2014_05_30_FYL_Professor José Luis González-Simancas passed away.

The Professor Emeritus of the School of Education and Psychology of the University of Navarra José Luis González-Simancas died today Friday in Pamplona at the age of 89.

González-Simancas was an educator and promoter of pedagogical initiatives with an outstanding innovative spirit. He taught at the University of Navarra for 33 years.

In 1965 he started an activity of training of secondary school teachers: a pioneering initiative that would later be oriented to promote processes of training and improvement of teachers, managers and family counselors within the high school of Sciences of the Education (ICE). This training activity was inspired by his research on the tutorial of university students in Institutes of Education of British universities and on the counseling of final year students in British schools. This research was conducted at the Institute of Education in London, then and now one of the world's leading pedagogical research centers.

The ICE had the peculiarity of promote in Spain, following the Anglo-Saxon tradition, the training of practicing professionals. The pioneers in this ambitious project together with Professor José Luis González-Simancas were Ramon Massó, Oliveros F. Otero, Gonzalo Vázquez Gámez and David Isaacs. Later they were joined by Gerardo Castillo, Ana María Navarro, María del Coro Molinos, Javier Tourón, and José Benigno Freire. This initiative, born at the University of Navarra, was included a few years later in the General Law of Education in Spain (1970), creating the Institutes of Sciences of the Education in Spanish universities.

In addition to numerous scientific articles, he also published several books, among them: Universidad y Cambio (Pamplona, EUNSA, 1969) and Pedagogía Hospitalaria. Educational activity in clinical environments (Madrid, Narcea, 1990).

A life dedicated to the Education

Professor Gonzalez-Simancas was a founding member of the "European Forum on Academic Guidance", belonged to the Spanish Society of Pedagogy, to the Spanish association Spanish School and Vocational Guidance, and to the Spanish association of Education Comparative. He did research for the Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), in London on the "English educational System" and was scholarship recipient of the "British Council" with a study on the institutes of Education of the universities of London, Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham, before importing the model of these institutes to Spain.

"Above all, he has been a teacher," says the teacher of Education María del Coro Molinos, "who initiates his disciples in the art, official document, and science of educating. A teacher is one who transmits knowledge and promotes the development of those who entrust themselves to him, not only with words, but, above all, with what he is, what he does and what he makes them do. José Luis was that teacher, but cum laude, adding to all the above his particular way of being a teacher, that is, with love, faith in the disciple and respect for his freedom".

José Luis González-Simancas Lacasa was born in Madrid on November 22, 1924. He died in Pamplona on May 30, 2014.

See Professor Javier Vergara's opinion in article

See the article opinion piece by Professor María del Coro Molinos Tejada

See article by Mª del Carmen González Torres and Coro Molinos

See article for Javier Tourón's opinion

See article by Olga Lizasoáin