“Shadow Education” in Spain: how private tutoring is becoming an essential good

Spending on shadow education (SE) has grown in Spain regardless of the economic context: its volume tripled between 2006 (€246M) and 2017 (€732M), coinciding with the Great Recession. Demand appears to be inelastic, and would de facto be turning what was a luxury good into an essential good.

The relationship between SE and schooling was originally symbiotic, but it risks becoming parasitic when, instead of supplementing formal education, SE starts to supplant it. In extreme cases, this can generate very perverse dynamics.

For example, in some countries, teachers hold back part of their materials for their own private lessons. This document provides the first comprehensive estimate, based on the Household Budget Survey (EPF), of the size of this market in Spain. The incidence of SE in Spain still appears to be far from the point at which it starts to parasitise schooling:

→ Despite sustained growth throughout the period studied (2006-2020), 23% of households (and 24% of students) use private tutoring in Spain, relatively low figures compared with Asian countries and even with European ones.

→ In Spain, the impact of SE on educational equity is, as everywhere, negative (rich households spend up to five times more than the poorest households), although middle- and low-income households are increasing the share of their budgets devoted to it.

→ TIMSS 2019 data for Spain show that these lessons focus on catching up and reinforcement rather than on enrichment and extension.

→ Spending on SE in Spain is not a predominantly urban phenomenon, but is growing more strongly in small municipalities and rural areas.

→ In 2020, lockdown and its immediate consequences in Spain affected SE spending by rich households much more than that of households with lower spending.

International experience shows that regulating SE, even when successfully implemented, may not be enough to prevent SE from becoming parasitic on education. In the post-pandemic period, moreover, the proliferation of online services on a global scale presents new risks and challenges and makes regulation even more difficult. Solutions lie more in policies to contain demand for SE than in trying to curb supply.

After the pandemic, school systems will have to compete with SE in their capacity for personalisation to avoid losing more public funding in the medium term. Excessive growth of SE could translate into incentives to reduce public funding for formal education, which in turn would consolidate growing inequalities. Increasing public trust in schools will be the way to prevent SE from becoming a social norm. This requires far-reaching education policies, especially in assessment, external exams, certification of learning, personal and career guidance, and the multiplication of educational pathways that turn schooling into a race where everyone can win.