A Comprehensive Comparison of Basic Education in Spain: The Truth Chinese Parents Should Know

Spain has a system of free and compulsory education for ages 6 to 16, covering 6 years of primary school and 4 years of secondary school.

📚 School Hours and Tuition Differences

• Spanish Public Schools: School hours are from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM, with 4 classes per day. Education is free.
• Spanish Private and International Schools: School hours are typically from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, with 6 classes per day.
  • The median tuition for private schools is approximately €6,000/year (about 50,000 RMB).
  • International schools cost around €8,000/year (about 70,000 RMB).
  • Costs vary significantly by grade level, region, and school, with differences of up to 1-2 times the median.

🏫 Teaching Staff and Pedagogical Features

• Teacher absenteeism is relatively high in Spain. A doctor’s note for sick leave is legally binding, and paid sick leave can be granted over the phone.
• Primary schools generally use a “generalist” system, where a single teacher teaches multiple subjects like English, math, humanities, science, art, and physical education, which may limit subject-specific expertise.
• Subject-specific teaching only begins in secondary school.
• The saying “the gym teacher taught my math” is not a joke in Spain but a result of the generalist system in primary schools.
• Exam scores are not ranked.

🈯 Language of Instruction and Multilingual Environment

• International schools primarily use English for instruction.
• Private and public schools mainly use Spanish.
• Autonomous communities like Valencia and Catalonia require students to learn the local regional language.
• In secondary school, a second foreign language such as French or German is added, making the multilingual workload demanding.

📖 Workload and Holiday Schedule

• There is less homework.
• The academic year is divided into three terms, with a total of about 160–180 instructional days.
• Holidays are long.

🇨🇳 Comparison with Basic Education in China

• Public Schools: School hours are from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, with 6–8 classes per day. Education is free, with some regions offering after-school programs.
• Private/International Schools: 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM, with evening self-study sessions starting in middle school, which do not exist in Spain.
  • Private: Approx. 60,000 RMB/year
  • International: Approx. 180,000 RMB/year
• The academic year is divided into two semesters, with over 190 instructional days.

🏟️ Disparity in Campus Facilities

• International schools in China often have campuses exceeding 100 acres, featuring heated swimming pools, theaters, multimedia libraries, maker labs, Olympic-standard stadiums, and even equestrian centers, golf courses, and drone and robotics labs.
• In contrast, Spanish schools are modest and compact, with simpler facilities.

📘 Curriculum and Difficulty

Many people believe that primary school math in China is much harder than abroad, but this is a long-standing misconception.

First, let’s look at age. Spanish children start school earlier. Spain’s enrollment is based on the calendar year of birth (starting from January 1st), unlike China, which requires children to be six years old by the start of the school year on September 1st. Therefore, Chinese students in the same grade are, on average, about 9 months older than their Spanish counterparts, with a maximum possible age gap of 1 year and 9 months.

Second, Spanish math textbooks introduce fractions from the first grade of primary school, whereas Chinese schools introduce the concept in the third grade. The A-Level math curriculum in the final year of high school already includes calculus.

Although Western math curricula often have greater breadth and depth than those in China, their instructional design has clear shortcomings: fewer classes, more holidays, and faster-paced teaching that relies heavily on students’ self-study and absorption. In contrast, Chinese math education is more robust in terms of class hours and systematic explanation, making it better suited for learners who need clear steps and continuous practice.

Of course, the math content taught in international schools in China is consistent with Western standards; the comparison above is only between public school curricula.

🎓 IB Score Comparison

• Spain:
  • King’s College Madrid (2024): 36 points (highest in the country)
  • Agora Lledo (highest in the Valencia region): 33.5 points
  • Mas Camarena (ranked #1 overall in Spain): 32 points
• China:
  • Shanghai Pinghe School: 40 points
  • Shanghai World Foreign Language Middle School (WFLMS): 39 points
  • At least a dozen international schools in China have an average IB score higher than 36 (Spain’s highest average).

