COMPARISON 1
During the first week, we had the chance to present our educational system, but also know how the other countries’ educational system works. There are many differences between each country, but they all have in common that you can find very different schools that use different methodologies. In some countries, this type of school is private and in other countries is public. In addition, in all countries, there is more or less the same amount of students per class and there is only one teacher. Usually, the government is the one who planes and decides the National curriculum.
Even if there are many similarities, if we compare the Dutch and the Catalan educational system, we can see that there are important differences that I would like to tell you. As I have said before, in Catalonia, your children can start going to school when they are 7-8 months year old, even if this stage is not compulsory, it is free so all families can bring their children to school. In addition, it is like this because there are many parents that can take care of their children during the whole day because the maternity/paternity leaves only last for 16 weeks.
.
In Catalonia, when you reach the secondary stage there are not so many possibilities as there are in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, depending on your level and what you want to study, you end up in one or another different type of secondary education. Because of that, it requires more years to become a teacher, compared to the path you have to follow in Catalonia. In Germany, they start to separate students from an earlier age, for me this system is quite similar to the Netherland’s educational system.
Something that really got my attention is the relation between teachers and students, in my country the relationship is more distance and you normally do not do things with the teachers, outside of the university. In addition, I did not know that there was a difference between a science university and an applied science university. In Catalonia, all universities are at the same level of complexity and that is why there is no difference.
2
"Something that really got my attention is the relation between teachers and students"