BARCELONA 2015—2023 EDUCATION THE SILENT REVOLUTION EDUCATION THE SILENT REVOLUTION WE WANT MORE A SCHOOL DEMOCRATIC THAT IS... WITH MORE MANAGEMENT COMMUNITY- THAT IS MORE ORIENTED PUBLIC I AND TRANSPARENT AND EQUITABLE 14 17 47 58 For a broader education INTRODUCTION AN EDUCATION PROJECT THE EDUCATION POLICY 75 For a longer education MIQUEL ÀNGEL ESSOMBA FOR BARCELONA. DRIVING BARCELONA'S 95 For a higher education PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE EDUCATION PROJECT 112 AXIS: FAIRER ACCESS TO EDUCATION 19 Pedagogical foundation of 49 Political, institutional and social Barcelona's education project: context in the early days education as a common good 128 AXIS: A MORE DEMOCRATIC STYLE OF GOVERNANCE, AND 25 The background to Barcelona's 51 The pillars of Barcelona's education education project: the silent revolutions project: a community education A MORE PUBLIC AND TRANSPARENT by everyone and for everyone STYLE OF MANAGEMENT 39 The international education policy references in Barcelona's 57 AXIS: A COMMUNITY 153 EPILOGUE education project: a critical look EDUCATION MODEL DOMITILA VIÑAS All that awaits us is the mystery of a great Education concerns all of us. It’s not just a matter for children and young people, or sea far away, and an ever distant horizon, their families and teachers. Or simply for all the members of the educational com- which together we will make much clearer. munity who work tirelessly to provide the city with the best possible education. We all come from afar, and still have The right to education impacts us all: because guaranteeing education brings us a long way to go, full of dreams and light. closer to achieving a fairer and more equitable society. Because today we know Time of revolts (Lluís Llach) that education is key to building a more egalitarian society. Building an ‘educating city’ also means building a democratic city. This is why we have made schools central to the city that we want. We view education as one of the most important tools for social transformation, and the changes we have made in the city have also involved its kindergartens and schools in some way. Ultimately, we see education as a tool that will help us address the two main challenges we face, both as a city and as a society: inequalities and the climate emergency. The City Council′s commitment to making Barcelona an ‘educating city’ can be seen in the increase in investment and resources, in the new projects and the promotion of educational innovation, which we have tried to bring together in this book. Every euro invested in education is a gift for our children and young people, the gift of a future with more opportunities and a fairer city in which to grow up, learn, play and share their lives. In the following pages we discuss education not in the sense of compulsory ed- ucation, but in the sense of education from early childhood and the value of this stage as a key time to offset inequalities and prevent school attrition, by transform- ing both primary and secondary schools, promoting state education and fighting against segregation, and through lifelong education as a way to meet the challeng- es and opportunities of today′s world with confidence. In short, it’s a snapshot of the work carried out since 2015 by city with a firm commitment to an education system that provides value and entwines learning with the city′s communities and associations, the experiences of its neighbourhoods, intergenerational wisdom and the use of spaces other than schools for educational purposes. Because we see the ‘Educating City’ as one where education is understood as a collective asset that needs to be taken good care of, a broad, diverse source of riches and learning that benefits everyone, and to which all can contribute. PAU GONZÀLEZ VAL Councillor of Education, Barcelona City Council to avoid the ideological tsunami of conservative liberalism rolling unstoppably INTRODUCTION across the world for half a century. For conservative liberalism, education must be a service in the hands of a social initiative that reproduces the prevailing status quo, a notion that is far removed from the transformative aspiration of education for all. When education becomes a service, and is no longer characterised as a right, everything changes. We no longer talk about MIQUEL ÀNGEL ESSOMBA equity and inclusion but about selection and segregation, so it makes no sense to Professor of Pedagogy and Director of the Department promote the public sector. The logical thing is to leave education in the hands of the of Community Education at the UAB private sector. Critical thinking and emotional education give way to academic con- tent that will give us better standing in the international education quality rankings. And here we are. On ideologically disputed ground for the conquest of educa- tion, very much aware that whoever achieves domination will have the key to the future city model. And in this struggle, Barcelona City Council has, in the last few Education in Barcelona is one of the powerful forces that define and build the city. years, made a clear and explicit commitment in favour of education that recovers We cannot understand the city’s recent history nor what it is today without men- the very best of the progressive and libertarian tradition, and extends the right of tioning its educational dimension. That is because education in Barcelona is a col- education — not education as a service — to every corner of Barcelona like a breath lective project that belongs to no one, but rather to everyone. It is the people of of egalitarian air. A battle carried out with maximum support from its rightful own- Barcelona who, for more than a century, have adopted the principle that education er: the citizenry as a whole. is the backbone of society, and have been committed to it from every angle. Any education project is an unfinished proposal, and Barcelona’s project is no The public authorities have played a facilitating role, to a greater or lesser extent, exception. The obstacles and contradictions that the public authorities have been depending on the period, but education in Barcelona has always been in the hands encountering to make it tangible have been numerous and of considerable diffi- of its people, and this is a wealth that endures from generation to generation. culty. This publication aims to tell the story of how this education project has been Education in Barcelona has been both vital and diverse, the reflection of an developed in the midst of an education policy inheritance based on conservative open-minded citizenry with a cosmopolitan yearning. Pedagogical thinking and liberal conceptions. It tries to tell it in an understandable way, while avoiding an practices that originated and were developed in the city, impregnated with a pro- unnecessary triumphalist spirit. We provide theoretical foundations that explain, gressive and libertarian ideology, have been an indisputable international point of and political practices that illustrate, on a journey through the key milestones that reference, from the modern school to the educating cities movement, with ped- enable us to understand what has happened, and why. agogical renewal in between. However, in recent decades this education has had The assessment for the last eight years of education in the city, often swimming to face up to a disconcerting challenge, which has sought to change the desti- against the tide, is moderately satisfactory. We want to believe that the commit- nation of its journey, and to lead Barcelona′s citizens in the opposite direction to ment of the authorities in general, and of the local authority in particular, has made educational scenarios where competition prevails over cooperation, where indi- it possible for Barcelona to once again enjoy educational enthusiasm, an educa- vidualism rises above communities and associations, where everything is bought tional ambition that will lead it to unexpected futures, those that its people decide and everything is sold, and where the rule of a traditional morality limits the max- to freely explore. Education that is not a service but rather at the service of every- imum expression of diversity. As part of a global world, Barcelona has been unable one, education for all. Bon voyage. AN EDUCATION PROJECT FOR BARCELONA. PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE 19 PEDAGOGICAL FOUNDATION OF BARCELONA'S EDUCATION PROJECT: EDUCATION AS A COMMON GOOD The last decade will be viewed, from an historical perspective, as one of the most convulsive and transformative periods of recent times. The tension between the vanishing old worlds of modernity and the emerging new worlds has intensified to unexpected thresholds, and has generated a series of trends and events that leave all societies in general, and ours in par- ticular, in a context of global crisis with no apparent way out. The people of Barcelona are participants in these trends and events from a city with an international status, and, as a re- sult the effects of each shock have been increasingly tangible. The 2008 economic crisis has not only left us with less money in our pockets, it has left a deep wound of increasing poverty in many neighbourhoods, where inequality has gradually be- come the norm. We have suffered summers of drought, heat waves the like of which we have never seen before and torren- tial rain that has caused damage running into millions of euros. We have taken in no end of foreign nationals fleeing famine or war but they have not always been well received by the local population. Extreme right-wing ideologies, increasingly pres- ent on the streets and in our institutions, have stirred up hate against those who come from elsewhere. We have cried for the victims of a bloody terrorist attack at the heart of our most uni- versal boulevard, La Rambla, and the city’s streets have been the main setting for the confrontation and violence stemming from 1 October, 2017. As if all that were not enough, we need to add the profound cultural revolution of the smartphone, a pandemic and a war. Barcelona’s education community, an essential part of the city, has suffered the consequences of all this. We have paid for the economic crisis with the closure of reception classes for newly arrived students, and cuts in the number of staff dealing with diversity in schools. A crazy climate has made many schools more aware of their poorly ventilated class- 20 21 a favourable terrain for its further development. Big capital rooms, shadeless playgrounds or basements with no piped and investment funds demand from public authorities private water. Unaccompanied foreign minors have not been able to management of the right to education, turning it into mere find an educational space in our secondary schools suited to service provision. Politics gives way to economics, and call for their needs and expectations. Not by a long chalk. Ever more curriculums that make competent and obedient workers out voices are starting to be heard in favour of breaking the con- of citizens. Education has to adapt to the rules of the market: sensus on the Catalan school model and language immersion. business competitiveness, the law of supply and demand, cut- Schools in the Raval and Gòtic neighbourhoods are still try- ting production costs. The world of education is designed as ing to make sense of the bloody attack on people in the heart an appendix of an omnipresent market, in which everything of La Rambla. More than a few schools still bear the scars of is bought and everything is sold, and in which the values of police violence in 2017 on their walls and furniture. Just now humanism and communal life are questioned as ineffective, we are coming to the end of two years when we have had and made invisible. fear in our bodies because of the virus, our mouths and noses covered by face masks, with bubble groups inside the school It is difficult to face up to this reality and propose alterna- and families outside. And once again, foreign students are tives. The combination of economic liberalism and ideological turning up unexpectedly in the classrooms, this time fleeing conservatism is gaining ground day by day in education, and it the war in Ukraine. is difficult to promote actions that are committed to a pedago- gy of critical thinking and learning to live together. Difficult and Nothing that has happened and continues to happen to us complex, but not impossible. The local authority has led an edu- is the result of chance or the forces of nature. The causes are cation project for the city that would recover the power of edu- many and well defined, and they have no origin or impetus cation and return it to its rightful owner: the citizenry as a whole. that is not directly related to human action. We are poorer, we live in a worse physical environment, we suffer the physi- The education project of present-day Barcelona does not cal or symbolic violence of not living in harmony, and we feel view education as a service but as a right, and acts accord- ever more alone because that is how the processes and so- ingly: rights are not served, they are guaranteed. And the only cial dynamics we are involved in define it. Processes and dy- possible guarantee that this education can be critical and peo- namics inspired by conservative liberalism, which is far re- ple-centred is the democratic structures that we as a society moved from a cooperative, social and solidarity economy. A have equipped ourselves with to govern ourselves: the public conservatism that needs to structure societies according to authorities — the education project is de-economised and re- a hierarchical evaluation of our bodies, and positions us in politicised. Barcelona′s current education project aims to sup- a context of binary social identities. Hegemonic values that port and accompany groups and communities in their process- are typical of a patriarchal and colonial social order, in which es of emancipation from patriarchal and colonial values, and we, as people, cannot be who we want to be, but only what is focuses its action on the real needs of citizens. This project expected of us. dreams of a free and just society that is environmentally friend- ly and proud of its diversity. This conservative liberalism has its sights set on education for various reasons, and consciously acts to appropriate it. In In short, it is a project that understands education as a com- the umpteenth reinvention of capitalism to survive its cyclical mon good. Now we will look at the principles which will be the crises, social rights (education, health, pensions) have found backbone of the city′s education project in the coming years: z The education as the legitimate heritage of citizens, and 22 23 tional schemes based on fragmentation and classifica- democratises the role of education. It believes everyone ed- tion criteria, and considers the training of adults as spe- ucates and is educated, because the educating function is cialisation in specific areas related to production. part of social life, and not just the training experience. This approach distances itself from education based on conserv- z Is the maximum expression and guarantee of the right to ative liberalism, which promotes the specialisation of profes- education. It avoids any conception of education as a ser- sionals who play the role of educators, accredited by acade- vice, and endeavours to ensure that the public authorities mies controlled by the powers that be. coordinate the necessary networks and resources so that every citizen can find opportunities for equality and con- z The regards society itself as the main educating institution, texts in which to learn to think critically, as well as to relate and promotes educating action in an open environment, to and live together with others. Aspires to rehumanise an where it is not subject to conventions established before- economised society, where education has been geared to- hand by the dominant classes. Is the legacy of the original wards the market economy, which defines and justifies it. educating city approaches developed in Barcelona, a form of education which differs from education projects that are z Designs and evaluates processes, because education is not developed in institutions designed and approved solely for a number of one-off, decontextualised actions but rather an educational function, with content that can be uncriti- a complex systemic framework in which processes have cally assimilated and evaluated. more value than results. The means are the end, and the methodological criteria encourage inclusive educational z Incorporates cultural creation as an essential part of its ac- environments in which humanist values take centre stage. tion. Knowledge inherited from previous generations is a Distances itself from the pedagogical approach that only point of reference to be broken down and exceeded through seeks results and impacts in an apparently neutral way, and creative and participatory processes. Culture and educa- which establishes methodological criteria according to the tion are two inseparable sides of the citizens′ intellectu- law of supply and demand. al development. This approach represents a shift from the conservative approach, which seeks cultural reproduction z Is based on the principle of inclusion. It is based on the con- based on knowledge accumulated in the past, and proposes cept that everyone has educational needs, and that there retroactive innovation, connected to previous knowledge. is nothing better than combining these needs in heteroge- neous groups in which everyone has the opportunity to be z Is a lifelong process that proposes global organisational recognised and to develop their full potential. Inclusion re- schemes, in which educational interaction takes place quires an organisational complexity that has nothing to do between different people, and adult education is a space with the organisational simplification of conservative-lib- for growth, empowerment and strengthening of the crit- eral education, which manages educational groups accord- ical spirit. So does not pigeonhole people or manage ing to individual academic success, and encourages school educational processes according to biological age, but segregation according to class criteria. according to the interests, motivations, maturity and evo- lution of the protagonists. Distances itself from the con- z The unit of action of technological education is the edu- servative-liberal view of education, which concentrates cational institution.— That is the community of a specific educational processes in the early years, uses organisa- territory. Schools become nodes of a complex institutional network whose main aim is to meet the individual and col- 24 25 THE BACKGROUND TO BARCELONA'S lective needs of citizens in a co-responsible way. Does not EDUCATION PROJECT: THE SILENT REVOLUTIONS hierarchise or discriminate between education projects according to their degree of formality or prestige: voca- Barcelona’s current education project has not appeared from tional training, adult education or literacy education have nowhere, nor does it leave us where we were. It is a project of as much pedagogical and social value as school education. political innovation. It is based on the principles of the best of Refutes the pedagogical approaches that turn schools into the city’s original pedagogical tradition but brings that into autonomous microcosms isolated from social reality, gov- line with present-day realities. At the same time, this pro- erned by the rules of the market, of competitiveness, and ject partakes of international educational objectives and ap- of the supply and demand of education services. proaches, but tries to be critical and improve any proposals that are ambiguous or contradictory. This section is devoted z Is developed from a system of governance based on a to describing the link with the past. We leave the future out- multidirectional and flexible command, where manage- look to the next one. ment is part of the education process, and everyone carries out managerial tasks. Schools are centres of democratic Starting with the historical perspective of public educa- participation, not only for those involved in them, but for tion policies in Barcelona, we can say that the city faces a the citizenry as a whole too. Cannot be developed from a profound transformation of its educational landscape approx- system of governance based on one-way and hierarchical imately every 50 years: a pedagogical revolution. Today′s edu- command, in which management is separated from edu- cation project in Barcelona aims to launch what we might call cation and managers are professionalised. the third silent revolution in education in the city. Revolution because it represents an added value that is greater than a z Has a formative assessment model that focuses on the spe- simple evolution marked by trends. Revolution because it pro- cific processes of each individual or group, and aims to im- motes a qualitative leap that affects the whole in a systemic prove them. Evaluation serves to understand, to motivate way. Revolution because nothing can ever be the same again and to learn to work better in groups, it is a tool at the ser- after consolidating the transformations carried out, and it has vice of people. Refutes an assessment model based on ho- profound impacts. Silent because no one takes notice of pro- mogenising criteria with standards designed by specialists, found transformations in the present, since they are normal- with the sole aim of selecting, classifying and segregating. ised almost imperceptibly, and it is only historical perspective that allows us to see the extent of the actions undertaken. To sum up, the education project offers Barcelona′s citizens development and learning opportunities, so they become re- The first silent revolution took place in the first third of the silient, critical thinkers and builders of community harmony. last century. A time when Barcelona was a vibrant laboratory of public policies to promote education for all based on active pedagogy stemming from a progressive and libertarian ideol- ogy and in clear opposition to conservative-liberal thinking. Let’s look back at some of the most noteworthy events: z Barcelona welcomes the first Modern School in the world at number 56, Carrer Bailèn in 1901, on the initiative of Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia. Thus, more than a century ago, 26 the city saw the birth and growth of an education project in which children were the protagonists of their own learn- ing, and enjoyed personal attention; in which coeduca- tion, secularity, democracy and inclusion were practised; in which the school worked in a communitarian way, open to its natural and social environment; and in which assess- ment by exams, prizes and punishments were rejected as educational strategies. Reflecting his internationalist spir- it, Ferrer i Guàrdia promoted the Lliga Internacional per a l′Educació Racional de la Infància (International League for the Rational Education of Children) from Barcelona, and his pedagogical approaches were echoed in initiatives such as the École Renovée in Brussels and the Scuola Laica in Rome, among others. z Later, and through municipal public initiative, it is worth mentioning the education project of the Barcelona City Council Culture Committee, strongly influenced by the Escola Nova, or New School. At that time, the City Council had already noticed educational inequality among the child population in terms of both access and the quality of education they received, and had promoted two em- blematic schools: the Escola del Bosc (Forest School) inspired by Rosa Sensat, and the Escola del Mar (Sea School) thanks to the impulse of Pere Vergés. However, more schools were needed (a third of Barcelona’s child population did not go to school), especially in the work- ing class neighbourhoods. From 1916 onwards, the ped- agogue Manel Ainaud and the architect Josep Goday led an ambitious project that went beyond the strictly educa- tional dimension. It was also an urban planning project at the service of a city that wanted to be modern and cos- mopolitan. The Culture Committee’s plan sought to build public secular schools, where the most innovative ped- Escola del mar. Source: Rosa Sensat agogical methods would be introduced. Those schools were to be children′s palaces, havens of culture and civ- Education in Freedom. ic-mindedness for the youngest children. They are still go- Exhibition in El Born Source: IMEB [Municipal ing in Barcelona today, a symbol of a past that we want Institute of Education] very much to be part of the present. The pioneers, man- 30 31 z The political period of the Second Republic, and the actions aged by the Barcelona School Board then and in operation of the Republican Generalitat ( Government of Catalonia) since 1922, were: Àngel Baixeras, Milà i Fontanals and Pere also left a strong mark on the city. In 