Pedro Sánchez announces that the Government will 'continue to safeguard the quality of Vocational Training' with a Royal Decree to ensure quality education

The President of the Government of Spain closed the conference 'Vocational Training and Business: the alliance that drives the future' and announced that the Executive will continue "expanding the network of Centres of Excellence and National Reference Centres, especially in strategic sectors", with 10 new facilities.

Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sport, Madrid

The President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, closes the day on Vocational Training with his speech (Pool Moncloa/Borja Puig de la Bellacasa)

The president, Pedro Sánchez, announced that the Government will "continue to safeguard the quality of Vocational Training" to-just as was done with universities-"place limits on the opening of private centres that do not offer sufficient guarantees of training and quality" to students. We do not reject the fact that there are private universities," he explained, "what we reject is that some have become mere shell companies where only diplomas are awarded, without any quality education".

The measure, announced at the closing of the conference 'VET: A National and Future Project,' held at the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports, and opened by the Minister for Education, Milagros Tolón, will be implemented through a Royal Decree, the public consultation for which will be launched in the next two months. Its aim will be "to ensure that those who provide training do so with standards, rigour, and oversight". Because-as he stated-"training technicians, programmers, mechanics, healthcare professionals… is not just any business: it is building the human capital of our country. And that requires clear rules and accountability.

Pedro Sánchez defended the need to "establish order" and "ensure" quality, but also "equity in access to vocational training," because "the future of a young person in our country cannot depend on where they are born or how much their parents earn"; nor can "the success of vocational training" become "a new educational gap". "It has to be just the opposite: a lever for equality, social mobility, and competitiveness for the entire country", he emphasised.

The President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, attends the event alongside the Minister for Education, Vocational Training and Sports, Milagros Tolón| Pool Moncloa/Borja Puig de la Bellacasa

The head of the Executive explained that the demand for Vocational Training has skyrocketed, and, in parallel, the private sector's offerings have grown more than twice as fast as the public sector's in a very short time. This expansion is not always accompanied by the same quality, the same resources, the same work placements, or a real connection with the productive sector. He also denounced the fact that there are young people who today pay between 3,000 and 9,000 euros to study a programme, while others are left out because they cannot afford it.

Expanding the network of Centres of Excellence and National Reference Centres

He also announced that the government will continue to "expand the network of Centres of Excellence and National Reference Centres, especially in strategic sectors". Specifically, 10 new centres of excellence will be established in 2026, which will receive increased investment, improved planning, and greater public funding to ensure that cutting-edge training, connected to innovation and the real needs of businesses, is available throughout the country. "We cannot allow the current success of Vocational Training to be undermined by a failure to expand this network of Centres of Excellence, and that is precisely what we are going to do".

In short, he summarised, referring to the two announced measures, "neither commodification without quality, nor growth without equity. Quality and accessibility go hand in hand, or not at all".

The President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, with the Vocational Training students who attended the event| Pool Moncloa/Borja Puig de la Bellacasa

Our VET, at the forefront of Europe

In his speech, the president emphasised the great transformation that vocational training has undergone in recent years, to the point that "talking about vocational training today is talking about the present and the future," and doing so, moreover, "with pride". "It is no longer a plan B. It is, for many, many young people, the plan A of their lives. And that, he said, is no coincidence, "it is the result of a collective commitment that we have shaped through a new Vocational Training Law" and the combination of reforms with investments aimed at modernising our productive sector, such as those in the Recovery Plan. Policies with which we have placed VET at the forefront of Europe," he said.

He also detailed that never before has so much been invested in vocational training. "We have gone from €187 million in 2018 to over €1.2 billion today, with more than €7 billion mobilised to modernise the system since we came into government". And that more young people than ever before have chosen to study vocational training, over 1.2 million. He also noted that we have a catalogue of more than 12,000 training programmes, job placement rates close to 90%, and practically 100% in many industrial sectors. Therefore, "this is not just another reform; it is a true skills revolution". And in this revolution, there must be no turning back; we can only look forward and know how to manage that success".

The head of the Executive concluded by stating that "if we are able to guarantee quality, equity, and connection with the productive sectors, Vocational Training will not only continue to be a Plan A for thousands of young people or a new beginning for adults: it will be one of our country's greatest success stories".

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• Education