K12 Digest® - May 2021 - International Edition - 21st Century Skills Coalition in Latin America and

LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN SPECIAL

INTERNATIONAL EDITION

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CENTURY SKILLS COALITION SUPPORTING TO BUILD THE FUTURE OF LEARNING ECOSYSTEMS IN LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN K12 Digest May 2021

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May 2021

Vol - 2 Issue - 4

Latin America & Caribbean Special Head of Advisory Board Dr. Varughese K.John, PhD

Managing Editor Sarath Shyam

Special Editor Juan Manuel Pico

Consultant Editors

Dr. Johny Andrews Andrew Scott Joseph Alex

Naomi Wilson Stanly Lui Emma James

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MANAGING EDITOR’S NOTE

When the Future Approaches Faster Than We Anticipated

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he world around us is transforming quicker than we thought. The digital revolution catalyzed by a devastating pandemic is testing our ability as a progressive society to respond and adapt. One of the important sectors that need immediate address is education, as it is imperative to create a young population who can find opportunities amid the adversities. In fact, there is growing interest worldwide in the link between education systems and the production of skills that are valued in the labour market. With growth stagnating and unemployment soaring in much of the world, educators are being asked to focus more on producing skills that feed into labour productivity and support the sustainable growth of employment and incomes.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB), together with partners from the public and private sector, has

launched the 21st Century skills Coalition to promote transversal skills and support the implementation of a new generation of educational and training policies. The initiative was created to respond to the new challenges faced by the individual of the 21st century, with an extremely dynamic environment, a rapidly changing labour market, and increasingly diverse societies.

The latest International edition of K12 Digest features insights and opinions of IDB’s 21st Century Skills Coalition members. If you are an actor from the public or private sector, civil society, or academia interested in developing 21st century talent, then these articles written by industry and academic leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean region are must-reads for you. We hope our efforts to collate these insightful opinions and ideas would ignite the minds of people around the world.

Enjoy Reading.

Sarath Shyam

K12 Digest May 2021

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INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD Chris Wright

Maarit Rossi

Former International School Principal, Former Group Project Director at a World Class Learning Group, Education Consultant - Wright Solutions, United Kingdom

Founder & CEO - Paths to Math Ltd, Former Mathematics Teacher and Principal, Global Teacher Prize Finalist, Finland

Dr. Stuart Grant Colesky Principal, Rundle College, South Africa

Zeljana Radojicic Lukic Exceptional Educator from Serbia, Founder of Association of the Best Teachers of the Former Yugoslavia, Founder of Magical Intercultural Friendship Network, Founder of Creative Magic - Children’s International Festival, Founder of Magic Village, Serbia

Asst. Prof. Dr. Poonsri Vate-U-Lan Assistant Professor in Education, Ph.D. Supervisor and Researcher, Thailand

Stephen Cox

Elena Shramkova

Chief Education Officer, New Nordic School, Finland

Liljana Luani

Senior Teacher ‘Pashko Vasa’ school Shkodra, Exceptional Volunteer, Albania

English and Literature teacher, Owner of “The Smart Teens Studio of English” in Belgorod, Russia

Ralph Valenzisi Chief of Digital Learning and Development, Norwalk Public Schools, Connecticut, United States

Hatem Slimane

Servatius (Servee) Palmans Former Director School Administration & Business Operations (Large Education Group), Chief Operating Officer - BBD Education, Dr. Lilian Bacich Netherlands & UAE Senior Educationist, Author, Keynote Speaker, Co-founder Tríade Educacional, Brazil

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Founder & National President - ATAST, General director of IFEST² the international projects competition in Tunisia, General secretary of MILSET Africa, BRISECC member, Tunisia

Juan Manuel Pico Education Soul Co-founder & HundrED Country Lead Colombia, Colombia

Hidekazu Shoto

Dr. Venus M. Alboruto

Angus Duthie

Master Teacher, Researcher, Innovator, Trainer, Philippines

Former Vice President Security (Large Education Group), Former British Army Officer (Airborne Forces), Senior Advisor – Resilience and Crisis Management (Emerald Solutions Group), United Kingdom & UAE

Innovative English and ICT Teacher, Author, Japan

Ian Deakin

Deputy Head and Dean of Faculty, Dalton Academy, Beijing, China

Shady Elkassas Rania Lampou

Global Teacher Prize Finalist 2019, 15 International Awards on STEM, STEM Instructor, Educator, Neuroscience Researcher, Trainer & Author, Greece

Assistant Principal, Sharjah American International School, United Arab Emirates

Fethy Letaief Distinguished Senior EFL Teacher, ISA Coordinator with the British Council, Motivational Speaker, Tunisia

Herwin Hamid

Ha Nga

EdTech Specialist, Speaker and Teacher Trainer, Innovative ICT Educator, ICT learning multimedia developer, Indonesia

Revolutionary English Educator, Globally Connected English Studio - Hanoi, Vietnam

Dr. Leonilo Basas Capulso Master Teacher, Speaker and Researcher, Philippines

Kihyun Park Innovative Educator of Online Classroom, Pungsaeng Middle School, South Korea

Mr. Ngô Thành Nam

Technology Academy Manager, Microsoft Learning Consultant, Global Trainer, Vietnam

Dr. Varughese K.John, PhD Former Program Director, MS in Management Program, GSATM - AU, Thailand & India

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21st Century Skills is an initiative led by the IDB that brings together public and private sector stakeholders.

The initiative strengthens learning ecosystems to equip Latin American and Caribbean citizens with transversal skills. These skills enable people in the region to grow, prosper and achieve higher levels of welfare.

We would not be able to do these alone.

We take ideas into action to expand our impact in the region.

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Our interventions contribute creating ecosystems and encouraging the involvement of public and private sectors and civil society organizations to ensure greater sustainability in the region.

K12 Digest May 2021

Join the initiative! www.clic-skills.iadb.org skills21@iadb.org @BIDeducacion

SPECIAL EDITOR’S NOTE

New Set of Skills to Prepare the Future Generations in Latin America and the Caribbean

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he digital era demands a new set of skills to navigate both the present and the future and to ask us what is being taught at schools, universities, and corporations. The world has had different times of disruption, and we are probably witnessing one of the major changes and challenges as we speak today.

Similar to what happened with the Second Industrial Revolution, where human physical labor was replaced with machines, the Fourth Industrial Revolution triggered the replacement of human mental labor with artificial intelligence, coding, automation, and many other digital innovations. To stay competitive in a world where change and uncertainty are the common currencies, human beings need to prepare themselves constantly on skills such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, information, technology, and above all, flexibility, leadership, and social readiness.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has led the 21st Century Skills Coalition, a

multi-sector partnership that promotes the development and strengthening of transversal skills, that supports to implement a new generation of education and training policies in Latin America and the Caribbean, completely aligned with the needs and demands of education at all levels.

In this issue, we have gathered multiple insights from the Coalition members that are leading projects in the region to reimagine education through a wide spectrum of initiatives. From Video Games to Computational Thinking, from fighting school dropouts to ending discriminatory mindsets, and from Sports as a tool for educate to SmartPhone Filmmaking to develop social and emotional skills for underserved communities in Latin America, you will find food for thought to get inspired and motivated to reply in other parts of the world proven models and experiences that are bringing real change to education.

Enjoy Reading.

Juan Manuel Pico International Advisory Board Member K12 Digest® K12 Digest May 2021

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F E A T U R E D ARTICLES

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VIDEO GAMES: MORE THAN JUST A GAME SOLUTIONS FOR EDUCATION FROM THE ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM

Alejandra Luzardo, Head - Disruptive Innovation and Creative Economies, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) & Co-Founder, Demand Solutions

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CODING THE FUTURE OF THE NEW GENERATION

Alejandro Villanueva, Director of Education, Fundación Televisa

REIMAGINE HIGHER EDUCATION AND REVOLUTIONISE HIGH SCHOOL Ben Nelson, Founder and CEO of Minerva

CONTENTS A WORLD OF CHANGEMAKERS Brenda Villegas, Head - Children and Youth Initiative, Ashoka Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean & CoFounder and Director, Conciencias Unidas

THE ROLE OF INITIATIVES FOR RAISING AWARENESS Carmen Pellicer, CEO, Trilema Group

#CRACKTHECODE: HOW SK TELECOM IS GENERATING SOCIAL VALUE THROUGH CODING EDUCATION IN PARAGUAY Changha Lee, Consultant, InterAmerican Development Bank & Seongwook Yang, Senior Social Education Manager of Environment Social Governance Group, SK Telecom

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F E A T U R E D ARTICLES CHALLENGES FOR AN IT BLENDED LEARNING PROGRAM UNDER A COVID-19 CONTEXT

EDUCATION UNINTERRUPTED: TECHNOLOGY FREE HOLISTIC LEARNING

Dessiré Medina, Research Associate and Carolina Magnet, Research Coordinator, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)

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THE RISE OF 21ST CENTURY SKILLS INNOVATIONS IN LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN Danny Gilliland, Head of Growth, HundrED & Liliana Serrano Pájaro, Communications Specialist Education Division, Inter-American Development Bank

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Janhvi MaheshwariKanoria, Director of the Innovation Development Directorate, Education Above All

68 COMPUTATIONAL THINKING IN THE URUGUAYAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM Emiliano Pereiro, Head of Computational Thinking, Plan Ceibal

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SMARTPHONE FILMMAKING: A JOURNEY TO DEVELOP SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL SKILLS FOR UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES IN LATIN AMERICA

SACUDETE STRATEGY: EMPOWERING A COLOMBIAN GENERATION FOR HAPPY AND PRODUCTIVE LIVES

Juan Manuel Pico, Co-Founder of Education Soul & Country Lead Colombia of HundrED

82 SCHOOL DROP OUT SHOULD NOT MEAN EDUCATIONAL DROP OUT: THE ROLE OF SOFT SKILLS IN THE GLOBAL EDUCATION COMPACT

José Maria del Corral, World Director, Scholas Occurrentes

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María Juliana Ruiz, First Lady of the Republic of Colombia

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THINK EQUAL IN COLOMBIA: THE END OF DISCRIMINATORY MINDSETS STARTS WITH THE CHILDREN Leslee Udwin, Founder and Executive Chair, Think Equal

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F E A T U R E D ARTICLES CHANGING THE NARRATIVE: THE POWER OF WIKIPEDIA TO FOSTER 21ST CENTURY SKILLS

FORGE FOUNDATION: TRAINING AND COACHING IN YOUTH TO ADULTHOOD TRANSITION

Melissa Guadalupe Huertas, Program Officer for Education and Nichole Saad, Senior Manager for Education, Wikimedia Foundation

106 SPORT AS A TOOL TO EDUCATE AND SPREAD PEACE

Maria Vallés, General Manager, Barça Foundation

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Rodrigo Kon, Executive Director and Francisco Ruiz, Director, Forge Foundation

120 HELLO DISRUPTION! Mercedes Mateo Diaz, Education Division Chief, Inter-American Development Bank

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REDUCA FOSTERS INCLUSIVE EDUCATION AND LIFE SKILLS IN LATIN AMERICA

DEFINING A 21ST CENTURY ECONOMY: JOB MARKET DEMANDS THAT PROFESSIONALS ACQUIRE UP-TODATE SKILLS IN THEIR AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Verónica Spross de Rivera, Coordinator of Latin American Network for Education (REDUCA) & Executive Director of Empresarios por la Educación

Sylvain Kalache, Co-founder, Holberton

134 THE CHALLENGES OF NON-LINEAR LEARNING Rodulfo Prieto, Co-founder, Laboratoria

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FÉLIX Y SUSANA: AN EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE Tatiana Henao Zuluaga, Social Management Coordinator, Fundación SURA

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FEATURED ARTICLE

VIDEO GAMES: MORE THAN JUST A GAME Solutions for Education from the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

Alejandra Luzardo, Head - Disruptive Innovation and Creative Economies, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) & Co-Founder, Demand Solutions

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Video games can also improve how we deal with conflict since many of the skills exercised through games consist of important cognitive and socio-emotional skills

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n 2020, a video game called Animal Crossing: New Horizons became a huge social phenomenon. It even reached American Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who started doing “house calls” or visiting other users’ virtual islands (Gordon, 2020). This example comes as no surprise once we learn that video games have attracted over half of the American population (Nielsen, 2020). Asia leads in the number of players, but Latin America is not far behind. The region comes third when it comes to the gamer population, with 383 million active users (Echagüe, 2020).

The pandemic only made the video game phenomenon grow in impressive numbers. Despite its long history of demonizing video games, even the press moved on to highlight their virtues. Video games went from entertainment tools to something that allowed users to socialize, learn, and carry out new virtual activities. This intersection between education and entertainment is called Edutainment, and it represents strong possibilities for game-based learning and 21st-century skills development. Several countries worldwide have already incorporated them as part of their educational strategies. Still, the practice

is not yet common in Latin America, primarily due to the lack of internet access and an overall unfamiliarity with its advantages.

Video games can also improve how we deal with conflict since many of the skills exercised through games consist of important cognitive and socioemotional skills. That is the case for Alpha Beat Cancer, a video game created by Beaba and Mukutu Games studios in Brazil that uses gamification to help children between the ages of 3 and 6 understand their cancer diagnosis. The game’s objective is to offer children simple and clear explanations of their condition and the different stages of treatment they will undergo (Luzardo et al., 2019).

The video games industry has not only succeeded at changing the way we learn. It has also managed to incorporate cutting-edge technology, ranging from facial recognition, virtual and augmented reality to the capacity to simulate real-world activities that can be applied for training in the medical field, construction, HRD recruiting, sports, and many other sectors. They can encourage creativity, focus, and multitasking.

They can also improve reaction time, processing speed, and stress levels. And most importantly,

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Alejandra Luzardo heads a broad initiative focus on Disruptive Innovation and Creative Economies at the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB). She also coordinates the research, design, execution, and evaluation of projects in the Creative Economy. She is Co-Founder of Demand Solutions, a platform for global innovators focused on inspiring and connecting innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. She is co-author of one of the most downloaded publications at IDB, Orange Economy: Innovations that you did not know were from Latin America and the Caribbean, which details the contributions of the so-called “Orange Economy” to the economies of the region. With over 20 years of experience in Multimedia, Entertainment, and Technology, Alejandra has built online technological solutions across a variety of international organizations. She is a founding member of Prodiseño, School of Visual Communication and Design in Caracas, Venezuela.

Alejandra holds a master’s degree in communication and film production from American University, Washington, DC. She has contributions in many areas to develop Latin America’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and actively participate as an advisory member in a variety of initiatives, among them, The Big Ideas Student Innovation Contest of the University of Berkeley, HundrED for 21st-century skills, The Index Project, The play challenge, and others.

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they allow us to make as many mistakes as necessary to overcome obstacles.

One of the most memorable cases that showcase video games’ potential is the story of Lucas Ordóñez, a Spanish racecar driver who entered professional racing by winning a spot in a PlayStation 3 Gran Turismo competition.

Ordóñez, who had no professional training and had only practised on a video game, managed to enter a real competition and even raced for Nissan in the 2009 GT4 European Cup season, where he won a spot on the podium during his first event (Villa Lunera Films, 2020).

Considering the video game industry’s growth spur during the pandemic and the knowledge condensed on the publication: “Video Games: More Than Just a Game: The Unknown Successes of Latin-American and Caribbean Studios,” from Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the IDB launched the PLAY Challenge. It was designed with the 21st-Century Skills in mind, to help identify the most innovative global solutions in the education sector and the Creative Economy, such as video games, platforms, and digital products that use gamification for the

development, measurement or certification of cognitive, socio-emotional or executive functioning skills.

We received 296 applications from 30 different countries. The finalists were chosen by a group of 14 jurors, including IDB specialists, investors, experts in educational video games, and members of the region’s innovation ecosystem. The evaluation criteria were the fulfillment of pedagogical objectives, innovation, the potential for scalability, operativity, and promotion rate. Finally, ten finalists from Israel, Mexico, Spain, Honduras, Brazil, Argentina, and Ecuador were selected, including: CodeMonkey Studios Studios (Israel): led

by Zack Isakow; Towi (Mexico): founded by Andrea Oviedo Villasana; Toolbox Academy (Spain): founded by Francisco Vico; CodedArena (Spain): founded by Jordi Rubio Moreno; Elements ME SAPI de CV (Mexico): founded by David Ahedo; Dadbox (Mexico): founded by Jennifer Reyna; Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL) (Ecuador): represented by Nayeth Solórzano; PIXDEA (Honduras): founded by Xavier Rubio; Canal SI Televisión (Argentina): founded by Luciano Zocola; Instituto Empatizar (Brazil): founded by Julio Cesar Teixeira de Freitas.

These 10 finalists competed for $10,000 USD, the possibility of implementing their solution in the region within the framework of the IDB’s 21st Century Regional

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Skills Project, as well as other prizes awarded by Altered Ventures, Bizarro Lab, Creative Business Cup, ENFC Paraguay, FCB México, Fábrica de Medios: FDM, Film Andes, Fundación Compromiso, Globant, New Ventures, Magicelab, Posibl, Seedstars, Stonebot Studio, Vertex Studio (BID, 2020). As part of the project, we created a network with more than 70 partners eager to join the video game conversation through webinars and social media.

Many of them had never become associated with the video game industry, but all were convinced that video games could become a tool capable of captivating students.

The most awarded solutions were: Marvelous KID from DADBOX (https://dadbox.mx/): A Mexican solution aimed at strengthening family ties through daily, 10-minute sessions with mom or dad.

Through physical cards and augmented reality, the game aims to develop soft skills in children between the ages of 6 and 10. The game is also orchestrated with the help of seven geniuses, based on Gardner’s seven kinds of intelligence, who come from a different universe to help children fight the forgotten power of human intelligence.

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Elements Music Experience (Elements ME) (https:// elementsme.com/): The pedagogical design of Elements ME allows users to develop the cognitive traits that make music the best tool to train and develop brain skills by training the four main competencies of the music language: listening, music theory, rhythm, and reading. Elements ME has more than 1,400 short sessions, similar to those of Duolingo and other language-learning apps.

LOLY- MIDI 2.0 (https://www.f6s.com/loly-midi): Through a robot called LOLY, children interact with academic content in video game formats. Its goal is to improve social development and cognitive skills in

children, particularly in those with autism. LOLY has been tested to positive results in the Asperger Ecuador Foundation Center, Ecuadorian Federation of the Autism Spectrum, and some schools promoting regular and inclusive education. The solution was designed by The Art, Design and Audiovisual Communication Faculty and the Center for Research, Development and Innovation of Computer Systems - CIDIS, from the Polytechnic University of Ecuador.

CODEDARENA (https://codedarena.com): Through a fun, game-based online platform, students as young as 11 years old can start learning Python, one of the most used programming languages today. CodedArena is a fantasy world whose inhabitants have forgotten how to do magic (coding). The student then establishes contact with an inhabitant of the Arena continent to relearn his magic. While students learn programming in a natural and entertaining way, teachers —even those with no computer experience— can see their progress through CodedClassroom, an online platform assisted by Artificial Intelligence that helps them introduce computational thinking into their classrooms.

It is indisputable that 2020 has been the greatest experiment in history to digitize education. It is time to

do away with preconceived notions and start seeing the video game industry as an opportunity for the growth and development of the Latin American and Caribbean region.

Neither players, businesses, investors, governments, nor the public can be indifferent to the socio-cultural phenomenon and the value it can bring to millions of students eager to learn in a new way. Educational transformation is no longer an aspiration but an imperative these days. Recognizing the value of creative industries in accelerating innovation will be key to continue finding new ways to close all the gaps in education.

The Play Challenge was conceived with this mindset to strengthen the IDB’s commitment to creating new learning opportunities by identifying new entrepreneurial proposals from outside formal systems. Nonetheless, the big challenge remains: to convince governments that these initiatives add value and could, in many cases, create better opportunities for vulnerable groups of people. With more than 70% of students staying home during the pandemic, it is important to emphasize that gamers are not only competing against strangers online, the generation Z, in particular, are using video games to forge genuine, longlasting friendships and develop valuable skills for the real world. Video games are definitely more than just a game.

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FEATURED ARTICLE

CODING THE FUTURE OF THE NEW GENERATION

By Alejandro Villanueva, Director of Education, Fundación Televisa

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Learning to code goes well beyond purely technical knowledge. It develops other core skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, project making, resiliency and unleashes creativity as kids discover they can build fun things with their new superpower!

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t was 2015. A small group at Fundacion Televisa came together to discuss the possibility of a new educational program that could be transformational for individual beneficiaries and have a large-scale impact on the country. As an institution with a long-term commitment to education and providing lifechanging opportunities, we rapidly recognized the urgent need to ensure that kids, primarily from public schools, are adequately prepared for the new jobs created by the information age. Like other emerging economies, Mexico has a historic chance to prepare its students for those jobs and trigger unprecedented economic growth, investing massively in talent. Several studies, like the ones from the Interamerican Development Bank and the World Economic Forum, give lists of exciting new careers and conclude that the not-so-distant future jobs require a new combination of technical, intellectual and emotional skills. Moreover, some studies also alert that not acting promptly creates a huge risk of broadening employability inequalities for today`s children and youth, particularly those from low-income families.

With the first decision made, the next question was how. We needed an ambitious statement, clear enough to rally the necessary partnerships and a sound methodology that would allow us to scale effectively and efficiently. Our initial goal would be “to teach one million children how to code” so we could groom a new generation capable not only of using technology but of creating it. Learning to code goes well beyond purely technical knowledge.

It develops other core skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, project making, resiliency and unleashes creativity as kids discover they can build fun things with their new superpower! With this aspiration, the team began researching and brainstorming. After a few days, we met with Alicia Lebrija, the foundation´s president, to share our findings and thoughts. We learned from what other organizations around the world were doing and also from our own foundation programs, including a pilot effort with young Latinas in the US. At some point, Alicia paused the meeting to make a bold assertion: “if we really want a scalable program that reaches every kid, we necessarily have to work with public schools, within school hours, together with

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Alejandro Villanueva very much enjoys family, friends and food and loves nature, scientific progress, fantastic stories, and futurism. As an explorer and a solver, Alejandro is passionate about the path from a big challenge to a new solution. Today, Alejandro works at Fundacion Televisa with an amazing band of colleagues to basically figure out how a small group of people and a network of committed partners can provide alternative futures to a million people every year. In his role, Alejandro engages with governments, companies, universities, organizations, and individual citizens to create life changing opportunities on a sustained basis and a long-term perspective. A combination of mass media, interactive tools and onthe-ground interventions to inspire and support people primarily in Mexico but also reaching the Latinx community in the United States and other countries in the region. Before, he had another incredible time at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation focusing on countries across Latin America and the Caribbean. He previously worked at AXA, ING, McKinsey, served as City Counselor and started a couple of tech-based companies.

Alejandro holds a master’s degree in business and has participated in several executive programs from institutions including Harvard Kennedy School, the University of Chicago, Wharton School of Business, and the Aspen Institute. As an employee, a consultant, a mentor, and entrepreneur, his life has been mostly about imagining and co-creating change, building bridges and stirring in choppy waters.

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teachers and authorities”. This idea would guide the core structure of our program in the years to come.

Right after that meeting, many questions arose.

First, we had no idea if the school community would be open even to try and eventually embrace the program.

Second, we did not know if elementary and secondary school teachers with no technical knowledge or coding experience would be able to teach computer science and coding basics. We were also concerned that connectivity limitations at schools would be an insurmountable obstacle.

Finally, how can we best support teachers systematically to improve the chances of the program actually being implemented and gain ownership for the longer term?

There were many examples of “special” projects failing because they only relied on initial training with no followup. As a foundation, we had a good experience in content creation through the Valores (values) program reaching every elementary school classroom in Mexico and training over 100,000 teachers through Becalos. This new program aimed to develop/curate a state-of-the-art curriculum, train the teachers in something completely new for most and support them along the year to increase our chances for true impact. And, we also needed a good name!

The team continued researching and put together an advisory group with the support of professor Victor

Gonzalez. He invited leading computer science figures from public and private universities to serve as a sounding board. After several conversations, we finally came to a proposed operating model based on three key ideas: 1. The curriculum should include both connected and disconnected activities so that learning can be both individual (or in small groups) in front of a computer and collective with the teacher working with the whole class.

Also, to give teachers some flexibility when connectivity may be a problem. While our pilot started with 10 lessons for 5th grade, we eventually developed 40 lessons for each grade from 1st to 9th. Everything is in Spanish with structured lesson plans and links to existing free tools like Scratch. Most tools have Spanish versions or at least translated instructions. The curriculum is based on several international efforts that generously agreed to share with us, including code.org and Fundacion Sadosky. We learned a lot from them! Ours is all available online and totally free.

2. Teacher training should include several sessions (actually four) throughout the school year so that they can learn, implement and come back with doubts, comments and learning from other teachers’ experiences. Sessions vary between 4 and 8 hours. They can be in person or remote. Later on, the team developed a free MOOC in

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Spanish as a preparation for the training and as a standalone tool for teachers working autonomously (not within a school formally included in the program).

3. A facilitator would follow up with clusters of 15-25 schools visiting one per day to support teachers, address questions or issues and capture progress. This idea implied that we had to work with clusters in the same city and within a reasonable radius. We would also include remote support (phone, email, chat) and a follow-up downloadable app.

These facilitators are not necessarily computer science experts but more pedagogical advisors who can effectively work with teachers and have an educational mindset. They do get in-depth training in our curriculum and have weekly coordination with a program leader.

With this in hand, we first approached IZZI, the telecom company of Televisa, to co-fund the pilot. We also had the support of AMITI, the Mexican Association of the Information Technology Industry, and BIC, an international consumer goods company. Together with IZZI and inspired by quantum computing, we defined a name: CUANTRIX. The new program aspired to create exponential opportunities for kids and massive change for Mexico as a whole.

