The IEA is the forum for policy dialogue and decision making, strengthened and executed through Inter-American cooperation, as well as coordination and linkages of efforts with other international organizations and regional and subregional entities, to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all.

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.

The IEA is guided by the principles of collaboration, intersectorality and interculturalism. These principles were reaffirmed at the Ninth Regular Meeting of the CIE when the authorities from the Ministries of Education ratified that the venues for dialogue are one of the main axes of the methodology and expressed the hope that the construction of the IEA 2022-2027 would continue in a spirit of collaboration and joint construction.

The most important result of the XI Inter-American Meeting of Ministers of Education, held virtually in November 2022, was the adoption of the Inter-American Education Agenda (2022-2027), which promotes policy dialogue and cooperation among the Ministries of Education of the OAS Member States in two priority areas and their thematic lines:

Systemic approach towards building resilient educational systems

• Post-pandemic educational recovery, repair, and reactivation.
• Use of new technologies in education and digital education agenda.
• Professional development and teacher training.
• Education to mitigate climate change.
• Research agenda linked to national and regional educational systems.
• Attention to students and teachers with disabilities.
• Socioemotional development and school coexistence.

Intersectoral Agenda

• Student mobility and the recognition of studies among the different countries of the region.
• Interconnected professional development and teacher training in the region’s countries.
• The relationship between education, employment, and national development.
• Developing healthy school environments.
• Continuous lifelong learning, and labor and productive reconversion.
• Trends and methodologies for the development of the skills of the future (both technical and socioemotional).
• Analyzing joint work and/or coordination experiences between ministries and with other public and private actors, in the identification and development of the skills of the future.
• The development of a Regional Qualifications Framework to strengthen competencies and the development of the skills of the future; this would continue the partnership work between the OAS, ILO/CINTEFOR, and UNESCO.
• The management and generation of information that portrays different national education and work realities and is relevant to them.
• Strengthening, updating, and expanding skill certification systems and employment services.
• Strengthening institutionalized social dialogue to build more just, equitable, and resilient societies.
• The prevention and eradication of child labor.
• The establishment of training and transition paths between productive sectors.

The document CIDI/CIE/doc.9/21 describes through different stages the process of collectively building the second phase of the Inter-American Education Agenda; in addition, it recapitulates which of these stages have been completed and proposes the following three stages to confirm the priorities, elements and emerging needs that will be considered in the IEA 2022-2027, as well as the necessary actions to guarantee educational continuity by the next five years.

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 held in November 2022.

For further information about the Inter-American Committee on Education and its activities, please contact us at [email protected] or [email protected]