Nearly half of Spanish families pay for private ‘shadow education’
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Loading... - Mario Guedes
- 20 Feb 2023
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Study shows 47% of households with school-age children paid for lessons between 2019 and 2020.
Almost half of Spanish families pay for private classes for their children, but while richer households invest in “widening and perfecting” their offspring’s knowledge, poorer ones pay to help “repeat and reinforce” what their children learn at school, according to a thinktank report.
The study, produced by the Esade Centre for Economic Policy and titled Shadow Education in Spain, shows that €1.7bn (£1.5bn) was spent on private lessons between 2019 and 2020, with 47% of households with school-age children shelling out for them.
Languages – especially English – account for 46% of all private classes and remain the number one priority for Spanish families who pay for private lessons. The more money a family has, the more it will spend on private language classes, regardless of the kind of education it chooses for its children.
However, the report lays bare a series of socioeconomic inequalities when it comes to how much is spent – and to what ends.
Families with children in state education accounted for almost two-thirds of the total spent on private lessons, with those with children at private and semi-private schools (concertados) making up the remainder. But while families of state schoolchildren spent an average of €235 on private classes per student, that figure rose to €300 for those in concertado education and €606 for those in fully private education. Read More…