So, in the spring of 2016, we were ready to launch a 10-week pilot before the end of the school year to test the whole idea. Intel helped us introduce the program in two public schools where they were already working,

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and we asked the Ministry of Education for two more with no special interventions. The results were incredibly promising. Principals and teachers were overall very supportive, declaring things like: “this is truly beneficial for our students”, “our students were collaborating as they discovered and shared”, “(students) were enthusiastic as they love everything that has to do with technology”.

Teachers seem to be motivated by the kids’ excitement with the new activities and tools. They talked about igniting creativity, innovation, learning by playing and other positive outcomes. With the feedback, we rapidly began to prepare for a year-long second pilot with 5th graders in over 300 elementary schools in 8 states. The results were again quite positive. Over 80% of participating students reached a satisfactory level. Nonetheless, we also learned some key lessons on scaling based on failures.

We talked to education authorities at different levels based on previous contacts or just cold calls to extend the program. In some states, we spoke with the secretary, but in others with either an advisor, an undersecretary, the technology director or the head of elementary schools.

Most of them were open, a bit sceptical but allowed us to work with their schools. Yet, as we began conversations for the following cycle, we found that only in those places where the secretary was committed were we able to continue since it implied a co-financing of the program.

Two of the states that were pioneers in that first round and

continue to work with the program are Campeche and Sonora. There has been a change in leadership in the education ministry in both cases, but the program keeps going.

After the first year of operations and administration, we concluded that we needed an experienced partner to implement both trainings and facilitators. We reached out to UNETE, a national leader in tech programs for public schools. With them, we developed a model where each school, independently of its size, would cost around 1,500 USD for the whole year, with all costs included considering clusters of 20-25 schools. This meant an average investment of 7.5 USD per child for up to 40 hours of instruction.

The average before the pandemic was 15 hours meaning 50 cents per hour of instruction (just as a reference, in Mexico, an hour of coding lessons in a private afterschool program costs 10-15 USD).

We usually split the cost with the federal, state or municipal governments and other private donors like Microsoft, Accenture and SURA. In summary, we build partnerships and develop all content. UNETE does the heavy lifting on the ground for training and follow-up. Together we analyze progress and act accordingly. In the 1819 cycle, we reached an estimate of 110,000

kids, including Cuantrix schools and autonomous teachers, using our content.

For the 2019-2020 year, we continued to work with several states but were specially honoured to begin a large-scale collaboration with the Federal Education Authority for Mexico City. We trained close to 10,000 teachers reaching around 766 elementary schools with over 200,000 students in a record time. Although the pandemic meant a change in the implementation strategy, we agreed with the authority to expand the program to over 900 schools for the 20-21 cycle. Moreover, we also worked with the ministry of education TV team (DGTVE) to create over 100 short videos reaching an estimate of 2 million kids on TV and multiple websites. These videos were cosponsored by the Lego Foundation and had valuable feedback from an MIT media lab team. As of now, we are preparing the back-to-school implementation, working on a new generation of online tools, a new AI curriculum for middle school and a new format for a nationwide coding challenge. We are also working on a computer basics program for families so they can better support their kids. Finally, as we (hopefully) return to schools, we will engage in a three-year impact evaluation to gain a much deeper understanding.

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FEATURED ARTICLE

REIMAGINE HIGHER EDUCATION AND REVOLUTIONISE HIGH SCHOOL A conversation with Ben Nelson, Founder and CEO of Minerva

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Minerva has reinvented everything in the higher education system, from what it teaches to how, where and who it teaches it to

M

inerva Project is a pathbreaking educational innovator, providing top-tier higher education offerings to its flagship Minerva Schools at KGI and other educational and corporate partners. Founded by Ben Nelson in 2011, Minerva’s mission is to nurture critical wisdom for the sake of the world. Building upon the best traditions of liberal arts and sciences education, Minerva is committed to preparing global leaders and innovators for the complexities of the 21st century. Minerva provides an exceptional education at a fraction of the cost of other top universities.

A new standard of quality education was introduced in summer 2020 by the Minerva Baccalaureate. It is a new interdisciplinary high school that provides a transformative four-year curriculum for students seeking to accelerate their high school education and benefit from a collaborative online learning environment.

Ben Nelson is a visionary with a passion to reinvent education. Before Minerva, Nelson spent more than 10 years at Snapfish, where he helped build the company from startup to the world’s largest personal publishing service. Prior to joining Snapfish, Nelson was President and CEO of Community Ventures, a network of locally branded portals for American communities.

About Minerva Tell us about Minerva. You were extremely successful at what you were doing before entering the education business. What drove you to take on a revolutionary project like this? Why take the risk?

I have always been interested in education, even back when I was in high school and college. The idea of reforming higher education emanated from a course I took in my first semester at university. The basic premise was illuminated by what a Liberal Arts education is, which is being able to educate citizens in the various disciplines (or arts) to have liberty – hence the liberal arts. The liberty to choose one’s life path (as opposed to being a subject of the crown or the cross) means you have learned broadly applicable, transferable skills.

So, I was dismayed by the fact that our entire system of government is dependent on a type of education that does not actually exist.

And so, if we are going to have a free society anywhere in the world, you have to change the way you educate people.

I spent my four years as an undergrad trying to fix my university, but failed because there was no interested

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party who wanted to advocate for a more rigorous approach to education necessary for the long run benefit of society.

So when I graduated, I gave up. But the idea never left me and after nearly fifteen years of seeing the outcomes of a society that hasn’t been educated in systematic thinking I decided I need to do something about it. That’s what led to building Minerva as an ideal university to set an example for all others.

What are the benefits of the Minerva approach?

Why do you offer undergrad students the option to study in 7 different cities throughout the program?

Minerva has reinvented everything in the higher education system, from what it teaches to how, where and who it teaches it to. The curriculum (the what) is based on contextualising the four systems of thinking- formal, empirical, complex and rhetorical- that underpin core competencies such as critical thinking, creative thinking, effective communication and collaboration. We sub-divided these competencies into 80 learning outcomes which we ensure our students build intuitions around that allow them to apply them in useful ways no matter what situation they find themselves in. The pedagogy (the how) is based on decades of research in the

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science of learning. It ensures that students engage in deep processing and making and using associations for the vast majority of class time, relegating knowledge acquisition to out of class time. All this learning takes place (the where) in a virtual learning environment, designed intentionally to enable the kinds of curricular, pedagogical, and feedback systems that have led to the kinds of educational outcomes that distinguish Minerva from every other educational institution in the world. And finally, we admit (the who) students based on their competence without relying on any external standardised testing or other measures that advantage the wealthy.

Our own students at Minerva Schools at KGI spend the first year in San Francisco and then spend the next three years in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Hyderabad, London, Seoul, and Taipei. We believe that in order to prepare students for the world, you do not sequester them in a plush campus behind gates, but you give them the opportunity to navigate the world. Rather than being offered a cafeteria, a gym, and other campus amenities, our students have to learn to navigate new cities, new cultures, and new languages to find ingredients to cook and places to work out. It is part of their learning journey where they start understanding

What is the proportion of students from LatinAmerican and the Caribbean in the undergraduate program? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What potential do you see among these students that has not yet been realised?

Around 10% of our students come from Latin America and the Caribbean. Perhaps the best reality that Minerva has demonstrated is that a student’s country or region of origin is far less determinant of their personal traits and capacity than a host of other factors. I couldn’t tell you about the distinguishing challenges or accomplishments of our Latin American students any more than I could tell you about those characteristics of our tall students.

Because Minerva does not have a student body population where any one region or country is the majority, every student may face an initial culture shock from living with such a diverse community. However, this initial change is also one of the greatest benefits of Minerva as students are able to see the perspective of a wide range of cultures in addition to the seven different global cities they live in during their four years. Students of any nationality who have the drive to improve themselves as learners and who embrace challenge as a means of personal growth are well prepared for the Minerva experience.

Perspective about K-12 education

the importance of cultural contexts and acquire a global mindset—it is yet another dimension of re-contextualisation that is critical in attaining wisdom.

Let’s talk about evaluations in Minerva. Is it true that there is no grading, and there is no comparison among university students? Do you think you can apply the same logic to K-12 education?

There are no high-stake exams at Minerva, but there are definitely assessments, evaluations, and feedback.

Students are graded on the depth of their understanding, implementation and, most importantly, breadth of application, in other words, how they can transfer each learning outcome to new contexts. Exams and other high stakes summative assessments measure how much information a student has retained at a particular point in time which the science of learning has shown do not reflect long term learning. In the Minerva philosophy, students are given feedback after every written or oral interaction they contribute, thus ensuring continuous progress.

This applies to our own students, as well as students at our partner organisations at the high school, college or professional levels.

What was your experience like as a K-12 student?

First and foremost, I think it is essential to break the myth that K-12 is anything more than an artificial construct.

Heaven forbid if anyone’s Kindergarten experience resembles any aspect of their 11th-grade experience.

Having said that, my K-12 experience was very different throughout. I went to three elementary schools in two

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different countries, but I always was ahead of my class. My middle school experience continued that trend of checking the boxes better than most but feeling less and less challenged. By high school, I realised that the primary function of the school was not in educating but in certifying, and I decided to make the most of that. By befriending various teachers and administrators in the high school, I got excused from a number of low weight courses and substituted them with new courses or independent studies that were highly weighted. The result was that I had the highest grade point average in my high school’s history—and by quite a margin—even though I wasn’t even the most academically distinguished student in my grade.

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What is the role of K-12 education in the 21st century?

What is the future of K-12 education?

All too often, we fall into the trap of certification as the goal of K-12—it is not. The role of all educational institutions, including those that serve the K-12 market, is to educate.

This probably sounds absurd to have to mention. But the reality is that from policymakers to funders (philanthropic, government, or families) to those in the hierarchy of decision making in the K-12 or higher education sectors, the focus is almost exclusively on certification. We all hear the same three refrains as problems: Access, completion, and cost. There is a magic bullet that solves all three issues: lower standards. If you demand little from students, you can ensure that everyone gets access to information, completion rates can skyrocket, and it certainly doesn’t cost much. But these problems are not at the core; they are symptoms. They arise because what we teach is not relevant or useful for students, and we do so without using the best methodologies. K-12 education, especially at the secondary school level, should focus on graduating students with skills that enable them either to succeed in life—be it in the job market or further their education. In elementary schools and middle schools, much of that revolves around the basics of education. Secondary schools still focus on information acquisition in an information-ubiquitous age.

What they should teach is how students can transfer cognitive and social skills into new contexts.

What can K-12 schools learn from Minerva Project?

We have been asked that question by high schools from all over the world for a number of years and, last summer, we launched the Minerva Baccalaureate. We leveraged much of our learning from our undergraduate program but adapted it to the core areas of knowledge that are universally agreed upon in the high school context. What that curriculum does, and what all secondary schools can learn from us, falls into three camps: 1) Deeply engage students in their learning so that every lesson of every class is seminal; 2) Make sure that no lesson is created in isolation and that learnings in one class get re-contextualised by applying them in others; 3) ensure that formative feedback around the application of knowledge is at the core of student incentives. At the same time, I wouldn’t be able to authoritatively speak to any aspect of elementary or middle school education—it’s simply not an area that I know the science behind well enough.

What are the skills that you emphasise in your programs? Are they different in your high school and university programs?

What is missing in all of the major high school curricular paradigms is cross-disciplinarity. High schools teach subject

Its innovative creation of a new university program is detailed in Minerva’s Co-op Model: A Pathway to Closing the Skills Gap. This paper, done by Minerva and the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), explores Minerva’s model for collaboration between higher education providers and employers designed to overcome 21st-century challenges. In this co-op model, students earn a bachelor’s degree in three years while also working part-time during the second and third years. This model provides students with the foundational skills and knowledge needed to become broad, interdisciplinary thinkers while also giving them valuable work experience for which they earn credit while pursuing their degree.

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matters, but students do not learn how they all interlink, or more importantly, how to approach realworld challenges with a complex, multi-disciplinary lens. This is what Minerva sought to address when it built its Minerva Baccalaureate. For example, the use of evidence to support an argument is applicable in almost every subject, so in the Minerva Baccalaureate, the learning outcome we call #evidencebased is a crossdisciplinary outcome and is taught in the context of the sciences social sciences and language arts. In addition to teaching math, science, history, and English, the Minerva Baccalaureate also has a track on personal efficacy, which is invaluable for high school students.

Our university programs leverage many of the same learning outcomes at a more advanced level as well as introduce dozens of new learning outcomes that are not appropriate for students who are in the early stages of high school. Unlike the high school curricula that cover subject matter concepts that are broadly agreed upon (e.g. in the sciences, the principles of chemistry, biology, and physics), our undergraduate curricula are solely focused on a set of required cognitive tools and then let students decide what cross-disciplinary areas they are interested in learning more deeply.

Do you think people will need to go to higher education in the future? Do you think this will be a prerequisite for success?

There are many ways to succeed, and university education is but one of them. There are examples of economies and societies (e.g., Germany) that thrive with a small proportion (less than a third) of the

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population receiving a traditional university education.

And any holistic education reform should examine different pathways for success. However, I still believe in the importance of quality university education when it is the right path. I also believe that the evolution of our societies and the changing nature of work will make the ability to keep learning and acquiring new skills be the main prerequisite for success.

What do you believe is the future of education?

The future of education will be anchored on wisdom as opposed to information. That is not to say that information will not be a core component of the attainment of wisdom (it will), but the nature of education will focus on enabling students to apply learning in original and non-obvious ways.

Do you have plans for expansion in the LAC region in the future? Can you share a preview with us?

At Minerva Schools at KGI, our students already spend one semester of their third year in Buenos Aires. This was not possible in 2021, given the pandemic, but we hope to return there next year. We also have two partners in the Caribbean, one high school that is offering the Minerva Baccalaureate and a business school offering a suite of courses for the senior corporate executives. We are also in partnership conversations with institutions across the region for everything from our high school and university programs to our executive education and professional learning portfolio.

OUR WORK IN EDUCATION EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING FOR ALL CHILDREN AND YOUTH IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

We work to improve lives in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Through financial and technical support for countries working to reduce poverty and inequality, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) helps improve health and education, and advance infrastructure. Our aim is to achieve development in a sustainable, climate-friendly way. With a history dating back to 1959, today we are the leading source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean.

We provide loans, grants, and technical assistance; and we conduct extensive research. We maintain a strong commitment to achieving measurable results and the highest standards of integrity, transparency, and accountability.

The IDB prioritizes social inclusion and equality; productivity and innovation; and regional economic integration in its development work across Latin America and the Caribbean.

IDB Headquarters 1300 New York Av. N.W. Washington, D.C. 20577, USA www.iadb.org/en Inter-American Development Bank @the_IDB

@BIDeducacion

el_bid BLOGS

The IDB supports education systems of Latin America and the Caribbean countries to reach five dimensions that will contribute to making them successful in promoting effective teaching and learning among all children and youth. The IDB Invest also finances projects to expand educational opportunities for low income students.

CURRENT FOCUS AREAS 1. Ensure that individuals have equitable access to high-quality and relevant learning opportunities throughout life.

2. Strengthen quality and relevance assurance mechanisms.

3. Consolidate and develop better funding and co-funding mechanisms to the improve efficiency, effectiveness, and coverage of skills development opportunities.

4. Leverage the use of technology to increase access and equity to skills development opportunities and to improve the efficiency of skills development systems.

5. Actively promote the generation and use of evidence to inform decisions on skills development.

EDUCATION INITIATIVES • • • • • • • • •

blogs.iadb.org/educacion/en/

• •

Early Childhood Development Educación Mesoamérica Knowledge Hub On Early Childhood Development In Latin America And The Caribbean Latin America In Pisa Aprendamos Todos A Leer 21st Century Skills CIMA: Education Statistics Portal Learning In 21st Century Schools PRIDI: Regional Project on Child Development Indicators Rise Up Against Climate Change All Children Count K12 Digest May 2021

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FEATURED ARTICLE

A WORLD OF CHANGEMAKERS Brenda Villegas, Head - Children and Youth Initiative, Ashoka Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean & Co-Founder and Director, Conciencias Unidas

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Ashoka promotes actions to build a world where children and youth learn and practice the necessary skills to generate positive changes in their environment

F

rom an incredibly young age, I began to see the world with eyes of change. Many things hurt me: I saw hunger, injustice, violence, poverty, environmental deterioration, and I wanted to do something to solve each problem. I thought I was passionate about everything, but later I realized that I have an entire lifetime to create the changes I wanted.

Because of this, I reflected that if more people realized and understood their problems, we could join forces to create solutions, but how to achieve it?

Undoubtedly, education is one of the key tools to provoke changes in mentality, to recognize ourselves as capable people with talents, skills and knowledge that can be put at the service of others regardless of our age, academic area, religion, or occupation. In the end, we can all contribute to the common good. With this in mind, I created a socio-environmental education project, “United Consciences.” At the age of 18, I met Ashoka after being selected as a Young Changemaker in the Youth Venture program and, since then, I have shared the vision of “Everyone a Changemaker.”

For more than 40 years, Ashoka has recognized social entrepreneurs, people who dedicate their entire lives to solving the most pressing social and environmental problems in their context and connecting them by

joining a global network they take the role as Ashoka Fellows. To date, Ashoka has brought together more than 3,700 entrepreneurs from more than 90 countries, weaving a high-impact global network. This is how Ashoka’s learning arises from its network to co-design new action strategies. A consistent pattern has been that, regardless of their culture, religion, and political systems, entrepreneurs seek to empower more people as changemakers and co-create the conditions for a new culture of change-making by putting young people in charge. Ashoka has recognized that the moment when youth experience and is capable of having a dream, with the support of a team and take action, they´ll activate their power to transform that will continue for the rest of their life, and my story is proof of this.

Ashoka promotes actions to build a world where children and youth learn and practice the necessary skills to generate positive changes in their environment.

A world where we redefine what success is when we grow.

New inequality As Bill Drayton, Founder of Ashoka, frames it, for centuries, human activity has been defined by repetition, governed by a small elite, and contained

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Brenda leads the Children and Youth initiative for Ashoka Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, and she is Co-founder and Director of Conciencias Unidas A.C. and is part of the global youth network “Global Changemakers”. She has a degree in Marketing and is a Master in Educational Innovation for Sustainability. Brenda has represented the voice of youth in different organizations, movements in national and international events, she is a facilitator of learning experiences to promote change-making and her dream is a world where we have more spaces of hope that allow us to recognize ourselves and act as changemakers.

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by rigid hierarchies and monolithic institutions.

However, this world is now rapidly giving way to an environment that is fundamentally characterized by change, an increasingly fluid open world that is organized in a massive network.

The World Economic Forum announced that more than a third of the desired basic skills in most occupations will be those that are not yet considered crucial for the current job. McKinsey Global Institute also announces that by 2030, around 800 million jobs will be displaced by new technologies. For there to be an adjustment to the new reality, it is required that people acquire other skills, which generates a great responsibility for education. In a changing context such as today, the challenge is to prepare to cultivate cognitive, social and emotional skills for a future that we do not know and cannot predict.

Faced with this reality, never before in history has there been so many people interconnected, interactive, and so widely influential. Every human action has consequences, and today more than ever, even the smallest actions can have an almost immediate impact. People today must develop and use the skills to navigate the new world, to adapt and prosper: the change-making skills.

At Ashoka, we have identified a new paradigm for living and working together in this radically different world and have identified four change-making skills in this framework: • Empathy Understand the feelings and perspectives of other people and use that knowledge to guide our actions. Empathy is the basis of social cohesion and innovation for decision-making and action.

• Collaborative work Power to cultivate autonomous teams and generate synergies that go in all directions with other teams and sectors.

• Shared leadership Dynamics of free interaction and horizontal communication, where each voice is heard, and thus better ideas and more leaders flow within a group.

• Creativity to solve problems.

Take our ideas into action to transform our environment thinking critically and systemically.

Changemakers do not wait for permission but take the initiative to action, nor rely on hierarchy to lead, but instead form teams and work with other organizations, groups, companies, and collectives.

A person can be a changemaker in any organization and from any level of ranking.

Ashoka emphasizes that changemakers are leaders but not the kind we are used to. For much of our history, humans have organized around repetition, which is the opposite of change.

Changemakers are leaders who embrace new forms of influence and social interaction, recognize decision-making as an inclusive, collaborative and interdisciplinary process in which everyone has something to offer to the success of a project.

At Ashoka, we believe that becoming a changemaker needs to be at the centre of every young person’s development experience and that the successful organizations of the future will have a culture focused on this new leadership. We believe that each person must have environments and experiences, from birth to adulthood, that are explicitly designed to foster their change-making skills.

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Youth in charge We need to transform the way we all grow up and re-imagine what it means for a young person to reach his/her potential or to be successful in school and in life. We need to redefine what success means.

Measures of academic achievement and employability are simply not enough, and with these changemaking skills, youth will have what it needs to take charge.

Learning to be a changemaker must become the new norm for growth. In this historical moment, it is time for a great change, a great movement. It is time for a new literacy, the literacy of Everyone a Changemaker.

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This movement needs young co-leaders worldwide.

This leadership impacts locally and on a large scale to encourage more young people to recognize and activate their power of change.

From Ashoka’s outreach in Latin America, we have advanced strategies to bring together a community of educational leaders to co-lead the great change. We work with key players in the educational ecosystem to promote together an education that goes beyond students as people who sit at their desks with their textbooks open to listen to teachers, and that goes beyond tests and homework.

It is approaching education in a way that transforms the lives of students, their families, and entire communities.

We work with universities recognized as Changemaker Campus for promoting excellence for social innovation and change-making and a movement of Changemaker Schools that base their educational models on empathy and collaborative work. From each country, we promote different transformation actions such as inspiring stories and a Young Changemakers network.

Especially in Mexico, we work through a strategy called Millions of Changemakers, a community of people and organizations committed to promoting and supporting others to become Changemakers through a digital platform that recognizes actions/efforts through their current or new long-term initiatives that promote social impact.

This isn´t enough, we have also built methodologies and resources to inspire and equip more children and young people to become changemakers through inspiring stories, communities of carefully selected young people who learn and work with each other and tools for teachers, educators, and parents to exercise the change-making skills as values at home and at school.

This is how, from a very young age, I have believed in Ashoka’s vision, and now from my role within the organization, I continue to promote actions that connect with my heart: knowing that each person has the potential to trigger the change that wants to see in the world. The vision of an education where students become changemakers who, from inside and outside the classroom, have the power to change their reality through exercising different types of thinking, tools, and skills.

I believe in an education where students become changemakers who, from inside and outside the classroom, have the power to change their reality through exercising different types of thinking, tools, and skills. From a very young age, I have believed in Ashoka’s vision. Now, from my role within the organization, I continue to promote actions that connect with my heart: knowing that each person can trigger the change that wants to see in the world.

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FEATURED ARTICLE

THE ROLE OF INITIATIVES FOR RAISING AWARENESS Carmen Pellicer, CEO, Trilema Group

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A positive consequence of COVID is the normalisation of virtual channels for training. We are happy to see each other on Zoom, and what’s more, trust in those onscreen meetings to give feedback to those teachers who are keen to apply in their classrooms what they have learned

T

he Right to Education of all the boys and girls on the planet is not completed once schooling is over. Once this is achieved, the question of the models and the strategies that allow for the optimal development of all the dimensions of each person is fundamental. The programmes of raising awareness are invariably one-offs, conferences, short courses, webinars, which in spite of not having an immediate impact, can nevertheless open up new perspectives, broaden our outlook and allow us to avoid the danger of accepting mediocrity. They should focus on encouraging self-analysis and provide the motivation to improve. Enthusiasm is a constant in these large gatherings, evident in the more than 2000 teachers in Chaco, Argentina or in Inca in Peru, with the Consortium of Catholic Education, to the numerous meetings in Colombia with the network of Ashoka Changemaker Schools or CONACED, the presentations in in-service training days organised by publishers and journals, associations such as IPAE and CIEC, and Universities like Andres Bello in Caracas or USIL in Peru. In these last five years, our teams have been involved in more than 100 on-site or virtual professional development courses.

This has allowed us to meet thousands of teachers who share the same concerns: Learn more to Teach better.

The Design of the Training Programmes Since 2017 we have visited the Chilean region of Antofagasta on several occasions, initially for professional development relating to assessment for 500 teachers in early years education. Some months later, we travelled throughout the region, giving workshops for teachers and talks for parents. This year, we are undertaking various systematic programmes relating to different aspects of innovation in infant education with groups of 240 teachers.

This is a good example of how we can advance from an initial motivation to the design of longer interventions that allow us to explore those aspects of school organisation and learning in greater depth. A positive consequence of COVID is the normalisation of virtual channels for training. We are happy to see each other on Zoom, and what’s more, trust in those on-screen meetings to give feedback to those teachers who are keen to apply in their classrooms what they have learned. In Argentina and Colombia especially, we have imparted various programmes relating to Executive Functions and Learning to Think, within the project ‘21st Century Skills’, as well as ‘Entrepreneur Education for Children’, Spiritual Competence, and ‘Flow, Happy and Healthy Kids,’ a programme that combines both Health and

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“Throughout these in-service days, many things occur in the activities room, a lot more than we are able to realise or register. For that reason, what we have done in the course, the ability to train our way of looking and how we observe the actions of the children is of paramount importance, employing a systematic model that gathers information concerning the different dimensions, cores and areas that working in early years involves.”

- Gissele Guajardo, Antofagasta Infant Teacher

Emotional Education. These programmes are linked to the publication of classroom materials that facilitate their implementation in the classroom. They do not involve so much initial information but provide sufficient materials to help teachers to be clear about the pedagogical principles needed for a specific classroom methodology. The problem comes when the school environment is not prepared for these types of novel programmes. They can however have a domino effect, that is to lead the centre to put into practice more ambitious and longer-lasting processes of change.

