152 Primary and Secondary schools will innovate in Barcelona
An agreement between Consorci d'Educació de Barcelona, Escola Nova 21 and UAB’s ICE means schools will receive innovation training over a three-year period. Nineteen networks will be set up with 6-10 schools each.
BarcelonaInnovation is here to stay. Barcelona’s Consorci de l’Educació, Escola Nova 21, the Institut de Ciències de l’Educació (ICE) at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Rosa Sensat association have teamed up so that all schools in Barcelona city are trained for innovation in education.
The project is known as Xarxes per al canvi (“Networks for Change”) and will span over three years with a total of 152 schools in Barcelona city, 87 of which are state-owned and 65 are state-funded. Among other areas, schools will be trained in competence-based teaching and fostering “up-to-date learning practices”.
The project will be network-based and will be deployed in three stages. In the first phase, in 2017, nineteen local networks will be set up, featuring six to ten schools each. At this point, the schools which are already involved in the two existing programmes —Eines per al Canvi and Escola Nova 21— will join the project. A total of 152 Barcelona city schools are expected to get involved, with two representatives per school —in total, about 300 members of the management boards— as well as the entire teaching staff of each centre. All nineteen networks will be led by five trainers from the Consorci who will work on the project on a part-time basis.
During the other two stages (in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 academic years), any other school that wishes to benefit from the scheme will have a chance to join. Thirty to fifty schools are expected to sign up every year and the goal is for all state-owned mandatory education centres to have joined their local area network by the year 2019-20.
Workshops and co-creation spaces
But, how will these networks operate? They will take turns to meet five or six times per year in one of the networked schools. The local area network meetings will be interspersed with conferences, co-creation spaces and workshops that will bring together all nineteen networks. All schools that join a network along the way will be expected to adhere to a written agreement on attendance and participation in the debates, among others.
According to the project leaders, the aim is to spread an innovation strategy that “balances equity and quality in education”. In a report published in November last year, Catalonia’s Ombudsman warned that student segregation meant there was a risk of a de-facto triple network of state-owned and state-funded schools which would offer different opportunities in education.
“Innovation to educate critical citizens”
Barcelona mayor Ada Colau, Education minister Meritxell Borràs and the manager of the Consorci d’Educació de Barcelona, Mercè Massa, were all in attendance at the presentation of Xarxes per al Canvi on Friday morning at Barcelona’s CIDOB. All three welcomed the achievement of this alliance for education, which Ada Colau linked to “the tradition of pedagogical innovation that is part of the city and our nation’s identity”. “Innovation is essential to educate a critical citizenry that is socially responsible and committed to social improvement”, she noted, and she welcomed the fact that the Xarxes project for change “focuses on students, whom we want to be inquisitive, motivated and excited about social change”. Colau also stressed how important it is for innovation “not to play into the hands of inequality in our city”. “We do not want star schools, we want a galaxy of brilliant ones”, she concluded.
Education minister Meritxell Ruiz praised the city’s network of “outstanding” primary and secondary schools and argued that education is “the main instrument of progress for students and the whole nation, as well as for its cohesion”. She also stressed that transformation in education must be accomplished “whilst bearing in mind that our goal is for pupils to learn” and “their opportunities for the future”. Ruiz remarked that “excellence and equity must always go hand in hand”.
The manager of the Consorci d’Educació de Barcelona, Mercè Massa, celebrated the fact that “innovation is not a challenge but a daily reality”. “There is no turning back”, Massa noted, and she emphasised that “innovation is not about competing, but cooperating”.
