Private centers, especially those offering educational courses online, have taken advantage of the void left by the Administration in the field of Vocational Training (FP). A report by the CC OO union presented this Wednesday points out that the dignification of FP — now the choice of 59% of young people — has not been accompanied by sufficient public support. The lack of public course offerings and places has pushed students to seek a private alternative, with an increasing prominence of online courses. Students enrolled in a private course, whether in-person or online, already represent 45.5% of the total in Catalonia: “FP is now a conscious choice for students; they no longer choose it by default. But there is no freedom of choice when the public offer is nonexistent. The problem is not that private offerings exist, the problem is that the public ones are insufficient,” said Ana Franganillo, head of the Youth area of CC OO Education in Catalonia.
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The growth of FP, both in intermediate and higher levels, is something the Administration had been pursuing for some time. For many years denigrated as a second option compared to university degrees, the prestige of FP has increased recently, especially after the financial crisis. In Spain, today there are more than 1.2 million people enrolled in FP, 200,000 more than in the 2022-2023 academic year (a 20% increase), and in Catalonia the growth has been 12.1%. “The growth is not accidental but responds to a need to have a job, to have qualifications,” said Franganillo.
The problem is that, despite encouraging this increase in enrollments, the Administration has not been able, according to the union’s complaint, to provide an adequate and broad offer to cover this increased demand. “FP is growing, but the public system is not supporting this growth,” lamented the union representative. The general secretary of CC OO Education in Catalonia, Eduard Núñez, regretted that private centers are the ones covering the lack of supply. “We do not agree because education is a right of the citizens, not a market commodity. All FP demand must be guaranteed from the public sector,” Núñez stated, calling for more resources and greater regulation.
This lack of public offer has been exploited by private centers, and since the COVID-19 pandemic, which boosted online platforms, more and more of these courses are offered over the Internet. Last year, 45.5% of FP students were already in private centers, according to Franganillo. “This is very serious. It is a forced choice: many young people do not enter the public FP they want because there are not enough places. And a significant part of the increase in enrollments occurs in the private distance modality,” she detailed. These courses can cost between 1,500 and 12,000 euros, “which excludes many families.” The union clarifies that it is not against online courses, which can be very useful to complement the public in-person network for people with work obligations and for those living far from in-person centers. “But in the last decade, there has been an accelerated expansion,” she recalled.
Between the 2018-2019 and 2024-2025 academic years, according to the report, FP students in private intermediate distance courses have grown by 182%, 18.5 times more than in the public sector. In higher-level courses, the private online offer has grown by 173% in the same period, 13.5 times more than in the public sector.
“These online courses have a higher risk of dropout and are of lower quality,” explained Franganillo, who gave an example: clinical diagnostic FP is only offered publicly and in-person, throughout Catalonia, in one center in Barcelona. If a student who wants to attend cannot enter because there are no places left, they have to go to a private center, either in-person or online. “There are specific areas where the public offer is clearly insufficient compared to the demand they have,” she said. These most affected training cycles are those that require machinery, especially in health or mechanics areas, because they require a very strong investment, maintenance, and space. “The private sector partially outsources these things or simply does not meet the standards,” the union points out.
Another area of Vocational Training that has been demanded for years is Dual FP, which allows part of the courses to be done working directly in a company. The CC OO report applauds the promotion of these cycles but warns that they are not without risks. “The business structure in Catalonia is made up of small companies; 43% of them have no salaried workers. The key to the success of FP is that companies have the capacity to train students within the companies. The risk is that it normalizes the replacement of workers by students and the use of cheap labor,” warned Franganillo.