Rajoy backtracks on Spain’s controversial new school-leaver exams Madrid 27 OCT 2016

Decision comes after mass protests against a system many fear will punish poorer students

http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/10/27/inenglish/1477568771_227856.html

Spain’s acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced on Thursday that the government would delay the full roll-out of a new exam system that forms part of a package of controversial education reforms introduced by his conservative Popular Party (PP) in 2013.

Under the proposed changes students would be have to sit two externally assessed exams known in Spanish as reválidas, or final examinations.

The first of these exams would be taken at the end of the basic secondary education system (ESO), when students are aged 15 or 16, while the second such exam would take place when students complete their higher secondary education course (bachillerato) at the age of 17 or 18.

Students undertaking the first round of exams at 15 or 16 would have to pass to receive their high school diploma and be allowed to continue their studies. For the older group of students, the new exams would replace Spain’s selectividad university entrance tests.

The government has defended the new exams saying they will have a “very positive” effect by giving students and their families a clearer idea of their progress.

But opponents want the system to be scrapped. They say it places too much emphasis on the results of individual exams – 40% in the case of ESO exam and 30% for the bachillerato exam.

Critically, they also argue the system will force students with economic and educational problems out of the classroom, creating a system of haves and have-nots. Spain has the highest school dropout rate in Europe with 20% of students not having any form of high school diploma, according to European Union statistics.

The new system – which is expected to cost the government €2.3 billion – is being trialed during the current academic year but was expected to become standard in 2018.

But speaking in parliament on Thursday, Rajoy said the exams would have “academic effect until there is a national pact on education, as per my proposal of yesterday [Wednesday].”

During a tense investiture debate on Wednesday, the prelude to a second debate on Saturday at which Rajoy is expected to be named as the head of a minority government, the acting prime minister made mention of eight major issues that he is ready to discuss with the Socialists and the emerging reform party Ciudadanos. These topics include jobs, education, pensions and the fight against corruption.

This means that while the new exams will take place, they will essentially be toothless: for now, students aged 15 and 16 will not have to pass the exam to receive their school leaving certificate and the older students will continue to sit the current university entrance tests.

Rajoy’s announcement comes a day after hundreds of thousands of students, teachers and parents protested against the proposed changes in more than 40 cities.

Between 30 and 40% of all students aged 14 and over this took part in the action while 12% of teachers stayed away from the classroom, according to official Education Ministry figures.

But unions behind the action put the figures as high as 90% for students and 60% for teachers, describing the day as an “amazing success.”

Wednesday’s strike was the latest in a series of 23 protests against the 2013 education law, the LOMCE, which the PP forced through Congress in 2013 despite the opposition of 11 political parties who saw it as ideologically driven.

“If they don’t call off the exams by Monday, the Students’ Union will take action again,” said group spokesperson Ana García.

Meanwhile, the president of the Spanish federation of parent-teacher associations, CEAPA, demanded that the new minority government of Mariano Rajoy call off the exams within four months and start new parliamentary negotiations on the country’s education law.

The organization also called on the government to reverse the cuts applied to the education sector during the crisis.
VOCABULARY:

Roll-out (n): introduction of sth new

Sit (an exam): take an exam

Undertake: to do sth, esp sth that will be difficult

Scrap: cause sth to end / get rid of sth

Haves and have-nots: rich and poor

Trial: test

Current: at present

Toothless: powerless, ineffectual

Figures: numbers

Union: trade union ( sindicato)

Call off: cancel
Reverse : change the direction of sth to its opposite

University entrance test: prueba de acceso a la univ.

Dropout rate: índice de abandono escolar

Pact on education

Read more: http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/10/28/inenglish/1477665648_836385.html

https://www.thelocal.es/20161029/spain-finally-has-a-govt-rajoy-voted-back-to-power

No More Siesta? Spanish Prime Minister Wants to Nix the Nap

Time to wake up! Spain’s prime minister wants to end the siesta. 

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy wants to end a long-standing and well-recognized tradition: the mid-afternoon break.

Under new legislation, Spain would switch back to Greenwich Mean Time and do away with siestas, the sleep-filled breaks some Spaniards take.

“I will find a consensus to make sure the working day ends at 6 p.m.,” Rajoy said, according to the London Times.

Traditionally, the Spanish work day begins at 10 a.m. and is split in half by a two- to three-hour break known as the siesta. Spaniards traditionally leave at 2 p.m. and return to work around 4 or 5, according to The Times. The work day typically ends at 8 p.m. (As some readers note, not all Spaniards partake in the siesta; many follow schedules closer to a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. work day.)

This isn’t the first time Spain has considered ending the practice.

In 2012, the government loosened restrictions to allow stores to stay open as much as 25 percent longer each week, a move that threatened the tradition. A year later, a parliamentary commission called for both of Rajoy's proposals: The introduction of a 9-to-5 workday (he suggests it should end at 6 p.m.) and the time-zone switch.