Models of Institutional Support The school Los Angeles in Costa Rica in recent years has carried out a programme centred on the Mapping of a New Curriculum and the implementation of a model of work with Interdisciplinary Projects, all of which combines training in active methodologies and assessment tools of competencies of all members of staff. The monthly meetings make clear the work that needs to be done and provide a personalised attention service, while the ‘TTC, Trilema Teaching Centre’ allows teachers individually to consult trainers concerning doubts. Every three months,

Caracas, Gathering with ChangeMaker Ashoka Schools and Nazareth Sacred Family Daughters

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Carmen Pellicer is the CEO of Trilema Group and ASHOKA Fellow 2016. She directs the monthly prestigious Journal “Cuadernos de Pedagogía”. As a theologian, educator and writer, Carmen Pellicer has set out to create a solid, tangible and functioning integral approach to change the educational system. In the last few years, Carmen and her team have empowered 50.000 teachers in Spain, LATAM and Africa.

Carmen created Trilema Foundation, an organisation founded by teachers created to empower other teachers as pioneers of a much needed educational transformation.

For Carmen to have a motivated staff and 21st Century Skills in all schools is a must, that´s why she has created an inclusive process so any school can start their own transformation.

She has been able to replicate this in ‘Escuelas que Aprenden’ 60 Schools Network. In the last years, she has assumed the ownership of 7 schools at a special situation of risk because her aim is educational excellence to reach all students, especially those who have difficulties.

She runs actions that impact the design of classroom materials, children’s stories to develop the emotions and impart values, audiovisual productions with social impact, collaborative initiatives in research in universities, or collaboration in debates of educational policies. She was one of the authors of the White Paper about the Teaching Profession that was at the centre of the political debate on education.

One of the keys to Carmen´s work is the thoroughness with which the Foundation´s initiatives are built, resulting in great credibility with the different educational institutions, researching on intelligence as the chair of the Executive Intelligence Degree at Nebrija University, directing the master’s degree in Pastoral Education at La Salle University in Madrid, developing training programs in Africa with AECID (Spanish International Cooperation and Development Agency) or joint Entrepreneurship Educational initiatives with the Princess of Gerona Foundation.

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Bogotá, Plaque Ceremony at Santa Francisca School

“After finishing the diploma in pedagogical coaching of the Trilema foundation, those of us from the Gimnasio Moderno were left with the sensation of having been through during these five days a pertinent and inspiring experience. And one that definitely will be of great help with the pedagogical transformations that we are leading. As a management team, we do many courses. However, we have to say that this diploma has a special significance for us as we feel that this is only the beginning of a very promising future for us, principally for three factors: 1. The proposal of Trilema, specifically the structure of their different classroom support (tools, mentoring, coaching etc.). They have directed us a lot in the creation of our system of assessment and the training of our teachers.

2. Their coaching strategies have allowed us to understand the importance of staff relationships and the careful use of language in our efforts to improve.

3. Finally, we would like to underline the involvement with the teachers and management of Las Pachas and Los Nogales, and of Montessori, three schools from which have a lot to learn and with whom we would like to think about shared projects.

Sometimes organisations are somewhat endogamous. Experiences like this remind us that we do our work better when we work together, exchanging experiences and motivations.”

- Santiago Espinosa, Gimnasio Moderno, Bogotá

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The TRILEMA Foundation, founded by a group of committed teachers, began life in Spain more than 20 years ago and has a long history of innovation, research and professional development programmes.

At present, it manages seven of its own schools and is the driving force behind a network ‘Learning Schools’ to which more than 60 states, state-aided and private schools from four countries belong, sharing our values and our pedagogical model of teaching and learning.

Based on that experience of the transformation of the everyday life of our educational centres, which are so different but which have in common the experience of innovation, our team of 30 trainers accompanies and supports hundreds of schools and educational institutions in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Costa Rica and Colombia Our vision issues from the profound conviction that Educational Excellence is a right of all students and one that must be guaranteed, above all, for the most vulnerable. This vision gives coherence to our presence in Latin America through various approaches throughout the last ten years.

the management team evaluates the process and indicates the new objectives while the group of innovation focuses on the design of experiences of excellence.

Programmes of Cascade training like this are more effective, involve all the educational community, are longer lasting and can be evaluated more rigorously. The intervention is undertaken at three levels: Management Teams, Staff and Innovation Teams.

Our focus on 10% of staff members who are heavily involved in the project leads to groups driving change in the school. They are the driving force that should strengthen and become the seeds of transformation that we want to see, and we work with them not only in the contents of innovation but also in aspects of leadership so that they can prepare their colleagues in the future. For us, it is important to overcome the dependence on an external consultancy in the process of improvement so that the change is sustainable. For that reason, we always foster the empowerment of an internal team in each institution that can take on and maintain our professional development programmes. The use of the Professional Teacher ePortfolio, a digital assessment tool that records evidence of the progress of each teacher around the 10 standards of improvement, means that the centres can grow strongly and autonomously within a rigorous framework.

Within this model, our offer of postgraduate university qualifications such as the Digital Master’s, ‘Learning Leaders’ and the courses of experts in’ Executive Functions for Learning’ and ‘Education in Healthy Habits in the School’ centre on a deeper training for middle –management leaders. We have undertaken onsite meetings with students, the majority belonging to management teams, from schools in Venezuela and Colombia, as well as organising international trips with them.

ICA 2018

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“The support of Trilema and being part of the network Learning Schools has greatly motivated us to bring up to date our pedagogical practices and consolidate a culture of permanent learning with all teachers. Everyone feels they are working hard but at the same time feel motivated. I am very happy with my progress.”

- Liliana Arango, Principal at Santa Francisca Romana School, Bogotá

Nursery School at Antofagasta, Chile The RUBIK model for the Management of Integral Change In recent years we have carried out diverse initiatives that have made an impact on more than 50000 teachers. But in the middle of an outbreak of creative initiatives, we know that a process of change is much more than the sum of disorganised measures. In order to attain a model of excellence that responds to the needs of our students, it is necessary to generate a project of systemic transformation that centres on the commitment to the improvement of

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at least six fundamental aspects of school organisation.

Like the six colours of the Rubik cube, they must change simultaneously. This is the case of several centres in Colombia like Lestonnac, Santa Francisca Romana, Gimnasio Moderno and La Salle of Bogotá, or Newman School of Cajicá, and Ayni Munai in Chile which are already active members of our Network Learning Schools, and the work that we are doing with REDCOL: • A review of the Curriculum: The best schools set out in detail what they want their students to learn and

“We can affirm that the multisystemic model under the metaphor of the Rubik cube has had a positive impact in the process of transforming educational practice in the School Centre Lestonnac. Management promoted a leadership with a shared vision that generated common objectives and goals for all the educational community, and to achieve that, a plan was elaborated that established strategic lines and objectives as well as actions to be taken, those responsible, and the timetable and indicators of the monitoring process. Senge said: what is fundamental in learning in organisations is not only the individual but also the team. In our case, it has been all the educational community, being the cornerstone of change. The work done up to now confirms that a systemic change is possible if the vision of a new school is shared by all the members of the educational community and if it can count on a management team and leadership capable of involving everybody.”

- Sandra Gisella Lau Dioses, Principal at Lestonnac School, Bogotá

select from the legislation and educational materials those fundamental aspects which allow them to understand in depth the distinct disciplines.

• Reconsider the different Methodologies that they use in the classroom, and how to produce intelligent learning through the elaboration of projects, problems, challenges, cooperative teams, the use of graphic resources to make visible what they promote, strategies that activate critical and creative thinking and that mobilise memory in an effective manner and create classrooms that are alive, emotional, and where curiosity and enjoyment combined with rigour and effort.

• Promoting Personalised Learning, a configuration of those learning situations that create opportunities of development for each and every student, starting with their idiosyncrasies and possibilities that go with diversity towards excellence and allows us to personalise the pedagogical intervention of the teachers.

• Change the culture of assessment and not simply to evaluate exam results, external tests and other multiple tests but to ensure that assessment accompanies and supports the student in their progress.

• Change in the organisational aspects of the school: spaces, timetables, resources that are put together efficiently and flexibly in order to create interdisciplinary experiences, collaborative work, vertical groupings, experiences outside of the school, links to the outside community and its members, an open school that allows real life to enter the classroom.

• Leadership, one which is both committed and efficient.

We need management teams to have a clear vision of the school and the competencies necessary to make it a reality.

This change requires planning and a constant evaluation of successes and failures in order to remake and propose, accompany and demand that each one gives the best of him or herself. This implies a change in the models of Professional Development for teachers. The culture of continuous improvement, considering and reflecting on best practice, the evaluation of performance, classroom observation, mentoring and coaching are some of the key aspects of our efficient model.

A good teacher can change the life of a child forever, a school can change the life of a whole community, and to change a country, it is necessary to change the system of education. In these years and after so many journeys, I have learned much more than I have taught. Above all, I am certain that in any part of the world, boys and girls can aspire to more. They cannot choose where they are born, nor the very difficult circumstances they sometimes have to face, but education, a good education, can allow them to change their destiny.

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FEATURED ARTICLE

#CRACKTHECODE: HOW SK TELECOM IS GENERATING SOCIAL VALUE THROUGH CODING EDUCATION IN PARAGUAY Changha Lee, Consultant, Inter-American Development Bank & Seongwook Yang, Senior Social Education Manager of Environment Social Governance Group, SK Telecom

Changha Lee

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Seongwook Yang

As a leading information and communications technology (ICT) company, SKT utilizes state-of-the-art technology to overcome some of the most challenging and pressing issues experienced by the vulnerable population in our society

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ounded in 1984, SK Telecom (SKT) is the largest telecommunication company in South Korea. It is the most popular mobile carrier in the country, with almost half of the Korean population registered as its users in 2019. SKT operates based on a business model called Double Bottom Line, which emphasizes both economic and social values. It generates revenues from tapping into six business areas of mobile operator, media, security, commerce, mobility, and artificial intelligence (AI) and contributes to social wellbeing by harnessing technology to tackle ongoing social issues. SK Group is the only company from Korea that is a member of the Value Balancing Alliance, an international alliance for corporations focusing on social contribution.

As a leading information and communications technology (ICT) company, SKT utilizes state-of-the-art technology to overcome some of the most challenging and pressing issues experienced by the vulnerable population in our society. Goyohan Taxi was launched for people with hearing impairment to become drivers and communicate with passengers through a tablet. An AI speaker NUGU was developed and leveraged for elderly care: it reminds users when it is time for medication and offers simple workout and entertainment programs

(brain-training games, karaoke, etc.). It is also used as part of COVID-19 responses and makes phone calls to notify a person of the vaccination schedule and monitor side effects.

Education, in particular, has been the pivotal sector in which SKT has heavily invested for the longest period of time. Since the inception of social contribution programs in the 1990s, the company has worked with vulnerable populations to expand access to technology and develop their digital skills. Back then, programs were limited to basic digital literacy, teaching youth how to search and collect information online, which took a turn when digital skills broadened its concept and became a suite of skills in the 21st century.

Supporting the Development of Children’s Computational Thinking Skills through Albert Coding Robot!

What is the single most pertinent skill for professional and personal success in the 21st century? What makes the 21st-century curriculum unique and different from what most adults learned in the previous century? A simple answer would be coding education. SKT supported coding classes around the world by developing and releasing the Smart Coding Robot Albert in 2012. Countries like

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Changha Lee is an educator and researcher. In 2018-2021, she worked as an education consultant for the 21st Century Skills Initiative at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), primarily working on digital skills. She is the recipient of multiple merit-based awards, including the KOICA Scholarship for Graduate Studies (2012–13) and the Korean Government Scholarship Program for Study Overseas (2014–16).

She holds a PhD in international education policy from the University of Maryland.

South Korea, Finland, and Estonia, whose students excel in STEM fields, have coding education as part of their compulsory education starting as early as the 1st grade, depending on the country (Mateo Diaz & Becerra, 2019). Computational thinking skill is indeed a powerful skill set composed of not only programming but also applying critical skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity.

Most recently, using Albert, the company rolled out Happy Coding School for youth with disabilities who are often left out from innovative pedagogy and access to state-of-the-art technology. Since 2019, the program reached 1000 youth in 100 schools in Korea, offering support in the following areas: curriculum development, technical support, and enhancing employment opportunities. First, the company

¡Hola Irûmi! SKT joins forces with the IDB to bring coding education in Paraguay

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established a working group across developers, computer science professors, and special education teachers and designed the first-ever coding curriculum and textbooks for students with special needs. As for the pilot, it deployed 300 instructors to assist in coding classes and offered advanced courses for those who excel and can be hired for their basic programming skills. This program was carried out in support of the Korean government following the previous collaboration helping them introduce a coding curriculum in elementary schools and pilot coding classes in 2017.

SKT’s commitment to expand learning opportunities and develop children’s computational thinking skills goes beyond borders. The Smart coding robot Albert is available in Europe and Asia and is currently expanding to Latin America and the Caribbean region after its first launch in Costa Rica in 2016. In 2018, SKT joined forces for the second time with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Ministry of Finance in Korea to introduce coding education in Paraguay. As part of its global corporate social responsibility effort, the company donated 900 Alberts (an in-kind value of USD 750,000) to the Ministry of Education to embark on the project Irûmi to pilot coding classes in Paraguay. It was a matching fund to the donation made by the Korean government (USD 950,000) through IDB. Irûmi is Albert’s new name in Paraguay. It entails a dual-meaning that is a friend, classmate in the local language, Guarani and a go-getter, achiever in Korean.

Irûmi is a multi-faceted project led by the 21st Century Skills Initiative at IDB with sub-components such as curriculum development, training, implementation, and evaluation. The target beneficiaries include 2080 2nd graders and 104 teachers in 104 schools across nine departments in Paraguay. SKT is heavily involved in the first two areas, which are the activities tied to their donations of coding robots and the curriculum for early graders. The latter two are in charge of other partner NGOs: Organización Multidisciplinaria de Apoyo a Profesores y Alumnos (OMAPA), a Paraguayan STEM NGO, is in charge of ensuring and monitoring the quality

Seongwook Yang is Senior Social Education Manager of Environment Social Governance Group at SK Telecom. He is a project manager for the award-winning smart coding robot Albert. He is in charge of developing programs and expanding international markets in collaboration with the governments (France and UAE) and international organizations such as IDB (Costa Rica and Paraguay). He also manages Albert Coding Lab in Bonanova Foundation in Spain. He holds a PhD in education engineering from Korea University.

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of the intervention, and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) will conduct impact evaluation by running a randomized control trial (RCT) on treatment and control schools measuring the impact of coding classes on the early grader’s numeracy and computational thinking skills.

Curriculum Development The curriculum and textbooks used in the Irûmi project went through an iterative process to adapt to the Paraguayan context and ensure its quality. The original version was first developed by SKT in collaboration with the Teachers Association for Computer Education in Korea. It was strategic for the company to work with teachers so that the activities targeting the development of computational thinking skills reflect interactions taking place in the classroom, and by simply enjoying games, students can naturally learn about programming.

After materials were translated to Spanish, coding experts from OMAPA completed the first round of adaptation work. During this process, the target grade was identified (2nd grade), and activities and instructions were modified to align the interest of the Paraguayan kids.

Consequently, Irûmi curriculum and textbooks (teacher’s guide and student workbook) were submitted to the Ministry of Education in Paraguay (MEC) and were revised for the second time, incorporating their comments and recommendations. Currently, materials are going through an official validation process.

Knowledge Sharing and Training The Irûmi project operates on a cascade knowledge sharing model, also known as the Train-the-Trainer model. Altogether, three trainings were designed and planned: two of which are complete and the last, between

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trainers and teachers, is currently suspended due to the rapid expansion of COVID-19. The first training was in between authors of the Albert curriculum, MEC officials, and coding experts from OMAPA. This was to offer an overview of the Albert curriculum and lay the groundwork for the adaptation process, which was later carried out by OMAPA and MEC. In training, the authors also discussed the importance of computational thinking skills in the 21st century and shared best practices from Korea and how to incorporate the Albert curriculum in a low-resource context.

After coding experts from OMAPA completed the first adaptation process, they designed a training program for 30 trainers recruited for this intervention. The trainers were mostly fresh graduates from college majoring in education and gathered in Asuncion for a weeklong training. When schools are back in session, trainers will train teachers to carry out a 40-minute coding class to 2nd graders every week, along with the help of teaching assistants who are older students (8th – 10th grade) in the neighbouring schools. Support from the teaching assistants (TAs) is critical to this intervention, as teachers may feel overwhelmed or intimidated by the introduction of new technology and pedagogy in the classroom.

TAs will accompany teachers, provide technical support, and lead group activities and games introduced in the student book. As a follow-up, trainers will pay a monthly visit to each school to technically support teachers and teaching assistants. The coding classes will be offered in 104 schools across 9 departments (Alto Paraná, Central, Concepción, Cordillera, Guairá, Itapúa, Misiones, Paraguarí and Asunción) in the country. Currently, the project is suspended due to school closures in Paraguay and will resume after the reopening.

IDB Publications on 21st Century Skills New education for the new normal Education needs to prepare people for rapidly changing labor markets, challenged environments, and increasingly diverse societies.

Change is coming and non-traditional actors are shaping new trends in education and disrupting the markets.

What Technology Can and Can’t Do for Education:

The Future is Now: Transversal Skills in Latin America and the Caribbean in the 21st Century

A Comparison of 5 Stories of Success

We believe in disruptive innovation How Do Disruptive Innovators Prepare today’s Students to be Tomorrow’s Workforce?

The Disruption Brief Series aims to understand new trends in education led by non-traditional actors. The series shows how these actors are disrupting the market and progressively occupying the spaces traditionally held by schools, universities, and formal education agencies. In this series, distinguished education experts and professionals share their insights and knowledge about these new models of education.

SKILLS FOR LIFE

Free Download https://clic-skills.iadb.org/en/publications

The Skills for Life Series introduces more detailed information about transversal skills we have prioritized. In this series, distinguished education experts and professionals share their insights and knowledge about each transversal skill.

K12 Digest www.clic-skills.iadb.org 55 May 2021

FEATURED ARTICLE

THE RISE OF 21 CENTURY SKILLS INNOVATIONS IN LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN ST

Danny Gilliland, Head of Growth, HundrED & Liliana Serrano Pájaro, Communications Specialist - Education Division, Inter-American Development Bank

Danny Gilliland

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Liliana Serrano Pájaro

Since 2019, the IDB, together with HundrED, began exploring how to accelerate the pace of improvement in education in Latin America and the Caribbean - a diverse and culturally rich region that accounts for over 200 million of the world’s school-age children, or over 30% of the total population regionally

L

ong before the outbreak of COVID-19, a sense of urgency was often needed to accelerate change and improvement in education. The coronavirus disease showed us the need to prepare students to manage their uncertainty, their emotions and build resilience to adapt to new challenges, to be flexible, creative, curious, and eager to adapt and learn again every day. The pandemic did not create urgency; rather, it emerged when new actors and innovators started modifying educational approaches to better prepare students for the 21st century.

Now, this improvement is a regional, universal, and collective commitment.

We live in the 21st-century economy, but our schools are still based on twentieth-century methodologies and expectations. Rethinking education needs to take a radical turn in a world of rapid transformation. It is not enough to recognize the need, and it is critical to find solutions to tackle educational challenges and build systems that are inclusive, equitable and relevant to all learners. We need to set new ways of developing a set of skills that help students grow, and with that, we need to set new quality standards in education and encourage inspirational models for our children and youth to follow.

There is much to be done to improve our educational systems, and it is a shared responsibility that involves governments, businesses, academia, citizens, and an entire ecosystem. We recognized that many actors have a special role to play in our educational economy and knew that we were not able to do it alone. Since 2019, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has led a regional initiative on 21st Century Skills and joined forces with 40 public and private sector actors to support a new generation of education and training policies and programs that can provide quality and inclusive education. Why? Because there is an urgent need to boost and accelerate the development of relevant skills, those soft skills that can impact people’s personal and professional lives. Skills such as resilience, critical thinking, problem solving, adaptability, creativity, empathy, digital skills, among many others. We called them 21st Century Skills - not because they are new, but because of the importance they have today given the rapid progress and the profound changes we are experiencing.

“It takes a village to raise a child”, says the African proverb. When this ethos of collaboration and care is applied to the learning process, we believe it takes an entire ecosystem to educate a child. That is why the IDB

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Danny Gilliland is the Head of Growth at HundrED, managing partnerships and leading strategic growth initiatives. He has launched and produced Spotlights ranging from creativity with the LEGO Foundation to Teachers Professional Development with the World Bank. HundrED Connect, its Country Lead program, and Funders Collection were all developed with his leadership. Danny has a passion for improving education in order to provide more equitable opportunities for all children, no matter their background. He sees education as the only global social good with the means to reduce inequality, and as the highest return on investment in any society. Prior to HundrED, Danny founded a predictive hiring company that reduced bias to provide more equal opportunity in the recruiting process.

He has also worked in sales strategy and operations at high-growth tech companies such as Square and Salesforce as well as several startups. Danny has a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University

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partnered with HundrED to identify effective models for cultivating 21st-century skills in children and youth by looking for innovations from Latin America and the Caribbean.

HundrED is a global non-profit based in Finland that identifies impactful and scalable education innovations and helps them spread, and it is also part of the IDB’s Coalition for 21st Century Skills. Its mission is to improve education through impactful innovations in order to help every child flourish in life, no matter what happens.

Since 2016, HundrED has selected over 350 highly impactful and scalable education innovations to Global Collections and Spotlights. The Global Collection is the world-renowned “HundrED” which features 100 leading innovations that are highly impactful and scalable. HundrED Spotlights are customized projects that discover and select innovations within a specific region and/or theme in education in more than 100 countries.

HundrED Collections have attracted almost 2,000 innovators to share their work on hundred.org and apply to be selected and featured. While innovators have submitted their work from over 150 countries, generally, more are from regions with higher English proficiency and better internet connectivity.

As a result, HundrED has a much better understanding of the breadth of amazing education innovations in some regions than in others. Latin America and the Caribbean was one of the regions where HundrED had been deeply interested in but unable to get significant submissions out of.

Since 2019, the IDB, together with HundrED, began exploring how to accelerate the pace of improvement in education in Latin America and the Caribbean - a diverse and culturally rich region that accounts for over 200 million of the world’s school-age children, or over 30% of the total population regionally.

That presents an incredible opportunity, but at the same time, it also a significant mandate to provide quality education for all children with skills relevant for their future lives and careers. HundrED had already worked with regional foundations like the Grable

Foundation, Governments like Helsinki Education Division, and global funders like the LEGO Foundation.

Over the last year, the IDB and HundrED together conducted a Spotlight to identify effective models for cultivating 21st-century skills in students by looking for innovations within and outside of formal education through digital, music, sports, citizenship, and entrepreneurship programs from Latin America and the Caribbean. This Spotlight aims to discover the leading innovations developing transversal skills; understand how schools and organizations can implement these innovations; gain insight into any required social or economic conditions for these innovations to be effectively introduced into a learning context, and celebrate and broadcast these innovations to help them spread to new countries.

The Spotlight was launched on July 15, 2020, within the framework of the United Nations World Youth Skills Day, which last year focuses on the theme “Skills for a resilient youth in the era of COVID-19 and beyond”. It was published in English, Spanish, and Portuguese with a lot of excitement from around the region and high hopes for the number of innovators that would submit their work. HundrED works closely with its global community to help spread the word and drive submissions. In particular, a group of HundrED Country Leads, 4 of which live in Latin American countries, produced and hosted webinars in Brazil, Chile, Mexico & Venezuela, and Colombia that was key to drive local interest in the Spotlight.

These types of webinars were new at HundrED and became crucial to a successful submission period. All of this amazing work resulted in submissions that exceeded our greatest expectations.

More than 380 from 16 countries innovators responded to the 21st Century

The Future is Now: Transversal Skills in Latin America and the Caribbean in the 21st century The 21st century is not in the future: it is happening now. Accelerated changes in technology, migration, demographics, and climate are reshaping the social, economic, and political order. This new configuration creates new demands for education. How individuals are trained in this dynamic environment will determine whether these changes become opportunities, which can be effectively capitalized on, to positively transform countries and the region. This report presents some answers and many questions that -although still unresolvedare essential to help people involved in human development to articulate the agenda for the coming years. These aspects are relevant to public policy design, solution providers in the private sector, and civil society organizations.

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Liliana Serrano Pájaro is a communication specialist consultant for the 21st Century Skills Initiative at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). She supports the implementation of education projects in Colombia and Latin America and the Caribbean. Liliana is passionate about providing opportunities for youth to create positive social change via sustainable development and committed to shape impactful partnerships that contribute to increasing the socio-economic development of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Her experience includes partnerships, strategic communications, and project management solutions across varying development programs. She also has experience supporting regional innovation initiatives that promote the use of ICTs in education and human development with governments, universities, and higher education institutions. Liliana is a Social Communicator and Journalist from Universidad de La Sabana in Colombia and holds a certification in Social Impact Partnership Design from Georgetown University.

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Spotlight call for proposals, making it the most successful HundrED call for proposals to date. These innovators teach different areas of 21st Century Skills education, ranging from Problem Solving to Global Citizenship to Collaboration. The IDB and HundrED are humbled by the interest and greatly encouraged by the footprint and recognition we now have in the region.

After the submission period closed in November, the HundrED selection process began. HundrED’s research team carefully reviewed each application based on its impact and scalability scoring rubric to create a shortlist which was sent to a specialized advisory board. The advisory board also broke a record for HundrED, with 68 bilingual experts from 28 countries submitting nearly 1,400 reviews of the shortlisted innovations. To inform the final decisions, the selection committee read every single review, including their numerical scores for impact and scalability, to arrive at the final 15 selected innovators that will be revealed at the virtual announcement event on June 23, 2021.

These 15 amazing innovators are from 7 countries across Latin America & the Caribbean and operate in 37 countries on all continents; 5 deliver innovative curriculums, 5 have extra-curricular or intervention programs, and the other 5 range from whole school models to teacher development. 13 are not-for-profit while 2 are for-profit programs.

They have been operating for as little as 1 year and as many as 24, with 5 under 5 years since their founding; another 5 with 5 to ten years of experience; and the remaining 5 have been working for over 10 years. It is wonderful to recognize innovations that have years of impact and those that are just getting started and integrating them to the HundrED community.

