The rate of school failure in Spain is in excess of 30%, a figure which Marquès described as “unacceptable”. Using a bimodal curriculum, i.e. a curriculum based on a bimodal approach, the failure rate would drop to 10% according to results obtained in eighteen schools that have been trying out the system. Marquès’s lecture focused on the main characteristics of the bimodal curriculum and how it can be implemented in the school system.

The bimodal curriculum contains some elements that allow students to rely on the use of notes and others that do not. The system makes use of information technology which, according to Marquès, “helps the children learn many things, though it does not improve their memories”.

The bimodal curriculum combines two types of activities: on the one hand, individual and collaborative practical activities designed to create a knowledge base of personalized notes for use in exams; and, on the other, memorizing activities that involve students compiling their own lists of vocabulary, dates and facts.

According to Marquès, the key is therefore “having a very good memory or keeping very well-organized notes”.