Teacher Training
in Latin America
Report on Case Studies in Chile,
Nicaragua, Peru and the Dominican Republic
Member Organizations in Latin America
Education International
President
Susan Hopgood
General Secretary
Fred van Leeuwen
Comité Regional de la Internacional de la Educación para
América Latina
President
Regional Seats
Hugo Yasky
CTERA, Argentina
[email protected]
Caridad Montes
SUTEP, Perú
[email protected]
Vice presidents
Jesús Ramírez
FETRAENSEÑANZA, Venezuela
[email protected]
Fátima Da Silva
CNTE, Brasil
[email protected]
Sidney Justiana
SITEK, Curaçao
[email protected]
Witney Chávez
FECODE, Colombia
[email protected]
Brígida Rivera
CGTEN/ANDEN, Nicaragua
[email protected]
Israel Montano
ANDES 21 DE JUNIO, El Salvador
[email protected]
Joviel Acevedo
STEG, Guatemala
[email protected]
IE world executive board members FOR LATIN AMERICA
Vice President
Juçara Dutra
CNTE, Brasil
[email protected]
World Executive Board
Members for Latin América
José Antonio Zepeda
CGTEN/ANDEN, Nicaragua
[email protected]
María Teresa Cabrera
ADP, República Dominicana
[email protected]
Jorge Pavez
CPC, Chile
[email protected]
Regional Office
for Latin America
Tel: +506 22 23 78 10
Tel/fax: 22 22 08 18
[email protected]
Apartado Postal: 1867-2050
San José, Costa Rica
Confederación de Trabajadores de la Educación de la República Argentina
(CTERA), Argentina
Confederación de Educadores Argentinos (CEA), Argentina
Federación Nacional de Docentes Universitarios (CONADU), Argentina
Confederación Nacional de Maestros de Educación Rural de Bolivia
(CONMERB), Bolivia
Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores em Educação (CNTE), Brazil
Fórum de Professores das Instituições Federais de Ensino Superior (PROIFES),
Brazil
Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores de Estabelecimento de Ensino
(CONTEE), Brazil
Colegio de Profesores de Chile (CPC), Chile
Confederación de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras de la Educación Chilena
(CONATECH), Chile
Federación Colombiana de Educadores (FECODE), Colombia
Asociación Nacional de Educadores (ANDE), Costa Rica
Sindicato de Trabajadoras y Trabajadores de la Educación Costarricense (SEC),
Costa Rica
Asociación Sindical de Profesores y Funcionarios Universitarios (ASPROFU),
Costa Rica
Sindikato di Trahadó den Edukashon na Kòrsou (SITEK), Curaçao
Unión Nacional de Educadores (UNE), Ecuador
Asociación Nacional de Educadores Salvadoreños (ANDES 21 de Junio),
El Salvador
Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Educación de Guatemala (STEG), Guatemala
Colegio Profesional “Superación Magisterial” Hondureño (COLPROSUMAH),
Honduras
Colegio de Profesores de Educación Media de Honduras (COPEMH), Honduras
Colegio Profesional Unión Magisterial de Honduras (COPRUMH), Honduras
Confederación General Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación de Nicaragua
(CGTEN/ANDEN), Nicaragua
Federación de Profesionales Docentes de la Educación Superior (FEPDES),
Nicaragua
Magisterio Panameño Unido (MPU), Panama
Organización de Trabajadores de la Educación del Paraguay (OTEP), Paraguay
Sindicato Unitario de Trabajadores de la Educación del Perú (SUTEP), Peru
Federación Nacional de Docentes Universitarios del Perú (FENDUP), Peru
Asociación Dominicana de Profesores (ADP), Dominican Republic
Asociación Nacional de Profesores y Técnicos de la Educación (ANPROTED),
Dominican Republic
Federación de Asociaciones de Profesores de la Universidad Autónoma de
Santo Domingo (FAPROUASD), Dominican Republic
Federación Democrática de Maestros y Funcionarios de Educación Primaria
(FEDMYFEP), Uruguay
Federación de Trabajadores de la Enseñanza y Afines (FETRAENSEÑANZA),
Venezuela
Federación de Educadores de Venezuela (FEV), Venezuela
www.ei-ie-al.org
Teacher Training in Latin America
1
Teacher Training
in Latin America
Report on Case Studies in Chile,
Nicaragua, Peru and the Dominican Republic
Education International Latin American Regional Office
Education Internacional Latin America Regional Office
Tel: +506 22 23 78 10
Tel/fax: 22 22 08 18
Apartado Postal: 1867-2050
[email protected]
www.ei-ie-al.org
Published with the cooperation of the Union of Education, Norway
Printed in Costa Rica by Naso.
