Morning-only school days would cost families €8.048 bn per year, according to EsadeEcPol report
Continuous or morning-only school days would cost Spanish families €8.048bn according to the latest policy brief published by EsadeEcPol, entitled “Continuous school days: How the pandemic is accelerating a regressive educational and social model” written by Lucas Gortazar, director of education at EsadeEcPol; Marta Ferrero, professor in the education faculty at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), and Ángel Martínez, analyst at EsadeEcPol. This finding is the result of analyzing, for the first time, the economic impact of the two current forms of school days – morning-only (continuous) and full-day (morning and afternoon) – on households with children aged 3 to 12 (in infant and primary education) based on data from the quality-of-life survey.
The comparative analysis also highlights that in households with children attending morning-only school and no after-school childcare, the working hours of at least one family member must be curtailed to no more than 25-28 hours a week: and the affected family members are women in 66.4% of cases. “These findings are important and reveal for the first time the enormous social, economic and gender-equality costs for Spanish families caused by the increasing implementation of morning-only (continuous) school days,” explained Ángel Martínez, analyst at EsadeEcPol and co-author of the report.
Advantages of full-day education for pupils
The EsadeEcPol report also studied the impact on pupils of the two different school days and, although it concluded that there is no concrete evidence about their impact on academic performance, certain correlative studies do indicate that the full school day (morning and afternoon) is associated with better results.
There is, however, evidence that teaching time and non-teaching time at school, similar to that during full school days, have a positive impact on pupils in academic and socio-emotional terms, and that an early lunch followed by a break are better for their biorhythms, health, sleep patterns and wellbeing. According to Marta Ferrero, professor in the UAM education faculty and co-author of the report, “If we regard pupils as the focal point of education policies, all rigorous empirical literature indicates the importance of long school days with relatively early lunches, the exact opposite of the current situation.”
Teachers prefer morning-only school days
In view of the increasing numbers of schools adopting morning-only (continuous) days, particularly in state-run infant and primary schools following the pandemic, the report’s authors surveyed 2,147 teachers across Spain about their school’s attitude to this measure. Amongst schools with a full day, 44.5% are currently discussing the adoption of morning only, and 28.7% have activated ballots to make it a reality.
The teachers surveyed by EsadeEcPol consider that morning only is better than full day. When asked about the main benefits of morning only rather than full day, 93.1% responded pupil learning, and 65.5%, work-life balance which contrasts with the inherent benefits that the school day has for teachers in terms of work-life balance, which teachers regard as less of a reason for justifying it. The differences of opinion between teachers and the evidence in the report may be due to a certain subjectivity amongst teachers as regards their assessment of morning-only school days, which focuses more on their own opinions than on rigorous research about the impact of morning-only (continuous) school days.
Politically feasible proposal for full school day
On the basis of the findings of the EsadeEcPol report that the full school day is the best way to meet pupils’ needs and the fact that the education system, according to the report, “is moving in the opposite direction,” the authors suggest that full school days in primary and infant education would enable families to earn more, resulting in an increase of €1.2 billion in income tax receipts. This would make the widespread implementation of full school days politically feasible.
In their opinion, this increase should focus on three essential items of public investment: one to increase the number and amount of grants for school dinners to reach 40% of all pupils; another to develop and improve the infrastructures at state-run primary and infant schools so that they all have a canteen in the medium and long term; and a third item to increase teachers’ wages to compensate the additional hours in school. “We believe that it is possible to advance towards politically feasible, full-time education offering a cost-benefit balance to everyone involved”, concluded Lucas Gortazar, director of education at EsadeEcPol and co-author of the report.