1931 Barcelona regained Vila in the Ciutat Vella district, La Farigola de Vallcarca in its pedagogical drive after the parenthesis of the Primo de Gràcia, Ramon Llull in Eixample and Lluís Vives in Sants- Rivera dictatorship, and fully committed itself to promoting Montjuïc. That education and urban planning project was public, secular education in the Catalan language based on an international benchmark. active pedagogy. Coeducational schools with boys and girls in the same classroom, and a clear vocation to correct the social inequalities. The fervour for more public school plac- es also continued and it is in this period that we recall the entry into operation of the following schools: Collaso i Gil in the Ciutat Vella district, Francesc Macià in Sants-Montjuïc, Mas Casanovas in Horta-Guinardó, and Duran i Bas in Les Corts, to mention just a few. Another feature of this period was the importance given to institute-schools as a public policy for reforming secondary education, the first of which was promoted by Ventura Gassol in Parc de la Ciutadella, and also to teacher training, through the Escola Normal de Mestres and its four-year Professional Plan, promoted by Joaquim Xirau. Summer Schools for teachers were another part of this initiative to promote quality teaching. Barcelona′s education project is an education policy that feels like the heir to all this tradition from the first pedagogical revolution, which had a strong local and international impact. Confessionalism has no place at school in this project, which fosters a secular education model. It does not discriminate against people on the basis of gender identity or expression, or social class, but believes everyone must be able to go to the same school. The Barcelona education project uses Catalan as the vehicular language and adopts the pedagogical meth- ods of active pedagogy. It takes the form of public education, both in terms of ownership as well as funding and orientation. Over time, the city′s education project has had to go beyond all these precepts and incorporate new elements that update 20th anniversary and improve it: interculturality, in response to cultural diversi- of Escola Moderna + 100 years of Escola del Mar ty; democratic participation, as a restorative and reconstruc- + 50 years of Escola Baixeras. tive element; a community dimension, in response to the chal- Source: Goroka, Barcelona City Council lenges of a global and complex world. The second revolution occurred in the final third of the 32 33 z Alongside the proliferation of these schools, which last century, coinciding with the end of the dictatorship and marked a profound change in the city′s educational land- the start of the democratic era. Back then, the city was thirst- scape, we should also mention the importance of the ing for a different kind of education, it wanted to recover the teachers′ movement. Many of the younger generations pedagogical tradition of the first third that the Franco regime of teachers, who now had three years of university train- had put a stop to, and firmly believed that education was a ing in the case of pre-school and primary school, and a key element in building democracy and in responding to the few months in the case of secondary school, set about emerging needs of society that were turning family models, recovering the Catalan school model — coeducational, gender roles, working hours and the values of young people democratic, active pedagogy — and organised themselves on their head. Here we look at the most notable milestones in associations and unions to achieve their objectives of of that intense and prolific period: transforming Barcelona′s education system. The role played by the education federations of unions such as the z First of all we want to highlight the social initiative of CCOO (Workers’ Commissions) and UGT (General Union numerous groups of Barcelona citizens who longed for of Workers) and by teachers’ associations such as the an education system model that rejected the Francoist Rosa Sensat Association, as a movement for pedagogical public schools and Catholic religious schools. At the end renovation in the city, should be recognised here. It was of the 1960s, teachers′ cooperatives and family coop- in fact Rosa Sensat who restored the tradition of Summer eratives began to proliferate in many neighbourhoods, Schools as places for training, growth and political action, which, in the name of freedom of education, started reference points that have made a decisive contribution schools that recovered active pedagogy and coeducation in shaping education policies across the whole country. as the core of their educational proposal, and attached One document that stands out in particular is the declara- great importance to self-management and democratic tion that came out of the Escola del Bosc summer school organisation. These were schools in which Catalan was in 1975, entitled “For a New Public School”, which noted once again the habitual language of use in all areas, and the democratic nature of school, recognised diversity and they put a lot of effort into ensuring Francoist pedagogy rejected segregation, and defended a public model, net- was just an intermission to be brought to an end before working and working with the community. moving on. They began as a private initiative but with a clear determination to become public schools, some- z Another aspect we need to reclaim from this period is thing that many of them achieved, grouped together the public system of municipal nursery schools. With the in the CEPEPC (Schools Collective for Catalan Public social transformation towards more fragmented fami- Schools). These are the CEPEPC schools in Barcelona: ly models, and the massive incorporation of women into Àngels Garriga, Antaviana/Ton i Guida, Arrels, Baloo, the workforce, there was a need to rethink the upbringing Barrufet, Carlit-Liceu Gonzaga, Costa i Llobera, Dovella, of small children, and to educate children from nought to Elaia/Joan Miró, Estel, Graziel·la, Heura, Icària, Ítaca, three years old, who until then grew up exclusively in the Lavínia, Nostra Senyora del Fort, Orlandai, Pau Casals, family environment. So, in 1977, the Patronat Municipal de Pau i Justícia, Pit roig, Pompeu Fabra, Roure-Mallorca, Guarderies Infantils [Municipal Board of Nurseries] was Sagrada Família, Santa Maria de Vallvidrera, Santa Pau, set up and, over the years this would gradually become Societat Cooperativa Fraussa, Soic, Tàber, Tàbor, Turó del Barcelona′s system of public nursery schools. The pub- Next page, Rosa Sensat. Cargol, Vallvidrera and Xiroi. Source: Rosa Sensat lic nursery school model in Barcelona responded to the 37 social need to achieve a work-life balance at a time of rigid working conditions but it went further: it proposed moving away from a care-and-assistance approach to the youngest children to one where 0-3 is considered a ful- ly educational stage. The nursery schools emulated and learned from the pioneering movements in Europe in this field (such as the Reggio Emilia nursery schools in Italy), and at the same time they became a reference for the rest of the country and the Spanish State on how to build a pedagogical proposal for children aged 0 to 3 with them at the centre, and respecting their developmental pac- es and processes by giving them maximum freedom and prominence. Barcelona′s public nursery schools are one of the most prized educational achievements of this sec- ond revolution. z In addition to paying educational attention to young chil- dren, the local authority has also been very active in pro- moting a community dimension that responds to the chal- lenge of education for all, and has structured it in a global policy that has had international scope and impact, name- ly, the educating cities movement. The first educating cit- ies congress was held in November 1990 under the title “The Educating City for Children and Young People”, a pedagogical perspective that was promoted and which quickly received international acclaim. The first Charter of Educating Cities stresses the importance of the local level in promoting quality and inclusive education, em- phasises the collective commitment to education for all, and the inalienable right of all citizens to enjoy learn- ing opportunities in all areas and moments of life. It is Barcelona that founded the International Association of Educating Cities, is its headquarters and holds the presi- dency for life of this international movement, which cur- rently has more than 500 cities on all continents. Education in Freedom. z Last but not least, we should mention the significant con- Exhibition in El Born tribution of community-based leisure education in this Source: IMEB [Municipal Institute of Education] second revolution. The proliferation of socially inspired Catalan and democratic schools was accompanied by 38 39 ucational powers but assumed a leading role, and a level of that of scouts groups and leisure associations, dozens of involvement that went above and beyond its remit. And both which sprang up in almost all the city′s neighbourhoods. revolutions have left a deep imprint on the physical and so- These entities are the expression of a desire to take ed- cial landscape of the city. Every street, every neighbourhood ucation beyond schooling, and to provide children and contains traces of some of the aforementioned actions. Half young people with a sound education in values, making a century after the start of the second revolution, we are at use of methodologies and taking advantage of resources the beginning of the third, and the city′s education project that schools do not have easy access to due to the curric- aims to recognise and promote it. ular model. We cannot talk about education in Barcelona at the end of the 20th century without mentioning the val- uable contribution of these educational organisations for THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY young people, which have been the cradle of social and REFERENCES IN BARCELONA'S EDUCATION PROJECT: political leaders. A CRITICAL LOOK Barcelona’s education project is heir to this second silent As we have explained in the previous section, Barcelona′s revolution, just as it is to the first. The current project contin- education project is a public policy borne of a social and his- ues to focus on the public sector as its first choice, and en- torical context; it is the heir to all the pedagogical upheaval courages social initiative projects to join in. It firmly believes that took place in Barcelona in the last century. Likewise, we in the key role of education professionals and seeks to pro- could also say that this project is not a political proposal de- vide them with spaces for sharing, networking and innovat- tached from the main international declarations and move- ing. It is essentially a community-based education that sees ments in the field of education, which aim to shape the fu- education as much more than schooling, which encourages ture. The city’s project is in tune with the present at a global the transition from schools to educational and community level, and aims to transfer the now globally dominant educa- centres led by educational rather than teaching teams. It also tional approach to a local level. Nevertheless, in Barcelona recognises the equal value of all educational projects and we try to identify limitations and shortcomings where we institutions, from a horizontal perspective, and attaches im- propose to go beyond the broad consensus, which is often portance to internationalisation and international exchange. impoverished by the necessary trade-offs between conserv- It is a project that believes in lifelong learning, spanning early ative-liberal ideologies and progressive and libertarian ide- childhood and all the adult stages of life. ologies. In this section we try to describe the links and point out the shortcomings that the Barcelona education project The first and second revolutions share certain character- recognises in the international educational setting. istics. They were the result of bottom-up processes in which social groups and educationally aware professionals took the We begin with the contributions to education policy com- initiative, later recognised and partly absorbed by the pub- ing from UNESCO. If we read their recent international re- lic authorities. They were revolutionaries on the fringes of ports, we will see their principles and proposals are in har- the dominant official educational policy and, because of that, mony with those of the city′s education project. The 2015 they did a lot with very few public resources and a great deal Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action1, responsible of commitment and voluntary work. They were revolutions for designing the starting point and framework for achieving 1 Full document online at: in which the local authority — the city council — lacked ed- https://bit.ly/363Sjov SDG 4 — education — on a global scale, reaffirm that: • Education plays a key role in eradicating poverty, as it helps 40 41 “Our world is at a turning point We already know that knowl- people to find a decent job, increase their income and gen- edge and learning are the basis for renewal and transforma- erate higher productivity, which drives economic develop- tion. But global disparities — and a pressing need to reimagine ment. why, how, what, where, and when we learn — mean that edu- • Education is the most effective means of achieving equality cation is not yet fulfilling its promise to help us shape peace- between men and women, bringing about the full social and ful, just, and sustainable futures. In our quest for growth and political participation of girls and women and empowering development, we humans have overwhelmed our natural en- them economically. vironment, threatening our own existence. Today, high liv- • Education is one of the most powerful ways of improving ing standards coexist with gaping inequalities. More and people′s health and ensuring the benefits are transmitted more people are engaged in public life, but the fabric of civil to future generations. society and democracy is fraying in many places around the • Education saves the lives of millions of mothers and chil- world. Rapid technological changes are transforming many dren, helps to prevent and control disease and is an essen- aspects of our lives. Yet these innovations are not adequate- tial part of the efforts geared towards reducing malnutrition. ly directed at equity, inclusion and democratic participation.” • Education promotes the inclusion of people with disabilities. • Education also provides protection for children, young peo- The report gives voice to hundreds of leading figures in the ple and adults affected by crisis and conflicts, as well as field of education from around the world and collects their pro- giving them the tools they need to rebuild their lives and posals to rethink learning spaces, decolonise curricula, attach communities. (FFA point 8) greater importance to social and emotional learning, manage real and growing fears in the face of climate change, crises such Furthermore, it stresses that the right to education must as Covid-19, fake news and the digital divide. All of this fits in be understood as a fundamental human right and an enabling perfectly with what the Barcelona education project proposes. right that pursues the full development of the human person- ality and promotes mutual understanding, tolerance, friend- Never before have international discourse and propos- ship and peace; as a public good, the main guarantor of which als on the foundational and guiding meaning of education is the state, which establishes and regulates standards and been located in such progressive ideological coordinates as norms; as a right that builds gender equality, closely related they are today. Barcelona has been a privileged participant to the right to education for all (FFA point 10). The harmony in these developments, and has led initiatives in each of the could not be clearer. two most recent terms of office to bring the city′s education community and the citizenry as a whole on board. Remember More recently, the UNESCO International Commission the 2026 Government Measure on the City Education Project, report on the Futures of Education entitled “Reimagining the 2018 Government Measure for signing up to the Incheon Our Futures Together. A New Social Contract for Education” Declaration, or the work of the Roundtable for the Education (2021)2, seeks to update the Delors report of 1995 and relo- 2030 Agreement, which started in 2021. All these politi- cate the meaning of education at the crossroads of today’s cal commitments have sought agreement on the minimum challenges and problems. Among other things, the report framework necessary for Barcelona to have an education pro- warns us that: ject based on consensus and clearly in line with international education movements, establishing a direct global-local link 2 Full document online at: https://bit.ly/363Sjov that has always characterised the city. However, that is not enough for us. Out of institutional re- 42 43 and equity if dynamics of exclusion and inequality continue sponsibility to our citizens, the framework of minimums has to develop and become structural. We want to give meaning been promoted, but out of political loyalty to an ideological to education for peace, sustainability, inclusion and equity in project of our own we have promoted a strategy of maximums. Barcelona, but in a context of denouncing and transforming The international ethos that underlies the current meaning of the deep social structures that prevent this peace, sustainabil- education is not an end point but a starting point to undertake ity, inclusion and equity. Barcelona′s current education project that which, for Barcelona, is the true meaning of education: the does not conceal the fact that it is an overtly political education profound transformation of the structures that sustain social which does not hide the causes of the world′s ills, and which inequalities, as well as the social dynamics that violate the free places educational processes at the service of a society that construction of individual and collective identities. frees itself from its limitations and draws futures of happy and emancipated citizens. There is no single meaning of education, but rather different meanings, and the Barcelona education project is critical of the The second shortcoming of the hegemonic educational dis- dominant discourse, its “whys” and “wherefores” are fed by oth- course has to do with the epistemological position on social re- er sources and references, and it highlights shortcomings that ality. We are witnessing a naturalisation of current economic, so- need to be overcome. cial and cultural structures, to the point that those of us who live under their influence end up believing that they are irreplacea- The first is that, although the international education frame- ble. They have imposed the narrative that no alternative eco- works diagnose the world’s main problems, which make sense nomic, social and cultural system to the current one is possible. of the educational processes that aim to reverse them, the di- agnoses only scratch the surface: they describe the effects The hegemonic structures imprint a reproductive meaning of causes that remain invisible. What meaning can education on education, because according to their logic, society is a giv- have if it seeks to remedy the effects of causes that remain un- en, not the result of a process of social and cultural construction. changed? The Barcelona education project spares no effort in Given that social reality is what it is, education has to devote identifying the causes of climate catastrophes, extreme pov- itself to reproducing the prevailing status quo. In this context, erty, the violation of human rights, or the proliferation of a new education becomes a conservative lever for maintaining and re- generation of fascism. newing existing structures. This reproductive nature of educa- tion has been studied and validated by the social sciences with The international reports do not explicitly incorporate a crit- admirable precision, and the consequences for citizens are clear: ical view that is necessary for the city′s education project: the the perpetuation of inequalities. The production of inequality is denunciation of the dominant economic system, which pene- sustained by reproductive social dynamics that underpin this in- trates all other systems (social, cultural, ideological). Education equality. An inequality that is protected by the economic and so- does not escape the totalising effects of an economic system cial elites, who have the greatest interest in its reproduction, and that conditions everything. We have to ask ourselves what sense denounced but not modified by the most disadvantaged groups, it makes to educate for peace if economic structures are the because educational dynamics take great care to deprive them cause of the multiple forms of violence that threaten coexist- of authentic tools for subverting the present conditions. ence among citizens; what sense it makes to educate for sus- tainability if the predatory practices regarding natural resources It should be pointed out that the educational discourse con- are not changed; what sense it makes to educate for inclusion tained in the latest UNESCO international reports confronts this reproductive dynamic of education with an alternative 44 45 that societies constitute as structural gender inequality — sex- dynamic of production and co-production, which proposes a ual difference. A difference shaped by a binary world made up substantial change: protagonism for the participants in ed- of men and women, subject to heteronormative conventions ucational processes as a strategy for empowerment and for directly associated with a presumed sex at birth. Societies tackling the inherent inequalities. Through active involvement, have attributed a productive role to men, who deal with the and following horizontal relationship patterns, the aim is to re- economic activities of production, and an unproductive role verse the social reproduction that constitutes education in an to women, who deal with economic activities related to care unequal and unjust society. Barcelona′s education project as- and upkeep of the home. The patriarchal structure establishes sumes this principle as a starting condition, but not as an end role specialisation and differentiation according to the tasks point. Meaningful education creates a recognition and partic- that have marked the social, cultural and political structure of ipation framework, but as a space for deconstructing and re- recent times. constructing a vision that focuses on people, their well-being and happiness. Collective spaces for participation take on the We know that in the last half-century important steps have sense of a profound transformation of social realities, because been taken to put an end to these rigid and simplifying schemes these realities are seen as the result of a social construction of diversity, but the underlying scheme of binary differentiation affected by the struggle and confrontation between the people has remained unchanged. From Barcelona we question the pat- and groups of which they are comprised. tern of binary gender assignment, we are open to recognising non-binary, fluid gender identities, and we try to give a place to The third shortcoming of the hegemonic educational dis- these identities in educational contexts, as spaces for the free course has to do with the approach to individual differences, construction of one′s own identity. What goes for gender also with special attention to the gender perspective. It is impor- applies to other dimensions of individual identity, such as cul- tant to recognise the growing importance of this perspective in tural, linguistic or religious dimensions: we promote intercul- UNESCO′s public policy proposals, which is reflected in the nu- tural education within the framework of a cultural system still merous international conferences on the subject, the resources set in a colonial cosmogony that does not incorporate the pos- and programmes created for this purpose, and the cross-cut- sibility of mixed identities. We promote education for human ting references in any document or initiative on the subject. rights in a society that fosters ideological polarisation. This global wave of gender mainstreaming in public policies Barcelona′s education project is a radical project, because has also reached education. A perspective that is understood as it seeks to get to the roots of phenomena, and from there to improving schooling and accreditation indicators for women, give a foundational and orienting meaning that combats alien- and comparing their conditions and outcomes to those of men. ating structures, a “why” based on the aspiration for equality, Certainly, international