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Background on doctoral training for the proposed program and data on potential demand for the program
The adaptation of Spanish university education in all its cycles to the EHEA requires the reconversion of postgraduate and doctoral studies; In order to respond to these changes, the Faculty of Education of the ULL began to adapt its training offer from the beginning of the process (2008) and currently has a Doctorate Program in force -although in the process of transformation- which includes as an access route all the official masters currently taught in the Faculty of Education, 2 in operation (Master in Psychopedagogical Intervention in formal and non-formal contexts and Master in Teacher Training in Compulsory Secondary Education and Baccalaureate, Vocational Training and Language Teaching), 1 approved by ANECA and in the process of implementation, Master in ICT and Education: Training and learning in digital environments, and 3 more that have been made viable and are in different stages of the verification process (Master in Advanced Pedagogical Studies, Master in Human Development and Sustainability, Master in Innovation in Early Childhood Education and Primary Education). However, in the future, any master's degree offered by the Faculty of Education will also be a direct access route to the Doctoral Program that is being presented.
In this regard, the Commission responsible for preparing this Feasibility Plan considered that the special characteristics of doctoral studies and the variety of needs and methods of research training in the different fields of knowledge, advise this high degree of flexibility and breadth in the regulation of these studies.
A brief summary of the precedents in the field of research training and production of doctors, which includes the extensive experience of the different departments and areas of knowledge that make up this Center, endorse the heuristic trajectory of this faculty and supports the present proposal. This is demonstrated by the variety of programs offered since the beginning of doctoral studies in Spain in the form of regulated third-cycle studies. chart The coordinated departmental and interdepartmental programmes that have been taught at the ULL Faculty of Education since 1986 are shown here. In addition, the faculty has participated in programmes at other faculties and other national and international universities.
The Faculty of Education of the ULL, in the current Doctorate in Education program, hosted the departmental programs in force until its extinction, and in the last decade 34 doctoral theses have been defended in our Faculty. In the last 5 years 15 doctoral theses have been read, not including in this count the other collaborations in direction or co-direction of theses with other faculties in national and international universities. Currently we have 70 students enrolled in the Doctoral Thesis phase and there are already 51 thesis projects registered. In monitoring the progress of our doctoral students in the phase of preparing their thesis, the forecast is that at least 8 doctoral theses will be read and defended in the 2013/14 academic year.
Taking into account the number of students who have graduated from the degrees that are being discontinued (166 between the two bachelor's degrees in Pedagogy and Psychopedagogy and 417 from the four specialities of Teaching), the number of students enrolled in the different degrees in the current academic year 2013-2014 (690 in Early Childhood Education Teacher; 924 in Primary Education Teacher; 899 in Pedagogy; 27 in the Early Childhood Degree Adaptation Course; and 57 in the Primary Degree Adaptation Course: 57), as well as the graduates (121 in 2011/2012) and enrolled (129 in 2012/2013) in the two Master's degrees currently taught at the Faculty of Education of the ULL, the consideration of the increase in the student population interested in continuing postgraduate and doctoral studies in this field of knowledge will be notable in the short term. Furthermore, the increase in international cooperation relations that this Centre has been experiencing in recent years is reflected in the interest aroused by students from other latitudes to undertake Master's and PhD studies at this Faculty. The demand, then, to expand the range of Master's degrees on offer, as well as to consolidate a Doctorate Programme in Education in line with the requirements of training, research, innovation and social transfer of knowledge, justifies the proposals for viability and verification in progress, emanating from a Faculty aware of the urgent need to provide adequate responses to such present and future demands.
For all these reasons, we consider it necessary to accommodate the research traditions of the different areas of knowledge of the Faculty of Education of the ULL in the Doctoral Program in Education that is now proposed, presenting a Doctoral Program that contains two major lines of research, namely:
Line 1. Research and innovation in education. Sublines: – Pedagogical Thought: politics, society, development and sustainability. – Design, development, methods and evaluation of teaching and learning processes.
Line 2. Teaching and learning in specific areas of knowledge. The research topics are derived not only from the elements involved in each of the main lines, but also from the different levels of analysis derived from the contexts of action: educational system, center, classroom and educational agents, as well as from the different levels of action: early childhood education, primary, secondary, university, non-formal or community education and lifelong education.
Relationship of the proposal with the current R&D&I situation of the professional scientific sector of the thematic area.
The two proposed lines of research are linked to the European Strategy Europe 2020, which includes among its five generic objectives, two closely related to the lines of research promoted by this Doctoral Program, namely:
1. Improve education levels and reduce school failure rates. 2. Promote social integration by reducing poverty and social exclusion.
