This chapter examines policies to strengthen the teaching profession and school leadership in Catalonia, Spain. It addresses the initial preparation of teachers and school principals, their continuing professional learning and career development opportunities in Catalonia, including employment and working conditions. It identifies strengths and challenges related to each of these policy areas and provides policy recommendations to address them. The chapter examines how policy can strengthen the teaching profession across the full career continuum in Catalonia.
Improving Learning Outcomes in Catalonia, Spain
Abstract
Teachers and school leadership
Teachers and school leaders are key to the capacity of education systems to deliver high-quality and equitable learning opportunities for all students. Strengthening the teaching profession and school leadership is therefore essential not only for improving learning outcomes, but also for reinforcing implementation capacity and sustaining improvement over time.
The Autonomous Community of Catalonia in Spain can build on several important strengths across the professional continuum of teachers and school leaders. Evidence collected for this report suggests a strong professional commitment among many teachers and school leaders to equity and inclusion, alongside a relatively high degree of pedagogical autonomy in responding to different student needs. The system also benefits from increasing attention to evidence-informed policymaking, expanding professional learning opportunities and growing recognition of the role of school leadership in supporting school improvement and professional collaboration.
At the same time, important challenges remain in aligning preparation, career structures and professional learning arrangements with the evolving realities of teaching and school leadership. Initial teacher education and induction arrangements do not always appear fully aligned with the realities of increasingly complex classroom environments, while the profession continues to face challenges related to attractiveness, status and workforce stability. Opportunities for career progression remain comparatively limited, and the use of formative appraisal and feedback to support professional growth and school improvement is not yet consistently embedded across the system. Administrative workload and implementation demands continue to constrain the time available for pedagogical leadership, collaboration and professional learning.
Responding to these challenges is shaped by regulation at both the regional and national level, which determines the availability of different policy levers. Eight broad recommendations emerge for Catalonia to strengthen teachers and school leadership:
Define common professional standards to guide the teaching profession, building on efforts such as the Framework of Professional Teaching Competencies. A next step would be to further evolve this framework into a set of multi-level standards that articulate expectations at different stages of the career and which clearly connect these stages within a coherent professional continuum. Catalonia may also wish to develop accompanying standards for school leadership, aligned with the teaching standards.
Develop a more attractive and rewarding teacher career structure that aligns with system priorities, including by offering a greater provision of specialist horizontal roles, establishing voluntary appraisal for an additional vertical tier of “senior teacher”, and complementing voluntary appraisal with targeted incentives. Catalonia should also consider longer-term adjustments to the teacher career structure.
Elevate the voice of school principals in teacher allocation processes to build greater stability in schools and the system. Moreover, making greater use of principals’ professional judgement would enhance the status of principals and help foster closer alignment between schools’ contextual needs and their staff body.
Strengthen initial teacher education and induction arrangements to enhance the alignment between teacher preparation and the realities of classroom practice, by working with university providers to examine the content of initial teacher education – including the provision of practical learning opportunities – to ensure its relevance and quality, alongside enhancing monitoring and quality assurance in initial teacher education and ensuring impactful school-level induction for the transition to the classroom.
Improve instructional leadership in schools to foster more school-based professional learning, by strengthening the career structure and professional status of school principals and the management team. Enhancing leaders’ capacity to provide quality, growth-orientated feedback to teachers is also important, along with reinforcing leaders’ roles as capacity-builders who support school-based professional learning.
Enhance the quality of centrally-provided professional learning opportunities, by clearly communicating quality standards in alignment with expected standards for the profession and by strengthening how evaluation data are used for selecting providers and improving their offer of professional learning opportunities.
Reduce administrative workload for teachers and leaders to redirect their time to towards higher-impact pedagogical activities. International experiences show how other systems are tackling this issue through the use of digital tools, for instance to reduce duplication in school reporting procedures and to foster greater interoperability to streamline data sharing.
Make better use of the existing infrastructure of support services to schools (e.g. Inspectorate, Evaluation Agency) to create a stronger professional learning ecosystem of exchange, collaboration and formative feedback between teachers, school leadership and stakeholders.
These priorities aim to strengthen the coherence, attractiveness and long-term sustainability of the teaching profession and school leadership across Catalonia’s education system. While all areas are important, particular attention may be warranted in strengthening the alignment between professional preparation, career structures and the evolving demands placed on schools, while ensuring that teachers and leaders have the capacity and support needed to sustain improvement over time.
International evidence underscores the central role of teachers and school principals in improving student outcomes and system resilience. Research suggests that teaching quality is the most important school-level factor influencing student outcomes (OECD, 2020[1]), while teachers also play a wider role in students’ social and emotional development (OECD, 2025[2]). A strong teaching profession can also support system adaptability in the face of emerging demands, including the effective use of digital tools (Forsström et al., 2025[3]). Similarly, school leadership has been shown to influence a wide range of policy priorities, from student learning outcomes to teacher development and retention (Day, Gu and Sammons, 2016[4]; Nguyen et al., 2024[5]; Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins, 2019[6]). High-quality school principals – together with their wider management teams – are key actors across a school’s improvement trajectory, from initiating change to sustaining success over time (Day, Gu and Sammons, 2016[4]). Strengthening the teaching profession and the quality of school leadership is therefore central not only to improving learning outcomes and well-being, but also to translating Catalonia’s policy ambitions on equity and inclusion into consistent classroom practice.
This chapter forms part of the broader collaboration between Catalonia and the OECD aimed at supporting measurable improvements in student outcomes over a four-year horizon. Within this context, the report seeks to provide a comprehensive diagnosis of strengths, challenges and implementation opportunities for teaching and school leadership across the Catalan education system. Supporting the teaching profession and school leadership is central to this agenda, given their importance for educational quality, equity, inclusion and the system’s capacity to sustain improvement over time.
Teachers and school principals in Catalonia operate in a context of growing complexity, shaped by increasing student diversity, rising expectations around inclusion, digitalisation, the management of teacher substitutions and the need to ensure greater staff stability across schools. Recent years have brought changes to the curriculum, the introduction of new digital tools in many schools, and increased expectations associated with the implementation of inclusive education. These developments have implications not only for pedagogy, but also for teachers’ administrative work and for the ways in which teachers collaborate with colleagues and specialist support staff. At the same time, some core features of the profession have remained relatively unchanged, such as the overarching career structure.
As the system strives to improve education quality and equity for all learners, it can build on existing strengths to identify and address key opportunities for improvement. The analysis and recommendations developed in this chapter should be understood as building on existing reform efforts and identifying areas where greater coherence, implementation support and sustained monitoring may help enhance impact over time.
More recently, the policy environment surrounding the teaching profession has also been shaped by sustained social mobilisation and by the March 2026 agreement reached between the Department of Education and Vocational Training and trade unions representing parts of the education sector (see Chapter 2) (Government of Catalonia, 2026[7]). The agreement introduced a broad package of measures relating to workforce conditions, staffing stability, inclusive education, workload reduction and professional recognition, supported by significant planned investments over a four-year implementation period. While tensions within the sector have continued, these developments may create favourable conditions for strengthening implementation capacity and supporting longer-term improvement. In this context, Catalonia can also support teachers and school principals by taking a more holistic view of their professional continuum – from initial preparation and transition into the classroom to continuing professional learning, career development and school leadership – while improving the system’s capacity to implement reforms consistently across schools and territories.
Against this background, the chapter analyses how policies relating to teachers and school leadership operate across the Catalan education system. It first provides an overview of key institutional arrangements shaping the professional continuum of teachers and school leaders, including initial preparation, employment conditions, career progression and professional learning. It then analyses the main strengths and challenges in the system before presenting recommendations aimed at strengthening the attractiveness, development and long-term sustainability of the profession.
This section outlines key contextual features relating to teaching and school leadership in Catalonia. Together with the following section, it is intended to provide a high-level but sufficiently comprehensive overview to inform the later analysis of strengths, challenges and policy implications. The section is structured in broadly chronological terms to reflect the full trajectory of becoming and developing as a teacher or school leader. It begins with entry into initial teacher education, before turning to employment status, career progression, working conditions, and opportunities for professional learning and collaboration. These institutional arrangements shape the system’s capacity to attract, develop and retain teachers and school leaders, and therefore have important implications for the implementation of broader improvement efforts across the Catalan education system.
Initial teacher education and induction arrangements
Initial teacher education and induction arrangements shape how new teachers enter the profession and how well they are supported in translating formal preparation into classroom practice. In Catalonia, these arrangements combine differentiated qualification routes, practical components within initial preparation, and a mix of formal and informal induction support. They provide the starting conditions for teachers’ early professional development and have implications for both teaching quality and the attractiveness of the profession. They also influence the system’s longer-term capacity to attract, retain and develop a high-quality teaching workforce capable of supporting sustained improvement across schools and territories.
Types of qualification
Initial teacher education depends on the teaching role for which a candidate is preparing. Different teacher roles therefore require different qualification pathways. These arrangements are shaped by a combination of Catalan policy responsibilities, state-level regulation and university autonomy. Table 4.1 sets out the minimum qualification requirements for a range of teaching roles.
Source: OECD/Department of Education and Vocational Training (unpublished[8]), Responses to OECD background questionnaire «A multi-year project to improve learning outcomes in Catalonia», internal document.
Of particular note in this table is that primary teachers complete a bachelor’s degree in education, while prospective secondary teachers are generally required to complete both a subject-based bachelor’s degree or equivalent qualification and a master’s degree that accredits pedagogical and didactic training.
Entry requirements into these qualifications also shape the teacher pipeline. Candidates must satisfy the general requirements for university entry, including passing the university entrance examination (PAU), which assesses knowledge and skills acquired during upper secondary education (Government of Catalonia, 2026[9]). Entry is selective to a degree, but the level of selectivity varies across institutions and programmes. For example, in 2025 the cut-off mark for entry to primary education ranged from 6.4 out of 14 at the University of Vic – Central University of Catalonia to 9.0 at the Cerdanyola del Vallès. By comparison, the cut-off mark for medicine at the same institutions was 11.9 and 12.5 respectively (Government of Catalonia, 2025[10]). This suggests that while teacher education is not unselective, it is not among the most competitive university pathways. Nevertheless, selection requirements are also shaped by factors such as the supply of places, territorial demand and the structure of university provision, and should therefore be interpreted with caution.
For entry into undergraduate studies in early childhood and primary education, all students at Catalan universities must also pass the personal aptitude test (PAP). This consists of two examinations: one focussed on communication skills and critical reasoning and a second focussed on logical and mathematical competence (Government of Catalonia, n.d.[11]).
Content of initial teacher education
A notable feature of the Catalan education system is the difference in how teachers are prepared for primary and secondary teaching. Those preparing to teach at the primary level follow a concurrent model, in which pedagogical and content-specific knowledge are developed simultaneously during a bachelor’s degree. By contrast, those preparing for secondary teaching typically follow a consecutive model, completing a subject-focussed bachelor’s degree before undertaking a master’s degree oriented towards applying this knowledge in the classroom.
Looking across different systems, there is no single dominant model for structuring initial teacher education. OECD evidence indicates that the concurrent model is available in 27 out of 36 countries and participants with available data for prospective lower secondary teachers, and is the predominant model for pre-primary, primary and lower secondary levels in more than three-quarters of systems. The consecutive model is also widely used, particularly at the upper secondary level, where concurrent and consecutive models are present in an equal number of countries (OECD, 2022[12]). In this respect, Catalonia’s approach is broadly aligned with international practice.
Across systems, initial teacher education almost always includes pedagogical studies, academic subject matter and a teaching practicum (OECD, 2022[12]). The practicum is mandatory in nearly all countries with available data, although its duration varies considerably. For prospective lower secondary teachers, for example, it ranges from 155 hours in Japan to 1 800 hours in Hungary, with most systems requiring less than 800 hours. Other components, such as educational sciences, child and adolescent development, and research skills, also vary across systems (OECD, 2022[12]).
In Catalonia, initial teacher education is intended to develop both theoretical knowledge and practical competence. Prospective teachers are required to spend time in school settings to understand classroom realities and develop applied skills. The number of hours varies across programmes and institutions. For degrees in early childhood education, school placements range from 552 to 880 hours, while for primary education programmes they typically fall between 618 and 680 hours. In contrast, the master’s degree in secondary education includes a shorter practicum period, with internships in educational centres ranging from 170 to 280 hours. Practicum arrangements also vary across vocational education and training pathways. These arrangements are particularly important given the increasing complexity of classrooms and the growing expectations placed on teachers in relation to inclusion, collaboration and student support.
In addition to the duration of placements, the quality of training schools, mentoring arrangements and collaboration with universities are important factors shaping the practicum experience. In the 2025/26 academic year, just under 3 000 schools in Catalonia hosted trainee teachers from early childhood and primary education degrees and from the secondary education master’s programme. In the case of the latter, some of the schools hosting those on the master’s programme for secondary teaching participate in a specific innovation programme where trainees are expected to contribute actively to school activities and receive mentoring support. Around 160 schools currently participate in this model, first introduced in the 2019/20 academic year, with selection based on their capacity to provide structured mentoring and collaborate with universities (Government of Catalonia, 2019[13]).
Induction
Initial teacher education alone cannot fully prepare teachers for the realities of classroom practice. Teaching is highly complex and relational and requires continuous reflection and refinement. New teachers also need support to translate their learning into practice (OECD, 2025[14]). For this reason, structured induction plays an important role in supporting novice teachers’ professional development and early-career retention.
Catalonia currently offers two main forms of induction support. The first is the introductory course to teaching in public schools, which is required for teachers taking up a position for a full academic year for the first time. This consists of 35 hours of online training combined with a school-based tutoring phase led by an assigned mentor. While this provides initial support, there is no formalised follow-up structure established at the regulatory level, which may limit continuity in support during the early years of teaching.
The second model is the more recent Initial Teacher Residency programme (Sensei), introduced on an experimental basis in the 2023/24 academic year and co-funded at 95% by the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) (Government of Catalonia, 2024[15]). The initial pilot involved 55 schools across early childhood, primary and secondary education, with 250 novice teachers and 85 mentor teachers participating across all 12 territorial services, with particularly strong participation in the Barcelona Consortium, Girona and Baix Llobregat. The programme was extended for the 2025/26 academic year – with ESF+ co-financing at 40% – and currently involves 42 consolidated mentor schools, 55 schools participating in an awareness-raising phase and 163 novice teachers.
The Sensei programme is voluntary and targeted at teachers with less than six months of experience. It is designed to provide a more structured and practice-oriented induction. Key features include:
Mentoring from an experienced teacher within the school, with an emphasis on formative and collaborative support rather than evaluation
Observation and feedback cycles, including group learning arrangements involving several novice teachers and a mentor
Co-teaching opportunities with more experienced teachers to give novice teachers opportunities to engage in joint lesson planning, delivery and reflection
Online support and professional learning communities for both novice teachers and mentors
Underlying these features is the idea that novice teachers are immersed in a school environment that is understood as a place of ongoing learning for everyone. In Sensei Residency, participating schools receive school-based training to strengthen collaborative and reflective practices for school improvement, while mentors and school leadership teams receive targeted support on fostering learning-oriented school environments. Schools also benefit from networked learning through collaboration with more experienced ‘consolidated schools’ that participated in the previous academic year.
Novice teachers maintain a digital learning portfolio in which they document their professional development and provide evidence in relation to 21 indicators. Their progress is assessed continuously through mentoring interactions and structured review processes. A school-based monitoring and evaluation committee is responsible for approving the successful completion of the programme, with oversight from the Education Inspectorate.
The programme is currently being evaluated by the IVALUA agency and will not continue in its current form beyond the 2025/26 academic year following the end of the ESF+ funding. Building on lessons emerging from this pilot, Catalonia is developing a new mentor-centre model intended to strengthen the continuum between initial teacher education and induction. The new model seeks to address key elements such as the need for recognised time for support activities, clear criteria for participating schools and ongoing evaluation of programme quality and impact to build a more scalable and sustainable induction model. These developments also align with broader more recent reform efforts in 2026 aimed at strengthening workforce stability, professional support and the attractiveness of the teaching profession (See Box 2.2. in Chapter 2).
Efforts to develop a strong, systematic induction model in Catalonia are therefore important and timely. Overall, while most teachers in Catalonia appear to participate in some form of induction, this support is often informal. TALIS 2024 data indicate that more than half of secondary teachers in Catalonia (62.4%) have participated in informal induction activities, a higher proportion than in Spain overall (52.7%) and across the OECD (54.6%). By contrast, participation in formal induction programmes is lower, with around one-third of secondary teachers reporting involvement, compared to 35.5% in Spain and 40% across the OECD (OECD, 2025[14]). This suggests that while induction is present in the system, its formalisation and consistency remain more limited.
Teacher employment status and career entry
Teacher employment status and career entry arrangements shape the stability, attractiveness and functioning of the profession in Catalonia. They define how teachers access public employment, progress towards permanent status, are allocated across schools, and begin to develop their careers within the system. These arrangements also influence school stability, workforce continuity and the extent to which staffing decisions can respond to system and school-level needs.
Employment status
The Department of Education and Vocational Training opens public calls for teaching positions in accordance with public employment offers, workforce planning needs and the broader state regulatory framework. The periodicity and volume of recruitment may vary across years. Applicants must meet several requirements, including holding the appropriate qualifications, demonstrating proficiency in the Catalan language, and meeting nationality requirements. Teachers typically enter the public system on a temporary basis and must complete a probationary period of four months during their first appointment. Temporary positions may take the form of interim roles lasting a full academic year or replacement posts of varying duration, depending on the absence of permanent staff.
A defining aspect of the teaching profession in Catalonia is the distinction between teachers employed on temporary contracts and those who hold permanent positions as civil servants. Progression from temporary to permanent status represents the main formal career transition, resulting in a largely two-tier structure. While eligible candidates may apply for permanent positions without having held a temporary position first, many teachers first work on temporary contracts before gaining permanent status even if it is not a formal requirement. This two-tier structure has significant implications for employment stability, career progression and the overall management of the workforce.
Access to permanent status is primarily determined through a centrally administered competitive examination organised by the Department of Education and Vocational Training. Candidates must meet minimum requirements and typically complete:
Written and practical tests on the syllabus of the specialty being applied for (e.g. primary school teacher, secondary school science teacher).
Presentation and defence of a pedagogical programme.
Assessment of merits, such as experience, additional training, languages, among others.
Teachers who successfully pass the examination obtain permanent civil servant status, which provides a high level of job security and access to a state-funded pension. They are also prioritised in the allocation of teaching posts. The examination process is resource-intensive and has been implemented with varying frequency over time.
In recent years, the administration has made efforts to expand its implementation in order to reduce the number of teachers awaiting progression to permanent status and to increase the stability of the workforce. These efforts reflect not only workforce management considerations, but also broader concerns regarding continuity in school improvement processes, implementation capacity within schools and the sustainability of professional teams over time. They also reflect the implementation of the national Law 20/2021, which aims to reduce structural temporary employment in the public sector while improving workforce planning (DOGC, 2021[16]; Official State Gazette (BOE) Spain, 2021[17]). While it is still too early to assess the full impact of these measures, they are expected to contribute to greater stability in the profession. There are also proposals to continue this process of stabilisation in Catalonia over the coming years (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]).
Salaries
Teachers’ salaries in Catalonia primarily consist of a base salary established under the national public-service pay framework, as well as a positional component (complement de destinació) and specific supplement (complement específic) where Autonomous Communities have more discretion over certain elements. In 2026, the total of these salary components per month ranged from approximately EUR 2 500 for primary teachers to EUR 2 840 for secondary teachers, rising to some EUR 3 050 for senior secondary teaching posts (catedràtics).
In addition, teachers receive seniority increments (triennis) and career-stage supplements (estadis). The triennis provide an automatic salary increase every three years of service. For primary education teachers (usually ‘Group A2’) each increment adds just under EUR 44 per month, and for secondary teachers (usually ‘Group A1’) each increment adds just over EUR 53 per month. These increments accumulate over time, contributing to gradual salary growth. The estadis provide a mechanism for career-stage progression linked primarily to experience and professional activity. Teachers can progress through up to five stages, each associated with an additional monthly allowance. In 2026, these range from approximately EUR 129 at the first stage to around EUR 166 at the fourth stage, with a slightly lower amount for the fifth stage. Teachers also receive two additional annual payments, typically in June and December, which are derived from the base salary, accumulated seniority increments and positional component. Remuneration in private-subsidised schools is broadly aligned with that of public schools, with teachers receiving equivalent pay for comparable roles and responsibilities. Private schools, by contrast, may set salaries according to their own collective agreements.
International comparisons should be interpreted with caution. OECD data indicate that in Spain, nominal statutory salaries for lower secondary teachers with 15 years of experience increased by 18% between 2015 and 2023, but most of this increase reflected inflation, resulting in a real increase of only 2%, compared to an OECD average of 4% (OECD, 2024[19]). In Catalonia, available data suggest a nominal increase of approximately 14% between 2017 and 2023. In absolute terms, teachers’ salaries in Catalonia are relatively competitive compared to average earnings in Spain. OECD data indicate that the average annual wage in Spain was just over EUR 33 000 in 2024 (OECD, 2024[19]). In Catalonia, estimated annual salaries in 2024 were, for teachers with 15 years of experience, approximately EUR 35 000 for primary teachers and EUR 42 000 for secondary teachers, including additional payments (“paga extraordinària”) and seniority increments, though with some variability notably depending on teachers’ ‘estadis’ stage1.
However, relative comparisons present a more nuanced picture. OECD analysis comparing teachers’ statutory salaries with the earnings of similarly educated workers shows that, in Spain, salaries are broadly in line with those of similarly educated workers (OECD, 2024[19]). The ratio of starting salaries to the earnings of similar workers was 0.93, while the ratio of the salary after 15 years of experience was slightly higher at 1.08 and at the top of the salary scale 1.33. Progression to the top of the salary scale was one of the longest in Spain, at 39 years.
At the same time, available evidence suggests that starting salaries in Catalonia may be somewhat lower than the Spanish average, implying a comparatively weaker position relative to similarly educated workers. This concern has also been raised by representatives of the profession, including the General Union of Workers (Unión General de Trabajadores, UGT). This suggests that while teachers’ salaries in Catalonia are broadly competitive in absolute terms, their relative attractiveness (particularly at entry and in comparison with other regions in Spain) may be more limited. Recent proposals by Catalan authorities to progressively increase the specific supplement (complement específic) by 30% over the next three years – alongside the national-level 11% increase in total salaries – are an acknowledgement of this relative weakness compared to other Autonomous Communities (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]). The measures being taken aim to strengthen the financial attractiveness of the teaching profession and to bring it in line with other Autonomous Communities in Spain, as well as recognition of the profession’s work. They also reflect a broader recognition of the increasing complexity of teaching, including responsibilities associated with inclusive education, student diversity, collaboration and socio-emotional support.
Centralised recruitment, allocation and mobility
In the public sector, teacher allocation is shaped by a combination of system needs, employment status and teacher preferences. Central authorities monitor student populations across territories to identify the number of teaching positions required in each school. Teachers who already hold permanent positions may retain their current post if they wish. Remaining vacancies are then filled, with priority given to permanent teachers seeking transfer. Teachers’ preferences for geographical areas and their seniority (reflected in registry scores) are key factors in this process.
As a result, allocation is largely centrally managed, and principals do not directly appoint their staff. In recent years, some efforts have been made to introduce greater flexibility into this process and improve responsiveness to school-level needs. Under Article 102 of Law 12/2009, principals may request specific teacher profiles linked to their school’s pedagogical project and priorities, such as expertise in digital competence, inclusive education or foreign languages. These profiles are validated by the Department, who take into consideration different factors such as needs across schools and the school’s project, and teachers may apply through a complementary process that considers both their registry position and their alignment with the requested profile. However, stakeholders reported to the OECD Review Team that this mechanism has not yet consistently enhanced schools’ abilities to recruit profiles that fully meet their needs, while questions have been raised across stakeholders in the system as to the effectiveness of such measures, including its impact on equity (Government of Catalonia, 2016[20]; Government of Catalonia, 2016[21]).
A notable aspect of the system is the relatively high level of teacher mobility. Because staffing depends in part on the number of positions not already occupied by permanent teachers – and given the still significant proportion of temporary staff – schools may experience substantial changes in their teaching workforce from year to year. Fluctuations in student numbers, including those due to migration during the school year, can further affect staffing needs and allocation patterns.
These dynamics can contribute to instability at the school level, particularly in disadvantaged contexts where turnover may be higher. This has implications not only for continuity in teaching, but also for the sustained implementation of school development priorities, inclusive education practices and collaborative professional learning. In addition, the allocation process is administratively demanding and time-consuming, with some positions not finalised by the start of the academic year, further complicating school organisation.
School leadership selection and appointment
Responsibility for the day-to-day management of schools rests with the school principal, supported by a management team. School principals (“directors” in Catalonia) are appointed through a merit-based competition organised by a selection committee comprising representatives of the education administration and the school community, including teachers and school council members. The school therefore plays an active role in the selection process. The process has two phases: a first eliminatory phase assessing candidates’ merits based on elements such as their professional experience, competencies, training and qualifications (scored out of 40 points), and a second phase focussed on a concrete school development plan and candidates’ defence of their plan (scored out of 60 points) (Government of Catalonia, 2026[22]).
