Spanish Baccalaureate

The Spanish Baccalaureate is a non-compulsory education, given usually since the student is 16 years old, after having obtained the ESO (Compulsory Secondary Education). It's a pre-university education of two courses of length. Having surpassed the Baccalaureate, gives access to Upper Professional Formation, or to the university, after taking the Selectividad exam.

Present

The Baccalaureate in the LOE

As the established in the LOE^[1] (the Spanish Educational Law) of 2006, the Baccalaureate studies last two courses, usually as a continuation of the ESO (Compulsory Secondary Education).

There are three distinct modalities of Bachillerato: Arts (two paths), Sciences and Technology, and Humanities and social Sciences.

1º OF BACCALAUREATE
Common Subjects
Spanish Language and Literature I (3h) Sciences for the Contemporary World (2h) Physical Education I (2h) Philosophy (2h) Cooficial Language and Literature I (3h) First Foreign Language I (3h) Religion or History and Culture of Religions (1h) Second Foreign Language I (2h)

Specific Subjects (3 choices)
ARTS		SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY		HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
Plastic Arts, Design and Image	Scenic Arts, Music y Dance	Sciences	Technology	Humanities	Social Sciences
Audiovisual Culture I (4h) Artistical Drawing I (4h) Technical Drawing I (4h) Volume (4h)	Audiovisual Culture (4h) Musical Analysis I (4h) Applied Anatomy (4h) Scenic Arts (4h)	Physics and Chemistry (4h) Mathematics I (4h) Biology and Geology (4h)	Mathematics I (4h) Physics and Chemistry (4h) Industrial Technology I (4h)	History of the Contemporary World (4h) Latin I (4h) Greek I (4h)	History of the Contemporary World (4h) Business' Economy I (4h) Mathematics Applied to Social Sciences I (4h)

2º OF BACCALAUREATE
Common Subjects
Spanish History (3h) History of Philosophy (3h) Spanish Language and Literature II (2h) Cooficial Language and Literature II (3h) First Foreign Language II (3h) Religion or History and Culture of Religions (1h)

Specific Subjects (3 choices)
ARTS		SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY				HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
Plastic Arts, Image and Design	Scenic Arts, Music and Dance	Nature Sciences	Sanitary Sciences	Sciences and Engineering	Technology	Humanities	Social Sciences, Geography and History	Social Sciences, Management and Administration
Artistical Drawing II (4h) Technical Drawing II (4h) Design History of Art (4h) Grafic-Plastic Expressions Techniques (4h)	Musica Analysis II (4h) Music (Practice and Theory) (4h) History of Music and Dance (4h) Universal Literature (4h)	Physics II (4h) Mathematics II (4h) Earth Sciences (4h)	Biology (4h) Chemistry (4h) Mathematics II (4h)	Mathematics II (4h) Technical Drawing II (4h) Physics (4h)	Dibujo Técnico II (4h) Industrial Technology II (4h) Mechanics (4h)	Latin II (4h) Greek II (4h) Universal Literature (4h) History of Art	Universal Literature (4h) Geography II (4h) History of Art (4h)	Business' Economy (4h) Geography (4h) Mathematics Applied to Social Sciences II (4h)

Optative Subjects (1 choice)

Second Foreign Language (4h) Economy (4h) Psicology or Sociology (4h) Physical Education (4h) Practical English (4h) ICT (4h) Audiovisual Communication (4h) Industrial Technology (4h) Electrical Studies (4h)

The Baccalaureate in the LOMCE

The new law of Education (LOMCE^[2][3]) approved by the Congress of Deputies on 28 November 2013 and published with date of 9 December, in its article 1.24 modifies the article 34 of the LOE and establishes 3 modalities of baccalaureate, with two «itineraries» for the one of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Arts
Sciences
								Humanities
Humanities and Social Sciences
								Social Sciences

As in the Primary Education and in the ESO, in Baccalaureate there is a distinction between «core subjects», «specific subjects» and «subjects of free autonomic configuration» —this last category indicates the cooficial language—. The Government determines the contents of the basic subjects while the educational Administrations will be able to «complement the contents of the core subjects» and «establish the contents of the blocks of specific subjects and of free autonomic configuration».

