LOCAL AND REGIONAL DYNAMICS OF COOPERATION TO PROMOTE SUCCESS IN SCHOOL   AN INTEGRATED AND INNOVATIVE PROJECT NETWORK

Milhano, Sandrina; Reis, Susana; Mangas, Catarina

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.8/6238

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Authors

Milhano, Sandrina

Reis, Susana

Mangas, Catarina

Abstract(s)

This paper aims to share the experience of a university in the conception and development of a regional collaboration strategy to promote success in school. Participants in this Portuguese regional collaboration strategy are school networks, municipalities, local and regional entities, teachers, families, and the higher education institution. Portugal has been reducing the early school leaving in the last 20 years. In the agenda 2020, Portugal assumed the commitment to achieve at least a rate of less than 10% of the early school leaving until the end of this decade [1]. However, this phenomenon is still high when compared to the OECD countries [2] and has been a challenge to national and European institutions providing all students access to an inclusive and quality education relevant to the labour market. The need to promote successful cultures and mobilize society, families and schools so that they contribute not only to more educated generations, but to better educated ones is highlighted in several documents. Higher levels of educational attainment in the European Union are associated with better employment, active citizenship and individual well-being, and contribute to increase the prosperity of society as a whole [3]. Accordingly, the awareness that the reduction and prevention of school dropout and the promotion of equal access to education are critical success factors for both the development and the territorial cohesion of the regions, has been central for each of the participant in this plan. The development of a regional strategy plan to promote success in school aimed to complement schools' strategic action plans in order to contribute more significantly to enhance the success of each and every student. Been a complex factor, the promotion of success is perceived as a collective responsibility that calls for an integrated involvement and commitment from schools, families, educational communities, municipal and inter-municipal entities and partners. The conception and development of a regional strategy that aimed to promote inclusion, the educational success of students and equal access to education, underlines the commitment to education policies and to the strengthening of an early intervention, namely through the implementation of programs to combat failure and early school leaving since primary education. This process comprised 3 phases: 1) the characterization of the regional educational network and the diagnostics and analysis of the phenomena of exclusion, failure, and school dropout; 2) an inventory, characterization and analysis of educational measures that included potential projects passible of being disseminated through partners, and a proposal of an integrated and innovative plan to combat school failure and dropout in the associated Municipalities; and, 3) The plan implementation and monitoring. All this process generated new dynamics of cooperation between educational actors as well as in school lives. We aim to share these dynamics, as they are an important contribution for regional and local public policies in the area ofeducation, supporting, informing, and sustaining the development of responses and actions. Responses and actions developed in a perspective of approximation, involvement, and inclusion through the presentation, sharing, monitoring, and articulation of contributions that promotes a collective awareness about educational success.