Commission of School Segregation in Manresa
About this good practice
The goal of the project is to distribute vulnerable students in a balanced way among the six areas of the city, in order to avoid their concentration and social isolation in some specific schools that are allocated in deprived neighborhoods.
Intensive use of GIS tools has been made to analyse:
-The schools in Manresa in terms of their availability of places and their segregation rates.
-The city districts and sections with the estimated number of students, for different years, and the number of vulnerable students in each area.
This analysis has allowed to group the schools into six new areas that mix different districts and sections by taking into account not only proximity criteria of these districts and sections, but also vulnerability criteria.
The comission is composed with around 20 people from different educational sectors in Manresa. These members equally represent the different educational sectors in Manresa:
Public-subsidised primary-secondary school managers; Family associations; Representatives of the City Council; Department of Education of the Catalan government and academic experts.
Several sessions of the commission took place pre and during the project. Work dynamics have been carried out to develop a shared diagnosis, to analyze and prioritize different aspects linked to segregation, and to agree on future proposals to improve equity in education in Manresa.
Resources needed
-Technical support (human and material resources) for GIS development.
-Cooperation among administrations in charge of implementing educational policies.
-Good communication plan to inform the change in the model to the comunity
Evidence of success
-There has been an increase in the diversity of students in all classrooms across the city, and a reduced concentration of vulnerable children in certain schools (from 60% to 40% on average).
-A total of 60 ordinary families have gone to centers of maximum complexity this year (last year were only 10, and in 2022 this tool didn’t exist)
Potential for learning or transfer
-Implementation of a multi-actor and multi-level governance to improve decision-making and accountability, also exploiting the potential of e-governance platforms and GIS tools.
-Enhancing diversity in community engagement and the long-term involvement of unusual stakeholders: family associations from fragile and/or rural communities.
-Improving synergies among local/regional/national levels in terms of funds policies and planning strategies, specially in a traditionally rigid system such as schooling.
This practice can be replicated in other cities in order to avoid segregation of students in peripheral areas, and enhance social cohesion. The more rural and periurban an area is, the more important the spatial factor will be in the management of schooling and the creation of opportunities for people.