Abstract:

The adaptation of the Spanish higher education curriculum to the European Area of Higher Education system has meant that syllabus have included an elevated percentage of practical activities in comparison with the previous system. The purpose of this amendment was clear: it tended to approximate our previous system to the curriculum of other countries of Europe, where the practical tasks have always had a greater role. Unfortunately, now that some years have passed since the reform was implemented, we see through most of the work done by our students that they do not delve into the performance of the tasks with a previous study, resulting that the outcome on learning is not the expected one. In most cases students spend a reasonable average hours each week to carry out these tasks, as it has been displayed with some surveys answered by some students of the Tourism Degree of the Jaume I University in the year 2015, but they are not used to do a previous study, and so, they need to concentrate the study of the subject in the days before the final exams. Asking ourselves where the problem could be, we come to the conclusion that is a need to ponder whether this imbalance is caused by defaults of the higher education system or if the problem may be rooted in the pre university studies, in the methodology they have acquired in the years before college. In order to clear up this issue we must regard which are the goals of secondary education and consider if the pre-university students leave this phase with adequate preparation to cope properly with the academic life once in college.

Keywords:

European Area of Higher Education, pre-university studies, secondary education