Education in Service (Juan Carlos Girauta on El Debate)

Education in Catalonia and the Basque Country has become a tool for national construction, drifting from academic excellence and falling into the realm of 'ridicule.'

## Nationalism as an Educational Engine

The education system, that powerful tool, can be used to build or deconstruct a nation. In Spain, it seems some autonomous communities have chosen the latter path, and the result is far from an ideal model. **Catalonia** has transformed its education system into a vehicle for constructing a national identity, a process that has eroded academic quality.
Other channels, such as the media or cinema, have also played their part in this "great Catalan illusion," but the school leaves a profound mark—one that is now being attempted to be erased.

The path taken by **Catalonia** is not new. In past decades, political figures capitalized on a discourse appealing to the local and the intimate, forging an emotional connection with the citizenry. One example was **Jordi Pujol**, who, with a close style and an apparent intimate knowledge of each town and its people, built a solid support base. His successor, **Artur Mas**, though with less charisma, continued this trend, often surrounded by a discourse that claimed intellectual superiority, despite the evidence.

## The Decline of Academic Quality

This instrumentalization of education has had tangible consequences. Subtlety, irony, and intelligence seem to have been replaced by rampant literalism—a precise barometer of the lack of rigor. Past events have been invented, facts distorted, and all of this has passed with little criticism or firm questioning. The result is that **Catalonia** has become a laughing stock in educational matters. **PISA** reports, one of the most important international benchmarks for evaluating school performance, have reached a point where they have had to exclude this autonomous community in order to prevent public humiliation.

The **Basque Country** appears to be trinc a similar path, with indications that its education system is also suffering the consequences of prioritizing national construction over academic excellence. This scenario serves as a warning about the dangers of using education as a political weapon—an error that, in the long run, harms those who should benefit most from it: the students.