Benidorm asks the Regional Government that educational support be included among the eligible extracurricular activities

Benidorm City Council is going to ask the Department of Education, Culture and Sports to include educational support as an eligible expense among extracurricular and complementary activities aimed at the school population between 3 and 18 years of age. The local government, through the councillor of Education Maite Moreno, is going to raise a motion to the next plenary session in which the Ministry is urged to modify Order 25/2021 which regulates the granting of subsidies to the municipalities of the Valencian Community for extracurricular, complementary, cultural and sports activities.

The councillor explained that "in a first analysis, this Order reinforces activities of a sociocultural and sports nature, but against actions focused on learning and education." In fact, “among the eligible expenses it is not explicitly included that we are going to collaborate with extracurricular initiatives such as reinforcement classes, which have precisely been one of the pillars of our municipal program 'Activem els col • les', which encompasses all complementary activities promoted by the City Council in educational, cultural and sports matters for the school population ”.

Thus, according to the figures reported by Moreno, "in the first semester of the year, the City Council has granted direct aid to about 230 minors in Benidorm to help pay for the educational reinforcement classes that continue in academies and study centers." Each student has received 300 euros, at a rate of 50 per month, for her classes. Of the 227 approved grants, 158 have corresponded to students in the 2nd and 3rd cycle of Primary Education from Benidorm schools, while the remaining 69 beneficiaries are studying secondary school in one of the five Secondary Schools in Benidorm.

As the councilor recalled, “these grants, to which 68,100 euros have been allocated, have been aimed especially at Benidorm families with fewer resources and those whose children have required educational support, derived, for example, from not having been able to follow during the past lock down the normal development of the telematic classes offered by the centers due to the lack of technological means ”. "Without this financial support, part of these students would not have been able to access this educational reinforcement and, therefore, would not have reached the academic objectives."

The councillor has stressed that "in addition to families, schools have also valued these grants very positively and, therefore, we believe that it is necessary not only to maintain them, but also to ensure that the Ministry recognizes its importance and contributes to its financing as it was done in this past school year 2020/2021 ”.

In this regard, Moreno has specified that the municipal program 'Activem els col • les' had a grant of 103,617.04 euros from the Ministry, which in addition to helping to finance these aid for school reinforcement also served to develop the rest of the initiatives complementary, among them the theater cycle 'Joves Espectadors', the Summer Educational Support Program (PAEV), or the extracurricular physical-sports activities in the 14 Infant and Primary schools in Benidorm outside of school hours, in charge of the municipal sports technicians

"We are convinced that if the Ministry modifies Order 25/2021 or at least in the first call, it includes direct aid for educational support as an eligible expense, the school population of Benidorm will win, but also that of many other municipalities in the Community", has said.