by European Employment Strategies. This division

between insiders and outsiders includes overlapping factors of segmentation such as:

permanent/temporary contracts, differences between private-sector and public-sector

employees, the extension of precarious forms of employment among young people and

women, and issues linked to the tolerance towards the informal economy even in core

employment such as the growing evidence of unpaid overtime. Especially relevant for

the ECEC sector are the differences between public-sector and private-sector

employment which have traditionally been an important factor of inequality in the

Spanish labour market, in terms of significant income differences per hour worked,

different occupational structures, and different working time arrangements. In this

manner, the increasing disparity within the public sector between civil servants and

contractual employees is also a worrying fact.

21

Appendix 1a: Interviews Case Study: Municipality A & B

Cargo Date & place Code Details

Expert, pre-school

teacher’s university

degree

15.02.2013

Barcelona

CSA1 Face to face interview. Length of

interview: 1h30m.

Interview recorded and fully

transcribed

Director Nursery

School

22.02.2013

Municipality A.

Barcelona


interview: 1h00m.


transcribed

Director Nursery

School

22.02.2013

Municipality A.

Barcelona


interview: 1h10m.


transcribed

Coordinator

Municipal services

pre-schoolducation

08.05.2013

Municipality A.

Barcelona

CSB1 Face to face interview. Length of

interview: 1h30m.


transcribed

General Municipal

Coordinator

Education Services

08.05.2013

Municipality B.

Barcelona


interview: 50m.


transcribed

Coordinator Nursery

Schools

05.03.2013

Municipality B.

Barcelona


interview: 1h20m.

Not recorded (as requested by

interviewee). Notes taken

Director Private

Nursery

21.03.2013

Municipality B.

Barcelona


interview: 1h00m.


transcribed

22

Appendix 1b: Interviews key informants

Cargo Date & place Code Details

CCOO

Head PSEC

FECCOO Catalunya

25.01.13,

Barcelona

TU1 Face to face interview.

Length of interview: 1h10m.

Interview recorded and fully transcribed

President AMEI-

WAECE (employer)

31.02.13,

Barcelona

EMP1 Telephone interview.

Length of interview: 20 min

Fully recorded and transcribed

Sub-inspector Social

Security, Irregular

economy and

immigration

26.02.13,

Madrid

GOV1 Face to face interview.

Length of interview: 1h.


CECE (patronal)

Director nursery

school

26.02.13,

Madrid

EMP2 Face to face interview.



PSOE Coordinador

Secretaria Educación

y Cultura

26.02.13,

Madrid

EXP1 Face to face interview.



Expert Social Policy

Unit CCOO

27.02.13,

Madrid




ACADE (patronal)

Secretaria Educación

infantil

27.02.13,

Madrid




CCOO

Head of PSEC FE

CCOO

27.02.13,

Madrid


Length of interview: 50min.


UGT

Head education and

health unit

28.02.13,

Madrid




UGT, Secretaria de

comunicación de

enseñanza

28.02.13,

Madrid




EULEN

(Coordinadora

soporte educativo

BCN)

15.03.13 ,

Barcelona


Length of interview: 1h.


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ANNEX: Public authorities with responsibility for Early Childhood Education and Care

(ECEC, 0-6 years cohort) 2006/2007

ADMINISTRATION AND GOVERNANCE OF EDUCATION

Following the model of decentralised State set in the 1978 Spanish Constitution, the competences in

terms of Education are shared between the state level (Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport) and the

Autonomous Communities. Local Authorities take part in the management of Education, and educational

institutions enjoy pedagogic autonomy to prepare their school development plans, managing their

resources and preparing their organisational rules.

This decentralisation shows a different pattern in the governance of the two cycles of pre-primary

education.

For the 3-6 years cycle:

- The state (central government) establishes the key regulations on the organisation and

functioning of pre-primary institutions, and the national core curriculum: general objectives for

each level, curricular fields and subjects, main contents and assessment criteria.

- The Autonomous Communities detail the official curriculum for their jurisdiction and the

methodological guidelines.

- Schools have a margin to adapt the curriculum to their specific needs in the school

development plans that specify targets and contents for each level, methodologies and

assessment criteria.

For the 0-3 years cycle:

- Since 2006 Education Act, Autonomous Communities are fully responsible of the organisation

and curriculum of this phase.

An important aspect of how this decentralisation affects the governance of 0-6 education is that, whereas

the curriculum of the first cycle are completely established by the Autonomous Communities, the

Ministry of Education determines the core curriculum of the second cycle, its objectives, contents and

assessment criteria for the whole country – these are then completed by autonomous education

authorities.

The 2006 Act on Education made clear the educational nature of the two cycles of pre-primary

education, but there are significant differences in how the 17 Autonomous Communities set the contents

of the first cycle and materialise the core curriculum for the second cycle. Some stress the differences

between the two cycles, others keep the same contents for both cycles, and a third group limit themselves

to specify the contents of the second cycle following the core curriculum.

Spanish local authorities take part in the management of education via the Regional Ministries of

Education or the Municipal Education Institutes. Again, there is a national variety in the role of Local

Authorities. The 2006 Organic Act on Education (LOE) offers the Autonomous Communities the

possibility to delegate some of their management competences to the municipalities.

Municipalities deal with the creation, management and supervision of the buildings for pre-primary,

primary and special education schools.

Responsible Bodies and Levels of Responsibility for

Designing ECEC Policies

Responsible Bodies and Levels of Responsibility

for Implementing ECEC Policies Ministry of Education and Science: responsible for

general guidelines on compensation inequalities

Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs: responsible for

childcare and protection

Autonomous Communities: responsible for developing

national legislation so as to adapt it to their own

territory.

Municipalities: also responsible for designing

measures to protect children at risk; (all bodies

responsible for 0-6 year-olds)

Autonomous Communities

Municipalities

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Source: own elaboration from

http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/documents/thematic_reports/098EN.pdf ;

https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php/Spain:Teaching_and_Learning_in_Early_C

hildhood_Education_and_Care

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Early Childhood Education and Care Provision in Spain

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