🎯 Top University Admissions Comparison

• King’s College Madrid (2023): Out of approximately 100 graduates, received only 4 G5 offers (1 Cambridge, 1 Imperial, 1 LSE, 1 UCL), with no Oxford offers. The G5 acceptance rate is no more than 4% (as one student can receive multiple offers).
• Chinese Schools:
  • Shanghai Pinghe School (2025): 6 offers from Oxford and Cambridge, with a 77% G5 acceptance rate.
  • Shenzhen College of International Education (SCIE) (2025):
    • UK applications: 330 applicants, 41 Oxbridge pre-offers, 409 G5 pre-offers.
    • US applications: 210 applicants, 18 Ivy League/Top 10 offers, 243 Top 30 offers.

📌 Core Conclusions

• International schools in China achieve significantly higher IB and A-Level scores, giving them an advantage when applying to top universities in the UK and US.
• Even ethnic Chinese students with Spanish citizenship are still considered “Asian” in diversity-focused admissions, where scores remain the decisive factor.

🧭 Recommendations for Choosing an Education System

• Spain: Offers a relaxed education, long holidays, and is suitable for families wanting to cultivate specializations in soccer, tennis, or cycling, and a rich language environment. Achieving excellent academic results requires strong self-learning and self-discipline.
• China: Strong in test-taking skills, fast-paced, and better suited for families aiming for top universities and driven by academic achievement.

📢 Additional Thoughts: Is Exam-Oriented Education Valuable?

Some criticize Chinese-style education as “exam-oriented,” producing “high scores but low ability” and being too “involuted” (hyper-competitive).

“Exam-oriented” is not inherently a pejorative term. Its essence is to achieve good results in standardized tests like the Gaokao (National College Entrance Examination), which is one of the fairest forms of competition in Chinese society today. It offers ordinary people, especially children from humble or lower-class backgrounds, a chance to change their destiny and achieve upward social mobility.

In the admissions systems of many top Western universities, grades are often not the sole criterion. A student’s “profile”—such as family background, a golf championship title, or volunteer experience in Africa—is highly valued and often serves as a bonus for children from wealthy families. This competition of “soft power” invisibly widens the gap at the starting line, creating another form of unfairness.

Under China’s Gaokao system, however, anyone who is hardworking and talented enough can enter a top university based on merit. Excelling in the Gaokao is not achieved through rote memorization but is built on a deep understanding and flexible application of knowledge.

Starting from scratch in the early 1980s, China rapidly built up the world’s second-largest technological, military, and economic power, second only to the United States. Unlike the US, which relies on an immigrant-based talent structure—where over half of its Nobel laureates in science are immigrants, and business giants like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin, and Jensen Huang are also immigrants or children of immigrants—China’s progress has been driven entirely by engineering and technical talent cultivated by its domestic education system.

Today, Chinese researchers account for over half of the senior personnel in the AI field; China has its own space station; and it has become the “world’s factory.” All of this stems from an education system that continuously produces a vast pool of outstanding talent.

Without competition, without “involution,” it would be impossible to cultivate a large-scale workforce of engineers and technicians, and the nation’s rapid development would not have been possible. The reason European countries can afford to “lie flat” today is that they are coasting on the centuries of accumulated advantages left by their ancestors.

Spain was once the world’s first “empire on which the sun never sets.” Spanish remains the language with the second-largest number of native speakers globally, around 595 million, second only to Mandarin Chinese. Yet, Spain itself has a population of only about 47 million. Its national decline is precisely because its society gradually relaxed, and its golden age ended.

At the beginning of the last century, China was still in a semi-feudal, semi-colonial state, while the West had long completed the Industrial Revolution and developed systematic modern science. The reason China can stand today as the only great power capable of competing with the United States is that generations of Chinese people have relied on education to achieve knowledge accumulation and technological progress, and on hard work to strive for the future.

All this progress is thanks to the diligent and ambitious Chinese students and the dedicated and devoted Chinese teachers.

📣 To fall behind is to be vulnerable. Chinese people, never forget the words:
Study for the rise of China!