The new Dual Professional Training (FP), which emanates from Organic Law 3/2022 and is developed by all the autonomous communities, keeps hundreds of Andalusian students and their teachers in suspense. The Council’s adaptation of state regulations has caused a large portion of students, who began their studies in 2024, to now find themselves facing a requirement for practical hours to be able to graduate, which the sector considers unaffordable.
Concretely, the concern relates to the obligation to complete 500 hours of internships to obtain the diploma, the equivalent of approximately three months of actual work. Until this regulatory change, adopted since the 2023-2024 academic year in Andalusia and fully applicable from this year 2025, the average number of hours of practical work was around 400 hours – depending on the level – and were carried out at the end of the last course.
Now, although these hours may be split between first and second, the change occurred with the course already started, affecting students who began their studies without this requirement. Throughout Andalusia, according to the latest figures published by the central government, there are around 200,000 students in vocational training and all of them must adapt to the regulations.
However, the problem is not the same for everyone. This requirement applies to intermediate and higher education cycles, where a profile of students seeking to enter the job market as quickly as possible is registered. Any delay in obtaining your diploma represents, in practice, a direct obstacle to your employment opportunities.
Although the Commission claims not to be aware of the extent of the problem, sources in the sector say so and point out that provinces like Málaga, Granada or Almería particularly suffer from this situation because the regulations of the Ministry of Education are retroactive in terms of requests and are not informed “in time”.
“Even if you approve everything, you can’t start”
The situation is particularly serious in distance professional training, where there is no traditional division by course and students are enrolled in modules. In these cases, successful completion of all subjects no longer guarantees graduation. “At present there are students who, even if they pass all the modules, risk not graduating simply because they cannot find a company to do internships,” explains Pedro Fernández, professor of vocational training and member of the vocational training commission of the CSIF union of Andalusia. “If a second-year student does not find a company, he does not obtain a diploma. This amounts to imposing a compulsory third year.” For teachers, regulatory change is happening without the necessary information and dialogue.
Furthermore, the problem, he says, is not academic but structural. “Finding companies for all students in Andalusia is not feasible. » The majority of the productive fabric is made up of micro-enterprises and self-employed workers with no capacity to accommodate students on internships, while the search for places falls almost exclusively to teaching staff, with a minimum hourly schedule. “We have three hours per course to look for companies for fifty or sixty students. It’s physically impossible.” Of course, those who can provide proof of working hours linked to their training can deduct them from the internship.
A rule change mid-game
But the problem is widespread among students. Azahara, a distance student in Social Integration, is 34 years old and works in the morning. He registered with a clear idea: to complete the cycle in two years. “The majority of people who study VET remotely are working or have caring responsibilities,” he explains.
Last year he completed eight modules. Three of them included practices that, according to the center itself, would be carried out temporarily in institutes and would be evaluated through tasks, since Dual FP was not yet 100% implemented in the remote modality. “In June, they told us that the internships were over, that they had already been evaluated and that there was no need to do internships in companies,” he recalls. “In September, they repeated it to us during the presentation of the institute.”
However, in December the turn came. “Now they are telling us no, that these practices are not valid,” he says. “We have records and resolutions where it clearly states that these modules were obsolete. It’s even on YouTube.” The solution now proposed is to concentrate 500 hours of internships between March and June, making them compatible with their jobs and the rest of the modules. “They expect me to work from eight o’clock to three o’clock and then do internships from four o’clock in the afternoon to ten o’clock in the evening,” he denounces. “It means working thirteen hours a day, doing homework, the intermodular project and studying. It’s unaffordable.”
Javier is 27 years old, lives in Almería and also studies social integration remotely. His experience coincides with that of Azahara. “I thought remote vocational training was going to be suitable for people who can’t study any other way, and it turned out to be even worse than face-to-face training,” he says. During his studies, he had to stop working to take compulsory internships. “I had to look for a replacement and I lost a day’s salary, in addition to the travel money,” he explains. “It creates a lot of stress and confusion.”
Javier insists that the problem does not come from the centers. “I don’t blame the institutes or the teachers, because they were dedicated to us,” he says. “The problem is that things change from one day to the next.” After two courses marked by uncertainty, he launched a powerful diagnosis: “Distance professional training is chaos. » And he adds: “We sincerely believe that this is all just a ruse to stop it. They are stealing opportunities.”
For the sector, it’s regulatory chaos
On the sector side, the head of CCOO educational policy, Felipe Gómez, is in the same line as the students and teachers and confirms that these are not isolated cases. “The implementation of dual vocational training in Andalusia is chaotic, as we have seen in recent years,” he says. “Regulations don’t come until much later, as happened last year and is happening this year.”
Gómez emphasizes that the lack of regulatory development also affects teachers. “It’s chaos for teachers, who don’t apply the regulations or enough hours to look for companies where they can do internships. » He recognizes in particular problems in the application of the 500 hours among students who were not able to achieve them the previous year for justified reasons. “It was not clear how to implement them or how to record them in Seneca.”
Additionally, it places the conflict in a broader context. “There is a clear process of privatization and activity around FP,” he emphasizes. “Those who end up paying are often sons and daughters of the working class. »
Council denies widespread problem exists
For its part, the Ministry of Education denies the existence of a structural problem in the system. According to official data, Andalusia has signed 85,000 agreements with companies and has 170,000 public places, compared to around 40,000 in the private sector. “We are not aware that this is a general system problem,” ministry sources say.
The Council emphasizes that Dual FP requirements are established by State regulations. “The regulations are national and set the requirements,” they emphasize, recalling that Dual began to be applied from the first year last year and that this year it is already extended to the first and second years. According to the ministry, Andalusia requested gradual implementation in several courts, but the central government rejected it.
However, the institutional response does not assess the specific cases of students who began their studies with certain conditions and are now faced with others, nor the real difficulty of reconciling compulsory internships and employment.
Meanwhile, just weeks before full-scale practices begin, uncertainty persists. “In January everyone starts training and at the moment we don’t know what will happen,” summarizes Pedro Fernández. “If this problem is not resolved now, some students will not be able to complete their studies. »
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