In the field of education, according to the European Commission (2018), key competences and basic skills are those that every person needs for their personal fulfilment and development and for their employability, social inclusion and active citizenship. On the one hand, the OECD has regularly promoted and assessed the level of development of students' competences globally since 2000 and, in view of the results, which have been demonstrating insufficient performance in reading, mathematics and science for more than two decades, reports and strategies of all kinds have been prepared to correct the situation described (OECD, 2023a). On the other hand, and despite the commitment made by most of the States involved in the assessment of the competence development of their students to reduce early school leaving and promote education that allows them to achieve the objectives of competency-based education, the truth is that school dropout rates remain very high and academic performance remains insufficient in many countries (OECD, 2023b) Thus, in the current context, after more than two decades of discouraging results, in Scotland – a pioneering country in Europe of Competency-Based Education (CBE) – this educational model is being abandoned. One of the main reasons for this is the lack of results to show that CBE has achieved the objectives to which it is supposed to contribute: improving the quality of education, reducing early school leaving and social inequalities.

Times of change are coming. Scotland is not the only country in our neighbourhood that has accumulated very poor results for too long in areas as important and of such projection as those already mentioned. Now, the time inverted in getting back on track will harm the most vulnerable: children in pre-school, primary and secondary education. As educators, and in view of these circumstances, it seems imperative to us to carry out a rigorous study and provide a roadmap from a scientific perspective and from a pedagogical and dialogic basis, far from the different ideological biases, which have contributed to shaping the situation in which we find ourselves. In accordance with the objectives pursued by the CBE, it is possible to synthesize the analysis of the results around the three dimensions that constitute the main concerns that motivate dropout with respect to this paradigm: quality, inclusion and early school leaving. Regarding the degree of achievement of the objectives and after the latest publication of PISA results (2023), we have been able to observe in different media how some politicians blame the heterogeneity of the student body for the debacle and, as so many other times, set up commissions of experts who are required to solve - in record time - all the problems. In this regard, beyond the complexity of the problems and the deadlines for work they have, we usually find commissions characterized in their composition, based on trusted profiles, by people known for their ideologies and affiliations. For these reasons, the commissions of experts that are continuously constituted on the basis of political decisions, have been demonstrating for more than two decades a total absence of results, and in no case can they be independent when those who make up these commissions are appointed by those who instrumentalize education.

The CBE has posed a number of challenges to which it has repeatedly tried to respond without success. Our research will focus on analysing the degree of achievement of the objectives of the CBE while delving into the selection of criteria and indicators that allow the establishment of a new model focused on increasing the quality of education, reducing early school leaving and promoting inclusive education: 1. The OECD's PISA tests show information about educational quality and academic performance with disappointing results, as indicated above. E.g., in Spain, the average yield is lower than in 2012, slightly below the OECD average, where it has been stagnant since the beginning, more than two decades ago. 2. Organisations such as Save the Children, the OECD and organisations such as the Ministries of Education have produced reports and compile data on early school leaving in Europe. In this regard, although there has been some progress, many countries are far away from the recommended maximun rate of 9%. E.g., Spain has the worst Early Leaving rate in the EU, 13,6%, only surpassed by Romania (OECD, 2023c) 3. Inclusive education: variables such as mental health and those related to all types of vulnerable groups require a holistic, quantitative and qualitative analysis that also includes the dimensions referred above. We can find indicators in many repositories from different institutions and organisations. The World Bank (2015) in its report entitled "Social Inclusion: Key to Prosperity for All" emphasizes the importance of asking why poor outcomes continue to persist for some groups, before designing the instruments to combat exclusion. On the other hand, the Children's Observatory, as well as other reports and a multitude of indicators, show that the goals are far from being achieved (UNICEF, 2023). Our project aims to contribute to solve all these difficulties by analysing them in depth and providing an alternative paradigm.

The possibility of generating a new educational model, the perspective of giving voice to the actors and that they participate in the gestation of a system free of political and "bureaucratizing" interference, in which the protagonists are effectively students and teachers (without forgetting the students' families), forces us to think -more than ever- of the school as a living entity that cannot survive suffocated by the weight of the machinery that has generated the BCE. Partial evidence does not hold up in complex, dynamic systems. For this reason, Education based on research and dialogue (EBRD) must be configured as a new way of addressing the particularity of research in education (through data mining, meta-analysis, structural equation modeling, ...) and the configuration of educational models in which heterogeneity is a constant in movement.

European Comission (2018). Council Recommendation of 22 May 2018 on key competences for lifelong learning. Retrieved from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ES/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018H0604(01) OECD (2023a). Education at a Glance. OECD Indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/e13bef63-en OECD (2023b), PISA 2022 Assessment and Analytical Framework, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/dfe0bf9c-en. OECD (2023c). Proposals for an action plan to reduce early school leaving in Spain. OECD, No. 71. Paris: OECD Publishing. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1787/9bc3285d-es. UNICEF (2023). Division of Data, Analytics, Planning and Monitoring – Data and Analytics Section, Progress on Children’s Well-Being: Centring child rights in the 2030 agenda – For every child, a sustainable future. New York: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). World Bank (2015). Inclusion matters: the foundation for shared prosperity. Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group. Retrieved from http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/318331467998794288/Inclusion-social-clave-de-la-prosperidad-para-todos