Despite sitting in the middle of the Western European time zone, Spain observes Central European time, a change made decades ago in solidarity with Adolf Hitler’s Germany.

“Because of a great historical error, in Spain we eat at 2 p.m., and we don't have dinner until 9 p.m., but according to the position of the sun, we eat at the same time as the rest of Europe: 1 p.m. and 8 p.m.,” Nuria Chinchilla, director of the International Center on Work and Family at the IESE Business School, told the Guardian in 2013. “We are living with 71 years of jet-lag, and it’s unsustainable.”

Benefits of Napping

The word siesta derives from the Latin word sexta, or sixth hour, according to the Atlas of Sleep Medicine. Some believe the practice evolved out of a desire to avoid the crushing midday heat, but according to the authors of that book people in colder climates were also known to have followed a similar tradition.

Researchers have reported that siestas may provide certain health benefits. Just last month, the peer-reviewed Journal of Human Hypertension published a study that found a significant relationship between siesta and decreased prevalence of hypertension. In 2007, a group of researchers found that, among more than 23,000 Greek adults studied, those who regularly took siestas were significantly less likely to die of heart disease.

He made the push at a party conference over the weekend, where he tried to court other parties, unions and business leaders to support the idea.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/04/05/time-to-wake-up-spains-prime-minister-wants-to-end-the-siesta/

Cultural stereotypes abound in reporting of Rajoy’s plan for working day to end at 6pm

The Popular Party (PP) politician had suggested measures that would ensure the working day in Spain finished at 6pm and that the time zone should be shifted to match that of the Canary Islands, Portugal and the United Kingdom – geographically, this is the zone that corresponds to Spain. 

These measures have been up for debate for some time now and seek to improve productivity and improve work-family life balance for Spaniards, many of whom still enjoy a two-hour lunch break but in exchange have to work until around 7pm.

The story in The Independent mixed up the concept of a siesta with a two- or three-hour lunch break, which is still common in many companies in Spain. “Workers in Spain currently tend to start work at 10am and stay until 2pm, when they take a siesta of up to three hours before leaving the office at 8pm,” read the first version of the article, which was later corrected, and that also referred to acting Prime Minister Rajoy as the leader of a center-right coalition government.

The siesta has its origins in the rural roots of Spanish society, when agricultural workers could rest during the hottest hours of the day. But as offended internet users pointed out in response to the stories, few workers enjoy a mid-day sleep in current times.

What is true is that, according to a 2011 study by the British Office for National Statistics, Spaniards work two hours more every week than workers in the UK, and an hour more than the European average. Perhaps, as The Guardian points out, the five million unemployed in Spain have the chance to enjoy a nap. “And until the government can find them a job, it won’t much matter when the working day begins or ends,” the article concludes.

http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/04/06/inenglish/1459928179_146076.html
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Student Spins Double Life Among Spanish Elite

MADRID — How is it that a baby-faced, 20-year-old university student skates his way into the coronation celebration of the new king, passes himself off as a government adviser to reportedly broker a lucrative business deal, and avoids traffic jams by flashing a fake police light? 

That is the question members of Spain’s security services are asking themselves after the student, Francisco Nicolás Gómez Iglesias, was arrested last week and quickly gained prominence as the country’s most notorious gate-crasher. 

The answer, disturbingly enough, is that he did it by falsifying police and secret service documents and pretending to hold several government and other official posts, Spain’s national police say. 

The judge in charge of the case, Mercedes Pérez Barrios, was as incredulous as many other Spaniards at the extent of Mr. Gómez Iglesias’s double life. In her report, she wrote that she could “not understand how a young person of 20, using only his word and apparently under his own identity, could have access to conferences, places and events without his behavior alarming anybody.” 

Mr. Gómez Iglesias’s arrest has generated a debate over security lapses in Spain, a country that only recently emerged from decades of assassinations and bombings by ETA, the Basque separatist group. It has also highlighted the importance of personal connections in Spain’s establishment, as Mr. Gómez Iglesias allegedly used a secretary of state to gain access to top business executives. 

One of the most worrying security breaches occurred on June 19, when Mr. Gómez Iglesias was among the invitees at the royal palace who shook the hand of the new king, Felipe VI. 

Catalina Hoffmann, a businesswoman who stood alongside Mr. Gómez Iglesias when he met the king, on Monday denied reports that she had added him to the guest list. 

Mr. Gómez Iglesias, known to his friends as Frankie, has been called “Little Nicolás” by the Spanish news media, in reference to a series of French novels about a mischievous schoolboy. 

Mr. Gómez Iglesias could not be reached for comment and has made no public statement since his release from custody last Friday, pending a trial. Spanish news media reported that his family was shocked by the arrest, claiming that he had somehow been set up. 

With his innocent looks and preppy clothing, Mr. Gómez Iglesias looks every bit the model student, and indeed, he has been studying at the Colegio Universitario de Estudios Financieros, or CUNEF, one of Madrid’s top finance universities. 

