Community Service, a pedagogical innovation project

Abstract

The ultimate goal of education is to shape all-round professionals, those with an intellectual but also moral and civic dimension that would enable them not only to compete in the professional world, but also to analyse the environment in which they live and engage meaningfully in its betterment –this is what is known as active citizenship. This is precisely the objective of an educational initiative, promoted by the Department of Education of Catalonia, that has been integrated into compulsory education: the Community Service. The Community Service arose as an innovative action in response to a specific need: the need to confer the same worth to social and civic competencies as the rest of the basic competencies. To that aim, Community Service seeks to bring about a transformational change for the improvement of educational quality. This article aims to describe the project’s various stages of development and to provide relevant information about its impact.