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MINISTERS OF EDUCATION WILL MEET IN QUITO TO EVALUATE STRATEGIES FOR STRENGTHENING SECONDARY EDUCATION

The hemisphere’s Ministers of Education will meet in Quito, Ecuador, August 12-14, to discuss the challenges and promises of secondary education. The ministerial meeting will take place within the framework of the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CIDI) of the Organization of the American States (OAS).

The President of the Republic of Ecuador, Rafael Correa; OAS Assistant Secretary General, Ambassador Albert Ramdin; and the Ecuadorean Minister of Education, Raul Vallejo Corral, will inaugurate the event, in which representatives from the 33 OAS member states are expected to participate.

The ministerial meeting will be an opportunity for participants to create dialogue and share their experiences on educational policies for secondary education, their implementation and results. Its theme is: “Better opportunities for the youth of the Americas: Rethinking secondary education.”

The Ministers of Education will meet at the Swissotel in Quito to consider issues related to the transformation of secondary education and share proposals to renovate educational programs with hopes to achieve better results for the youth in terms of integration into community life and the workforce.

The meeting agenda includes issues such as the management, teaching, evaluation, research, innovation, use of information technologies, and financing of secondary education; the associated pedagogical or curricular reforms for secondary education and their relevance to the young person’s assimilation into society and the work force; the analysis of the current state of secondary education; the main challenges encountered in the effort to offer secondary education based on the principles of quality, equity, relevance and efficiency; the assessment of promising experiences and their capacity to meet the challenges in specific settings; and the creation of a network of countries and institutions to initiate reforms in response to the challenge of funding the expansion of secondary education at a time of economic crisis, among others.

At the suggestion of the host country, and with the objective of strengthening the role of the youth in the formulation of policies related to education, the ministers expected to participate in the VI Ministerial Meeting will hold a dialogue with youth representatives on this generation’s expectations of secondary education. Likewise, the ministers will receive a report on the results of the discussion forums conducted with youth representatives in several countries of the Americas regarding the meeting’s central theme.

Reference: E-256/09