Regional Collaboration on Tertiary Education in Latin America and the Caribbean

The World Bank Education team has been working to follow up on the commitment World Bank Vice President Jorge Familiar made at the Summit of the Americas to support improvements in the quality of education. The World Bank has participated and/or facilitated a series of regional gatherings since February 2016, including a summit in Buenos Aires in December and the Ministerial Meeting in Bahamas in January, 2017. In Buenos Aires, 25 countries representatives, as well as major multilateral organizations (OEI, OAS, UNESCO IESALC and OREALC, IBD, CAF) convened their support around the Summit’s declaration. Among other things, the declaration: supports the creation of a Regional Program for the Development of the Teacher Profession; stresses the crucial importance of the professional development of teachers; empowers the World Bank to set up a Steering Committee to advance the design of the proposal; seeks to procure funding for the initial implementation from multilaterals and a medium-term financing strategy based on agreements with governments to make the program self-sufficient; and thanks the World Bank for its leadership, support and convening capacity.

Regional Collaboration on Tertiary Education in Latin America and the Caribbean:
The main focus of the initiative is to build momentum to raise quality standards, foster academic partnerships, and strengthen international (professor and student) exchanges. It ties in with the work program set out in the education initiatives supported in Panama, drilling down on the Education Quality agenda. To prepare a set of recommendations for a regional project on tertiary education, two regional forums have been held at Colombia and Mexico, in collaboration with the Government of Colombia and the University of Puebla respectively. These involved focused discussions around four key topics: quality assurance, internationalization, advanced human capital, and teacher training.

Education Web Platform:
This OAS-led, Panama-based Virtual Platform for Education Cooperation in the Americas is being road-tested across the region. It is a website organized to accommodate discussion and content sharing across three lines of initiatives agreed in Panama: Quality, Inclusive and Equitable Education; Strengthening the Teaching Profession; and Comprehensive Early Childhood Care. The World Bank supports the Platform with relevant content to these three areas. Other areas for World Bank support will include linking and cross-referencing
activities of the Out of School and Out of Work: Risk and Opportunities for Latin America’s Ninis report, which will be extended to other activities by the World Bank Education Global Practice. The Ninis report will be presented during the OAS General Assembly in the Dominican Republic this year. The World Bank will also support a discussion forum related to its work on supporting regional collaboration on the quality and internationalization of Tertiary Education.

Iniciative: Enhancing regional collaboration for tertiary education in Latin America and the Caribbean
While education coverage in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has expanded rapidly, it is student learning—which depends on the quality and relevance of education—that produces most of the economic benefits from investments in education. Students in LAC remain more than two years behind their OECD counterparts in math, reading and critical thinking skills—and even further behind East Asian countries. To ensure recent gains in poverty reduction in LAC are not rolled back it is critical to enhance human capital and develop skilled and productive workers to innovate and drive economic growth. Education – and particularly its quality and relevance – is critical in this regard.

Building on the rich dialogue from the 7th Summit of the Americas, the World Bank is developing a major initiative meant to improve regional collaboration in tertiary education. This initiative seeks to (i) foster a productive space for active regional collaboration, (ii) further work towards the consolidation of a regional agenda for tertiary education, (iii) promote public policy best practices among governments and organizations, and (iv) support innovation and knowledge sharing across the region.

Activities:
Activities foreseen under this initiative include:

• Convening: a series of regional fora that gather education experts and country authorities to diagnose, debate, and consolidate a regional agenda around four key themes: a) quality assurance, b) international mobility, c) research cooperation, and 4) teacher training. The first forum, scheduled for March 2016, will summon authorities and technical experts to produce a preliminary agenda for regional collaboration. The second forum is proposed for the fall of 2016 and would gather government decision-makers from all countries in the region to translate the recommendations and acquired knowledge from the first forum into a regional agenda of results. The establishment of a regional portal in alignment with the necessities articulated in the fora would be another expected outcome of these meetings.

• Knowledge building: The discussions will be informed by targeted expert studies. An initial set of studies will be commissioned prior to the first forum to frame the discussions and provide a state-of-art review of the topic’s key issues. A second set of studies will follow the first forum and consolidate the recommendations and conclusion of the event.

• Complementing: The discussions will be designed to leverage synergies and complement ongoing regional activities that relate to tertiary education, inter-governmental dialogue, and other core components of the initiative to enhance regional collaboration for tertiary education in the LAC region.

Beneficiaries: All countries throughout the Americas; international development partners active in the human development field; civil society community focused on enhancing quality of education outcomes; other relevant stakeholders.

Partnership and financing: Core inception funding has been identified and set aside to finance these convening and knowledge building. Planned activities are envisioned in the form of partnership with relevant organizations in the region.

Uruguayan Public Schools Project
The objective of the Support to Uruguayan Public Schools Project is to improve the quality, equity and internal efficiency of primary education, through the expansion of the full time school model. There are two components to the project, the first component being expansion and rehabilitation of school infrastructure. The second component is the strengthening of learning systems. Commitment Amount: US$ 40.00 million.

