Study grants and assistance. METHODOLOGY
1.
INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES
Traditionally, data on study grants and assistance in Spain corresponded to the Ministry of Education
and Science and the Basque Government's Department of Education, Universities and Research's General
Call for Grants. However, the different Education Administrations have been carrying out work in this field,
to a greater or lesser extent, outside the framework of the General Call for Grants where the extent and
content detail was unknown.
Added to this, international organisations' information requirements relating to study grants and
assistance, fundamentally OECD and EUROSTAT, have become an essential section in terms of
education statistics.
This situation meant it was necessary to create an information system that systematically collected
detailed information in accordance with a group of established definitions and regulations - in short,
statistics - on all activities developed with regards this field by Education Administrations.
The Statistics Commission of the Sector Conference on Education responded to this need by
including the undertaking of Grant Statistics in the 2000 State Statistics Plan, which was carried out for the
first time for the 1999-2000 academic year with results published in 2002. In 2003, the results for the 20002001 academic year were obtained, where some small methodological variations were introduced that
have been maintained in this presentation corresponding to the 2002-2003 academic year.
2.
2.1.
MAIN CONCEPTS
Concept of Grant
The following are considered as grants: all transfers to students/households, either directly or via
educational institutions, payments in kind and price reductions or tax benefits applied for by the student in
question and whose granting is conditional upon the fulfilment of socio-economic and/or academic
requirements.
2.2.
Concept of Grant Holder
Grant holders are considered to be students who receive one or more grants.
3.
STATISTICAL SCOPE
3.1. Territorial scope
In this first phase, the statistics are limited to data on grants given by the Ministry of Education and
Science and the Offices and Departments of Education in the Autonomous Communities to students
resident in the national territory, including those aimed at educational activities abroad.
In the future, it is hoped that grants given by public universities (paid for out of their own budgets)
and by other Administrations in the Autonomous Communities and the State General Administration will be
included in the statistics.
3.2.
Temporal scope
Corresponds to the academic year.
3.3.
Population scope
All grants aimed at students enrolled on any type of studies in the Spanish education system, both
the general system and the special system, excluding students studying for a Ph. D. Excluded from the
statistics therefore, are research grants and those aimed at attaining University awarded qualifications,
vocational training that is different from the official training and assistance with integration into the labour
market.
Exceptionally, assistance given to students of music in non-official schools will be considered as
grants, if students are able to move on to schools where the studies are regulated as a result of having
been to these schools.
In terms of transport services, canteens and boarding schools, which in accordance with article 65.2
of the GLSES are provided free of charge by Education Administrations to obligatory primary and
secondary education students for attending a school in a different municipality from where they live, they
are considered to be complementary services and as a result, are not included in the statistical scope.
4. CLASSIFICATION VARIABLES
4.1.
Types of grant
The following types are considered:
Education. For specific expenses due to the legal status of the school and aimed at enrolment
and other educational services.
Compensation. To compensate families with low incomes for the student not entering the labour
market.
Text books and educational material. Both if these items are given directly to the students or if
they are given money to buy them.
Transport. Grants given for this purpose to cover the distance between the grant holder's family
home and the educational centre, except those included in article 65.2 of the GLSES.
Canteen. Grants given for this purpose, excluding those included in article 65.2 of the GLSES.
Residence. Aimed at lessening the expense of a student living away from the family home
during the academic year.
Special education. Includes all individualised assistance (independent of the type: transport,
canteen, etc.) aimed at students in specific Special Education centres and units.
Exemption from costs of university services. Linked to the fulfilment of economic and/or
academic requirements.
Exemption from costs of university services for large families with three children.
Language courses. Independently of whether they are held in Spain or abroad.
Mobility. Grants given to university students in order to carry out their studies in another
university district.
Interest on loans. Includes subsidies granted by Public Administrations for paying interest in the
case of bank loans for universities.
ERASMUS grant supplements. These represent complementary contributions to the ERASMUS
grants from the Education Administration.
Collaboration. For university students with the aim of helping them to collaborate with different
university departments.
Dissertation. Including those corresponding to advanced education students.
4.2.
Education
Corresponding to the regulated education system, in other words:
Preschool Education
Primary education
Obligatory Secondary Education
GLSES Post-Secondary Education
Intermediate Education
Advanced Education
Social Guarantee Programmes
Special Education
Adult education
Arts
Official Language Schools
Higher education
4.3.
Funding Education Administration
Refers to the MES and Offices/Departments of Education in the Autonomous Communities that give
grants.
4.4.
Province
Refers to the province where the school is located from which the grant has been requested or, in
other cases, the grant holder's province.
4.5.
University
Refers to the university at which the grant holder is enrolled.
5. STATISTICAL RESULTS
The information obtained in these statistics refers to the following variables:
no. of grants no. of
grant holders grant
amounts
considered from a double perspective: the origin (Funding Education Administration) and the
destination (province/grant holder’s autonomous community of residence or university where the
university grant holder is enrolled).
The information is structured in the following way:
Firstly, there are totals tables for the ensemble of grants aimed at all levels of education.
In terms of non-university education, the information is classified in this way:
•
by province/grant holder's autonomous community of residence, level of education and type
of grant.
Each one of the breakdowns identifies the grant corresponding to the ensemble of Ministry
of Education and Science grants
(Tables 4 to 13).
•
by funding Education Administration, type of grant and grant holder's autonomous
community of
residence (Tables 14 to 17).
Information on university education is classified in the following way:
•
by university in which the grant holder is enrolled and type of grant, also identifying the
ensemble of grants given by the MES (Tables 18 to 23)
•
by funding Education Administration, type of grant and Autonomous Community where the
university is located in which the grant holder is enrolled (Tables 24 to 27).
6. RESULTS CONSIDERATIONS
For the analysis of the results presented, the following points need to be taken into consideration:
The General Call for Grants by the MES includes the whole State, except the País Vasco,
which is covered by the Basque Government's Call for Grants. Both calls constitute more than
85% of the total amount of grants.
With the exception of the MES, País Vasco and Aragón, it has not always been possible to
determine the number of grants or the number of grant holders. In this case, a hypothesis
considering one grant holder per grant and vice versa has been proposed, thus obtaining totals
in all tables. This may have caused an overvaluation in the number of grant holders, which
would not exceed 2% of the total in any case.
Grants given by the Comunidad Valenciana that appear in Primary Education include the first
cycle of Obligatory Secondary Education.
Foreign language grants given by the MES appear in both the charts that show distribution by
type of grant, as well as in the charts that show distribution by grant holder's level of education,
as it has not been possible to allocate them to their particular level because they could be PostSecondary Education or Training Cycles.
In the data for some Autonomous Communities, grants that appear classified by level of
education, such as Special Education in the charts by type of grant, are distributed according to
type of assistance (transport, canteen, etc) and vice versa, so that the Special Education totals
do not coincide in the tables by level and those by type.
Grants given by Castilla y León in the provinces of Valladolid, Salamanca, Burgos and Zamora
for intermediate education also include grants for advanced education.
Social Guarantee Programmes are included in the amounts granted by Galicia for training
cycles. Post-Secondary Education grants given by La Rioja include training cycles.
Those given by the Ciudad Autónoma de Ceuta, which are grouped in Not applicable, include
the Preschool, Primary, Special Education and Obligatory Secondary Education levels.