While these changemakers have already made a huge impact locally and grown impressively outside their context, we hope to accelerate their growth rate by supporting them as HundrED innovators.

The support for the selected innovators focuses on 3 core areas: credibility, visibility, and connections. The credibility of being

selected by such a rigorous global review process is perceived as highly valuable to our innovators, with most of them featuring their selection badge on their website and mentioning it in the news or press releases.

Through the Spotlight announcement, report, and videos released at a final event, the IDB and HundrED provide instant and ongoing visibility through promotion efforts tailored to both our global community and education stakeholders. Finally, we will make valuable connections for our innovators to leverage partnership opportunities, education funders, or education stakeholders.

HundrED Spotlights goal is to collaborate with partners to help innovators spread within

their region and globally. We are at a historical juncture in Latin America and the Caribbean that requires deep reflection on our options and our possibilities. We were amazed by the overwhelming response to build a responsive, evolving system that keeps pace with today’s changing world and equips young people with the new skills, knowledge, values, and competencies they need to succeed.

The IDB and HundrED will work to promote these innovators within Latin America & The Caribbean and provide them with connections that allow them to spread to more countries and impact more children by giving them the 21st Century Skills crucial to thriving in life today and for the rest of their lives.

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FEATURED ARTICLE

CHALLENGES FOR AN IT BLENDED LEARNING PROGRAM UNDER A COVID-19 CONTEXT Dessiré Medina, Research Associate and Carolina Magnet, Research Coordinator, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)

Dessiré Medina

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Carolina Magnet

Basic skills such as Math and English, alongside low or non-existent technical or job-specific skills, and underdeveloped soft or socioemotional skills become barriers for unemployed youth that only reinforce the situation they find themselves in

Panama: Where the IT Sector’s Needs and Youth Unemployment meet In Latin America, around 50% of formal companies cannot find candidates with the skills they need.

Moreover, the Information Technology (IT) sector has one of the highest demands for employees but faces great difficulty in recruiting due to the lack of specialized skills on the market. In Panama, specifically, this sector represents the 6th with the highest demand for workers making it no exception within the regional trend.

In fact, unemployment in Panama is not only growing but has a high impact on youth. Unemployment rates went from 4.1% in 2013 to 7.1% in 2019, a year in which youth unemployment was already at 57.1%.

The problem around unemployment, however, is even more complex because a lack of employability is often accompanied by a lack of training. If we look at the proportion of Panamanian NEETs (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), according to a study by the Ministry of Labor and Development in 2017, these represent around 17% of young people and the provinces with the highest percentage of NEETs are Panama, Panamá Oeste and Chiriquí. Having so many youths who, on the one hand, are unable to find a job and, on the other hand, cannot access training to help

them enter a growing market such as the IT sector places a large development challenge.

Several studies show that NEETs tend to lack the skills needed to enter the labour market, and to find and keep quality jobs. Basic skills such as Math and English, alongside low or non-existent technical or job-specific skills, and underdeveloped soft or socioemotional skills become barriers for unemployed youth that only reinforce the situation they find themselves in.

Entry-level jobs in the IT sector arise as an opportunity for NEETs, especially because university studies are not required. Nowadays, specific jobrelated skills can be acquired through online courses and digital learning platforms which offer a flexible alternative and a training strategy at scale. For this reason, the IDB Lab together with the NGO Glasswing designed an intervention that consists of a training program for Information Technology Careers. The program targets NEETs between 18 and 22 years of age, who live in Panama Oeste or Chiriqui, and takes a blended approach to learning combining an online IT course with in-person soft skills training and general educational and emotional support to participants. The IT course is actually Google’s IT Support Professional Certificate taught on the Coursera platform, which

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requires no previous training or degree and teaches in-demand skills throughout 5 courses.

The role of Glasswing is key to participant’s success, because the organization helps them navigate an online course and platform they may not be familiar with, but also train and prepare them for future a job search, matching them to potential employers.

This intervention is being evaluated by Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) using a process evaluation approach. Unlike an impact evaluation which seeks to understand causality IPA’s usual methodology - a process evaluation focuses on the program’s activities, and analyses whether the plan and objectives established from the start are met throughout implementation. The current evaluation, however, goes a bit further and tries to incorporate learnings from cohort to cohort (a total of five) so that each experience benefits the next group of participants and creates an “end product” that is better for all.

Quantitative and qualitative components are also used to measure perceptions and expectations at the beginning and end of each program round, and both a lab experiment and machine learning will complement the analysis to better understand which factors lead participants to persist in the program, despite any pre-existing difficulties, and in turn, which factors appear to lead to drop-out.

A Sudden Need for Redesign and Adaptation The Covid-19 pandemic has affected people and organizations worldwide and, inevitably, this program could not escape it. One of the main

Job insertion workshop for the program’s first cohort

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Dessiré works as a Research Associate at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)Peru. She is currently working on a project to improve the employability of vulnerable youth in Panama by means of IT role training, in cooperation with the Inter-American Development Bank and Glasswing International. She previously worked as an intern at IPA Peru, on a project related to retirement savings in Peru and at Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (IEP) as a Research Assistant. Dessiré holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Peru.

strengths of the IT Careers Program’s original design was the blended aspect of the teaching it offered, being part online and part face-to-face. This allowed Glasswing to provide a very complete online program with both inperson learning and psychological support, an idea which is backed up by the literature which suggests that online training has a greater impact when it is accompanied by face-to-face components. The pre-pandemic plan also depended on local infrastructure which compensated any limitations the participants could have at home, such as computers with internet access provided via Infoplazas, a network of community level learning centers participants could attend. The global health crisis, however, has meant that the blended program had to be carried out 100% remotely.

The removal of the in-person components of the program, at least until further notice, put a strain on both implementers and participants. First, Glasswing had to run an online-only advertising campaign for the first and second cohorts. Despite the change, the program attracted more than 600 applicants during the first campaign, and 500 after a second more targeted campaign. Although the advertising seemed to have the expected effects, the number of eligible applicants per round was much lower (354 for cohort one and 183 for cohort two). In addition to adapting its own working habits to a remote style, Glasswing also had to make the learning and psychological support components of the program function online, and while online student engagement and support are possible, they are more difficult to attain than in person.

Glasswing’s largest challenges, however, lay beyond those first hurdles: once learning centres are no longer an option, can the participants this program targets fill that infrastructure gap by themselves? If we put together all the selected participants for the first and second cohorts of the program, 62% either did not have a computer or if they did they had to share it with their family, meaning most of them relied on a mobile device or a computer with limited use. In terms of connectivity, while most individuals reported having access to the internet, at least 22% relied

fully on mobile data with no at-home internet connection.

This was also reflected in participants’ concerns who, when surveyed, mentioned “Not having a good internet connection” as their top choice.

Both aspects, the access to a computer and a stable internet connection, are key to success in the IT Careers Program because, apart from more evident needs such as having to complete the course on a web platform and engage with facilitators and classmates via Zoom or Whatsapp, the Google IT Cert requires the use of a computer with a keyboard for certain modules and specific tasks. Part of adapting to the new pandemic context, therefore, requires seeking for solutions to help provide tools to young participants who may be interested in the course but don’t have the optimum conditions for online and IT support learning at home.

Therefore, early in the implementation of the first round of the program, Glasswing and IDB Lab took a bold step that targeted students with infrastructure limitations.

Although not planned in the original program design, 16% of cohort one participants were given a laptop, and 23% were given access to a stable internet connection. Thanks to this decision, instead of stopping midway, most of these students managed to finish the course and are currently in the job placement component of the program.

Yet, beyond the infrastructure reality, the Covid-19 pandemic has put even more pressure on program participants and their families. In an effort to contain the virus, Panama followed strong measures in 2020, which involved long term nationwide lockdowns and curfews

“This program has led me down a path of new experiences and lessons that have helped me in my professional and personal life.” Angelica Magallón

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and many families either found themselves having to cover unexpected medical costs or unable to continue working. It is, therefore, no coincidence that the second most repeated concern among program participants was “having to go to work”. During the training period, some students had to pause and search for a source of income for their homes, which pushed them to work for short periods of time, mostly in informal or temporary jobs. The program design allows for breaks, but extended pauses can create an imbalance in completion rates, causing some participants to lag and potentially miss out on job insertion opportunities.

Carolina works as a Research Coordinator at IPA Peru. She is currently managing a varied portfolio of projects in Peru, Paraguay, Panama, and Honduras on topics related to at-risk and unemployed youth, gender violence, education markets, and financial inclusion.

She previously worked as a Research Associate and Senior Research Associate at IPA Peru and Paraguay, on projects related to social protection for senior citizens and a microfinance product for women. Carolina holds a BSc in Policy Science and International Development from Leiden University College The Hague in the Netherlands.

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Moving forward Against all odds, at the beginning of April, 2021, 47% of the first cohort finished all IT course modules and started the labour insertion component of the program, during which participants have been learning to improve their CV and have attended online interview workshops. Although the program is still at an early stage, a success story has already emerged; a graduate participant won the “Scholarship program to study in the People’s Republic of China” which will allow her to continue her IT-related studies abroad. Interestingly, the largest portion of her application grade came from her interview performance, and she highlighted how the soft skills course and job placement workshops helped her obtain the scholarship. This is the first step in the program’s quest to bring opportunities to unemployed youth in Panama.

Glasswing’s IT Careers Program was designed to benefit young NEETs in Panama through a blended training program that prepares them for concrete and sustainable jobs in the IT sector. Like any intervention, it was designed to be implemented under certain conditions, but a pandemic took the world by surprise, and those conditions changed.

Both implementers and participants have been forced to adapt, showing incredible resilience and drive. Moving forward, it is the program designers’ responsibility to continue this adaptation process and consider a further redesign to ensure participants are supported, and program goals are met in this rapidly changing environment.

“This program has led me down a path of new experiences and lessons that have helped me in my professional and personal life.”

Angelica Magallón.

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FEATURED ARTICLE

COMPUTATIONAL THINKING IN THE URUGUAYAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM Emiliano Pereiro, Head of Computational Thinking, Plan Ceibal

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Ceibal develops the Computational Thinking concept in different educational approaches, but since 2017 it started to implement a specific Computational Thinking program with a small pilot in 30 public urban schools

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n this new digital reality, many countries seek to introduce Computational Thinking (CT) into their curricula in its variety of definitions and heterogeneities of intervention. To understand how a computer works, its language (apart from having a basic use of a computer) becomes a fundamental competence that every person should know to develop digital citizenship skills.

In my opinion, nowadays, we are going through a societal change that is almost as radical as the one lived through in the first industrial revolution.

The world is becoming increasingly digital, and the pandemic is accelerating this change. The economy is digital. In the last 15 years, the bestvalued companies changed their profile, while in 2005, oil companies and tangible goods companies led the world rankings. In 2020, algorithms were the protagonists, and technology companies were the best valued. But not only has the economy, but citizenship is also becoming more and more digital.

Countries like Estonia already allow you to apply for an E-Residency. Policy discussions in the coming years will be focused on artificial intelligence and its regulation, ethical and moral discussions that we as

citizens must give, chatbots teachers, intelligent life assistants, the resurrection of the dead with digital identity. All this is already happening. Future citizens must incorporate these skills and knowledge, just as at one point in the industrial revolution, all citizens had to learn to read and write to understand the world around them. Today it is time for all of us to learn Computational Thinking.

Computational Thinking in Uruguay Ceibal develops the Computational Thinking concept in different educational approaches, but since 2017 it started to implement a specific Computational Thinking program with a small pilot in 30 public urban schools. In 2021 the program has almost 2000 groups, 30,000 students and 1300 classroom teachers distributed in almost 60% of the total number of public urban schools in the country. ANEP1 and Plan Ceibal2 lead this implementation.

The Computational Thinking program is inspired by the successful pedagogical model of the videoconference English teaching program, “Ceibal en inglés”. The pedagogical model of the program incorporates a remote teacher who has expertise in

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computer science, programming, and CT. The remote teacher connects to the videoconferencing equipment installed at the schools and teaches in partnership with the classroom teacher.

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This model has three main aspects: Remote teaching: The teacher of Computational Thinking is not physically present, just as in other forms of distance teaching. Unlike distance teaching, however, students are in a group of approximately 25 children, in their own classroom, in their school, with their classroom teacher.

Team teaching: Team teaching is an approach in which two or more teachers are jointly responsible for course content, lesson activities and assessment.

Remote and classroom teachers can only teach by mutual cooperation.

Blended learning: Blended learning is a form of formal education in which a student learns in part through online delivery of content and instruction. In the Computational Thinking blend of teaching, the RT teaches remotely, the CT does so face to face, and all use an LMS, called CREA. 1 National Public Education Administration https://www.anep.edu.uy/ 2 https://www.ceibal.edu.uy/en/institucional 3 Ceibal en Inglés Methodology Statement https://n9.cl/kzxoq

Emiliano Pereiro has a bachelor’s degree in sociology at Universidad de la República, Uruguay and a master’s degree in educational policy at Universidad Torcuato di Tella, Argentina. He is the head of computational thinking unit at Plan Ceibal, a unique innovation agency in that reaches out the entire Public School System in Uruguay, from K5 to 9ht grade providing Technological Infrastructure, Teacher Training, Contents and Learning Platforms as well as Project Based Learning Opportunities for Students to foster the inclusion of technology as leverage for learning, from a New Pedagogies Perspective. In 2020 he was invited as a speaker for AI and the Futures of Education. Developing Competencies for the AI Era at Unesco. In 2019, he was a member of the team of authors of the World Bank publication “Skills and the Labor Market in a New Era: Managing the Impacts of Population Aging and Technological Change in Uruguay”.

In 2019 published an article in Cetic Brasil “A comparative analysis of the digital skills of children in Brazil and Uruguay”. In 2018, he was chosen by The IDB-INTAL to participate in a study on the future of social employment. In 2018 he was a teacher at the Torcuato di Tella University in Argentina. In 2016 he co-founded the pansophia project, a platform for research on the education of the future.

Ceibal, in its practice, approaches a definition that considers computational thinking as the ability to recognize aspects of the real world that can be modelled as problems and to design and evaluate algorithmic solutions that can be implemented computationally (Fraillon et al., 2019). That is, computational thinking is understood as a way of reasoning and solving problems from the logic of coding and computing.

In this framework, students are expected to develop the main contents of Computer Science and learn new approaches to problem-solving by taking advantage of the potential of computational thinking in order to be users and creators of today’s and tomorrow’s technology.

In the last survey conducted by Ceibal’s evaluation and monitoring department, 91% of classroom teachers stated that the program should be universalized to the

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entire educational system, and 97% would recommend the program to a colleague.

What are the keys that we found and learned for an educational policy based to be so successful in the educational community?

1. The technology infrastructure which has been installed since 2007 in Uruguay through the implementation of the Ceibal Plan: Technology in the classroom is a reality for Uruguayan teachers: all students have a device and internet connection, and video conferencing equipment is installed in every school.

Uruguayan teachers have been using technology in

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the classroom for 14 years, are familiar with it and are therefore inclined to adopt this type of approach.

2. Optative participation in the program: It is not mandatory for teachers. It is a bottom-up builded policy. This way of implementing the program does not generate resistance in the community because it is a collective construction.

3. By taking into account the voice of the educational community, we work closely with teachers and listen to their feedback. The voice of the teachers is very important to be able to make sensitive decisions in order to improve the program.

4.

Interdisciplinary pedagogical approach: Computational thinking works in an interdisciplinary way with other areas of knowledge, specific CT contents such as algorithms, AI, sequences, abstraction with contents of language, mathematics, science and art, among others. The interdisciplinary nature of the proposal is a key factor in achieving greater acceptance of the proposal; the sequence of activities is related to the different areas of knowledge and curricula.

In this way, a teacher who participates in the program can work on mathematics, language and science as curricular content through Computational Thinking.

5. Teacher training and support: The Computational Thinking program has a specific line of training that includes conceptual modules on CT, didactic modules where these concepts are put into practice in classroom lesson plans and technical modules related to the use of coding languages.

This line of teacher education is based on

instructional design. In addition, there is a group of people from our staff working onsite, in the schools, distributed throughout the country, that is responsible for coaching the teachers participating in the program, conducting specific workshops on TC and identifying their needs.

6. Use of accessible and scalable technology: The program uses Scratch and Micro: Bit to work on CT, low-cost technology and designed for pedagogical use.

These technologies are designed specifically for pedagogical purposes, they are accessible to both teachers and students, and their low cost allows them to be massively used.

7. CT curriculum and achievement levels: A CT curriculum provides a framework to work with the students with an introduction to the fundamental knowledge that they need to learn in order to become well educated digital citizens and defines learning objectives. Research on state of the art in the discipline was conducted and a framework for

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the work of Computational Thinking in Uruguay was elaborated. This framework is still under construction and in the process of validation with authorities and the educational community.

8. Pedagogical leadership: Implies an active teacher who co-designs with other actors in the educational community, like a remote teacher, for example, but also with other teachers.

9. Evaluation and monitoring: Measure to make evidence-based decisions. We evaluate the quality of the pedagogical content, the perception of the teachers who participate in the program, and we are working to evaluate learning. In this line in 2020, Uruguay joined the Bebras Challenge (an international initiative to promote CT). The program has an area dedicated to the quality of teaching computational thinking.

10. Gender perspective: Several studies have shown that in the world of technology, there is a gender bias, males are overrepresented, and the program has an active policy to try to change this

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problem. The program works specifically to reduce the gender gap that exists in the discipline.

11. Research and development: The CT team promotes, develops and uses research in the field and new technological tools that allow for new and innovative pedagogical approaches. The Computational Thinking concept is still under construction in the world. For this reason, it is key to have a constant research perspective to keep up with the changes.

12. Alliances: The program has formed different alliances with actors in the country and the region linked to the subject, such as the Sadosky Foundation of Argentina.

Due to the successful implementation at the primary level, the program is moving forward in its expansion to secondary education. In May 2021, 100 mathematics teachers will lead the first experience, working in CT and Math, also in proposals that include machine learning and artificial intelligence.

12 Digest Higher EducationKDigest 2021 December October JanuaryMay 2019 2020

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FEATURED ARTICLE

EDUCATION UNINTERRUPTED: TECHNOLOGY FREE HOLISTIC LEARNING Janhvi Maheshwari-Kanoria, Director of the Innovation Development Directorate, Education Above All

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The Innovation Development Directorate (IDD) is a new area of EAA that aims to develop innovative solutions to address unsolved challenges in the global education sphere, including rapid-response quality-focused solutions in emergency contexts and relevant access for out-of-school children and youth

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he Education Above All (EAA) Foundation is a global education foundation established in 2012 by Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser. EAA envisions bringing hope and a real opportunity to the lives of impoverished and marginalized children, youth, and women, especially in the developing world and in difficult circumstances such as conflict situations and natural disasters. We believe that education is the single most effective means of reducing poverty, generating economic growth, and creating peaceful and just societies, as well as a fundamental right for all children and an essential condition to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Our Educate a Child (EAC) program works through a network of partners around the world to support and promote quality education. In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), it supports 125,000+ out of school and at-risk children in Haiti, Colombia, and Brazil.

The Innovation Development Directorate (IDD) is a new area of EAA that aims to develop innovative solutions to address unsolved challenges in the global education sphere, including rapid-response qualityfocused solutions in emergency contexts and relevant

access for out-of-school children and youth. Through new programs delivered in collaboration with internal and external partners, the IDD tests and refines innovative ideas with the highest possible impact.

Education Above All’s Internet Free Education Resource Bank.

The Internet Free Education Resource Bank (IFERB) was developed by EAA as a response to the devastating results of prolonged school closures on the world’s most marginalized children that do not have access to any technology and internet-based learning alternatives.

The project-based learning resources target lowresource and self-learning contexts, where there is no access to technology-based learning alternatives.

The available technology-free alternatives are printed worksheets that are hard to disseminate and enjoy.

IFERB projects are student-led interdisciplinary modules that build ownership through discovery and application. The bank has over 120 projects across all subjects, including mathematics, science, language, and social studies, for three different age groups of learners between the ages of 4 – 14 years. Projects are easy to implement in different ways depending on the context,

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Janhvi leads the Innovation Development Directorate in Education Above All (EAA). Her passion lies in designing solutions that advance and accelerate relevant and quality learning solutions to the world’s most marginalized. She is currently working on multiple projects across the technology spectrum developing both technology-free and technologyenabled learning options for the most marginalized.

Previously, she served as the Education Portfolio Expert in the CEO’s Office in Qatar Foundation focusing on higher education strategy, governance, impact, and programming. She also worked in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education in the ViceChairperson’s Office supporting national strategy, policy, and special programs. She has worked across the education spectrum having been a teacher, strategy consultant, and worked in start-ups and NGOs. She completed her primary and secondary schooling in India, following which she earned a B.A. degree in International Relations and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.Ed. in International Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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including through phone calls, SMS, radio, and in-person classes.

The IFERB projects can be used across LAC as a stop-gap solution to keep learning continued for migrant and economically deprived learners. In the current COVID-19 pandemic context, where two-thirds of the countries worldwide that have remained largely closed since the beginning of the lockdowns are in LAC, the IFERB can support the over 98 million schoolchildren (58% of children in the region) who continue to be affected by school closures in 2021 (UNICEF, 2021). Additionally, the resources can become a learning alternative for the 3.1 million students in danger of dropping out of school (UNICEF LACRO, 2020) and the 23.1 million children in need of humanitarian assistance due to the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the growing migratory flows, and an increase of extreme natural disasters across LAC (UNICEF, 20220). For these learners, it is more critical to engage in learning that is practically connected to their life contexts and our IFERB project-based learning resources help build interest by being interdisciplinary, student-led, and contextually relevant. By learning about money, natural disasters, blackouts, or entrepreneurship, among others, we help students gain useful skills to achieve and imagine broader life goals.

Response to Implementation Challenges: 21st Century Skills, Holistic Learning, and Student Agency All the projects serve to help students’ gain core academic learning; there is also a large focus on 21st-century skills. The lack of access to teachers and textbooks has assisted us in allowing children to explore, experiment, hypothesize, play, and develop their own learning connected to their immediate surroundings and supported by their families. The projects accentuate creativity, critical thinking, and communication skills that are practised and measured across our programs with a bespoke rubric.

In the communities we work with, there is a lack of exposure to, understanding of, and appreciation for 21st-century skills. Given the emphasis on core academic skills to address lagging learning gaps, it is difficult for organizations, teachers, and parents to prioritize other types of skills. The EAA team encourages organizations implementing the projects to not isolate 21st-century skills and address them in an interdisciplinary manner. With support from EAA and our partner organizations, the educators that we worked with gradually began to gain a better understanding of 21stcentury skills as they saw perceptible changes in their children and developed trust in a learnercentred teaching approach. By creating a holistic approach to learning and allowing children to demonstrate deep understanding through public demonstrations of learning and tangible products, children gain opportunities to develop and display multiple talents.

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Testimonials and stories from the ground “In my rural area, girls get married early and parents are not supporting with education. Laiba is 12 years only and her mother was so happy when she saw how confidently Laiba was talking to the community on COVID19 rules project – really it is the first time she saw how talented her daughter is. She cancelled Laiba’s wedding and has put her into school.”

Facilitator, Pakistan “Students experienced many new things.

They didn’t even know what plastic is earlier and they understood by burying plastic and testing it. The project never really finished. Children are now making the shop use cloth bags and making sure that stray goats don’t eat plastic.”

Coordinator, India

For example, in our project “Imagine That,” 5-year-old students learn literacy and numeracy skills along with making sense and reimagining the world around them. Learners are required to apply their creativity as they design their dream school and reflect on how it could be brought into existence. In another project, “Water is Life,” students explore the water cycle, its importance, and how much water human beings need. Through this exploration, they learn science, social science, and numeracy concepts and put this together to solve, along with their family, the challenge of conserving water for their homes.

Initially, hesitant parents and teachers have become program champions and have shared with us several success stories. One such story emphasized the confidence and clarity with which the learners communicated rules of COVID19 to village elders after completing “Our house rules to keep COVID19 away”. In another project, “Why all the Plastic?” learners demonstrated advanced critical thinking

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“We moved from memorization to creativity, by learning real life things. I will use these projects even after school reopens. I felt proud, as I was the author of the book in my project, earlier I could just guess how people make books.”

Student, India “I am having fun and learned so many new things! I can’t wait for my teacher to call with the project work.”

Student, Lebanon “All the children here have been doing amazing project work, way beyond our imagination, they have turned this challenge into an opportunity.”

Teacher, Kenya

skills by implementing ideas in their communities to reduce plastic waste. In “My Animal Park”, learners have displayed incredible empathy when designing their own animal reserve as an alternative to caged and oppressive zoos.

How Educators Used IFERB: Lessons for Latin America and the Caribbean Our projects have been implemented through partner organizations in over five countries, including India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Kenya, and Zambia, and downloaded in more than 130 countries, reaching over 300,000 children. Partners have successfully integrated projects into the curriculum, designed after-school and summer programs around the projects, and used the resources to fuel learning centres in the absence of schools. The assessment data shows academic growth of up to 22% and an average completion rate of 91.5%.

Results from pilots and insights from the wide range of implementation alternatives suggest that the educational resources available in IFERB can support communities across Latin America and the Caribbean in the following ways: a) preventing additional learning losses while schools remain closed, b) addressing the learning gaps once the impact of school closures has been assessed, and c) supporting a longerterm but needed paradigm shift in institutional, curricular, and instructional design.

EAA believes that all children need to have access to quality learning. Therefore, our projects, training, and implementation materials are all available open-source and in multiple languages on our website. Under our Internet Free Education Resource Bank, we have a large set of internet-free, technology-free, and low-resource content. Besides the ProjectBased Learning resources, we offer simple Math Games to practice numeracy skills mapped to a global competency map and an Activity Bank for Disabilities that spans seven spectrums of need. EAA is exploring expanding our impact in Latin America and the Caribbean through partnerships with local institutions and international organizations. Please reach out to us to be included in pilot programs that we support around the globe.