assessments provide evidence of signif- freedom and justice of the vast majority of humanity, and a “for icant progress in these areas at all stages of education, and this what” guiding us towards the causes that prevent it. We share is to be welcomed because it brings us closer to a sense of edu- Paulo Freire’s view that education does not change the world, cation geared towards the principle of equality between people, rather it changes the people who will change the world. In the regardless of their individual biological or social characteristics. meantime, however, in order for education to have an eman- cipating sense, we will have to gradually change the world so Again, however, it is worth noting that the international dis- that the people who have been changed can enjoy the change course falls short in this area as well. It conceals the main cause to the full, and project its legitimate meaning there. THE EDUCATION POLICY DRIVING BARCELONA'S EDUCATION PROJECT 49 POLITICAL, INSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT IN THE EARLY DAYS Barcelona′s current education project did not get off the ground in a neutral setting. Its beginnings in 2015 coincided with an ide- ological context anchored in conservative-liberal approaches at all levels. Spain’s central government, headed by the Partido Popular (PP), had seen its dream of an Education Act fulfilled in 2013 with the Organic Law for Improving Educational Quality (LOMCE ), a deeply regressive Act as regards the principle of ed- ucation for all, a conservative-liberal model that provided for se- lection and segregation by means of classificatory assessment, preferential treatment for private education and the most con- servative pedagogical options, recentralisation of educational powers and disregard for democratic participation as a form of governance. And in the city, we witnessed the end municipal term of office which, in education matters, had directed the pri- vatisation of public education under municipal ownership, and sidelined the Barcelona Education Consortium, an excellent in- strument for educational co-governance. It would not have been possible to promote a new education project for Barcelona in more adverse conditions, and yet the project took its first steps. Aware that a third silent revolution in education was already underway in Barcelona, the local authori- ty realised it was essential that it accompanied this vibrancy, put forward a project and adopted a style consistent with what was expected of the public authorities. While waiting for changes in the central and regional education authorities, the local author- ity had to act as a defender of a progressive and libertarian view of education, and promote it as far as possible. There were three social actors that the people responsible for the city′s education project had to sit down and start working with. The first actor that relations had to be established with was the administration itself. The initial attitude was one of ex- pectation, and from the outset the administrative body teams made it clear they expected management skills from people who were apparently inexperienced in public management. A key factor was, and still is, developing a style of collabora- 50 51 The third actor with whom the managers of the city′s ed- tive leadership that demonstrated both management skills and ucation project had to establish relations was the organised trust. That meant being available, being accessible, giving time, education players. The initial response was one of intense being there. The meetings with the administrative teams, both concern. The education players from the conservative-liberal from the Municipal Institute of Education and the Barcelona sphere — foundations, business organisations, sectors of the Education Consortium, had to be spaces for listening attentively publicly funded private school system — saw the arrival of the to the views of people who, from a technical position, were more new managers as a threat, because it was clear from the outset expert than the politicians who had just taken on responsibili- that they had conflicting objectives. The key here, therefore, ties in the local administration. From the outset, the new polit- was to exercise a transformational leadership that placed the ical leaders knew that their decisions had to be adjusted to the emphasis on shared values and goals, based on sincerity. To numerical reality and real capacities of the technical teams, and avoid sectarianism and to value disagreement as a driver for that it was necessary to work as a team, to overcome symbolic change and improvement. With these actors, it was essential boundaries between politicians and technicians, and to increase to exercise inclusive governance that took them into account the horizontal character of the working dynamics. as well, and which reassured them that the city′s education model responded to a solid project, not mere improvisations. The second actor with whom relations began to be established was the education community. In contrast to the administrative In short, the people behind the Barcelona education project apparatus, the initial attitude was one of hope. The professional realised that, in order to successfully implement the project, it teams dedicated to education in Barcelona, and the majority of was just as important to know “what″ we wanted to do as “how” families, were experiencing intense frustration at having to ad- we wanted to do it. From a systemic approach to complex struc- just to an education framework — that of the LOMCE and that of tures, we knew that sustainable political innovation over time did the partial application of the LEC — which they did not feel was not come from simply changing the elements in the system, but their own. The arrival of an alternative to build a new project at from qualitatively transforming the nature of the relationships the City Council generated a surge of optimism and a desire between them, and that was the starting point of the journey. for change, to position the local authority as a counterpoint to regressive educational policies, to protect the hegemonic ped- agogical model in the city that had existed for more than a cen- THE PILLARS OF BARCELONA'S EDUCATION PROJECT: tury and which was now under threat. This expectation on the A COMMUNITY EDUCATION BY EVERYONE AND part of professionals and citizens was a double-edged sword, FOR EVERYONE because the expectation was so high that there was a demand for immediate change, even though we know that politics is a Once the general strategy had been defined, and with the slow burner. The style of leadership was very distributive and conviction that we knew what kind of educational project based on a capacity for solving problems. It was necessary to Barcelona wanted, we set about responding to it, and began respond to any request received, even if it was not favourable to design the pillars of its development. We did this on the ba- to the demand made; to sit down and negotiate, and not get up sis of two premises: from the table until real agreements were reached that were seen as such by all parties; to maintain permanent channels of z The project could not be developed simply by transferring dialogue, to make proposals and also to follow up and evaluate the principles — highlighted in the previous chapter — to the implementation of the proposals agreed. the reality of the city. It was necessary to reformulate those principles, to avoid a certain pedagogical orthodoxy and 52 53 to apply flexibility without renouncing the desired educa- tional horizon. This was the only way to avoid the project being identified as the project of a few rather than what it really wanted to be: the project by everyone for everyone. z It must not be hegemonic but rather the subsidiary ped- agogical initiative of the city. Just as during the first and second silent revolutions, the transformative pedagogical challenge had to be in the hands of the citizens, not those of the public authorities, and the local authority’s action had to supplement that in order to formalise and institu- tionalise the changes that the majority of Barcelona′s cit- izens wanted for their neighbourhoods. In 2015, multiple transformations were taking place in the city′s education system, many of them invisible to the eyes of those who played a leading role in them. An undeniable ma- and problems, threatened by an education policy that wanted jority had buried the negative stigma of public education for- to move in the opposite direction. ever, and was pressing for more public education. The edu- cational proposals aimed at young children went beyond the Given all these premises and conditioning factors, the city′s schooling frameworks, and there was a proliferation of social education project was defined on the basis of three main pillars initiatives for care and education imported from European — a more community-based model, more equitable access to models. Conservative-liberal policies and cuts in education education, and a more democratic style of governance with a were beginning to take their toll, and school segregation, more public and transparent management system: students dropping out of school and community-based lei- sure education entities closing down were no longer mere z The need for a more community-based education model anecdotes but trends. A desire to recover educational in- arises from the shortcomings noted in guaranteeing the novation as a natural context for school improvement was right to education. Guaranteeing the right to education gaining strength. Dual vocational training, also imported in a cosmopolitan city in the twenty-first century cannot from Europe and started in 2012, begins to experience re- be the same as guaranteeing it in the twentieth century, gained momentum from 2015 and becomes a hope for the when education was equated with schooling, focused on dignity and improvement of the educational quality of this children and young people and had a markedly academic post-compulsory stage. character. Since 2015, the right to education has also in- cluded the genuine and irreplaceable value of non-formal The city′s universities were becoming more open to coop- and informal education, it has to be considered as some- eration, raising their profile abroad, and coming up with first- Equity is the regulatory thing that spans people′s lifetimes, and must include op- rate projects based in Barcelona. The Barcelona education principle that guarantees portunities for fostering values consistent with the millen- the right to education for all. project had to be one more piece in this jumble of initiatives Source: Barcelona City Council nium development goals. Social reality requires education to be three-dimensional, broader, longer and higher, and 54 55 These pillars have been developed from a political dynamic Barcelona′s education project must serve this requirement. based on two hypotheses. The first of these is that, in order to solve new problems, we need to develop and apply new solu- z Fairer access to education is a political and moral imperative tions. This hypothesis takes us back to the need to generate for education in the city, because of the potential damage processes for deconstructing the established mental frame- that lies ahead as a result of implementing conservative-lib- works that sustain educational reality, and to overcome dia- eral public policies that promote inequality and erode social lectics that no longer correspond to education in Barcelona cohesion. Equity is the regulatory principle that guarantees in the twenty-first century: public-private, professional-volun- the right to education for all, not just for a few, and which tary, rich-poor, black-white, men-women. Deconstructing the encourages the creation of more cohesive neighbourhoods binarism on which social reality is built, and exploring complex and a city where living in diversity of all kinds is a reality and intersectional readings of society is part of the political and not a challenge. Equity goes beyond the guiding prin- dynamics of implementing the three main lines of action de- ciple of equality precisely because it makes it possible, and scribed above. demands the promotion of actions based on social justice. Equity is not the end, it is the means by which the benefits The second hypothesis maintains that educational and so- of educational transformations reach every city street. cial innovation requires political innovation. Political innova- tion neither precedes nor succeeds social and educational z A more democratic style of governance responds to a prin- innovation, they are co-produced simultaneously. Political de- ciple of ideological coherence. It is not feasible to manage construction dynamics must be accompanied by reconstruc- Barcelona′s education project with a technocratic approach, tion dynamics in order to provide a meaningful framework that which places the fate of education in the hands of techni- allows us to read today′s world, an essential step that enables cal specialists, managers detached from educational reality us to act: from public-private we approach common, from pro- who take decisions and push the system towards presuma- fessional-volunteer we move on to agency, from rich-poor we bly neutral objectives - but with a clear conservative-liberal advance to community, from white-black we adopt a decolo- orientation. Education in the city is aligned with a profound nial perspective, from women-men we get queer. We leave be- conception of democracy, which means civic engagement, hind the processes based on epistemological “decantation”, partnership and cooperation, and co-responsibility for man- centred on distinguishing pure nature from differentiated el- agement. This is the only form of educational governance ements as the precursor of action, and we position ourselves that can consolidate the third silent revolution. Clearly, the in the territory of epistemological “alloying”, which seeks the education management system cannot be left in the hands of creation of mixed natures from fragile and vulnerable but re- private managers, nor, therefore, must it be kept away from silient materials. the scrutiny of the main participants: the citizens. Privately managing a public good corresponds to the values of con- In the following sections we explain how we have been for- servative-liberal thinking, and there are numerous examples mulating and implementing these dynamic deconstruction that show us the ineffectiveness of that model and the drift and reconstruction policies in the three main areas estab- towards a more unequal and unjust society. Barcelona′s ed- lished, with specific examples of action that provide evidence ucation project prioritises public education and seeks to es- of how Barcelona′s education project has been gaining time tablish mechanisms of transparency and accountability in and space in this city in the first third of this century. all its areas of activity. AXIS: A COMMUNITY EDUCATION MODEL FOR A BROADER EDUCATION 58 59 basis, a line of action being worked on through the “Ampliem Espais Educatius als Barris” [Expanding Education Spaces in From managing schools as spaces of academic Neighbourhoods] programme, which began during the pan- excellence to managing schools as environments demic in response to emerging educational needs. From of community excellence September 2022, it will be called "Sharing Education Spaces" to reaffirm the city′s education strategy. In line with this, we In Barcelona′s education project, school is the backbone of also wanted one in every four public primary and secondary city education, and the project sees students’ academic ex- schools to have links or stable education projects underway cellence as an individual and collective value that deserves with cultural or scientific facilities in the city, and for most pub- to be recognised and promoted. At the same time, the project lic schools to be open as neighbourhood facilities with diverse is committed to schools where the people who are part of it neighbourhood and community uses, reinforcing the afore- can be and learn to be happy. We avoid separating the two ap- mentioned community school model. In addition, as a result proaches, because we believe that people can be happy learn- of the pandemic and looking further ahead, we have promot- ing, and that it is difficult for them to learn if they are not happy. ed links between educational and cultural facilities, especial- Learning and happiness form a robust alloy that must be pos- ly local ones, after 40 schools had spaces in libraries or civic sible in every city primary and secondary school. centres. This is a strategic line that has already been in place for some time in the educating city. As part of this initiative, However, more is needed. School promotes happy learn- Barcelona has made 74 public facilities and 159 outdoor spac- ers, but its function must go beyond its own walls, especially es in gardens and squares and on the public highway available in those parts of the city where school is the only institution to the city′s schools for use as educational spaces. with cultural resources in that area. When that happens, school cannot shirk its social-community role, and apart from promot- This programme has carried on with and expanded exist- ing the typical teaching-learning processes, it has to become ing programmes that have proved successful, such as "School a centre of community excellence. When a school closes its playgrounds open to the neighbourhood", which aims to opti- doors at half past four, the educational space can become a mise use of the educational and social side of schools by mak- community environment for educational and cultural activi- ing it possible for different groups to use their playgrounds ties open to everyone who lives in the neighbourhood. That without interference. Each playground has a monitoring ser- way schools become educational facilities for the neighbour- vice who open and close it at the scheduled times, ensure it is hood, clearly in line with the “Education 360” initiative that used in the proper manner and help children and young people Barcelona has signed up to. Moreover, the educational and cul- to interact with one another. The playgrounds are open all year tural offerings promoted outside of school can be linked with round, and those where money has been invested in improve- the school′s education project, and generate synergies that ments serve as shelters in the event of a climate emergency. nurture both dynamics mutually, as part of a whole. There are currently 56 open playgrounds, and there are plans to open seven more during this school year. Eleven of them Barcelona′s education project is intended to be an ambi- are climate shelters, and 12 are transformed playgrounds. To tious one, and from the outset has set targets that have guid- all these we need to add the opening of four municipal nursery ed political action with this in mind. By 2023, we want one school playgrounds since 2021, with this number increasing in every four primary and secondary schools in the city to be to ten in 2022. These are aimed exclusively at children up to using education spaces in their neighbourhoods on a regular the age of six, in this way ensuring that there is a safe place for them to enjoy, as part of the play-friendly city. This number 60 is expected to rise from ten to twenty-five by January 2023. The other programme that continued during the first term of office, and which has gradually been redefined and integrat- ed into the major urban planning initiatives during the second term of office, is "School Paths", with 141 schools participating in the program and forming 123 school paths, a clear direct forerunner of the “Protecting Schools” programme. School paths are an educational strategy, based on shared thinking that promotes a mobility culture which prioritises people’s quality of life and respect for their environmental and social surroundings. Involving the educational community, the lo- cal authority and the neighbourhood network generates safe spaces and routes around the schools, encourages children to be independent and offers school students the possibility of walking to and from their school. This desire to carry on turning primary and secondary schools into community spaces has not just been pursued in the city. We also wanted to continue projecting it internationally through the “educating cities” department. Barcelona has continued to play an active role as the capital of this international movement of more than 500 cities around the world that are now members of the International Association of Educating Cities (IAEC), and has pushed for another 175 cities from 12 countries to join. The city has co-organised three international conferences (Rosario 2016, Cascais 2018, Andong 2022) and various regional meet- ings. It has launched the Educating Cities Award in recognition of the work done by IAEC member cities and, so far, has held four editions. It has published two monographs — one on cul- ture and the other on living together — both from a city educa- We’re expanding neighbourhood educational tion perspective, as well as a methodological guide on consoli- spaces. Plaça de Nou Barris, dating an educating city and various newsletters. In addition it space given to Escola Mercè Rodoreda has launched International Educating City Day (30 November), Source: Paula Jaume, Barcelona City Council providing communication and dissemination to generate new alliances and partnerships in cities, mobilising over 300 cities in School playgrounds open 20 countries to join in over the six editions. For the international to the neighbourhood. Source: IMEB, Barcelona City movement’s 30th anniversary, the Educating Cities Charter was Council The Educating City 63 updated with the support of Yayo Herrero and Joan Manuel del underpins, showcases Pozo. In the last few years, Barcelona has embarked on an ex- and evaluates the perimental line of action, namely, to take the notion of the edu- educational impact cating city into the neighbourhoods by means of the "educating of municipal policies neighbourhoods" strategy. From educational innovation in schools to educational innovation between schools Educational innovation lies at the heart of Barcelona’s educa- tion project. The city is the cradle of the pioneering teacher Rosa Sensat and the movements for pedagogical renovation are based here. It would be impossible to think of education without taking innovation into account. However, those of us involved in the education project have always asked ourselves what kind of innovation are we talking about and, above all, for whom? Educational innovation is not just the heritage of a progressive and libertarian view of schooling, it is also the her- The Educating City itage of those who start from conservative-liberal approaches, leaves no one behind so we have to say where we stand. Thus, Barcelona’s education project is committed to edu- cational innovation that transforms schools — especially their professionals — into professional learning communities. The pedagogical models that are promoted are related to the the- oretical and practical corpus of active pedagogy: we speak of educating through environments, of incorporating projects and centres of interest as methodological strategies to roll out the curriculum, and of developing service and learning experi- ences. The innovation we want places learners at the heart of the teaching and learning processes, and gives them a leading role in developing a curriculum for life. However, the approach to educational innovation goes be- yond these premises, and incorporates a community aspect to innovative action. Professional learning communities break through school walls and form a network with participants from other schools. These networks are not just for teachers, Educating cities. Source: Barcelona City Council they also incorporate cultural, social and community profes- sionals. The individual dimension is overtaken by the collective 64 dimension, and this innovation shuns competition and rank- ings to embrace cooperation. These networks of professionals for innovation have taken shape in the “Networks for Change” programme, driven by the Barcelona Education Consortium. We promote exchange and collaboration between centres for educational transformation so that it reaches each and every one of the city’s primary and secondary schools with public leadership. This programme is a framework for the work of various projects promoting innovation mainly in the field of compulsory education. It is the result of an agreement between the Barcelona Education Consortium, the New School 21 programme, the Institute of Educational Sciences (ICE) at the Barcelona Autonomous University (UAB) and the Rosa Sensat Teachers’ Association (AMRS). We have managed to set up 24 innovation for change networks, in which 215 schools and some 7,200 