Candidates must meet minimum eligibility requirements. This includes having civil service status with at least five years of service and having at least five years of direct teaching experience, as a civil servant, in any school offering programmes that are also provided by the school to which they are applying to lead. Candidates must also be working in a public school under the Department of Education, with at least one full academic year of service at the time of the call, in a programme offered by the target school. In addition, they must meet the relevant language requirements (Catalan, and Aranese where applicable). Some requirements (specifically the minimum service and teaching experience) are waived for small schools, some specialised institutions, and rural school zones.
They must also complete prerequisite leadership training as set out in Resolution EDU/3017/2019. This training consists of 120 hours and is required for eligibility. Candidates may also complete an additional 90-hour training module which, depending on evaluation results, can also provide a merit rating and additional points in the selection process’ first phase assessing candidates’ merits. Hence, candidates score 5 points for completing 210-240 hours of training, or 10 points with an overall average grade of seven out of ten or higher. Training is provided by the Department of Education and Vocational Training and by recognised providers, including universities and institutions accredited by the same Department.
As alluded to, as part of their application, candidates must submit a school development project outlining their vision and proposed strategy for the school. This project plays a central role in the selection process and must be presented and defended before the committee. Principals are appointed for a mandate of four years which may be renewed up to three times subject to positive evaluations. After three renewals, a new competition is required. Accreditation for exercising pedagogical direction and school leadership is valid for eight years, after which principals must complete refresher training. Refresher training consists of a 60-hour module, which grants the accreditation required to apply, and a 30-hour module which can contribute points for a candidate in the competition process for appointment of a principal. In a similar fashion to initial training, completion of update training worth 90–120 hours provides a candidate with 2.5 points in the competition process, while this increases to 5 points where the overall average grade is seven out of ten or higher (Government of Catalonia, 2026[22]).
Principals receive a salary supplement that varies depending on the size and characteristics of the school. For example, principals of larger schools receive higher supplements than those in smaller schools, given differences in responsibility. When principals consolidate a mandate for a further four years, there is also an additional supplement. While the role is intended to provide professional recognition, and experience as a director can be a pathway to system-level roles such as the Inspectorate, there is no formalised leadership career structure beyond this position. This is echoed in how there is not a distinct, coherent structure of school leadership that provides a route to becoming a principal through other management roles. The combination of local involvement in selection and reliance on periodic renewal may also shape principals’ autonomy in practice, as accountability to local actors and renewal processes can influence decision-making.
School leadership roles and ways of working
Analysis of data from the OECD’s Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) suggests that when autonomy and accountability are intelligently combined, they tend to be associated with better student performance (OECD, 2011[23]). However, there are substantial differences between countries in the ways in which decisions are taken across levels of governance and how these are exercised in practice.
In Spain, decision-making is relatively more centralised than in many OECD systems, according to data from 38 education systems in 2017. Around 10% of decisions are taken at the school level, compared to an OECD average of 34%, while nearly one-third of the decisions are taken at the regional (sub-national) level (OECD, 2018[24]). This broader governance structure provides the context within which school principals in Catalonia operate.
Within this framework, school principals in Catalonia are formally granted autonomy across three main domains: pedagogical and curricular matters, organisational arrangements, and aspects of economic and human resource management (Law 12/2009; Decree 102/2010). This provides a formal basis for school-level leadership and adaptation to local needs. These leadership arrangements are particularly important in a context where schools are expected to implement increasingly complex reforms relating to inclusion, curriculum change, digitalisation and collaborative professional learning. In practice, the degree to which this autonomy can be exercised appears to vary across domains. Teacher allocation remains largely centrally managed, which may limit the extent to which principals can influence staffing decisions directly. OECD data indicate that only around 8% of personnel management decisions in Spain are taken at the school level, compared to an OECD average of 22% (OECD, 2018[24]). Similarly, the proportion of decisions taken at the school level in Spain regarding the organisation of instruction, planning and structures and resource management are below the OECD average.
This indicates that the formal framework for school leadership provides for a degree of autonomy, but that its practical scope is differentiated across areas of decision making. This has implications for how far school principals can align staffing, resources and pedagogical approaches with their school development priorities, particularly where key levers remain outside their direct control.
School principals operate with the support of a management team typically composed of roles such as head of studies, pedagogical co-ordinator and secretary. While the specific configuration varies across school types, these roles structure the internal distribution of leadership responsibilities, including pedagogical co-ordination, administrative management and organisational oversight (see Table 4.2). Management roles include some additional salary payments, which vary based on the role.
Professional learning opportunities for school principals and their management team are available, although participation is not mandatory. Training is encouraged and, for certain roles within the management team (such as the secretary), more specialised learning opportunities are provided given the technical and administrative demands associated with these functions. Beyond formal training, leadership learning also occurs through participation in system-level structures, including territorial boards for school principals across the 12 territorial services and a central board of principals. These forums provide opportunities for exchange, co-ordination and shared reflection across schools and territories.
Selected examples of common school management teams
Note: The composition of management teams varies across different types of educational centres and depends on factors such as school size, student enrolment and the specific characteristics of each institution.
Source: OECD/Department of Education and Vocational Training (unpublished[8]), Responses to OECD background questionnaire «A multi-year project to improve learning outcomes in Catalonia», internal document.
Another key actor shaping school leadership practice is the Education Inspectorate. Principals are expected to work closely with their assigned inspector, whose role combines supervision, advice and evaluation. In practice, the nature and intensity of this relationship may vary, but it typically involves regular meetings and school visits to discuss progress in implementing the school’s development project. This creates an ongoing process of monitoring and feedback.
In addition, principals are subject to a formal evaluation at the end of each four-year term (Decree 102/2010; Decree 155/2010). Principals are evaluated through the Education Inspectorate’s Protocol for the Assessment and Evaluation of the Exercise of the Management Function (AVALDIR), which is designed and implemented by the Education Inspectorate. This evaluation draws on multiple sources of evidence, including annual reports submitted by the school, student performance data from assessments, and observations and interactions carried out by the Inspectorate during the mandate. These elements suggest a model of leadership that combines elements of autonomy, support and external accountability.
Working conditions in schools
Teachers’ statutory working time in Catalonia is defined through a combination of teaching hours, fixed on-site duties and additional preparation time. At the primary level, teachers typically undertake 23 hours of teaching activities, alongside 7 hours of fixed-schedule complementary activities within the school and 7.5 hours allocated to preparation. At the secondary level, teachers generally teach 18 hours within a total of 24 fixed on-site hours, with additional time devoted to complementary and preparation activities, some of which may be carried out outside the school (Table 4.3).
According to TALIS 2024, full-time lower secondary teachers in Catalonia report working an average of 37 hours per week. This is below both the OECD average (41 hours) and the Spanish average (40 hours) (OECD, 2025[25]). However, differences in reported working hours should be interpreted with caution, as they do not necessarily capture the intensity or composition of teachers’ work. During the OECD Review visit, teachers, school principals and the wider management team consistently highlighted increasing administrative demands as a key aspect of their working conditions. TALIS 2024 data reflect this perception: 58.7% of lower secondary teachers in Catalonia report that excessive administrative work is a frequent source of stress, compared to just under 52% across the OECD (APE, 2026[26]). These demands may be associated with a range of factors, though it was reported to the OECD Review Team that this partly included reporting requirements related to inclusive education policies (Decree 150/2017), increasing student diversity, and the need for co-ordination across services and actors.
Source: OECD/Department of Education and Vocational Training (unpublished[8]), Responses to OECD background questionnaire «A multi-year project to improve learning outcomes in Catalonia», internal document.
Marking workload also emerges as a significant source of pressure. Around 57.4% of lower secondary teachers in Catalonia report that excessive marking is a frequent source of stress, compared to approximately 40% across the OECD (OECD, 2025[25]; APE, 2026[26]). This suggests that, alongside administrative tasks, core teaching-related responsibilities may also contribute to perceived workload pressures.
While total reported working hours are comparatively moderate, the nature and intensity of teachers’ work may present important challenges. In particular, the balance between instructional, administrative and collaborative tasks appears to shape how working conditions are experienced in practice. This has implications for teachers’ capacity to engage in core professional activities, including lesson preparation, student support and participation in professional learning. These patterns also have implications for the effective use of evaluation and professional learning opportunities discussed in the next sections.
These concerns have also become a central focus of recent policy discussions and social dialogue in Catalonia. The 2026 agreements between the Department of Education and Vocational Training and trade unions included commitments relating to administrative simplification, additional support staff and measures intended to reduce workload pressures associated with increasingly complex learning environments (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]; Government of Catalonia, 2026[7]) (See also Chapter 2).
Professional learning for teachers and school principals
The demands of teaching, as well as the changing nature of these demands, means that professional learning is widely viewed as important for developing a high-quality teaching workforce. Catalonia’s efforts to provide teachers with professional learning is outlined below with regard to two broad approaches. First, the provisioning of formal learning opportunities (sometimes referred to as “trainings’ or “continuous professional development” opportunities), and second the presence of school-based professional learning and professional collaboration.
Formal professional learning activities
There is a considerable number of professional learning opportunities available to teachers in Catalonia to support their ongoing professional growth. Participation is not mandatory, although engagement in professional learning may be considered in certain career processes, such as applying for permanent status. Teachers therefore retain a high degree of autonomy in deciding which opportunities to pursue, based on their own perceived needs and interests, although access to some activities may depend on demand and the number of places available.
Teachers can choose from a central catalogue of professional learning activities made available by the Department of Education and Vocational Training. Participation levels are high: 122 510 participations were recorded in the 2023/24 academic year and 120 480 in 2024/25. This suggests a broad level of engagement in professional learning across the system, even if participation figures do not in themselves indicate the depth, duration or impact of the activities undertaken.
A range of information sources inform this catalogue, which functions in practice as a structured professional learning offer across the system. The professional learning offer is defined and organised by the Department of Education and Vocational Training based on challenges and needs identified through different sources of evidence, including student outcomes and other reports, while territorial services collect and synthesise the needs identified by schools in their respective areas. One important source for territorial services is the Centre Training Plan (Pla de Formació de Centre), which each school prepares to identify its own training needs in light of its educational project, staff priorities, student results, and any internal or external evaluation findings. The provision of professional learning is also underpinned by the Framework of Professional Teaching Competencies, which was formalised in 2024 to guide the offer of professional learning and, more broadly, to orient the profession across the teacher career continuum, from initial preparation to continuing development. Its role across that continuum is discussed further below. This creates the foundations for a more coherent professional learning ecosystem aligned with broader system priorities and long-term improvement objectives.
In operational terms, the catalogue’s activities are organised by the Department across three main periods of the academic year: autumn, which contains the core offer of activities; winter–spring, when additional proposals are introduced and some activities continue; and summer, which includes more intensive learning opportunities. In addition, some activities take place throughout the year, such as school-based training, working groups, seminars and specific programmes with their own calendars. Activities occur in a variety of formats, including in-person, online, school-based and network-oriented approaches. A key role is played by the Pedagogical Resource Centres (Centres de Recursos Pedagògics), which operate within each territorial service and provide support to schools in their pedagogical work.
The professional learning offer is also complemented by collaboration agreements with public universities. These seek to expand the range of recognised opportunities available to teachers and school leaders, and include continuing professional development activities provided by the Institutes of Education Sciences of Catalan universities, designed in co-ordination with the Department. These activities cover areas such as pedagogical leadership and management, expert training courses, participation in working groups and consultancies, as well as programmes led by the Department to strengthen key competences, such as Florence for the improvement of mathematics. Participation trends are broadly consistent with international trends. TALIS 2024 data indicate that 98% of teachers in Spain participated in at least one professional development activity in the previous year, slightly above the OECD average of 96% (OECD, 2025[25]). The most common forms of professional learning are courses, seminars and workshops, followed by self-directed learning. By contrast, activities such as visits to other schools or organisations, which are often associated with more practice-based or collaborative forms of learning, appear less frequent.
For principals, professional learning opportunities are also available, although participation is not mandatory. Available data indicate that over 7 200 professional learning activities were organised in 2025/26, with just under 29 000 participants, corresponding to participation from more than 2 500 management teams in public schools (Government of Catalonia, unpublished[27]). This represents over 90% of management teams in public schools. More specifically, over 80% of management teams in public schools participated in activities relating to school organisation and management and more than 60% in activities relating to leadership. There was also substantial participation in activities relating to language and literacy, inclusion and digital competence, involving between 56 and 36% of management teams. There were fewer activities relating to auditing and evaluating schools (four activities), with participation from only 10% of management teams. Meanwhile, despite a notable number of activities, attendance was lower in areas such as mathematics and emotional education, both at 17% of management teams.
There is thus a broad offer, but also variation in the extent to which professional learning addresses different dimensions of leadership practice. At the same time, participation data alone provide limited insight into the intensity, coherence or sustained impact of professional learning activities. As in other systems, the relationship between participation and changes in teaching practice depends on how professional learning is structured, supported and embedded in school contexts.
School-based professional collaboration
In addition to the formal provision, professional learning in Catalonia also takes place through collaboration within schools. This can take different forms, ranging from relatively informal exchanges – such as sharing teaching materials or discussing classroom practices – to more structured and sustained approaches, including joint planning, peer observation and collective inquiry. These different forms of collaboration vary not only in their intensity, but also in the extent to which they are embedded in school routines and supported by organisational structures.
TALIS 2024 data suggest that more frequent, lower-intensity forms of collaboration are relatively well established. For example, 54% of lower secondary teachers in Catalonia report exchanging teaching materials with colleagues at least monthly, above the OECD average (46%) and similar to Spain (55%). Around 46% report working with colleagues to ensure common standards in student evaluation, slightly above the OECD average (41%), although below Spain (58%) (APE, 2026[26]). These forms of collaboration can support a degree of co-ordination in teaching practices and assessment approaches across classrooms.
By contrast, more structured and practice-oriented forms of collaboration appear less widespread. Only some 7% of teachers report observing colleagues’ classes and providing feedback at least monthly, compared to 9% across the OECD. Similarly, around 20% of teachers report engaging in collaborative professional learning at least once a month, broadly in line with the OECD average but below Spain (OECD, 2025[25]; APE, 2026[26]). These types of activities are often associated with deeper forms of professional learning, as they involve reflection on practice, feedback and joint problem-solving.
Evidence from the OECD Review visit is broadly consistent with these patterns. Stakeholders reported that while opportunities for collaboration exist in many schools, these are often informal in nature and may depend on individual initiative, school culture or the role of specific actors such as the pedagogical co-ordinator. More structured and sustained forms of collaboration – such as systematic peer observation, joint inquiry or school-wide professional learning cycles – appear less consistently embedded across schools and territories. This suggests that collaboration is present within schools, but that its forms and intensity vary. While more informal exchanges are relatively common, more structured approaches that may support deeper professional learning are less systematically developed across the system. Strengthening these forms of collaborative professional learning may become increasingly important in supporting the consistent implementation of reforms and the dissemination of effective practices across schools.
The profile and distribution of the teaching and school leadership workforce shape the system’s capacity to provide stable, high-quality teaching and learning across schools and territories. In Catalonia, recent trends point to a workforce undergoing important changes in employment status, age structure and renewal patterns, while also facing pressures in relation to shortages, qualification mismatches and uneven leadership stability. Recent policy discussions and agreements in Catalonia have increasingly recognised these workforce challenges, particularly in relation to staffing stability, professional attractiveness and the long-term sustainability of the education workforce (Government of Catalonia, 2026[7]). These factors can have implications not only for staffing continuity and school functioning, but also for the system’s ability to respond effectively to changing student needs and sustain improvement over time.
Distribution of teachers across schools and territories
Recent years have seen changes in the composition of the teaching workforce in Catalonia, particularly in relation to employment status. Between 2017 and 2023, the number of teachers holding permanent civil servant status remained relatively stable, ranging between approximately 39 400 and 44 330. Over the same period, however, the number of teachers employed in temporary or interim positions increased substantially, from approximately 38 500 in the 2017/18 academic year to 50 500 in 2022/23.
During 2020–2022, several thousand teachers were employed as probationary civil servants, reflecting the implementation of public examinations, although prior to this the numbers were more limited. In 2024/25, there was a marked increase in the number of teachers holding both probationary and permanent civil servant status, which reflects intensified efforts to expand access to permanent positions. In that year, 17 890 teachers held probationary status and 71 575 held civil servant status, while the number of teachers in temporary positions decreased to 28 980.
More recent data for 2025/26 indicate that 29 165 teachers are employed on interim contracts, while 703 have entered probationary civil servant status. These figures suggest that, although recent examination rounds and stabilisation measures have contributed to increasing the number of permanent teachers, a substantial proportion of the workforce continues to be employed on non-permanent contracts. Temporary employment reflects not only transitional vacancies, but also the need to manage substitutions, staffing shortages in certain specialisations and territories, and emerging system needs, highlighting the importance of combining stabilisation efforts with stronger workforce planning and more responsive allocation and coverage mechanisms.
While comprehensive data on the distribution of teachers across schools and territories are limited, stakeholder feedback indicates that staffing patterns may vary across regions and school contexts. This may be particularly the case in areas experiencing higher turnover or greater difficulty in filling posts. These dynamics are particularly important in a context where schools are expected to sustain increasingly complex reforms relating to inclusion, curriculum implementation and collaborative professional learning, all of which depend to some extent on stable professional teams and continuity in staffing.
Workforce ageing and turnover patterns
In the 2025/26 school year, Catalonia’s public education system employed 81 160 teachers. This reflects an increase from 71 645 teachers in 2018/19 (a rise of approximately 13%). Growth has been uneven across levels, with modest increases in early childhood and primary education, and more substantial expansion in secondary education, language schools and arts education, where the number of teachers rose from 30 760 to 41 440 over the same period.
The teaching workforce in Catalonia is predominantly female. According to TALIS 2024, women represent 64% of the secondary workforce and 82% of the primary workforce. At the secondary level, this is broadly in line with Spain as a whole (62%) while at the primary level it is somewhat higher than the Spanish average (76%). Compared to the OECD average, the proportion of women in secondary education is slightly lower (70%). More recent administrative data for 2025/26 suggest similar patterns. In terms of age distribution, the proportion of younger teachers is relatively low. Around 7% of secondary teachers in Catalonia are under the age of 30, compared to approximately 10% across the OECD. At the same time, 38% of secondary teachers are aged 50 or above, broadly in line with the OECD average (36.6%). This reflects a cohort of teachers who entered the profession during the expansion of the public education system in the 1980s and 1990s and are now approaching retirement age, which is typically around 60 in Catalonia. Recent trends in initial teacher education also point to potential future pressures. The number of entrants has declined significantly over time.
In 2017/18, there were some 4 130 entrants, with just under 3 890 successfully completing their probationary period. By contrast, in 2024/25, there were just over 1 580 entrants and some 1 420 successful graduates. This decline has been observed across both primary and secondary education, although it is particularly pronounced at the secondary level. The proportion of entrants not successfully completing the process has also increased slightly, from around 6% to 11% in recent years. As such, while the total number of teachers has increased, the age structure of the workforce and declining entry rates into the profession may have implications for future workforce renewal, particularly if student numbers remain stable or increase. These trends also reinforce the importance of recent efforts to strengthen the attractiveness, stability and professional recognition of teaching in Catalonia, particularly in the context of increasing classroom complexity and growing expectations placed on schools.
Teacher shortages and workforce pressures
There are signs of some teacher shortages in specific areas of the system. These have declined recently following some spikes to return to levels similar to those before the Covid-19 pandemic, though there remains some variation across regions.
An additional challenge regarding shortages relates to teachers’ qualifications. At the secondary level, teachers are required to hold a master’s degree in teacher training for compulsory secondary education and baccalaureate, vocational training and language teaching, although they may begin teaching provided they obtain this qualification within three years. There is a notable number of secondary teachers to which this applies, which reflects the challenges Catalonia faces attracting and retaining qualified candidates in certain subject areas. While this measure can help alleviate shortages in the short-term, it can also have implications for workforce stability, as teachers without the required qualification cannot access permanent contracts. Over time, addressing these challenges may require stronger alignment between workforce planning, initial teacher education provision, induction arrangements and incentives in relation to hard-to-staff subject areas or territories. It also reiterates the need to raise the status of the teaching profession, as further outlined below.
There are also some additional workforce pressures. Teacher absences have notably increased in recent years, highlighting the pressures that teachers have been facing. While the available data does not allow a robust breakdown by cause and duration, trends suggest that attending to teachers’ working conditions and well-being is becoming more urgent. Measures to attend to this – as set out further below, such as with regard to workload – are thus timely (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]). Further examination of absence data to develop a stronger monitoring system for early warning indicators to coverage mechanisms may be fruitful here too.
Leadership capacity in different school contexts
In the 2025/26 school year, leadership roles in Catalonia’s public education system were predominantly held by women, which reflects the broader gender composition of the teaching workforce. Among school principals, 73% were women (1 870 out of 2 542 positions). Within school leadership teams, women held 75.5% of positions (4 540 out of 6 020), while among non-directive co-ordination roles, 71% were held by women (16 100 out of 22 725 positions). These proportions are notably higher than the OECD average for school principals. According to TALIS 2018, 47% of principals across OECD countries are women (OECD, 2019[28]). In Catalonia, however, similar patterns have been observed over time, with around 70% of school principals being women in 2017/18.
In terms of stability, the total number of school principals has remained relatively stable in recent years, increasing only slightly from 2 680 in 2018 to 2 700 in 2025. However, the number of principals serving in secondment or temporary positions has increased more substantially, from 790 to 1 030 over the same period. As a result, the proportion of principals in such arrangements has risen from 29% to 38%.
This suggests that a growing share of leadership positions is being filled on a temporary or provisional basis. While such arrangements may provide flexibility in staffing, they may also have implications for continuity and stability in school leadership. It also raises questions around the quality of preparation such leaders have received for being effective in their role. It also raises questions regarding the extent to which school leaders in temporary or provisional arrangements are able to access sustained preparation, support and professional learning opportunities necessary to lead increasingly complex school improvement processes effectively.
Catalonia’s teaching and school leadership workforce combines several aspects that support system functioning and improvement. Strengths include indications of a strong professional commitment to equity and inclusion, along with a degree of teacher autonomy in responding to diverse student needs. Evidence also points to a strong school-level identity and community engagement, which support teaching and learning processes. In addition, the OECD Review Team identified an emerging evidence-informed culture in teacher policymaking. These elements provide important foundations for strengthening workforce stability, implementation capacity and sustained system-wide improvement over time.
The agreement reached in March and May between the Department of Education and Vocational Training and some trade unions marks a significant potential shift in the policy landscape, introducing a multi-year package of measures including adjustments to salary complements, planned expansion of teaching and support staff, workload reduction and reinforced professional recognition (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]; Government of Catalonia, 2026[7]). This agreement, supported by substantial planned investment, reflects an effort for a more systemic approach to strengthening workforce conditions and addressing long-standing structural pressures (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]; Government of Catalonia, 2026[7]).
Strong commitment among teachers and school leaders to equity and inclusion
A notable strength of the current system is the strong commitment to equitable and inclusive education expressed by many teachers and school leaders during the review. Across interviews and consultations, stakeholders consistently emphasised the importance of ensuring that all students are supported to succeed. Practitioners and school principals met during the review visit spoke positively about the goal of ensuring that no students or communities were left behind. Furthermore, it was perceptible to the OECD Review Team in interviews that teachers and school principals dedicated substantial time to trying to realise inclusion in practice. The review team consistently encountered examples of teachers and school leaders describing substantial efforts to support students and respond to increasingly diverse learning needs. The frustrations that teachers and school principals shared about realising this vision appeared to reflect this underlying professional commitment.
As this report sets out, realising this vision remains challenging for a range of reasons. Even so, it was noticeable to the OECD Review Team that there was a relatively consistent understanding among stakeholders of the key challenges hindering implementation. For instance, the availability of teaching and support staff was widely highlighted as a constraint. Recent agreements and policy discussions in Catalonia have also increasingly recognised these pressures, particularly in relation to inclusive education, staffing support and workforce sustainability (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]; Government of Catalonia, 2026[7]). While these challenges are substantial, the degree of consensus around what is needed to realise this shared vision suggests there may be fertile ground for collective reform efforts. Stakeholders noted, for example, the need to modernise the teaching profession, enhance its attractiveness, and improve ways of working if a truly inclusive system is to be realised. In this respect, the strong professional commitment to equity and inclusion may provide an important foundation for implementing reforms aimed at improving educational quality, inclusion and student outcomes over time. This commitment is now being reinforced through reforms that place greater emphasis on professional recognition, including adjustments to salary complements and other remuneration measures aimed at improving the attractiveness of the profession, particularly at entry and mid-career stages (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]; Government of Catalonia, 2026[7]).
Autonomy of teachers to cater to different needs in the classroom
A further strength of the system is the relatively high level of autonomy that teachers reported in the classroom. Teachers interviewed during the OECD review visit valued their ability to make pedagogical choices. This echoes findings from TALIS, where more than nine in ten secondary teachers reported autonomy over the selection of pedagogical strategies, broadly in line with the OECD average. Some 97% of teachers reported autonomy in the design and preparation of classes, slightly above the OECD average (93%). At the primary level, secondary analysis of TALIS suggests that teachers in Catalonia report higher autonomy than their counterparts elsewhere in Spain (82% compared to 66%).