References UNICEF. (2020). Latin America and the Caribbean: the number of children in need of humanitarian assistance has more than tripled this year - UNICEF. https://www.unicef.org/lac/en/press-releases/the-number-of-children-in-need-of-humanitarian-assistance-in-lac-has-morethan-tripled-this-year UNICEF. (2021). COVID-19: Schools for more than 168 million children globally have been completely closed for almost a full year, says UNICEF. https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/schools-more-168-million-children-globally-have-been-completely-closed UNICEF LACRO. (2020). Education on hold. https://www.unicef.org/lac/en/education-on-hold

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FEATURED ARTICLE

SCHOOL DROP OUT SHOULD NOT MEAN EDUCATIONAL DROP OUT: THE ROLE OF SOFT SKILLS IN THE GLOBAL EDUCATION COMPACT José Maria del Corral, World Director, Scholas Occurrentes

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At Scholas Occurrentes, we have noticed how denying the importance of soft skills in schools in the LAC region is contributing to high rates of drop-out, occurring mainly during secondary school

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n recent years, the educational and school systems in LAC countries have steadily tried to “catch up” and fully tackle the challenges stemming from globalisation. The results in terms of school access are remarkable: the region reached a net enrolment rate in the primary school of 93.7% in 2018 (World Bank, 2020). Still, they have a long road ahead in assuring the right to quality education, as also encompassed by Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals’ Agenda, particularly Target 4.7.

Schools systems in LAC countries seem indeed stuck in some chronic issues: schools are understaffed, teachers not properly trained, school programmes not updated. The cultivation of soft skills often seems to be outside the schools’ radar. Giving a comprehensive definition of soft skills is not easy, and this makes it even more difficult to systematise their inclusion in school curricula. However, their importance in terms of individual growth, relevance for the community, and job opportunities cannot be neglected.

At Scholas Occurrentes, we have noticed how denying the importance of soft skills in schools in the LAC region is contributing to high rates of drop-out, occurring mainly during secondary school: in 2018,

about 20% of students left school before completing lower secondary education (World Bank, 2020). Students often perceive the education they receive as not suitable for an increasingly demanding and globalised world. A global context that, in turn, emphasises the importance of soft and interpersonal skills. Students’ motivation often plummets and accounts for their decision to abandon school, along with other economic and social aspects, which, of course, need to be considered when analysing school drop-out’ causes.

In this setting, our mission is to promote the Culture of the Encounter through an education that generates meaning: we intervene where education seems “in crisis”, where youngsters are progressively disengaging themselves from education or aspire to see a change in their realities. We value a youth-centred approach. Youngster’s socio-emotional skills are at the centre of our action: not only because it is important for their future, but also for their present, and more in this context of a pandemic: their mental health, their interpersonal relations.

We start by listening to youngsters’ (usually aged between 14 to 18 years old) pains and problems.

Furthermore, as we consider education a societal

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responsibility, we also engage teachers, principals, families, institutions, civil society.

And we tailor our actions, always working on socio-emotional skills, with different “languages”: arts, sports, critical thinking, music or poetry, for instance.

In 2016, Scholas arrived in San Antonio de los Cobres, a small village in the province of Salta, Argentina, and organised an experience of “Scholas Citizenship”, a project that involves youngsters in the detection of problems within their communities and in the drawing up of proposals to tackle them. The participants reported their concerns about the high rates of youth suicides since 29 of their friends had killed themselves in the previous months by jumping off what they called “the bridge of the solution”.

We worked with them, trying to boost their self-confidence, their spirit of initiative, their solidarity links. First, they created a cinema, the first one in town, which allowed the students to come together and put their feelings to work. From there came the idea of painting the bridge, giving it a new meaning. They also organised activities for their community, such as a space for kids, the cleaning of the river, or visits to the local hospice. After this experience, no other kid jumped off that bridge. The intervention showed how crucial it is to give youngsters the possibility to be listened to, as well as the space to take initiatives. It can make a huge difference, in schools, in communities, in their lives. For this reason, Pope Francis the 5th of June of 2020, referring to Scholas’ education proposal, said: “Scholas promotes an education that listens, creates, and celebrates.”

In Paraguay, Scholas has been cooperating with the national Ministry of Education to cope with the high rates of drop-out, working since primary school. In this case, the issues raised by the government seemed to match those expressed by youngsters’ during the “Scholas Citizenship” experience: quality education and teaching methods. The intervention foresees the extension of the school day, support to teachers, and the strengthening of intergenerational links through an intervention

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José Maria del Corral is the World Director of Scholas Occurrentes appointed by Pope Francis. Scholas Occurrentes is a network present in more than 70 countries across 5 continents and integrates more than 400 000 schools worldwide, a “call to create the Culture of Encounter”, founded by Pope Francis.

A theologian and a teacher by training, he served as teacher and principal at all levels of the educational system and was a pastoral coordinator in numerous schools. He was tutor, Director of Studies, Vice-Rector, Rector and Director General in several parishes, and congregational and lay schools. He was also the founder of School of Neighbors, a project created to transform education, achieving the integration of students of different faiths and origins. Among other distinctions, he received the UNICEF award for the educational organisation most mobilised in the world by inclusion, from Queen Letizia of Spain.

model that makes adolescents educators of the children in primary school supervised by their teachers and the technical teams of the Ministry. The youth is trained

by Scholas to carry out artistic and sports workshops involving kinds, who are thus involved in extracurricular activities during the afternoon: this, in turn, increases their motivation to attend school during the day. In 2018, we trained 904 sport and 885 artistic trainers, and the programme was being implemented in 43 Paraguayan schools. The results have shown an increasing commitment within students, as well as a more positive attitude towards their future.

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Three aspects have particularly contributed to the success of the initiative: 1. The introduction of new pedagogical approaches that stresses the importance of soft skills in schools’ curricula - in the form of artistic and sports workshops- that help to stimulate attitudes such as teamwork, solidarity, empathy.

2. The “transfer” of the ownership of a new methodology to young educators, who had the possibility to practice their skills directly with the kids.

3. The possibility of working side by side with teachers during the workshops, thus showing possible and innovative approaches for achieving a better-quality education.

Art has also been at the core of Scholas intervention in Haiti, where the public education system presents many weaknesses due to the generally difficult situation the county is facing since the earthquake. Many kids and adolescents cannot access schools since, in the most part of the cases, they are private and not affordable institutes.

The experiences of Scholas Citizenship carried out since 2016 also involved participants who were not enrolled in any school.

Again, youngsters outlined worries related to education: the difficulties in accessing schools, the

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necessity to update the curricula and the teaching method.

In this case, however, also the environmental degradation of the island emerged as an urgent issue to them. The project that followed is called “Pibel Poubel”, it is a pun in Creole language, which means “a more beautiful trash.

It aims at raising environmental awareness among schools and the community while calling for concrete actions for the caring of the environment: youngsters work with local artists to build “artistic bins” with recycled materials, thus rediscovering the local Haitian culture and cultural

expressions. Then, the bins are placed in primary schools and used to collect plastics. The process is accompanied by workshops with students and teachers to outline the importance of environmental education in schools. Almost all the students who participated in the project reported an increase in their perception of being committed to the community, in their ability to work in teams, and in their self-confidence. Again, the project proved how introducing new, stimulating perspectives in education and boosting soft skills can not only change youth attitudes but also reinforce and re-shape their links to the community.

There could be many more examples on the importance of soft skills in education and on how to stimulate them in a creative way. In Scholas, we started by listening to the youngsters, teachers, and schools’ principals from the region, building an individual path with them. And this has brought to the emergence of many unique and innovative educational

experiences that share some commonalities: the willingness to boost skills such as communication, empathy, solidarity, civic engagement, critical thinking, and to engage the whole community for a truly and shared improvement of education in the region.

The process is not devoid of difficulties and obstacles because, as previously said, it often requires a change in mentality and a cross-cutting commitment.

As a promoter of the Global Compact on Education, Scholas has been spreading the idea of education as an inclusive process, which involves not only teachers and students but every member of society. Only by pooling perspectives, ideas, competencies, and approaches can a true change be achieved. For this reason, we continue to work side by side with different actors to stress the importance of soft skills, and in particular socio-emotional ones, in the youngsters’ present and future perspectives.

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FEATURED ARTICLE

SMARTPHONE FILMMAKING: A JOURNEY TO DEVELOP SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL SKILLS FOR UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES IN LATIN AMERICA Juan Manuel Pico, Co-Founder of Education Soul & Country Lead - Colombia of HundrED

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With virtuality becoming the rule and not the exception, education has been forced to face a new reality, where there is a new ingredient as part of the recipe, which is the digital revolution

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oday, we eat uncertainty for breakfast. The world we live in has changed dramatically, especially since the pandemic started at the beginning of last year. Technology is advancing faster than ever and the demands for skills of the future are not changing at the same pace. We can easily remember that 30 to 40 years ago in the business world, concepts such as unique skills, deep specialization or even core competencies headed the “must have skills” list we needed to have as part of our toolbox.

Times have changed so do we. A vertical knowledge of a given discipline is not enough anymore. We are witnessing the raise of transversal skills, where trends such as upskilling and reskilling are at the edge of any learning agenda from K12 to big corporations. 21st Century Skills are opening the pathway of a new set of knowledge, work habits and skills to be successful at schools, universities and workplaces.

Dr Vikram Mansharamani, a lecturer at Harvard University, author of the recently released “Think For Yourself: Restoring Common Sense in an Age of Experts and Artificial Intelligence”, makes a bold statement: “The future belongs to generalists”, not meaning that having unique expertise is useless, but on

the contrary, sharing the idea that more than ever, be flexible and agile will assure you to be able to move forward within a highly complex world.

In March 2018, McKinsey published the McKinsey Global Institute workforce skills executive survey, where they made a compound of their findings through a double-entry table (on x axe the expected future skills needed from “Skills needed less in the future” to “Skills needed more in the future”, and on y axe the perceived importance of skills today from low to high). In the fourth quadrant up on the right, as it is shown in the graphic (meaning Skills needed more in the future with a high perception of the importance of skills today) the category was named “Important and growing”, where skills such as leadership, communication and negotiation, critical thinking, creativity, basic digital, advanced IT and technology design shined by themselves.

Education Soul, in alignment with the idea of being a generalist, decided in 2020, just in the middle of the pandemic, to highlight both social and emotional skills (in yellow colour in the McKinsey graphic) and technological skills (in blue colour in the McKinsey graphic), through a virtual program called SmartPhone Filmmaking, for children of ages from

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10 to 18 years old, coming from public schools in the Medellin area in Colombia. Thanks to the support of a notfor-profit organization called Comfama and its program “Inspiration”, Education Soul crafted a program to benefit students from underserved communities in the country, using SmartPhones to make movies.

The program was a challenge, especially from two points of view: from one side, underserved communities lacked smartphones, and on the other hand, it needed to be 100% virtual due to the pandemic. Surprisingly, when parents knew about the program, they showed their commitment to sharing their own smartphones with their children and figured out how to get internet connectivity.

To add an international dimension to a topic such as a film industry, the leader of the program that was invited was Gustavo Bernal, a Colombian-Venezuelan film editor who had worked with American film director Spike Lee, known by movies like Malcom X and She´s Gotta Have It. One could think that SmartPhone filmmaking is something new, but in fact, it has been in place since 2005-2006, when the first full-length film SMS Sugar Man was shot entirely on a cell phone by South African director Aryan Kaganof, using at that time a Sony´s Ericsson w900i due to its camera quality.

More than ever, the rise of the new top-of-the-line cameras embedded into cellphones are here to stay. We are witnessing high-quality camera features that make possible low-budget movies. The interesting thing about this “new wave” reminds us what happened with the

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French New Wave and the 16-millimeter film cameras at the end of the 50s, with a movement called the “camérastylo” (French expression for Camera-pen) quoted by Alexandre Astruc, the French film director known by his contribution of the “author´s theory”, that gave the basics of the idea that a director needs to emulate with his/her camera exactly what he/she does when he/she is writing in a piece of paper: spontaneously, jamming, personal, using natural light along with low-budget. Today, the smartphone filmmaking movement is bringing exactly the same principles the “Nouvelle Vague” (French expression for New Wave) stated seventy years ago, with an additional component: democratization.

The pandemic has changed the rules of the game, and in most cases bringing hard times to many people. However, it has also opened new windows of opportunities, for instance, in education. With virtuality becoming the rule and not the exception, education has been forced to face a new reality, where there is a new ingredient as part of the recipe, which is the digital revolution. With a new set of skills with better access to high-quality technology, the fundamentals to a new way of doing things is set to the table. Unfortunately, there is still a missing part of the equation since governments and even the private sector are not taking full advantage of what they have at their hands.

Programs such as SmartPhone Filmmaking should be the norm all over Latin America. But in fact, this is not the case. The education system continues to promote learning over making, and in most cases preparing kids for the past

Juan Manuel is an International business executive with 30 years of experience in consulting services of technology and education, with a special focus on public & private alliances for Fortune 500 tech companies such as Motorola and Unisys in the United States and Latin America. He has worked in more than 30 countries and speaks five languages.

Since 2007, he has been a serial entrepreneur in different business sectors such as food, IT services and EdTech. He has created seed money funds, developed entrepreneurship public policy projects, and fostered acceleration programs. He is frequently invited as an entrepreneurship and Digital Transformation speaker in Latin America.

As Education Soul Co-founder, his most recent startup, he has been devoted for the last 5 years, to close the digital gap at underserved areas, reaching +24,000 students in Colombia, in 12 cities and 59 low-income public schools. Using EdTech platforms based on adaptive learning, his company have helped students to develop their own digital skills in a personalized way and at their own rhythm and speed, assuring follow up and concrete results, to make social impact possible.

He has also championed projects such as SmartPhone Filmaking to promote the orange economy at underserved communities.

He serves as HundrED Country Lead Colombia, a Finnish not-for-profit organization which seeks and shares inspiring innovations in K12 education around the globe.

He holds a B.S. in Business Administration (Los Andes University – Colombia) and an Executive MBA from Boston University.

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and not for a future that it does not exist but that we have a good idea of what it will become. The film industry, known as the seventh art, has given for decades the possibility to dream and to express feelings.

What Education Soul has seen in the SmartPhone Filmmaking Program is that children fly. Among one hundred projects at the redcarpet marathon, not even one was related to the pandemic. That means that children are eager to express themselves; they need a voice to speak out loud. Skills such as leadership, communication,

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critical thinking, creativity, and technology design as it was stated by McKinsey in 2018, are the basics when a child is making his/her version of his/her own “camérastylo”. And the best thing above all, it is bringing a path to children in underserved communities that normally do not have the possibility to think, manipulate, and dream about making a movie.

This journey has given children an unusual variety in subject matters, to produce new representations with a fresh new language, to exploit technological opportunities of the digital age as never before, where content and themes reflect and exemplify the tools of their making, ultimately creating new ways of storytelling, new modes

of expression and production, and new types of audience engagement. It gives education with the opportunity to make new social and cultural experiences, where there is a narration of different perspectives that in some sorts liberate the souls of children that have a lot to say nowadays.

The SmartPhone Filmaking is an initiative like many others who belongs to what it is called the Orange Economy, where art, design, videogames, film, and crafts carry an intangible value, where according to the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) if it was a country, it would be the fourth-largest economy in the world after the United States, China and Japan because of its value

in trillions of dollars. The creative and cultural industry has a long way to go and a wonderful market opportunity.

Its expansion can bridge social divides and promote social integration. As we stated before, programs such as SmartPhone Filmmaking that are addressed to underserved communities opens the path for democratizing the skills of the future. However, there are questions that remain: is the education sector in Latin America aligned with the promotion and development of the skills of the future? Is the pandemic giving us an alert of what a point of inflection is all about? Are we really preparing our children for what it is coming in the next fifty years?

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FEATURED ARTICLE

THINK EQUAL IN COLOMBIA: THE END OF DISCRIMINATORY MINDSETS STARTS WITH THE CHILDREN Leslee Udwin, Founder and Executive Chair, Think Equal

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Think Equal is a holistic Early Years Programme based on a commitment to social equality, gender, racial and religious equality, social and emotional health and well-being, environmental stewardship and global citizenship rooted in social-emotional learning

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hink Equal’s vision is a safe, free and equal world. Our mission is to achieve a global system change in education by introducing Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) as a compulsory new Early Years subject on national curricula worldwide. We ask: “How can it be deemed compulsory for a child to learn numeracy and literacy, and yet it is optional for a child to learn how to value another human being and lead healthy relationships?”

Think Equal believes social and emotional learning (SEL) is a missing core subject in schools across the world, equal in importance to numeracy and literacy. A plethora of studies suggest that SEL taught in the early years (Durlak et al., 2008, 2011; Sklad et al., 2012; Denhem et al., 2015; Blewitt et al., 2018; Flook et al., 2019) is beneficial in subsequent adult years (Barnett et al., 2005; Taylor et al., 2011; Crowley et al., 2015; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2015; Heckman, 2019; Duke University, 2021). Several studies also posit the economic benefits of both early years education and SEL in the early years (Grunewald & Rolnick 2003; Karoly et al., 2005; Belfield et al., 2015; Luo et al., 2018; Heckman, 2019).

In response to this abundance of research, governments have begun integrating SEL components into their national curricular frameworks identifying SEL skills and integrating them into the precepts for teachers and administrators to consider whilst preparing content for their classrooms. However, Think Equal has noted that many frameworks lack tangible materials for teachers to utilise in this area, which places additional burden and stress on teacher preparation. By developing and disseminating tangible SEL teaching and learning materials to classrooms, Think Equal hopes to bridge this gap and help bring high-quality SEL to early years settings across the globe.

Think Equal is a holistic Early Years Programme based on a commitment to social equality, gender, racial and religious equality, social and emotional health and well-being, environmental stewardship and global citizenship rooted in social-emotional learning.

The programme views children as individual parts of a collective, global fabric. It aims to support them as they begin a lifelong learning journey unburdened by the restraints of discriminatory mindsets. It endows them with knowledge and experiential understanding of values and life skills or competencies such as empathy,

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inclusion, self-confidence, emotional literacy, self-regulation, peaceful conflict resolution, and so forth. It encourages and empowers them to assume responsibilities as global citizens and become ‘upstanders’ and transformers of society through critical, inclusive and creative thinking. It does all this through tangible, concrete exercises, programmatic tools and step by step guidance on how to deploy them with the children in an equal partnership of learning.

As an international NGO, Think Equal has developed a comprehensive and holistic SEL programme with a primary focus in gender equality, well-being, a celebration of diversity, environmentalism and emotional literacy and regulation.

Various levels of the programme connect with different aged children, from 3-6. Think Equal was born from the Founder’s journey while making the documentary film, ‘India’s Daughter’, which covered the 2012 rape and murder of a young Indian woman, Jyoti Singh. The interviews conducted while making this film led her to understand that all the men interviewed rapists and lawyers - regardless of the level of education, held the same discriminatory mindset that women were of lesser value than men. Understanding thereby that it was not mere access to, but contents of, education that would have made the difference to these men’s mindsets, the movement and mission of the Think Equal Programme was sparked, offering SEL to all children, regardless of background.

The Think Equal Early Years Programme stems from six core Areas of Learning, paired with 36 sub-topic areas (six focuses for each Area of Learning), containing within them rich resources designed to foster positive later life outcomes.

These topic areas contribute to the development of personal, social and emotional competencies in the early childhood setting - and through the extensive use of narrative and a focus on social cognition - in the broader context of the child’s life.

Think Equal’s Areas of Learning and the supporting sub-topics place the child at the centre of their learning.

These include: 1. I Have A Strong Sense of Who I Am – Global Citizenship – Self-Esteem – Resilience – Empowerment – Self-Acceptance – Diversity 2. I Am Able to Look After Myself – The Things I Can Do – Self-Regulation – Emotional Literacy – Self-Awareness – Finding Positive Solutions – The Choices I Make and Their Outcomes 3. I Am Able to Look After Others – Kindness and Friendship – Inclusion – Perspective-Taking – Taking Care of Nature, Animals and the World I Live In – Using Empathy – Being an Up-stander 4. I Am Able to Contribute and Create – Self-Expression – Creativity – Collaboration – Turn-Taking – Sharing Ideas – Using my Head, Heart and Hands to Help others

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Leslee was voted by the NY Times the No 2 Most Impactful Woman of 2015 (second to Hillary Clinton), and has been awarded the prestigious Swedish Anna Lindh Human Rights Prize (previously won by Madeleine Albright).

In 2019, she received the Activism in Arts and Education award from the UN Women for Peace Association, UN Association USA’s Global Citizen of 2019, and the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award. She has also been named Safe’s Global Hero of 2015, and Global Thinker by Foreign Policy. A BAFTA and multiaward-winning filmmaker and Human Rights Campaigner, Leslee’s documentary “India’s Daughter”, has been critically acclaimed around the globe, won 32 awards (including the Peabody Award and the Amnesty International Media Award for Best Documentary 2016) and sparked a global movement to end violence against women and girls. The searing insights yielded by the 2-and-a-half-year journey making “India’s Daughter”, led Leslee to turn her back on filmmaking and devote herself to Think Equal.

5. I Am a Critical Thinker – Creating Strategies – Problem-Solving – Self-Knowledge – Similarities and Differences – Peaceful Conflict-Resolution – Gender Equality 6. I Am Able to Communicate – Recognising Feelings – Self-Confidence – Listening to Others – Role-Play – Story Telling – Being Kind and Considerate of Others More specifically, Think Equal covers 25 core SEL Outcomes within the books and lesson plans. These outcomes are: empathy; collaboration; self-awareness; resilience; emotional literacy; perspective-taking; selfesteem; relationship-building skills; self-regulation; inclusion; self-confidence; kindness; gender equality; being an advocate for others; problem-solving; moral and ethical values; communication skills; global citizenship; critical thinking; peaceful conflictresolution; mindfulness; environmental awareness and action; creativity; celebration of diversity; goal setting. Each of these outcomes is addressed explicitly through the hands-on activities and materials of the Think Equal Programme.

Effective implementation of the Think Equal programme requires an integrated pedagogical approach that accounts for all aspects of child development. These approaches, as described by Reeder and Emmett (2020), include three dominant methods. The first method is collaborative learning, which “highlights the importance of the social and cultural context of language, and provides ample opportunities for children’s participation with each other; and promotes play in the learning process by providing additional opportunities for children to engage in culturally meaningful activities” (Reeder & Emmet 2020, p. 4). The second approach is community based learning, which “can often fill gaps in the provision of, and access to government education systems through participation in development and delivery of community education (Mansuri & Rao, 2004 in Young, D)” (as cited in Reeder & Emmet, 2020, p. 4). Finally, Think Equal promotes contemplative learning, which integrates Eastern and Western educational traditions of contemplative mindfulness awareness practices, helping students to know themselves more deeply and to engage constructively with others.” (Reeder & Emmet 2020, p. 4). These pedagogical approaches help ensure Think Equal is effective in various social and cultural contexts, placing value on individuality and variance between teaching philosophies and cultures.

In 2019 Think Equal began working with Fundación Escuela Nueva, founded by Vicky Colbert, to bring the Think Equal SEL tools to Colombia’s children. With a grant provided by Inter-American Development Bank, this collaboration aims to enhance the social and emotional learning opportunities for Colombian children aged 3 to 5 years, to help end discriminatory mindsets and cycles of violence and develop specific socio-emotional skills necessary for success in life through the implementation of a structured programme in Colombia. The programme initially envisioned piloting in pre-school settings across the country, including rural areas. However, COVID-19 and global uncertainties led the team to rethink a different approach than a solution only available in schools, as so many are currently closed. A programme was then adapted that engages families, parents, siblings - all in all, a non-educator population, around the children in their daily lives.

With thoughtful consideration of how to best reach children who are not in school and potentially living in rural areas, the programme successfully kicked off in early 2021. It implements a hybrid model designed to accommodate the learning experience in multiple ways: from lessons recorded by teachers and made available via YouTube, to activities and books sent to parents, with accompanying phone messages and pre-recorded readings. While children remain Think Equal’s primary focus, parents and communities around them are now also exposed to SEL content and activities. Due to this, parental engagement is one of the primary outcomes observed in Colombia.

Through the programme’s initial learnings, Think Equal is witnessing a social transformation in marginalised areas and within populations further disadvantaged by the global pandemic.

As mentioned above, Think Equal begins with the child and acknowledges the dispositions, culture, customs, knowledge, and experience a child brings to their learning environment. We believe that new and meaningful learning can only occur once the child’s experiential, cultural and educational background have been acknowledged and respected.

This approach encourages and empowers children to assume responsibilities as global citizens and become “upstanders” and transform societies through the use of critical, inclusive and creative thinking, which we believe will help stop the cycle of violence and discrimination so prevalent in today’s world. Think Equal believes in the child as an agent of social change.

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FEATURED ARTICLE

SACUDETE STRATEGY: EMPOWERING A COLOMBIAN GENERATION FOR HAPPY AND PRODUCTIVE LIVES María Juliana Ruiz, First Lady of the Republic of Colombia

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Important efforts had already been deployed in Colombia for early childhood and childhood, up to the early teens, which we have strengthened with a vision of zero tolerance for any form of violence, and building a concept of nourishment which applies to both the food (nutrition needs) and to spiritual and emotional well-being

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n 2018, I found myself as First Lady of Colombia, bursting with ideas and projects, and with a renewed sense of purpose, with all my professional and human skills put at the service of my fellow Colombians, tireless and relentless, seeing in this task a huge responsibility that I defined under two major capacities: advocacy and convening.

And at the same time, an immense opportunity to set in motion decisive actions and establishing an institutional architecture and comprehensive policies to support the citizen’s holistic life course, from 0 to 28 years old, by cultivating protective and prosper environments where my fellow countrymen could thrive.

I had the call to make a specific emphasis on youth, aiming to create real opportunities or close gaps and reduce inequalities, and focused on developing essential life skills.