education pro- fessionals participate. The programme has four main projects: z “New School 21 — Barcelona”. A national project that also had its echo in Barcelona between 2018 and 2021. It has carried out teacher training based on networking and ex- changes between schools. z “Tools Networks for Change”. This programme assigns a team of mentors to support teachers promoting innovation initiatives in each school. z “Teacher training”. An agreement with the Rosa Sensat Association has given an impetus to all teacher training. Two training courses were held in the summer of 2017 and 2018, one specific to the “Tools for Change” project and the other much more adapted to active pedagogy methodologies. In all 600 education professionals took part and 480 training actions from the Area Training Plans were carried out. z “Pedagogical Research Centres”. In recent years, the city′s Municipal nursery schools. Source: IMEB [Municipal Institute PRCs have been remodelled along thematic lines and now of Education] 67 offer a service to all neighbourhoods. Since 2017, there has been a thematic PRC on Citizenship Values based in the Les Corts district, and since 2018, one with Artistic Resources based in the Sant Andreu district. However, the educational innovation is not just restrict- ed to compulsory education. It has been expanded to public nursery schools as well. Firstly, it is worth highlighting the re- shaped “Educational Model of Barcelona’s Nursery Schools”. This new model is the result of a public debate that mobilised more than 300 professionals from municipal nursery schools to review and update the existing educational model, both in terms of content and the use of stereotype-free language. The city′s public nursery schools have had this renewed frame- work to make progress in effectively guaranteeing the right of Barcelona′s young children to education since 2019. The pre- vious nursery school educational model dated back to 2005. Finally, we must highlight how Barcelona’s education pro- ject has transformed the “Pedagogical Innovation Council”. This Council brings together 180 cultural, civic and scientific organisations which, through the School Activities Programme (PAE), offer more than 5,000 activities that promote curricu- lar innovation in the city′s schools. It has a network structure with thematic working groups, and provides pedagogical sup- port so those organisations can become more innovative. It also provides educational opportunities with the offer of free places for highly complex schools, and promotes community educational work in the neighbourhoods, which includes var- ious service learning initiatives. In 2018 and 2019, the Council organised the “Barcelona Educational Innovation Awards”, to give civic recognition to the many innovative experiences that would otherwise have remained anonymous. They consist of seventeen awards for selfless pedagogical innovation and ren- ovation initiatives emerging from the city′s network of schools and other organisations. The awards include two categories, depending on their sectoral scope (nursery, primary or sec- Education Innovation Council ondary education, vocational training, lifelong learning, leisure Source: IMEB [Municipal Institute of Education] education) or territorial scope (one for each city district). From leisure education conceived as an 70 education service to leisure education as a community project for transformation As we were saying, a broader conception of the right to edu- cation entails guaranteeing it on the basis of educational pro- posals traditionally excluded when exercising this right. One of the areas that can no longer be relegated to second place, because of the key role it plays, is that of leisure education. Barcelona saw a proliferation of Scouts clubs (caus) and edu- cational leisure centres (esplais) during the second silent revo- lution. During winter weekends the streets were full of children and teenagers learning the essential values of living together in a community through play and discovery, while on summer weekends the same streets were empty because those boys and girls had left the city to enjoy unique adventures in the heart of nature. Over time, however, community-based leisure education, led by young volunteers 365 days a year, has come under threat due to a lack of recognition and support. Little by little, Barcelona has seen many of these organisations disappear, to the point where it has become a problem. Firstly, because the education they offer is now a necessity for any child or teen- ager in Barcelona and, secondly, because more than 20 of the city′s 73 neighbourhoods do not have any activities to offer their communities. Barcelona′s education project is committed to more edu- cation through leisure but that means community leisure ed- ucation, organised in a coherent and consistent fashion with local schools, that helps to weave links between all the people involved and with the local area, the seed for building democ- racy and fostering critical participation, wherever it is pres- ent. The most emblematic program that has developed this political will has been “Baobab”. The aim of this programme has been to create the conditions for the setting-up, devel- Baobab summer activity opment and sustainability of esplais or caus in areas where programmes. Source: Goroka, Barcelona City they are lacking or in crisis, under the Neighbourhood Plan. Council 73 Baobab has sought to foster leisure throughout the year, thus giving support to young people ready to commit themselves to their neighbourhoods. Its target families and children are those without access to educational leisure due to their eco- nomic circumstances or social exclusion. Since its launch, the programme has created the necessary conditions for commu- nity leisure education in 13 neighbourhoods (Besòs-Maresme, Verneda, La Pau, Trinitat Vella, Bon Pastor, Baró de Viver, Sant Genís dels Agudells, Teixonera, Carmel, Turó de la Peira/Can Peguera, Trinitat Nova, Can Baró, La Marina, Raval and Barri Gòtic), and it has strengthened existing community-based ed- ucational leisure experiences, linking children, teenagers and families with community-based educational leisure associa- tions, fostering those associations’ links with the area and rais- ing the profile of association leisure. People are at the heart of the programme, which has gathered the comments and views of children and teenagers and co-constructed a community educational leisure project with them. A total of 4,805 young people and 593 educators have taken part in Baobab between the busy summer phase and the extensive autumn, winter and spring phase. The involvement of the Barcelona Youth Council, along with city Scouts and other associations and federations, such as Escoltes Catalans, Esplac, Minyons Escoltes i Guies, Acció Escolta, MCECC and Fundesplai, has been key to the de- velopment of the program. Barcelona′s education project was particularly sensitive to the need for educational leisure in 2020, the toughest year of the pandemic, and promoted the “100% Summer Plan”, with an initial offer of more than 1,000 activities to reach more chil- dren, especially those who needed it most, after three months of lockdown without any social contact or outdoor play. The Plan was the result of joint work by various local authority de- 100% summer plan. Summer activity programme. partments and areas: social rights, sport, culture, education Source: Mònica Moreno, Barcelona and the neighbourhood plan. Among other resources it in- City Council cluded guides and virtual training, a specific helpline for bet- A more community-based ter educational and emotional support, managed in collabo- model. ration with the Official College of Psychologists of Catalonia Source: Goroka, Barcelona City Council (COPC), and an Educational Guide to help educators with the support of the University of Girona (UDG). It also meant taking 74 75 al success, and at the same time also in the reproduction of the unusual step of opening 24 libraries, 11 civic centres and 9 existing inequalities. The measure aims to expand the right to school playgrounds throughout the summer and not just dur- education by promoting a policy that makes it possible to ad- ing July as was usually the case. dress the issue of afternoon educational time, with a view to improving equality of educational and cultural opportunities Finally, we wish to point out that support for community for children and adolescents in Barcelona. It highlights all the leisure has not just been for “organised” leisure. Barcelona′s barriers that hinder access: economic, informational, admin- education project has also worked to improve and expand ur- istrative and territorial, in order to ensure that every child and ban spaces for free and informal play in the open environment adolescent in the city can enjoy a minimum of two afternoons through the “2030 Plan for Play in Public Spaces”. Numerous of extracurricular activities per week, and that every neigh- actions have been carried out under this Plan to transform bourhood offers a suitable and diverse range of activities. Barcelona from a city with play areas into a playable city. It is a large-scale initiative, involving the Urban Ecology Area, and includes specific actions such as “Playing in the Squares” or FOR A LONGER EDUCATION “Opening up the Streets”. It is also linked to two other initi- atives — “Transforming Playgrounds” and “Play in the Open From building a system of public nursery Air”) — within the framework of an integrated whole for an schools to building a community education outdoor play space for everyone. The Plan’s goal is to improve system for early childhood and diversify opportunities for play and physical activity in public spaces, due to the great benefits these activities have As we have already pointed out, Barcelona’s education pro- for the development and well-being of children and teenag- ject is in line with the international call for lifelong learning ers, as well as for health and community life. With the plan, for everyone. That is one of the most important educational Barcelona is seeking to achieve a paradigm shift, to become challenges of this century. A notion that has a profound impact a city with specific play areas that are more diverse, creative, on the traditional view. It implies considering the educational accessible and inclusive while placing all urban planning in and not only the formative value, of pedagogical activities with the city at the service of play. In recent years, work has been adults, and also involves addressing the educational nature carried out on 276 play areas, with a forecast of 52 more by of early years teaching and learning processes, very different 2023, and the remodelling of these areas has been guided by from the care and assistance approach. children′s views. The recent government measure “Cap a una política de tardes en barris educadors” [Towards an afternoon The starting point with 0-3 is ambiguous. On the one hand, policy in ‘educating neighbourhoods’] needs to be understood we have a network of high quality public nursery schools, sup- within this context. The aim is for this to be another step in ported by highly professional educators, all the result of ac- the development of cross-cutting public policy in the fields of tions initiated during the second silent revolution. On the other culture, education and social rights in Barcelona in order to hand, however, we have inherited internal and external ten- address the existing inequalities in socially disadvantaged en- sions within the system: from within, we can see the deep un- vironments in terms of after-school leisure time and access to easiness of the workforce in relation to the previous privati- the city′s cultural life, and this has involved becoming a point Next page, play-friendly zation attempts; abroad, citizens insist on the diversification of reference that reaches beyond the city itself. city itself. We city display. Nou Barris. and plurality of educational proposals for Barcelona′s young- Source: Andrés Flajscher, Barcelona know that after-school activities are a key factor in education- City Council est children, in accordance with the new education models. Given this scenario, the city’s education project has out- 78 lined a course of political action marked by “more and better”. Quantitative changes , in the framework of the government measure “Education and upbringing plan for young children”, to strengthen the city′s public nursery school system, neutral- ising the previous privatisation process, and qualitative chang- es in the model, so that it better meets the needs of today′s children and families. On the quantitative side, we note the effort to increase the number of schools and places under municipal public own- ership. The Network of Municipal Nursery Schools has grown by eight centres in the last eight years: Aurora, in the Ciutat Vella district; Germanetes and Leonor Serrano in the Eixample district (plus the expansion of Tres Tombs); Els Gats, in Sants- Montjuïc; Petit Univers and Trencadís, in Gràcia; Guinardó, in Horta-Guinardó, and La Morera, in Sant Andreu. Barcelona will therefore have 103 municipal nursery schools in 2023, with a total of 8,588 public places, a number that will continue to grow, through initiatives such as changing the location and expanding the Pere Calafell and Palamós EBMs (Municipal Nursery Schools) in the districts of Sant Martí and Nou Barris respectively, and the new Teixonera and Can Rosés EBMs, in the Horta-Guinardó and Les Corts districts. The city′s educa- tion project aims for each municipal nursery school to become a “home for young children” in its catchment area, a commu- nity facility for all families with young children, not just those who take their children to the school, and a place to overcome children′s loneliness and build a community. This reformulated concept of the nursery school is promot- ed in a coordinated way within the framework of “Vila Veïna”. Vila Veïna is a municipal government measure aimed at trans- forming the social and healthcare model, where care becomes Family spaces. a shared, community task, not a private, individual one. Caring Source: IMEB, EBM, Goroka. City Council. in a community is better than caring alone. The idea is to or- ganise the city into territorial communities of between 10,000 Vila Veïna. La Morera and 30,000 inhabitants where all the social and healthcare municipal nursery school. Source: Goroka, Barcelona City services and resources are shared, so everyone can have easy Council access to them close to home. Among other social realities, 80 81 and interact with each other and adults. At the same time, Vila Veïna prioritises small, unschooled children, who now families have the opportunity to see the children outside the have access to care planning and personalised care through family environment and can share the experience and their the Home Care Service (SAD) teams, as well as emotional sup- experiences with each other and with professionals. port groups and a resource bank for child care, such as cots and other necessary items. There are currently three initiatives All this effort to reinforce the public network of municipal of this kind in the city: Provençals del Poblenou neighbour- nursery schools and family spaces would not have been possi- hood, with the El Bressol del Poblenou and Dolors Canals pub- ble without an increase in the number of hours of “educational lic nursery schools; Marina del Port neighbourhood, with the support”. We have increased educational support by 50 %, re- Niu d’Infants and Collserola public nursery schools; Congrés- covering the hours lost during the 2011-2015 term and extend- Indians neighbourhood, with the La Morera and Manigua pub- ing the Covid-19 reinforcement by one hour. This means an in- lic nursery schools. crease of 3 to 4.5 hours per day per group for all kindergartens, plus the reception hour. We have also reduced the ratio with- Finally, the Barcelona education project has sought to fol- out reducing the number of places and there are more possi- low a path of customising the generalist model in accordance bilities for flexible groups to improve the pedagogical quality. with the community context of each school, making it possi- ble to combine the principle of a unified model with diversity From a community perspective, and in addition to the es- in adapting it to the needs of its environment. We particular- tablished programmes and facilities, Barcelona’s education ly want to highlight the experimental “diversified timetable” project has continued to expand the options and respond to model, with children enrolled in the morning or afternoon.This emerging needs. In that sense we would highlight the “sum- year 2022-2023 there are already four: Caspolino (Gràcia dis- mer nursery”, a citizen initiative. This involves making spac- trict) Germanetes (Eixample district) Xiroi (Les Corts district) es available in municipal nursery schools, in the afternoon, and Petit Príncep (Sant Martí district). during the first or second fortnight of July so that the par- ents′ associations of these schools can organise education- With regard to what is meant by a “family space”, it is worth al and leisure activities for their children, at a time when the noting how the city′s education project has promoted the di- educational teams are no longer present, but families need versification of public education initiatives, and has increased help in achieving a work-life balance. Another programme the number of facilities in the “Network of Municipal Family worth mentioning that is very closely related to this need is Childcare Spaces” from 12 to 25 for the period 2015-2023, “Concilia”, a municipal childcare service where over 400 chil- reaching more than 1,500 families, with a special focus on the dren from families linked to social services have access to most socially and economically disadvantaged neighbour- care as well as socio-educational and leisure activities. This hoods. A family space is an educational space integrated into programme helps single-parent families with limited resourc- the community network in its neighbourhood for children up es, women victims of gender violence and families with no to three years of age. It is based on recognising families as be- community network to fall back on to “reconcile” or balance ing competent to care for and to educate their children, and work with their personal and family life. It also enables fam- it is a preventive service, because it helps to avoid risk situa- ilies, especially women, who want to follow a training and tions derived from family isolation. It offers a development and insertion pathway to find learning time. Implementing the learning context for young children and families. Children have programme in the Raval neighbourhood is one of the more a space for play and interaction, where they can explore, play notable experiences. We conclude this section on early childhood by mention- 82 ing the efforts has made to tap the city’s vitality with regard to childcare groups. At a conference on the subject, held on 27 February 2016, we noted that the emergence of new forms of social initiative related to the care and education of young children was an undeniable reality: at that time, 70 childcare groups and 30 childcarers had been identified in Barcelona. From then on, together with social and solidarity economy pol- icies, a “line of subsidies for childcare groups” was set up in the local authority′s ordinary call for applications. This line of sub- sidies has helped 5-6 childcare groups a year. For a childcare group to have access to these public funds, it must meet a set of characteristics: they must be organised, legally constituted, non-profit groups; it must guarantee a permanent presence of committed families with both genders sharing responsibil- ity; children′s access must be open and adapted to the needs of the area; management must be transparent and the group must operate democratically; the families must be willing to share spaces and to generate a social return on their action. We cannot foster lifelong learning without a paradigm shift in From the struggle for decent vocational training the way we implement vocational training. for young people and adult education to decent training for those who drop out of school However, from the educational project we were also aware that it was necessary to overcome the simplified framework The recognition given to vocational training in Barcelona is of the education on offer for young women between the ages no different to that which might be given in any other part of of 15 and 24, which could not be limited to proposing a bacca- the country: low. In 2015, citizens continued to view this as laureate or intermediate vocational training course to those a second-rate educational option, proposed as an option for who finish secondary school. In 2015 and subsequent years, students who had not achieved academic success during com- the number of young people finishing compulsory education pulsory secondary education. To this panorama must be added and neither continuing their studies nor working was over a the endemic structural problems of vocational training: lack of thousand. It was necessary to respond to this situation in or- public places, unbalanced map of qualifications and training der to combat the unacceptable figures for early leavers from offered, scant training for trainers, little connection with the education and training. productive sector, facilities that are often obsolete. As regards increasing and improving the public supply of Barcelona′s education project has, from the outset, sought vocational training, we would point to all the investment in to reverse this negative spiral in the city, through extensive promoting new “vocational training institutes”, specialising contacts and agreements, and with the essential support of Concilia-babysitting. in particular areas. In recent years, the Barcelona Education Source: Goroka, Barcelona City the “BCN Vocational and Educational Training Foundation”. Council Consortium has promoted five big centres to give a boost to 84 85 much in line with the community perspective, because the stu- dent becomes the main apprentice. The local authority plays an active part as an institution that takes and trains VT students in the dual mode. All of the 103 public nursery schools are places where students on the early years education courses can do this training. At the same time, the participation of Barcelona Activa′s Employment Plans in this area, through the Training and Work programmes, has also proved key for dual training. The reaction has been very positive and a lot of trainees have been hired by educational support companies, while others have taken part in the public nursery supply teacher pool. Also from a qualitative point of view, it is worth highlighting the economy and training in the parts of the city that need the various “innovation in vocational training” initiatives under- it most: Institut de Nàutica de Barcelona and Institut de taken. In close collaboration with Barcelona Provincial Council Logística de Barcelona, in the Ciutat Vella district; Institut and the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, the city′s education pro- d’Ensenyaments Esportius de Barcelona and Institut dels ject has promoted “Enter the Innovation Circuit with VT”, an Aliments de Barcelona, in the Sants-Montjuïc district; Institut open innovation project that aims to give visibility to vocation- Tecnològic de Barcelona, in the Nou Barris district. In the mu- al training talent by getting students to solve real challeng- nicipal sphere, we must highlight the transformation and re- es within the framework of Circuit Barcelona-Catalunya; the location of two major facilities. In 2018 Barcelona inaugurated “Vocational Training Innovation Awards”, a public recognition the new Massana School building in Plaça Gardunya, while the of the best business projects carried out by vocational train- old Can Batlló factory was extensively remodelled to house the ing students from VT institutes and centres in the city and its new headquarters of the Audiovisual Media School (EMAV). metropolitan area, with a clear social and cooperative orienta- Two examples of the transformation of education with a total tion in the lines of work; “Aula Empresa” [Business Classroom], investment of over 25 million euros. It is also worth highlight- an economic support programme for VT centres to apply the ing the incorporation of “vocational spaces”, individual guid- “Company Simulation for Education Purposes” (SEFED) meth- ance services for students and professionals on job opportu- odology in their classrooms, specifically for business adminis- nities. These spaces represent a clear commitment to lifelong tration, commerce and marketing courses. learning, whether it be initial vocational training or vocational training for employment. Another