Spanish Education System

I am a British student who has lived in Spain since the age of 9, I´m now 18 years old and I´m applying to go to University in the UK.


I went to a Spanish state school and I´ve experienced primary, secondary (ESO) and post-obligatory education (Bachiller) in the Spanish education system.
The Spanish education system is said to be one of the worst and I have to say I agree. I graduated in the top three students of my school with very good grades, but I´ll be very lucky to get into any university outside of Spain, the Spanish education system´s reputation amongst international universities is very bad.


I think the main problem with the education out here lies within the last two years of schooling, "Bachiller", it´s basically the equivalent of the A-level, but in Spain the coursework you do at school, most importantly the continuous exams, is more important than the actual A-level style exams you take at the end of your 2nd year. I must have taken more than 100 exams across 9 different subjects over the last academic year. These exams are done at your school and evaluate your current knowledge of the coursework, your exams are graded then the scores are averaged out to give you your final qualification at the end of the year which is used to get into uni. The biggest setback is that the education system forces you to take 5 mandatory subjects along with 4 subjects of your own choice. So in Spain you are effectively taking 9 "A-levels", and as I said you´re are forced to take 5 "A-levels" which usually have no use for you whatsoever in your future uni course. For example I want to study Mechanical Engineering, so I chose Maths, Physics, Technical Drawing and Earth Science as my four choices, but I was also forced to take a-levels in spanish language, catalan language, philosophy, Spanish History and English language, which are pretty useless for my shosen uni course.
The consequence of this system is that I´m less specialised in maths and physics (necessary for engineering) than my counterparts in the UK, but I do know a lot about philosophy. (which is obviously useless for engineering)
So foreign universities are asking me for ridiculous grades which nobody could achieve.


The article also states that 55% of students stay in education until they´re 18. I´d say it was more like 25% (and I´m being very generous here)
Out of the 175 students I started secondary education with at the age of 12, around 25 stayed in school till the last year.


Finally, out of the 60 or 70 British ex pats who I´ve known over the last 5 or 6 years at my school, only two have graduated from the State school system, and one of them is me.