On one level, this autonomy reflects the trust the system places in teachers’ professional judgement. Indeed, emerging efforts to further recognise the teaching profession in Catalonian law as public authorities and a pillar of the education system will more clearly articulate this professional trust in teachers and further promote the conditions for them to effectively exercise their autonomy (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]).
This autonomy may also support pedagogical flexibility, which teachers reported helps them adopt a more student-centred approach and better respond to individual needs. Teachers spoke positively of approaches that involve exploration, collaboration and project-based learning. It was also noteworthy that students interviewed during the review visit often spoke positively about their learning experiences, particularly where they were able to engage in meaningful, exploratory activities.
There is an important connection here with the professional commitment to equity and inclusion described above. Teachers value being able to support students in ways that recognise individual needs, and pedagogical autonomy can support this. This flexibility may also support schools and teachers in adapting broader system reforms to the needs of different student populations and local contexts. These strengths may be increasingly supported by planned expansion of teaching and support staff, aimed at improving staffing stability, strengthening substitution coverage and reinforcing capacity for inclusive education in increasingly complex classroom environments (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]). In parallel, recent reforms have also prioritised reducing administrative burden, including through additional administrative support and simplification of reporting processes, particularly those related to inclusive education and inter-service co-ordination (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]). This may have significant implications for how teachers use their time to best support student learning.
At the same time, stakeholders acknowledged challenges in implementing approaches that effectively meet diverse needs. While there was appreciation for more ‘innovative’ pedagogical approaches, many teachers also emphasised the importance of balancing these with more structured and explicit forms of instruction. These more ‘traditional’ approaches were seen as important for building foundational knowledge. Some teachers and, interestingly, some parents expressed concern that reliance on a single approach may be limiting and highlighted the importance of using a range of pedagogical strategies. TALIS 2024 data indicate that Catalonia is above the OECD average in the proportion of secondary teachers assigning extended projects (44% compared to 28%).
This emphasis on balance aligns with international research, which suggests that a range of pedagogical approaches is needed and that their effectiveness depends on factors such as students’ prior knowledge and the level of teacher guidance provided (OECD, 2025[2]). Teachers interviewed during the review visit showed awareness of this need for balance and reported feeling able to exercise professional judgement in this regard. While the OECD Review Team did not observe classroom practices directly, this suggests a degree of reflection among practitioners that could be further supported through professional learning and system-level guidance.
School-level identity and community engagement
The autonomy observed at classroom level is also reflected at school level. Schools in Catalonia have the capacity to shape their own development plans (their ‘project’), and school principals are appointed based on a vision for the school’s development. They are responsible, together with their leadership teams, for implementing this vision, with support and monitoring from the Inspectorate. For teachers, this can provide a degree of choice between schools, and some reported identifying strongly with the project and vision of their school. For many school principals interviewed during the review, this autonomy appeared to be associated with a strong sense of ownership over school development.
Other stakeholders, including the Inspectorate and parents, also spoke positively about the sense of identity that schools can develop. For parents, this can offer a degree of choice between schools. School-level autonomy also allows schools to respond to local contexts, with projects shaped to reflect the needs of their student populations and communities. The selection of school principals based on their proposed project, involving different actors including school representatives, is one mechanism that supports this.
A related strength is the generally positive relationship between schools and their communities. The OECD Review Team noted that many parents and guardians felt engaged with their school and its work. They reported good relationships with school principals and teachers and highlighted both formal and informal communication channels. Parents indicated that they felt able to raise concerns and contribute to school life, and that their perspectives were taken into account.
TALIS 2024 data broadly support these perceptions. More than two-thirds of teachers report feeling valued by parents and guardians. At the secondary level, Catalonia (66%) is broadly in line with the OECD average (65%) and Spain (65%), and above the EU average (63%). At the primary level, 77% of teachers report feeling valued, above the Spanish average (74%). Teachers also report spending between 1.5 and 2 hours per week communicating with families. In addition, TALIS 2024 finds that primary teachers spend on average 102 minutes a week on communication with families, while secondary teachers spend 108 minutes. This is the same as the OECD average (108 minutes), while higher than the EU average (90 minutes) and average in Spain (102). It is also notable that some 96% of secondary teachers agree that their school director maintains good relationships with families, above the OECD average (91.5%).
Overall, this suggests that schools are generally well connected to their local communities. While some stakeholders noted that parental voice is less present at the system level, engagement at the school level therefore appears to provide a valuable foundation for sustaining school improvement efforts and strengthening trust in the education system.
Emerging evidence-informed culture in teacher policymaking
There are indications that the system is strengthening its capacity to generate and use evidence in teacher policymaking. For example, the trial of a more substantial induction programme (the Initial Teacher Residency Programme of Catalonia) reflects an effort to test and refine approaches prior to wider implementation. Similarly, the establishment of the Evaluation Agency (discussed further in Chapter 5) is a notable development in this regard.
In a context of budgetary pressures, such approaches to policymaking are particularly relevant. They can support more informed decision making and help ensure that resources are used effectively. At the same time, there are potential trade-offs, including the balance between the time required to generate robust evidence and the need to scale promising initiatives. This can be workable, however, and the use of a range of different measures to understand both the quantifiable impact of initiatives and the experience and process of implementation can be significant.
Catalonia’s approach shows some parallels with developments in other systems (Box 4.1), where structured processes have been developed to generate, test and scale educational innovations. This approach to evidence-informed policymaking is still at an early stage and there is scope for more systematic use of data for governance and decision-making. Nevertheless, current developments suggest a growing emphasis on evidence-informed policymaking, which may support greater coherence and continuity in future reform efforts.
Stakeholder feedback also highlighted a context of frequent change, particularly in areas such as curriculum and digital education. Some stakeholders expressed concerns about the pace and frequency of reforms. In this context, strengthening evidence-informed approaches may also support greater consolidation and coherence over time.
The efforts in Catalonia to build evidence in teacher policymaking has some parallels in other countries. For instance, in the Netherlands, the government-funded National Laboratory on AI (NOLAI), brings together teachers and school representatives with academics, EdTech companies and policy makers to design AI tools in a co-creation process. While NOLAI has not been tasked to evaluate existing software/solutions, the NOLAI co-creation projects all have a built-in validation process at the end, using data from schools – including national assessment data – to assess the effectiveness of the developed AI technologies on student outcomes. The initiative is still in its early phases, but it offers an interesting parallel and example of how evidence-generation can occur in an efficient, collaborative way.
Similarly, in England (UK) the Education Endowment Foundation is an independent charity that was established by the Sutton Trust and an endowment from the UK Department for Education to serve as an evidence brokerage agency for schools. It helps to both synthesise and generate knowledge. With regard to the latter, this process has steadily evolved beyond its initial focus on randomised control trials to a ‘pipeline’ of evidence generation. Most notably, this now includes an early-stage programme development (ESPD) stage to support programme developers to design, incubate and develop new programmes that address a specific evidence and practice gap. These programmes rely on formative feedback and reflection rather than independent evaluation but are the first stage in its pipeline that can then lead to pilot studies of promising initiatives, efficacy and then effectiveness studies, before eventual scaling-up.
Source: OECD (2025[2]), Unlocking High-Quality Teaching, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/f5b82176-en; OECD (2025[29]), OECD Review of Digital Education Policy in the Netherlands, OECD Reviews of School Resources, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/91118813-en.
Catalonia’s teaching and school leadership workforce faces some interrelated challenges that affect its stability, effectiveness and attractiveness. These include gaps between initial preparation and classroom realities, limited career progression and incentive structures, and persistent instability in relation to allocation and turnover processes. Additional challenges relate to the quality and impact of professional learning, the limited use of appraisal and evaluation for improvement, and the underdevelopment of networks for knowledge sharing. These factors may contribute to a lower perceived status of the profession and raise important questions regarding the system’s capacity to attract, support and retain high-quality teachers and leaders, while sustaining coherent implementation of reforms across schools and territories over time.
Challenges in aligning preparation with classroom realities
The OECD Review Team noted that initial teacher education (ITE) was widely viewed by practitioners, policy makers and researchers alike as in need of strengthening. While responsibility for ITE primarily lies with universities within the broader national higher education framework (see Chapter 2 for a detailed discussion of governance responsibilities across levels of the education system), there have been limited reforms in ITE since the foundational legislation of the early 2000s. Evidence gathered during the review suggests that there may be opportunities to strengthen the alignment between initial teacher education and the realities of contemporary classroom practice. At the same time, recent initiatives relating to mentoring, induction and professional competencies suggest growing recognition within the system of the need to strengthen coherence across the professional continuum. TALIS 2024 data suggest that this may be a priority area: around four in ten secondary teachers in Catalonia do not think their initial teacher education was, in general, of good quality. This is substantially below the OECD average, where more than three-quarters of secondary teachers agree that their initial teacher education was of good quality. Across all aspects of initial teacher education quality, secondary teachers in the OECD rate their preparation more positively than their counterparts in Catalonia, with gaps ranging from 13 to 21 percentage points across different questionnaire items (APE, 2026[26]).
This invites consideration of the more specific issues that surfaced during the review visit and interviews with different stakeholders. There is an expectation that practical experiences are provided through internships to trainee teachers, and there have been some efforts at the secondary level through the aforementioned innovation programme to strengthen the quality of these experiences by better leveraging and professionalising the figure of the mentor. However, teachers who had more recently joined the profession and met the OECD Review Team felt that the realities of the classroom were overall poorly reflected in their preparation. Furthermore, these views were echoed by school principals and researchers. In particular, substantial questions were raised about whether the master’s degree for secondary teaching adequately reflects the realities of classroom practice. TALIS 2024 findings are again relevant here. Fewer than half of secondary teachers in Catalonia report being satisfied with the more practical components of their initial training, such as being provided with sufficient opportunities to teach in school, having sufficient time to observe classrooms, or receiving ideas to manage classrooms successfully (APE, 2026[26]). This echoes the OECD Review Team’s perception of a gap between theory and practical readiness for teaching. TALIS 2024 also suggests that just over 40% of secondary teachers in Catalonia felt that their initial teacher education had a good balance between the theoretical and practical aspects of teaching (APE, 2026[26]).
This raises the question of which specific challenges and realities are being insufficiently addressed. A particularly acute concern was preparation for meeting the demands of inclusion in classrooms. The OECD Review Team heard that this included the pedagogical demands of handling diversity in the classroom, as well as teachers’ roles in identifying special educational needs (SEN) and helping to ensure that they are appropriately addressed through formal channels. Preparation for meeting SEN in the classroom may be one area of particular weakness. In Catalonia, 48% of novice secondary teachers report feeling stressed by having to modify their lessons for students with special educational needs, compared with 42% of experienced teachers. While a similar pattern is observed in Spain overall, the OECD and EU averages show the reverse pattern, with experienced teachers reporting slightly higher levels of stress. This may suggest a particular challenge in how less experienced teachers in Catalonia are prepared for inclusive practice.
At the same time, there are some areas on which Catalonia can build. According to TALIS 2024, about half of secondary teachers in Catalonia (51%) report feeling fairly or very well prepared by their initial teacher education for teaching in a multicultural or multilingual setting (APE, 2026[26]). While there is room for further improvement, this is above the OECD average (30%). Similarly, Catalonia is above the OECD average in terms of teachers reporting that they felt prepared to use digital tools in their pedagogy: 61% report feeling fairly or very well prepared in this regard, compared to 42% on average across the OECD. These results suggest that there may already be strengths and promising practices within Catalonia’s preparation system that could be further identified and shared.
Beyond ITE itself, further limitations exist in how new teachers transition from initial preparation to full responsibility in the classroom. While there are some expectations around supporting new teachers, this support appeared to the OECD Review Team to be limited and not always systematically implemented. As noted earlier, the SENSEI pilot induction programme is a positive development and aligns with international best practice around supporting novice teachers in the early years of their careers (OECD, 2025[2]; OECD, 2025[25]). However, as international experience suggests, implementation requires careful design and resourcing. In particular, this type of support depends on having sufficient numbers of well-prepared mentors. The OECD Review Team noted frustration among stakeholders that there are limited incentives for undertaking mentor roles, which appear to depend heavily on individual goodwill. This raises broader questions about how mentoring is positioned within the wider teacher career structure and its professional status.
Overall, the challenge of effectively preparing new teachers for the profession is not unique to Catalonia, and TALIS 2024 data suggest that this is a concern across systems (OECD, 2025[25]). Research also indicates that less experienced teachers typically face difficulties in adapting teaching to students’ needs (Van de Grift, Van der Wal and Torenbeek, 2011[30]). In this respect, a degree of struggle in the early years of teaching is normal. Nevertheless, the evidence gathered during the review suggests that there may be a disconnect between aspects of teacher preparation and the realities experienced by some novice teachers in the classroom. This raises important questions not only about the quality of teaching in novice teachers’ classrooms, but also about how their well-being and sense of self-efficacy are being supported as they build sustainable careers in the profession and contribute to longer-term school improvement processes.
Limited opportunities for differentiated career progression
The teacher career structure in Catalonia is relatively flat and provides limited opportunities for diversifying skills and expertise. It also has limited means of incentivising and recognising excellence in the profession. Several aspects of the current structure stand out as important challenges.
One limitation concerns the type of opportunities available. The main progression in the current structure is the transition from temporary employment to permanent status through the civil service examination. Beyond this, there is some degree of vertical progression through leadership roles such as administrator, pedagogical co-ordinator and director. However, there is no clearly structured progression to more senior teacher status linked to increasing levels of competence against a shared set of professional standards, as can be seen in some other systems (see Box 4.2). Under Article 105 of Law 12/2009, of 10 July, on Education, the Education Authority may establish measures to recognise outstanding contributions to improving educational practices, school functioning or school-community relations through the assignment of specific statuses. However, the OECD Review Team found very limited evidence of such recognitions being used. Overall, the OECD Review Team observed limited mechanisms through which professional excellence is formally recognised and rewarded within the career structure.
There are some opportunities for teachers to take on additional roles that allow them to develop particular expertise or differentiate their work. These sit alongside the management roles outlined above (see Table 4.2), for instance, mentoring new teachers or undertaking co-ordination roles such as digitalisation or a subject domain. Well-structured roles can be an important means of developing skills and sustaining engagement in the profession (OECD, 2019[31]). Similarly, career progression that recognises increasing competence can support motivation and help identify and encourage high-quality teaching. However, these roles appear to lack formality and clarity around their scope and how individuals were selected and supported to thrive in such roles. Indeed, as outlined below, such roles appeared to carry limited prestige. This differentiation is also important for recognising more complex roles undertaken by teaching professionals with greater expertise. In this respect, the architecture of the current career structure appears limited both in terms of its organisation and in the extent to which it provides extrinsic motivation.
A further limitation concerns the nature of the incentives attached to the few progressions or additional roles that do exist. As noted earlier, there is some salary progression related to seniority through three- and six-year increments. However, stakeholders in Catalonia expressed dissatisfaction with the limited extent of salary progression. TALIS 2024 data suggest that, on a scale of 1 to 4, teachers’ satisfaction with their salaries ranges from 2.2 for primary teachers to 2.4 for secondary teachers. In each case, this is slightly below the Spanish average, while secondary teachers in Catalonia report somewhat higher levels of salary satisfaction than the OECD average (data at the primary level are unavailable) (APE, 2026[26]). Catalan teachers were more satisfied with the stability and flexibility of their working conditions than with their salaries. This echoes the frustration expressed during the review visit regarding remuneration relative to other parts of Spain. Recent agreements between the Department of Education and Vocational Training and trade unions have sought to respond to some of these concerns through planned salary increases and measures aimed at strengthening professional recognition (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]; Government of Catalonia, 2026[7]). Nevertheless, broader questions remain regarding the overall coherence of career progression and incentive structures.
There are some means of increasing remuneration, including through some of the additional roles above. Similarly, such roles can also contribute to certain application processes to change centres or become a principal. That said, questions remain as to whether these incentives are appropriately calibrated to the demands of those roles. The OECD Review Team frequently heard that roles such as administrator or secretary were not viewed as attractive opportunities but were often undertaken reluctantly and out of goodwill towards the school. Similar views were expressed regarding mentoring roles. This reflects the commitment of practitioners to supporting their schools despite limited incentives. Nevertheless, it also reflects the limited prestige that is attached to certain roles. The weakness of the incentive structure may affect both the efficient allocation of human resources and levels of motivation and engagement within the profession.
A third limitation concerns the mechanisms used to determine progression. High-performing systems typically make use of multiple measures of teaching quality when informing career progression (OECD, 2025[14]). In Catalonia, there is a high reliance on a single written examination to assess scientific knowledge, as well as the presentation and defence of a didactic programme to an evaluation panel. Written examinations can be a useful tool in establishing a minimum standard, but they also have clear limitations (OECD, 2025[14]). They provide limited information about teachers’ strengths and weaknesses, which could otherwise help inform professional development or more effective allocation to different settings. Teaching is highly relational and draws heavily on practical and tacit knowledge that a written examination cannot fully capture. The didactic programme goes some way to capturing such knowledge, but it is also still somewhat removed from the physical realities of teaching and learning in classrooms. During the review visit, multiple teachers themselves raised questions about the rigour of the examination and whether it adequately reflected the intellectual and practical demands of the profession. These comments reflected a perception that professional excellence was not truly measured or celebrated in the system and its career structure.
Instability related to allocation and turnover
There is a considerable degree of instability and inefficiency linked to the two-tier employment system and the process of centralised teacher allocation. Several challenges stood out to the OECD Review Team with regard to these processes.
One is that the system appears heavily orientated towards the needs and preferences of teachers, while not always sufficiently balancing considerations related to continuity for students, schools and collaborative professional teams. There are limited incentives for teachers to remain in the same school over time, and movement between schools is frequent. Furthermore, the preference given to teachers who have passed the civil service examination means that teachers who have been settled in a school for some time but remain on temporary contracts are at a disadvantage. The OECD Review Team heard from school principals and teachers about long-serving temporary staff being replaced by newly allocated permanent teachers during transfer processes at the beginning of the academic year. Recent stabilisation efforts and expanded examination rounds may help reduce some of these pressures over time, although significant challenges relating to continuity and allocation remain. School principals, system actors and teachers spoke frequently of the consequences of this turnover and the difficulty of building continuity in students’ educational experience.
A further challenge is that the allocation process is resource-intensive and demanding. Considerable time and administrative effort are invested in transfer competitions and teacher allocation. The complexity of the process, combined with the need to respond to fluctuations in student populations or demands from teachers and schools, means that despite best efforts it often extends into the start of the school year, such as for filling replacement posts. As a result, the OECD Review Team heard from teachers and principals that staffing is not always fully settled when the year begins. This has consequences for the stability of schools and raises questions about the added value of such a demanding process relative to the resources it consumes.
A third challenge concerns the extent to which the current allocation process ensures a good fit between teachers and the needs of schools. The process remains highly centralised, and schools have very limited agency in recruitment. Principals expressed considerable frustration with their lack of autonomy in appointments and with their inability to retain non-permanent teachers who were already well established in their school. The current process does not adequately account for whether a candidate is a good fit for a school’s project and particular needs. The Catalan authorities have recognised this issue to some extent through the possibility for principals to request particular profiles. However, this mechanism appears to be having limited impact and to be falling short of its intended goals.
In this respect, the current process may generate inefficiencies by allocating teachers to schools that are not the best fit for their profile or the school’s needs. The views of principals could be significant in improving this fit and ensuring that recruitment takes greater account of school context. This has implications for principals’ time and workload, but it may also be one possible avenue for reducing turnover and improving efficiency in the longer term.
A broader but connected question concerns whether the strongest teachers are allocated to the schools and settings where they may be most needed. This is connected to the wider structure of the career system. The current reliance on a single progression point may establish a minimum quality threshold, but it does not adequately distinguish the most effective teachers. This limits the system’s ability to allocate them strategically to areas of greatest need or to schools where their profile might be particularly valuable. It also weakens incentives for improving teaching practice. The allocation process simply lacks some of the information that could support more effective central decisions.
Overall, the current model of teacher allocation has contributed to high levels of turnover in schools. A wide range of stakeholders – including school principals and management teams, teachers and parents – described how difficult it is to build strong relationships and school cohesion in this context of instability. The system appears strongly oriented towards the rights and preferences of permanently appointed teachers, rather than towards continuity for students. At the same time, the process is resource-intensive and often insufficiently responsive to school-level needs.
The quality of professional learning opportunities is limited
Teaching is complex and takes time to master, while the demands placed on teachers can also change over time. Opportunities for continuous learning and development are therefore vital throughout a teacher’s career. As noted earlier, there are limited incentives within the career structure for teachers to engage in professional learning, which is itself an underlying challenge. However, beyond this, there were also notable shortcomings in the quality of the professional learning opportunities available to Catalan teachers.
While participation rates in professional learning are high and broadly similar to OECD averages, questions can be raised about the perceived quality and impact of these opportunities. TALIS 2024 asks secondary teachers about the usefulness of professional learning for their teaching practice. In Catalonia, less than half of secondary teachers report that their ongoing professional learning had a positive impact on their practice (APE, 2026[26]). This is in line with the average in Spain as a whole, but below the OECD average of 55%. While OECD-comparable data are not available for primary education, analysis within Spain indicates that around 65% of primary teachers in Catalonia report that their ongoing professional learning had a positive impact on their practice. This suggests that strengthening the quality and relevance of professional learning for secondary teachers may be especially important.
As noted above, teachers may also engage in school-based professional learning, which ranges from more informal exchanges with colleagues to more structured forms of collaboration such as classroom observation or collaborative inquiry. As discussed earlier, collaborative work in Catalan schools does show some strengths when compared internationally. For example, the majority of teachers report exchanging teaching materials and working with colleagues to ensure common standards at least once a month (APE, 2026[26]). However, there are also areas in which collaboration appears more limited. Deeper forms of exchange, such as classroom observation or collaborative professional learning, do not appear to be used to their full potential in Catalan schools. These limitations may reduce the system’s capacity to disseminate effective practices consistently across schools and to support the sustained implementation of reforms over time.
Teacher appraisal is rare and not sufficiently connected to professional growth
Feedback on one’s practice is an important form of professional learning (OECD, 2025[14]; OECD, 2019[31]). Effective teacher appraisal is a central mechanism for improving teaching and learning. When well designed, supported by strong governance and related to effective use of results, appraisal can provide teachers with feedback on their practice, help identify professional learning needs, and create opportunities to recognise and reward effective teaching as part of a broader career structure.
Across systems, appraisal processes can broadly be distinguished into two forms. One is a more high-stakes summative appraisal used to determine career progression and typically undertaken externally to ensure independence and quality. In Catalonia, this type of appraisal exists mainly during initial probationary periods and in procedures such as the civil service examination.
The second form is typically more formative and growth-oriented. It usually takes place at the school level, often led by a school leader, and is not necessarily directly connected to decisions about career progression (OECD, 2025[14]). This more formative type of appraisal for professional growth is the focus here. Specific and well-grounded feedback can help teachers understand their strengths and weaknesses, set improvement goals and receive guidance on how to improve their practice. When used systematically over time, formative appraisal can support sustained professional learning.
International data suggest that formative teacher appraisal is not systematic yet in Catalonia. While data from principals are not available for Catalonia alone, TALIS 2024 indicates that more than 15% of teachers in Spain work in schools where they are never formally appraised, substantially above the OECD average of 6% (OECD, 2025[25]). Teacher-reported data in Catalonia suggest that around seven in ten secondary teachers (71%) report that their school director ensures that teachers’ performance is effectively monitored (APE, 2026[26]). This is below the averages for Spain, the EU and the OECD. A somewhat higher proportion of secondary teachers in Catalonia reported that their director provides useful feedback to teachers (82%), which is above the OECD average though slightly below Spain. Nevertheless, these figures suggest that a substantial proportion of teachers work in schools where effective monitoring and feedback are not systematically in place.
The OECD Review Team’s visit to Catalonia echoed these patterns. In some schools, teachers described having structured individual development plans involving goals and their monitoring and formative review. In some cases, this involved classroom observation and the collection of evidence such as lesson plans. At the same time, other teachers reported never being observed or receiving feedback on their teaching. Overall, it appeared that where feedback does occur, it is often dependent on the initiative of individual school principals or, more rarely, the Inspectorate. However, teachers, school principals and management teams, and unions all expressed support for appraisal approaches that are formative, fair and focussed on professional growth rather than compliance or accountability.
The use of systematic classroom observation is particularly notable, given that direct observation of teaching – especially when undertaken over time and across different settings – can be one of the most valuable sources of evidence for understanding teaching quality and providing specific feedback for improvement. It was also notable that many teachers showed openness to more feedback and, in some cases, a desire for more input from leaders and colleagues to support their growth.
