Barcelona Travel Tips

Why you should consider education in Barcelona?

For Barcelona, education is an essential motor of the city, which maps out the future on the basis of fairness, encourages respect and tolerance in the midst of diversity and makes a decisive contribution to well being and social cohesion.

Barcelona has a huge amount of opportunities to offer those who decide to move out here. Barcelona offers excellent facilities for foreign families with a large number of foreign schools and Universities, all of which are well-renowned, and which help the boys and girls from other countries to become integrated. As an example, but by no means exclusively, we can cite the Swiss school, the Japanese school, the Italian school, the French Liceu, the German school and various American and English canters.

Big amount of foreigners requires cheap form of Barcelona accommodation. You can find some Barcelona hotels offering nice places. The Barcelona hotel industry enjoys a 80 to 85% year round average room occupancy. This high demand for hotel rooms has pushed up rates significantly over the last few years with an average double room costing around 130 - 200 Euros per night. Barcelona has precious little development land left and for this reason the hotels can afford to hike up the rates. But also you can see backpackers and travelers and young people new to the city whilst searching for shared accommodation in a flat.

You should know that there are 3 types of school in terms of funding: public, subsidized (mainly Catholic) and private (including the foreign schools). The organization of the school-system is the same as elsewhere in Spain, but the language used here in both public and subsidized schools for teaching all subjects is Catalan.

Education in Barcelona has the following structure:

1. Pre-school education ( Educación Infantil) for 3 years (ages 3-5) - education is a relatively new development in the Spanish education system and is available to children from the ages of three till six. Although it is not compulsory, the vast majority of Spanish children attend pre-school. Pre-school aims to teach children social and personal skills as well as preparing them for a smooth transition into compulsory education at the age of six.
2. Primary education (Educación Primaria) for 6 years (ages 6-11).
3. Secondary (Educación Secundaria Obligatoria = ESO). Ages 12-16.
4. Vocational Training Programmes, which enable access to Medium Grade Professional Training or to the Bachillerato.
5. Bachillerato (School leaving certificate) - This final stage of secondary education is voluntary and lasts for two years, and is normally undertaken between 16 and 18 years of age.
6. University - Barcelona has a long-standing tradition in university education. The offer in Barcelona is currently very diversified and high-quality, offering almost 400 approved university degrees for the first and second cycles of university studies. Spain has both public and private institutions, most of the latter being State-subsidized. Spain has also become one of the most popular countries for foreign students and student exchange programs.

If you are considering a further education course in Barcelona, make sure you thoroughly research the options open to you and try visit as many open days as possible.  An important issue to discuss with the admissions department is whether your current qualifications are recognized by the organization, or whether they will need further verification.

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