This dream has accompanied me ever since, convinced that gathering efforts and involving different actors to work from a multisectoral perspective will positively impact the well-being of our younger generations. Ploughing fertile grounds for them to bloom and bear fruit will be decisive for the sustainable development of our societies and for achieving the

goals set by the 2030 Agenda. Personally, I believe in youth’s capacity of resilience, creativity and innovation, and in the chance, we have to foster their talents and skills for them to become leaders and agents of constructive change.

Important efforts had already been deployed in Colombia for early childhood and childhood, up to the early teens, which we have strengthened with a vision of zero tolerance for any form of violence, and building a concept of nourishment which applies to both the food (nutrition needs) and to spiritual and emotional well-being; giving the body the resources it needs for physical and cognitive development and at the same time, nourishing the soul with protection and caring.

Our biggest challenge arose willing to develop the necessary conditions to extend that integral approach to support the Colombian youth in a meaningful way – an age group that demanded specific attention. Even more when one considers that teenagers and young adults are restless age groups, where many of life’s important changes take place –– such as transitions between education stages, vocational orientation, becoming autonomous, reaching sexual maturity, and professional insertion ––, and where the full support of the public

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sector is much needed, with the purpose of leaving no one behind.

We’re a country with a total population of over 48 million people, and 12.6 million of them are aged between 14 and 28 years –– according to our Youth Citizenship Statutory Law –– and more than 70% of our population are below 40 years old. About 21.6% of Colombia’s young population is unemployed (between 15 to 25 years old).

Many are neither studying nor in training and capable of working. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, youth unemployment increased from 16% to 21% in one year, with informality and poor working conditions amongst the most pressing issues. Moreover, there are concerning gaps in terms of access to quality healthcare and education, including challenges to successfully remain enrolled and to remain exclusively dedicated to higher education studies.

In order to tackle these issues, we gathered strategic actors national and international (Interamerican Development Bank and United Nations Development Programme) and creative minds and came up with the idea to put in place an ambitious program that would contribute to strengthen a new generation of Colombians, sharing a common belief where young people are decisive actors in

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positive transformation and sustainable development, and with the aim to foster their skills and capabilities to fulfil their potential, with happy and productive lives. This is how the SACUDETE Strategy was born, a program that supports young people and creates prosperity by providing innovative training in areas such as climate action, creative and cultural industries, innovation, science, technology and tourism, developing entrepreneurial skills, becoming community leaders through solidarity, empathy and collaboration. Like a complete puzzle, SACUDETE is designed to provide continuity to the programs targeting development in childhood and early adolescence and filling the institutional void for the youth. Two aspects are essential for this task: to gather efforts and make alliances with multisectoral actors and partners to build the grounds for a sustainable program, and to make SACUDETE a territorial program genuinely inspired by the people who live in our country and with the purpose of amplifying their voices, promoting diversity and multiplicity as key factors for creating shared value.

Once the concept of SACUDETE was devised, the following step was to establish an institutional architecture and an ecosystem of strategic alliances, to carry out

María Juliana Ruiz is committed to promoting integral development for young Colombians from early childhood into early adulthood. Her engagements include childhood nourishment programs by strengthening infrastructures and medical assistance, ensuring the consumption of essential micronutrients, and fostering safe socio-emotional environments.

Her commitment to young people is embodied through the establishment of the SACÚDETE (“Shake Yourself”) Strategy: a network designed to inspire young people to develop leadership skills, contributing to social and productive change in the country. The initiative aims to create 140 innovative learning centres and reach over 400.000 beneficiaries by 2022.

María Juliana Ruiz obtained a Law degree from Javeriana University, studied at the Catholic Institute in Paris and later obtained a Master’s degree in Law, with an emphasis on International Business, at the American University. Upon completion of an internship at the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington D.C., she began what would become an ascending career at OAS over 10 years, culminating at the office of the Secretary-General. Back in Colombia, she served as Secretary-General of the Shaio Clinic, before resigning to assume her duties as First Lady of the Nation.

María Juliana Ruiz has been married to Iván Duque, President of the Republic of Colombia for 18 years. As First Lady of Colombia, she has become a Colombian Ambassador to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 17: “Partnership for the Goals”.

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a program of this magnitude. The government started by strengthening the national youth agency Colombia Joven by upgrading it to a Presidential Youth Office, with new management capacity, confirming Presidents’ Duque trust in youth and prioritizing them as a State essential responsibility.

In the same line, the Direction of Adolescence and Youth was created inside the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, counting on incredible human and financial resources and with territorial extent because of its regional agencies. Thanks to the combined efforts of these two institutions, we’ve built momentum with other governmental and territorial entities, private businesses, civil society and academia to constitute what we call the SACUDETE Ecosystem, with multisectoral actors participating and contributing to the program and constructing a sense of territorial belonging. All of this is possible because we believe and recognize youth’s talents, abilities and capabilities to transform our realities, a cause we share and that we spread as a philosophy of change for the new generations.

Simultaneously, we reached out to multilateral organizations to assist us with the formulation and the

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financial sustainability of this newly created program in terms of methodology and operation, as well as devising ways to have a national reach. The help of multilateral organizations has been a key factor in the success of this project. Even though Colombia is a middle-income country, we still have many challenges in terms of inequality and granting access to opportunities evenly, especially in the midst of the stabilization and consolidation process we currently face. This is why we gratefully received the support of the United Nations Development Program during the first stages of SACUDETE’s development, and later on, in December 2020, we subscribed an international loan for 50 million dollars to finance SACUDETE between 2021 and 2024 with the Interamerican Development Bank, a fundamental ally for us.

Thanks to their help, we’ve developed an innovative and disruptive internationally-backed methodology, with three stages: INSPIRATION, ENGAGEMENT and TRANSFORMATION. Throughout this process, young beneficiaries become self-aware of their own talents and are encouraged to develop them with a socially oriented frame of mind, and they are oriented technically towards designing projects to solve real issues and local

challenges by working together. The process takes place at the SACUDETE Centers, which are creative and innovative laboratories, centres of social interaction and gathering, through spreading the SACUDETE vision and philosophy with national reach.

SACUDETE’s training programs are centred in developing skills and talents from the 4th Industrial Revolution focused on resilience, including creativity, design thinking, collaboration, critical capacity, communications and curiosity, in order to build self-confidence and richer relations and exchanges between the youth, as well as to provide sustainable alternatives to illegal activities and risk behaviour.

The methodology is customized according to the beneficiaries by considering the differences, idiosyncrasies and individualities of the communities and territories where it works, as well as the programs which already exist or have been implemented before. The young people who experience SACUDETE, are also expected to follow one of the “three E paths”: Education enrolling in academic programs and colleges, Employment by finding jobs and becoming competitive in the professional market and Entrepreneurship by providing services and solutions. This is one of the ways that we hope to achieve sustainability, since the beneficiaries will, in turn, become guides, mentors

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or inspirational figures to others by creating a network and a community around SACUDETE, by replicating the good practices, and transferring and generating knowledge.

In 2020 we faced one of humanity’s biggest challenges in recent history because of the Covid-19 pandemic and lived a year full of uncertainty, and we experienced a lockdown like humanity had never seen before in its entire history. This was also a major issue for SACUDETE, first designed to be a face-to-face program in the territories.

But we soon discovered that what we thought at first to be a setback became an opportunity to innovate once more and to rethink its methodology and operational model to adopt a blended learning model, combining face-toface, remote and virtual methods to reach young people in more than 620 of our 1.103 municipalities, in only one year. This way, we were able to successfully attain more than 100.000 young people in 2020, supporting them and building a sense of community, through protective and productive environments, in a most difficult year; with the total goal of impacting over 400.000 young people and establishing more than 230 centres in 2022 and reaching the whole country through blended methodologies.

With SACUDETE, we adapted to take measures to take care of our youth and to improve their well-being, and we mobilized our joint efforts to prevent young people from losing touch; on the contrary, we felt that this was an

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opportunity to reach out to our deepest and most sincere humanity, to establish solidarity and empathy as our core principles. And to use technology to build bridges between different people, emotions, ideas, minds and subjectivities, uniting territories and cultures, inspiring each other through our differences to acquire a broader vision of the world and of ourselves.

Through hard work and endeavour, and especially by listening to the Colombian people and discovering multiple realities through their eyes, we’ve reassured the need to build programs and strategies that involve the people who will experience them because, as a country, we’re dealing with human beings and human lives. And this is a crucial point to understand the success of SACUDETE and feel the passion of the teams and the people committed to making it happen.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt said: “We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future”. And for that purpose, we need to establish fertile grounds for young people to thrive, and to encourage them through substantial actions and commitments, and to seed in them a sense of hope to transform their realities and others’ for a better present and a brighter future, partaking a common cause. I am convinced that by empowering youth, we´re truly making an investment in our social well-being and our sustainable and economic development.

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FEATURED ARTICLE

SPORT AS A TOOL TO EDUCATE AND SPREAD PEACE Maria Vallés, General Manager, Barça Foundation

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Encouraging social interactions between rivals from different teams considerably increases the interaction between athletes and coaching staff, both with team building days and with friendly tournaments

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e are all aware, that nowadays Latin America faces important challenges, among others, high rates of poverty and violence, the climate change impact, and the consolidation of its political and economic integration. In addition, Covid-19 and its effects put the whole region in an extremely vulnerable situation.

With these challenges as a baseline, the Barça Foundation has been working in the region for more than a decade, and to date has reached more than 45,000 children and young people with social inclusion and violence prevention programmes through sports with the support of different partnerships of private companies and public entities, and over nine million euros have been devoted to the implementation. One example of the Barça Foundation’s action is the work it has been carrying out in Colombia since 2016.

In his message on peace and education in Colombia (1998), Gabriel García Márquez emphasised that violence can only be remedied in a society that “guides us from the cradle in the early identification of vocations and congenital aptitudes to be able to do all our lives only what we like... and

that vindicates and exalts the predominance of the imagination.” And in keeping with this spirit, the Barça Foundation works in this country with the aim of mitigating the risk factors that contribute to the increase in violence among young Colombians. As the Nobel laureate believed, also our organisation invests in life skills trainings through sport. To date, more than 14,500 young Colombians and Venezuelans have participated in projects that prevent the early recruitment of children and young people by armed gangs, prevent recidivism amongst young people who are already in the juvenile justice system, and foster life skills.

In Bogotá, for example, many young people are forced into a life of crime. Theft, drug trafficking and assaults are the most common crimes among minors.

With the aim of contributing to the reduction of these crimes, our organisation began to develop the “En la Juega” project in 2018. Implemented in 7 locations in the Colombian capital, and in coordination with the Secretariat of Security, Coexistence and Justice, and the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce, the project is based on sports and cooperative challenges as tools to prevent youth violence and reduce recidivism.

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In May 2016, Maria Valles joined Barca Foundation as Executive Director. From 2012 to 2016, she was a member of the Board of Directors of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Spain and the Director of Corporate Development at the Vicente Ferrer Foundation (Spanish NGO present in India).

With over 24 years experience in the non-profit sector, Maria Valles has held national and international positions, such as head of Communication and Advocacy at the Global Health Institute (IS Global), Executive Director of the AIDS Foundation, and Head of Fundraising and Communication in Doctors Without Borders (MSF). She has also directly coordinated various programmes in the field of humanitarian aid and development in Africa (Kenya) and Latin America (Guatemala).

With a Master’s degree in Cooperation and Development (University of Barcelona) and Diploma in Culture of Peace and Conflict Resolution (Catedra UNESCO-UAB), Maria Valles originally trained in International Management and Foreign Trade in Paris. She is interested in managing nonprofit organisations, strategic planning and development, sustainability strategy and environment, communication and advocacy, project management and organisational leadership.

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To achieve this, sports games are used to strengthen the emotional, cognitive, behavioural, and logical skills of young people so that they learn to make better decisions in life and avoid participating in violent and criminal behaviour. Skills are reinforced through the implementation of three elements: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), reinforcement in mathematics, and attention to the families of the participants.

This socio-educational project took place over nine months in 11 parks across 7 locations in Bogotá, involving more than 1,850 young people. In each of the more than 1,300 sessions held, activities were carried

out aimed at identifying, experiencing, and controlling emotions, recognising situations, and associating them with appropriate behaviours other than aggression, communicating assertively, working as a team, and developing values oriented towards achieving life goals, among others.

Results were monitored to appreciate the changes generated by the programme. In a comparative analysis of emotional and behavioural indicators between the situations prior to the project and that after participating in it, we find results that reinforce our belief that violent behaviour among young people can be reduced through sport.

Encouraging social interactions between rivals from different teams considerably increases the interaction between athletes and coaching staff, both with team building days and with friendly tournaments. Ultimately, it is about showing that we are social beings and that we need others to be able to be so. It is through others that we learn to communicate and relate to the world.

Some of the most important positive impacts revolved around increasing levels of empathy and rejection of discrimination. In cases of conflict between participants, they sought solutions peacefully. If someone provoked them, they distanced themselves and calmed themselves by practising breathing exercises. It was also evident that positive leaderships were beginning to emerge that moved away from the use of force and instead made use of assertive communication to get people involved and achieve the goals of the entire group.

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Additionally, there was an increase in the perception of security. The impression of insecurity and danger associated with the parks diminished. The surrounding business owners and traders no longer pointed to them as the most unsafe places in the neighbourhood. At the same time, there was a qualitative change in the explanations given by traders about the causes of insecurity. Young people, known as “vicious,” were no longer the cause of the problem of insecurity in the sectors.

Similarly, the “En la Juega” initiative has generated a sense of belonging and community towards the group among the participants. The place where we hold our sessions was perceived as a safe space that many are willing to defend.

An example of the success of this project is Christopher Andrés, a Colombian boy from the Santa Fé neighbourhood. Christopher is 11 years old and has the sharpness of someone who has had to make a living on the streets. The young boy could pass for one of Dickens’ abandoned children, but he is not a fictional character. He is pure authenticity and optimism. “It’s great not feeling alone. Through play, we have learned to stop fighting and be quiet. Now I am able to play calmly and without anger.”

The soundtrack of his childhood has been a stubborn symphony of mutinous dogs. With all the strength of someone who has survived on the streets, he says: “Here I have learned to get along better with others. Before, I was a little rascal.”

Oscar Park is the epicentre of the community. The park was dangerous, and it had dense and strange energy.

Kids would go to the park and destroy it. Now the park is a safe space. Young people have found a neutral zone

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for harmony and play. The park has become a place of emotional and social transition.

Another project that is yielding positive results and encouraging us to continue working in this line is the one in Putumayo. Supported by Gran Tierra, football and other sports activities are used there as tools for reflection to improve the lives of vulnerable children and young people from problem areas. Over participants, their families, educators, and local people from 6 neighbourhoods of Puerto Asís have improved their educational, physical, and social well-being. More specifically, the participation of young people in this project has become a safe and healthy leisure alternative that replaces other potentially dangerous activities; it has promoted the acquisition of life skills, especially self-control and the management of emotions; the fostering of interpersonal relationships has provided a distraction and escape from family conflicts, and has provided adult role models in an environment with little family support. Similarly, families are also affected, and their participation has contributed to more respectful family life.

At the Barça Foundation, we understand that we can only move forward and achieve the necessary changes through values that work on both the individual and collective levels. We do this by applying strategies and coping skills in sport and in life that are designed to increase opportunities. In other words, looking at sport from the positive side, fostering respect and empathy for others, and unreservedly condemning the violence.

In this spirit, the Barça Foundation understands that sport is not an end in itself but rather a tool to educate and spread peace.

Want to find Investor for your Startup?

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FEATURED ARTICLE

CHANGING THE NARRATIVE: THE POWER OF WIKIPEDIA ST TO FOSTER 21 CENTURY SKILLS Melissa Guadalupe Huertas, Program Officer for Education and Nichole Saad, Senior Manager for Education, Wikimedia Foundation

Melissa Guadalupe Huertas

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Nichole Saad

A critical engagement with Wikipedia in educational settings can change how students approach media and information, it can support the development of digital skills, and it can foster new ways of collaborating online

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n a year where more students and teachers are relying on the web to access information for their academic and personal lives, it’s imperative to ensure that they are equipped with skills and strategies that will prevent them from falling victim to disinformation (either believing it or spreading it). The responsibility to develop these skills isn’t confined to a single domain or academic subject, but it’s rather a cross-curricular effort that impacts how students approach information to make decisions in their academic and personal lives. Taking this into account, the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects, launched a 9-week online program in three pilot countries that taught secondary school teachers how to use Wikipedia to develop media and information literacy skills among their students. At the Wikimedia Foundation, we work toward a world where everyone can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We do this by supporting the global movement of more than 280,000 volunteers who collaboratively write, edit, and improve articles on Wikipedia and our other free knowledge projects based on principles of neutrality and reliable sourcing. As everything produced in the Wikimedia movement, the resources created for this

program are now available for anyone interested to use, share and remix.

Why Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites worldwide. The information it contains frequently shows up in the first pages of any search engine and in the Google Knowledge Graph. While its nature as the encyclopedia that anyone can edit raises justified scepticism about its reliability, its demonization and exclusion from the classroom experience is a missed opportunity to engage students with a more critical approach to information. A critical engagement with Wikipedia in educational settings can change how students approach media and information, it can support the development of digital skills, and it can foster new ways of collaborating online. Moreover, educators around the world are already integrating Wikipedia into their pedagogical practice, and there is a growing body of academic literature reflecting on the opportunities of these experiences.

Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom In 2020, the Education team at the Wikimedia Foundation launched a pilot program in Bolivia,

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Melissa Guadalupe Huertas serves as a Program Officer for Education at the Wikimedia Foundation. She’s previously led diverse education initiatives in Latin America focused on community development and cross-cultural understanding. She’s a former Chevening Scholar with an MA in Education, Gender and International Development from University College London. She joined the Wikimedia Foundation to further expand resources and strategies that help integrate the Wikimedia projects into classroom learning, with a particular focus on emerging communities and knowledge equity.

Morocco and the Philippines to help secondary school teachers take advantage of Wikipedia as a tool to foster media and information literacy skills. Our team worked collaboratively with local coordinators from Wikimedia affiliates in these three pilot countries to offer a highquality and meaningful online professional development opportunity for the participants. The team created, contextualized, and translated educational resources and led synchronous virtual training sessions for over 600 total participating teachers.

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The curriculum followed UNESCO’s Media and Information Literacy framework and, as such, it was structured into three modules that touch upon the access, evaluation and creation of information through Wikipedia.

In the first module, teachers explore the different ways in which Wikipedia can be used to access information in over 300 languages, the knowledge gaps still present in the platform, and how to maintain students’ safety when they navigate Wikipedia. Throughout this module, participants also have the chance to reflect on the role of

open educational resources (OERs) and the sustainable development goals in their teaching practice. By the end of Module 1, participants are able to integrate Wikipedia into their search strategy online through the multiple ways of accessing the encyclopedia (web browser, app, offline options) and navigating its content (hyperlinks, categories, languages).

The second module walks teachers through the different elements of a Wikipedia article and proposes

practical exercises for teachers to explore Wikipedia from an informed and critical perspective. Teachers are able to assess the quality of a Wikipedia article by taking into consideration, for example, Wikipedia’s core content policies (neutral point of view, verifiability, no original research) or by interpreting the different warning banners and quality marks that appear in different articles. Moreover, teachers learn to make the most of the information that Wikipedia provides with each article, not

Nichole Saad is the Senior Manager for Education at the Wikimedia Foundation, and previously worked for the UNESCO Office in Amman and the Ministry of Education in Malaysia. She earned an MA from George Washington University, USA, in International Education, focusing on Teacher Professional Development, Education Technology, International Development, and Education in Emergencies. Her current work at the Wikimedia Foundation allows her to pursue all of these academic interests while working towards a world where the sum of all human knowledge is free and accessible to everyone.

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only when it comes to the content but also by looking into the process of knowledge construction that takes place in the platform. Teachers move from passive information consumers to actively assess the encyclopedia, thus strengthening their information, media and technology skills - key to the literacies promoted under the 21stcentury skills framework. Among other things, this is achieved by: • Reviewing the “Talk” tab of an article to identify past and current discussions about the information contained in an article, decision-making dynamics in the process of creating and improving an article, and the evaluation of secondary sources used in the article.

• Checking the “View History” tab to see the last edits made to a Wikipedia article, the quality of the contributions, and the diversity of contributors who together build Wikipedia.

• Exploring the “References” section to access the sources used in an article, verify the information it contains, and expand our research beyond Wikipedia.

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In the third and final module, teachers receive an introduction to Wikipedia’s editing guidelines and they learn to create an account and user page on the site. Using this account, teachers start taking their first steps in the editing process; they learn how to contribute to Wikipedia articles by adding a citation, sending “thanks” to other Wikipedia editors, and how to participate in campaigns and contests organized by the global Wikimedia community.

In Bolivia, the local coordinators organized additional workshops where interested teachers received more personalized guidance around editing and contributing content to Wikipedia.

Main insights from Bolivian teachers Teachers from all over Bolivia responded to the open call to join the program and the team selected a cohort of 100 teachers to participate - following criteria that strived for equal gender and geographical representation. Before the program started, the team led a needs assessment strategy that allowed us to learn about the perspectives of

teachers in the country. It gave us insights into their use of Wikipedia, highlighted their interest in learning more about youth safety in online/digital spaces, and helped us understand their knowledge of media and information literacy. Through this initial online survey, we learned that 56% of teachers understood media and information literacy as the act of accessing information (online and offline), and over 60% considered that their students could not differentiate factual vs false information due to a lack of training. We also learned that 19% of teachers use Wikipedia to find instructional content, and a significant 90% of teachers said they would encourage or already encourage their students to use Wikipedia. In contrast, 60% of teachers in Morocco and 70% of teachers in the Philippines responded positively to the same question.

However, this encouragement was again mostly linked to the possibility of accessing information. Teachers expressed that some of their main concerns were still the reliability of the content and the possibility of plagiarism when students use Wikipedia.

Over nine weeks in 2020, the participants moved through the content in the Teacher’s Guides and participated in 5 synchronous online training sessions. Throughout the program, we monitored a private Facebook group where participants could share their reflections and learnings and ask for support. On average, 57 teachers actively engaged with the content throughout the nine weeks of the program. Among their most useful learnings from the program, teachers reported that they gained the ability to conduct a “critical reflection on the information.” For example, toward the end of Module 2, teacher Lidia Calle Rosas from La Paz shared that she realized “there isn’t a lot of information online in my students’ mother tongue (aymara). This might be mainly because there isn’t an official writing system of this language, and additionally, those who speak it might not know how to write it. It’s very important that information in our mother tongues exist because there are expressions that will be hard to translate in their full complexity. Specially all the knowledge in natural medicine needs to be documented and researched so we can share them through reliable academic means.”

Likewise, teacher Jorge Aneiva Rejas from Cochambamba highlighted how by the end of Module 3 he could see a different side of Wikipedia and understand “the dynamics of editing, the information Wikipedia can provide us, and how us teachers can contribute to collective knowledge.”

By the end of the program, 93% of surveyed teachers reported that they felt confident to integrate the new knowledge and skills they have gained about Wikipedia

into their classroom practice. Additionally, teachers shared how identifying and reflecting on the content gaps about Bolivian history, culture and society in Wikipedia encouraged them to become editors themselves - an unexpected outcome of the program. For example, in a post-program interview, teacher Ismael Quispe Flores from Tarija expressed that “as a professional I always had the dream of publishing, sharing what I know and I had never realized the potential of Wikipedia to fulfill this dream and with such a wide reach. Now I understand the common thread with which I can motivate and encourage the capacities of content creation, research and critical reading in my students.”

Respondents of the post-program evaluation also highlighted how the program made them think differently about contributing to Wikipedia, searching for information online, and even how to better use technology and digital

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platforms in their teaching. Teacher Rolando Vargas from Pando expressed that at first he “thought that Wikipedia was a platform like Google, but now I value all the volunteer work done by the community behind it.”

What’s next?

The Education team at the Wikimedia Foundation has published the Teacher’s Guides used for the program on Wikimedia Commons in 4 languages: English, Spanish, Arabic, and Tagalog. In the coming weeks, we will be sharing the full program report with insights from the three pilot countries.

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The plans to scale this pilot include a training of trainers program and funding opportunities for other Wikimedia communities and interested partners to implement the program in their own localities. We hope that this program can be integrated into professional development strategies for pre-service and in-service teachers. We will also be publishing other assets developed for this program: the evaluation tools we created, localization guidelines for the resources, and lesson plans and visuals of the synchronous training sessions. If you would like to get in touch with the Education team about the “Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom” program, please send us a message at education@wikimedia.org.

What are we doing to help our children to be successful in the 21st century?

Introducing an

EDTECH PLATFORM

On Computational Thinking & Digital Competences Using Adaptive Learning, leveraged by Machine Learning Engines

“We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet” McLeod, Scott and Karl Fisch, “Shift Happens” (2007)

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Ability Understanding Technology and Knowing how to use it Skills to create and collaborate digitally

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FEATURED ARTICLE

HELLO DISRUPTION! Mercedes Mateo Diaz, Education Division Chief, Inter-American Development Bank

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Today, education and training are not something that happens at a certain point in our life: it will happen during our entire life span

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t is just over a year since the coronavirus was officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). For a long time to come, we will continue to remember the dead, the sick, the after-effects of the disease, the serious economic consequences, and the personal and social impact on wellbeing and mental health.

There will also be a lot of discussion about education: the catastrophic effects of school closures and their intergenerational impact. In fact, it is very possible that years from now, education will be the deepest and most lasting scar left by the virus.

According to UNICEF data, children in Latin America and the Caribbean have been out of school the longest. Nearly 60 percent of children in the region missed the school year, and 13 million children are not accessing distance learning. We know that the region already had a severe dropout problem, which the pandemic has exacerbated. A recent study states that the probability of Latin American children finishing school has fallen from 61% to 46%, returning to levels of the 1960s. But that’s not all. Youth unemployment is three times higher than for adults.

