Evaluation of the programme caixaproinfancia of educational support and school accompaniment

Abstract

School failure especially affects students living in poverty. There are several compensatory education programs that aim to promote school success in these vulnerable environments, such as the Educational Support and School Accompaniment developed within the CaixaProinfancia programme. In this study we evaluated the impact of this experience considering the results of school performance of adolescents participating in this programme during the academic year 2016-17. The sample is composed by 2301 young people between 16 and 18 years old from 10 autonomous regions in Spain. Through an ad-hoc questionnaire, information was obtained for each student on different variables: a) sociodemographic variables, b) school performance and, c) the progress assessment carried out by educators of the programme. To analyse the data, descriptive and inferential statistics have been carried out, considering: a) sociodemographic variables, b) an intermediate variable of school performance created for this study that considers the school trajectory, c) the final results of stage promotion, and d) the evaluations of the educators of the programme. It has been shown that 2 out of 3 young people living in poverty have significant difficulties in their school trajectory. We found out that a positive correlation between the assessments made by the social entities and the academic performance indicator. 68.2 % of the young people graduated the last year of compulsory education, increasing up to 70,9 % among those who have participated in the academic support programme. In addition, the lower number of dropouts among participants ‘of the Caixaproinfancia academic support programme indicates the effect of the personalized accompaniment. Finally, the independence of the results regarding the nationality of young people points towards an effective equity strategy in relation to this variable.