major contribution towards improving vocation- al training has been the generation of specialist knowledge From a more qualitative perspective, the Barcelona educa- through the “Vocational Training Observatory”, a department tion project has promoted “dual vocational training”. This aims of the BCN Vocational and Educational Training Foundation, to increase collaboration between VT centres and companies which has been responsible for directing or collaborating in in student training processes. This means students do part of the preparation of documents and the organisation of aca- their training at their centre, and the other part in the form of demic events on the subject: the yearbook of vocational train- training and productive activities at the company where they ing in Barcelona and the metropolitan area (the only one of Vocational training network. do their dual training. This type of vocational training is very Source: IMEB its kind in the whole country), strategic studies, the VT trib- une, sectoral reports (such as those on bioinformatics, indus- 86 try 4.0 or the presence of women in vocational training), and the first report on lifelong learning. This 2018 report, entitled “Lifelong Learning in Barcelona: Post-compulsory Education and Community Educational Practices”, in collaboration with the Barcelona Institute of Regional and Metropolitan Studies, was the first of its kind. Finally, we would also like to highlight the collaboration in strengthening the mobility and international projection of vo- cational training within Europe. Barcelona leads and manages the “European Vocational Training Network”. This is made up of 39 cities in 15 countries, with 600 participating centres and a total of 250,000 students. Its main objective is to manage education schools, under the slogan “The stimulus to continue work experience placements for vocational training students learning”, with the aim of reversing a downward trend in en- in companies in the different countries of the European Union. rolment at these centres. Thanks to these community efforts, More specifically, in Barcelona, international mobility in voca- pre-enrolment has increased considerably for the first time in tional training is organised with the support of two European many years. programmes. Firstly, the Erasmus+ programme, which annual- ly allows 100 VT students from Barcelona to spend two months Where the education project has proved to be most inno- gaining international work experience in EU companies, car- vative and significant, however, has been in the fight to stop rying out functions and tasks related to their professional pro- young people dropping out of school. This has been a top pri- file. Secondly, the Youth Guarantee programme (in collabora- ority of political action, and has been tackled through various tion with the Catalan Employment Service and the European resources and projects. The most emblematic has undoubted- Social Fund), which enables 100 unemployed VT graduates ly been the “Municipal Second Chance School”. The Municipal to increase their personal, professional and language skills by Second-Chance School in Sant Andreu district was opened spending time in European companies. in 2019 as a new socio-educational service to help young people who left school early, or dropped out after beginning In the area of “adult education and training”, Barcelona′s post-compulsory secondary education and are now in a situ- education project has sought to fill the gap left by the public ation of social vulnerability, to return to education. This is the authorities who have often neglected it. Thus, the local author- first publicly owned second chance school in the entire coun- ity has supported the paradigm shift in this field. As part of the try. Of the 104 young people who were able to take advantage change in discourse and social perception, we have stimulated of the opportunities offered by the Municipal Second Chance a general lifelong learning strategy, organised various confer- School between September 2019 and July 2022, 69 have man- ences, set up a working group on the subject in the Municipal aged to get back into the post-compulsory secondary educa- Universities Advisory Council, and we have closely accompa- tion system or have begun a job placement project. It is part of nied a social initiative, the Community School of Permanent Municipal second-chance the network of public resources in the socio-educational and Learning La Troca, in the district of Sants-Montjuïc. In 2018 school. vocational field. It initially offered 30 places but since 2022 Source: Goroka, Barcelona City we launched what was the first campaign to promote adult Council the number has increased to 45, plus the resources of the Les Basses Youth Centre, a satellite centre where students will 88 89 public nursery schools. The participating students carry out carry out some of the activities. Also worth highlighting is tasks appropriate to their abilities and to the programme, the investment in youth guarantee programmes, which ben- for example, administrative tasks, collaborating in adapt- efit around 3,000 young people every year, and the specific ing materials, proposing activities, or taking care of spac- training pathways for young people with particular educa- es (playgrounds, vegetable garden, multi-purpose room). tional support needs, notably the sales and customer service Six districts have been involved in this since its inception: assistant pathway, managed by the Rambla Prim public vo- Sants-Montjuïc, Ciutat Vella and Nou Barris, Sant Andreu, cational training centre, and the Escola de Vida Montserrat Sant Martí and Horta-Guinardó. special education centre. This year (2022) has been a key one for developing this line of action, thanks to the first “Forum From the public policy of a city with universities to on Early Leaving and Educational Pathways in the City”, which a public policy for a scientific and university city brought together more than 100 specialists in the field and served as a spearhead for a broader city strategy against Barcelona is a city that is proud of its universities. They are young people dropping out of education. high up in the Spanish and international quality rankings, thanks to the excellence of their teaching and research work. The fight against early leaving has not only been waged This factor, combined with the city’s natural attraction, makes in a reactive way, taking in and supporting early leavers, but Barcelona′s universities key contexts for economic and cultur- also by putting effort into prevention. We know that dropping al development. out is not forged in the final year of compulsory education but generally starts long before, even as early as the prima- However, their research excellence has had some coun- ry stage. For that reason, through the Barcelona education terproductive effects. They have often lived in isolation from project we have adopted the “primary-secondary school” (IE) what was happening in the city, as if they were autonomous model, and within the framework of the Barcelona Education realities independent of their context. At the same time, there Consortium we have invested in spreading these schools has been little cooperation and networking between them or throughout the city. Primary-secondary schools facilitate ed- with the local authority. Barcelona’s education project has, ucational transition, a key element in educational success from the outset, addressed the challenge of overcoming in broad terms, and nine new ones have appeared in the city these dynamics and working for a university city model, en- in the last few years: IE Arts, in the Sants-Montjuïc district; couraging the universities to play an active part in discussing IE Plaça Comas, in Les Corts; IE Mirades and IE Coves d’en and deciding on the issues that affect them, as well as shap- Cimany, in Horta-Guinardó; IE Antaviana, IE Trinitat Nova ing proposals that would allow their facilities to be opened up and IE El Molí, in Nou Barris; IE El Til·ler and IE Rec Comtal to all citizens in order to develop a community, lifelong-learn- in Sant Andreu. ing character. We have also drawn up proposals to make an impact, make Barcelona a science city in which citizen sci- Also aimed at dropout prevention, we would point to the ence predominates. “curricular diversification projects”. These projects aim to help CSE students at academic risk to obtain their compul- The first political action that we promoted from the city sory secondary education diploma by organising the cur- education project in the university and science sphere was riculum′s contents and subjects differently, with a specif- to establish a reference framework, by means of the govern- ic, personalised methodology, and which is carried out in ment measure “Barcelona and University: a common goal”. 91 Although the local authority has no direct powers in univer- sity matters, this measure aims to give maximum importance to the city′s relationship with universities, to working togeth- er, promoting greater integration of the university community in the city, both in the academic sphere and in the cultural, economic and social spheres. Since 2016, the government measure has pursued a series of objectives, including pro- moting and developing policies for equal access to higher education and a social return from university activity, enhanc- ing the university contribution to lifelong learning and, as the main strategic element, setting up the Municipal Universities Advisory Council (CAMU). Based on maximum dialogue and cooperation, the first steps in implementing this government measure were aimed at formalising bilateral relations between the local authority and any universities with a presence in the city, those referred to in Article 125 of the Barcelona Municipal Charter. This pro- cess was formalised with the signing of “framework agree- ments with the universities”. On 16 May 2018, the City Council signed agreements with the University of Barcelona (UB), the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). The main goal of these five agreements in the subsequent years has been to establish a collaborative operational framework to fa- cilitate and speed up the resolution of specific problems and, above all, the development of existing projects or new initia- tives of shared or mutual interest. Bilateral joint committees were set up in mid-2018 and these have drawn up a working plan for each agreement that sets out all the priority projects and initiatives for 2018-2023. One university-related area that has received special at- Pompeu Fabra University. tention in Barcelona′s educational project is the student body. Source: Vicente Zambrano González, Barcelona City Council We have invested resources in promoting the collegiate body “Barcelona University Centre” as an official welcome and sup- Transformed playgrounds. port service for students, teaching staff and foreign research- Source: TANDEM, Barcelona City Council ers who come to one of the city′s universities. A basic tool for the new university community when it comes to finding 94 95 FOR A HIGHER EDUCATION decent and affordable accommodation, as well as a showcase for cultural and leisure services, it has been strengthened by From education about sustainable development the local authority, in close cooperation with the Catalan gov- to education for transformative sustainable ernment and all the public and private universities present development in the city. We have also carried out a diagnosis of the “study rooms” that universities offer in Barcelona, at the request of Barcelona’s education project aspires to higher, fuller, more student organisations and assemblies, and we have allocated decent education for the city. This concept, which goes beyond more resources to increase the offer and improve the service. the curriculum and strictly school framework, has to do with the capacity of schools to respond to society’s most pressing Barcelona has also focused on science as a constituent problems, and help to create a framework of conditions that part of its political action aimed at the world of higher ed- foster change. ucation and research. Aware that the potential of an am- bitious approach to science and research by the city can Climate change and global warming are undoubtedly the immediately give citizens the chance to become familiar main challenges of our time. However, we do not despair and with the current challenges of the digital transformation fall into the trap of believing that local environments cannot of everyday life, as well as the potential and the risks that take action against a crisis of a clearly global character. We go major scientific breakthroughs pose for us in areas such as further than the education on sustainable development and biogenetics, the climate emergency or transhumanism, we Agenda 21 carried out up to 2015. We must continue to help have strengthened existing “citizen science” initiatives and people learn about the value of reducing consumption, reusing the links between local government and the city′s powerful materials we have already used, and recycling anything that no research centres and other spaces. This reinforcement has longer serves any use. But the third silent revolution requires offered powerful coverage beyond the economic and visitor a deeper and more community-based approach. aspects of the city, linking major technological and cultur- al events with the city′s scientific and innovative fabric. A The city′s education project has undertaken the ambitious scenario that has made it possible to actively address the political step of advocating for education for sustainable de- relationship between culture and the different industrial and velopment. Primary and secondary schools must have biocli- economic sectors present in the city. matic buildings with greater energy efficiency, and that are accessible on foot, by bike or by public transport. They must All this energy has found its way into numerous public reduce their eco-footprint and greenhouse gases (GHGs), and initiatives that deserve to be mentioned for the impact they offer food with less animal protein. The educational project have had on the city’s scientific, cultural and education- facilitates learning about sustainability by getting the entire al fabric: the Citizen Science Office, the Science Festival, education community to experience it, and by placing social EscolaLab, the Science Plan, the Science Advisory Council, and community relations at the centre of architectural and ur- and the Hypathia Award. From a citizen participation per- ban design. spective, we underline the value of the “Biennials” held (Biennial of Thought in 2018; City and Science Biennial in Previous page, Can Fabra The project’s political action in this field began by adopting 2019), with the city′s cultural organisations and research shelter school. the long-running and successful “More Sustainable Schools” Source: Andrés Flajscher, Barcelona centres playing a major role. City Council programme. With 20 years of experience, it is still committed to providing a consistent and stimulating offer of support to 96 the city′s schools in order to help them put sustainability at the heart of their work. There are currently 367 city schools in- volved in the programme, which has so far been the backbone of all sustainable development education. But, as we were saying, the city project goes further than that and has given rise to plans and projects with a wider scope. For a start, €300 million has been invested in the “school fa- cility improvement strategy”, to make them more habitable, sustainable and communal. This strategy embraces five plans: z the “Playground Plan”, to systematically transform school playgrounds into more natural, coeducational and com- munity-based environments, playground-climate shelters open to the neighbourhood. Twelve of these have been cre- ated in collaboration with the education communities. z the “Pla de mobiliari” [Furniture Plan] aimed at creating comfortable learning environments, from the standpoint of educational innovation. To date, it has led to big chang- es in furniture for pre-school children (I3, I4 and I5). z the “Energy Transition Plan”, to enable energy efficiency, green energy generation and consumption, and thermal comfort, including the renovation of façades and roofs. All public nursery schools are already green energy consumers with Barcelona Energia, and we are in the process of install- ing photovoltaic panels at a range of schools z the “Dining Rooms and Kitchens Plan”, to speed up and complete all the pending alterations, notably the adapta- tion of 32 food areas and the creation of dining rooms with catering facilities in 6 secondary schools. z and, finally, the “Painting Plan”, which has so far dignified 157 public schools, improving the atmosphere of well-be- ing and learning, and has a target of repainting all schools School furniture and painting. Source: Barcelona Education by 2024. Consortium 99 In terms of a paradigm shift, we must first of all highlight the “Protecting Schools” programme. The areas surrounding schools are priority spaces for transforming urban planning in Barcelona, in line with the commitment to ensure proper physical, emotional and intellectual development of school- children and the entire education community. The idea is to protect the physical surroundings of the schools, with more green space and places to stay in, less motor traffic. In short, school surroundings have to be safer and healthier, with plac- es to stay and play that are less polluted as well. We have cut 16 traffic lanes, gaining a hectare of public space — equiva- lent to a block of housing in the Eixample district — to create squares where people can meet, strengthening the commu- nity. In recent years we have turned 216 school environments into traffic-calmed, green spaces with “a square for each school”. We are talking about a quality public space, in a city that aspires to be green, biodiverse, productive and resilient, with active, sustainable mobility, and an involved and com- mitted citizenry. All of these actions have been the result of participatory processes to jointly co-determine the improve- ment measures, which include a guide that provides schools with a set of dynamics and proposals for activities so that they can carry out the participatory process autonomously with the maximum number of people in the school, adapting the pro- cess to their own reality. The main political action in the paradigm shift has been the “climate shelters in schools”, an initiative that won the 2022 International Educating Cities Award which has now been systematised and expanded to become the Transforming Playgrounds programme. The aim is to convert 11 schools cur- rently considered vulnerable to heat into climate shelters open to all city residents by implementing traditional solutions against heat in buildings and by transforming playgrounds through the introduction of vegetation, shaded areas and wa- ter stations. We have carried out green, blue and grey actions that have helped to reclaim around 6,800 square metres of Transformed playgrounds. natural land with plants in school playgrounds replacing the Source: TANDEM, Barcelona City Council concrete, and created 4,967 square metres of new spaces, Protecting schools. Source: Goroka, Barcelona City Council Climate shelters. Els Llorers school playground. Source: Mariona Gil, Barcelona City Council shaded by pergolas and awnings. In addition to that, we have 102 planted a total of 284 trees and installed 77 new water stations. Finally, we must not forget to mention the importance of the “Healthy Dining Rooms” programme. Taking advantage of the declaration of Barcelona as Sustainable Food Capital for 2021, we wanted to extend the impact of this measure to the edu- cational sphere, to promote healthy habits based on a healthy, sustainable and local food approach, with a special focus on children and adolescents. We currently have 45 schools par- ticipating in the programme, which have cut down on animal protein and have introduced more vegetable protein into their menus, and which consume local products to boost the local economy and reduce ecological waste. For part of this process we are working with the Pau Gasol Foundation, with the inten- tion of reaching all the city’s schools. We should also mention the sustainable dining rooms of 103 nursery schools, which went from having 3 % ecological produce in 2008 to 95 % in Eating healthy and Pau Gasol Foundation. Source: Goroka, Barcelona City Council 2021. At the same time local, short-circuit produce has gradu- 104 105 and Secondary Schools for Equality and Non-discrimination”. ally been introduced in an innovative manner, despite the legal An awareness-raising programme that aims to promote atti- difficulties posed by EU regulations that do not allow differen- tudes consistent with the values of equality, fairness and re- tiation by origin in public procurement. spect among children and adolescents from 6 to 16 years of age, as well as their adult environment, such as teachers and From coeducation to feminist education their families. It has a preventive nature, aiming to reduce the appearance (primary prevention) and achieve early detection Equality between people, whatever their gender identity or ex- (secondary prevention) of abusive and discriminatory attitudes pression, is a right recognised in law and is a constituent part and behaviours in interpersonal relationships between boys of the curricular proposals of compulsory education. Barcelona and girls, teenagers, men and women, or people of different is a city that has always had an eye on this social challenge and genders, sexual orientation and identity. The idea of network- all the revolutions in education have prioritised the joint educa- ing is to make the most of the resources and strategies de- tion of boys and girls, opting for coeducation as the best model veloped by the schools, while encouraging them to cooperate for managing this diversity. The third revolution is no different. and exchange experiences. At present there are 15 schools in the network. However, social polarisation means that, despite recognis- ing the undeniable advances, we continue to suffer gender However, we do not work on prevention with the young- discrimination at school. In some cases the origin of this dis- est children, and we also need to involve the adults who in- crimination has to do with cultural beliefs and values, in others teract with children and adolescents in schools: teachers and simply with aspects of symbolic violence associated with pow- families. 