However, the connection between education and employment was already broken before the pandemic.

For several generations, titles and diplomas were the currency used to exchange in the labour market. Today, the connection between this type of formal education accreditation and jobs has been disrupted. Signs of decline are not new, but the pandemic is probably behind the acceleration of this trend. Quite a body of evidence shows an apparent disconnect between what companies need and what the education and formal training systems produce in terms of skills distribution (Bassi et al., 2011; ManpowerGroup, 2018; King & Zaharchuk, 2016; Shidu & Calderon, 2014; Pew, 2016). Moreover, evidence also shows a shift in the relative importance of different types of skills, with a growing premium on the traditionally so-called “soft skills” (Deming, 2017; Heckman and Kautz, 2012; Edin et al., 2017). In 2012, Nobel Laureate James Heckman and Tim Kautz explained the importance of soft skills like perseverance, sociability, and curiosity in predicting success in life, and causally producing that success. David J. Deming also found that workers with high social skills work more efficiently by coordinating or trading tasks with others.

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A skills shortage Today, education and training are not something that happens at a certain point in our life: it will happen during our entire life span. We used to structure the life cycle in blocks: we learned during the early years until the beginning of adulthood; then we had a productive phase where we worked; and finally, around the mid-sixties, we retired. This structure no longer applies. We need to be lifelong learners. Human capital development systems and investments need to adjust to this new reality.

Various estimates around the world signal a dramatic and growing shortage of skills in the labour market.

This is not only due to the speed at which the market is transforming and adapting to technological change but to the difficulties formal education and training systems have to respond to these new needs. For example,

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only 55 per cent of leaders believe that their country’s current education system provides the right programs to ensure lifelong learning and skills development (King & Zaharchuk, 2016). Some analysts say that, by 2030, the world may be short of more than 85 million workers with the required skills, with about $8.5 trillion in unrealized revenue opportunities (Korn Ferry, 2018).

Jobs and occupations are changing quickly, and so are the required skills. Whereas many traditional jobs are disappearing, the emergence of new occupations is unprecedented. On the one hand, robots are taking over many essential, routine tasks. On the other, some estimates suggest that around 50% of the professions that will appear in the next few years are unknown today.

According to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates, about 14% of jobs in OECD economies are highly automatable, and another 32% could face substantial changes (OECD, 2019). Some data for the Latin American and Caribbean region indicate rates above 50% for those workers with occupations at high risk of automation (Bosch, Pages, & Ripani, 2018; World Bank, 2016; McKinsey, 2017; Plastino, Zuppolini, & Govier, 2018). These trends imply that, overall, in the

Mercedes Mateo Díaz is Education Division Chief at the IDB Group, where she leads an ambitious initiative to rethink education and strengthen the learning ecosystems to equip citizens with 21st-century skills. She coordinates the research, design and execution of innovative education projects. Her work covers different areas of international development and social policy, with a strong emphasis on inequality. She has contributed to the areas of institutional reform, female labor force participation, early childhood, socio-emotional and digital skills and social cohesion. She holds a PhD in political science from the University of Louvain. In 2004, she was a postdoctoral research fellow with the Belgian Scientific Research Foundation (FNRS) and honorary researcher until 2007. From 2002-2004, she was a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Robert Schumann Center of the European University Institute.

coming years, probably about 35 per cent of skills for jobs will change across industries (World Economic Forum, 2016). Over the life cycle, individuals will need to change careers and occupations more often than before.

Skills get outdated faster than ever.

Exacerbating the issue, the rate at which professional skills become obsolete is increasing. For example, software engineers need to re-develop their skills every year or 18 months (Pelster et al., 2017). One in four people already experience a mismatch between the skills they have and the skills they need for their current job (World Economic Forum, 2017). Whereas the life of professional skills has been progressively declining (Kasriel, 2017), a recent IBM report shows that the training time required to close the capability gap increased from 3 days in 2014 to 36 days in 2018 (LaPrade, Mertens, Moore, & Wright, 2019). The rate at which skills relevancy expires implies heightened demand for upskilling and reskilling. Demand for management occupations has increased; jobs require higher levels of skills; and many new jobs require either high- or medium-level digital skills (Muro et al., 2017).

Finally, there is a growing disconnect between education requirements and job requirements. Students invest too much time, money and effort on degrees that might have a symbolic value, but that are not needed in practice for many of the jobs and occupations to which they will be applying. Today, many companies and governments are not requiring degrees for new hires. Apple, Google, IBM, Bank of America, and EY, and also the U.S. federal government no longer have degree requirements for applicants as long as they have the appropriate skills (White House, 2020).

Education unbundling How is the market trying to solve the skills shortage? By breaking the business into pieces.

It is called education unbundling. Education will be increasingly modular, constituted by smaller and autonomous, yet interrelated, processes. Until now for example, K-12 education was bundled, and educational trajectories were significantly rigid and

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Photo Dirty Kitchen - Andrés Millán predetermined. Something similar happened in higher education. In a world in transformation, if all you have as a tool are bundled services, then by the time you eventually achieve a curricular reform your skills needs might have already changed. The disruption starts when private initiative splits the bundle and begins to concentrate on specific processes of the production chain: digitalization of content; adaptation and personalization of learning; certification and accreditation of competencies, etc. At the end of the day processes are interrelated. Thus, when a change is generated in one of these processes, the other processes are also affected. For example, the development of tools to certify skills create a need to generate new content to develop those skills; and vice versa.

The market is also increasingly focusing on training for skills instead of training for specialized tasks. And in this context, the transferability of skills is key. Companies want people to be trained to generate new connections between dots that were previously disconnected.

Companies want people who can respond to unpredictable situations ; use and understand human emotions to solve problems and conflicts; and who can generate new ideas.

We are also beginning to understand that the capacity

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to solve a problem by a musician when she composes a symphony is very similar to the ability of an engineer to deal with a construction challenge (Van Broekhovena et al., 2020). It requires being open to new ideas, employing divergent thinking, and maintaining a sense of flexibility.

These attitudes, disposition, skills, and knowledge are all transferable from one situation to another, and the market is responding to that.

If we train for skills, we can open the door to new ways of learning and different, more flexible alternatives and education trajectories. You can learn on the job; we know that. But this is now not just an option, but an imperative.

Companies want to know what you can do, not just what you know. Traditional diplomas provided a bold general certificate of knowledge, a black box. This is why we are seeing an increasing combination between diplomas and specific certificates that provide, in a short period of time, the training you need to perform a job. They respond to a reality in which technical skills get very quickly outdated.

And we are seeing a growing supply of services that can adjust very quickly to the shifting needs of a market that is moving at the pace of technological change. Changing the curriculum for K-12 or a four- or five-years’ degree

is a gigantic task. Creating or adapting the content of a few-months-long program to the needs of the industry is quite easy.

Finally, unbundling has important implications in terms of the diversification of supply, which is accompanied by a progressive digitalization of education services.

But we are also seeing important changes in consumers’ behavior. Not only supply but also demand will become increasingly sophisticated. Students will be more demanding and will expect concrete returns on their investments both in terms of employment and salaries. The signals sent by the market are very powerful and easily perceived by job seekers. Not only the industry but also individuals are becoming increasingly skeptical about the value of degrees. This is a huge issue for K-12 and higher education institutions. They will need to rethink what they offer, given that the amount of time and money students spend is quite significant and has been on the rise for the last decades. Teachers, as consumers of training, are also different. The pandemic has somehow changed their mindset and approach to professional development. They are now more open to it and effectively are asking for more training in, for example, digital skills.

An opportunity for filling the skills’ gap?

Is unbundling bad or good news for equality and for improving education and economic opportunities for Latin American and Caribbean countries? I will venture to say that it can contribute to close not only the skills gap but the socioeconomic divide. Part of the reason is that it will take longer to close the skills gaps with traditional education and training systems, and it will probably be unfeasible. That is why, in an extremely pragmatic move, the private sector has progressively transitioned to the unbundling of services. When you create modules, you can easily customize services. Then every company and every individual can take what they specifically need instead of the whole package or bundle. We generate efficiencies not only in terms of time for design and adaptation, but also in terms of financial investments needed to bridge the gaps.

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Photo Dirty Kitchen - Andrés Millán The question is not necessarily whether traditional and formal degrees will be completely overthrown and replaced by certificates, bootcamps and microcredentials. They will most likely coexist. But traditional education needs an extensive revamping. Will the next generations need a higher education degree to succeed in the labor market? Most likely not—if by higher education degree, we mean the traditional version of a three-to-five-year university certificate or BA. However, this still seems to be more true in some industries than others, and in some countries more than others. In countries like Chile, Colombia or Mexico, the premium placed on educational attainment is incredibly high when we compare the salaries of those with a secondary education degree with those holding a tertiary education degree (OECD, 2019). Employment prospects do not necessarily improve for those with upper secondary education; that, combined with the very remote possibility for a low-income student to attend and complete a long and costly university degree, might be part of the reason why they drop out at the rates we are seeing.

An updated version of higher education that includes a diversified supply of services will continue to predict higher earnings, particularly in a context that requires workers to upskill. That will be necessary to prevent massive displacements by automation of those who

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perform low-skilled, routine, and predictable tasks.

So, we need to make sure students continue with their learning trajectories. For many, the difference between a low-income and a middle- to high-income job could be a matter of more digital skills (Muro et al., 2017). If people do not need a college degree to access better jobs, that could be extremely good news—not just for a market begging for more upskilled and reskilled people, but also for social mobility and prosperity of those individuals in search of better economic opportunities.

The market is progressively readjusting, and we will see the balance between different education and training services emerge in the coming years. This is not something that will happen in 2050. This is happening today. This is a wakeup call for traditional formal education and training systems to adapt to a world in transformation.

And in that call for action, this K-12 Digest special issue is precisely a reflection of what the public and private sectors can learn from each other. It is a strong case for collaboration, based on the experience of the 21st Century Skills Coalition. Only by strengthening the ecosystems with effective public-private partnerships can we bridge the massive skills gaps that we face. And only if the Latin American and Caribbean region bridges the talent gap, its countries will be able to prosper, innovate, and compete globally.

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FEATURED ARTICLE

FORGE FOUNDATION: TRAINING AND COACHING IN YOUTH TO ADULTHOOD TRANSITION Rodrigo Kon, Executive Director and Francisco Ruiz, Director, Forge Foundation

Rodrigo Kon

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Francisco Ruiz

Forge Foundation is a non-profit organization created in 2005 to facilitate access to quality employment for youth from low-income contexts in Latin America through a system of training, coaching, and work

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istorically, Latin America and the Caribbean region exclude their youth from the labour market, particularly those living in vulnerable circumstances. This is a deficit, a serious one, with significant issues regarding ethical, social, economic, and political implications.

In general, Latin American education systems do not seem to fulfil one of their primary purposes: preparing youth for the transition to adult life and labour inclusion. One of the main causes of this inattention seems to be the disconnection between training approaches and the labour market’s needs, as several studies have shown. The working world’s vertiginous transformation anticipates the increasing difficulty of synchronizing skill development in the school system with the demand for skills in the jobs of the future.

The poverty levels affecting a large part of the youth population in our countries tend to weaken their social capital, reducing access to personal development opportunities, increasing inequality, and contributing to youth labour exclusion.

On the other hand, the technological revolution is transforming how we live, learn, and work. These changes have accelerated with the pandemic, testing people’s resilience, flexibility, adaptation to change,

ability to learn, autonomy, and ability to perform teamwork and different tasks in a digital environment.

The development of 21st-century skills will remain the differentiating factor in the labour market, now and for the future. Youth from vulnerable environments are at a disadvantage due to less exposure to the development of these skills. For them, the digital transformation could have two faces: on the one hand, facilitating the employment of those with access to the development of these necessary skills, and on the other, deepening the inequality gap for youth who lack such access. At Forge Foundation, we work in favour of the most excluded young people.

We focus on the transition In the transition to adult life, a youth experiences significant changes in the personal, educational, social, family, and work context. The direction that life begins to take after these changes define the personal trajectory, and with this, their life project.

The first job is maybe one of the most relevant milestones at this stage. As the School-to-Work Transition Survey developed by the ILO shows, the characteristics of the first job experience are correlated with the career path features.

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Rodrigo Kon is currently the Executive Director of the Forge Foundation. He leads the teams of the organization that work in 5 Latin American countries, offering training and support for the labour insertion of youths with limited economic resources.

Under his direction, the Forge Foundation has developed an innovative scaling plan.

He graduated in Anthropological Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires and got a Postgraduate Degree in Non-Profit Organizations. His career combined teaching with the Design and Management of Social Organizations and Programs especially aimed at youths in vulnerable situations. In the last 20 years, he has held management positions in civil society organizations and programs promoted by multilateral organizations in several Latin American countries. He has worked mainly in programs carried out in: Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Mexico

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From an experiential perspective, many of us will remember the complexity of this stage of life, where we needed to start making decisions without enough tools, experience, and confidence. In this context, we “borrow” the knowledge and experience of our family and social environment. When this environment is mixed with poverty, due to the lack of material and immaterial resources, the possibility of support is limited, which places youth at a disadvantage and exclusion course.

Forge Foundation is a non-profit organization created in 2005 to facilitate access to quality employment for youth from low-income contexts in Latin America through a system of training, coaching, and work. We focus efforts on this crucial stage in each youth’s life and their transition to adulthood to strengthen their first steps. This focus allows us to multiply the effectiveness of the effort that we develop to positively impact the labour insertion and youths’ life paths in the future.

Our main program, “Your Future,” invites lowincome youth between 17 and 24 years old from the main urban centres of Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay. During three semesters, the participants share a process of training, coaching, and job placement (or empowerment for them to reach higher studies) with no cost for them.

Our methodology seeks to influence some relevant factors positively. First, we aim to enhance youth cultural capital, offering training in 21st-century skills: socio-emotional and digital skills. Second, we seek to strengthen their social capital, usually depressed in poverty contexts, providing youth with contact networks integrated by professionals from companies that actively participate in this training process and facilitate access to job opportunities. Simultaneously, the close bond developed with peers allows them to build a support network that lasts for years. Third, we create a personal bond of trust, where each youth has the support of an adult professional specialist, who acts as a significant reference through training, coaching, and counselling. Finally, all of the above unfolds in a respectful and inclusive context that recognizes each youth’s uniqueness, strengthen his/ her confidence and sense of self-efficacy, foster a growth mindset, and favour the construction of his/ her own life plan and his/her commitment to the community to which he/she belongs.

Quote from a youth participating in Forge’s “Your Future” “We take with us skills for the job. For Forge, the key is to work at a psychological level so for us to have the confidence to face a job. That is why we all loved the self-knowledge part; it marked a before and after in all of us. Starting there is the key. There, we are different persons, and we see life from another perspective. Considering that we all agree, I would say that Forge gives you the key from your personal growth.”

“I once missed a Zoom class, and after a while, they were sending me text messages. You feel that they are accompanying you. I felt like…

‘Wow, they are just waiting for me.’ And it was nice. It motivated me to avoid missing more classes. You say: if I miss it, they will not notice. But actually, they do.”

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Our path Historically, our methodology was carried out in person. Participants attended our 16 training centres throughout the region. Following this modality, we expanded our work to 5 countries in a relatively short period and managed to train almost 10,000 youth per year in the region directly. However, according to the ILO 2020, in Latin America, there is more than 100 million youth, and at least half of them are unemployed or in precarious employment.

The magnitude of this challenge mobilized us to look for ways to scale our scope. A key ally in this regard has been IDB Lab. With its support, we have strengthened our institutional capacity to scale. In this context, we took the first steps toward digitalizing the form and substance of our program. We created a management system that allows us to monitor in real-time the implementation of our training proposal and the effectiveness of critical indicators and keep a traceable record of the complete process of a youth who participates in our program.

Simultaneously, collaborative work with the IDB Lab has allowed us to develop mobile and web applications that facilitate the teaching and learning process. Another significant aspect of this collaboration has been the development of a methodological transfer kit. This electronic platform systematizes the “know-how” of our organization with the idea of making it easier for other organizations to have access to it and implement our program by acting as multiplying agents for our reach. Due to this collaborative work with IDB, since 2019, together with more than 20 other public and private organizations, we have formed part of a coalition that seeks to promote 21st-century skills in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Digital acceleration: our 100% online experience 2020 marked a turning point in our journey.

The pandemic dramatically deepened the youth unemployment problem, intensifying the urgency of our purpose. At the same time, commuting restrictions that most of our countries had to face led us to accelerate the digitization plan we were already working on, guided by a principle:

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Francisco Ruiz is the Director of the Forge Foundation Chile. He has been in charge of the opening and consolidation of the institutional project in the country, leading alliances with the private and public sectors. Besides, he collaborates with the knowledge management of Forge at the regional level. He moved away from his legal profession to dedicate himself to the management of social and public policies. He got his Master’s degree in Public Management and Governance from the London School of Economics and Political Science in the UK. He has worked as an advisor for the Government of Chile on employment policies. He has also been executive director and member of the board of directors of different civil society organizations in the field of education and employment. He is the co-founder of an important Chilean social organization.

Despite the difficulties, we could not abandon the cause at such a critical moment. In this way, in July, we launched a 100% online program, “Your Future,” simultaneously in five countries of the region.

The tools that we chose for the implementation had to meet three accessibility criteria considering our youth’s profile: free availability, the capability of using simple hardware and generating low consumption in internet plans. In short, we implemented our program remotely, reaching 9,801 youths in Latin America.

Preliminary data from the external evaluation of this experience showed promising results compared to previous program versions. First, despite the Internet and hardware requirement, the beneficiaries’ socioeconomic profile compared to the face-to-face version of prior years remained almost identical. Second, the level of permanence (youth starting vs youth finishing the training program) had only a slight decrease, reaching 74% vs 81% in 2019. Third, counterintuitively, youth and facilitators perceived that the online program produced bonds of trust and meaningful learning similar to in-person versions despite the intervention of technological tools. As some students and facilitators said, Forge, in 2020, managed to “breakthrough” the screen.

Next steps Whit the idea of further scaling, we are currently implementing “Your Perspective Transforms,” a teacher training program that allows us to transfer an essential part of our methodology to teaching teams of the region’s publicly funded schools.

Following an asynchronous and assisted online modality, the proposal seeks to enhance teachers’ 21st-century skills to later incorporate into their pedagogical practices and enhance their students’ development of such skills. The proposal also has a web-based community of practice. Piloting this experience in 2020 allowed us to train 1,477 teachers.

There is still a long way to systematize the lessons learned from this online experience accelerated by the pandemic. We have decided to continue exploring ways to positively affect youths’ social-emotional and digital skills through technological means. We know that the path where this decision leads will not be obstacle-free, but we are determined to walk it, looking for better ways to build bridges of opportunity for many more youth.

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FEATURED ARTICLE

THE CHALLENGES OF NON-LINEAR LEARNING Rodulfo Prieto, Co-founder, Laboratoria

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Instead of endlessly repeating the same task over and over again, as factory workers did, today’s jobs are about testing new ideas, constantly validating hypotheses, and iterating

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hen we started Laboratoria back in 2014, we wanted to offer young women who dreamed of a better future the opportunity to start and grow a career in technology. At the time, none of us had experience in education. Yet, there we were, launching an education venture with a social purpose. We immediately recognized the need to understand what exactly makes for an effective learning experience, and to build a job-oriented education model that was actually suited for the 21st century. Thus, we spent many of the early days at Laboratoria researching and experimenting, trying to build the best education experience we possibly could so that young women in Latin America could learn, in 6 months or less, all the technical and work skills required to successfully start a career in the tech sector.

Learning is Deeper and more Durable when it’s Effortful One of our greatest surprises was understanding just how much learning is misunderstood. It turns out that much of what we did as students didn’t serve us

well, and that a lot of the techniques educators put into practice today are actually counterproductive.

Rereading text and cramming before an exam have proven to be amongst the least productive learning strategies. Highlighting while you read doesn’t help much either. And there is no empirical research to support the claim that people learn better when they receive instruction in a way that is consistent with their preferred learning style.

Yet, one of the most pervasive misbeliefs out there is the idea that we help students by making learning easier. As the authors in Make It Stick write: “Many teachers believe that if they can make learning easier and faster, the learning will be better.

Much research turns this belief on its head: when learning is harder, it’s stronger and lasts longer … learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful. Learning that’s easy is like writing in sand, here today and gone tomorrow”.

In 1994, UCLA psychology professor, Robert A. Bjork, coined the term desirable difficulty precisely to explain that although a difficult (yet achievable) task might slow down learning initially, it actually improves long-term performance.

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One of the most notorious ways traditional education tries to make learning easy is by teaching students a solution before presenting the problem. In a traditional and linear education setting, students are trained to mechanically apply a set of pre-packaged information to solve a predefined problem. Teachers present a solution to a problem and then ask students to replicate what they just learned. But, as everyone knows, that’s not how real life works. Outside of the classroom, the problem always comes first, and it forces us to figure out a solution with little previous knowledge. It’s a much more difficult process, and one that is inherently non-linear.

Studies of how memory and learning work have proven that trying to solve a problem before being taught the solution leads to better learning, even when (or because) errors are made in the attempt. This is called the generation effect. In essence, we learn more effectively when we take control of our learning and figure things out for ourselves.

Work in the 21st century Having students go through a non-linear learning process is also crucial for preparing them for a 21st-century workplace.

The current education model dates back to the industrial era when, in the early 20th century, states began providing education to the masses and preparing vast numbers of students for factory work, focusing mainly on developing students’ ability to follow instructions. But most of today’s work is about finding new solutions to new problems and being able to successfully navigate uncertainty. Instead of endlessly repeating the same task over and over again, as factory workers did, today’s jobs are about testing new ideas, constantly validating hypotheses, and iterating.

According to The Future of Jobs Report of The World Economic Forum, the top skills which employers see as rising in prominence in the lead up to 2025 include higher-order abilities such as critical thinking and analysis, problem-solving, working with people, communication and self-management. These are the so-called 21st-century skills.

Rodulfo is the co-founder of Laboratoria, an organization empowering women who dream of a better future to start and grow careers in technology.

With training centers in Peru, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, Laboratoria works to achieve a more diverse, inclusive and competitive digital economy that can create opportunities for every woman to develop her potential. Laboratoria has trained more than 1,800 women, placing nearly 80% of them in tech jobs. Before Laboratoria, Rodulfo worked 8 years at Procter & Gamble in Venezuela, Chile and Panama. Rodulfo holds a bachelor in engineering with a master’s degree in Public Administration from Columbia University in New York.

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The challenges of non-linear effortful learning Another key lesson in our history at Laboratoria is that these insights are not that easy to put into practice. Which explains, in part, why even though these findings have been well documented for decades, they have not been widely adopted.

The first challenge educators face when embracing effortful and non-linear learning is that students are poor judges of when they are learning well and when they are not. Students tend to misinterpret the ups and downs of effortful learning and the cognitive struggle of a non-linear learning process as a sign of poor performance.

A study from researchers at Harvard University showed how this takes place. It compared students’ self-reported perception of learning with their actual learning under

controlled conditions in an introductory physics class taught using two distinct methods: i) traditional lectures (easy learning) and ii) active learning, where lectures were enhanced with frequent physics demonstrations, along with occasional interactive quizzes, conceptual questions, and group work (more effortful learning).

Results show that students in the active, more effortful classroom learn more, but they feel like they learn less. Researchers suggest that students may not realize that the increased cognitive struggle accompanying active, effortful learning is actually a sign that the learning is effective. Additionally, the cognitive fluency of lectures can mislead students to think that they are learning more than they actually are. This is known as the fluency illusion, which states that the easier we experience our learning, the better we think we are at it. As lead

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researcher Louis Deslaurier shared with The Harvard Gazette: “Deep learning is hard work. The effort involved in active learning can be misinterpreted as a sign of poor learning. On the other hand, a superstar lecturer can explain things in such a way as to make students feel like they are learning more than they actually are.”

The second challenge is that there is a limit to the level of difficulty students can handle effectively. That is to say that not all difficulties, nor all degrees of difficulties, are desirable. For example, a non-linear learning process naturally involves some degree of stress, as students leave their comfort zones and take ownership of their learning by testing new solutions and hypotheses and going back and forth in their creative problem-solving endeavour. But when stress turns into anxiety, learning collapses. That is, unhinged difficulties are actually worse than easy learning. In other words, there is an optimal level of difficulty to maximize learning. Furthermore, this optimal level of difficulty is different for each student, and it changes over time.

In the words of executive coach and professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Ed Batista: “In short, stress can inhibit learning--and yet so many learning environments are needlessly stressful. I’m

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reminded of Hans Selye’s concept of eustress and the resulting awareness that some level of stress supports optimal performance, and beyond this level, performance declines”.

And so we have a dilemma. On the one hand, we know that non-linear and effortful learning is the best way for students to learn and prepare them for today’s jobs. On the other hand, however, students don’t necessarily perceive this as better, and educators struggle to tailor the experience to the optimal level of difficulty for each student at various moments in time.

Lessons from the field At Laboratoria, we have experimented with non-linear education for several years now. Our learning model incorporates agile development practices into a Project

Based Learning (PBL) approach. This means that students learn by completing projects (i.e. by solving problems) and work through each project in a series of sprints (a time-boxed period of 1 or 2 weeks) following a process that mimics that of an agile software development team.

Even though we have not yet discovered exactly how to entirely overcome the challenges of effortful learning (and probably never will), we have been able to reap a few key lessons (some of them by way of painful mistakes) that, we hope, can be useful for others.

Here are a few important lessons.

1. Help students understand the science of learning We invest a lot of time and effort in having students learn how effective learning really takes place before they start their learning journey. We recently introduced a “learning how to learn” course as part of the Bootcamp application process. This course covers a wide range of content about effective learning, including growth and fixed mindset, the illusions of learning (including the fluency illusion), the importance of lifelong learning and self-regulated learning, the metacognition cycle and effective learning techniques.

