A Comparative Education Lens at the CNEC Congress

On November 6, Edgar Quilabert, Delfina Campetella, Antoni Verger, Mauro Moschetti, Marcel Pagès, and Marina Castany presented “Reconfigurar la gobernanza escolar: una revisión internacional” at the XIX National Congress of Comparative Education (CNEC), held at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and organised by the Spanish Comparative Education Society. The presentation examined international experiences with territorial and collaborative forms of school governance, with particular attention to what comparative evidence can tell us about their possibilities and limitations.

From competition to collaboration

The review contrasted two broad governance logics. New Public Management takes the individual school as the main unit of intervention and relies heavily on competition and performance incentives. New Public Governance shifts attention towards territories, networks, and collaboration between schools and other actors. Yet the evidence supporting this second model remains fragmented. A structured review identified 13 relevant initiatives, five of which were analysed in depth. The presentation focused on Chile’s SLEP, Portugal’s TEIP, New Zealand’s Communities of Learning, and England’s Education Action Zones.

What makes collaboration work

Across the cases, collaborative governance produced promising changes but also recurring limitations, including overlapping responsibilities, territorial stigma, tensions with competitive institutional cultures, and limited evidence of effects on academic outcomes. The comparison suggests that collaboration does not emerge simply by creating new territorial structures. It depends on clear objectives and rules, specialised support, realistic goals, sufficient time to build trust, and stable staffing and funding. Without these conditions, collaborative governance risks remaining fragile and difficult to sustain.