Leaders reported limited support in terms of training or guidance for undertaking this type of feedback work, including in the preparation required for leadership roles. One limitation is the absence of a decree setting out professional standards or competency expectations in Catalonia. Without a shared reference point for effective practice across different career stages, teacher appraisal is less able to support professional growth or to recognise and value expertise within schools. During the OECD Review visit, leaders also referred to considerable workload burdens – particularly administrative work – that reduced the time available for more instructional work with teachers. This is important because feedback depends not only on having the right tools, but also on having the time and capacity to use them well. Quality feedback is not automatic and requires careful implementation. Thus, teachers and leaders alike identified scope for strengthening instructional leadership in schools.
It is also worth noting that feedback is a two-way information process. While appraisal can be demanding and time-consuming, the information it generates can be valuable not only for teachers but also for principals and, potentially, other actors including system-level actors. Understanding the collective strengths of the profession and the areas in need of support can inform more efficient and impactful capacity-building efforts at school or system level (OECD, 2025[14]; OECD, 2019[31]). In this respect, principals can become stronger instructional leaders with regular cycles of formative appraisal that help them identify shared needs among staff and foster collaborative learning in response. This sort of two-way ‘feedback loop’ can also operate at the level of mentors or teacher educators for trainee or new teachers during practicum experiences and induction. At the same time, the openness expressed by many teachers and school leaders towards more formative and growth-oriented feedback approaches suggests there may be favourable conditions for strengthening appraisal practices over time.
School-level evaluation tends to be compliance-driven rather than a tool for improvement
Across systems, school evaluation typically takes two forms: external evaluation undertaken by an external body, and internal school self-evaluation. These may coexist and are not mutually exclusive.
External school evaluation has traditionally served an accountability function by assessing the quality of school structures, processes and student outcomes. In Catalonia, this role is carried out by the Education Inspectorate. Over recent decades, however, external evaluation across OECD systems has increasingly incorporated a developmental orientation, with greater emphasis on feedback and support for school improvement (OECD, 2013[32]).
In Catalonia, school stakeholders largely described their experiences of external school evaluation as compliance-oriented. This contrasts, to some extent, with inspectors’ own accounts of their work, which can include collaborative improvement planning and mentoring support where challenges are identified. Stakeholders also acknowledged that external evaluations could provide recognition of strengths and help validate priorities for action, even where these had already been identified internally. Schools reported having positive and constructive relationships with inspectors and valued this professional engagement.
Despite these positive elements, there appeared to be limited follow-up support associated with external evaluations. This contributes to stakeholders’ sense that external evaluations are disconnected from school-specific improvement needs, particularly because there is limited support for follow-up planning and limited resourcing or capacity to engage with evaluation findings and act on them. For example, where inclusive education is identified as an area for improvement, this would not necessarily be accompanied by additional resources or support. As a result, external evaluation is often experienced as a one-off exercise rather than as part of a sustained improvement process. There was a perceived disconnect between the processes of school-level evaluation and how this data was used by different authorities, including its relationship with the new Evaluation Agency. Clarifying roles and data flows will be important. The Inspectorate’s remit focusses on school-level evaluation and follow-up, while the Evaluation Agency’s remit focusses on system-level evaluation. Establishing a shared protocol for how school-level evidence informs system monitoring and how system findings translate into support for schools, could help reduce duplication and strengthen improvement cycles.
Similar challenges were identified in relation to school self-evaluation. Although this is generally intended to support reflective practice and continuous improvement, in Catalonia it was reported to be rare and often ad hoc. Where it does occur, it is not consistently embedded in school routines, nor supported by shared frameworks, expectations or guidance. This limits its ability to complement external evaluation and to foster a culture of collective inquiry within schools.
Stakeholders also raised concerns about the robustness and fitness for purpose of some evaluation tools used across the system. Tools for appraising teachers and principals were described as outdated and largely compliance-oriented, relying on “tick-the-box” approaches that provide limited insight into professional practice and do not generate sufficiently credible evidence across contexts. This can make it difficult to develop a robust picture of a school’s strengths and needs. The lack of fit-for-purpose instruments is likely to reduce stakeholder buy-in and confidence in evaluation processes. At the same time, the Inspectorate noted that recently developed guidelines are expected to provide additional support from 2026.
These dynamics mean that school evaluation is often experienced as infrequent and externally driven, rather than as an ongoing process embedded in day-to-day school life. This contrasts with the views expressed by many school stakeholders during the review, who welcomed opportunities for structured reflection and collective inquiry, and highlighted a desire for more regular and meaningful feedback alongside greater support and resources to enact change.
Limited use of networks and institutions to enable the exchange of effective practices
Previous sections have touched on limitations in collaborative learning within schools. This section turns to wider learning between schools in Catalonia. Overall, the exchange of effective practices across schools appears limited. Where it does occur, it seems primarily informal and ad hoc. This is despite the existence of some channels for exchange, such as central boards or plenaries, suggesting that they are not currently being fully leveraged.
For instance, it was encouraging to hear that, in some cases, local inspectors had facilitated learning between schools by connecting them around particular issues or sharing approaches used elsewhere. Some networks such as the “xarxa de competencies” (“competencies networks”) have existed for some time and grown to include several hundreds of schools. Pedagogical Resource Centres (“Centres de Recursos Pedagògics”) also operate optional networks for different roles (e.g. principals, head of studies, counsellors).
Overall, the presence and use of these networks appeared far from systematic. Despite the presence of various professional networks in which school principals could reportedly participate, these appeared underused. There were few reported instances of principals turning to formal networks to support the adaptation of tried and tested approaches from other schools or from curated research evidence to their own contexts. Principals did report turning to peers in other schools for more informal support, for example through WhatsApp groups. These can be valuable channels, particularly for immediate or practical concerns. Principals – as well as heads of studies and secretaries – also have space to connect with their peers through co-ordination seminars organised as part of their area’s Local Training Plan, while principal boards at the territorial and central level can also be a space for educational dialogue.
There were relatively limited signs of more structured collaboration between schools and their leaders or teachers around joint capacity building. While Catalonia-specific data are limited, TALIS 2024 indicates that around 14% of teachers in Spain reported visiting another school in the previous 12 months, and less than half of secondary teachers had participated in formal or informal teacher networks for professional learning purposes (OECD, 2025[25]). Overall, the OECD Review Team perceived that schools often operate in isolation from one another, despite facing many common challenges. This is particularly striking given the potential role of the Inspectorate as a connector across schools and localities (OECD, 2025[25]).
This has implications for system efficiency. Approaches cannot simply be transferred mechanically from one school to another. At the same time, many challenges are shared, and it is inefficient for schools to have to ‘reinvent the wheel’ each time they face a familiar problem (OECD, 2025[14]). Where strong evidence exists that a particular approach has had a positive impact on students or teachers in one context, this can be valuable for another school facing similar challenges, provided it is adapted carefully to local conditions.
The question of evidence is important here. Networks can play an important role in supporting the use of effective practice and the broader body of education research (OECD, 2025[33]; OECD, 2022[34]). Such exchange does not happen automatically but requires both structures and culture. In practice, the former may be particularly important at first to help the latter develop. Creating an architecture that more formally connects schools, alongside materials that provide a common focus such as curated examples of effective practice, could therefore play an important role in strengthening system learning and supporting more coherent implementation across schools.
Low perceived status and attractiveness of the profession
A final key challenge, and one that undercuts many of those above, is the relatively low social status of the profession and its limited attractiveness. While this issue is embedded across several of the preceding challenges, it is important enough to warrant separate attention.
Research has documented a positive link between the social prestige of teaching and student achievement (Schleicher, 2018[35]; Dolton et al., 2018[36]). Professional status matters both for attracting strong candidates into teaching and for retaining effective teachers over time. During the review visit, it was a highly consistent message across stakeholders that the teaching profession in Catalonia is currently perceived as having low prestige. This echoes broader findings from TALIS 2024, where only 16% of secondary teachers in Spain report that they feel the teaching profession is valued in society, compared to 22% on average in OECD countries (OECD, 2025[25]). It was striking how widespread this view was, not only among practitioners themselves but also among system leaders who seek to support them.
The status and attractiveness of the profession are shaped by a complex set of interlocking factors. One concerns the intellectual attractiveness of the profession and the signals this sends to society. This begins with how teachers enter the profession. As discussed earlier, there were widespread reservations among stakeholders about the rigour of initial teacher education. The quality and selectivity of initial teacher education send important signals about the type of candidates expected to enter the profession and the importance of their work. Stakeholders suggested that initial teacher education was viewed as relatively easy and did not function as a gateway to a prestigious and highly respected career.
The intellectual attractiveness of the profession also depends on how learning and growth unfold across teachers’ careers. This is weakened by the limited opportunities for development and progression already discussed. These include not only opportunities to learn through feedback, networks and professional learning, but also opportunities to take on roles that bring greater responsibility, recognition and learning. The career structure remains relatively flat, with only one major progression point in the form of securing permanent employment. This shapes how the profession is perceived, as it does not strongly signal that teaching is a profession in which increasing excellence is recognised and rewarded.
Another important factor concerns the way the profession works, including both employment conditions and daily working conditions. As TALIS 2024 notes, favourable employment terms can act as an extrinsic motivator and support professional outcomes by reducing the negative effects of job demands and increasing engagement (OECD, 2025[25]). Similarly, good working conditions are associated with health, well-being, skills development and productivity (OECD, 2025[25]).
As discussed earlier, while contractual stability is high for teachers who have passed the civil service examination, a substantial proportion of teachers do not enjoy this stability, despite the increased efforts since 2023 (see Employment status above). The relatively limited number of civil service examinations in previous years may also have reduced the attractiveness of employment conditions by limiting access to stable posts. This is compounded by the fact that salaries are not especially competitive and have changed relatively little in recent years. Remuneration sends an important signal about the value that society places on a profession. Recent agreements between the Department of Education and Vocational Training and trade unions have sought to address some of these concerns through salary increases, additional support measures and efforts to strengthen professional recognition (Government of Catalonia, 2026[7]). These developments may provide an opportunity to improve the attractiveness of the profession over time, although implementation and longer-term coherence will remain important (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]).
Working conditions also matter. As noted above, teachers report significant administrative burdens and substantial classroom pressures related to the implementation of inclusive education. Teaching is always demanding because of its complexity and relational nature, but TALIS 2024 also shows that many teachers enter the profession because they want to make a difference (OECD, 2025[25]). In Catalonia, however, the current working conditions of teachers and school principals, as well as the supporting school management team, appeared highly demanding and may be weakening the profession’s attractiveness. These issues are particularly acute in highly disadvantaged settings, yet the system does not appear to provide specific incentives to recognise and reward work in such contexts.
Finally, wider actors also shape how the profession is perceived. Media portrayals matter, as they can either champion and elevate the profession or undermine it and lower its status (Oxley and Kim, 2023[37]; Shine, 2017[38]; Alhamdan et al., 2014[39]). Policy makers also communicate how much they value the profession through the ways in which they engage with it. In this regard, the OECD Review Team heard repeatedly from teachers and principals that they felt their voice was limited within the system. Their comments suggested a potential disconnect between the profession and policy makers.
While recent agreements and policy measures have sought to address several of these issues – including through adjustments to remuneration, planned staff expansion and workload reduction measures – their impact will depend on sustained, coherent implementation across schools and territories, as well as alignment with broader reforms to career structures, professional learning and school leadership. Recent reforms can help to advance these priorities, particularly through increased investment, workforce measures and planned improvements to working conditions. However, ensuring that these translate into sustained improvements will require careful alignment with existing structures and evolving needs through sustained stakeholder dialogue and monitoring, as well as enhancing implementation capacity across the system, as further outlined below.
This section builds on the challenges identified above to identify policy directions that may support Catalonia’s broader efforts to strengthen educational quality, equity and student outcomes over the coming years. The recommendations seek both to reinforce promising reforms already underway and to identify additional mechanisms that may help strengthen implementation capacity, professional growth and school improvement across the system. Catalonia has several implementation gaps where the consistency and quality of certain measures are in need of further refinement. There are also instances where additional mechanisms may need to be developed to foster stronger teaching and school leadership.
For each recommendation, the section first presents a broader vision for what Catalonia may seek to achieve, before turning to the practical policy levers that Catalan stakeholders may use to advance this vision. In doing so, it sets out potential advantages and trade-offs, recognising that the policy environment shaping teaching, the profession and school leadership is complex and multi-dimensional. The analysis seeks to balance these considerations while attending to the broader political context. It also highlights different ways in which certain policy levers might be designed, with a view both to more immediate priorities and to longer-term possibilities.
The recommendations outlined below vary in terms of their implementation horizon, complexity and resource implications. Some recommendations may support more immediate improvements through refinement of existing structures and reforms already underway, while others involve longer-term structural developments requiring sustained consultation, piloting and evaluation over time.
Recommendation 4.1. Define common professional standards to guide the teaching profession
Well-defined teacher standards can help provide coherence to the teaching profession. They offer a clear and consolidated definition of the competencies that “good teachers” may demonstrate and develop, both in their classroom practice and as professionals who continue learning and contribute to the wider profession (OECD, 2010[40]). Standards can serve as a lodestar guiding teachers and principals at different stages across their careers, while also guiding the actors who support and work with them – from initial teacher education institutions that prepare new teachers to bodies such as an inspectorate that provide formative or summative support (OECD, 2025[14]). More broadly, standards communicate a shared vision of the profession and of high-quality teaching, and the expectations to which the profession holds itself accountable.
Catalonia should endeavour to develop a clear, shared set of professional teacher standards that can provide a common thread across the teaching career and across the work undertaken by teachers and those who support them. A coherent set of standards could become an important lever for strengthening the profession’s identity, elevating its status, and building greater alignment across stakeholders. Several of the recommendations that follow point to moments in the career continuum where such standards could serve as an anchor for reform.
Catalonia already has a strong foundation in this area. The Framework of Professional Teaching Competencies established in 2024 can serve as a valuable starting point. This is currently publicly available but not widely disseminated or used. Building on this, Catalonia could bring together key stakeholders to ensure that the framework reflects a shared and updated vision for the profession, including emerging priorities such as digitalisation and inclusion. This would also support greater coherence around the evolving expectations placed on teachers in areas such as inclusive education, student guidance and collaborative work, which have become increasingly central within recent reform discussions in Catalonia. The process of revising and socialising the framework will be as important as its technical content, as it can help build collective ownership and legitimacy across the profession.
A next step would be to develop this framework into a set of multi-level standards that articulate expectations at different stages of the career. In practice, this would mean defining progressive levels of competence across the core domains of teaching and the wider professional role – from beginning teacher to more experienced and expert teachers. Such a structure can help ensure that standards are not static descriptors but rather function as a developmental tool that supports progression across initial preparation, induction, ongoing professional learning and career advancement. These standards should remain aspirational but attainable, encouraging continuous professional growth rather than acting as a compliance checklist.
Catalonia may also wish to develop accompanying standards for school leadership, aligned with the teaching standards and understood as a continuation of them. This would help reinforce the central role of school leadership in improving teaching and learning, and support efforts to strengthen instructional leadership. Alignment between teaching and leadership standards would also contribute to greater coherence across the broader professional continuum.
At the same time, there are legitimate concerns that standards, if poorly designed or implemented, may risk narrowing professional practice or being perceived as an additional layer of prescription (OECD, 2010[40]). These concerns point to important design principles. First, standards should be developed in an iterative way through sustained consultation with the profession and other stakeholders, ensuring that they reflect the realities of teachers’ work and are owned by those expected to use them (see Box 4.2). Second, standards should be treated as dynamic instruments, subject to periodic review as expectations of teaching evolve. Finally, they should strike a balance between clarity and flexibility: sufficiently specific to support a shared understanding of quality, yet open enough to accommodate professional judgement and the diversity of classroom contexts.
Ireland
The Teaching Council is the professional standards body for teachers in Ireland. It was established on 28 March 2006 on a statutory, and it is governed by the Teaching Council Acts. The Council is funded by the teaching profession and has an independent regulatory function. It has a dual mandate to both regulate and promote the teaching profession. Concretely its work in teacher education is defined in the Teaching Council Acts to encompass:
Reviewing the standards of entry to the teaching profession in terms of the knowledge, skills and competences required for teaching.
Reviewing and accrediting programmes of initial teacher education.
Setting standards to support the professional learning of newly qualified teachers during the induction phase.
Advising the Minister regarding entry requirements to programmes of initial teacher education.
Assessing the qualifications of teachers who qualify overseas to ensure they are of a comparable standard with Council-accredited programmes.
In Ireland, the Teaching Council is very much a partnership-based organisation and as part of the review of the policy on initial teacher education undertook four rounds of consultations, constituting some 12 meetings, with different stakeholders. This included a considerable of stakeholders, ranging from teacher unions to student unions, parent bodies to principals’ bodies, and examination bodies to government bodies, to name but some of the participants.
Ontario, Canada
The Ontario College of Teachers is a key actor in teaching being a highly self-regulated profession in Ontario, Canada. One important role is in its setting of the ‘Standards of Practice for the Teaching Profession’, as well as ethical standards too. The ‘Standards of Practice for the Teaching Profession’ articulate the goals and aspirations of the profession. It provides a clear and coherent framework of principles that describe the knowledge, skills, and values inherent in Ontario's teaching profession. The Standards serve as a shared vision for the profession and common language for its day-to-day work and development.
The Ontario College of Teachers also focusses on aspects such as teacher licensing, programme accreditation and member discipline. For instance, it accredits providers of the suite of ‘Additional Qualifications’ and ‘Additional Basic Qualifications’ that are available to the profession. These are recorded in the Ontario College of Teachers’ professional dossier for registered teachers.
For Catalonia, the ownership of the teaching standards in Ireland and Ontario, Canada may be particularly inspirational. The establishment of a distinct, independent body grounded in the profession that elevates the voice of the profession in concrete ways may also be of note.
Source: OECD (2025[14]), Teacher Professional Learning: Drawing Upon International Practice for a Future Vision for Ukraine, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/0cceeddf-en; Ontario College of Teachers (2025[41]), Standards of Practice, https://sc.oct.ca/public/professional-standards/standards-of-practice (accessed on 23 April 2026).
Recommendation 4.2. Develop a more attractive and rewarding teacher career structure that aligns with system priorities
Ensuring that a career structure is coherent, aspirational and fair is important for a strong teaching profession. It gives teachers confidence that their work is valued and fairly rewarded and can motivate continued professional growth (OECD, 2019[31]). For system-level leaders, such structures can also support equity by improving the capacity to attract and retain strong teachers and leaders in more disadvantaged settings.
To help raise the status of the profession and incentivise both recruitment and retention, Catalonia should build on recent measures relating to salary progression and professional recognition to further address the flatness of its current career structure. Recent agreements relating to salary progression and professional recognition may provide an important starting point for this broader reflection on career structure and incentives (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]; Government of Catalonia, 2026[7]). As outlined above, the current two-tier system offers limited incentives for teachers to continue developing their practice. It also limits the system’s ability to identify and mobilise high-performing teachers and leaders to support professional learning or strategic allocation. The recent agreements provide a foundation for addressing these limitations, but further structural adjustments will be needed to ensure coherence and long-term impact (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]; Government of Catalonia, 2026[7]).
Two high-level considerations are important. First, changes to a teacher career structure are politically sensitive and require careful, multi-stakeholder dialogue. While there is considerable shared understanding of system challenges, stakeholders expressed a desire for greater dialogue with system-level actors. Ensuring that different voices are heard is therefore critical for reform.
Second, reforms must consider resource implications – both direct costs (e.g. salaries) and implementation costs (e.g. appraisal or examination processes). These can be significant in both the short and long term. Catalonia’s emerging use of pilot programmes could be leveraged to test cost-effective and impactful approaches. Given the scale and sensitivity of career-structure reform, a phased implementation approach over the coming years, supported by piloting and evaluation, would likely be particularly important.
Offer a greater provision of specialist horizontal roles
A foundational step for Catalonia could be to strengthen the suite of specialist horizontal roles for teachers. While different roles exist (e.g. mentor, subject co-ordinator, digital co-ordinator), these rely heavily on goodwill, and have limited incentives and standardisation. Catalan authorities should consider developing a clearer and more structured set of roles that are more consistent across the system to align with system priorities, while remaining responsive to school-level needs. Four design features are particularly important: expected tasks, prerequisites and assignment processes, available supports, and benefits.
Clearer harmonisation of expected tasks should be accompanied by greater clarity on prerequisites and on how roles are assigned. Here, Catalonia’s Framework of Professional Teaching Competencies could be better leveraged, again. At the same time, some flexibility in assignment will remain important, in order to reflect schools’ differing needs and the pool of available candidates. In this respect, prerequisites may serve as guiding criteria rather than strict requirements, with school principals – in collaboration with the Inspectorate – playing a central role in determining appointments.
Greater consistency and rigour could, however, be introduced in how roles are retained over time. While roles may be renewable, Catalonia could accompany this with a clearer appraisal process based on the expected tasks and competencies associated with each role. Conducted by the school director and the school’s inspector, this appraisal could have both a monitoring function (particularly where roles carry additional remuneration) and a developmental one. It would help to identify strengths, support goal-setting and guide access to relevant supports (e.g. learning from other schools).
As noted, strategic support for a role can enhance the chances of its success. It can also help to clarify expectations and strengthen the role’s attractiveness by providing targeted learning opportunities. Catalonia should therefore consider the provision of training for specific roles, which can support more consistent implementation and build capacity for those undertaking them.
Lastly, this harmonisation and clearer definition of prerequisites also imply that the benefits attached to each role need to be appropriately calibrated. If expectations are strengthened, benefits may need to be adjusted accordingly to ensure that roles remain attractive. While some roles, such as mentoring, already have defined financial incentives, their alignment with expectations may warrant further consideration. If vertical progression is further developed, as set out below, coherence between horizontal roles and career stages should also be ensured. A further design consideration concerns access. Ensuring that both permanent and temporary teachers can have equal opportunities to undertake such roles based on merit, as is largely the case for many roles now, can provide ways for newer teachers to take on responsibilities and access associated benefits, even without having passed the examination for permanent status. This may be particularly relevant where access to the civil service examination is constrained, and be important for retention of certain teachers.
At the same time, Catalonia may wish to consider how access to these roles aligns with the broader career structure. For instance, if a voluntary appraisal mechanism is introduced, some roles could be linked to particular career stages (e.g. “senior” status or permanent status), helping to reliably identify and deploy the strongest candidates. Clearer and better-supported specialist roles may also strengthen schools’ implementation capacity in priority areas such as inclusion, mentoring and instructional improvement.
Establish voluntary appraisal for an additional vertical tier of “senior teacher” in the career structure
A second foundational step for Catalonia could be to ensure the effective functioning of a voluntary summative appraisal mechanism within the teaching profession. This would move the current largely two-tier career structure towards a more differentiated model, potentially comprising three or more stages. While this would represent a significant reform, it could serve as an important lever for strengthening the attractiveness of the profession and improving the system’s capacity to recognise and reward high-quality teaching (OECD, 2019[31]). More differentiated career structures can also support a more effective use of human resources, by aligning roles and responsibilities more closely with teachers’ skills and experience.
Regulation in Catalonia technically allows for a merit-based appraisal for the senior status of ‘professor’, though such appraisals have not been undertaken since 2010. Similarly, each year there are opportunities for teachers to undertake a voluntary evaluation to progress to the next ‘Estadis’ which, as outlined previously, can lead to some salary progression.
A stronger voluntary appraisal mechanism would allow teachers to apply for an additional status – for example, “senior teacher” or “master teacher” – that is a prestigious reflection of excellence. Achieving this status could be associated with a combination of benefits, such as salary supplements and greater professional recognition. It may also entail specific responsibilities (e.g. mentoring, contributing to professional learning, or participating in policy development). In this way, the role would also provide the system with a dedicated pool of actors that could undertake specific functions that support the sharing of excellence and the strengthening of the system as a whole.
The voluntary nature of the mechanism is a key design feature. Teachers would choose to apply, fully aware of the expectations and investment required. This can help build acceptance among stakeholders, particularly in a context where reforms to career structures are often sensitive. It also allows the mechanism to be introduced alongside the existing system, without immediately altering the conditions attached to permanent employment. In this respect, it offers a way to introduce greater differentiation and incentives in a gradual and pragmatic manner.
A central design question concerns how this mechanism would relate to the existing structure, particularly the transition from temporary to permanent status through the civil service examination. One option would be to position the voluntary appraisal as a distinct third tier, accessible only after obtaining permanent status (Figure 4.1). This could strengthen the coherence of the career structure and allow expectations and incentives to be more clearly aligned across stages. For example, progression in professional competencies could be more explicitly structured through the Framework of Professional Teaching Competencies. However, this approach would require ensuring that opportunities to obtain permanent status are sufficiently regular and predictable. Without this, there may be risks for retention and workforce stability, particularly among early-career teachers.
While there is variability across systems, a range of systems have sought to establish well-defined multi-stage career structures that recognise teachers’ growing experience and effectiveness (see Box 4.3). According to PISA 2015, it was relatively common for high-performing systems to take teachers’ experience into account in career advancement, while analysis of a selection of OECD reviews suggests that competency-based models are also an important feature of systems with multi-stage career structures (OECD, 2019[31])
Source: Authors’ interpretation
An alternative option would be for the voluntary appraisal to operate alongside the current two-tier structure. Under this approach, both temporary and permanent teachers could apply for “senior teacher” status. This could be particularly valuable in a context where access to permanent status is constrained, as it would allow temporary teachers to access recognition and incentives based on their practice, rather than solely on their contractual status. It would also limit disruption to the existing system (Figure 4.2). However, this may create unnecessary challenges and tensions with regard to the public examination for permanent status. Furthermore, there are sustained efforts and plans to facilitate the examination for permanent status. Given the principles governing access to public service, an incremental approach could prioritise recognition pathways for permanent teachers first, while strengthening non-structural horizontal roles (open to all on merit) as the initial step for broader professional recognition.
