WELCOME Dear friends, Welcome to this site! Congratulations to all of you for participating in the Knowledge Sharing Workshop “Ready to Learn: Early Childhood Education of Quality to Prevent Drop-out", held from May 20th to the 25 th , 2004 in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. We would like to give special thanks to the OAS Department of Scholarships and Training for their support. We also would like to thank the Centers of Infant Development of the Popular Front “Land and Liberty”, the Government of Nuevo Leon, and the Secretary of Education for their warm hospitality and collaboration.During your stay, you had the opportunity to participate in the 4th International Meeting on Initial and Pre-school Education entitled “Diversity, Early Childhood Education, and Neurosciences”. There you learned about the most recent findings in Neurosciences as they apply to Early Childhood Education from leading international scientists and educators in the field. In addition, you participated in workshops over 3 days on a variety of themes such as the vital role of play in Early Childhood Education and on practical strategies for supporting the development of infants and toddlers with disabilities. Finally, you presented on a panel entitled "Current Status and Challenges of Early Childhood Education in the Caribbean" before 1,500 international practitioners and experts in the plenary session of the event. After the International Meeting, you visited several CENDI infant development centers in order to observe and analyze this unique model for integral early childhood development. Through an on-going dialogue, you critically analyzed the model's strengths and weaknesses from each of your national perspectives and designed a project profile based on a consensus of the lessons learned from our Mexican experience and on the current priorities and activities in each of your countries. This profile establishes the common challenges facing the Caribbean region in the area of early childhood development, equity and quality and provides a framework from which future collaborative efforts and activities can emerge. This Workshop is only the first step in what we hope will be a fruitful process of reflection and analysis which will permit us to improve national and regional strategies to foster effective policies and practices in Early Childhood Development in our countries. This virtual space we are offering is a medium which will enable us to continue this process of reflection, to enrich collectively the proposals of each country, and to identify opportunities to work together. In this way, this space will be the product of patient work |
|
|