2018 saw the launch of the “Protocol for Action and er relations. Be that as it may, today there is still a long way to Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse and Mistreatment”, aimed at go to ensure that school is a safe place for all identities, both public nursery schools. Its general goal is to raise awareness in terms of gender and sexual orientation. The city′s education of this scourge and appeal to the responsibility of the profes- project today is not just coeducational but also openly feminist, sionals who work with children, and provide them with specif- while the struggles against homophobia, transphobia and gen- ic knowledge that will help them to prevent, detect and take der violence represent a significant part of its action in schools. action in the face of any mistreatment they may suffer. The intention is also to promote prevention by ensuring healthy Barcelona does not bury its head in the sand and is using behaviours that encourage healthy and enriching relation- all available resources to combat these phobias. The city has ships which do not pose a risk to children or adults in the rela- an Office for Non-Discrimination (OND), which supports peo- tionships between educators and children, as well as families. ple who suffer any type of discrimination, provides legal ad- Within the sphere of the Barcelona Education Consortium, the vice on how to report it and works to raise public awareness. local authority has also devoted resources and time to updat- It also has an LGBTI Centre, a pioneering experience that of- ing and promoting protocols for all stages of education and all fers a wide range of information, guidance and direct assis- types of schools where there are minors. tance services, in coordination with social entities and the var- ious public authorities. But where the city′s education project Barcelona’s education project advocates education com- has sought to place the emphasis is on prevention, by raising munities free of violence. It does not hesitate to use local gov- awareness among children and young people. The most em- ernment mechanisms to guarantee this and, if necessary, to blematic action has been to promote the “Network of Primary fight to eradicate it. From the inclusive education of students 106 107 and resources of the “Special Needs Education Team”, a mobile to the construction of healthy, inclusive schools psycho-pedagogical guidance and counselling team, which and communities provides public nursery schools and kindergartens in the city with support in the care and monitoring of children with spe- The dignity of an education system can be measured accord- cial needs. The team’s members ensure that children with spe- ing to the degree of attention that this system pays to people cial needs receive quality care in an inclusive environment. with specific educational support needs. A generalist system The working culture fosters guidance and support to enable that is incapable of taking into account and responding to the the different children to take part in the activities and to of- educational needs of all is not only not an inclusive system, but fer the families of children with special needs clear and em- also violates the basic principle of education for all. powering communication. Through the Barcelona Education Consortium we have promoted “three basic measures for deal- Inclusive education is part of Barcelona’s education project ing with diversity” in compulsory education that implement because the city has always been sensitive to diversity in all its the strategic goal of guaranteeing equal opportunities. Firstly, dimensions, which enrich the city’s educational landscapes. better detection of the specific educational needs that stem Functional diversity, care for the disabled, welcoming people from economic and cultural situations. Secondly, a fairer dis- from minority cultural groups, all of this requires political im- tribution of vulnerable children to avoid the school segregation petus and this is what we have tried to give. However, we start caused by concentrating too many of these children in certain from the premise that this educational dimension will only be schools. And, finally, targeting specific resources at schools possible if we adopt an individualised approach in classrooms, where needs are concentrated. and implement it in all schools and their reference communi- ties, natural environments for relationships and development In terms of improving inclusive education in municipal in which inclusion is not taught or learned, but lived. nursery schools, as detailed in the report “Early Childhood and Inclusive Education in Barcelona's Municipal Nursery Schools” From this perspective, the city’s education project also (2022), since 2015 major efforts have been made to improve maintains that inclusion has a lot to do with people′s physi- early identification of children with specific educational needs cal and psychological well-being. Therefore, as well as further (SEN) so that the appropriate support can be provided as soon exploring inclusive practices in the community, we have intro- as possible, mobilising more and better resources, in order to duced a very important line of educational work in the field of make the principles of inclusive education in local schools an health in general, and mental health in particular. Adolescents increasingly tangible reality. in Barcelona have been greatly affected by the pandemic, so we have decided to intensify psychological support for young Focusing the public nursery school service on working to- people to mitigate its negative effects. wards greater inclusivity in education has involved a signifi- cant increase in the number of children with SEN in the mu- First, though, we want to highlight the measures and provi- nicipal network (nearly 60 %). Currently, 11 % of the children sions that the Barcelona education project has strengthened have specific resources and are monitored for possible needs in order to ensure that every child or adolescent with specific linked to disabilities and disorders (SEN-A). Of the children educational support needs (NESE) enjoys the inclusive envi- being monitored, special needs had been identified prior to ronment they need to develop their full potential. Within the beginning nursery school in less than half of them (some 400 Municipal Institute of Education, we have increased the staff out of around 900). Given the rise in the number of children with specific 108 needs linked to social needs (1 out of every 3 now have SEN), the municipal nursery-school network has reinforced its function of early detection and attention to needs, while also focusing on providing a more inclusive and equitable educa- tion with a variable pricing system based on income. The increase in the number of state school places to near- ly 1,000 (between 14/15 and 23/24) is essential for improving inclusive education and making it possible for many more pre- school children (with or without SEN) to go to municipal nurs- ery schools at a time when this is still not universal. Reaching the figure of nearly 9,000 children in the Municipal Nursery School Network is not the only improvement; there are also more specific new resources for inclusion, including: z Increasing the number of places reserved for children with specific educational needs (164 % more SEN plac- es) Doubling the number of hours for specific education- al support for inclusion and stipulating a minimum of 2.5 hours a week for children with a reserved SEN-A place. Doubling the number of hours for mental health special- ists (at the Vil·la Joana Special Education Centre) and in- troducing speech therapy and physiotherapy hours (at the Pont del Dragó Special Education Centre) z the new itinerant special education and nursing service for children with serious disabilities or healthcare needs z the inclusion of municipal social educators on the teams at10 nursery schools, in order to reinforce socio-education- al work with families and the community z the increase in inclusive education training for nursery-school education teams (650 % more trained professionals) Among the programmes for young people and adults we would underline the value of the “Experimental Programme for Municipal nursery schools. Source: IMEB [Municipal Institute Accompanying and Preparing for the Integration of Newly Arrived of Education] Speakers of Non-Romance Languages” run in three city schools 110 for adults: Barceloneta Adult Education Centre, in Ciutat Vella; Freire Adult Education Centre and La Pau Education Centre, in Sant Martí. It offers schooling for young people who speak non-Romance languages — most aged 16 to 19 — with a socio- linguistic immersion in Catalan. The programme also works on Spanish and other languages. And in the Roquetes neighbour- hood of Nou Barris, the interculturality and coexistence pro- gramme stands out. This aims to reduce inequality based on a person’s cultural background through various actions with the organised and non-organised community fabric, and to promote community participation together with organised groups from different backgrounds. With regard to political action for mental health in education in common, we highlight the incorporation of “EMO figures” in schools, professionals who help students and teachers in managing their emotions. Forty-four schools now have this support. These professionals are part of a broad- er city strategy on mental health, coordinated by the Barcelona Mental Health Board, which complements the “Cabàs emoci- onal” project, a reference website that brings together online activities and resources to improve people’s mental and emo- tional health, or the “Konsulta'm” or “Aquí t'escoltem” spaces, for young people from 12 to 20 years of age and with a clear aim of providing tools and resources to strengthen their personal and social skills, and to promote their personal growth. Detecting the specific needs of educational support re- quires a precise diagnosis that can help to guide political ac- tion. Since 2016, Barcelona has had this global situation analy- sis, which can be read in the various “educational opportunities reports” that have been published. The diagnosis covers the whole education spectrum, from nursery school, through pri- mary and secondary school, to leisure education. Based on identifying the city′s main challenges in this area, these re- ports legitimise the commitment of Barcelona′s education project to developing a pre-distributive public policy and a fundamental strategy for improving the equity and well-be- ing of children and adolescents. So far there have been three Municipal nursery schools. Source: IMEB [Municipal Institute editions of this series of reference reports. of Education] 113 Barcelona’s education project has a vision of how to AXIS: contribute to the third silent revolution: ensure every- one enjoys the right to education, by broadening, ex- tending and dignifying it. We have explained what and how in the previous sections. However, we are aware FAIRER ACCESS that this vision cannot be realised if we do not now tackle the structural factors in the education system TO EDUCATION that go against it. Therefore, an inherent part of the project involves turning those factors into facilitators. The vision provides the content, the structure provides the framework. In terms of equity-driven political action, the central problem that the city's education project has tackled is school segregation. Inclusive education is not feasible without equitable education, yet until recently this ba- sic premise was not a practical option as the education system was posed in equality-inequality terms. Now the city shies away from egalitarian political action be- cause equality of resources in a context of unequal al- location only increases inequalities. From the fight against student segregation 114 115 tem (pre-school), or at the beginning of CSE (1st year), and is to the fight against the system’s available to all publicly funded schools. In order to access the segregating structures Plan′s resources, EI3 pupils must have a social vulnerability assessment, issued by the municipal social services, certify- Barcelona is a city that has suffered severe school segrega- ing that they are in a vulnerable situation, and first-year CSE tion, as a result of educational policies anchored in conserva- students must have undergone a final assessment as such in tive liberal thinking which viewed the public sector as subsid- the sixth year of primary school, and have been identified in iary to the private sector, and implicitly encouraged the latter the corresponding register as students with specific educa- through inaction. Tackling school segregation means tackling tional support needs (NESE), Type B. The Plan is implement- many factors, notably the following: residential segregation, ed on the basis of three main criteria: reserved places based school composition, school planning, management of pre-en- on the aggregate percentage of pupils enrolled in the current rolment and live enrolment, control of educational subsidies, academic year who have been recognised as NESE B, a max- poverty. Therefore, the Barcelona education project has grad- imum enrolment quota per zone regardless of the number of ually abandoned the mental framework in which citizens who vacancies available in each school, as has been the case re- suffer the effects of segregation must be treated individually, cently, and increased ratios where necessary. by means of means-tested allowances and benefits, and we have incorporated a systemic view that aims to neutralise the The Barcelona Education Consortium provides exemption negative cycle of the aforementioned factors and transform it from school trip and summer camp (colònia) fees, plus grants into a positive spiral of equality: more for those who have less. for textbooks and teaching materials. All these resources are directly associated with the general calls for applications is- The flagship political measure in the fight against school sued by the local authority. segregation has been the “Shock Plan against Segregation, for Equal Opportunities and Educational Success”. This originated Prior to promoting this Plan as part of Barcelona’s educa- in the Barcelona Education Consortium, in line with the po- tion project, we had gradually been incorporating structur- litical mandate and the strategic orientations of the National al measures at various levels. The first we want to highlight Agreement against School Segregation, of which Barcelona is the “Full-time Secondary Schools” programme. This pro- is a signatory. This Plan focuses on the stages of compulsory gramme, launched in 2016 following a pilot test in two sec- education and pursues five general objectives: better detec- ondary schools, is intended to cover the basic needs of stu- tion of pupils in disadvantaged socio-economic and cultural dents in vulnerable situations, ensuring lunch provision and situations; equitable distribution of pupils in vulnerable situa- moving towards full-time schooling where everyone has the tions by reserving places for them, in order to avoid excessive opportunity to do curricular and supplementary, extracurric- concentration in certain schools; targeting specific resources ular activities. It is a programme targeted at CSE students. for pupils in disadvantaged socio-economic and cultural sit- We have managed to cover 17 secondary schools, although uations; support for educational innovation in school equiva- the initial offer was 20. lence; and better information and attention to families during the pre-enrolment campaign. Alongside this political measure, we also wish to highlight the “modification of the income threshold” for accessing a The Shock Plan acts in the first instance on students in lunch grant so more families can get it, and ex officio alloca- a vulnerable situation who are joining the education sys- tion of a lunch grant to children who have already been award- ed child benefit by the municipal social services to stream- 116 117 line the procedure. We should recall that the first education measure adopted by the new municipal government in July 2015, when it found itself managing a budget surplus of €100 million, was to make an extraordinary allocation of €8 million to increase the lunch grant fund, marking the beginning of an increase in this type of aid that has been maintained year after year. Another measure that preceded the Plan was the change to the system for managing “direct enrolment”. From 2017 we expanded the enrolment application period. This is a fairer, more transparent formula that allows the vacancy pool to be offered again to applicants that have not obtained a place or who wish to change their assigned school. With this change, everyone maintains the priority score they had for the first ap- plication. Furthermore, for new pupils arriving after the start of the school year, we have promoted a circular distribution system, which is not based on existing vacancies but on pro- portional distribution for all schools in the same zone. The pandemic was a particularly difficult time in terms of equity, and exceptional measures were needed at the toughest times during the lockdown and post-lockdown periods. such as the purchase and distribution of 5,000 tablet with Internet connectivity for pupils in situations of social vulnerability. the UAB to support and advise the management team, to add a To conclude this section, we should point out that the equi- social worker and a psychologist to the educational team who ty measures have not been restricted solely to compulsory ed- provide support for families with social and economic diffi- ucation. In “educational attention for equity in early childhood”, culties, and to adopt a new model of more community-based we can highlight the open process of reducing the number of relations between these schools and public and private so- pupils per educational group in public nursery schools, and cial service institutions (social services, primary health care the experimental action at the La Muntanya and Aqüeducte centres, associations). Following the experimental phase, and municipal nursery schools in the Nou Barris district, where we after confirming the good results achieved, the presence of have launched a pilot programme to improve equity in pub- Digitising education. social educators has been consolidated in 10 public nursery lic nursery schools with greater vulnerability. Other measures Source: Goroka, Barcelona City Council schools, under the Neighbourhood Plan. implemented, in addition to reducing the teacher-pupil ratio in each of the two nursery schools, have been to take on two Prometeus. In the university field, we must mention the Barcelona ed- Source: Goroka, Barcelona City expert advisers in the field of pedagogy and psychology from Council ucation project’s support for the social initiative of AEI Raval and the newspaper El Raval, which is the “Prometheus” pro- 118 gramme. It is implemented in areas of Barcelona where there are situations of high social vulnerability, and its aim is to sup- port and ensure that young people who have passed the se- lection process can go on to higher education and complete their studies. Launched in the Raval neighbourhood in 2016 with the participation of a broad range of organisations, ed- ucational and social agents and volunteers, the programme prepares, informs, motivates, guides and accompanies sec- ondary school students to higher education and promotes their educational success through various areas of work: workshops and activities to democratise access to univer- sity, welcoming and supporting the students at universities and social and educational mentoring, where young volun- teers become positive role models for other young people. In order to promote educational equality, the Prometheus pro- gramme operates in four phases: secondary school, transi- tion, university or higher education and the world of work. With the active participation of teaching staff from second- ary schools, Prometeus provides extensive information, ad- vice and motivation to secondary school students (CSE and Baccalaureate) on accessing university. During the university enrolment period, individual support and advice is offered, and once they are at university, students benefit at all times from both academic and personal support and follow-up from the programme reference person in each neighbourhood, in close coordination with the universities. They can also have a mentor (UniMentor) who is doing the same course as the one they have started. Prometheus has been set up in the Raval neighbourhood and work is now being done to expand it to Nou Barris and Sant Martí. The first programme participants graduated in 2021, and so far a total of 190 university students have taken part. From allowances to social pricing In line with everything that was said in the previous section on segregation, Barcelona′s education project has also tried to Municipal nursery schools. be coherent as regards the public price management model. Source: Barcelona City Council In accordance with a systemic rather than an individual per- 120 121 justice. Meals and other resources are still included, and the spective of inequalities, and being in favour of a regulatory reductions for large families (general or special), single-par- principle of fairness over egalitarianism, we have started a ent families and disabled family members have also been process of progressively transforming the system of subsidies maintained.  to adopt a “social pricing system”. Five years after the system came into force, the studies car- This process was initiated in the public nursery schools ried out confirm that the planned objective has been achieved: in 2017, taking as a reference a similar process carried out access to public nursery schools is now more equitable, and previously in cities such as Sant Feliu de Llobregat, El Prat families who were initially excluded now have access to the de Llobregat and Sabadell. A process discussed with all the classrooms of these educational spaces. sectors involved, and not without political controversy, but which, once rolled out and evaluated, confirms that access From culture as an educational supplement to to Barcelona′s public nursery schools is now more equitable. culture as the backbone of the education project The commitment to introducing the social pricing system Taking culture into schools has been a constant feature of the in public nursery schools responds to the desire to promote city since the second silent revolution. However, Barcelona′s equal opportunities for children in accessing public 0-3 edu- current education project calls for a broadening of the regis- cation, recommended by the Ombudsman in his report on 0-3 ter and a transformation of educational and cultural networks. education as a measure of educational equity.  While it is still valid for schools to visit cultural facilities, the city′s education project aims to go much further and guaran- The system in place until now consisted of a single price tee equal access to all kinds of culture for the most socially for everyone, regardless of their income. This included meals, vulnerable sectors of the population. as well as a set of resources that are an example of quality and excellence: large recreational areas, psychomotor ther- In order to organise and promote this equity-based political apy rooms, and support staff. The new social pricing system action, the education project has promoted the government is fairer and more proportionate, as it adjusts the price to the measure “Towards a Public Policy on Culture and Education”, economic reality of each family: a range of progressive fees as a first step in developing a mainstream public policy in the is established depending on the family’s income. Moreover, fields of culture and education in Barcelona. This measure if their income decreases, their fee also decreases, and vice aims to respond to the need for joint work between cultur- versa, with a 10-band scale. The result is greater proportional- al and educational players in the city. It is promoted by the ity and a price drop for the vast majority of households: since Barcelona Institute of Culture, the City Council′s Education 2017, 62 % pay less than before, 10 % pay the same, and only Department, the Barcelona Municipal Institute of Education 28 % pay more. and the Barcelona Education Consortium. The new system was calculated so that all families would The aims of the measure, drawn up with a methodology devote the same share of their income to paying for nursery based on mainstreaming, cooperation between public author- school, which was not the case until now. In other words, in ities and constructing a shared vision between the cultural proportion to their income, everyone pays the same, regard- and educational spheres, are to make progress in develop- less of the fee they have, thus promoting equity and social ing a public policy in the cultural and educational spheres; to 122 123 reduce existing inequalities in the right to participate in the city’s cultural life, by rebalancing the resources available to all of the city′s neighbourhoods and territories and recognis- ing the diversity of abilities and potential of individuals and communities; to guarantee equal opportunities in access to quality, lifelong education, promoting pedagogical innova- tion linked to artistic and cultural training, developing a com- prehensive conception of the links between education and culture, and connecting the different dimensions involved in cultural and artistic education. The government measure proposes political action that goes beyond a municipal mandate, and sets out an action plan for the period 2019-2026. The three main implementa- Menja Llibres (Eat Books). tion areas are formal, non-formal and informal school con- Source: Goroka, Barcelona City texts, and the city′s arts and cultural centres. With regard to Council formal school contexts, has put the emphasis on four types of action: the arts, science, languages and literature: z Fostering a taste for reading in socially vulnerable neigh- bourhoods, with a project called “Menja Llibres” (Eat Books). This project, which comes under the Neighbourhood Plan, aims to develop a taste for reading among children in the second and third years of primary school. Initially it was carried out as an extracurricular activity in six public li- braries in the Sants-Montjuïc, Nou Barris, Sant Andreu and Sant Martí districts. Some 60 students attended each li- brary once a week throughout the school year. In the cur- rent, second stage, the activity has moved to the partici- pating neighbourhood schools, and the six libraries have adopted an advisory role. Through a series of fun activities related to reading, led by a team of monitors, a pedagogi- cal coordinator and educational volunteers from the Rosa Sensat Teachers′ Association, children are invited to ex- plore the many possibilities offered by reading. z Access to an enriched language-learning experience with students in disadvantaged situations through the “Speak Up” programme (previously called “Success in English”). This programme links students, teachers and facilita- 124 tors to