The recent State Plan for Scientific, Technical Research and Innovation 2013-16, approved by the Council of Ministers on 1 February 2013, includes four objectives, one of which is the Promotion of R&D&I actions aimed at the Challenges of society, in order to contribute to solving the present and future needs of our society, in line with the challenges of the Spanish strategy and the European strategy reflected in the Horizon 2020 programme. Many of these challenges include social change and transformation, which requires educational systems to implement educational strategies aimed at raising awareness and acquiring new habits and behaviours in the face of a new society oriented towards sustainability, technological development and well-being. In developing how to meet this challenge, the National Plan adds: "Research in social sciences and humanities, as well as research that incorporates the gender perspective, will have a transversal character and as such will be incorporated into the development of scientific-technical research and innovations aimed at finding solutions to all the challenges of society. Research in education therefore becomes a social need of priority order of research and innovation: a) the citizens of the knowledge society need other educational attentions and other ways of teaching and learning; b) the educational challenges of today's societies require new, proven knowledge to meet the new demands of educational contexts. Communication and information technologies, intercultural education, gender equality and respect for diversity of all kinds, lifelong education, are just some examples of these new challenges.
For this reason, the National R&D&I Plan 2011-2015, among its five priority sectors, includes education, socio-cultural and economic sectors, which establishes that the acquisition of qualified human resources begins with the lowest levels of education, and therefore requires developing continuous learning capacities among its citizens: These capacities not only allow the acquisition of key competences with which to guarantee employability, but also contribute to activating and developing an active citizenship, with a critical spirit, capable of addressing social and intercultural dialogues, which can lead to a change in the economic development model, in line with what is promulgated by the European strategy Education and Training 2020 (ET 2020).
Finally, among the lines of research of the Government of the Canary Islands, proposed by the Canary Islands Agency for research, innovation and information society, the mechanisms for establishing the objectives and priorities of the research and innovation policy of the Autonomous Community in the medium term are defined, and a specific sectoral area is that of educational and cultural development of the Canary Islands.
Other more specific initiatives in the educational field that support research in education in the Canary Islands are those of the Canary Foundation for the promotion of education of the Government of the Canary Islands. Among its aims are: a) The management of educational cooperation programmes with developing countries, especially in Africa and Latin America, following the guidelines of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports; b) The promotion of relations with other institutions with functions of management of aid for study, research and cooperation.
The Canary Islands, being a geographically isolated territory, present educational scenarios with limitations which derive from situations with specific educational needs and therefore demand specific attention. Limited private educational offer, mobility difficulties, scarce social, industrial and natural environment are some of these limitations, as well as a densely populated area with high percentages of foreign population, and visitors due to the tourist industry that characterizes our area.
This contextual weakness that characterizes us and at the same time gives us a privilege due to our strategic location, has led to the unification of objectives with those of other local initiatives such as the Pact for Education in the Canary Islands, led by the Department of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands, and the Tricontinental Campus of Excellence of the University of La Laguna.
This proposal, therefore, not only aims to accommodate all real and potential research paths, but also to encourage the advances, openings and avant-garde developments that are taking place in the field of production of pedagogical knowledge, as well as its social transfer. All of this is inserted in a broader master plan that addresses a new general map of postgraduate qualifications, also expanding the range of master's degree offerings in accordance with the training needs prior to the new heuristic proposal of the doctoral phase.
At a time of consolidation of academic convergences in the European space, we intend to open this spatial and conceptual range - which incorporates the divergences - stopping in Latin America and Africa; coherent with that south of the north that constitutes the Canary Islands, a bridge of union and affective and intellectual assembly between continents; especially paying attention, due to its strategic geographical location and historical presences, to the unique and evident tradition of connection of this region with the African and Latin American continents.
The University of La Laguna has always paid special attention to its role as a bridge for international relations, so that its links with different academic and cultural institutions in this geographical area have become key strategic values within our internationalisation policy. To a large extent, as a result of this distinctive feature, numerous studies have emerged in a multitude of areas of knowledge, joint research projects, a broad relationship of exchanges and many cooperation agreements. The university, social and political context of the Canary Islands cannot be excluded from the tricontinental project on which the University of La Laguna bases its status as a campus of excellence.
This Academic Commission has also considered the need to promote this flexible and diverse postgraduate offer, in terms of content, characteristics and performance modalities, in order to expand and feed from there the important international projection. In particular, to nourish and renew our traditional relations and interests also in the extra-community sphere (that is, to promote that other privileged place of exchange with Latin America and Africa, that of postgraduate training and joint research). All this, without ignoring the entire network of agreements and contracts established within the European Environment, as an administratively independent territory. In this sense, it should be noted that the Faculty of Education of the ULL has not been alien to the mobility of students and teachers through the programs regulated for this purpose, nor to the beginning of joint research and publication strategies with European colleagues from a wide geographical origin.
Integration of the doctoral programme within a doctoral network
The University of La Laguna is in the process of creating the Doctoral School, of which this program will be a part. Its creation was approved by the Governing Council on September 26, 2013.
Full-time and part-time studies
From the student forecast, it is estimated that 2/3 (approx. 16 students) will do so full-time, and 1/3 (approx. 8 students) part-time.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]