Educació 360 aims for education beyond school

All children have their education guaranteed. Yet, access to educational complementary activities is not in everyone’s reach, and it is no trivial matter. The ExpandED Schools project in the US concluded that at 12, the difference in hours of learning between children with access to extracurricular activities and those that don’t can be as high as 6,000 hours.

“Outside of obligatory education is where inequality can be,” says Carles Barba, the head of Educació 360, a project by the Diputació de Barcelona, the Jaume Bofill Foundation and the Federació de Moviments de Renovació Pedagògica de Catalunya. Educació 360’s philosophy is that “education does not only affect schools and teachers but the whole community,” adds Barba. “Education needs to last a lifetime, and sport, artistic activities and play are not given the educational importance they deserve,” says Barba. Getting local authorities and associations involved is a main aim of the project that began a year ago, and which wants to act as an umbrella to connect the educational initiatives in many municipalities.

In its first year, the alliance brought 60 councils on board and 40 networks of associations and schools. In its second year, the challenge is to convince the new local councils that come out of the elections in May to add their educational strategies to the project.