Aliança Educació 360 estimates that around 140,000 children between 6 and 15 years old will be excluded from extracurricular activities this year. This is clear from a survey carried out by this entity in relation to the 2022-2023 academic year, which shows that 83% of children do extracurricular activities. It is from the remaining 17% that the entity calculates the figure.
According to the study, while 92% of the wealthiest students do participate in these activities, only 66% of the most disadvantaged do so. For these, the price becomes key in 77% of cases, since it is estimated that 560 euros per child are needed to cover the annual expense.
The Aliança Educació 360 has criticized the limited free provision and has called for a full-time education policy with more aid. According to this analysis, this 17% of young people between 6 and 15 years old who do not do extracurricular activities represents 140,000 children and adolescents. That means that in a class of 25 children, four do not do any extracurricular activities.
In this sense, the study reveals that economic deprivation, place of birth and mothers' studies are conditioning factors for low or no participation in these proposals. “The lower the socioeconomic level of the families, the less intensity, continuity and variety is the extracurricular practice of children and adolescents,” pointed out those responsible for Aliança Educació 360. The extracurricular gap is observed in all areas, especially in sports, languages and art.
In addition to exclusion for economic reasons, there are other axes of inequality, such as gender or place of residence. The existing gender bias favors participation in sports activities towards boys, 68% compared to 47% of girls. In artistic ones the opposite happens. 33% of girls carry out these practices compared to 16% of boys.
Likewise, the document indicates that there is also an unequal territorial distribution of extracurricular participation. “The existence of a sufficiently affordable, close and conciliatory offer of activities in all neighborhoods and regions is a necessary condition to guarantee universal extracurricular participation,” the entity values.
The organization recognizes that in Catalonia there are multiple political initiatives to promote extracurricular participation. Thus, he has highlighted the actions that city councils have implemented in recent years, but has warned that "neither local initiatives, nor the enormous effort of social entities, nor the regional policies that work in this regard are sufficient to respond to the need for them to reflect the survey data.”
