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  • Education Families triple their spending on private teachers: "We dedicate 671 euros per month to extracurricular activities"

47%

of Spanish

families hire private classes to complete or extend their children's education.

The support teachers that traditionally were characteristic only of wealthy homes have spread in recent times also among those with few resources -

30%

resort to them - and already serve as support for 46% of public school students .

This is indicated by a study that the

think tank

EsadeEcPol

presents today to warn of the dimensions of the so-called shadow education, an informal sector that is poorly regulated and that frequently "offers paid classes on the same curriculum that is studied in the school system ».

The work warns that the volume of this market "has grown unstoppably so far this century" and represents an increasingly important part - almost 15% - of private spending on education.

It quantifies it at an average of

270 euros

per family per year, which gives a total of

1,700 million euros.

This figure is twice the estimate made by EsadeEcPol last year in another study on private classes based on the INE Family Budget Survey.

Now it has crossed these data with those of the Survey of Household Expenditure on Education, also from the INE, which includes more detailed information that allows a better measurement of the phenomenon, which explains these new results.

They have been able to investigate the ownership of the center, the educational stage, the economic capacity of the households and the type of classes that are taught.

And they have concluded that the proportion of users of this service almost doubles that which was estimated last year: it is used by 47% of all households with children of school age;

46%

from

the public network and

50%

from the private network.

Juan Manuel Moreno

, professor of Didactics and School Organization at Uned and author of the report together with economist

Ángel Martínez

, details that only families that use private teachers and academies that offer non-regulated studies are included in this computation.

"Conservatories, official language schools, extracurricular activities offered by the school, sports activities and stays in other countries are left out," he specifies.

Who pays?

“Private classes continue to be an investment that distinguishes the richest households, but it has also spread with great force among families at the bottom of the spending distribution.

In recent years an important class of the working class has been incorporated.

It is above all for the rich, but not only for the rich,” warns Moreno.

Specifically, they are used by

30%

of humble households and

58%

of the wealthy

Why do they do it?

«Concern about education has increased and the awareness that children have to be more competitive because the labor market is very hostile to young people.

Families are willing to go the extra mile where it is needed.

In addition, they have fewer and fewer children and less time to spend with them, and they can afford to spend more on each one”, he explains.

But the report also gives another clue: "Some will attribute it to discontent or dissatisfaction with the quality and, perhaps even more, with the quantity of learning opportunities."

What classes are they?

The data makes it possible to distinguish what type of classes the students receive.

Two out of every three euros of spending go to expand and perfect (languages, music, painting...) and the remaining euro goes to reinforce and recover the knowledge of curricular subjects (

Language

,

Mathematics

,

Physics and Chemistry

...).

This is where the heart of the matter lies, because it is assumed that these subjects would not need additional payment support and it would seem that the school is not fulfilling its proper function.

This type of classes on central subjects represent

35%

of the whole and a total cost of

587 million euros

.

«The proportion dedicated to private classes in central subjects is practically non-existent among private students, reaching

30%

of the total in the concerted network and

43%

in public students, being the most important category of spending on this network," the report says.

Households with the lowest spending capacity are also those that dedicate the most effort to this paid extra-curricular training for reinforcement and recovery.

53

%

of their spending on private classes goes to reinforcement classes, a percentage that drops to

19%

in homes with higher income, who are interested above all in non-regulated language studies (56%) and artistic education (18%).

"The percentage of spending for core curricular subjects goes down as household wealth grows," Moreno says.

public and private

Spending on private classes for families in the private network is almost three times higher than the public one and that of the private network exceeds the public one by 30%.

Both public and subsidized students spend practically the same amount on reinforcement classes and recovery of central subjects -some

90 euros per year on average-

, while spending on languages ​​(the number one priority for Spanish families ) shoots up in private:

483 euros.

stages

Expenditure increases as you advance in schooling.

«As the Selectividad approaches, the awareness grows that a tenth in the note is decisive to access the most demanded careers.

The aspirations of families have risen, who are no longer satisfied with their children simply obtaining a Bachelor's degree, but rather want them to enter Medicine and study in California, "interprets Moreno.

62%

of the

money spent by the families of the public school for private classes in Baccalaureate goes to reinforcement of the central subjects (in the subsidized it is

44%

).

What happens is that the report also accounts for an inexplicable expense to reinforce subjects such as Language or Mathematics in the second cycle of Infant (

20%

) and in Primary (

33%

) by the families of the public.

Is this investment in training that should be given in the classroom necessary?

"This data is a wake-up call that something is happening in the education system supported by public funds and that measures must be taken," the researcher replies.

More support at school

The research suggests that this extra expense in humble families would be reduced with free personalized classes or tutoring within the centers.

It advises against tax deductions for spending on private classes as is done in Andalusia or the Community of Madrid.

And it urges "consider research on the effects of private classes on educational quality and equality as a priority."

"Increasing public trust in schools is the way to prevent shadow education from being imposed as a social norm," he stresses.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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