Master’s in Secondary Education Teacher Preparation has solidified its status as the postgraduate program with the highest enrollment in Spain, with more than 40,000 students in the 2024-2025 academic year, according to data from the Integrated University Information System. The figure places this program ahead of other degrees such as Business Administration and Management (18,507 students) and Law (16,348).
This growth coincides with a period of profound transformation in the education system. Future teachers must operate in increasingly digital, multicultural, and multigenerational environments, in which artificial intelligence will play a key role in planning, evaluating, and supporting students.
Education in Spain is evolving toward a lifelong learning model, in which diverse learner profiles coexist: young people, professionals undergoing retraining, international students, or individuals who combine study and work. This context demands new competencies and greater adaptability from teachers.
95% of secondary school teachers in Spain are satisfied with their jobs
Despite the changes, teaching maintains a high level of professional satisfaction. According to the TALIS 2024 report, 95% of secondary school teachers in Spain report being satisfied with their work, six points above the OECD average. However, 64% identify administrative workload as one of their main sources of stress.
The profession remains a vocation, but increasingly demanding. More time is spent on tasks outside the classroom, and there is a constant need to adapt to technological advances.
In this scenario, initial teacher training can no longer be limited to disciplinary content or basic digital skills. AI literacy is emerging as a central element, not only to handle new tools, but to understand their limits, ethical criteria, and integration into the educational process without losing pedagogical control.
The challenge is no longer whether AI will be present in classrooms, but how it will be used to respond to increasingly complex educational environments without increasing teachers’ workload.
Agentive AI is gaining ground in education in Spain
Unlike traditional chatbots, these systems enable automating more complex tasks within the teaching workflow, such as content organization, material creation, feedback generation, or academic planning.
Tools like IgniteAI Agent, Instructure’s AI agent for education—the leading learning technology ecosystem and creator of the Learning Management System (LMS) Canvas—are already being explored by some educational institutions in Spain. Among its applications are rubric automation, optimization of assessment processes, management of discussion forums, and analysis of student participation to detect potential risk situations.
These solutions enable complete workflows to be automated within educational platforms, facilitating course organization and the management of routine tasks.
If integrated responsibly, AI can contribute to improving the working conditions of the teaching profession, reducing administrative burden without sacrificing pedagogical judgment or the bond with students.
“The growth of the Master’s in Teacher Preparation confirms the relevance of the teaching profession in Spain and the challenge of advancing AI literacy that frees up time for teaching. AI agents can reduce operational burden as long as they are integrated into a technological ecosystem designed to support, and not substitute, the professional judgment of teachers,” says Eumari Bonilla Cartier, Instructure’s regional director for Spain.