But rather than spending most of his time on university benches, Mr. Gómez Iglesias preferred to lunch with top business executives and politicians, even joining them in the V.I.P. box of the Real Madrid soccer team’s Bernabéu stadium. He also moonlighted as an adviser to the government, and sometimes as an agent of the secret service, according to El Confidencial, a Spanish publication that reported the case. He also managed to receive 25,000 euros, or about $32,000, from a businessman in return for helping facilitate a property deal, acting as a government adviser, according to the judge’s report. 

To add credibility to his parallel life, Mr. Gómez Iglesias sometimes hired chauffeur-driven cars when he was not, according to Spanish media reports, using fake police-car lights and registration plates. 

Mr. Gómez Iglesias is believed to have used his acquaintance with Jaime García-Legaz, the Spanish secretary of state for trade and a former professor at CUNEF, to grease his way into the ranks of Spain’s conservative elite. 

Mr. García-Legaz has acknowledged knowing him, but told El Confidencial that he had cut off their relationship a year and a half ago after being informed by a friend that the student had used him as a reference to gain access to business executives. 

Mr. Gómez Iglesias’s gate-crashing exploits came to an end when he tried unsuccessfully to attend a party at the American Embassy, as well as further his relationship with Spain’s royal household, according to Spanish media reports. The Spanish police then started investigating, leading to his arrest last week.

DUCHESS OF ALBA DEAD: BILLIONAIRE SPANISH DUCHESS WHO LIVED LIFE BY HER OWN RULES, DIES AT 88

The world’s most titled aristocrat and Spain’s richest noble, the 18th Duchess of Alba, has died aged 88 after a short illness.

It was said she owned so much land that you could walk from one side of the country to the other without stepping off her property.

Taken to hospital earlier this week with pneumonia, the Duchess was moved back to her Seville residence, the 14th-century Palacio de Dueñas, on Tuesday night. Initial optimism about a possible recovery quickly receded, and she died early this morning, with her six children and third husband at her side.

Her family communicated the news of her death to King Felipe and the royal family, while the Mayor of Seville, Juan Ignacio Zoido, announced the news to the general public on Twitter.

After lying in state in Seville’s town hall, a funeral will be held for the Duchess, whose full name was María del Rosario Cayetana Paloma Alfonsa Victoria Eugenia Fernanda Teresa Francisca de Paula Lourdes Antonia Josefa Fausta Rita Castor Dorotea Santa Esperanza Fitz-James Stuart y de Silva, Falco y Gurtubay, on Friday in the Andalusian capital.

Along with her rather long name, she held more than 50 aristocratic titles, among them the Duchy of Berwick

Estimates for her fortune run as high as €3.5bn (£2.8bn). But the Duchess was equally famous for her individualism – following her last of three weddings, in 2011, to a civil servant 25 years her junior, she kicked off her shoes and did some flamenco dancing.

Her family home in Madrid, the Liria Palace, reportedly contained 249 oil paintings, including works by El Greco, Rubens and Rembrandt. The Duchess’s collection of historical documents, meanwhile, included letters written by Christopher Columbus and a first edition of Don Quixote.

Physically striking, with frizzy white hair, the Duchess, born in 1926, paid scant attention to the repressive social mores, that predominated in the Franco era. A fixture in the international jet set, she not only learnt to speak five languages, and travelled extensively, but was also a fan of bullfighting and flamenco.

Equally individual in her dress sense; even in her 80s she was not averse to wearing fishnet tights. Refusing to pose nude for Picasso was one of her few concessions to the norms of the era.

Her social life was never short of drama, either, right up to 2011 when she ignored her children’s initial opposition, and married Alfonso Diez, 25 years her junior. Her first marriage, in 1947 to the son of the Duke of Sotomayor, has been described as Spain’s last great feudal wedding – the young Duchess wore jewels worth, €1.2m in front of 1,000 guests. Her second was to a former Jesuit priest.

Rumours about the protocol implications of her numerous titles flourished. She was allowed, it was said, to enter Seville cathedral on horseback, did not have to kneel to the Pope and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth was supposed to curtsey to her. This rumour persisted even after she rubbished the story, and bowed to the Queen, in 1988.

In later years, news of the Duchess increasingly centred round her health problems , but right up to the end she never seemed troubled by the press’s constant fascination with her: as she told one gossip magazine, “If they forget you, you’re nobody.”

The Independent, 20-11-14

Find in the text words or phrases which mean the same as the ones below. In the case of verbs, only infinitive forms will be accepted. 

1. to legally have something ________________________ 

2. the most important elected official in a town or city ____________________

3. to organize an event ________________________
4. to possess _____________________
5. within a group________________________
6. value , worth ________________________ 

7. someone who works for a government department _____________________

8. attracting your interest or attention because of some unusual feature ______________

9. Very curly _______________________ 

10. not wearing clothes ______________________

11. previous ________________________
12. grow ________________________
13. to continue ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­________________________ 

14. to bend your body forwards from the waist, especially to show respect for someone _______________

15. rumour, conversation about unimportant subjects __________________