Educational regions

The local community plays a significant role in education for children and young people. Innovative school development processes around the world emphasize the responsibility of local-level and regional actors in improving the quality of schools and education. Germany as a nation underestimates the importance of regional efforts in the realm of education, and for schools in particular. The German system is characterized by a general lack of connections or relationships between educational institutions and other related areas, such as youth services in the schools and those outside in the community. No one has yet addressed the fragmentation of responsibilities within the education system and their division between internal and external school affairs.

If we want to keep the focus squarely on children and young people, then regions will need to play a key role. This is where our next generation-in a variety of schools in the community-will take advantage of extracurricular activities, look for apprenticeships, begin professional training and enter the workforce. Regional education actors need to work together closely and align their efforts to give children and young people the opportunity to build a successful learner biography. This list includes families, daycares, preschools, schools, youth services institutions, businesses and other educational institutions. Conversely, it is in a region's best interests to ensure that its young people build successful learner biographies and are well integrated into the community.

The new approach of regionalization in the education system improves the quality of education if it

• supports semi-autonomous schools in their objective of providing higher quality teaching backed up by regional support systems,
  
• dissolves the division between internal and external school affairs in favor of an effective partnership among schools boards and educational bodies on responsibilities shared between the state and local level authorities,
  
• aligns school programs with extracurricular education opportunities,
  
• systematically organizes a diverse array of cooperative relationships among schools, extracurricular education institutions and businesses and is reflected in school curriculum, and
  
• establishes a regional system of quality development, quality assurance and accountability.

The natural starting point for developing regional education networks is the school, because it alone reaches every child and young person in a region. The process of building up a regional education network must be driven, coordinated and monitored. The type of regional management depends on local conditions. But regardless of circumstances in the region, both the state (education authorities) and the region (youth services and the school administration office) need to participate in steering activities to overcome the division between internal and external school affairs and educational work. Furthermore, these state-local steering partnerships need the financial means to provide necessary support and programs.

The Bertelsmann Stiftung has been working for years on developing regional education networks. Greater school autonomy must be accompanied by greater regional participation as well. The Schule & Co. (School and Co.) project (1997-2002) established Germany's first regional education office in the district of Herford. The Selbstständige Schule (Semi-Autonomous Schools) project (2002-2008) is testing new forms of regional steering in schools and education systems in 19 regions throughout North Rhine-Westphalia, and has founded education offices here as well. The regional approach for school development has been carried over into the states of Lower Saxony and Baden-Württemberg with the Bessere Qualität in allen Schulen (Improving the Quality of All Schools) project.