The increase in investment does not reverse the chronic problems of the school

BarcelonaMore poor students, more students needing support, and an investment that, despite increasing, is not managing to improve educational results. This is the radiography of the situation of Catalan education provided by Equitat.org – formerly Fundació Bofill – in its 2026 yearbook.

The report, directed by UPF professor of educational policies Francesc Pedró and specialist in inequalities and educational policies Miquel Àngel Alegre, shows how "the lack of tools to respond to social inequalities in school" prevents the improvement of the system's quality and educational results, which they label as "mediocre". In this regard, the authors of the yearbook point out that, although public spending per student has increased by 900 euros compared to 2021, the increase in vulnerability and "structural underfunding" are preventing any improvement in classrooms. "Academic results have not improved, and this has ended up producing a stagnation, or even a setback, in the main indicators of progress and educational trajectories of young Catalans," they warn in the document.

In this way, the report shows how the liquidated budget of the Department of Education has gone from 5,019 million euros in 2011 to 7,926 million last year, but it also cites setbacks in PISA as examples – in the last edition Catalonia dropped between 30 and 40 points, the equivalent of an academic year – or in basic competencies, where the proportion of students with a low level of mathematics has gone from 14.9% to 17.5%.

Lower proportion of secondary school graduates

Another example of the stagnation of the Catalan education system can be found in the rate of ESO graduates, which after many years of rising or remaining stable, has fallen consecutively in the last five academic years. The graduation rate has gone from 93% to 86% in the 2024-2025 academic year. Although high, this is the lowest ESO graduation rate in almost 15 years.

On the other hand, the authors of the yearbook also warn that early school leaving — adolescents who do not continue studying after ESO — disproportionately affects the poorest young people: the percentage of low-income students who do not continue their studies has gone from 20.1% in 2023 to 25.3% in 2025. In fact, early school leaving only increases in the group of students with the lowest income.

In contrast, the total percentage of students who do not continue studying has fallen from 14.8% to 13.5% in the same period of time and, in the case of students with higher purchasing power, it stands at 3.8%. The gap between social classes is also reflected outside of school: students from more affluent families participate in extracurricular activities twice as many days as their classmates from lower classes.

Underdetection of vulnerability

Beyond academic results, the yearbook also focuses on the detection and impact of vulnerability in schools and institutes. In this regard, the data from the report allow us to conclude that since 2020, the proportion of students with socioeconomic needs detected in Catalan institutes has multiplied by four (from 6.8% of adolescents to 29.3%). However, this increase in cases detected in recent years does not mean that there has been a massive increase in poor students.

"It's as simple as that until recently this was not looked at. The data says that in 2020 there were 6% of vulnerable students, but Catalonia has never had those levels of social vulnerability," clarifies the head of projects at Equitat.org, Maria Segurola. In this sense, she gives a very clear example: the two Catalan centers with the highest proportion of vulnerable students (over 90%), in the 2020-2021 academic year, had 22% detected. "It is impossible that it has grown so much in these years, what happens is that at that time this student was not detected," insists the researcher. Segurola explains that behind the increase in detection, which she highlights as good news, are tools such as the pact against school segregation, the application of the admissions decree in municipalities, and incentives. "Now detection is accompanied by an economic amount, the so-called backpacks, and this generates an incentive for educational centers to carry it out," she explains.

Beyond the reasons for the increase in detection, the reality is that last year one in three Catalan students —whether in early childhood education, primary or ESO— was classified as NESE B, that is, children and adolescents who need reinforcement for socioeconomic reasons.

More resources, but where they are needed

Faced with the "chronicization" of vulnerability and the fall in educational results, the authors of the yearbook warn that one of the main problems is that investment in education is increasing, but action is not being taken in the most critical areas. "Investing linearly, that is, allocating undifferentiated resources taking mainly into account the number of students or centers that will receive them, without considering what they are like or what needs they have, ends up being highly inefficient in contexts of chronic educational inequality and with entrenched pockets of poor results strongly linked to the social origin of the population," warns the report.

Thus, among other things, it is proposed that educational centers be financed with equity criteria, both in terms of financial aid and the number of teachers. They also urge a review of the complexity level of schools and institutes, as well as the degree of vulnerability. Furthermore, it is requested to expand financial aid for NESE B, that the reduction of ratios be asymmetric —according to the needs of the centers—, more support and inclusive education professionals, a specific scholarship policy for post-compulsory education, and more basic vocational training places to combat early school leaving.