I am not talking of Spain in general, but only Canary islands. If you compare regions in Spain, CI are the worst in terms of (school) education. In the (industrial) north, things are better. Here are also some very intelling and educated people, great researchers and horticultural aficionados, but unfotunatelly they are a little minority...
In my opinion the reason that we do not have a more intellectual society is the warm climate, which makes the people lazy... it's more fun hanging up at the beach, then reading a book...
Over the years I have tried to introduce tropical fruit and donated a lot of plants to many people, but its very hard to wake up the interest for new things. And when I explained the difference among cultivars, they mixed up the plants and lost the tags. One year ago I gave a friend 10 diffenrent labeled pitayas, told him to keep the labels so he could later identify them... one year later he does not have a clue which ones he did plant...