Spain/ 8.3 Arts and cultural education  

8.3.4 Higher arts education and professional training

With respect to higher education, arts courses are offered within and outside of universities, as university qualifications or higher level arts education (see also chapter 8.3.2). Almost all of the students who take arts courses at university level studied arts at secondary school. In this respect, the fine arts degree is the only one in the Spanish university sector that has a specific secondary school qualification.

University studies are organised into undergraduate courses (bachelor's degrees) and postgraduate courses (master's degrees, postgraduate programmes, doctoral programmes, etc.). The qualifications that are obtained may be official and homologated, with official recognition in the entire Spanish state, or University-specific degrees, which are only recognised by the universities that issue them. The Bologna process that started in 2005 with pilot schemes in some areas and in both cycles is since 2010 official in undergraduate and postgraduate courses. In terms of fine arts courses, the Spanish universities proposed degrees in fine arts, design and conservation and restoration that should replace the existing courses.

Recently, the Ministry of Education has approved the Royal Decree 707/2011 that creates the specialty of Flamenco in the higher training cycle of Music, within the scheme of arts education. With this new specialty, the Ministry seeks to ensure the preservation of an art traditionally linked to oral transmission.

Regarding the "Cultural Statistics Yearbook 2012", the number of  students enrolled in university education, diplomas or degrees related to the cultural professions amounted to 103 171 in the academic year 2010-2011, which was 6.3% of university students.

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