As the article 1.25, that adds the article 34 bis to LOE, in the first course will be taught core subjects «generals» (brown colour background) and core subjects «of option» (with white background, of which in each modality choose two), in addition to the specific subjects (with green background). The Cooficial Language and Literature is not a core subject, but a «subject of free autonomic configuration».

1º OF BACCALAUREATE
Art	Sciences	Humanities	Social sciences
Spanish Language and Literature I and, if there was it, Cooficial Language and Literature I	Spanish Language and Literature I and, if there was it, Cooficial Language and Literature I	Spanish Language and Literature I and, if there was it, Cooficial Language and Literature I	Spanish Language and Literature I and, if there was it, Cooficial Language and Literature I
Philosophy	Philosophy	Philosophy	Philosophy
First Foreign Language I	First Foreign Language I	First Foreign Language I	First Foreign Language I
Physical Education	Physical Education	Physical Education	Physical Education
Art Foundations I	Mathematics I	Latin I	Applied Maths to the Social Sciences I
History of the Contemporary World	Physics and Chemistry	History of the Contemporary World	History of the Contemporary World
Audiovisual culture I	Biology and Geology	Economy	Economy
Universal literature I	Technical drawing I	Greek I	Greek I
		Universal literature I	Universal literature I

Specific subjects to choose in first of bachillerato between a minimum of two and maximum of three, depending of the offer of the educational centres:

1. Musical analysis I
2. Applied Anatomy
3. Scientific Culture
4. Artistic Drawing I
5. Technical Drawing I
6. Music (Practice and Theory)
7. Religion
8. Second Foreign Language I
9. Industrial Technology I
10. ICT I
11. Volume
12. A matter of the block of core subjects that the students doesn't take.

According to the article 1.26, that adds the article 34 ter. to LOE, in the second course will be taught, core subjects «generals» (brown background) and core subjects «of option» (with white background, of which in each modality choose two). The Coofiacial Language and Literature is not a core subject, but a «subject of free autonomic configuration».

2º OF BACCALAUREATE
Art	Sciences	Humanities	Social sciences
Spanish Language and Literature II and, if there was it, Cooficial Language and Literature II	Spanish Language and Literature II and, if there was it, Cooficial Language and Literature II	Spanish Language and Literature II and, if there was it, Cooficial Language and Literature II	Spanish Language and Literature II and, if there was it, Cooficial Language and Literature II
History of Spain	History of Spain	History of Spain	History of Spain
First Foreign Language II	First Foreign Language II	First Foreign Language II	First Foreign Language II
Art Foundations II	Mathematics II	Latin II	Applied Maths to the Social Sciences II
Scenic Arts	Biology	Business' Economy	Business' Economy
Design	Technical drawing II	Geography	Geography
Audiovisual culture II	Physics	Art	Art
	Geology	Greek II	Greek II
	Chemistry	Philosophy	Philosophy

Specific subjects to choose in second of baccalaureate between a minimum of two and a maximum of four, depending on the offer of the educational centres:

1. Musical analysis II
2. Sciences of the Earth and of the Environment
3. Artistic Drawing II
4. Technical Drawing II
5. Foundations of Administration and Management
6. History of the Philosophy
7. History of the Music and the Dance
8. Image and Sound
9. Psychology
10. Religion
11. Second Foreign Language II
12. Techniques of Graphic Expression-Plastic
13. Industrial Technology II
14. ICT II
15. A matter of the block of basic subjects that the student doesn't take.

Distance, nocturnal or evening Baccalaureates

There are more modalities apart from the diurnal face-to-face baccalaureate, especially designed for adults that wish to restart their studies. It forms part of the ordinary educational offer of some institutes and it's also given in exclusive centres of education for adults.

In its nocturnal version, the schedule is comprised (depending on the latitude, legislation and other) in hours of evening/night. They usually consist of 4 classes of 50 minutes with a rest in the middle of 30 minutes, that four classes can go approximately from a start at 16:00 hours until an end at 22:00 hours. It has the advantage of the annual validation of individual subjects, that is, each subject approved remains approved/validated for successive courses. This is due to the small quantity of time that working adults can dedicate to study compared to the one that a student in the diurnal institute can have. The contents given in this modality are exactly the same of the ones given in the diurnal modality.

References

1. "Complete text of the LOE" (PDF) (in Spanish).
2. "Complete text of the LOMCE" (PDF) (in Spanish).
3. "Macmillan Education's Summary of the LOMCE" (PDF).