Activities:
There are two components to the project, the first component being expansion and rehabilitation of school infrastructure. This component consists of the following: i) expansion of the full-time school model through: (a) the construction, transformation and/or rehabilitation of approximately forty schools located primarily in disadvantaged locations; and (b) the acquisition of equipment and education materials for the full-time schools mentioned in (a) herein; and ii) carrying out of preventive and corrective maintenance activities in full-time schools. The second component is the strengthening of learning systems. This component helps achieve the Project Development Objective (PDO) through strengthening systems for improved learning and instruction, in the classroom and beyond. The establishment of a new entity within Preschool and Primary Education Council (CEIP) to provide systematic and permanent in-service teacher training to the entire teaching body in preschool and primary grades, as well as school directors and inspectors, leads to a more efficient operation of teacher training by National Administration for Public Education (ANEP).

http://www.worldbank.org/projects/P126408/full-time-school-expansion-project?lang=en&tab=overview

Beneficiaries: 45,000 children in Uruguay

Partners and financing: Government of Uruguay

Peru, Basic Education
The development objective of the Basic Education Project for Peru is to improve the Ministry of Education’s (MINEDU) capacity to evaluate student learning, instructional practice, and school leadership in basic education. There are three components to the project. The first component is evaluating student learning. This component includes provision of support for the implementation of eligible budget activities supporting the program, including, inter alia: (a) the scale up of the existing second grade student assessment to cover additional grades and subject areas in primary education and secondary education schools; (b) the introduction of internationally validated methodologies for measuring child development outcomes and quality of services in preschool education; and (c) provision of support for the borrower's continued participation in international assessments managed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in order to compare trends in national results with international benchmarks. The second component is evaluating instructional practice and school leadership. This component includes provision of support for the implementation of the eligible budget activities supporting the program, including, inter alia, activities to strengthen MINEDU's capacity for monitoring and evaluating the quality of instructional practice at the classroom level, as well as, for implementing a competency-based system for selecting and training candidates to school management positions. The third component is strengthening MINEDU's implementation capacity. This component includes provision of support for the implementation of the eligible budget activities, supporting the program, including, inter alia, activities to strengthen MINEDU's capacity to improve its education management and monitoring capacity for the activities supported by the program and its operational and fiduciary capacity for the implementation of the program, including the carrying out of independent technical, financial and procurement reviews. Commitment Amount: US$ 25.00 million.

Activities:
The project includes three components: - Evaluation of student learning, including increasing the number of school grades participating in the Student Evaluation Survey; introduce internationally-validated methodologies to measure early childhood development and the quality of preschool services; and support MINEDU to continue Peru’s participation in international evaluations, allowing it to compare its results with those of other countries. - Evaluation of pedagogical practices, which includes supporting MINEDU in following up and evaluating in-classroom teacher practices, as well as implementing a competitive selection and training system for school principals. - Strengthen MINEDU’s administrative and fiduciary practices in order to improve program capacities, including the undertaking of independent evaluations, both technical, financial and acquisitions.

http://www.worldbank.org/projects/P123151/pe-basic-education?lang=en&tab=overview

Beneficiaries: 5.7 million Peruvian students

Partners and financing: Government of Peru

Education Quality Improvement Project
The objective of the Education Quality Improvement Project for El Salvador is to improve access, retention and graduation rates for students in the lower secondary education and the upper secondary education of the Borrower's public schools adopting the Inclusive Full Time School (IFTS) model. The project has 2 components. (1) Adoption of the IFTS Model. This component supports the creation of appropriate teaching and learning conditions in selected schools to convert them to IFTSs. (2) Improvement of the Institutional Capacity of the Ministry of Education (MINED) and the Schooling System's Governance. This component supports the introduction of selected governance reforms at the central, departmental and cluster level. Commitment Amount: US$ 60.00 million.

Activities:
Component 1 - The Inclusive Full-Time School Model (IFTS): This component provides: -Training and Professional Development of actors in the new model. Support to orientation workshops of school directors, teachers, students and families and communities leaders on the new model; workshops for curriculum planning for each grade and subject by teachers; professional development days for teachers of each "nucleus;" training of teachers in student-centered pedagogy and new methods of student evaluation in the classroom; training of school directors on their new roles and responsibilities; workshops for planning at the school level and the design of early warning systems for detecting at risk students. - Materials, furniture and equipment for improved teaching, learning and extracurricular activities. Finance of additional books to cater to the diversity of learners; classroom and school libraries; furniture, materials and equipment for laboratories; furniture and equipment, including computers, for classrooms to facilitate collaborative and student- centered learning; materials and equipment for painting, music and physical education; additional resources for students with special needs. - Improvement of school infrastructural facilities. Finances rehabilitation, repair, re-design of classrooms, teachers’ rooms, water and sanitary facilities, art and sports facilities, and transfers to schools for building maintenance. Component 2 - Strengthening Governance and Institutional Capacity of the Education System: This component aims to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, and management of the implementation of the Inclusive Full-Time School Model by improving the governance of the education system and strengthening capacity in the Ministry of the Education. It consists of: - Elaboration and implementation of the Governance Structure for the IFTS. New roles, responsibilities and functions are envisaged for the MINED, Dirección Central of each network, and the school, focusing on student outcomes and the rationalization in the use of resources. This component finances technical assistance to define the organizational framework for each network, including the types of functions carried out at the school, network and MINED levels; define the activities and capacities of the Dirección Central of each network; create the framework for information collection, supervision and pedagogical and technical assistance; define the standards of operation, teaching and student learning that implemented in the schools; and operationalize community involvement in the schools. The component also finances furniture and equipment for critical organizational units of the MINED (Dirección Nacional de Educación, Dirección Nacional de Gestión Departamental, Dirección de Planificación Educativa), and the 28 Direcciones Centrales and the design and implementation of a communication strategy for all stakeholders, and especially to involve the community in the school.

http://www.worldbank.org/projects/P126364/education-quality-improvement-project?lang=en&tab=overview

Beneficiaries: 41,000 Salvadoran students

Partners and financing: Government of El Salvador