2. Set clear expectations with a good onboarding Just like when a new employee joins a company and the first few days are dedicated to cultural onboarding, the journey for a student at Laboratoria also begins with an onboarding process about our learning

philosophy and culture. Most of us are not used to taking ownership of our learning and figuring things out for ourselves. We are used to lectures and following a standard curriculum laid out module by module that needs to be completed in a sequence. Students invest their first days at Laboratoria in getting acquainted with the mechanics of our education model and, most importantly, why it has been designed in such a way.

3. Regularly measure student perceptions of learning We also invest heavily in systematically understanding our students’ perception of learning along with other factors, such as student satisfaction, for every cohort on a regular basis. We have found that a good moment to do this is every time a student completes a sprint and a project. This data is used by the coaching staff to understand how to best support each student at that given moment, and it also serves as a prompt for students to reflect on their learning and identify ways to improve.

4. Embrace individuality and self-paced learning Students’ needs differ not only in terms of the optimal level of difficulty/stress. Each student has a particular set of talents and previous knowledge, a particular context, a unique history and distinct motivations. As a result, each student has a unique pace that optimizes their learning. At Laboratoria, we aim to provide a learning experience in which each student is able to learn at her own pace, and we are able to provide the “just-in-time” coaching each student requires.

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FEATURED ARTICLE

DEFINING A 21ST CENTURY ECONOMY: JOB MARKET DEMANDS THAT PROFESSIONALS ACQUIRE UP-TO-DATE SKILLS IN THEIR AREAS OF EXPERTISE Sylvain Kalache, Co-founder, Holberton

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The 21st-century economy is driven by the 4th industrial revolution, converging existing technologies such as software, the Internet, robotics, and the Cloud with emerging ones such as artificial intelligence (AI), IoT, nanotechnology, and biotechnology

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he 21st-century economy is driven by the 4th industrial revolution, converging existing technologies such as software, the Internet, robotics, and the Cloud with emerging ones such as artificial intelligence (AI), IoT (IoT), nanotechnology, and biotechnology. We collect, process, and compute vast quantities of information ever faster and cheaper. The boundaries between humans and machines are blurring, and the virtual world is increasingly controlling the real one. A consequence of this new revolution is that our economy is changing faster than ever, and companies – along with the workforce – must adapt.

The COVID-19 pandemic fast-tracked our world years ahead to a matter of a few months.

McKinsey surveyed eight countries that account for almost half the global population and 62 per cent of GDP, and found out that more than 100 million workers, or 1 in 16, will need to find a different occupation by 2030. Reskilling is quickly becoming a must-have for any worker; our education system must adapt.

What’s the challenge?

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), 65% of children entering primary school today will ultimately work in completely new job types that don’t yet exist. How can K-12 schools design successful curricula to ensure students will enter the workforce with the right set of skills? They can’t, at least not right before they enter the workforce. The rapid pace of change means that the list of required hard skills is constantly changing. There is one thing that is not going away: soft skills.

Soft skills encompass a large set of abilities, including collaboration, communication, problemsolving, and, very importantly, the ability to learn.

The proverb “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime” applies very well to education. We need to empower students to own their learning experiences so that they can learn whatever skill they need to get into the workforce, grow in their career and simply remain employed. One of the artificial intelligence field’s ultimate goals, which is to teach a computer to learn by itself, has to be applied to humans.

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Sylvain Kalache is an entrepreneur and a software engineer who has worked in the tech industry in Silicon Valley for more than a decade. He is the co-founder of Holberton, an education company providing tools, curricula, and teaching methodology training the next generation of digital talent at scale. Holberton trains thousands of students in 9 countries who get hired by the best tech companies like Google, Rappi, Tesla, Apple, and NASA. Through his work, he partnered with leaders in technology, including LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang, Docker founder Solomon Hykes, and Facebook VP Payments Stephane Kasriel. He also collaborated with sports and entertainment leaders like Grammy Award-winner NE-YO, actress Priyanka Chopra and New York Jets NFL player Kelvin Beachum.

Before Holberton, Sylvain was a software engineer at SlideShare, supporting the infrastructure that served 3 billion slides every month. He was part of the team that contributed to the acquisition of Slideshare by LinkedIn. He has a Masters in Computer Science from SUPINFO, and has studied in France, China, and the US. Born and raised in France, he is currently living in San Francisco.

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Holberton’s Solutions A nineteenth-century old pedagogical movement, progressive education, holds part of the solution. John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Dewey argued that subordination of students to teachers and memorization of facts would not lead to an efficient education. Rather, focusing on learning by doing and the development of soft skills will prepare students better for society and the workforce.

Montessori schools, largely based on Progressive Education concepts, are present over the world, but few of these concepts have been used when it comes to higher education. That is where Holberton is filling the gap.

Leveraging project-based education coupled with software, the company has trained thousands of Silicon Valley-grade digital talent across the world, including in Latin-American countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico,

Peru, and Uruguay. Holberton’s programs feature no formal teachers; students learn by doing and collaborating.

There are no formal teachers and lectures. The academic staff serves as knowledge facilitators.

While Holberton School’s curriculum includes many tech-related skills such as coding, system administration, DevOps, machine learning, or AR/VR, it also puts a strong emphasis on soft skills. Public speaking, technical writing, group projects, mock interviews, and other practices ensure that students are comfortable with communication, collaboration, and the ability to promote themselves. In a typical education setting, the solution is given first, generally via a lecture and then the exam.

Holberton does the opposite: it mimics the company world in which employees are paid to find solutions to problems. Similarly, Holberton gives students projects and guidance on where to find the knowledge they need

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to accomplish them, but never enough, requiring them to find the rest—resulting in students develop the ability to find and apply knowledge on their own, leading them to become lifelong learners.

The school also provides summer coding camps to a younger audience, from 15 to 18 years old, and the results are astonishing. While it takes a few days for the campers to fully embrace their new autonomy – stop raising their hands to ask for permission to do anything, including going to the bathroom or chatting with a classmate to discuss the project – they eventually love it. After the 3-week session, one camper shared two main takeaways from the Holberton coding camp: first, that the answer is always there—it’s just a matter of putting enough effort to eventually find it; and second, that one does not have to be a math genius to get into the technology industry and start writing software. Empowering students at any age allows them to more fully leverage their learning capacities and build up confidence.

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Project-based learning is being successfully used by other institutions. Lab4U is building apps and inquirybased content to empower students to explore science concepts using their smartphone sensors. Their tools have proven to be more engaging than a regular lecture format, especially for students who do not understand the point of learning concepts that seem useless to them: “This doesn’t make sense. What is this for? I’ll never apply it to real life!”. An Inter-American Development Bank-led randomized control trial found that students who used Lab4U drastically increased their physics knowledge (by 0.22 points) and their interest in pursuing a STEMrelated career (by 2.12 points).

What’s Best for the Students, the School and the Local Economy: Everyone Wins Education should not be limited to training effective professionals, but one of its goals is to ensure that they can sustain themselves financially by being employed.

That’s why governments and community leaders should ensure that education is of quality and accessible to all. Free education is undoubtedly a great thing to have, but it can be unsustainable for many economies and may lead to a lack of accountability on results.

Aligning students, schools, and the local’s economic interests provide the best framework to ensure the quality and accessibility of education because everybody wins. Ways to achieve this include offering success-based tuition, where students only pay their tuition based on their financial success, involving companies in the design of the curriculum and getting government funding based on the diversity of students a school serves, and what employment opportunities they obtain.

In Colombia, Holberton School welcomes students from all walks of life and “estratos”:

Holberton is not your university or coding.

Its project and peer-based methodology are inspired by progressive education, a pedagogical movement the world-famous Montessori. The Holberton School was founded in 2015 by software engineers Julien Barbier and Sylvain Kalache, working at the time Silicon Valley’s best companies. Sylvain and Julien decided to build a new type of school that is accessible to anyone until professionally successful and that develop the necessary hard and soft skills to compete successfully for the best software engineering jobs. As of 2020, Holberton is operating 16 campuses worldwide, spanning five continents and seven countries, including Colombia (Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, Barranquilla), Puerto Rico (San Juan), Mexico (Mexico City), and Uruguay (Montevideo). Also, it provides tools and curriculum to other schools and universities students to secure full-time jobs at top companies like Apple, Google, Mercado Libre, NASA, Tesla. The school is supported by professional advisors and investors who are leaders in technology, sports, and entertainment.

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former break-dancers, Rappi delivery drivers, high school graduates, cooks… More than a third of them have a highschool diploma as their highest academic achievement and most come with no prior tech knowledge. The admission process is blind and automated; it does not assess a student’s academic performance but rather, motivation and talent. Grit is a key aspect to succeed at Holberton, and later in the workforce.

After Holberton School announced in 2018 its first campus opening in Bogotá, three other campuses in Cali, Barranquilla, and Medellín followed to accommodate the demand from both students, governments, and local businesses. The Medellín and Cali campuses were, respectively, co-financed by Comfama and Comfandi, two local Family Welfare Funds that are focusing

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on social impact and upward social mobility. They saw Holberton School as a way to improve people’s life, by providing them skills that would give them stable and well-paid employment. The Bogotá campus was partially financed by Colombia’s first unicorn startup Rappi. The company had the business growth and funding of a successful Silicon Valley company but had a massive challenge they were struggling to solve: hire highly skilled software engineers. They had no choice but to start an internal coding Bootcamp. But once they discovered Holberton School, they decided to stop the funding and invest in Holberton. Months later, they started hiring students.

Since then, Holberton has expanded to Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Peru but also Uruguay with the Fundacion Zonamerica, Mexico with Anahuac University, and Brazil with Pearson. Holberton has expanded its impact beyond Holberton School campuses via its “OS of education” vision. The company offers its tools, methodology to serve other programs and schools. For example, Pearson – which invested in the company last funding round – partnered with Holberton to create HEX, a fully online, self-paced program training web developers.

The program is offered on the new Pearson Next platform. While Anahuac University partnered with Holberton to offer a DevOps course on Edx. Both programs leverage the same tools and methodology that made Holberton School successful, but to train other types of digital talent – the sky is the limit!

While college degrees used to be a proxy for finding a job, this is no longer the case. Employers across the world are focusing on finding candidates who have relevant skills. Learning how to learn and becoming a lifelong learner is no longer merely good to have—it’s a necessity, and our education system must show students the way.

While K-12 education cannot and should not focus please meeting employer needs, it can still develop fundamentals skills that will allow its students to thrive as individuals and professionals in the 4th industrial revolution. Project-based learning makes the learning experience more interesting and immersive, allowing students to develop a valuable set of crucial soft skills. Technology can play an enabling role, but it’s the education methodology that matters the most. The late 19th century’s progressive education movement has never been more relevant.

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FEATURED ARTICLE

FÉLIX Y SUSANA: AN EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE Tatiana Henao Zuluaga, Social Management Coordinator, Fundación SURA

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Félix y Susana has evolved over these past 13 years through the understanding of the individual characteristics of each context, the participating actors, and their relationship with the environment

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élix y Susana is a program implemented by Fundación SURA, an organization that 50 years ago started to write its history with the objective of improving education conditions in Colombia and other regions in Latin America and having an impact on the harmonious development of society.

Our aim is to improve the quality of education by creating meaningful learning experiences that will last for life. This is done using education processes that go beyond the classroom and reach other venues which, although not necessarily school settings, are educational in themselves. Thus, they require articulation between the cognitive, the social, and the emotional. We also value the power of education and knowledge as a tool to generate equality and autonomy, which are the bases for transformation and an undisputed path to achieve territorial competitiveness.

Origins of Félix y Susana In 2006, the United Nations published its world report on violence against children showing that child abuse is found in every country around the

world, regardless of culture, social class, education level, income, or ethnic origin. This was based on the official reports on sexual abuse from 21 countries, almost all developed countries, indicating that between 7 and 36% of women and between 3% and 29% said they had suffered some type of sexual abuse during their childhood, in most cases by family members.

This situation, the few initiatives in Colombia to promote and prevent violence, and the lack of resources for education on sexuality and peaceful coexistence, drove Fundación SURA do design, in 2008, a program aimed at training and assisting educators on how to approach these issues from the point of view of rights and the development of individual and institutional rights. The process of transferring Félix y Susana to the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, where violence and abuse situations similar to those that led to the Program in Colombia were identified, started in 2015.

Purpose of the program Félix y Susana has evolved over these past 13 years through the understanding of the individual

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characteristics of each context, the participating actors, and their relationship with the environment. The program is currently defined as an education initiative aimed at helping children build meaningful lessons and experiences, make decisions about caring for their bodies, their lives, and their relationships by reinforcing protective and inclusive educational environments.

Félix y Susana is implemented in schools and playrooms through three pillars: a) training educators with a focus on thinking about their attitudes, beliefs, and symbology with respect to education on sexuality, peaceful coexistence, and life skills; b) using pedagogical tools and proposals to support the work with children and families; c) assistance to education institutions and agents to leverage their capabilities.

Our main actors The children: they are the program’s raison d’être.

Through different actions, we want them to be recognized as having rights, with the ability to express opinions, question, and participate in the decisions that involve them. Placing the children at the center of our actions

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requires a commitment to revise and deconstruct believes that adults are always right, while the children are seen as repositories of information, with little ability to participate and make decisions. Therefore, the children whom we help through Félix y Susana are authentic, have good judgment, they recognize their emotions, and they know what their rights and responsibilities are towards themselves and others.

The education agents: teachers, administrators, and playroom directors with whom we work directly and continuously. They are the facilitators and mediators of the learning process. This is why we aim to help them with their self-reflection, so they can question their own beliefs and systems, and change their practices and outlook with respect to the children, and recognize the multiple possibilities and potential of play as a kid I mentioned to mobilize attitudes, knowledge, and skills for coexistence and a healthy enjoyment of sexuality.

The families: seen as diverse in their composition and characteristics, they are the closest protective environment and, therefore, they are guarantors of the children’s rights. The work we do with the families is intended to transform their understanding and outlook of the children, recognizing them as having rights, and creating closer ties with them where love and good treatment are foremost. The idea is to have articulation and active participation in the spaces for education and integration.

The context: we are aware that it is important for all environments to be protective and participative for children, and also that the purpose of the program is to be sustainable over time. Thus, Félix y Susana’s objective is that all the actions they take place in the educational environment guarantee the capabilities of the educational agents and venues, and attempting to act in the entire country to enable the construction of key agendas to

promote quality education and wellbeing for all.

Some results of the impact evaluation We are aware of how important it is to know what is achieved in educational settings, in twenty eighteen, the program decided to evaluate the impact of its implementation using a mixed evaluation.

The objective was to identify and analyze the effects and the transformations that had taken place in a group of one hundred and eight schools, which could be attributed to the implementation of the Félix y Susana program. The results identified the impact on these three items: a) the teachers’ pedagogical processes; b) the students’ concepts and practices; c) peaceful coexistence at school, in the family, and in the community.

It is worth noting that, in their pedagogical processes, teachers have a better idea about the children’s risk situations, and they are able to act to prevent them. With respect to the students, it could be seen that they can identify their closest adults as their main protective environment and apply this as a practice for care. In terms of coexistence at school, in the family, and in the community, the actors indicated that there is a perception of your conflicts and better resolution of the conflicts that arise.

In addition, the evaluation also showed that the main mechanisms that make the Félix y Susana operation successful are implementation of training processes; work with the families; the characteristics and usability of the materials; and the assistance provided by the program’s professionals.

CoronaVida strategy to assist with home learning One of the sectors that has been most affected by the public health crisis in the region due to COVID-19 is, without a doubt, education. The transformation

Tatiana Henao Zuluaga is passionate about social transformation. She believes in developing people and communities, in working with and for the people, in connecting ideas, allies and resources to produce innovative results that contribute to society. She has over 10 years’ experience in public and private organizations, leading social development, food security, and quality education programs aimed at various stakeholders. She is an administrative engineer specializing human development management, with a Master’s in social enterprises for social innovation and development. As Social Management Coordinator at Fundación SURA she in charge of leading the programs, projects, and initiatives of the Foundation and its alliances, aimed at improving the quality of education, acknowledging the convergence of different strategies whose end purpose is to enhance the exercise of citizenship, with a critical, ethical, and human look in different contexts, like communities, companies, and countries, in an effort to create more equitable and inclusive societies and, therefore, more competitive and sustainable countries.

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Testimonials “One of the things that really made an impact on me about the Félix y Susana program is the relationship that I have to have it myself before. This peace of mind, this is self-love, so I can reach my students and even my colleagues.”

- A teacher at Colegio San Cayetano – Colombia “I believe that the program, from the start, understood that in order to “work” on the children’s emotions, you have to work first with the emotions of the teachers. Right from the first training I understood the importance of recognizing and working on my emotions to be able to impact the lives of my students. Every time I participate, I comfort myself and imagine new strategies to be the best person and the best teacher.”

- A teacher at Colegio Gerardo Paredes - Colombia “We are very grateful to the Félix y Susana program because they care for our mental health, this has been a very productive activity because it has provided important tools that we must include in our day-to-day activities with students and families.”

- Teacher evaluating the CoronaVida strategy - El Salvador

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that has been taking place has required various actors in the system to act immediately, moving from inperson to virtual interactions, with the resources that each individual has to continue with their priorities in education and provide learning continuity.

Félix y Susana has become an important support tool for educational communities in the countries where it is being implemented. Given the magnitude of the crisis produced by the pandemic, we attempt to recognize and use our own resources and the resources of the social and family networks that people have

to reinforce the well-being and peaceful coexistence alternatives during this social distancing.

During 2020, using the CoronaVida strategy, the program focused on assisting educational agents by strengthening those aspects related to their socialemotional skills, preventing abuse and violent situations, and communications and relationships to provide care and support. Using this strategy, we have reached more than three thousand six hundred education agents in Columbia, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador through more than four 450 virtual assistance sessions and 8 pedagogical guides and 45 tools to work with children and families.

Félix y Susana challenges us to expand our understanding of the environment, continue assisting with articulating initiatives to improve the quality of life of the children, according to the individual characteristics of each context, the people, and their relationships, as a starting point to lead relevant education processes, policies that produce meaningful lessons, and a company people during their entire lives. This is how this path has made it possible to scale this type of experiences which now represent an important tool for developing educational policies in Latin America.

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ACADEMIC VIEW

REDUCA Fosters Inclusive Education and Life Skills in Latin America Verónica Spross de Rivera, Coordinator of Latin American Network for Education (REDUCA) & Executive Director of Empresarios por la Educación

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We believe at REDUCA the importance of sharing best practices and lessons learned by each country in the region, as well as the actions and policies implemented to address the challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic

T

he Latin American Network for Education (REDUCA) brings together institutions from 16 countries in Latin America which work for a common goal: to guarantee all for children and youth in the region the right to an inclusive, equitable, and quality public education.

Education turns out to be the key element to change the lives of about 530 million people in Latin America, most of them being boys, girls, and young people. This network was created in 2011 with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and social organizations in Latin America.

A network like REDUCA is of major importance in the context of the deficiencies of most education systems. There is a notable gap between the vision of an educated population with the necessary skills to fully exercise citizenship and develop their maximum potential, versus a reality, indicating a serious problem of low coverage at some levels (especially in secondary school), and insufficient learning by students.

REDUCA has been built as a free and voluntary exercise to exchange experiences, resources, and projects, to express opinions, propose solutions and agreements, and disseminate campaigns in the public forum; to study and evaluate local and regional

measures, programs and public policies and, above all, to respond to the responsibility of adding joint actions among member countries in Latin America and with other actors.

As part of this common aim, the REDUCA Meeting of Ministers of Education of Latin America was held in 2019 and 2020 to cooperate and exchange experiences that would contribute the collaborative learning among different countries; as well as provide tools to accomplish greater equity and quality in education in the region, and coordinate joint efforts to achieve SDG #4: Quality Education. Last year in Ecuador, the conversations focused on the common challenge generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The main topic addressed included: how to take advantage of the crisis to carry out an educational transformation, outline the return to the classroom, and working together towards the challenge of educational equity and equality in the region.

The 3rd REDUCA Meeting of Ministers of Education of Latin America was jointly organized

by Ministries of Education of Colombia, Ecuador, and Guatemala and REDUCA, IDB, and UNESCO in April 2021. This meeting provided an opportunity to discuss the experiences of each country regarding

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Verónica Spross de Rivera coordinates the Latin American Network for Education (REDUCA), a regional South-South coalition of civil society organizations focused on education. This network is composed of 16 countries and REDUCA prioritizes initiatives that amplify the voice of civil society and create space for improved engagement with policy makers on priority issues such as early childhood, teachers and principal’s educational leadership, inclusive education and 21st-century learning. She is also the Executive Director at Empresarios por la Educación where she manages Educational Policies with the vision to promote strategies that will improve the educational system.

She also coordinates advocacy and policy projects including Teacher 100 Points Award, Entrepreneurship in the Classroom, monitoring of school calendar, Follow-up of the National Agreement for Human Development. Veronica is a Member of National Education Council, a multisector forum, representing the private sector. Veronica has been a media columnist for OpEds and University Professor for more than 20 years. She has participated in consultancies related to competitivity, human development, decentralization, social programs, social security reform and education. Verónica Spross de Rivera has a master’s degree in economics and studied Business Administration at University Francisco Marroquín.

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List of the 16 teachers who were recognized for their achievements and impacts Awarded Teacher Name Anabella Soledad González Labriola

Institution

Country

Proyecto Educar 2050

Argentina

www.educar2050.org.ar

Gislaine Alvez Kamer Bento

Todos Pela Educação

Brasil

www.todospelaeducacao.org.br

Ernesto Arsenio Prado Cortés

Fundación Educación 2020

Chile

www.educacion2020.cl

Rocío Quintero Sanabria

Empresarios por la Educación

Colombia

fundacionexe.org.co

Susana del Carmen Laguna Lòpez

Grupo Faro

Ecuador

www.grupofaro.org

Ada Carolina Mazariegos Hernández

FEPADE, Fundación Empresarial para el Desarrollo Educativo

El Salvador

www.fepade.org.sv

Ludwing Alberto Vásquez Gálvez

Empresarios por la Educación

Guatemala

www.empresariosporlaeducacion.org

María Lourdes Bu Hernández

FEREMA, Fundación para la Educación Ricardo Ernesto Maduro Andreu

Honduras

www.ferema.org

Rosa Asunción Fajardo Durán

Mexicanos Primero

México

www.mexicanosprimero.org

Hamilton Douglas García Montano

Eduquemos, Foro Educativo

Nicaragua

http://eduquemosnicaragua.org/

Miriam de Morán

Unidos por la Educación

Panamá

www.unidosporlaeducacion.com

María de los Ángeles Yarati

Juntos por la Educación

Paraguay

www.juntosporlaeducacion.org.py

Walter Velásquez Godoy

Asociación Empresarios por la Educación

Perú

www.empresariosporlaeducacion.org.pe

Diana Pinales

Educa, Acción Empresarial por la Educación

República Dominicana

www.educa.org.do

Marcia Hernández Lemos

Reaching U

Uruguay

www.reachingu.org

Daniel Ballestero Umaña

Fundación Omar Dengo

Costa Rica

www.fod.ac.cr

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“I opened a YouTube channel to generate resources in sign language to allow all my students to learn during the remote learning.”

- Gislaine Alvez Kamer Bento, Todos Pela Educação, Brasil “During the suspension of classes due to Covid, I was motivated to create KIPI, a Quechua-speaking robot to visit children in the most remote communities in Peru.”

- Walter Velásquez Godoy, Asociación Empresarios por la Educación, Perú

the return to onsite classes with adequate and safe conditions. The event also provided a positive vision to take this crisis as an opportunity to generate even deeper ties of cooperation and collaborative work between the educational authorities and institutions to provide quality education to children and youth in Latin American.

The meeting was introduced by Marcelo Cabrol, Manager of the IDB Social Sector, and Claudia Uribe, Director of the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean. During the encounter, the main educational challenges in Latin America to face the COVID-19 pandemic were presented. The topics focused on the challenges raised by the return to face-to-face classes; the educational policy strategies beyond the crisis to achieve improvements in the region, as well as the role played by civil society and the Ministries to guarantee the right to provide the continuity of the learning process for children and young people; and the importance of cooperating to achieve the broad objectives of inclusive and quality education. The Minister of Colombia, María Victoria Angulo, Ecuador, Monserrat Creamer, and Guatemala Claudia Ruiz Casasola, led the discussion in each of the working groups.

We believe at REDUCA the importance of sharing best practices and lessons learned by each country in the region, as well as the actions and policies implemented to address the challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the challenges caused by theCOVID-19 pandemic, we keep promoting the teacher recognition of innovative. REDUCA’s recognition is an opportunity to share successful initiatives being carried out by teachers in Latin America.. This recognition seeks to treasure the role of the teacher, share learning for continuous improvement and contextualize experiences.

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2020 has been a very particular year, given the disruption generated by the suspensions of classes in most countries in the region. Teachers and educational centers were forced to find appropriate mechanisms and methodologies to continue supporting learning for students from home. Creativity, innovation, communication with families, and teachers’ dedication are characteristics that define this edition of REDUCA Recognition Award, so we consider it relevant to acknowledge those teachers who, with their commitment, have made learning possible during the pandemic.

The teachers recognized by REDUCA stand out for their student-centred practices, for integrating families in the learning processes, and for implementing strategies for skills development, despite working on distance learning programs. One of the essential criteria considered in the selection process was the ability of the teacher to adapt and provide a technological solution that enables effective continuity in the learning process.

Considering the insufficient technological resources in school and family homes in Latin America, teachers have been contacting their students by cell phones or via social media in most cases; and some of them have even opened a YouTube channel to share their educational videos.

As a framework, REDUCA has based on documents from UNESCO, the IDB, and global academic experts whose recent analyzes and studies have highlighted the impacts and challenges of remote learning. The collaborative work of the educational authorities (leading the methodological guidelines and delivery of resources to teachers and students), along with teachers (who require adequate and updated methodologies for the hybrid model and remote learning), and parents (providing homeschooling and family support for children) can make a significant difference for children and young people of all our countries.

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