Community Funds for the Requalification of the National School Network. Case Study of the Coimbra Region Intermunicipal Community

Abstract

“The Municipal Educative Charter”, those tools for planning the municipal school building infrastructure, have created the conditions for municipalities to assert themselves both as originators and actors in the reorganisation of network school equipment at the beginning of the new century, even if actual implementation had to wait until NSRF funding was made available. The logics of territorial cohesion resulted in very different applications across the 19 municipalities that make up the Coimbra Region Intermunicipal Community, with no apparent direct link between the level of funding approved and the specific features of the territory. This in turn made it necessary to understand the investments made in this context, to understand the way in which they affect compliance with the proposed goals, and to assess their impact in terms of educational improvement in each territory.