Co-creating actions for school perseverance: Social innovation by La Réunion
The French outermost region of La Réunion is pressured by high rates of early school leavers. Each year, around 3.100 pupils leave school without graduation. Many pertinent measures and programmes are already in place. The region can build on an ecosystem of active and competent local actors.
However, the figures are not going down, thus requiring new ways of policymaking. In November 2023, an interregional peer review facilitated by the team of the Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform outlined the need for better stakeholder coordination, putting spotlight on the potential of an integrated governance approach.
In particular, the group of European peers recommended the preparation of a joint vision and action plan, co-created with the region’s ecosystem for education, professional training and labour market measures.
A "seminaire contributif" on school perseverance
Under the leadership of La Réunion‘s responsible Vice-President for Education, Céline Sitouze, the region “walked the talk” and organised an interactive “seminaire contributif” on school perseverance, held between 2 and 4 April 2025 in the cities of Saint-Denis and Saint-Louis.
The seminar design was supported by Québec’s practice-proven methodology of “concertation round-tables”, brought in by the Canadian education expert Manon Boly. Over two afternoons, more than 150 education and labour market practitioners teamed up in changing settings to jointly elaborate and prioritise concrete measures addressing the challenges to:
- better get to know our youth
- reinforce the role of parents in educational success
- prevent early school dropouts
- better connect the youth and companies
- improve local governance between local actors and municipalities.
European peers
The team of Interreg Europe brought the European dimension into the process, directly involving our highly committed team of peers into the collective search for better solutions:
- Anders Bergström, Norden Association, Sweden, Policy Area Coordinator for Education of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region
- Francisco Caparros, Balearic Islands Government, Balearic Islands, Spain
- Marco Costantino, Apulia Region, Italy
- Chantal Fijalkowski, IAWM Institute for Training and further education in SMEs, Belgium
- Caroline Gerckens, ZAWM Centre for Training and Further Education of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Belgium
- Dany Meessen, Ministry of the German-speaking Community, Job Creation Measures and Social Economy, Belgium
- Jana Rožac, Employment Service of Slovenia, Slovenia
As concluded by Vice-President Sitouze, the seminar paved the ground for concerted action and an enhanced engagement of the region, giving emphasis to:
- better engaging with the youth to make the “invisibles visible”
- the establishment of governance structures to open up silos for joint action, experimentation and innovation
- reinforced efforts to connects the “world of schools” and the “world of companies and entrepreneurship”.
Cooperation with other French regions
The French regions of Occitanie, Grand-Est and PACA (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) underlined the uniqueness of La Réunion‘s innovative approach to combine local, regional, national, European and international expertise for joint action plan creation. Over the three days, their responsible policymakers had the opportunity to experience the multi-level engagement on the spot:
- Kamel Chibli, Vice-President of the Occitanie Region responsible for Education, Orientation, Youth and Sports
- Atissar Hibour, Regional Counsellor at Grand-Est Region, President of the Commission for Sustainable High Schools and Education
- Marie-Florence Bulteau-Rambaud, Vice-President of the PACA Region, responsible for Education, High Schools, Orientation and Professional Training
Equally, our group of peers and the team of Interreg Europe went home with new insights and inspiration, convinced by the power of collective intelligence and the active role the outermost regions play in finding innovative solutions for better regional development policies across Europe.