Source: Authors' interpretation
Beyond structural choices, the design of the appraisal process itself is critical. Measuring teaching quality is inherently complex, and international practice suggests the importance of using multiple sources of evidence to build a rounded picture of practice (OECD, 2025[14]). These may include classroom observation, professional portfolios, contributions to the school or profession, and evidence of impact on student learning. Ensuring the credibility and perceived fairness of the process will be essential for its legitimacy. A related consideration is the institutional arrangement for appraisal. A clear distinction should be maintained between formative appraisal, oriented towards professional growth and typically undertaken within schools, and summative appraisal, which carries higher stakes and is generally undertaken externally (OECD, 2019[31]).
Catalonia’s existing structures could support such a separation. For example, the Inspectorate could continue to play a formative and supportive role, working with principals to provide feedback to teachers through more regular, lower-stakes appraisal, while the Evaluation Agency could take responsibility for the summative appraisal process determining the award of the senior teacher status. Alternative configurations are possible, but the key principle is to ensure sufficient independence of the summative process awarded senior teacher status to build trust.
Careful attention will also be needed to the balance between the demands of the appraisal and the benefits attached to it. If the process is perceived as too burdensome relative to the rewards, uptake may be limited. Similarly, decisions will need to be made regarding the duration of the “senior teacher” status. A permanent status may be more attractive and simpler to administer, while a time-limited status requiring renewal may strengthen credibility and ensure that standards are maintained, but at higher administrative cost. The renewal process may also allow for the monitoring of certain expectations around the role. Some systems address this trade-off by combining a more rigorous initial certification with lighter-touch renewal processes.
Finally, clarity around expectations will be essential. The criteria for achieving and maintaining “senior teacher” status should be clearly defined and aligned with broader professional standards. Here, Catalonia’s Framework of Professional Teaching Competencies could play a central role, helping to articulate what is expected at different stages of the career and ensuring coherence between appraisal, professional learning and career progression. Clear expectations can also help reinforce the status and meaning of the role, contributing to its attractiveness and credibility within the profession.
Analyse potential longer-term adjustments to the teacher career structure if needed
The Catalonian system does not currently have strong mechanisms to systematically identify teachers experiencing persistent difficulties in their practice and provide them with targeted support to improve. The introduction of more consistent formative appraisal would offer a means of identifying teachers in need of additional support and addressing this (see Box 4.3). A further question is whether mechanisms should also be developed to ensure that, where teachers are unable to improve despite sustained support, this is appropriately addressed. This is a highly sensitive issue, particularly in relation to teachers’ labour rights. At the same time, ensuring that all students have access to high-quality teaching remains a core objective of the system. For Catalan authorities, a prudent approach would be to prioritise the careful implementation of voluntary appraisal and strengthened in-school formative appraisal, and to evaluate their effectiveness in supporting teaching quality. Depending on this evaluation, Catalonia may consider several longer-term developments if needed.
One potential development would be to gradually introduce a compulsory element to appraisal. This could involve requiring teachers to undertake appraisal and demonstrate progression to a higher career stage within a defined period following the attainment of permanent status. Such a shift would have significant implications for employment conditions, particularly regarding the consequences for teachers who do not meet expected standards. In practice, this would likely involve structured support, including individual development plans and opportunities to re-engage with the appraisal process. Only in cases where sufficient improvement is not demonstrated over time would more consequential decisions need to be considered. Given the sensitivity of summative appraisal, any transition from a voluntary to a compulsory model would require careful consultation and sequencing. It would likely be most effective once the voluntary model is well established, trusted, and perceived as professionally valuable. This would also allow time for a broader culture of feedback, collaboration and instructional leadership to develop, and for institutional actors – such as the Evaluation Agency – to build the credibility and capacity needed to support a more formal external evaluation role.
A second, related consideration would be the potential to introduce further vertical differentiation within the career structure. Depending on available resources, this could involve establishing multiple voluntary appraisal stages (for example, “senior” and “master” teacher roles), each associated with distinct expectations and benefits. Such structures are more closely aligned with international practice and may strengthen incentives for professional growth. However, their effectiveness would depend on ensuring that expectations, processes and rewards are appropriately balanced.
A third consideration concerns the existing examination for permanent status. The introduction of voluntary appraisal does not necessarily require changes to this examination. However, given concerns raised about its ability to fully reflect teaching quality or enhance professional prestige, there may be scope to strengthen it over time. In particular, this could involve greater emphasis on practical teaching competencies and the use of direct classroom evidence. In such a model, the examination could function more clearly as a form of professional accreditation following entry into the profession.
While this could increase the perceived value of permanent status, it would also involve additional implementation demands and may affect the attractiveness of the profession. As such, this is unlikely to be an immediate priority, but rather a potential longer-term lever, to be considered alongside other reforms such as strengthening induction processes.
Australia
Teachers in Australia can volunteer to be appraised, to be recognised for the quality of their teaching, by applying for Advanced Skills Teaching positions (ASTs). These positions recognised advanced teaching skills with a formal position and additional pay. In Australia, the responsibility for education is shared between the federal government and states/territories. There is therefore variability in the features and processes of ASTs among different systems. However, in general, these positions are associated with further responsibilities and specific roles in schools. A common goal of the advanced positions is to address the need to introduce career diversification given the variety of roles in schools (e.g. team leader, departmental head) and to reward teachers for developing their skills, performance and responsibilities.
Due to their importance, accessing AST positions is a formal evaluation process that is more summative in its nature. To access a position, teachers are typically expected to demonstrate deeper levels of knowledge, more sophisticated and effective teaching, and evidence of assuming responsibility for co-curricular aspects of the school and assisting colleagues.
The example of New South Wales’s Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher (HALT) accreditation may be particularly informative for Catalonia. Its Highly Accomplished Teacher (HAT) position was established in 2009 as part of the Smarter Schools National Partnership on Improving Teacher Quality, and since then has been further developed to include the additional accreditation level of ‘Lead Teacher’. Teachers voluntarily choose to undergo this accreditation process and there is a fee to pay for the accreditation process. There are salary increases for the accreditation status, and it also can be seen as a sign of prestige among the profession and a means to more collegial engagement with colleagues (e.g. leading professional learning).
The process is overseen by the New South Wales Education Standards Authority (NESA), an independent statutory authority established in 2017. Notable features of the HALT process include:
Pre-requisites: HALT accreditation has some eligibility criteria, such as citizenship or resident status, being accredited as a ‘Proficient’ or above teacher and having a satisfactory rating in their two or three most recent annual performance assessments.
Accreditation requirements: Accreditation process is rigorous, consisting of two modules. These are underpinned by the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (the Standards), which covers aspects such as knowing students and how they learn; creating and maintaining supportive and safe learning environments; and engaging professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community. There are 14 mandated standard descriptors at each level of Highly Accomplished or Leader Teacher that applicants must demonstrate, and then applicants must choose six further descriptors that best reflect their context, role and speciality.
Accreditation assessment: Different forms of evidence may be drawn upon to demonstrate that a descriptor is being met, including at least some documentary evidence of direct impact on students and colleagues, as well as documentary evidence of indirect impact, a collaborative initiative or participation in a NESA recognised programme. Documentary evidence is reviewed by two appointed HALT assessors. There is also a ‘site visit’ from an external assessor that includes 3 observations of practice, a professional discussion on the observation and an interview with the applicant’s principal (or equivalent). Based on this, the external assessor submits a report.
Re-accreditation: HALT status lasts for five years for full-time teachers, and seven years for part-time or casual employment status. There are requirements for the maintenance of HALT status, which includes demonstrating that their practice continues to meet the applicable Standards and completing 100 hours of professional development aligned to the Standards by the end of the maintenance period. There is also a declaration from the school principal or equivalent, with NESA then making a final decision about the maintenance of HALT accreditation.
Notably there is also a pathway for teachers who have been accredited at a similar level in another state to be accredited at the same level in New South Wales (NSW). This facilitates some mobility between states.
Estonia
In 2013 Estonia remodelled its career progression to be more competency-based than an attestation system concentrated on the completion of a set number of professional learning hours. As well as being resource-intensive, previously teacher attestation processes focussed on the acquisition of qualifications with no professional standards as a reference, serving more as an academic exercise than concentrating on the core work of teachers.
Estonia has two levels of voluntary appraisal that teachers can undertake to be certified at higher levels on the career ladder. ‘Senior teacher’ is awarded to those who alongside their teaching activities support the development of the school and other teachers and who is involved in methodological work at the school level. ‘Master teacher’ is assigned to those who, in addition to conducting teaching activities, participate in development and creative activities in and outside their school and closely co-operate with a higher education institution. Both certifications are awarded for five-year periods before they must be renewed.
The career structure – including the voluntary appraisal – is underpinned by Estonia’s teacher professional standards (e.g. planning and preparation; the learning environment; instruction and supporting learning) which defines the competencies associated with each career stage for six core standards.
The voluntary appraisal process is organised by the Estonian Association of Teachers and is thus external to the school. There are two windows (April and November) where teachers can apply for certification at any of the levels. Evaluation is based on two instruments:
A portfolio prepared by the teacher which includes a self-evaluation, examples of own work, lesson plans and might also include appraisals by the school director.
A 30-minute interview with the three-member appraisal committee, who also analyses the portfolio. Classroom observation is not required but either the candidate or the appraisal committee can request it.
Appraisal committees are formed from a pool of about 30 experienced teachers organised by the Estonian Association of Teachers. The head of the institution appoints a commission for those being attested as senior teachers, and the Ministry of Education establishes a commission for those being appointed as master teachers.
Successful voluntary appraisal and certification at higher career stages are accompanied by a guaranteed salary increase but the size of these increases are variable based on local authority salary expenditure processes. Notably, the absence of concrete financial incentives has meant that most teachers show little interest in attaining the certifications and engaging in the professional learning that allow access to higher levels. Similarly, some have argued that the roles are not fully understood and that the use of standards across the voluntary appraisal and more school-based formative appraisal processes are variable and somewhat disconnected. The roles may also be better leveraged in schools and the system.
Chile
Chile’s reform of its career structure may be of particular relevance in Catalonia. Chile introduced wholesale changes to its system of professional learning and teacher career structure in 2016. The career structure blends a degree of compulsory progression between three stages in the career ladder with voluntary progression to the two highest stages. While this has more steps than that of Catalonia may envisage, its aspect of voluntary progression is particularly notable. Thus, those that voluntarily progress to the highest stages are rewarded by not having to participate in the formal evaluation system but by fulfilling wider professional roles, such as mentoring colleagues or actively engaging in the programme of the Teachers’ Network of Teachers.
Further insights may be garnered from the evaluation mechanism that is used. Evaluation consists of two external components: the teacher completes a standardised written assessment on their pedagogical knowledge and prepares a professional portfolio. The latter seeks to evaluate different aspects of the pedagogical practice of classroom teachers, based on multiple direct evidence of the work inside and outside it, including samples of work (e.g. lesson planning), a recording of their teaching, and proof of collaborative work with colleagues. Although demanding in terms of a process, it aims to build a multi-dimensional picture of teachers’ work – guided by its shared standards for teachers (‘Standards for the Teaching Profession’) – that also reflects the important prestige of different levels in the vertical ladder.
Lastly, it is also worth highlighting how this process of reform has been implemented. Central to its successful implementation was it being a multi-stakeholder affair, with the government creating a tripartite technical committee that provided a platform for central and local authorities alongside the country’s main teacher union to develop consensus positions. Clear transition processes were established for moving to the new structure. There has also been external evaluation of the process and further steps taken to refine the structure based on lessons learned.
For Catalonia, the establishment of voluntary appraisal to achieve a status of excellence in the career structure may be of note. It is also noted how external actors are leveraged for highly significant decisions such as these, as well as multiple measures. The practical challenges of socialising and implementing this should not be overlooked either, such as through the ongoing reform efforts of systems like Estonia.
Source: OECD (2025[14]), Teacher Professional Learning: Drawing Upon International Practice for a Future Vision for Ukraine, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/0cceeddf-en; NSW Government (n.d.[42]), NSW Teacher Accreditation Manuel: B1. Applying for HALT accreditation; https://www.nsw.gov.au/education-and-training/nesa/teacher-accreditation/resources/nsw-ta-manual/b1#B1.3.5 (accessed 02 March 2026); NSW Government (n.d.[43]), NSW Teacher Accreditation Manuel: B2. Maintaining HALT accreditation; https://www.nsw.gov.au/education-and-training/nesa/teacher-accreditation/resources/nsw-ta-manual/b2#B2.2 (accessed 02 March 2026); OECD (2021[44]), Teachers’ professional learning study: Diagnostic report for Wales, https://doi.org/10.1787/caf912c7-en; Santiago et al., (2016[45]), OECD Reviews of School Resources: Estonia 2016, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264251731-en; Cordingley et al (2022[46]), Recommendations for the Professional Development of Teachers and School Leaders in Estonia, https://www.britishcouncil.ee/sites/default/files/policy_recommendations_for_the_professional_development_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_in_estonia_eng.pdf; Crehan (2016[47]), Exploring the impact of career models on teacher motivation, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002462/246252e.pdf; Révai (2018[48]), What difference do standards make to educating teachers?: A review with case studies on Australia, Estonia and Singapore, https://doi.org/10.1787/f1cb24d5-en; Santiago et al. (2017[49]), OECD Reviews of School Resources: Chile 2017, OECD Reviews of School Resources, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264285637-en.
Complement voluntary appraisal with targeted incentives
To increase the attractiveness of the profession and address concerns about salary and career progression, Catalonia should consider strengthening its use of targeted incentives in line with its key priorities. In particular, targeted incentives should be made available to attract teachers and school principals to work in more challenging contexts. This aligns with broader efforts in Catalonia to strengthen support for schools facing greater educational and social complexity. As noted, there are currently no incentives to teach in disadvantaged settings. There are different approaches Catalonia could take to incentivise high-quality teachers to work in the contexts with the greatest needs, each presenting distinct opportunities and risks that would need to be carefully considered.
One potentially impactful approach would be to establish an additional financial incentive for teachers who successfully complete the voluntary appraisal mechanism and are employed in a disadvantaged setting. Teachers who achieve accreditation as excellent practitioners would receive a financial supplement for this status, alongside an additional supplement if they are working in a disadvantaged setting. This additional supplement would be removed when the teacher leaves the setting. This approach would both incentivise high-performing teachers to work in more challenging contexts and provide a targeted way of recognising quality teaching in these environments. It may also provide an additional means of increasing the financial attractiveness of the teaching profession. Alongside this, Catalonia could also consider introducing an additional financial incentive for principals working in challenging circumstances. Rather than determining leaders’ salaries solely based on the type of institution (e.g. size), greater account could be taken of the level of disadvantage of the school context. This would help to strengthen incentives for experienced and capable leaders to work in the most in-need settings.
International evidence on targeted financial incentives suggests that they can have positive effects, but that these are highly contingent on careful policy design and alignment with the broader teacher career structure (OECD, 2019[31]) (see Box 4.4). While some policies have been effective, others have had limited impact, highlighting the importance of how incentives are structured and implemented. Several alternative approaches could also be considered, although each presents notable limitations in the current context. A blanket distribution of financial incentives to all teachers working in disadvantaged settings would recognise the collective effort of staff in demanding environments. However, in the absence of strong signals on teaching quality, such an approach risks rewarding underperformance and creating long-term fiscal pressures, while potentially reducing incentives for lower-performing teachers to move.
Targeting incentives only at new appointments could allow for more selective recruitment and ensure that incentives are directed towards high-quality candidates. However, this approach may be perceived as inequitable by current staff and could risk encouraging effective teachers already working in disadvantaged schools to leave in order to benefit from such schemes. Connecting incentives to the permanent examination could help attract early-career teachers to disadvantaged settings, particularly those who have not yet had the opportunity to complete voluntary appraisal. This would depend on strengthening the examination itself to provide a reliable signal of teaching quality and may reduce the relative attractiveness of incentives connected to voluntary appraisal.
Finally, non-financial approaches could also be considered. For example, recognising service in disadvantaged settings through bonus points towards voluntary appraisal could support accelerated career progression and reduce budgetary pressures. However, this risks encouraging short-term placements, with teachers moving on once they have accrued sufficient advantage, thereby limiting sustained impact in the most in-need schools. Considering these trade-offs, connecting incentives to voluntary appraisal and to current employment in disadvantaged settings appears to offer a balanced and targeted approach. As with all such measures, careful monitoring and evaluation will be important to ensure that incentives are appropriately designed and remain effective over time.
As noted, international evidence is mixed with regard to the use of financial incentives (OECD, 2019[31]). This points to the importance of careful design of the incentives to be sensitive to the context they operate within. When well designed, these financial incentives can help encourage teachers to work in tougher schools and may be more cost efficient than across-the-board salary incentives. One challenge is that they do not necessarily guarantee retention or sustained performance, and there may be some drop-off of effects over time or when an incentive stops. This means that long-term planning can be valuable, alongside ensuring rewarding career progression and supports to grow professionally are present too.
Below several examples of financial incentives to attract high-quality teachers to disadvantaged contexts are outlined.
France
France introduced the networks of REP (“réseau d'éducation prioritaire”) and REP+ (“réseau d'éducation prioritaire renforcé”) with the goal of concentrating additional resources and incentives in disadvantaged areas. A series of financial incentives are attached to working in these areas for teachers and school principals (as well as additional staff, such as psychologists), among other measures too such as reduced class sizes or additional professional support.
Regarding incentives, teachers working in REP schools receive an annual supplement of just over 1 700 EUR a year, while those working in REP+ schools receive a supplement of more than 5 100 EUR annually. Interestingly, the supplement of REP+ also has a further variable component, which is given collectively at the school-level. Thus, based on evaluation of the collective professional work of the school, the school’s teachers may receive an additional supplement of either 234 EUR, 421 EUR or 702 EUR (gross) at the end of the academic year. This evaluation is undertaken by the regional education authority (“recteur d’académie”) and are distributed regionally in a 1:2:1 ratio to ensure budgetary prudence, meaning that some 25% of REP+ schools will see its teachers receive the largest sum, and some 25% receive the bottom sum, with half receiving 421 EUR. The evaluation considers three aspects: improving the quality of the school climate; implementation of initiatives promoting equal opportunities, educational partnerships, and support for parents; implementation of collective time for training and professional collaboration.
Similarly, there are also incentives for school principals. Principals’ pay in France consists of a fixed component, variable component and additional indexes based on the type of school and duties. Principals of REP and REP+ schools receive a percentage increase to account for their work in a disadvantaged context. REP principals receive a 20% increase, and REP+ principals a 50% increase.
In terms of evaluating the policy initiative, research so far has suggested that financial incentives can improve teacher willingness to work in disadvantaged schools, but the effect size is relatively modest. Evaluation by INSEE (“L'Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques”) of the effect of increasing the REP+ bonus by 1 000 between 2017 and 2019 suggested that the additional bonus increases the share of teachers willing to work in a REP+ school by 1.4 percentage points. (INSEE, 2023[50]). Less experienced teachers and those already working in a REP+ school were most responsive to the measure. Promisingly, the increase did not have detrimental effects on staffing in REP schools, suggesting that the measure did not precipitate negative redistribution effects but rather incentivised teachers to move more often and to opt for regular, non-disadvantaged schools less often.
Overall, these findings reiterate that financial incentives can produce effects on teacher distribution with regard to in-need settings, but that they are small on their own and may be more effective when combined with additional measures such as quality professional support and ensuring an intellectually attractive job and career too.
England (United Kingdom)
The United Kingdom has made use of targeted financial incentives to address certain teacher shortages and fill vacancies in harder-to-fill areas, notably including some more disadvantaged settings.
One noteworthy example is the “Inspire by Teaching Recruitment” initiative in Yorkshire, England (UK). Launched in 2018 and operating for three years, this sought to address teacher recruitment difficulties in a specific so-called “Opportunity Area”. The Opportunity Areas (OA) programme was launched by the UK government in 2017 to improve social mobility and educational outcomes in areas with low attainment and limited opportunity. In particular, the Inspire by Teaching Recruitment project developed a centralised model offering recruitment support to all schools in a regional area, offering financial incentives and a recruitment consultant to support schools in attracting additional teaching talent.
Two incentives were available, one relating to recruitment and retention (2 000 GBP) and the other relocation (8 000 GBP). Recruitment and retention payments were available to teaching roles for a relatively broad range of subjects (e.g. maths, English, engineering, textiles) and leadership positions in secondary schools. An initial payment of 2 000 GBP was made available upon taking up a role, and an additional 2 000 GBP was paid two years later on the second anniversary of appointment. The relocation incentive was available to those living beyond a reasonable commuting distance (70 km).
Some 32 hard-to-fill vacancies were filled through the use of financial incentives, with principals positive on the effect of the incentives. Principals reported they thought it was unlikely that these vacancies would have been filled with the same quality of candidates had the incentives not been available (York Consulting, 2022[51]). Notably, evaluation of the suite of measures including the use of a recruitment agency suggested the project was successful, with vacancies filled, and administrative costs reduced. Furthermore, at the time of evaluation, there were also tentative signs of potentially high levels of teacher retention being achieved (York Consulting, 2022[51]).
United States
A review of evidence from the United States on the use of financial incentives suggested that they may have promising potential for the allocation of teachers to where they are most needed (Vegas and Ganimian, n.d.[52]).
For instance, the Teacher Transfer Initiative, an intervention in 10 school districts across 7 states in the United States, aimed to reallocate high-quality teachers to disadvantaged schools. Within each district, teachers with the best outcomes in terms of raising student achievement (controlling for subject and grade) were designated high-performing teachers and deemed eligible to participate. These high-performing teachers could earn up to USD 20 000 over two years by relocating to a disadvantaged school, with pay-outs made in instalments and contingent upon remaining at the school throughout the treatment period. High-performing teachers who were initially located at a socio-economically disadvantaged school were incentivised to stay at the school and could earn USD 10 000 over the same two-year period. The intervention showed a positive impact on retention, as well as mathematics and reading test scores at primary level. Researchers hint at the possibility that the incentive may be more cost-efficient than hiring additional staff to reduce class sizes in order to attain the same improvement of student outcomes; however, they caution that actual cost-efficiency depends on multiple factors not considered in the analysis (OECD, 2023[53]).
For Catalonia, the importance of developing contextually-sensitive incentives stands out, as well as the need to develop them in a way that is sustainable due to the risk of the effect ending if an incentive is stopped. The use of teacher and school leader incentives as per the examples of France and England (UK) may also be relevant in light of Catalonia’s potential to strengthen both teaching and school leadership.
Source: OECD (2025[14]), Teacher Professional Learning: Drawing Upon International Practice for a Future Vision for Ukraine, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/0cceeddf-en; OECD (2023[53]), Education policy outlook in Australia, https://doi.org/10.1787/ce7a0965-en; York Consulting (2022[51]), Inspire by Teaching Recruitment evaluation, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62b1f46be90e0765da021376/Inspire_by_Teaching_Recruitment_evaluation.pdf; (Vegas and Ganimian (n.d.[52]), Theory and Evidence on Teacher Policies in Developed and Developing Countries, https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/Theory-and-Evidence-on-Teacher-Policies-in-Developed-and-Developing-Countries.pdf; INSEE (2023[50]), The impact of doubling the REP+ bonus on teachers’ desired mobility, https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/7665018 (accessed on 03 March 2026); Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale (n.d.[54]), Bulletin officiel n°26 du 1er juillet 2021, https://www.education.gouv.fr/bo/21/Hebdo26/MENE2120129C.htm (accessed on 03 March 2026); Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale (n.d.[55]), La rémunération des enseignants, https://www.education.gouv.fr/la-remuneration-des-enseignants-7565 (accessed on 03 March 2026).
Recommendation 4.3. Elevate the voice of school principals in teacher allocation processes to build greater stability in schools and the system
Catalonia should endeavour to foster greater stability in schools – and the system more generally – by reducing turnover in schools. It takes time to build quality relationships between teachers and students, and these relationships are crucial for students’ learning and wider development (OECD, 2025[56]). This is not only a matter of ensuring continuity in students’ learning experiences, but also of reducing the burden of current allocation processes. High staff turnover can result in a loss of institutional knowledge within schools and require rebuilding of collegial relationships. It also places demands on the system, which invests considerable time in managing teacher allocation (OECD, 2025[56]).
Promisingly, some stability may arise with the recent efforts to initiate more examinations for permanent staff. Recent agreements relating to workforce stability may further support these efforts, although systemic challenges in allocation remain (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]; Government of Catalonia, 2026[7]). Catalonia should seek to review its rules and regulations for allocation and the weight of seniority and certain teacher preferences in this process. Indeed, efforts to initiate the permanent examination are unlikely to address other challenges in the allocation process alone. For instance, as noted above (see System context and institutional arrangements), recent years have seen the establishment of a mechanism that allows school principals to request particular profiles to be hired for their school (e.g. specific language skills), but this has struggled to function effectively. A review of current approaches, alongside consultation with different stakeholders to understand their needs and challenges would be helpful.
