Detecting Areas of Improvement in Secondary Education: Listening to Management Teams and Teachers

The general aim of this research study is to detect needs and possible areas of improvement in the Basque education system. To this end, this paper describes and compares the discourses of different informants, using a qualitative methodology based on a census sample of secondary schools and students in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (ACBC). Although our research is located in a specific geographical and cultural context, the detailed contextualisation of the study may shed light on an international level and may be transferable to other contexts that come close to the characteristics described in this article. Thus, a total of 18 secondary schools from the ACBC were selected in accordance with their effectiveness level, calculated on the basis of the results obtained in the Diagnostic Assessments (DAs) across five years. Likewise, professionals involved in the study (18 inspectors, 18 management teams, and 50 educational agents) identified certain priority areas, such as teaching-learning methods, promoting diversity, fostering an evaluative culture and leadership, resource provision, stability of the teaching staff, relationships with families, and optimisation of constructive conflict resolution. This research can help to carry out other research on other education systems based on the dimensions analysed in this article, as they have been found to be a priority for educational agents.