Executive Secretariat for Integral Development (SEDI)

Inter-American Education Agenda

The most important outcome of the IX Inter-American Meeting of Ministers of Education, carried out in The Bahamas on February 2017, is the adoption of the Inter-American Education Agenda that will encourage inter-American policy dialogue and cooperation among the Ministries of Education of the OAS member states in the following priority themes: 

  • Quality, Inclusive and Equitable Education 
  • Strengthening of the Teaching Profession
  • Comprehensive Early Childhood Care

The adoption of the Inter-American Education Agenda reflects a historical process of consensus building among the Ministries of Education of the OAS member states to address the most important challenges that affect the educational development of the region and impact the right of children, youth and adults to access to high quality, equitable and inclusive education throughout their lives. Moreover, the Inter-American Education Agenda is conceived by OAS member states as a tool to follow-up and implement the Goal#4 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

That process started in 2015, within the VIII Inter American Meeting of Ministers of Education, carried out in Panama city on February 4th and 5th 2015, where the Ministries of Education of OAS member states agreed to build an Inter-American Education Agenda.

To carry this initiative forward, the Ministers created Working Groups formed by Ministries of Education that worked collaboratively through 2015 and 2016 to develop Work Plan proposals that promote Inter-American cooperation actions on the Agenda’s prioritized three lines of action.
Some of the actions included in the Work Plans are:

  • Develop a state of the art of teacher training in the Americas
  • Prepare a course catalogue offered by Ministers of Education for teachers
  • Develop a state of the art of public policies addressing Early Childhood Care in all of its forms
  • Come up with standards and curriculum recommendations for Comprehensive Early Childhood Care.
  • Identify and study inter-sectoral collaboration efforts and their effects in quality, inclusive and equitable education
  • Identify and disseminate best practices in education management and pedagogy to promote quality, inclusion and social equity.

Currently the Ministers of Education of the Americas are collaborating to implement the actions proposed in the Work Plan of the CIE 2019-2022 and the construction of the second phase of the Inter-American Education Agenda 2022-2027. The progress made in the implementation of the Inter-American Education Agenda and its Work Plans has been showcased at the policy dialogue instances organized by the Inter-American Committee on Education – such as the IX Regular Meeting of the CIE, the I Special Meeting of the CIE and the XI Inter-American Meeting of Ministers of Education to be held in November 2022.

To learn about next meetings please visit the Web Page of the Inter-American Committee on Education.

For further information about the Inter-American Committee on Education and its activities, please contact us at education@oas.org or cmartins@oas.org