A first and particularly promising pathway would be to strengthen the role of principals in teacher allocation and hiring. This may take the form of interviews with directly applying candidates or centrally shortlisted candidates, introducing a vote in favour of certain candidates or a veto over unsuitable assignments, or establishing probationary periods with the possibility of reassignment. Essential here would be grounding the measures in consultation with key actors and within the bounds of regional and national regulations concerning teachers’ rights.
Although ambitious, strengthening the role of principals could support better matching of teachers to school contexts and strengthen the professional identity of principals. According to PISA 2022, in lower-performing systems, responsibilities for human resources tend to be more centralised, whereas in higher-performing systems, principals are more likely to have responsibility in this area (OECD, 2023[57]). Previous OECD work has also shown that where schools have limited involvement in teacher selection, processes can become impersonal, making it harder to build teacher commitment and align staffing with school needs (OECD, 2010[40]). Greater school involvement therefore appears important for improving educational quality.
Granting school principals greater autonomy in hiring decisions could also strengthen their role as instructional leaders (see Box 4.5). If Catalonia were to reinforce school supervision and undertake more systematic formative appraisal of school development, aligning leadership responsibility with staffing decisions would be important. Such an approach could also influence incentives around teacher mobility. Transfers would become more competitive, with greater emphasis on candidates’ demonstrated competencies and contributions, rather than primarily on status or seniority. This could reduce incentives for frequent movement and encourage greater engagement with professional learning, appraisal and additional responsibilities that signal quality to prospective schools.
A key political consideration is that this would modify some of the current allocation advantages associated with permanent status enjoyed by teachers. Given the size and importance of this group, careful consultation would be essential to build ownership and buy-in. While this may reduce some individual flexibility in school choice, it may also improve working conditions through increased stability. At the same time, this approach could strengthen the position of contract teachers. Their contributions to a school could be more directly recognised through leaders’ ability to retain strong candidates. In the context of delays in access to permanent status, this may offer a meaningful improvement to employment conditions and job satisfaction.
An alternative pathway would be to maintain central allocation while seeking to more strategically position high-quality teachers in disadvantaged settings, potentially supported by targeted financial incentives. However, this approach would depend on the availability of robust information on teacher quality, such as through voluntary appraisal or a strengthened examination system, and would remain administratively demanding. It would also do little to enhance the professional role of school principals or address existing imbalances in allocation privileges. There is also a risk that central allocation may generate dissatisfaction among both teachers and principals regarding assignment decisions.
Overall, while multiple pathways exist, strengthening the role of school principals in allocation processes appears to offer the greatest potential to improve both school stability and the alignment between teacher skills and school needs.
Estonia represents a decentralised but school-centred model of autonomy in which principals play a direct role in key organisational decisions, including the recruitment and selection of teachers. While municipalities formally employ teachers, principals exercise substantial discretion over staffing in practice. Estonia was one of four systems in TALIS 2018 where, despite principals’ responsibilities not being officially listed, more than 95% reported having autonomy over hiring teachers (OECD, 2021[58])
In practice, a wide range of administrative and instructional responsibilities are delegated to schools. According to Education at a Glance, in 2017, the share of key decisions taken at school level in Estonia (58.3%) was among the highest in the OECD (average: 33.95%). School principals not only oversee teaching and learning, but also play a role in setting teachers’ salaries, managing financial resources, and ensuring quality assurance. TALIS 2018 data show that Estonian principals report high levels of responsibility for budget allocation and salary decisions.
Recent reforms have focussed on strengthening leadership capacity, reflecting a broader shift towards instructional leadership and talent management. At the same time, OECD analysis has highlighted relatively limited collaboration between principals, suggesting an area for further development (OECD, 2020[59]). The role of municipalities remains important, particularly in supporting schools facing structural challenges, such as network consolidation.
Implications for Catalonia: For Catalonia, Estonia’s experience highlights the potential benefits of granting school principals greater autonomy, alongside the importance of building leadership capacity to exercise this autonomy effectively. It also underscores the continued role of municipalities and the need for support structures where local capacity is uneven.
Source: OECD (2020[59]), “Education Policy Outlook in Estonia”, OECD Education Policy Perspectives, No. 13, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9d472195-en; OECD (2021[58]), “What are the roles and salaries of school heads?”, Education Indicators in Focus, No. 78, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/97d6b7a5-en.
Recommendation 4.4. Strengthen initial teacher education and induction arrangements to enhance the alignment between teacher preparation and the realities of classroom practice
Strong teacher preparation is the foundation of a thriving teaching career. It helps teachers navigate the particularly challenging early years of their career more effectively and provides them with the skills to continue learning over time. The current disconnect between classroom realities and preparation suggests there would be value in re-examining the content of ITE, including how practical experiences in schools are organised, and the transition measures available to support novice teachers.
Given the governance structure in Catalonia (see Chapter 2), this process of re-examination will require close collaboration with universities and their relevant authorities to collectively raise the standards of preparation to meet the challenges of today and the future. This should also be informed by collaboration with researchers to support an evidence-based approach to preparation, learning from international practice too.
Examine the content of initial teacher education to ensure its relevance and quality
One pertinent question is the extent to which the current ITE curriculum is relevant to the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s education system. Effective initial teacher education combines the development of the theoretical knowledge novice teachers require with the practical skills needed for the classroom, and then supports their transition into teaching through sustained, high-quality induction (OECD, 2025[14]). A first step for Catalan authorities would be to define more clearly the types of knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that ITE should seek to foster. This is a common foundation in systems that have sought to strengthen teacher preparation (see Box 4.6). In this respect, Catalonia already has a promising foundation in the Framework of Professional Teaching Competencies, which could function as a form of strategic teaching standards. While respecting university autonomy in terms of how they achieve the Framework’s expectations, it would provide a clearer and more coherent articulation of ITE curriculum expectations. Moreover, this would also promote greater coherence if the Framework were used not only to guide ITE, but also induction and other elements of the teacher career structure discussed in this section.
Several content areas appear particularly in need of strengthening. During the review visit, the OECD Review Team heard teachers speak extensively about the classroom challenges associated with realising the vision of a more inclusive system. These challenges have also been discussed in Chapter 3. This suggests that greater attention to teaching for diversity in the classroom may be a valuable investment in ITE. Strengthening preparation in these areas may become increasingly important as schools continue implementing inclusive education reforms and responding to increasingly complex classroom realities.
At the same time, a fully systematic diagnosis of the specific challenges faced by novice teachers was beyond the scope of the OECD review visit. It may therefore be valuable to undertake a complementary diagnosis through focus groups with novice teachers, as well as their mentors and school principals. The newly established Evaluation Agency, through its system-level evaluation function, may be well placed to undertake this and to work with the co-ordinating body linking the faculties of education, the Department of Universities and the Department of Education and Vocational Training from the central authorities to integrate findings into their improvement plans (“MIF” [Plan for Improvement and Innovation in Teacher Training]).
Ensure quality practical learning opportunities for all training teachers
A second pertinent question concerns the kinds of learning opportunities used to teach ITE content in universities. In particular, it is essential to ensure that trainee teachers benefit from relevant, in-person practical experiences in schools, and that digital learning complements rather than substitutes for school-based experience. As noted, TALIS 2024 findings raise substantial questions in this area, with fewer than half of Catalan teachers reporting that they received sufficient practical opportunities during their initial education to teach in school. A similar proportion reported having had sufficient opportunities to observe colleagues.
Relevant regulations are already in place in Catalonia, but the findings of TALIS 2024 and interviews with a range of stakeholders by the OECD Review Team suggested a potential implementation gap. There is thus a need to further strengthen the practical learning experiences of trainee teachers. Catalan authorities should therefore work with universities to re-examine the amount of time trainees spend in schools. They should also collaboratively analyse the structure of these experiences. One notable option could be to further strengthen the role of mentors – or to leverage “senior teachers” if a voluntary mechanism is established – in schools, so that part of their role includes being observed more regularly by trainee teachers. A second option would be to re-examine the supporting guidance or templates provided to mentors.
These relationships should also be understood as part of a broader feedback loop that can strengthen ITE itself. Such relationships are likely to function best when universities can communicate to schools the priority practices their student teachers should be developing, while schools can also communicate back the challenges and priorities that need to be better addressed in initial preparation. This type of two-way exchange can help build a more responsive system and ensure closer alignment between preparation and classroom realities.
The current practicum experience involves some co-ordination between the university and the assigned mentor in schools. Considering the challenges in teacher preparation mentioned earlier in this chapter, and Catalonia’s commitment to developing a strong teaching profession, Catalonia should endeavour to establish a clearer formal structure for these relationships. In particular, Catalonia could strengthen their feedback processes (e.g. reporting processes, convening), while ensuring these remain manageable and not bureaucratically overbearing. There should also be attention to ensuring that there are reporting mechanisms to identify and surface common challenges across teacher preparation that surface from such feedback loops, so that they can inform policymaking. System-level aggregation of feedback loops between universities and schools could help Catalonia remain more responsive to emerging needs and changing demands, and serve as a preventive means of gaps between initial teacher preparation and classroom realities from surfacing in the future.
England (UK) has recently developed a more coherent outline of expectations for initial teacher education. From 2025, the new Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework (ITTECF) has sought to combine different frameworks into a single, coherent outline of the entitlement of every trainee and early career teacher at the start of their career.
This includes defining the core body of knowledge, skills and behaviours that define great teaching, which should inform how teachers are prepared for the profession. One notable feature here is how these are both evidence- and practice-informed, having been developed through a multi-stakeholder process that leveraged a public call for evidence, the evidence synthesis work of the Education Endowment Foundation – an independent knowledge broker in the English context – and guidance from expert practitioners. The framework consists of both theory (“learn that…” statements grounded primarily in research evidence) and more practical, tacit know-how (“learn how to” statements grounded in wider evidence and expert guidance).
In practice, the framework informs curriculum design by initial teacher education institutions but is not an assessment framework. Accredited providers of initial teacher education make decisions about the form their curriculum takes in terms of coherent content, as well as additional elements. There is though supporting guidance from central authorities; to support the translation of the framework into actual learning opportunities in ITT or supporting beginning teachers, guidance is included in the framework. This includes ensuring that teachers engage in:
Observation of practice, including discussing and analysing these with expert colleagues.
Receiving clear, consistent and effective mentoring, grounded in evidence.
Opportunities to practise using specific approaches through rehearsal and refinement.
Receiving feedback on their application of particular approaches, with a focus on reflection and critique for improvement.
In England (UK), providers of initial teacher education are directly accredited by DfE based on the aforementioned standards. A further form of quality control comes from the English inspectorate (Ofsted [Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills]), who provide an expert, independent assessment of how well a provider is performing and the quality of ITT and training offered. This can lead to the withdrawal of accreditation for individual providers, while the collective sum of these inspections is information on the challenges the system is facing and where it is succeeding. The example in England (UK) of the role in these processes played by the Education Endowment Foundation as well as its inspectorate of standards may be particularly informative for Catalonia in light of its new Evaluation Agency.
Notably, this framework also provides coherence to the support teachers receive through induction in the early years of their career.
For Catalonia, the establishment of clear guidance around quality practical experiences – for opportunities to practise to feedback and observation – may be informative for raising the quality of initial teacher education. It is also notable how England (UK) has leveraged the best available evidence through an independent knowledge broker.
Source: OECD (2025[14]), Teacher Professional Learning: Drawing Upon International Practice for a Future Vision for Ukraine, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/0cceeddf-en.
Strengthen monitoring and quality assurance in ITE
A final consideration concerns the current levels of monitoring and quality assurance in ITE provision. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, accreditation of ITE is currently undertaken by the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency (“AQU Catalunya”), which already has a reasonably established process involving documentary evidence, self-evaluations and site visits. To strengthen the quality of initial teacher education in Catalonia, authorities should work with AQU Catalunya to ensure that the assessment criteria used in accreditation reviews are sufficiently aligned with the quality and relevance of the study programme.
Establishing a clearer set of expectations through professional standards, building on the Framework of Professional Teaching Competencies, would be a valuable step in this regard. This would make the competencies that ITE should foster more transparent for providers and enable the development and communication of more specific assessment criteria (see Box 4.7). Given the concerns outlined above regarding practical learning experiences in schools, the quality of these experiences should be a key element in accreditation criteria. This may also have implications for the kinds of evidence that AQU Catalunya draws on in its reviews. For example, this could include greater use of evaluations from partner schools and mentor teachers, or the inclusion of school placement visits as part of site review processes. With stronger induction processes, it might also become relevant to draw on information about the successful completion of induction probation.
Given the urgency of strengthening ITE in Catalonia, authorities may also wish to consider reducing the timeframe between accreditation reviews. The current maximum window of six years from previous accreditation or course validation is relatively long. A shorter cycle, such as three years, could allow universities to align more quickly with updated expectations and enable earlier support for providers that are struggling.
It is worth noting that an alternative option would be to introduce a more formal, standardised licensing test after ITE and before entry into the classroom. Such tests exist in some systems, including Korea and Japan. However, this may not be the most valuable approach for Catalonia at this stage. Their added value early in a teacher’s career has been questioned in some contexts, and they can be resource-intensive. Given that Catalonia already makes use of several examinations, a more efficient approach may be to better leverage the current state examination, strengthen induction probation, and further develop the Evaluation Agency as an impartial quality assurance actor.
Fostering practical experiences
The school placement, which is a central part of ITE and is based on a partnership approach between Higher Education Institutions (HEI) and schools. This includes direct teaching of 200 hours as well as experiencing a variety of placement settings, so they have a wider experience to draw on. Notably, there is also an expected scheduling of an ‘extended period’ of school placement that constitutes a minimum of 10 weeks in one school in the second half of the programme. This allows for greater immersion in a particular context.
Core elements that are interwoven throughout all elements of ITE to ensure that these skills and competencies really have time to become embedded into the student teacher’s thinking. These core elements are inclusive education, global citizenship education, digital skills, professional relationships and working with parents, professional identity and agency, creativity and reflective practice, and literacy and numeracy.
The conceptual framework that seeks to support the individual programme design by ITE providers. Hence, accredited providers (see below) draw upon this framework as well as the wider Continuum and Code of Conduct of the Council to develop programmes of ITE that fit their particular context, mission and ethos. This framework promotes a research-informed approach in ITE programmes that supports students in engaging with and in research.
Accreditation processes for ITE providers
The accreditation process sees the Teaching Council appoint an independent panel to review and assess the programmes of ITE. The panels consist of:
An independent Review Panel Chairperson
A registered teacher with expertise in the support and/or evaluation of teaching and learning at the school level in the sector in question
An external expert in the area of teacher education or accreditation processes in another system/jurisdiction
A supporting rapporteur
During the review process, the Teaching Council staff may also have some engagement in terms of seeking clarification or raising queries with the Review Panel.
Following their review, the Panel make a recommendation to the Teaching Council’s Education Committee, either to accredit the programme, accredit with requirements, or refuse accreditation. The Committee then take a decision. Requirements need to be addressed within six months.
There are currently 14 providers of ITE, with 52 accredited programmes of Primary and Post-primary ITE. These programmes cover concurrent, consecutive and hybrid models. The providers were reviewed and accredited in the last cycle of accreditation, which started in November 2021 and lasted some two years. The average review time from submission date by the HEI to the outcome of the Education Committee was approximately 8 months, reflecting the thoroughness of the process.
For Catalonia, the systematic approach to evaluating and accrediting ITE to strengthen its quality may be informative. Notably this is done by drawing upon multiple expertise, which may be relevant for building dialogue across stakeholders in an important area. Notably the focus on core competencies in ITE for modern day challenges, underpinned by a clear framework, may be important for strategic foresight.
Source: OECD (2025[14]), Teacher Professional Learning: Drawing Upon International Practice for a Future Vision for Ukraine, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/0cceeddf-en.https://doi.org10.1787/0cceeddf-en
Establish systematic school-level induction for the transition to the classroom
This discussion of in-school learning experiences invites consideration of a third key question: how novice teachers’ transition into the role of a fully responsible classroom teacher is supported. Whatever the quality of ITE, this transition is demanding. TALIS 2024 suggests that induction practices have expanded on average across systems (OECD, 2025[25]) and this may be an area with strong potential for peer learning. High-performing systems such as Ireland have, for example, undertaken substantial reforms to strengthen the quality of support available to beginning teachers (see Box 4.8).
Catalonia should endeavour to move to a more systematic model of quality induction across the whole system. The promising pilot programme of induction is a valuable asset that has relevant insights and tacit knowledge that could be leveraged to support a more systematic approaching to supporting new teachers, while there are also emerging efforts to reimagine the model to induction centred on strong teacher mentoring.
In moving towards stronger, more systematic induction in Catalonia, the presence of a quality mentor during induction is likely to be particularly important. International evidence suggests that mentors should ideally teach in the same subject or level as the novice teacher they support (Ingersoll and Smith, 2004[60]) In Catalonia, the mentor role would benefit from greater formalisation and recognition within the career structure so that it does not rely primarily on the goodwill of individual teachers. Clearer expectations, more explicit rewards (including financial incentives), and clearer arrangements for monitoring and appraisal – such as feedback to mentors by principals, the Inspectorate and novice teachers themselves – would help strengthen the role. If additional reforms such as voluntary appraisal were introduced, these could also support the identification of particularly strong mentors from the pool of “senior” or “master” teachers. This would make it more likely that mentors provide targeted coaching on specific classroom practices rather than more general support alone.
An additional form of support that should be further utilised is the establishment of strong networks for support and peer-learning. The Sensei programme will end in 2025/26 but has endeavoured to give a sense of identity to incoming teachers and to create a space for learning across teachers. This form of network learning is an important feature for building teachers’ identity and also establishing the relationships along which collaboration can further develop in the future. A more systematic induction programme in the future should leverage this sort of formalised, well-structured network building, with it providing the opportunity to build a strong community of new practitioners and nurture teacher professionalism.
Catalonia should also seek to strengthen the evaluative dimension of induction, so that teachers are expected to demonstrate appropriate levels of competency against shared standards, grounded in the Framework of Professional Competencies. While there is a degree of evaluation of induction already that must be successfully completed in order to enter the teaching pool in Catalonia, this could be strengthened to better align with the Framework as it seeks to tie together ITE and the whole teacher professional continuum. Teachers would be expected to show sufficient mastery of the relevant standards, drawing upon a range of evidence as set out below. Where they do not yet meet these standards, but there are signs that they could do so with further time and support, the probationary period could be extended. Where teachers do not demonstrate this potential, or do not pass following an extension, Catalonia may judge that the candidate is not well suited to classroom teaching.
One effective tool for supporting this process may be the use of a portfolio. This is already a feature of the current induction Initial Teacher Residency pilot (Sensei), where teachers develop a reflective “learning folder”, which provides a promising foundation. Portfolios have been identified as a useful tool for evaluating aspects of teaching practice that are otherwise difficult to capture (OECD, 2010[40]), while also fostering reflective practice. They should be complemented by evidence from classroom observations, which provide more direct insight into teaching practice. Importantly, the current Initial Teacher Residency model already includes observations by mentors and this should be retained and built upon. In particular, there may be value in also including observations by school principals or their management team, thereby strengthening their role as pedagogical leaders in the school and system. Additionally, the Education Inspectorate should also be engaged in observation too, as an overseeing authority.
Recent international evidence also suggests that induction may be most effective when viewed as a continuum that extends beyond a single year of support (OECD, 2025[14]). This is sometimes described as a “fade out” model, in which mentor support is gradually reduced as the novice teacher gains confidence and competence, rather than ending abruptly after a fixed point. Catalonia should therefore explore conceiving induction as a two-year process in which, even after passing first-year probation, teachers continue to receive some support, gradually scaled back on the basis of the judgement of the novice teacher, mentor and school leader. The establishment of strong networks of new teachers would support this fade-out approach to support, too. Although this requires additional investment, it may represent a sound one given the current challenges Catalonia faces in preparing teachers for classroom realities, particularly if broader ITE reforms are pursued at the same time.
Finally, induction should be considered as part of the broader feedback loop between schools and ITE institutions. Establishing channels through which mentors can provide feedback to universities, and through which universities can signal areas where novice teachers may need more concentrated support, could help build a stronger and more coherent preparation system. This need not be burdensome. Simple channels of communication, alongside periodic convening of representatives from universities, schools and policy makers to discuss successes and challenges in induction, could be highly valuable.
Lastly, this invites consideration of the oversight of induction, and in particular the role of the Inspectorate here and in the wider system. Assessment of probation evidence in induction should be external and independent so as to avoid competing interests – as with all high stake evaluations in education (OECD, 2019[31]). To ensure confidence in the process, it is important that an independent authority oversees the external review on induction evidence. For example, university-led assessment risks creating incentives to inflate statistics on how many of their graduates successfully enter Catalonia’s teaching pool. The current Initial Teacher Residency programme includes a school-based evaluation committee, with oversight from the Education Inspectorate. The Education Inspectorate is well placed to oversee induction and any new model that Catalonia develops for stronger mentoring. The Inspectorate already has a structure across Catalonia that could support consistency, and it is institutionally separate from ITE providers, which reduces potential conflicts of interest. The Inspectorate could, as outlined, play a more active, hands-on role in its oversight by engaging directly in more regular observation processes. This would also complement its more direct, systematic engagement with school principals and supporting their instructional leadership. Similarly, the Inspectorate also has relevant resources that can be leveraged here, such as proformas for observation processes that can be leveraged for a more consistent approach to induction across the system.
That said, the expansion of oversight would demand supports and resources for the Inspectorate too. This is highly relevant both with regard to induction but also supporting principals, as outlined further below. Chapter 5 notes the importance of clearly establishing the relationship between the Evaluation Agency and the Inspectorate. This is a very important first step, and a stronger articulation of the role of the Inspectorate in the system would be valuable. Meanwhile, the Evaluation Agency with its remit for system-level monitoring may be well placed to offer external monitoring and support for the consistency of the Inspectorate’s work. Similarly, while there is already a semi-informal progression of school principals into the Inspectorate, it would be important to make this pathway to the Inspectorate clearer and more formal alongside Catalonia’s efforts to reimagine the teaching career structure. Indeed, clarifying the relationship between the Inspectorate and the wider teacher career structure would complement efforts to establish a voluntary appraisal mechanism for excellence and to reimagine the career of school leadership. This could help ensure that the Inspectorate remains strongly connected to the profession and strengthen its mandate and status. This would also be a platform for considering the type of support and resources the Inspectorate needs. For instance, stronger models of preparation, training and appraisal within the Inspectorate to build more homogenous capacity for its oversight roles would be valuable. This would naturally demand some resource investment. This also needs to carefully balance an increase in bureaucratisation with fostering more consistent high standards across the system.
In the longer term, this may see Catalonia further develop the Inspectorate in the future such that it becomes the formally-recognised, independent consultative body in the Ministry for supporting the voice of the profession, overseeing some of the major milestones of teachers’ career progression, such as induction and supporting formative appraisal, and promoting high standards. Several high-performing systems have developed distinct, primarily profession-owned institutions to oversee teacher accreditation and foster high professional standards across the system, as set out previously in Box 4.2 for Ireland and Ontario in Canada. These also serve as important consultative bodies for dialogue and multi-stakeholder decision-making. The Inspectorate could fulfil a similar role in the future, helping to strengthen the voice of teachers and principals across the system.
Induction has been an important lever for several systems when it comes to strengthening how teachers are prepared for a thriving profession in the classroom. Some of the key features across systems have already been discussed and this box highlights some of the details of systems further.
England (United Kingdom)
Teachers in England (United Kingdom) must pass through a mandatory two-year induction in a school. During this, teachers (so called “Early Career Teachers”) are entitled to a reduced timetable. They also have both an induction tutor and a mentor, as well as a point of contact at an overseeing local authority that can serve as a channel for raising any concerns or needs being unmet. There is funding to cover mentor sessions during timetabled hours, and school principals are expected to ensure mentors have the time and means of fulfilling their roles.
Induction is expected to include a programme of training aligned to expected frameworks and the teachers’ standards; regular one-to-one mentoring, support and guidance from a designated induction tutor, being observed at regular intervals and receiving written feedback, and observing colleagues.
There is a formal assessment of the teacher’s progress occurring at the end of each year, which is an evidence-based assessment led by the school principal or an induction tutor and which results in a summary report. After the second year, the principal must recommend whether the teacher has satisfactorily completed their induction period.
Ireland
Ireland has sought to develop a continuum of teacher education that encompasses initial teacher education (“Céim” – Irish for ‘step’), induction (“Droichead” – Irish for ‘bridge’) and continuing professional development (“Cosán” – Irish for ‘pathway’). A key actor is the Teaching Council, which is the professional standards body for teachers in Ireland. The Council is funded by the teaching profession and has an independent regulatory function, with a dual mandate to both regulate and promote the teaching profession. More concretely this includes tasks such as reviewing and accrediting programmes of initial teacher education and setting standards to support the professional learning of newly qualified teachers during the induction phase.