work on oral skills in English, following the same methodological line, with group and individual goals and items for assessing the progress of each student. The pro- gramme began in 2017 as an after-school pilot scheme in 28 city secondary schools and has gradually been expand- ed over the years. z Barcelona’s education project has also recognised the val- ue of scientific and technological cultures. We have re- inforced and expanded the “Science Programme” in col- laboration with university research centres in the city, and would highlight the “Escolab” and “Petits Talents Cientifics” initiatives. “EscoLab” is a platform for contact between research centres and schools, with proposals made directly from research centres, universities and R&I companies by their own researchers and technologists, with the aim of bringing students into the laboratories and showcasing some of the most innovative research projects in the city. “Petits Talents Científics” encourages experi- mentation, inquiry and discovery in the learning of sci- ence among pre-school and primary school pupils. The project is carried out jointly with the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRi) and EduCaixa - Obra Social “la Caixa” Foundation, with students in compulso- ry education and, more recently, with children in nursery schools. The Young Research Exhibition, Brain Week and Barcelona Municipal Planetarium have just completed the ambitious Science Programme. z In the field of the arts, the city’s education project has con- tinued its efforts to reach talent in every corner of the city. We have recognised the value of the dance programme “Tot Dansa”, co-organised with the Mercat de les Flors and Institut del Teatre. Its aim is to introduce, promote and raise awareness of the language of movement and con- temporary dance among secondary school students in Tot Dansa and theatre municipal schools by experiencing it. It involves a process exhibition. Source: TANDEM, Barcelona City of choreographic creation over the course of one school Council year, accompanied by trainers and assistants from the 126 127 Institut del Teatre, and shared with participating students and teachers. We would also underline the importance of the “Escena Pilot” programme. This is a selection of the- atrical activities by young amateur groups. It is led by the IMEB (Barcelona Municipal Institute of Education) in col- laboration with the Teatre Lliure, and targeted at state sec- ondary school and baccalaureate students in Barcelona who regularly take part in theatre activities during school hours or after school. The “Mostra de Teatre” highlights the pedagogical and educational resources offered by the theatre, and also its role as an educational tool for social cohesion, broadening the creative expression of partic- ipating students. Other very important initiatives in the area of the arts are the “En Residència” and “Espais C” programmes, which bring artistic creation into education- al establishments. Moving on, and looking at the non-formal and informal sphere, is committed to expanding and transforming mu- nicipal music schools. Barcelona currently has five munic- ipal music schools, with a capacity for 3,000 students of all ages. They offer non-professional musical training and ap- prenticeships to enjoy, practice and make music individually Finally, with regard to action in the city′s cultural and ar- or in groups. Their function is not only educational, but also tistic centres in the city, there are two initiatives we wish social and cultural, as they promote auditions, concerts, ex- to highlight. The first concerns the Barcelona Municipal changes and meetings, with the participation of students or Conservatory, which has taken another step during this term invited musicians. The challenge is to ensure that they be- of office to become increasingly open to the public. The goal come artistic centres and that other arts have more weight. of democratising access to music through the Conservatory The education project has always been firmly committed has been achieved thanks to a new programme called “Bruc to democratising access to music and, for that reason we Obert”, which is for Barcelona residents over 18 years of age have worked to increase the public options available. In 2017 with no previous musical knowledge or with a few years of we opened the Can Fargues Municipal Music School in the musical practice who would also like to do and learn more. Horta-Guinardó district, building the Pere Calafell Municipal The other facility that was allocated resources for improve- Music School from 2024 in the Sant Martí district and moving ments was the Artur Martorell Library, now transformed into the Sant Andreu Municipal Music School to premises in the the Artur Martorell Collection in the Barcelona Libraries Fabra i Coats cultural complex. Consortium. The collection contains works specialising in Bruc Obert and music educational and didactic research, and includes an impor- schools. Source: IMEB tant historical collection available to specialists. 129 For Barcelona’s education project to be viable, it needs AXIS: a governance model that is consistent and compatible with its principles. Therefore, from the outset, we have assessed both the substance and the forms, the parts of the system and the relationships and links that these A MORE DEMOCRATIC STYLE establish with each other. OF GOVERNANCE, AND A MORE This political principle has translated into the adoption of a more democratic governance culture with, as we PUBLIC AND TRANSPARENT have already said, the aim of recovering the power of education and returning it to its rightful owner, the cit- STYLE OF MANAGEMENT izenry. And this perspective has been complemented by promoting a management model that is consequently more public and transparent. Furthermore, the city′s education project has taken on board and made the most of the current framework of powers, which gives the local authority a high level of co-responsibility in education through the Municipal Charter. Barcelona′s education project has gone much further than the highly limited role that local authorities have in education (control of truancy, maintenance of primary school buildings, educational promotion), and has acted as an educational administration in a frame- work of co-responsibility from the word go. We have developed five political action frameworks to promote this more democratic governance and more public, transparent management: reform of the differ- ent areas of participation in the city to make them more open and community-based; promotion of the agree- ment and consensus on the main lines of education pol- icy with all the political forces; prioritisation of public sector management; dignifying the teams of education professionals; and increasing information transparency and quality. We give details of each of these frameworks in the following sections. From informative participation and 130 131 schools, already described in previous sections, a catalogue of the complaint culture to joint management family spaces that are transformed into socio-educational cen- and a culture of community engagement tres integrated into the nursery schools, and a line of work to strengthen coordination between the two cycles of pre-school Barcelona created important participation spaces for the edu- education, currently delivered separately in different schools: cation community during the second silent revolution. Some of 0-3 at nursery schools, and 3-6 at primary schools. The city′s them by regulatory imperative, others by political will, but all of districts and social services joined the participatory process to them with a high degree of social recognition and administrative share views and create a unified culture of early childhood. This impetus. Nevertheless, in light of new movements and needs, as participatory process has been extended and expanded with well as emerging educational proposals, it has been necessary the government measure “Plan for Early Children Education to update and strengthen the existing structures. If we accept and Care, 2021-2024”, which enriches the processes described the community character of education, a broader education, in above and makes them operational. which the formal and informal worlds merge and the bounda- ries become blurred, it makes no sense to have participation Moving on, in 2016 initiated the reform of the Barcelona spaces for the education community restricted to members of Municipal Schools Council, with the intention of turning it into the school community. If lifelong education is our goal, where a genuine, more participatory and open education council for education projects for all people are valuable, then we must also the city, with a central role in the debate on the project, and with promote participation in the areas of early childhood, vocational the presence of new actors from leisure education, universities training and higher education. If we are committed to the nec- and other educational and training areas. This new orientation essary dignity of education, a higher level of education, we must of the Municipal Schools Council is set out in the government ensure, for example, that men and women participate in educa- measure “Barcelona Municipal Schools Council, city educa- tion spaces on equal terms, that people from minority cultural tion council”, presented in January 2017. A measure which re- groups are also present there, and that their working dynamics quired the reform of the regulations governing the Municipal avoid consuming energy and materials as much as possible. Schools Council (CEMB) and the district municipal schools councils (CEMDs). Thus, in 2017, the Full CEMB approved the The first area in which the Barcelona education project new Internal Regulations of the CEMB and the CEMDs, which sought to promote innovative forms of participation, and which replaced the previous ones from 2006, and in 2018, it approved has been useful in rethinking the education model, is that of the new Regulations for constituting the CEMB and the CEMDs, public nursery schools. Under the title “Promoting education which replaced the old ones dating from 1989. The renewed City and early childhood”, we launched a broad participatory process Education Council is still, like the CEMB, the highest participa- aimed at the entire nursery education community (educators, tory body of the city′s education community, carrying out con- families, support staff, administration) between 2016 and 2019. sultative and advisory functions before the public authorities In the first phase, a participatory diagnosis was carried out by with powers over education and coordinating the actions of the experts in the field, which led to working committees and an district school councils. In order to carry out these functions and online participation platform being set up. In the second phase, promote participation, we implemented a methodology based the working committees presented their objectives and propos- on working groups or committees, which are set up and devel- als for improvement, a second meeting was held to discuss the oped according to need at any given time. The whole transfor- conclusions and, in the final phase, implementation of meas- mation process has required a specific training plan for each ures for the coming years, including a new model for nursery sector, both to achieve more efficient participation and to make 132 133 it more enriching for everyone. In that regard, we place great value on the Municipal Schools Council’s collaboration with the Barcelona Youth Council and the City Council Youth Department in designing and implementing specific training for student rep- resentatives on the school councils. It is also important to high- light the care and support for the role of local authority repre- sentatives on primary and secondary school councils, because of their key function in transmitting information and channelling the demands or needs of the education communities. From a lifelong learning perspective, Barcelona’s education project has improved the way the city’s Vocational Training Council works and it has also set up the Municipal Advisory Council for Universities (CAMU). The Barcelona Municipal Vocational Training Council is a participatory sectoral advisory body, promoted by Barcelona City Council, which offers advice and makes proposals on issues relating to vocational training in the city. It was set up as a permanent platform for work, de- bate and proposals in which all the educational, social and eco- nomic players operating in the city and its area of influence, from every field of vocational training, participate. A platform for recognising all the players in one collaborative, participa- tory, networking and cross-cutting space as a useful tool for pro- moting VT in the city. In 2018, the process of updating its reg- ulations began, with the aim of making it a more participatory and representative body, where the public sector of vocational training would have preference and a higher specific weight- ing. Furthermore, it was decided to boost Barcelona′s role in the “Forum of Cities with a Vocational Training Council”, a body that brings together a group of cities that represent a very sig- nificant part of Catalonia’s GDP, and which acts as a necessary interlocutor before other public authorities, and promotes areas XXV Public Hearing of Boys of cooperation and collaboration between all the member cities. and Girls. Source: IMEB [Municipal Institute Apart from Barcelona, the Forum is formed of the councils of of Education] Lleida, Girona, Tarragona, El Prat de Llobregat, Mataró, Terrassa, Granollers, Rubí and Hospitalet de Llobregat, plus the Conca de Barcelona Education Council and Vocational Ripoll and Riera de Caldes Council, which covers Sabadell, Badia Training Council del Vallès, Barberà del Vallès, Caldes de Montbui, Castellar del Source: IMEB [Municipal Institute of Education] Vallès, Cerdanyola del Vallès, La Llagosta, Montcada i Reixac, Palau-solità i Plegamans, Polinyà, Ripollet, Sant Quirze del 134 135 Vallès, Santa Perpètua de Mogoda and Sentmenat. Citizen participation and collaborative work has also been key in tackling the educational needs that arose as a result of the pandemic, especially during lockdown. Here we can highlight the key role played by the ad hoc civic forum “Taula de ciutat escoles i Covid”, which made it possible to monitor the day-to-day evolution of the pandemic in the education- al sphere, and to establish lines of action to respond to the challenges that were emerging. It was in this context that the strategic document “10 aprenentatges” (10 lessons) appeared, reflecting on how citizen entities could offer spaces to schools, and a boost was given to the work of caring and attending to the experiences of children by means of their free expression through the “Diari dels Infants” (Children′s Diary). frame to promote debate and compare arguments between cit- izens or between them and local authority representatives. It is The “Municipal Universities Advisory Council” (CAMU) was targeted at young people aged 12 to 17 attending compulsory set up in the summer of 2017, with the aim of institutionalising secondary education schools and special education schools, and the links and collaboration between the local authority and the proposes that students should be able to present proposals to city’s universities. This new body has made it possible to estab- full district and city municipal councils, with a political commit- lish a direct and permanent dialogue between the city and the ment from the latter to communicate their acceptance or rejec- universities, with a special role for the different actors that are tion of the proposals put forward. The latest topics worked on part of the university community, as well as the economic and have been the environment (2021), and well-being and health social fabric of Barcelona. The CAMU has operated on the ba- (2022). In the same vein we have introduced the “BCN Youth sis of three working groups that respond to the needs shared Forum”, a participatory process based on the random selection by all its members - “Infrastructures and facilities”, “Education, of 99 young people as part of a discussion group whose role is research and employment”, and “Social transformation” — and to discuss and put forward policies to be carried out in the var- had the task of drawing up an opinion on each of the thematic ious spheres identified. The key methodological aspect of this areas. These opinions included a diagnosis of a whole series process is that the group should be as representative as possible of proposals for improvements in each sphere, and these are of the social reality of young people in the city. Pre-selection of currently being implemented. the participants is based on a series of social stratification cri- teria according to sex/gender, age, background and the neigh- Finally, we must not forget to mention the important efforts bourhood where they live, in order to achieve a demographically made to open up participation to Barcelona′s young citizens. and socio-economically representative sample of young people Notably the “Participatory Process for Adolescent Citizens”, a in Barcelona. This is a participatory process that incorporates project promoted since 2020 to encourage the participation of a gender perspective in the methodology and content, placing adolescents in compulsory secondary education and in special BCN Youth Forum. community, reproductive and personal issues at the centre of the Source: TANDEM, Barcelona City schools. It proposes a series of meetings within a specific time- Council debates, taking into account the daily needs of young people. From confrontation and localism to agreements 136 137 good, and that the main priority of education policies must and international projection be the fight against inequalities. As we pointed out at the beginning, political polarisation is a In line with this political culture of a broad consensus sign of our times, a consequence of conservative liberal ap- on education, May 2021 saw the setting up of the “Working proaches. We have detected attempts to move this polari- Group for the 2030 Education Agreement”, a roadmap that sation onto educational ground but Barcelona’s education sets 2030 as the deadline for making education a priority project has put effort into avoiding that. Firstly, because the on Barcelona′s agenda. Its aim is to advance towards educa- city has been the cradle of major educational consensus and tional equity and reduce the negative educational and social we feel compelled to continue in the same vein. Secondly, impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. The decision to create this because the goals of the present education project are not working group received broad support from the majority of achievable without agreement and consensus between all the political forces represented on the Full City Council. We have members of the educational community. commissioned external experts and others from within the local authority to draw up a basic document with a diagno- However, Barcelona′s current education project has sought sis, the main challenges and goals for 2030, as well as lines to go beyond the international projection that leading the edu- of action for each of the agreed thematic areas: education cating cities movement gives. The third silent revolution calls and early childhood, planning the supply and stock of public for Barcelona to be a benchmark for international education educational facilities, balanced schooling and inclusive ed- policy in updating the right to education, to make it broader, ucation, post-16 educational pathways, from adult training longer and higher. centres to adult education, and educational and cultural op- portunities beyond school. In the summer of 2022, this was With regard to promoting a culture of agreement and put to the vote within the Municipal Education Council, and broad consensus in education, we must highlight two ma- was approved at the following full council meeting in October. jor actions. The first of these is “Barcelona’s adherence to the Incheon Declaration” in July 2018. This Declaration is the document that underpins the global education community′s commitment to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2030) to work towards quality inclusive and equitable education, and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Barcelona is the first Catalan city to adhere to it, with the unanimous support of all the political groups represent- ed in the full municipal council. In fact, the city was already adhered to it following the signing of the Declaration by the Spanish State, but we wanted Barcelona to be present there in order to highlight the harmony between the city′s educa- tion project and UNESCO′s political project, and also to pro- mote the desired pact and agreement culture. This step rep- Working Group for the 2030 resents a political milestone of the utmost importance, since Education Agreement. Source: Goroka, Barcelona City the Incheon Declaration asserts that education is a public Council With regard to Barcelona′s international projection as a 138 benchmark for updating the right to education, we want to stress two political initiatives. The first was holding the first “International Expert Meeting on Public policies Supporting the Right to Education of Refugees” in the city in December 2018. The local authority organised the meeting jointly with UNESCO, UNHCR, the Government of Catalonia and the UNESCO Centre in Catalonia. This meeting promoted a debate on protecting the right of refugees to education and the importance of being able to enjoy equal access to quality education. Among other things, personal identification was discussed as one of the main chal- lenges facing countries, regions and cities that host a signifi- cant number of refugees, sharing best practice, as well as iden- tifying key areas and public policies on which to have an impact. At the end of the meeting of international experts, a proposal for a “Political Declaration on the Right to Education” for ref- ugees was submitted to UNESCO, with recommendations on relevant public policies at local, regional, national and inter- national levels, and actions to be shared with Member States and international civil society. Finally, taking advantage of this top-level meeting, we organised an “International Seminar on the Right to Education in the City”. Many of the participants in the previous meeting also took part in this seminar, which was guided by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, and which concluded with the proposal to cre- Nursery school education has already been covered in a ate an International Observatory on the Right to Education in previous section. As regards compulsory education, the mu- the City, and the need for a system of indicators to evaluate the nicipal government’s priority has been to plan schooling in the progress of this updated right in urban environments. city on the basis of the following premises: proximity, quali- ty and equity. The Barcelona Education Consortium worked From public ownership as subsidiary to public throughout the first term of office to increase the supply of ownership as a priority compulsory public education, and in 2017 the demand for plac- es in public municipal schools exceeded the demand for sub- The backbone of Barcelona’s current education project is pub- sidised private schools for the first time in history. lic education. Firstly, because people want it that way, and sec- ondly, because it is public education that, better and more than Between 2015 and 2023 an enormous effort has been made any other, guarantees the right to education from a perspec- to increase and improve the quality of public school places and New nursery schools. Aurora tive of equity. In this section we provide detailed information nursery school. Els Gats the municipal leadership has played a key role in this. This is on the historic boost that public education has experienced municipal nursery school. the balance sheet of the 36 macro-actions it has promoted in Source: Carlota Serarols, Barcelona in recent years. City Council various districtswhich add to the 12 open or extended cribs: z “Creation of 9 new pre-schools and primary schools”: Escola 140 Entença (Eixample, 2016), Escola 30 Passos (Sant Andreu, 2016), Escola Gaia (Eixample, 2017), Escola Xirinacs (Eixample, 2017), Escola 9 Graons (Eixample, 2017), Escola Anglesola (Les Corts, 2017), Escola Teixidores de Gràcia (Gràcia, 2017), Escola La Flor de Maig (Sant Martí, 2017), Escola Auditori (Sant Martí, 2018). z “Expansion of 6 pre-schools and primary schools” which re- inforce a structural line: Escola Poble-sec (Sants-Montjuïc), Escola Bosch de Montjuïc (Sants-Montjuïc), Escola Les Aigües (Horta-Guinardó), Escola Ignasi Iglesias (Sant Andreu), Escola La Mar Bella (Sant