Mr Speaker, Honourable Members,
Allow me to finish by mentioning the future challenges facing our country.
For a long time, the objective sought by our country could be none other than that of making up the ground lost over several centuries. Now that we have made rapid progress in just a few decades, our ambitions do not take the past as a reference, but are turned towards the future.
Spain can truly compete now, and do so under good conditions, holding a strong hand. Spaniards can aspire to take their place amongst those who face up to-and lead-social, economic, and environmental change.
The first of these challenges, because it is foremost amongst the resources available for winning the future, is to take advantage of personal talent, and the treasure of human capital. In the Knowledge Society, nothing is more strategic than having a first-rate educational system.
No one could reasonably imagine that Spain would be what it is today if its educational system were really like the caricatures sometimes spread about it. Spain owes a great deal to its schools, to its educators, to its universities, to its scientists.
Our education is not, therefore, lagging behind the country. But that is not enough; we need to clearly put it ahead of us. We need to raise our students' competence levels; provide equal quality for all; make training, and vocational training, an ongoing activity; and make available more investment and resources. New laws are not necessary; what is necessary is more effort to bring our young people up to the same basic skill levels as those in the leading countries.
We are going to decisively combat early school leaving. Our goal is for four out of every five young people to continue in school after finishing their compulsory education, whether by studying for a Baccalaureate or going into Vocational Training.
We are going to launch specific problems for raising our current levels in mastery of the Spanish language, mathematical competence, and knowledge of English.
These are all issues that I would like to propose for study at an upcoming Conference of Presidents [of Autonomous Communities].
In a university setting, we shall finish adapting to the European Higher Education Area and, through our University 2015 Strategy, which is an agreement between educational administrators and the university, we shall budget the financing necessary to attain universities of excellence that are amongst the most active and competitive in Europe.
Our commitment to education at all levels means to be effective for all. Therefore, I hereby announce that from this year on, the budgetary effort for promoting equal opportunities, and favouring success stemming from capability and effort, will be increased. The scholarship programme that we shall approve next week, if we obtain the Chamber's confidence, will raise the number of scholarships, and raise the minimum income level for eligibility by 26 percent.
Human resource training efforts are indissolubly linked to the capacity to generate knowledge and innovation, and to the intensification of our commitment to consolidating a system of research, development, and innovation whose dimension is in keeping with our true economic potential, and our demands for progress in the future.
During the past term we multiplied almost three-fold the State resources devoted to improving their impact on our society. Over the next four years, we shall double, once again, the resources for science and innovation, putting us, for the first time in our history, above the European average.
Four years, above all, of supporting and promoting technology-based companies, and especially those industries such as biotechnology, information technologies, new materials, nanotechnology, and aerospace technology. Innovation, Honourable Members, is the only way to guarantee our economy's competitiveness, and today we have a whole generation of technological pioneers who are able to lead a change of the business model in our country, and in other world economies.
Moreover, we shall approve a Statute for public research personnel, and we shall incorporate fifty thousand persons into the science and technology system, at least half of them in the business sector.
In the specific field of information and knowledge technology, we shall extend the Avanza Plan until 2012, constantly updating its objectives and actions.
We shall implement, in keeping with our previsions, the so-called "analogical shutdown", or, if you prefer, the "digital startup", in 2010, with the definitive extension of Digital Landline Television, and we shall approve a law aimed at regulating the audiovisual industry, expanding its possibilities and the watchdog measures regarding the constitutional values of its contents and child protection.
Such a set of reforms will also be applied to regulating the scientific system, with the approval or reform of a Science, Technology, and Innovation Law.
This is my idea of Spain: A country dedicated to educating its young people, dedicated to research, and open to innovation.