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Sharing Experiences is Key to Face Current Challenges, According to Ministers of Education of the Americas

Ministers and other high authorities of Education of the Americas today were in agreement, in the first day of their Seventh Inter-American Meeting in Suriname, that the sharing of experiences is key to addressing the many challenges that teaching currently faces.

Twenty-two delegations from Member States, including nine Ministers, started discussions today that are set to conclude tomorrow with the adoption of the "Declaration of Paramaribo: Transforming the role of teachers to meet the challenges of the XXI Century."

Alter the inauguration by Robert Ameerali, Vice President of Suriname; OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza; and the Surinamese Minister of Education, Raymond Sapoen, delegations renewed their support for the Inter-American Committee on Education (CIE), which presented its report of activities of the past three years. Also, they dialogued on the topic "the teacher that today's students need" and on schools as learning communities, in sessions where both governmental and non-governmental institutions were represented. For instance, one of the roundtables had the participation of both a representative from the government of Antigua and Barbuda and a union leader from the same Caribbean country.

The first session focused on the study “State of the Art of Teacher Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean”, developed by the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile with support by the UNESCO Regional Education Office for Latin America and the Caribbean. The report, which is to be presented in its final version to UNESCO on May 2012, is based on research carried out on Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago with the goal of analyzing the situation of teachers in the Hemisphere, their education, professional development, work conditions and professional career, among others.

The results of the study, presented by Dense Vaillant, Director of the Institute of Education of the ORT University in Uruguay, reveal a weak public institutionality on teacher policies in the countries of the region; absence of integral teacher policies.

low levels of investment and uncompleted actions; and insufficient spaces for participation and dialogue with actors of the educational system. The report also explains that teachers generally start their career with insufficient preparation; that continuous training is substantial, but has a limited impact; and they work under difficult conditions, low pay and high levels of labor-related tensions.

Delegations explained their proposals to address the challenges, and generally agreed on the need to create a system that centralizes OAS Member States’ experiences and makes them available to the rest of the hemisphere. They also suggested a substantial strengthening of initial teacher education, one of the keys to developing high quality education.

The Seventh Meeting of Ministers of the Americas is set to conclude tomorrow in the Surinamese capital with the second day of debates and the closing ceremony, which will be attended by the OAS Assistant Secretary General, Ambassador Albert Ramdin, and the Minister of Education of Suriname, Raymond Sapoen.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-069/12