A Policy Report on Educational Zones in Catalonia
In June 2026, Antoni Verger, Edgar Quilabert, and Marina Castany published Zones educatives i millora escolar. Opcions de polítiques per a una governança col·laborativa i territorial, a contribution to the Anuari de l’Educació a Catalunya. The 123-page report brings together the project’s conceptual, comparative, and evaluative work on educational zones and translates it into concrete policy options for Catalonia.
From earlier experiments to a new policy cycle
The report reconstructs Catalonia’s first experience with educational zones between 2008 and 2011, when zone directors were given mainly coordinating functions and operated alongside existing inspection and territorial structures. Limited decision-making capacity and weak political continuity ultimately constrained the initiative. The issue has now returned to the policy agenda: in 2025, the Catalan government launched five experimental educational governance zones in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Vic and its surrounding area, Aran, El Prat de Llobregat, and Urgell-Tàrrega.
How should an educational zone be designed?
Drawing on international experience, the report compares five central dimensions of zone-based governance: legal foundations, territorial scale, decision-making capacity, professional roles, and planning and monitoring instruments. It also examines how collaborative governance changes existing professional roles, requiring school leaders, teachers, inspectors, municipal staff, and new specialised profiles to work increasingly across organisational boundaries rather than exclusively within individual schools.
Five proposals for Catalonia
The report concludes with five recommendations: give educational zones clearer functions and genuine governance capacity; create stable and professionalised coordination teams; base zone strategies on shared diagnoses and explicit theories of change; evaluate collaboration and governance processes alongside educational outcomes; and adapt territorial boundaries to the specific functions assigned to each zone. The central argument is that educational zones can become meaningful structures of shared responsibility only when collaboration is matched by sufficient institutional capacity, resources, and decision-making authority.
