UCM’s Teacher Training Center, the first educational institute created in Spain, this June 21 marks its 30th anniversary. To celebrate this unforgettable day, several important people attended a roundtable, revealing the college’s new logo and subsequently planting a tree at the entrance to the center. As Dean Gonzalo Jover points out, the college has produced more than 50,000 educators over the years, and today the college is a benchmark in the field, with many of its degrees topping the quality rankings.
The Royal Decree of September 27, 1991, authorizes the creation of the first Faculty of Education in Spain at the University of Complutense, which incorporates all the then institutions dedicated to the training of educators: then named Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, María Díaz Jiménez and Pablo Montesinos University Teacher Training School and Institute of Educational Sciences (ICE). But as Professors María José Fernández Díaz, Antonio Moreno González and Arturo Romero Salvador say, many things happened before and after the royal decree that made the creation of the Academy possible.
For Antonio Moreno, who was director of the María Díaz Jiménez school in 1991, much of the credit for creating the academy must go to the political leaders of the time, who decided to include an additional clause in the LOGSE, approved a year earlier, which sparked the The Royal Decree that later authorized the Academy’s statutes. As already mentioned, Minister Javier Solana from Complutense and Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, then Minister of State for Education, were personally involved, as was Moreno himself. He established friendly relations. In the process of creating the Academy, everything was done to make it possible. According to Prof Moreno, the restoration of the building where the academy is located (the former headquarters of the Women’s Ministry of the Franco National Movement) cost more than 800 million pesetas, paid for by the Ministry of Education.
Dean Gonzalo Jover showcased the center’s new logo, which was recently approved by his faculty committee. This new logo is the work of Professor Julio Romero Rodríguez. It combines the silhouette of a building with that of a tree. The idea was to combine organic and inorganic things in one logo. As the Dean explains, the tree identifies the world of education through a powerful metaphor of its growth process. The tree, in turn, is a symbol of the multidisciplinary nature of science, which is one of the characteristics of the Academy, as it trains educators in all fields of knowledge.
Principal Joaquín Goyache oversaw the closing ceremony of the celebration, congratulating the Academy on its successful journey and current achievements, and ensuring that the principal collaborates as needed to continue to improve. He also took the opportunity to claim the need for a national pact on education where education would no longer be altered by political ups and downs.
