Inequality in Selectividad even in spelling mistakes: a student out of 10 fails with 5 errors in Extremadura, but does not drop a grade in the Balearic Islands
More than 200,000 students will present themselves as of next June 5 to the Selectividad with a situation of chronic inequality. Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha are the toughest regions in the spelling evaluation of the Spanish Language and Literature test. They are the only ones where the student with an exam of 10 fails if he commits more than five faults. This is not possible in the Balearic Islands, where the five errors do not penalize because it begins to discount from the sixth foul. The student is even allowed to get a good grade with more than 26 spelling errors.
The CCAAs can be classified into various levels of demand according to the different criteria to assess the linguistic correctness of the EBAU, EVAU, PAU, EAU, ABAU or PBAU (in each region it is called in a different way), the different regulations have been compiled Iván Teruel, a teacher at a high school in the province of Girona and a member of the Escuela de Todos association, to demonstrate “the injustice that a student, due to the random fact of being born in a certain territory, has more difficulties or more advantages to access university than students from other communities”. He denounces that “the principle of equality is violated” because, due to the so-called single district, the grade that a student achieves in his region helps him to enter any university in Spain even if the exams are different. This causes that in highly demanded careers there are students who are left out making an effort more than others who get a place.
Although inequality already originates in the institutes (the final grade for Baccalaureate represents 60% of the grade for access to university), it is difficult to quantify it. There is a simple and objective way to measure the disparity, which is by comparing the points that are deducted for spelling errors in the Language exam. These criteria, prepared by the coordinating groups for each subject, made up of high school and university professors, have allowed Teruel to carry out a simulation. A student with five misspellings in Language and a 7 before linguistic correction would maintain that mark in the Balearic Islands, it would drop to 6.5 in Galicia and Catalonia, it would reach 5.75 in Castilla y León and the Valencian Community, it would drop to a 5 in Madrid and fail in Murcia, Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura.
Minister Pilar Alegría refuses to carry out a single test throughout Spain, but has promised to “homogenize” these correction criteria. There are several commissions working with the horizon of launching the new system for the next course, but it is in the air that there are matching parameters that are mandatory for all the CCAAs.
According to the data of Professor Teruel, contrasted by ELMUNDO with the coordinators of the Selectividad of the 17 CCAA, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha are the toughest regions because they do not set limits on the reduction of points in the Language exam. The first deducts half a point for fouls and the second does so by packages (2 do not count and -1 is subtracted for three fouls, -2 for four and -3 for five). They are followed by Murcia and Madrid, which also subtract half a point, but are more benevolent and establish that only three points can be lowered at most. In Madrid, moreover, the first error is not counted.
They are followed by those regions where a spelling mistake is penalized with -0.25 points (Valencian Community, Castilla y León and Cantabria) or with -0.20 (Canary Islands, which does not subtract anything for the first two mistakes), all of them with a three point cap. In Catalonia there are no limits and -0.1 is discounted for lack. That same tenth is removed in Galicia and Asturias, where you can only deduct a maximum of two points per exam.
The Balearic Islands penalize for blocks, like Castilla-La Mancha. There are no negative effects of making five errors and -0.25 points are subtracted for between six and 10; -0.5 for between 11 and 15; -1 for between 16 and 20; -1.5 for between 21 and 25, and -2 for more than 26 fouls. This is also done in Andalusia, where -0.25 points are reduced for three fouls up to a maximum of -0.75 in this concept, although the first two are not counted.
Two students from Madrid, in the 2022 EVAU exam. . Vine EUROPE PRESS
In Navarra, the criteria are set in a different way: only one point can be removed for the formal appearance of the exercise, and it is distributed as follows: a maximum of -0.25 for five misspellings; a maximum of -0.25 for more than five misplaced tildes; -0.25 for the punctuation, and -0.25 for the absence of margins or for the presentation in general.
La Rioja, Aragón and the Basque Country are the most lax regions because in their evaluation criteria they do not specify the scope of the penalty, which can lead to greater arbitrariness. They only put limits on the discount: 20% of the note in La Rioja, one point in Aragón and two points in the Basque Country, but they do not quantify. “There is no automatic drop of tenths or thousandths, but the court makes a general assessment,” they explain at the University of the Basque Country.
There is also much disparity in the criteria for accentuation. In this category, the toughest is Murcia, which removes -0.25 points for incorrectly placed tilde. They are followed by the Valencian Community (-0.15) and Catalonia (-0.1). Galicia and Asturias subtract -0.15 for every two errors in accentuation, while packages are established in the rest (five incorrect tildes are penalized in Madrid with the same half point as 10 are discounted in Castilla y León).
The spelling and accentuation criteria usually undergo changes from one year to the next, except in regions such as Extremadura, where they have been maintained in recent years.. In general, the changes tend to “relax” the requirement because, according to the sources consulted, “nobody wants to harm the students in their autonomous community” and everyone tries not to be harsher than the others.
320 WORDS. Iván Teruel has also found differences in the length of the answers: in Catalonia they set a maximum of 320-330 words for the entire exam (one side of a page), while in the Basque Country there are 700 words. Just for a question, in La Rioja they already recommend using one side of a page.
WEEKLY SCHEDULE. Catalonia is the region with the fewest hours of Language per week. Two hours are given, compared to the three that are taught in other communities with a co-official language or the four of the majority.
LITERATURE LITERATURE. There are also differences in the content evaluated and in the structure of the test.. Catalonia scores very little in the literature section (1.5 points compared to Galicia, where it can count up to eight points).