| Designing
Centers of Excellence for Teacher Training in Latin America
and the Caribbean
May 2001 – present
 Educational
achievement indicators for Latin America and the Caribbean
compare poorly with much of the world. In some countries,
fewer than 60 percent of children who start school reach the
fifth grade and illiteracy rates remain high. Strategies are
needed to improve the quality of education, and provide teachers
and administrators in the hemisphere improved access to resources
and training.
In view of these regional deficiencies, President
George W. Bush announced a White House initiative at the Summit
of the Americas in 2001 to establish teacher training centers
that would improve reading instruction in the early primary
grades. The BEPS team was enlisted by USAID to design these
Centers of Excellence for Teacher Training in the Caribbean,
Central America, and the Andean region of South America. The
centers are to provide pre-service and in-service teachers
with practical training and tools for teaching reading to
students in the early grades. The program consists of five
components: teacher training, diagnostic tools, teaching and
learning materials, action research, and information and communication
technology. Rural, isolated areas in the region are given
particular attention.
BEPS completed a series of assessments of education
and training needs, including an evaluation of institutional
capacity for participating in and providing leadership for
these centers. Assessment teams visited 15 countries and spoke
with over 400 university faculty, teacher educators, Ministers
of Education, teachers, USAID mission staff, and other stakeholders
about teacher training and reading instruction. Teams visited
more than 50 institutions across the region to evaluate their
technical and administrative capacity to serve as collaborating
institutions for the centers. The assessment findings enabled
USAID—with input from a Consultative Committee made
up of ten education experts from across the hemisphere—to
identify potential partner institutions in each region. USAID
and BEPS then met with the regional partners to discuss the
program and conceptualize the components of each regional
center. Regional organizational structures are now in place
after BEPS-facilitated strategic planning meetings helped
bring officials from many educational institutions and governments
to consensus.
In addition, the BEPS team enlisted the support
of U.S. and Latin American/Caribbean businesses as founding
partners to help launch and support the centers. This public/private
sector component aimed to secure the program’s sustainability
beyond USAID funding, so that teachers would continue to share
best practices, classroom experiences, and teaching approaches,
and use the project’s materials to enhance their instruction.
Training has commenced, with the projected goal
of training 15,000 teachers by the end of 2005. A regional
meeting facilitated by Creative Associates in April 2003 allowed
representatives from each Center of Excellence to finalize
the design phase of the program. This conference encouraged
an information exchange regarding evidence-based research
of best practices in reading instruction from both the U.S.
and regional perspectives. Reading instruction methodologies,
diagnostic tools, teaching modules and reading materials are
now being adapted and used by each lead institution for program
implementation. An emphasis is being placed on overall quality
of instruction.
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