- The investment of education departments and universities was 5,180.9 million euros, 100.6%, more than the previous year
- The transfers to the autonomous communities were multiplied by four, especially due to the investment in digitization and policies of the European Funds
- The Minister of Education and Professional Training visited today the CEIP Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente de Los Nietos (Cartagena)
Cartagena, March 3, 2023. The Minister of Education and Vocational Training, Pilar Alegría, has highlighted the historic investment of the Government in education policy, which in 2021 doubled the funds compared to 2020, according to the Statistics on Public Spending on Education. In total, the allocation to this area of all public administrations marked a new historic maximum, with 59,657.2 million euros.
“Today we have just learned the investment figures in education policy for the year 2021, where the Government of Spain made a historical investment doubling that of the previous year. The transfers to the autonomous communities were four times greater than in the previous year. This is money that has been poured directly into students and teachers in our country,” explained the minister.
According to statistics published by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, with data from the autonomous communities, the investment of the Government’s education departments and universities increased by 100.6%, to 5,180.9 million euros, of which more than half (2,892.4 million) were distributed to the autonomous communities through territorial cooperation programs.
The transfers to the autonomous communities increased by 389.7%, driven in large part by the significant investment in digitization (more than 1,000 million euros) and the other policies included in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan and financed with European funds, such as the promotion of VET (370 million in 2021), the creation of first-cycle places for children (200 million), the PROA+ reinforcement program (78 million) or the support and guidance units (almost 30 million).
This increase is also due to the increase in investment in scholarships and ministerial aid, of 24.3%, and the allocation of 770.7 million for FP for Employment, a competence that the Ministry assumed in 2021.
In total, the investment of the ministries of Education and Universities represents 8.1% of public investment in Education, which reached 59,657.2 million euros in 2021, 8.1% more than in 2020. The educational administrations of the autonomous communities accounted for 84.7% (50.510.9 million, 6.9% more than the previous year). The rest is distributed among the other ministries and departments, local administrations and social contributions.
The allocation for non-university education rose by 7.7%, to 42,950.4 million euros; the allocation for university education, 5.8%, to 10,739.4 million euros; the accredited vocational training, 37.3%, to 1,058.9 million euros; and the total scholarships and grants, including those of the Ministry and the Autonomous Communities, rose by 19.4%, to 2,491.26 million euros.
Pilar Alegría commented on this data during her visit to the CEIP Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente de Los Nietos, in Cartagena (Murcia), a center that she visited in the summer of 2021 to know her project ‘The beach is my school’, which took classes to the beach during the pandemic. The minister, who has toured the facilities and interviewed the school’s management team and students, has thanked all of them for their commitment to education, a “path in which the government is also immersed.”
“For this government, the money we allocate to education, to the training of our young people and children, is the best investment. Our words are accompanied by economic resources,” the minister stressed.