The Professional Selection Courses at the Teacher Training College of Lleida (1931–1936): A Presentation of the Existing Pedagogical and Administrative Documentation for Their Study

Abstract

This article studies the “cursillos de selección profesional” during the Second Spanish Republic (1931-1936) in the province of Lleida. It presents the documentation we have consulted so far to study this primary school public examinations at the Normal School of Lleida, directed by Josepa Úriz Pi, member of the Lleida pedagogical renewal movement Batec. This documentation is in the Archive and Document Management Service of the University of Lleida, the Historical Archive and Documentary Heritage of the University of Barcelona and the General Archive of the Administration in Alcalá de Henares. The article highlights the administrative and pedagogical nature of these manuscripts as well as their potential for the study of how the legislation relating to these public examinations, designed and decreed from Madrid, was put into play in the province of Lleida. The article outlines how this documentation allows us to point to the working hypothesis we are currently developing: the possible pedagogical connection between the training courses as they were implemented at the Normal School of Lleida, especially those of 1931, and the Leridan pedagogical renewal movement Batec, which was strongly influenced by the French educator Célestin Freinet.