Martí), Escola Poblenou (Sant Martí). z “Creation of 7 new secondary schools”: Institut Viladomat (Eixample, 2015), Institut Maria Espinalt (Sant Martí, 2016), Institut Martí Pous (Sant Andreu, 2017), Institut 22@ (Sant Martí, 2018), Institut La Sagrera-Sant Andreu (Sant Andreu, 2019), Institut Vapor del Fil (Sant Andreu, 2020), Institut Angeleta Ferrer (Eixample 2021). z “Expansion of 5 secondary schools” which reinforce a struc- tural line: Institut Les Corts (Les Corts), Institut Serrat i Bonastre (Sarrià-Sant Gervasi), Institut Teresa Pàmies (Horta- Guinardó), Institut Doctor Puigvert (Sant Andreu), Institut Joan d′Àustria (Sant Martí). z “Creation of 5 new primary-secondary schools”: Institut Escola Trinitat Nova (Nou Barris, 2017), Institut Escola El Til·ler (Sant Andreu, 2017), Institut Escola Arts (Sants- Montjuïc, 2019), Institut Escola Rec Comtal (ant Andreu, 2020), Institut Escola El Molí (Nou Barris, 2022). New primary and secondary schools. z “Creation of 4 new pre-school-primary schools for growth”: Source: Goroka, Barcelona City Institut Escola Antaviana (Nou Barris, 2017), Institut Escola Council Plaça Comas (Les Corts, 2020), Institut Escola Coves d’en Next page, new primary Cimany (Horta-Guinardó, 2020), Institut Escola Mirades and secondary schools Source: Goroka, Barcelona City (Horta-Guinardó, 2021). Council At the same time, a number of processes have been gen- 144 erated for transferring “state-assisted private schools to the public network”. This is a flagship measure within Barcelona’s current education project, and one which has started a trend that we think will continue to grow in the near future. So far, the state-assisted private schools that have joined the public network run by the Barcelona Education Consortium have, for the most part, become institute schools (instituts-esco- la): IE Elisabets, in the Ciutat Vella district; IE l’Eixample, IE Londres, IE Sicília and Escola Aldana, in the Eixample district; IE Projecte, in the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi district. As regards school maintenance, the new “Basic 7x2” ser- vice has been introduced, which consists in taking on a mul- ti-skilled professional operator with training to carry out specific tasks. This person will visit all the schools once a fortnight. As we have mentioned previously, the budget in- cludes an item for painting schools, with the aim of painting all of them according to established aesthetic qualities in a maximum of six years. A new school furniture catalogue has been drawn up that is adapted to the innovative methodology. With regard to school energy efficiency, boilers over 40 years old will be replaced to improve consumption. From subcontracting and insecurity to internalisation and stability Social justice as a principle and the fight against inequality as a practice do not just apply to students and their fami- lies. For Barcelona′s education project, it is essential that this justice and this desire to overcome inequalities should also reach the teams of educators and professionals who dedi- cate their time and knowledge to leading the implementation of the city project in schools, within the current framework of autonomy. When Barcelona′s current educational project began to take shape, the situation of educators and professionals Babies with their families. Source: IMEB [Municipal Institute was marked by dynamics typical of conservative liberal ap- of Education] proaches to people management: privatisation and outsourc- 146 147 There have also been numerous political actions with- ing, with the resulting precariousness and instability. From in the framework of the Barcelona Education Consortium. the outset, the city′s education project has had a roadmap Barcelona’s education project has promoted an “increase in with political actions to reverse this situation, closer to an staff numbers”. In the case of municipal school education ideology of progressive and libertarian values. teams, the number of staff has risen from 837 in 2015 to 960 in 2022. In addition, we have announced 300 vacancies for This roadmap has been marked by two main lines of ac- municipal teachers, 28 for teaching support staff and 93 for tion. On the one hand, an increase in the number of pro- junior teachers. Moreover, 71 schools have made changes fessionals in order to strengthen the education teams and to their management and school project. Together with the give them a more proportionate workload. This increase has regional authority’s increase in the number of support staff mainly been carried out in schools located in socially disad- for inclusive education, with an additional 119 professionals, vantaged areas, where pupils and families have more specif- we must add the 67 professionals with psychosocial profiles ic needs in terms of educational support, generating more that the local authority has placed in primary and second- professional dignity in the fight against inequalities. On the ary schools to provide fuller support to pupils and comple- other hand, we have focused on improving the working con- ment the work of the teaching staff, 46 of them under the ditions of educators and other staff members by investing in Neighbourhood Plan. resources, reversing outsourcing and reducing the number of temporary staff. Finally, the “Enriched Schools” project has allowed these specialists to be taken on by the 39 public schools With regard to public nursery schools, as we have already in the socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods covered by explained, we have increased the number of educational sup- the Neighbourhood Plan, with a budget allocation of more port staff, as well as the number of health professionals in than €10 million. The aim of this measure has been to en- the eight mobile “Babies and families” programmes. But the sure comprehensive support for children and their families most emblematic political action has undoubtedly been the in public schools in the Neighbourhood Plan, facilitating “transfer to direct public management” of three public nurs- joint work and a shared vision among education, social and ery schools that had been privatised: Caspolino, Enxaneta health professionals, including psychologists, educators, and Patufets de Navas. This internalisation has led to very social integrators, monitors, teachers specialising in hear- significant economic and labour-related improvements for ing and language, and staff from the Centre of Educational the educators, because their conditions have been brought Resources for Pupils with Developmental and Behavioural into line with other professionals in public nursery schools Disorders. The incorporation of these professionals has en- in terms of their annual schedule, holidays, hours and sala- sured the teaching teams are given training and support to ry. A team of five professionals (psychologists and educa- promote new cultures of joint work between social servic- tional psychologists) has been added to the public workforce es and health workers, among others, and also to promote to attend to pupils with specific educational support needs community work in the local neighbourhood. This initiative throughout the network of public nursery schools. And as has succeeded in generating new kinds of relationships and part of the fight against precariousness and reducing tem- ways of working between the educational provision and care porary staffing, we have approved an offer of 603 places for networks for young children in the neighbourhoods covered public nursery school educators, which allows us to reduce by the Neighbourhood Plan. temporary staffing to the minimum vacancy renewal rate. From discretion to transparency 148 149 maintenance notifications and queries, processes work orders and resolves incidents related to managing orders with con- There was a certain amount of discretion when managing chap- tracted companies. We have also improved the information on ter IV of the Municipal Institute of Education budget. From the the website, while moving towards information transparency outset, we have been working to eliminate this discretionary and offering the same information to all primary and second- element, and to promote abundant, appropriate and transpar- ary schools. We have expanded the School Guide, so that in ent information on the various projects and schools in the city. addition to offering basic data, we also provide important in- formation about each school, a summary of its education pro- Regarding Chapter IV, since 2017 we have incorporated a ject and the financial contributions families have to make. We specific line for education in Barcelona City Council’s “gener- have also created “two schooling offices in socially disadvan- al call for grants”, absent until then. With an annual budget of taged areas” to help families and provide information on the over €1 million, the aim of this call for proposals is to promote pre-enrolment process in the Sant Andreu and Nou Barris dis- projects and organisations in the city that work for education- tricts, in addition to the existing offices in Ciutat Vella and the al research and innovation, community-based leisure, educa- Education Consortium’s head office. Finally, we should high- tional action as social action to promote equity and lifelong light the “Vocational Training Access Office”, an information learning. After culture and sports, this is the subsidy line with and advice point for those students who want to do vocation- the most money. al training. To reinforce this line of work, a central stand has been set up at the “Teaching Fair”, primarily concerned with From a perspective of democratising information and pro- providing information about the city′s state vocational train- moting the image of public education, we have spread our ef- ing provision, as well as arts and sports education, with the forts across the board. In the case of public nursery schools, participation of the secondary school education community. we have improved online “digitalisation of the pre-enrolment process” for all families who want to obtain a place in a pub- In the pre-enrolment campaigns for compulsory educa- lic nursery school for their child. This has facilitated and sim- tion we have reaffirmed the objective of informing families in plified the work of school managers and also made it easier the city via information sessions, school open days and the for families to manage their applications. In the case of IT, the pre-enrolment and enrolment process that children should current City Council term of office has seen improvements in begin their official education at the age of three. For three managing interoperability with the tax and regional authorities years since 2018, the slogan of the information campaign was that have freed families and school managers from procedures “In education, we are a team”, a way of conveying the philoso- that are now carried out directly by the local authority. This phy of a collective, community education, which is the result new online service is also incorporated into the online social of involving the entire education community. The communica- pricing consultation service which enables families to calcu- tion strategy goes beyond traditional “campaign” actions and late the approximate cost of enrolling their child in a public is based on two pillars: supporting families at this time and nursery school, based on a number of variables. offering support and advice to schools. The current pre-en- rolment campaigns have incorporated new features, such as a Within the Education Consortium framework, we have con- tutorial that explains pre-enrolment step by step in eight differ- solidated the school “Service Point”, an online communication ent languages, posters for schools and a Pre-enrolment Guide channel that provides an agile, rapid and transparent response for families, also available in eight languages, which is distrib- to requests from schools. This new channel deals with urgent uted through more than 20 information sessions. DIMENSION COMMUNITY EQUITY GOVERNANCE Political goal Expand the right Extend the right Dignify the right End educational Hand back power to education to education to education segregation over education to the citizens Starting point Schools as centres of Building a system of public Education on sustainable Fight against student Informed participation and academic excellence. nursery schools. development. segregation. complaint culture. Educational innovation Fight to dignify vocational Coeducation. Allowance systems. Confrontation and localism. in schools. training for young people and adult education. Inclusive student education. Culture as an educational Leisure education as an supplement. Public ownership as subsidiary. educational service. Public policy of a city with universities. Subcontracting of professionals and lack of job security. Discretion in the distribution of resources and information. Vision Schools as environments Construction of community Education for transformative Fight against the system’s Co-management and of community excellence. education system for early sustainable development. segregating structures. community commitment childhood. culture. Educational innovation Feminist education. Social pricing systems. between schools. Fight to dignify the training of Agreement and international young people who drop out Construction of healthy Culture as the backbone of projection. Leisure education as of the education system. and inclusive schools and the education project. a community project for communities. Public ownership as a priority. transformation. Public policy for a scientific and university city. Internalisation and job security for staff. Transparency in the distribution of resources and information. EPILOGUE 154 155 programme, among others, which has allowed us to encourage AFTERWORD the creation of Scouts clubs (caus) or educational leisure cen- tres (esplais) in areas where otherwise it would not have been possible, among many others. DOMITILA VIÑAS Teacher and psychologist, involved To talk about all these actions — which I have had the op- in quality public education portunity and the privilege of knowing and participating in first hand — that are aimed at improving education in our city and its neighbourhoods, is to talk about challenges, to consider new horizons and possibilities, that must allow us to work in a com- We have a responsibility to find ways of improving the quality munity way, so we can agree on synergies that will enable pro- of education and reducing inequalities. Given that, action has gress, beyond everything that has been done so far. been taken in recent years to achieve these objectives and it is reflected in this book. This afterword reflects on different per- Barcelona′s education project is based on projects for all spectives: the first speaks in terms of the city, and the second ages, leisure, networks, learning, shared cultural expressions, focuses on schools. which must include everyone. However, we must ensure that we build scenarios of mutual recognition and real interaction, The book makes explicit the idea of the country′s commit- and that these projects do not reinforce differences. This is ment to combating school segregation and reaffirms the con- the only way to speak in terms of success. To reflect on each cept of striving for quality education, for inclusive and integrat- of the programmes that have been carried out over the last ing schools so we can ensure all the children and young people few years, and aimed at improving educational equity, is to in our city fulfil their expectations, regardless of their social speak of commitment and also of challenges, of network and complexity or the particular characteristics of their lives. And community will, concepts that help us to reach a consensus on thinking in terms of the city, we propose a Catalan, feminist, the actions that are proposed. It is about sharing possibilities inclusive, and welcoming educational model that fights against without segregating. The focus on schools, the second aspect segregation. A model that defines educating neighbourhoods, of this reflection, should make it possible to: providing opportunities for promotion without distinction. z Reduce school segregation with effective measures that All of this can be seen in each and every one of the projects have a direct impact on schools. and programmes of enormous value that have been carried out and continue to transform education: the expansion of edu- z Work on modernising the education system, promoting joint cational spaces in the neighbourhoods, bringing them closer networking actions that facilitate the implementation of to the school, cultural and scientific facilities of our city; the improvements and community proposals that affect the “networks for change”, an innovative programme that has suc- most disadvantaged environments. ceeded in generating a collaborative and recognised network between schools of all types with a vision of transforming ed- z Reduce truancy and school dropout rates with universal ucation; the educational model of the nursery schools, which measures that help to link up any actions aimed at improving has invited us to rethink, review and update the existing model; the relationship between all those involved in the education- the commitment to leisure that educates, such as the “Baobab” al process: children and young people, families and schools. z Guarantee, through education, educational support that re- 156 157 continue promoting networks of professionals who reflect the duces inequalities outside school and ensures that no one different realities and allow them to participate in innovation is left behind. that transforms all schools, whatever their type. To make a firm commitment to give continuity to those figures that the pro- z Involve the entire education community in order to respond to grammes have introduced into schools in recent years — social all the challenges posed. It is along these lines that school- integrators, emotional educators, social educators — who have ing is regarded as going much further than schools, and proved their worth and become essential. work is beginning to be done through educational teams. We value out-of-school education time, with a community We wish to make all schools community spaces, so we pro- outlook, for all children and young people, which creates real pose an approach to educational innovation from the perspec- opportunities shared with all the other diverse families that are tive of transforming them, with education projects that gen- part of the network. This last aspect brings us back to the de- uinely create opportunities. To the extent that we manage to mand for free, universal actions. And I could stress the need for harmonise neighbourhoods and districts, we will be providing resources to be made available on an ongoing basis over time, the conditions for education that extend to all primary and sec- as an idea for maintaining stability in the necessary actions, ondary schools. Only that way will we overcome the disparity which end up depending on a financial allocation. that stems from making distinctions in education. All the players involved have generated a committed collec- We are now going to focus on two aspects: firstly, the quan- tive effort, but it has not always been easy, even though there titative, the economic resources allocated to Barcelona’s edu- have been interventions aimed at enabling a change in the sit- cation project, where the need for continuity is made explicit. It uation at every moment. We are therefore addressing the need is the evidence of improvement that should tell us how we can to move towards a single, universal, public and free model of minimise the inequalities caused by economic issues, as well education, where all children, young people and adults can find as the drop-out rate among those young people who are future what they need. citizens of our city, who have found nothing in the city′s educa- tional offer that could have provided an ongoing personalised Only the education model described above will ensure that response to their needs. public schools are competent and non-competitive, and com- mitted to a system structure that does not segregate. Second, the qualitative dimension, with resources better in- vested, changing the system of relations from the possibilities In short, our aim is to define and promote a more communi- available to us, striving for a good investment combined with ty-based dimension to education that involves a different way coordination and stability over time. What challenges are posed of relating to each other. Because we aspire to transform edu- following the reading, from a demanding perspective but which cation for everyone, so it belongs to us and brings us together, could build something? We focus on the need to review the qual- so it is not a service because it will be at our service, because ity and equity of education models and the education system. all projects will become a reality. We need to create better conditions for training teachers and Now is the time to take the next step. all the teams of people who educate, which will enable ped- agogical initiatives and quality in public education. We must EDUCATION BARCELONA DIRECTOR Images on the opening pages: Barcelona 2015-2023 Barcelona City Council Pau Gonzàlez Val Pages 2 & 3 | Girl on scooter PUBLISHED BY (Councillor of Education) riding over the horizontal signage in front of Escola Barcelona City Council COORDINATION AND Doctor Ferran i Clua. Management Office for TECHNICAL REVIEW Source: Mònica Moreno Culture, Education, Science Barcelona City Council and Community Montserrat Mompió Gallart Page 4 | Municipal nursery Directorate of Education Isabel Moreno Gómez and school classroom. Passeig de Sant Joan, Maria Truñó Salvadó Source: Mariona Gil 75 08009 Barcelona ajuntament.barcelona.cat/ca/ TEXTS Page 5 | Game shaped like Editor: Miquel Àngel Essomba a target painted on the ground GENERAL COORDINATION Epilogue: Domitila Viñas with a series of numbers in Publishing Services Directorate, the Poble Nou superblock. PHOTOGRAPHS Barcelona City Council Source: Clara Soler Chopo Andrés Flajscher, Laura Guerrero, Passeig de la Zona Franca, Mariona Gil, Oscar Giralt, Adrià Page 6 | Coloured pencils. 66 08038 Barcelona Goula, Goroka, Paula Jaume, Source: TANDEM Tel. 93 402 31 31 Àlex Losada, Mònica Moreno, Curro barcelona.cat/barcelonallibres Page 7 | Education in Freedom. Palacios and Clara Soler Chopo Exhibition in El Born. The publication can be downloaded LANGUAGE CORRECTION Source: IMEB [Municipal Institute free of charge at barcelona.cat/ Linguaserve Internacionalización of Education] barcelonallibres de Servicios S.A. GRAPHIC DESIGN Images on the final pages: Almonacid Estudi Page 152 | Child playing in the park. Source: Àlex Losada All rights reserved Page 159 | Child playing in © for this edition: Barcelona City Council © for the texts: their authors the pacified area in front © for the images: Barcelona City Council, of Escola Mas Casanovas. Andrés Flajscher, Laura Guerrero, Source: Clara Soler Chopo Mariona Gil, Oscar Giralt, Adrià Goula, Goroka, Paula Jaume, Àlex Losada, Page 160 | Children’s hands. Mònica Moreno, Curro Palacios and Clara Soler Chopo Source: Goroka Page 161 | Playing in the squares. Source: TANDEM Pages 162 & 163 | Girl scaling Attribution - Non-commercial - a climbing wall in a square No derivative works (BY-NC-ND) No commercial use of the original near Escola La Pau. work or the creation of derivative works Source: Laura Guerrero is permitted (copyright) Page 164 | Construction game (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) for all texts (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) for the images: during a Play-friendly City day Andrés Flajscher, Laura Guerrero, Mariona on the Llosa de Sant Anton. Gil, Oscar Giralt, Adrià Goula, Goroka, Source: Paula Jaume. Paula Jaume, Àlex Losada, Mònica Moreno, Curro Palacios and Clara Soler Chopo National book catalogue number: 978-84-9156-469-0 ISBN: 978-84-9156-471-3 (digital version) Barcelona, February 2023 The city’s recent history, like its present, cannot be explained without considering its educational dimension. Education in Barcelona has been vital, diverse, and built as a collective project. Pedagogical think- ing and practices that originated and were developed in the city, impregnated with a progressive and libertarian ideology, have been an indisputable international point of reference, from the modern school to the educating cities movement, with pedagogical renewal in between. In recent years Barcelona has made a clear commitment to recovering this spirit and extending the right to education to every corner of the city. This book seeks to acknowledge Barcelona’s educational history and draw up a balance sheet of the last 20 years in the city, which have allowed us to enjoy a new period of educational enthusiasm.