Esade has just published a study, "Expenditure on shadow education ('Shadow Education')", in which it underlines how investment in private classes in Spain has tripled between 2006 (246 M€) and 2017 (732 M€). €), coinciding with the great recession. He warns of the possibility that this additional education “ falls into the parasitism of formal education instead of supplementing it”, and that it can “generate very perverse dynamics. For example, in some countries, teachers save some of their materials for their own private lessons.”
Inequality in education is growing, the report concludes, "because only the wealthiest families can afford to invest massively in private tutors and other even more sophisticated services from the increasingly diverse shadow education system." In the Spanish case, “the expenditure of households with the largest budget (those in the 20% of households that spend the most) is five times higher in private classes than the quintile of households with the lowest expenditure (Q1)”. In short, private lessons, to the extent that they depend on the income of families, and to the extent that there is less and less capital available for most of them, are becoming a luxury good.
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from early ages
This fact is very relevant today, to the extent that "where there are very competitive exams for access to secondary education or higher education, 'shadow education' appears strongly and grows unstoppable ." Private classes are, for many people, an instrument that allows their children not to fall behind in certain subjects, a way of promoting their ability in some disciplines or a way of acquiring new knowledge. But what the study underlines for us is that these classes are now necessary to achieve a competitive status that guarantees them access to good schools or universities. In addition to these kinds of exams and selection mechanisms, the truth is that professional careers are increasingly demanding, and access to the best jobs is usually closed to people with the best academic records from a small number of universities and educational institutions. Additional preparation becomes very important from an early age if you want to belong to that group whose career path seems brilliant.
"The fundamental agenda of 'shadow education' is to pass and stand out, not necessarily to learn"
The problem is complicated because, in addition to this elite selection mechanism, there is a contraction in the possibilities of the rest. The academic qualification does not carry with it the possibility of having a good salary, or even of being employed in the sector in which one has a degree. The fit between the training received and the jobs available is increasingly complicated , sometimes in the form of low or very low wages, sometimes in the form of impossibility of access. For this reason, the kind of education received, the one that can be afforded financially, is especially significant: it no longer marks access to places of privilege, but rather the simple possibility of working, that is, of making money, effort and time invested. That is inequality, the one that derives from a few very well-paid jobs, many poorly paid, and deep unemployment.
Of course, it is not that this type of education brings greater knowledge, which occasionally happens. As the report warns, “the fundamental agenda of shadow education is to pass and stand out, not necessarily to learn. This obviously does not imply that it cannot also contribute to the learning agenda, and it is safe to do so in many cases. In fact, it is common for HE to be advertised as the option that offers the student the quality of education that the formal school supposedly does not have the capacity to provide . Even so, learning is not its primary objective, so it would not be unreasonable to suggest that HE is more at the service of credentialism than of the quality of learning ”.
The learned mindset
This emphasis on credentialism is something that a good part of the middle, lower-middle and working classes do not fully understand. The premise is that this is a world of competition, of struggle, of fighting for goods and for scarce positions. Reaching the lucky environments requires effort, but, above all, a fighting mentality, feeling among the chosen ones, or pretending to be among them . But that mentality must be learned, it is not forged with 20 years, but from childhood: the world is war, you are a warrior and a powerful one.
That good education that insisted on showing humility and moderation in success is today a source of professional prejudice.
It is a hostile mentality for a large part of the population, which continues to believe that the effort to have adequate knowledge is fundamental, as well as developing the intelligence to know how to use it; He believes that by performing a task well and being able to solve the problems that arise in daily performance, one possesses the essential qualities to have a decent career path. It is less and less like that. Even in some fields, those are the characteristics that expel from the profession.
In addition, these popular classes still do not fully understand that their way of thinking, that which they understood as proof of good manners to show humility in achievements, temper the display of success and act responsibly in mistakes, is precisely what causes professional damage. In a world of competition, appearances are important, and that is why there are more and more people who exaggerate their merits, boast of any minimum merit or enlarge their possible future, even if they do so with a tempered voice. And, when it is not possible for them to sell smoke, they point out and criticize others: that attitude makes them look superior, or that is what they intend to convey. Unfortunately, to the extent that you want to be successful in life, you are more and more forced to play this game ; that is why it has proliferated so much.
the price we pay
Possessing the right credentials, learning the right codes, and having the right connections (often inherited) are essential for a career to work, and for that, what is essential is not knowledge, always secondary , but relational skills. Today's warriors handle them with ease.
But all this has a price, socially notable. With this preparation and this mentality, the elite selection mechanisms are substantially weakened , the rise of new blood is not possible either, and the upper part of society tends to coagulate. The ultimate result, as defined by William Deresiewicz in his book 'Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite', is to create "excellent sheep", those kinds of people who "prioritize self-exaltation, being at the service of oneself, seeking a good life thought only in terms of conventional success (wealth and status) and without any real commitment to learning, thinking, or making the world a better place.
The result is a flattened and gray world, from which society moves away, and which is unable to offer solutions to systemic problems.
A large part of the problems in our society have to do with some gridded elites, incapable of getting out of the learned schemes, of the common places, which are generally those that have opened the doors for them. It is much easier to ascend if you do what you are told, follow the 'habitus' of the space in which you operate, learn the implicit rules and recite the thought that circulates through them. In these circumstances, we have raised our elites, and the Spanish decadence has a lot to do with sectors of the economy, politics and the intelligentsia that are incapable of thinking for themselves and that analyze situations based solely on their interests . And, when they go beyond their personal situation, they limit themselves to repeating the dominant ideas among the international elites, to which they aspire to belong; in essence, they repeat the orthodoxy, that this never harms them, and often benefits them. It happens in all spheres: in politics it is evident, in the intellectual it is very worrying and in the economic it is very harmful. The result is a flattened, grey, poor world, from which society is moving further and further away, and which is unable to offer solutions to systemic problems. And therein lies a good part of the political, economic and cultural tensions of recent times.
