Less Than Half of Spain Reach EU Level of Infant Education – Watchdog

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The Save the Children rights organization gathered the data as part of its recent "Education Equity Index." The report analyzed factors related to the quality of access to education.

The group found that the regions of Spain with the highest infant poverty rate were at the bottom of the education index.

"This information brings to light the relation between infant poverty and insufficient attention to the equity of educational policies. When the learning opportunities of a child in a social exclusion situation are limited, their possibilities of leaving this situation of social exclusion and poverty are minimized," the group's general director Andres Conde said.

Save the Children also found that more than half of the communities have low or negative scores for the quality of their educational centers. The percentage of schools that offer canteen services varies from 27 to 82 percent between communities, according to the report. Only three out of 10 families spend more than one euro annually on cultural activities and 30 percent of homes have less than 50 books.

Ceuta, Andalucia, Castilla La Mancha, Murcia, Extremadura and Canaria are the seven autonomous communities of Spain with the highest rates of infant poverty. According to Save the Children, one in three children in these regions is at risk of poverty or social exclusion.