There is one sole route of induction to full registration as a teacher in Ireland. It is a state-funded induction process and needs to be completed within three years of when someone obtains ‘Newly Qualified Teacher’ (NQT) status following their completion of ITE. It consists of a minimum of 60 days at the primary level, and 200 hours at the post-primary level, within which the NQT must demonstrate to:
Have engaged professionally with school-based induction and additional professional learning activities. The latter includes regularly attending cluster meeting of beginning teachers and at least one specific professional learning activity (e.g. attending a conference, participation in a workshop or a subject association network meeting).
Have shown their professional commitment to quality teaching and learning for their pupils/students.
Have engaged in reflective practice that supports their professional learning and practice, both individually and collaboratively.
The process is conceptualised to support professional learning of a new teacher in a non-evaluative manner and thus to lay the foundations for subsequent, lifelong learning. It builds on the competencies developed in ITE and seeks to encourage reflective learning, including through the development of a type of informal, reflective portfolio (“Taisce”) as per during ITE and research.
The NQT is supported during the induction process by a designated Professional Support Team (PST) which consists of at least two specially trained teachers typically from the school, but sometimes with an external aspect. The latter are provided with substitute teacher time to attend professional learning for their role on the PST. Similarly, resources are provided for substitute teacher cover for a minimum of four days’/ 22 hours’ release time for the school-based induction.
There are some mechanisms for consistency and quality assurance. Ireland’s consolidated professional support service “Oide” (an Irish word meaning “teacher” or “tutor”) offers support to schools implementing induction. There are also Droichead Quality Assurance (DQA) panels, comprising an independent chairperson, a practising teacher from the relevant sector and a person with expertise in the support and/or evaluation of teaching and learning at school level, who undertake visits to random samples of schools. These are designed to be collegial and collaborative visits centred on understanding experiences and difficulties, leading to an anonymous report of findings and recommendations being written and shared with the Teaching Council for improvement.
Ireland continues to try to strengthen its induction process. A 2024 survey of some 3 500 teachers, alongside stakeholder interviews and focus groups, suggested that Ireland’s current induction approach was supporting newly qualified teachers, but with some areas of challenge. This has led to an updated Policy that will come into effect in September 2026. The updated policy sees greater emphasis on the non-evaluative nature of the process and the transition from ITE to induction. The participation of NQTs in cluster meetings has also been increased, while the portfolio “Taisce” is emphasised as a private item with one aspect to be discussed more publicly with the PST. The policy also includes operational and procedural updates, with a central online portal for the registration process is established too.
It is worth noting that school principals also benefit from a clear induction process too. This is a three-year induction programme informed by the contextual needs of the principal and setting.
Chile
Chile has sought to strengthen its provision of induction support for new teachers. While extensive reforms have been undertaken already, a commissioned evaluation of the system of professional learning noted that induction was highly valued, but yet to fully permeate the school culture and had some limitations in terms of coverage. Accordingly, there are now ongoing efforts to enhance the relevance of induction to specifical, more localised contextual needs, including trying to better match beginning teachers with mentor teachers from that particular local context.
Induction is a right of all beginning teachers who are appointed or contracted to a state-funded institution. It last for 10 months during the school year and beginning teachers receive an allowance for the time spent on induction. A key feature is the assignment of a mentor who is from the upper stages of the career structure. These mentors also receive specific training and guidance (e.g. self-assessment rubric) from the Ministry on implementing effective induction. This concentrates particularly on their design, implementation and evaluation of a mentoring plan based on the beginning teachers’ needs. Mentors are entitled to receive allowances for each beginning teacher they mentor and support. As noted, the assigned mentor may be from another institution – and this is being examined – and mentors may oversee up to three beginning teachers.
For Catalonia, the establishment of universal systems of induction may be of interest. In particular, the development of clear frameworks to underpin these and in a way that allows a continuum of learning with future professional learning opportunities may serve as inspiration. It is also notable that systems have turned to structural supports to ensure quality implementation, such as support to mentors.
Source: OECD (2025[14]), Teacher Professional Learning: Drawing Upon International Practice for a Future Vision for Ukraine, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/0cceeddf-en; Teaching Council (n.d.[61]), General information on changes to Droichead, https://www.teachingcouncil.ie/assets/uploads/2026/02/General-information-on-changes-to-Droichead.pdf; Teaching Council (n.d.[62]), Droichead: The integrated professional induction framework, https://www.teachingcouncil.ie/professional-learning/droichead-the-integrated-professional-induction-framework/#1-procedures-and-criteria-for-droichead-primary-and-post-primary (accessed on 27 February 2026).
Recommendation 4.5. Improve instructional leadership in schools to foster more school-based professional learning
Quality leadership is essential for high-quality schooling. Evidence has grown on the contribution, directly and indirectly, of school principals to improving a range of school outcomes (Day et al., 2010[63]; Day, Gu and Sammons, 2016[4]; Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins, 2019[6]). Investment in strengthening school leadership is therefore likely to be a sound investment, and Catalonia should seek to increase the presence of instructional leadership in schools.
Central to this is the development of a clearer, more distinct and more attractive career structure for school principals that communicates their importance. Building on this foundation, two further avenues should be explored. One is to ensure that leaders can provide systematic, high-quality feedback to teachers to support their growth. The second is to strengthen leaders’ capacity to foster school-based professional learning. Both are addressed below, following a discussion of the leadership career structure.
Strengthen the career structure and professional status of school principals and the management team
Catalan authorities should seek to strengthen the position of school principals by creating a clearer career structure that enhances their professional status. This should be approached holistically, encompassing the trajectory of preparing for leadership, transitioning into the role, and sustaining success over time.
School leadership is often treated as the final stage of the teaching career ladder, or as a temporary extension of teachers’ roles that replaces their teaching duties. The OECD’s review of a selection of systems found that few countries provide a separate career structure for principals (OECD, 2019[31]). Yet acknowledging the distinct responsibilities of school leadership positions, including those of deputy leaders as well as principals, through a clearer career structure can help communicate the importance of both administrative and instructional leadership. This may in turn help raise the professional status of school leadership positions and attract stronger candidates. Catalonia currently lacks such a distinct and coherent structure. It should therefore consider how to define a clearer route into leadership and more explicit pathways for progression within leadership roles. As with teachers, a set of clear leadership standards could help bring coherence to this structure. This would essentially entail the co-development of a ‘Framework of Professional Leadership Competencies’ across stakeholders to anchor the expectations of school leadership.
One important feature of any such structure is how leaders are prepared for the role. This is an area where systems often appear to invest insufficiently (UNESCO, 2024[64]). Although further research is needed on which specific preparation features are most effective, there are indications – notably from research in the United States – that high-quality preparation can strengthen principals’ skills and improve educational outcomes (Campoli et al., 2022[65]). In particular, it has been argued that leadership preparation should place strong emphasis on experience-based learning in schools (UNESCO, 2024[64]). Methodologies such as case studies, problem-based learning, coaching, mentoring and shadowing may be especially valuable for developing the skills leaders need to thrive in complex school environments (UNESCO, 2024[64]). Preparation should also ensure that leaders are familiar with recent work on using evidence and data to drive school-level improvement, including setting a clear vision, mobilising staff around it, and monitoring its effectiveness (Education Endowment Foundation, n.d.[66]).
Catalonia could also strengthen the position of principals by introducing a more systematic induction phase for newly appointed school principals. At present, principals can receive support from the Inspectorate, whose own experience in leadership can be valuable. This is grounded in the AVALDIR evaluation approach. This is a valuable foundation but there is scope for a stronger, more formal induction for new school leaders to prepare them for ongoing success.
A formal induction period should be established in Catalonia to further strengthen school leadership. Given the importance of quality instructional leadership, grounding this induction in additional support through mentoring or coaching from an experienced school principal may be one worthwhile policy lever for Catalonia. This would provide new principals with an additional source of practical guidance in responding to the diversity of challenges they face. Such a role would require incentives for experienced principals to undertake it, although this kind of contribution to the profession could itself form part of the review of their mandate. It could also serve as a way of recognising exceptional leadership, while functioning as a possible step towards wider system-level roles, such as in the Inspectorate. Thus, experience as a mentor to a school director may also be valuable preparation for future inspectors and could help formalise the relationship between principals and inspectors.
An additional policy lever here may be the provisioning of dedicated, mandatory professional learning opportunities for new school principals in their initial years of work. This would recognise the fact that while principals undertake mandatory training as a preparation, their role is very complex and demands sustained support (Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins, 2019[6]). A third policy lever of support during induction would be the establishment of clear networks of new principals, both at the local level and across Catalonia. As with the networks for teachers during induction, this would help to foster strong relationships to build the foundations for longer-term collaboration. Such networks could function alongside professional learning opportunities and the formal mentoring. Catalonia has the potential here to build a very strong community of principals, elevating their status and identity.
This in turn raises the question of how leaders are supported during their role to succeed. The Inspectorate is a key actor here. There is already a stipulated expectation that the Inspectorate provides regular support to principals through meetings and discussion of their project for their school. As outlined previously, while this does happen in some cases there was a perceived implementation gap regarding the degree this was being undertaken systematically to the same high standards across the system. Catalonia should consider how it can further strengthen the support that principals receive from the Inspectorate to ensure this is more consistent and impactful for all principals. Re-articulating the shared expectations around support in terms of the frequency of meetings and the expected reporting processes would be an important first step. This should draw upon input from both the Inspectorate and principals in a consultative way to build greater ownership of the expectations.
One important aspect here should be a stronger formal focus on instructional leadership and alignment to any articulated standards of leadership. Catalonia should consider, for example, how inspectors could more systematically accompany leaders in periodic classroom observations and feedback conversations with staff. Similarly, inspectors could accompany principals in their facilitation of school-based professional learning sessions. In this way, principals themselves would be observed and receive feedback on their own instructional leadership. This could help identify more concretely where additional support to principals is needed, including mentoring from other principals who are particularly strong in this area. As outlined previously, the capacity-building of the Inspectorate is important here and establishing stronger mechanisms to for training and internally appraising inspectors would help strengthen their ability to impactfully support principals. One aspect here may be the role of the Evaluation Agency who, as Chapter 5 outlines, needs its relationship with the Inspectorate to be clearly defined. Working together, the Evaluation Agency can support the Inspectorate to become a conduit of quality research and evidence that can help strengthen school leadership.
This also connects to the stability of leadership roles and the mechanisms used for their appraisal. Currently, Catalan principals are appointed for a four-year mandate, renewable up to three times. This regular renewal may not foster stability in the profession or reinforce its professional status. It may also create incentives orientated more towards renewal procedures than towards longer-term growth. A more growth-orientated appraisal process, in which principals undergo systematic appraisal against shared, consensus-based leadership standards, may help provide more timely support where needed and strengthen leaders’ ongoing development in the role (see Box 4.9).
A final consideration is whether leaders’ working conditions are conducive to instructional leadership. A range of studies suggest that school principals often struggle to dedicate sufficient time to activities closely related to teaching and learning (Rodrigues and Ávila de Lima, 2021[67]). Formative appraisal and school-based professional learning both require time, yet principals are already under considerable pressure. Additional expectations cannot simply be added without considering how other aspects of their workload might be reduced so as to free time for meaningful engagement with these responsibilities. This means looking carefully at how leaders’ time (and teachers’ time) is used, something addressed further in the next section.
While the discussion above has focussed mainly on principals, many of the same points apply to wider leadership roles within schools. As noted earlier, for example, the exact role of the pedagogical co-ordinator could be more clearly defined. This reinforces the value of a clearer career structure for school leadership positions and of greater clarity around the roles within it. Alongside this, the establishment of a bespoke preparatory course for those taking on such roles could be impactful. This would both recognise the importance of the role and help promote high standards. Catalan authorities could also consider encouraging stronger support networks among pedagogical co-ordinators to facilitate exchange and cross-school input, as well as formal mentoring arrangements for those seeking more guidance focussed.
Estonia
Previous OECD analysis of the Estonian system identified that the position of school leader lacked a distinct status from the role of the teacher in Estonia, and that there was no systematic mechanism for giving school principals professional feedback. Similarly, data from TALIS 2018 suggested that only one-third of Estonian school principals reported having received principals’ training or training in school administration before taking up their post – though this was similar to the OECD average suggesting a general challenge of systems. Historically, the role of the school leader also had one of the lowest wage premiums in the OECD.
Estonia has introduced a range of measures to strengthen the preparation of principals and the provision of ongoing professional learning available to them. Notably, a new principals’ appraisal system coming into effect in 2026. Focussed on the principles of formative assessment, the new system aims to ensure that principals systematically receive feedback that can help their professional growth and improve educational quality in their schools. The new system will mean that principals have a development interview at least once a year and an appraisal every five years.
These periodic assessments are designed to consider the principal’s work results, the management process, and compliance with the requirements of the position. From this, meaningful feedback can be provided and development goals set, and support offered. The appraisal is undertaken by a committee consisting of a representative of the principal, two principals nominated by the Estonian Association of School Principal, and potentially an external expert (e.g. from a university). Experts receive training in advance. The Estonian Association of School Principals will receive some additional funding to facilitate its participation and workload in the process.
Underpinning the new appraisal system is the Educational Leader Competency and Career Model, a further product of Estonia’s efforts to strengthen school leadership. It describes what very good educational leaders do and know, and how leaders should develop in the field of education. It serves as both a self-reflection tool for leaders and provides state institutions and universities with a good basis for developing development programs and formal training for educational leaders. The model outlines a descriptor for each key leadership competency (e.g. relationship management, organisational management) at three differentiated levels: expert educational leader, master educational leader, and system modifier.
The new system is a product of the Estonian Education Development Plan and the aforementioned competency and career model. The appraisal’s development has involved a range of stakeholders, including Tallinn University Academy of Educational Management, the Estonian School Principals' Association, the working group of the Ministry of Education and Research, and the University of Tartu's Educational Innovation Working Group, as well as a range of school principals' representatives and other education experts.
For Catalonia, Estonia’s targeted efforts on enhancing leadership may be relevant seeing that Estonia faced similar challenges around quality initial and ongoing learning for principals. Estonia has also sought to raise the status of the position too. Notably the appraisal is grounded in a clear competency framework and has been developed through multi-stakeholder dialogue to build buy-in and consensus. The appraisal’s strong focus on orientating leaders’ development may also be of relevance.
England (United Kingdom)
England (UK) has developed a series of ‘National Professional Qualifications’ (NPQ) for teachers, principals and those in leadership positions that aim to improve career progression and the quality and consistency of leadership. They also aim to support retention of teachers and leaders, and the overall quality of teaching.
Qualifications last for between 12 and 18 months, requiring between 50 and 85 hours of engagement depending on the specific NPQ. They are formally taught through a blend of face-to-face, online and independent learning against defined frameworks, the qualifications are both a learning opportunity as well as recognition of the teacher or school leader’s knowledge and competence in a specific area. Awarding of the NPQ depends on an assessment, which consists of a fictional case study working with hypothetical data and resources. Notably, the available qualifications stretch across different levels of leadership, from specialist qualifications in more thematic areas (e.g. Leading Teacher Development, Leading Literacy, Leading Primary Mathematics) to senior leadership, serving as a principal, or leadership in executive leadership for working across groups of schools. There is also a specific qualification for co-ordinators of special education needs.
One notable feature is the strong emphasis on evidence in the qualifications. A clear guidance framework for each NPQ, written by the Department for Education, outlines what participants should know and know how to do at the end of an NPQ. These frameworks set out clear evidence statements and practice statements to this effect, and the content of the frameworks its supporting evidence are independently assessed and endorsed by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). A review of the evidence base underpinning the qualifications is also undertaken to ensure the best available evidence is consistently drawn upon.
There are also funding opportunities for the completion of a NPQ, and these are primarily orientated towards supporting those from the more disadvantaged state-funded schools.
For Catalonia, the suite of qualifications may be of relevance if there are efforts to offer more diverse horizontal and vertical pathways. Catalonia also has certain roles – such as pedagogical co-ordinator – that serve as entry level leadership positions which could be strengthened. England (UK)’s establishment of a clear evidence-based framework for leaders’ qualifications, including an external evaluation to verify its quality, may also be informative for how Catalonia prepares its teachers.
Source: OECD (2025[14]), Teacher Professional Learning: Drawing Upon International Practice for a Future Vision for Ukraine, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/0cceeddf-en; OECD (2020[59]), Education Policy Outlook in Estonia, https://doi.org/10.1787/9d472195-en; Santiago et al (2016[45]), OECD Reviews of School Resources: Estonia 2016, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264251731-en; Cordingley et al (2022[46]), Recommendations for the Professional Development of Teachers and School Leaders in Estonia, https://www.britishcouncil.ee/sites/default/files/policy_recommendations_for_the_professional_development_of_teachers_and_school_leaders_in_estonia_eng.pdf; Crehan (2016[47]), Exploring the impact of career models on teacher motivation, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002462/246252e.pdf; UNESCO (n.d.[68]), Estonia: School Leadership, https://education-profiles.org/europe-and-northern-america/estonia/~school-leadership#4.1 (accessed on 13 March 2026); Ministry of Education and Research of Estonia (n.d.[69]), Certification of School Principals, https://www.hm.ee/koolijuhtide-atesteerimine#mis-on-atesteerimise (accessed on 13 March 2026); Ministry of Education and Research of Estonia (n.d.[70]), Competency model for the Head of an Educational Institution, https://www.hm.ee/koolijuhi-kompetentsimudel (accessed on 13 March 2026).
Enhance leaders’ capacity to provide quality, growth-orientated feedback to teachers
This section and the next turn to leaders’ day-to-day role as instructional leaders and how it can be strengthened. While some teachers do receive feedback from their school principal on their practice, this is not universal or systematic. A key goal should therefore be to establish a clear and coherent system of formal formative appraisal of teachers by school principals. This process should be firmly oriented towards teachers’ growth, functioning as a constructive mechanism to identify strengths that can be leveraged to support the learning of others in the school, and to identify areas for further development and provide appropriate feedback and guidance.
This is particularly important in light of the suggested recommendation on voluntary appraisal for a higher, prestigious “senior” or “master” teacher. Formative appraisal by principals could help support teachers seeking career advancement through voluntary appraisal status as recognised excellent teachers, or permanent status, for those on temporary contracts, and could also help them sustain and further develop their practice once such status is achieved. At the same time, it would provide leaders with a clearer view of strengths and common challenges across the school, which could in turn inform the design of school-based professional learning.
A clear schedule for formative appraisal of teachers should be incorporated into schools’ annual development plans. Formative appraisal should include observation of a teacher’s practice so as to provide richer and more direct insight into teaching. The Inspectorate has developed support materials to this end, and these should be utilised further, alongside the Framework for Professional Competencies. Appraisal should also make use of a simple and clear teacher development plan that documents feedback on strengths and goals for development over time. This should be designed to remain administratively light to avoid excessive burdens and ensure timely feedback processes, while still providing a useful, transparent record of ongoing professional growth. A standardised teacher development plan used across schools could reduce burden and support more consistent implementation, while practitioner input would be essential to ensure that the process is relevant and to foster ownership. Authorities could also provide broad implementation guidance, while leaving principals flexibility to organise the appraisal process at timings that best fit their context.
Catalan authorities may wish to lead the design of this formative appraisal process in consultation with practitioners. For instance, the development of the standardised teacher development plan would benefit from input from both teachers and principals alike. Multi-stakeholder engagement is also important for avoiding formative appraisal appearing as a punitive measure, rather than one orientated towards supporting teachers to develop and recognising them as professionals that deserve quality guidance and learning opportunities.
Finally, it would be important to establish overarching monitoring of formative appraisal processes by the Education Inspectorate. If Catalonia wishes to move from some teachers being occasionally formatively appraised to all teachers being given quality, growth-orientated feedback by their principals each year, the Inspectorate should retain oversight of how this is being implemented by schools. One possible approach would be to include summaries of teacher appraisal in the school development plan and for the Inspectorate to undertake random sampling of appraisals at the end of the academic year focussed. This would be concentrated on the quality of the feedback processes teachers are receiving, and not the specific areas of strength or need. Hence, the oversight is designed to quality instructional leadership from principals and, thus, quality opportunities for teachers to develop their practice.
Reinforce leaders’ roles as capacity-builders nurturing school-based professional learning
A further aspect of leaders’ day-to-day instructional role that can be strengthened in Catalonia is how they support professional learning in schools. Evidence shows that systems which make effective use of collaborative professional learning – such as professional learning communities in which teachers exercise agency in response to contextual needs – can help teachers refine their practice and respond to new challenges (Boeskens, Nusche and Yurita, 2020[71]; Darling-Hammond, Hyler and Gardner, 2017[72]; Sims and Fletcher-Wood, 2020[73]). This kind of collaborative and ongoing learning can also contribute to a more intellectually stimulating working environment, which alongside good employment and material conditions, is an important part of an attractive profession.
One challenge is implementation. It can be difficult to find the time and structure to support this kind of learning systematically. One avenue for Catalonia would be to establish a clearer structure for professional learning communities in schools, underpinned by school professional learning plans. This could build on existing infrastructure and actors, including school principals, pedagogical co-ordinators and the Inspectorate. It is worth noting that such structures are typically accompanied by more intangible cultures of inquiry, which take time to develop (OECD, 2025[14]). However, with the right structures and sufficient time for embedding, such cultures can emerge.
School principals are central actors here because of their oversight of school needs, something that the formative appraisal process outlined above could strengthen further. Principals should therefore be expected to develop a school-based professional learning plan that identifies priority areas for development. This should provide a clear structure for teachers to come together regularly for collective learning, as well as identify priority themes on which to concentrate.
At the same time, the structure needs to allow sufficient flexibility. It should support sustained, collaborative inquiry that brings teachers together to work on common problems closely tied to their practice or to wider school needs over time (Darling-Hammond, Hyler and Gardner, 2017[72]). These learning communities may be organised by subject area or grade level and typically involve teachers sharing and critically examining their practice in an ongoing, reflective and collaborative way (Stoll et al., 2006[74]). To support this, some systems have drawn on structured inquiry cycles to organise this process (see Box 4.11). This is important in light of concerns about one-off whole-school seminars, which are often relatively abstract and offer limited opportunity for sustained consideration of classroom practice or experimentation (Boeskens, Nusche and Yurita, 2020[71]).
Accompanying this, the role of the pedagogical co-ordinator should be further strengthened in Catalonia. Pedagogical co-ordinators are already a relatively widespread feature of the Catalan system, which is a strength to build upon. They are not present though at all levels of schooling, and could be further tied to a reimagining of a career structure for school leadership. In particular, there should be a clearer articulation of responsibilities for pedagogical co-ordinators and stronger oversight of these by school principals and the Inspectorate. Responsibilities should include working closely with school principals on the development of the school’s professional learning plan and taking overarching responsibility for its implementation. This would include organising and facilitating regular professional learning community meetings, including delegating some responsibilities to appropriate staff where relevant, for example when focussing on department-level issues.
Pedagogical co-ordinators should also play a more explicit role in orienting teachers towards particular professional learning opportunities in line with needs identified through formative appraisal. Although there is already a substantial offer of professional learning courses and teachers’ engagement with them remains highly variable. Co-ordinators could help ensure that learning from these courses is more systematically scaled within schools, for example by creating opportunities for teachers who attend such courses to share concrete strategies with colleagues through structured meetings. Moreover, should the Evaluation Agency build greater evidence on promising practices and initiatives as set out in Chapter 5, the pedagogical co-ordinators can become key vehicles for the mobilisation of this evidence in the system.
In considering how to strengthen the pedagogical co-ordinator role, Catalonia may consider how to explicitly orientate this role towards digitalisation. As pedagogy becomes increasingly intertwined with digital tools and the fostering of students’ critical digital literacy (OECD, 2026[75]; Forsström et al., 2025[3]), systems are exploring ways to strengthen the pedagogical support teachers receive on-the-ground through school-based digital co-ordinators (OECD, 2026[76]; OECD, 2025[29]). Catalonia may consider how to specify specific tasks relating to digitalisation for pedagogical co-ordinators, and orientate capacity-building efforts explicitly around how co-ordinators could enhance their colleagues’ ability to effectively use digital tools in the classroom. International examples both in Spain (e.g. see the Autonomous Community of Andalusia in (OECD, 2026[76])) and more widely may be informative here. This may also have important implications for school-level processes, notably aligning with Catalonia’s emerging agenda to reduce bureaucracy in the system to allow for more student-focussed time (see below).
Flemish Community of Belgium
The Flemish Community of Belgium introduced the role of school-based ICT co-ordinators in 2003 and provided all primary and secondary schools with resources to appoint staff members to the role. More recently, this model has been carefully refined to be a team-based approach to co-ordinating digitalisation in schools. This reflects the complexity of digitalisation in schools and the range of tasks that digitalisation now demands.
The team-based approach is centred on clearly defined-roles with explicit structures for collaboration and decision-making. Four thematic pillars define the roles and associated tasks for effective digitalisation: setting vision and policy in a school to guide and motivate change, supporting effective pedagogical integration and growth, maintaining a functioning technical environment, and attending to administrative processes.
