Schools and institutes have had to manage 50,000 cases of students who change schools mid-year.

BarcelonaLast year, Catalan schools and secondary schools had to manage more than 50,000 cases of students who changed schools mid-year. This is evident from the data released this Tuesday by the Department of Education.

With this information, the Catalan government is beginning to shed light on the fact that shook the Catalan education system and dominated political debate almost six months ago: the more than 70,000 students enrolled in live classes that Education Minister Esther Niubó explained in a parliamentary committee that the Catalan school had received during the first months of the 2024-2025 academic year.

Education sources have detailed this Tuesday that "the flow" - not the number of students - of live enrolment in compulsory education (pre-school, primary and ESO) between September 15, 2024, and June 1, 2025, was 77,743. It should be remembered that a live enrolment is considered when a student arrives at a new school outside of the enrolment period or in the middle of the year.

From this flow, according to government data, it is concluded that there were more than 50,000 cases in which a student had to change schools or institutes in the middle of the year, with the reception work that this entails for the centers. Furthermore, Educació details that, within the current enrollment data, there are also 27,254 students who joined the Catalan education system for the first time outside of the enrollment periods. These are students who are arriving at a Catalan school or secondary school for the first time "either because they have arrived in Catalonia from another part of Spain, from another country, or because they were previously enrolled in a foreign private school, a school not authorized by the department, or an adult school."

However, Educació clarifies that the current enrollment figure (77,743) is not equivalent to the number of students who have entered the Catalan education system for the first time or who have changed schools: "It must be taken into account that the same student can generate more than one flow throughout a school year," the ministry explains. That is, a student can make more than one change.

Why are they changing centers?

Although Educació doesn't have details on the circumstances of the more than 50,000 cases in which a student had to change schools or institutes last year, Maria Segurola, an expert in public policy data analysis at the Bofill Foundation, acknowledges that family precariousness often lies behind this. "There's always the exception of a family of doctors who changes municipalities, but, in general, we know that students who change schools during the course come from a more complex situation," she warns.

In this sense, the expert explains that, for the most part, the profile of a student enrolled in a live program is a vulnerable student: "These are realities that have to do with economic poverty and also with the issue of housing." And he gives the example of a family living in a municipality whose mother loses her job. They change towns and schools because they're going to live with a cousin for a while. Later, they change homes and, therefore, schools again because the mother has found temporary work in a coastal town. "These are students who are already in the Catalan education system, but who face many socioeconomic difficulties," he insists.

In fact, Segurola points out that when it comes to schooling, there are municipalities that are more "passing through" and others that are more of a "final destination." For this reason, there are towns, such as those on the coast, that have many seasonal jobs or communities where immigrants often arrive for the first time, which have a much higher level of permanent enrollment than others.