The National Conference on Education has been an initiative of the Generalitat, the Autonomous Government of Catalonia, to undertake an exhaustive diagnosis of our educational system, upon completion of the calendar of application of the educational reform derived from the general organic law of the educational system (LOGSE), in which, Catalonia had a decisive role. The Conference activity began in early 2000 and culminated with the public presentation of conclusions and proposals on 15 June 2002.

It has been almost two years and a half of activities of the seven sections in which the Conference has been organised, each of them formed by a coordinator, a technical team and a participative team. The Organising Committee, presided over by the Education Councillor, has been responsible for the general coordination and the Consell Superior d'Avaluació del Sistema Educatiu has been in charge of the operative and administration support.

The sections have enjoyed full autonomy both in the planning of their actions as well as in the management of the economic resources they had been assigned. This fact, besides the organisation structure indicated, has made of the Conference an unknown participative evaluation experience in our area, and it has been so recognised by international personalities consulted. In this sense, we can verify that the resulting conclusions and proposals have not only been the result of a technical work of wide spectrum diagnosis, but also the result of the implication of the educational community. All the institutions present in the Consell Escolar de Catalunya and some others not present in the maximum participation body of our educational system, have been represented in the different sections through persons freely nominated for this task.

Each section has developed a specific methodology, in accordance with the objectives proposed and the nature of the data they intended to collect, with the common denominator of fostering the technique of the in-depth debate as basic tool, based on the analysis of quantitative data. This diverse methodology also explains the relative diversity in the presentation of the corresponding report of conclusions and proposals. This book presents a shortened version of the full text which will be published in the future.

The participation of the whole educational community has also been possible thanks to the different types of activities organised by the sections and by all the public events celebrated throughout the territory: over sixty events with the participation of around 9,000 persons. The Conference has also made it possible to count on the personal participation of all those who wished to express their opinion in writing through open forums on the website, integrated by a total of 38 questions of the different sections and the reception of 1,200 answers. On the other hand, besides the answers indicated, the Conference website has had a total of 68,000 visitors. Furthermore, over one hundred groups with a qualified opinion on the themes of the Conference have been consulted.

A short questionnaire was posted on the website during April and it has been answered by a total of 166 visitors, who have expressed their opinion on different aspects of the Conference, which could be summarised as follows:

The Conference has been mainly known of through a personal search on the web (38 per cent) and, in second place, through the information made available by colleagues at work (28 per cent). The sections which have drawn more interest are Section III, Attention to diversity, Section II, Importance and social function of teachers and Section VII, Basic Skills, in this order. It is believed the results of the Conference should be made public, mainly, by posting them on the website and also by sending a synthesis to all centres. The majority of people enquired (49 per cent) think the Conference has been useful because it has enabled the exchange of opinions and they also believe it will contribute to the improvement of the educational system. Nevertheless, 16 per cent point out they do not believe it will have a very practical use.

The National Conference on Education constitutes, therefore, a good sample of the diagnosis to be carried out regarding the reality of education when measures want to be taken to improve its quality. This has been the will of the Education Department when starting this long, complex process, as a guarantee of the strictness in the conclusions and proposals. The independence of the coordinators of the sections towards the educational Administration removes any presumption of lack of objectivity towards it, and the diversity of actions carried out are a guarantee that the variety of opinions, undoubtedly existent on many of the themes, have been collected. We could even now recall the message of the President of the Generalitat, Mr Jordi Pujol, at the opening ceremony of the Conference, celebrated at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya in October 2000, in which he pointed out that the conclusions had to avoid the "politically correct" language.

The Conference has imposed no limitation other than the maintenance of the basic principles which inspired the reform at the time: democracy, freedom, equity and preservation of our national identity. And all the process has been justified by the need of getting to know the strong and weak points of the system, with the will of constant improvement, without false miraculous solutions nor simple raisings in front of complex problems.

It can be thought that the Conference presents its proposals for the improvement of the Catalan educational system at a time where it is difficult to maintain the principles mentioned. The way to the counter-reform started by the State Government, without previously undertaking a diagnosis equivalent to ours, but induced by the opinion of certain sectors and the conception that education follows the party it belongs to, undoubtedly moves us away from the many measures herewith proposed. This is the reason why the Organising Committee of the Conference firmly supports the document which, concerning this matter, was approved by the Consell Escolar de Catalunya on 24 April 2002.

The present publication is an advance of the text scheduled for the future, which will collect in an exhaustive way the work carried out by the different sections of the Conference. We herewith collect all the improvement proposals formulated by the sections, with the understanding that often the proposals of a certain section have to be complemented with those of another, because the issues analysed are related so much to one another that they cannot have an isolated interpretation. This also explains the fact that some of the proposals have been studied by more than one section.

We wish to express our most sincere gratitude to all those persons and groups who, with their enthusiastic contribution, have made the National Conference on Education to come through. Once again, Catalonia has proved it moves when it confronts really important issues and education has always been a preferential matter for the citizenship of our nation. The list of bodies and persons that have participated in a more active way in the different activities organised by the seven sections of the Conference will be published in the final book.

The Conference ends its phase of conclusions and proposals, but its consequences have only just begun: spreading them widely, debating their alternatives, compromising all agents implied and carrying out an accurate follow-up of the measures decided are the logical phases of the Catalan project for the improvement of the quality of our education, the quality we all long for because we are conscious of its importance on persons and the future of our nation.