Roles are clearly defined and an explicit goal is to orientate co-ordination efforts away from an overwhelming focus on the technical aspects to more capacity-building in schools. While there is variability across schools, resources are often pooled and shared to allow for more impact. This can, for instance, allow for an appointed ‘technical co-ordinator’ to work on maintaining a strong digital infrastructure, while ‘pedagogical co-ordinators’ in schools or working across schools provide professional learning, mentoring and coaching, and guidance for the use of quality resources.
Co-ordinators are supported through bespoke training sessions (so-called ‘bootcamps’) with a particular focus on AI. There is also a strong network of co-ordinators that allows for the effective sharing of effective practices.
For Catalonia, the multi-level structure of school-level ‘anchors’, such as a pedagogical co-ordinator, alongside more cross-school actors may be relevant. The clear definition of tasks and the close collaboration between school leadership and co-ordinators may be of particular relevance, with the relationship between pedagogical co-ordinators and principals already strong in Catalonia. Capacity-building of co-ordinators through dedicated training and network-learning opportunities highlights how they are viewed as important catalysts of change in the Flemish Community of Belgium.
Source: OECD (2026[76]), “Co-ordinating the use of digital tools at the school level”, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 344, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/adacc4d1-en.
Strengthening the pedagogical co-ordinator role and its responsibilities demands also attending to the support structures available to them. The OECD Review Team understood from interviews with stakeholders that professional learning opportunities for school leadership positions could be strengthened. Ensuring quality support and preparation for the role of pedagogical co-ordinator will be important to enhancing its effectiveness across the Catalonian system. Similarly, there are a range of resources and guidelines, such as observation protocols from the Inspectorate, that should be further leveraged to help those in the pedagogical co-ordinator role. As mentioned, support from principals and the Inspectorate, particularly building on the school-based formative appraisal outlined above, will also help to further heighten the impact of co-ordinators.
Catalonia should also consider how to strengthen not only the role of the pedagogical co-ordinator, but also teachers’ own agency in shaping school-based professional learning. According to TALIS 2024, just under two-thirds of secondary teachers in Catalonia (65%) report that teachers take on leadership roles in promoting a professional teaching community. Across the OECD, the figure is closer to eight in ten teachers (78.6%). School principals may therefore need support in fostering a clearer vision of teacher-driven professional learning that makes better use of the expertise already present in schools and creates more opportunities for teachers themselves to grow.
The Inspectorate could also support school-based professional learning more explicitly as part of its oversight role. In particular, this could include monitoring the implementation of a clear and evolving school-based professional learning plan, alongside regular engagement with the pedagogical co-ordinator. Given the expertise in the Inspectorate, much of it grounded in previous leadership experience, inspectors are well placed to provide guidance to pedagogical co-ordinators and to offer feedback on the development of the plan. The Inspectorate could also lead the development of a clear, easy-to-use model professional learning plan in collaboration with relevant stakeholders so that schools have a consistent and practical tool to work from. In addition, the Inspectorate is well placed – and in some cases already doing so – to connect schools with relevant examples of promising practice elsewhere, as discussed further below.
This discussion has focussed mainly on the formal structures for professional learning. It should be recognised, however, that these structures also depend on the development of a wider culture of inquiry, which is less tangible but nonetheless important. Such a culture takes time and sustained effort to build. The actors discussed above can help nurture it by communicating the value of collective learning and joint problem-solving. Professional learning communities should be understood as growth-oriented and low-stakes spaces. Principals, in particular, can help foster a culture of professional learning by articulating a clear vision grounded in the value of learning and motivating colleagues to engage with it. Emerging research also suggests that strong school learning cultures depend in part on the presence of enterprising teachers who actively support and motivate the learning of their colleagues (Letnes, 2025[77]; Education Endowment Foundation, n.d.[66]; Woo and Law, 2020[78]). Principals are well placed to identify and support such teachers.
The example of Singapore is informative when it comes to fostering school-based professional learning. Teachers in Singapore benefit from a blend of both centralised professional learning opportunities and more context-based learning. Teachers are entitled to 100 hours of professional learning opportunities per year and these can be used through the National Institute of Education (NIE)’s courses which sit alongside more school-based learning, such as through mentoring and peer collaboration and also Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). Schools are given autonomy to customise PLCs where teachers work collaboratively to improve instructional practices based on student data and feedback. These structures ensure that teachers are equipped not only with subject expertise but also with skills to provide tailored support, including identifying learning gaps and adjusting pedagogy accordingly.
Leaders are important in shaping and sustaining these PLCs. They are prepared for this role of instructional leadership through the systematic and rigorous preparation they receive to become school principals. There are two specific programmes of note, that reflect the well-structured development pathway for leaders in Singapore. A ‘Management and Leadership Studies Programme’ offers 17 weeks of funded full-time training (alongside participants’ salary) for department, grade or subject group heads. The Programme focusses on enhancing leadership skills, team-building abilities, and operational and management capacities. It also includes a residential aspect with international visits too.
A second programme of note is the seven-month full-time ‘Leaders in Education Programme’ (LEP) supports vice principals and Ministry of Education officers identified as promising candidates for becoming a principal. The Programme concentrates on developing strategic thinking, innovation, future orientation, values-based decision-making, and potential principals’ ability to work in complex environment. Again, this involves an international study visit and case-based learning. Meanwhile, mentoring is also systematically leveraged in the Programme and also beyond; all new principals benefit from an induction programme of mentoring during their first year of their appointment.
Notably the leadership track in Singapore is very clearly defined with typical expectations or responsibilities for each position, ranging from a subject head or level head to a Head of Department, Vice principal and Principal. Beyond this, there is also a clear progression through the Cluster Superintendent, Deputy Director, and eventual Director General of Education, meaning that career progression straddles both school and system leadership in Singapore.
Interestingly, in Singapore, the training of principals is a key policy arm for system-wide change and aligning school-level practice to system-level needs. Thus, recent years have seen the implementation of dedicated training programmes for principals that emphasise strategic use of ICT, curriculum integration, and support for teacher professional learning. Leaders are expected to model effective digital practices and to co-ordinate cross school peer learning. This is significant considering that OECD research suggests that systems that succeed in digital transformation invest in leaders’ capacity to develop shared visions for digital learning, align resources with pedagogical priorities, and create cultures of collaboration.
For Catalonia, the systematic and strategic capacity building of leaders in Singapore may be informative. On the one hand, there is a comprehensive preparation process. This is also aligned to strategic needs in the face of emerging demands, such as digital, which may be especially informative for Catalonia as it considers how to address digitalisation in the system.
Source: UNESCO (n.d.[79]) Singapore: School Leadership, https://education-profiles.org/eastern-and-south-eastern-asia/singapore/~school-leadership (accessed 10 March 2026); OECD (2025[14]), Teacher Professional Learning: Drawing Upon International Practice for a Future Vision for Ukraine, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/0cceeddf-en; OECD (2023[80]), Shaping Digital Education: Enabling Factors for Quality, Equity and Efficiency, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/bac4dc9f-en.
Recommendation 4.6. Enhance the quality of centrally-provided professional learning opportunities
Catalonia should seek not only to strengthen the quality of school-based professional learning, but also to improve the provision of learning opportunities available to teachers across the system (see Box 4.12). This should encompass attending to those offered by Catalonia centrally and those in the Zone Training Plans. It already has a central catalogue of professional learning opportunities, organised across three periods during the academic year. Teachers have a high degree of agency in voluntarily registering for these activities, and the development of the catalogue is often informed by multi-stakeholder input through surveys and evaluations from schools and territorial services. Taken together, this suggests that the central challenge is not necessarily a misalignment between professional learning and teachers' needs. Rather, the challenge appears to lie in the implementation of learning opportunities that are sufficiently impactful. In essence, this is a question of quality.
As noted, TALIS 2024 raises questions about the impact of professional learning opportunities, based on teachers’ self-reported experiences. Catalonia may therefore wish to strengthen the centrally-provided learning opportunities available to teachers by reviewing the criteria used to determine whether a professional learning offer is included in the central catalogue. This would be an opportunity to issue clear expectations, aligned to the Framework of Professional Competencies, for effective professional learning. In particular, it should strengthen both the criteria for initial selection and the ongoing evaluation used to determine whether an activity remains in the catalogue. This would involve reviewing whether current criteria sufficiently assess the extent to which proposals incorporate the key design features of effective professional learning.
Catalonia should also make greater use of teacher feedback and self-evaluation measures from providers. This is a relatively straightforward, low-cost way of capturing some information on the effectiveness of programmes. In addition, it could consider involving an actor such as the Inspectorate or the Evaluation Agency in the review of a sample of programmes, both in the Zone Training Plans and in the central catalogue, following the multi-measure approach used in some systems.
Enhancing the quality of professional learning can help build greater capacity in the system. It can also be an important means of raising the status of the teaching profession. The attractiveness of the profession rests partly on strong employment and working conditions. While ongoing efforts to increase the financial attractiveness of the profession will be important here, they should be complemented by concerted efforts to also increase the intellectual attractiveness of the profession. The availability of stimulating, relevant and quality professional learning opportunities are key for a thriving teaching profession, alongside a rewarding, motivating career structure, as outlined previously.
As noted, in 2023 Ireland consolidated its professional learning support services, creating “Oide”. Much of its professional learning is implemented through 21 full-time and 9 part-time ‘Education Support Centres’. Each Centre is managed by an annually elected voluntary Management Committee and serves the local education community.
There are several mechanisms in place to support monitoring of the quality of professional learning:
Oide make regular use of teacher evaluation. All summer courses include a teacher evaluation. Oide also regularly reviews the quality of in-person training courses at the primary and post-primary levels, as well as a sample of online courses.
Ireland’s Inspectorate evaluates the design and facilitation of a sample of online and in-person professional learning courses each year.
There are also evaluation frameworks that can be leveraged by different stakeholders. The Educational Research Centre published in 2023 a framework intended to support the evaluation of different forms of formal professional learning, either by providers or external evaluators. In parallel, the DoE has also developed an internal framework (the Design and Quality Assurance Process) to inform the design and quality assurance process of learning opportunities provided by its support services.
Finally, the Inspectorate is also further leveraged in the design of quality professional learning that is responsive to schools’ needs. For example, link inspectors are nominated by the Inspectorate to support Oide during the scoping, design and review of new professional learning programmes. Crucially, these link inspectors have the ability to inform Oide of training needs that the Inspectorate have observed in the field.
For Catalonia, several structural similarities stand out here. The Education Support Centres in Ireland echo the pedagogical centres in Catalonia. It may be that Catalonia can target interventions on strengthening these institutions as per in Ireland. Similarly, Ireland’s leveraging of its inspectorate in professional learning design and review may be an area that could be explored further too.
Source: OECD (2025[14]), Teacher Professional Learning: Drawing Upon International Practice for a Future Vision for Ukraine, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/0cceeddf-en
Recommendation 4.7. Reduce administrative workload for teachers and leaders to reorientate their time to more impactful, pedagogy-focussed tasks
One key question in relation to strengthening professional learning is how to create the conditions for it. Teachers, principals and the wider school management team reported already being overstretched in the current system, and some suggested they had limited time to engage in additional work such as professional learning. It is therefore important to create more space in teachers’ and leaders’ workloads for these activities, whether in the form of formal learning sessions, formative appraisal with leaders, or participation in professional networks.
During the review visit, schools reported facing high administrative workloads, or so-called “red tape”. In particular, much of this burden appeared to be concentrated around the current approach to inclusion and special educational needs. Teachers described the considerable time required for report writing and for documenting particular supports.
The Catalan school system would therefore benefit from continued efforts to streamline and simplify these processes, building on recent policy measures aimed at reducing administrative burden and strengthening support capacity in schools. Importantly, there are some recent signs from the Catalan authorities that efforts are planned to address teacher and leadership workload in schools by trying to decrease the degree of bureaucracy in the system (Government of Catalonia, 2026[18]).
It is promising that there are planned commitments to undertake a comprehensive mapping of administrative work to identify areas to streamline. In this sense, Catalonia could reduce administrative workload for teachers and leaders by reorientating time to pedagogy-focussed work. This could include: a) mapping ‘high-cost/low-value’ procedures and removing or consolidating them; b) adopting a ‘single entry of data’ principle to eliminate duplicated reporting; c) improving interoperability between digital applications used by schools and the administration; and d) rationalising overlapping requirements across the Department, the Inspectorate and other bodies, supported by shared repositories and common templates. This could have real value from the Catalan authorities, and it will be important that a systematic, rapid consultation exercise includes a range of relevant stakeholders (e.g. principals, teachers, support staff, and policymakers). The Evaluation Agency may be well placed to lead this work, given its system-level oversight role, and there are important international examples that could be informative (Box 4.13).
A complementary possibility is that digital tools, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), could be more systematically leveraged to alleviate administrative burdens. While this remains an emerging area, there are signs that schools in some systems are beginning to use AI for administrative purposes (OECD, 2024[81]) (see Box 4.13).
Here, as part of its review, Catalan authorities could play a role in sharing effective practices on the use of digital tools to reduce workload burdens. For instance, the Evaluation Agency may seek to systematically identify effective practices across the system alongside the above consultation exercise, as some other systems have endeavoured to do (e.g. see Wales (United Kingdom) in (OECD, 2026[76]) or Ireland in (OECD, 2025[14])). Indeed, TALIS 2024 suggests that administrative workload is a common challenge across systems (OECD, 2025[25]), and Catalonia could also learn from other systems’ experiences to better understand how technology might be used to alleviate workload demands. An important challenge, however, will be to engage with the scepticism that exists among some Catalan teachers. Catalonia is one of the territories where teachers appear to perceive the potential benefits of AI in education most cautiously. Analysis of TALIS 2024 finds that only around one-third of secondary teachers in Catalonia see AI as having potential benefits for automating administrative tasks, compared with around 45% on average across the OECD (APE, 2026[26]).
Improving efficiency across schools could create more space for engagement in professional learning and for teams of teachers to collaborate and learn together. This need for interaction was also flagged by some pedagogical co-ordinators in the schools visited by the OECD Review Team. They suggested that professional learning is often still viewed as highly individual, rather than as a response to common challenges that could be addressed collectively.
Overall, reducing the burden of administrative processes on teachers and school principals could help free up time for more impactful professional learning. As outlined above, stronger instructional leadership from principals, alongside formative appraisal and collective professional learning, may support higher standards of teaching. At the same time, engaging in professional learning requires time, and in this respect a lighter administrative workload may serve as an important enabling factor.
Finally, reducing administrative workload may not only improve the impact of how time is used, but also help reduce stress and improve well-being across the system. TALIS suggests that, on average across OECD education systems, around half of teachers report excessive administrative work as a source of work-related stress, particularly those with more than ten years of experience (OECD, 2025[25]). As noted, nearly six in ten Catalan secondary teachers report that having too much administrative work is a frequent source of stress. The OECD Review Team also heard from stakeholders at both system and school level about high reported rates of teacher absenteeism. Alleviating some sources of work-related stress may therefore be one step towards supporting teacher well-being more broadly. This sort of improvement in working conditions may also complement recommendations to improve the financial and intellectual attractiveness of the teaching profession to help elevate the overall status of teachers and principals.
England (United Kingdom)
England (UK) has developed a task force to examine teacher workload and to try and boost efficiency. In particular, this relates to examining the potential of digital tools to support teachers and leaders in their day-to-day work, such as administrative tasks. England (UK) is also a system that, like Catalonia, has a strong focus on building an inclusive education system. England (UK)’s development of clear, evidence-informed standards may also be of relevance.
For instance, England (UK) has set up a taskforce to investigate how to reduce workload demands by leveraging digital tools and AI In particular, they have invested in the development of AI tools to assist teachers with tasks such as marking, lesson planning, record keeping and student feedback, in order to increase their time for face-to-face teaching (OECD, 2025[82])
Australia
In Australia, the Workload Reduction Fund (WRF) is Action 12 of the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan. It commits 30 million Australian dollars of Government funding to state and territory governments to pilot innovative projects to reduce workloads and maximise how teachers’ and school principals’ time is used. One example is in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) and its in-house AI tool (“NSWEduChat”). NSWEduChat is the secure, department-owned generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool ensuring security, privacy and equity while offering tailored content for the NSW Education environment.
Notably, the impact on teachers’ workload has been promising. The tool was first piloted with 16 schools in one semester of 2024, and then 50 schools in the second semester. Feedback was positive including teachers who reported work efficiencies. Hence, teachers who used NSWEduChat reported it helped them find and improve learning resources, produce engaging content for students, and differentiate texts. They also reported that it reduced the time spent on administrative tasks like writing permission slips and provided accurate responses based on relevant policy datasets. Furthermore, many teachers reported using this extra time to focus attention on teaching and learning activities (Hoare and Smith-Ferguson, 2025[83]). Some teachers involved in the NSWEduChat trial have reported saving over an hour per week on producing various lesson resources (NSW Government, n.d.[84]). Accordingly, this saw NSWEduChat expanded to all schools in semesters three and four of 2024. Indeed, the pilot phase is now done and NSWEduChat is now in a phase two expansion which sees some 700 schools and 100 000 teachers receiving access to the tool.
The chat is based in the NSW cloud environment, meaning that data are secure, while it also caters to the NSW educational context. There is also a student-level version of the AI tool that can be used for educational purposes. It is designed to promote reasoning, reflection and exploration and includes safeguards such as content filtering and semantic analysis to monitor topics, as well as the noted safe data storage. Interestingly, trial results show that students mainly use the tool for exam preparation, quiz creation and knowledge consolidation, brainstorming ideas and receiving feedback on their writing.
In its development of the tool, NSW undertook a comprehensive audit of workload. This included a detailed mapping of tasks and the identification of some 100 particularly high workload tasks (NSW Department of Education, 2024[85]). Promisingly, the audit revealed extensive scope to simplify, streamline and digitise tasks.
For Catalonia, the experience of other systems in comprehensively auditing workload and developing tools to address this may be informative. The potential promise that initial evidence from piloting and evaluations suggests promising impact for teachers. The example of combining teacher efficiency and also a student-facing learning assistant in one tool may also mean a more cost-efficient tool.
Source: OECD (2025[82]), Teacher policies to support the use of digital resources in the classroom, https://doi.org/10.1787/d16e9614-en; Department of Education of Australia (n.d.[86]), Workload Reduction Pilots, https://www.education.gov.au/workload-reduction-pilots (accessed on 09 March 2026); Hoare and Smith-Ferguson (2025[83]) Using AI to boost evidence-based teaching and learning: A collaborative approach across a network of schools, https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2025.2528547; NSW Government (n.d.[84]), Expansion of AI education tool trial delivers more time for teachers in our classrooms, https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases/expansion-of-ai-education-tool-trial-delivers-more-time-for-teachers-our-classrooms (accessed on 09 March 2026); NSW Government (n.d.[87]), NSWEduChat, https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/education-for-a-changing-world/nsweduchat (accessed on 09 March 2026).
Recommendation 4.8. Leverage the current infrastructure to create a stronger professional learning ecosystem
In a system committed to equity and inclusion, it is particularly important to ensure that high-quality professional learning and collaboration opportunities reach all schools and teachers. Catalonia’s clear vision for an equitable and inclusive system suggests that fostering an ecosystem for sharing effective practice and supporting collective learning is also important. Effective systems support the mobilisation of relevant research evidence across stakeholders and facilitate the curation and sharing of effective practices (OECD, 2025[14]). There is also substantial evidence that partnerships and networks of schools can be effective mechanisms for innovation (OECD, 2022[88]).
The Inspectorate in Catalonia is well positioned to help foster such an ecosystem. While the strength of its presence in schools varies, some strong relationships were observed, and it has a clear structure across different regions. This existing infrastructure could therefore be further leveraged. Catalonia should seek to use the Inspectorate’s network not only to strengthen school-based professional learning, but also to improve how schools interact and exchange effective practices. Within schools, as noted above, the Inspectorate could play a larger role in building leaders’ capacity to implement formative feedback and appraisal effectively. This could include issuing guidance, participating alongside school principals in some formative appraisal processes, or using its networks to facilitate peer learning among leaders.
Beyond individual schools, the Inspectorate already acts as a node connecting multiple schools. One strand of work here could involve establishing more systematic mechanisms for peer exchange between schools, with the Inspectorate convening school representatives to learn from one another on specific topics and to observe promising practices. A complementary strand would involve the more systematic identification and codification of effective practices in schools, for example through standardised reporting that could then be shared across regional inspectorates (see Box 4.14). A particularly relevant initial thematic focus might be practices related to equity and inclusion, as also discussed in Chapter 3. Given that inspectors already work across multiple schools and exchange regularly with one another, such steps may have relatively limited additional resource implications. In light of the demands currently placed on the profession, these networks may also provide an important source of social and professional support to teachers.
A final connection to strengthen within this ecosystem is the relationship between the Inspectorate and the recently established Evaluation Agency. The latter is discussed in more detail in Chapter 5, but a clearly defined working relationship between the two could be valuable. For example, if the Inspectorate moves towards more systematic identification and codification of both effective practices and recurring challenges in schools, this could help inform the work of the Evaluation Agency.
Portugal’s efforts to create different infrastructures for collaboration among schools could be informative for Catalonia. Portugal’s system of ‘clusters’ unites between 2 and 29 schools under a single administrative team, enabling knowledge sharing. This system of clusters was born from a major process of consolidation in the early 2000s that saw a reduction in the number of schools in the public network. Nearly all schools (98% according to previous OECD analysis) are now aggregated into clusters under an executive principal, supported by a number of deputies and school co-ordinators. There is also support from school governing councils, which include a General Board (comprised of elected representatives of teachers and parents, as well as representatives of the municipality and local partners), as well as a Pedagogical Council, which is comprised of department co-ordinators designated by the cluster principal (e.g. the chairs of the Departments of pre-schooling, primary education, maths, languages, arts, sports, inclusive education).
In terms of professional learning, as well as enabling the exchange of effective practices, clusters also work closely with the 91 School Association Professional Development Centres (Centros de Formação de Associação de Escolas, CFAE) in place across the country. These are responsible for much of the professional learning in Portugal, and they develop their provision by working with local schools and school clusters to determine training needs. Portugal has also leveraged the networks to respond to strategic challenges. For instance, Portugal also has a specialist role of “Digital Co-ordinator” at the local level that works across schools to support effective digitalisation in schools. They help to develop school digital plans and their implementation, again supporting connection and knowledge sharing.
Clusters have also been a means of fostering innovation across schools. The three-year ‘Pedagogical Innovation Pilot Project’ that ran from 2017-2020 granted seven selected clusters significant autonomy to develop local solutions to challenges such as early school leaving and grade repetition. Participating clusters identified priorities, mobilised teachers and shared practices through regular network meetings, with strategies spanning curriculum, pedagogy and school organisation. Their work was supported and overseen by a dedicated monitoring group. A 2019 evaluation found that the pilot showed positive impacts on the quality of learning and student retention, with pedagogical practices relating to formative assessment, differentiation and active learning being strengthened. Notable secondary benefits included improved teacher and student well-being and strengthened relationships with the community.
Beyond supporting collaboration, school clusters also undertake certain organisational role. Clusters control the assignment of teachers to roles. In particular, at the school level, the directors of the school clusters are responsible for: (1) managing the allocated funds (except for the salaries of teachers and other professionals and investment expenditure, which are directly managed by the Ministry of Education); (2) monitoring spending; and (3) reporting the number of students engaged in school activities and their academic achievement.
The reorganisation of the school network is considered to have reduced the isolation of rural teachers, improved educational opportunities for disadvantaged students in isolated areas, and fostered greater collaboration between the education ministry, municipalities, schools and other stakeholders. In particular, while there can be variability and challenges when it comes to integrating schools effectively into clusters – particularly due to geographic spread or large numbers – Portugal has seen some clusters successfully leverage teacher expertise across schools to build capacity. However, according to the OECD’s Review of Inclusive Education in Portugal of 2022, the full potential of the cluster system could be further leveraged here to build on the positive examples of collaboration occurring, such as in relation to the promotion of inclusive practices. Furthermore, one question the Review also raised was how best to balance the localised autonomy with centralised structures, with OECD analysis suggesting that models of clustering in healthcare and their decentralising of certain decision-making powers to local authorities a potential example for fostering more inclusive education.
For Catalonia, there may be effective practices regarding cross-school learning that can be leveraged. The need to also attend to potential challenges of integration from the beginning is noteworthy, highlighting that schools may have different capacities to engage with peer-learning.
Source: OECD (2022[88]), Review of Inclusive Education in Portugal, Reviews of National Policies for Education, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/a9c95902-en; OECD (2022[89]), Value for Money in School Education: Smart Investments, Quality Outcomes, Equal Opportunities, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/f6de8710-en.
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← 1. Authors' calculations based on the original 2024 remuneration tables (excluding subsequent amendments). Annual salaries comprise the base salary, complement de destinació, complement específic, five triennis (representing 15 years of service) and the minimum estadi scenario. The calculations also include two statutory extraordinary payments, each consisting of the applicable extraordinary-pay base salary amount, extraordinary-pay triennis amount and complement de destinació as specified in the remuneration tables. Actual remuneration may be higher for teachers who have progressed to higher estadis, which attract larger salary supplements.