Extended Learning through After-School Programs: Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Promoting Social Sustainability

After-school programs in Romania are not mandatory, and most of the time, they are funded by parents. In Romania, over 41.5% of students come from disadvantaged families that cannot afford to finance after-school activities. In recent years, there have been only a few free after-school programs for disadvantaged students. Our study aimed to measure the impact of such an after-school program, which mostly uses alternative teaching methods, on several aspects of learning improvement at the level of disadvantaged students in primary and secondary education. The research results revealed a significant improvement in the education of children after they participated in after-school programs for a large range of learning results. Among the intervention actions, mathematical competencies, basic competencies in science and technology, and digital competencies were identified as the main predictors of high learning performance. The results also revealed that a longer length of such programs had a positive effect on educational performance and the socio-emotional development of disadvantaged students. It was also shown that the impact of intervention is more pronounced in the case of young students and adults who followed the “Second Chance” programs. The results support the effectiveness and importance of such projects in promoting holistic and sustainable education and in providing valuable information to decision-makers regarding the impact of after-school programs on the education of disadvantaged people to improve social sustainability.