Teacher Training in Latin America
Presentation
S
everal decades of neoliberal policies in the region have succeeded in
deteriorating and commercializing public education. A culture of professional teacher training (initial or in-service) has been generated that
lacks collective meaning and is unable to apprehend the social and
transforming nature of the teaching profession. On the contrary, it
individualizes the teaching process and turns it into a mechanical undertaking
that is later evaluated in purely quantitative terms.
Education International Latin America has felt it important to systematize
this process and its impact on the region’s countries. This study on teacher training is the product of that systematization, and was conceived with the goal of encouraging analysis, alternative thinking and the formulation of proposals among
Education International members.
A group of countries representing each of the continent’s subregions was chosen for this study: Nicaragua for Central America, the Dominican Republic for
the Caribbean, Peru for the Andean region and Chile for the Southern Cone.
Other factors going into this selection are explained in the study report.
Another goal of this paper is to provide organizations with systematized information on the state of teacher training in Latin America. This way there will
be more balance sheet items available for structuring research at a later date that
would include each of the Latin American countries.
The study was carried out by one national researcher for each country, each
of whom was responsible for organizing that country’s national report, and a
general research director who directed the regional research and took charge of
processing and preparing this regional report – a task that was entrusted to Juan
Arancibia Córdoba.
Financial support for this study was provided by the Union of Education
Norway (UEN) and Education International. Both organizations felt a more
in-depth knowledge was needed of the conditions experienced by educators in
Latin America, since this is a key factor in the educational process and an essential one for the conceptualization of quality education, something still pending
formulation in Latin America.
3
Education International Latin American Regional Office
Contents
Presentation3
I. Introduction
5
II. Initial Teacher Training
11
1. Organizational Structure and Ownership of Initial Training (ITT)
2. Intercultural Bilingual Education
3. Regulation of Initial Teacher Training
4. ITT Entry Profile
5. Induction or Accompaniment Programs
6. Educational Research
7. Teacher Performance Evaluation
11
16
17
22
24
25
28
III. In-Service Teacher Training
31
IV. Untrained Teachers, Teacher Unemployment
And Shortages And Private Sector Teacher Organization
39
V. Conclusions And Final Recommendations For Teacher Training
47
1. In-Service Teacher Training and its Regulation
2. Participation of Union Organizations in the ISTT
1. Untrained Teachers
2. Teacher Unemployment and Shortages
3. Private Sector Teacher Organization
1. Union Organization Recommendations regarding Teacher Training 2. Additional Conclusions and Comments
31
36
39
41
44
47
54
Basic Bibliography
62
Glossary63
Tables and Graphics
Table 1. Number of Institutions Involved in Initial Teacher Training
by Type and Ownership in 2009
Table 2. % Distribution of Enrollment
by Institutional Ownership, circa 2009
Graph 1. Chile: Teacher Training Institutions
by Type and Ownership (1980-2008)
Graph 2. Peru: Teacher Training Institutions
by Type and Ownership (1981-2008)
12
13
14
14
Teacher Training in Latin America
I. Introduction
The nineties were a time of educational reform in Latin America
for almost all the countries in the
region, although some countries,
such as Chile, began their reforms
earlier while others were late in beginning. The continent was washed
by a reformist wave in education
that has yet to end – and apparently won’t be ending soon, since
some of the major problems the
reforms intended to solve are still
in existence, while new ones have
appeared.
The reform’s reason for being
had educational components, but
its basic demand came from other
needs required by the era of globalization. According to the discourse that has been bandied about,
reform was necessary for achieving the quality education (quality being undefined) that would
allow these countries to successfully tie into globalization, reaching
5
competitiveness thanks to growing
productivity sustained by persons
with capacities, skills and, more
recently, “competencies” generated by a renovated education. At
the same time, it was necessary to
educate the citizenry for the reinauguration of democracy after
many years of dictatorship and repression. The democracy referred
to here is one that operates in market societies with a subsidiary state1 in the midst of growing individualism – one where governments
issue compensatory social policies
aimed at focalized groups (which
may be significantly large or even
majorities), considered vulnerable,
which face exclusions and a range
of inequalities and may not be loyal
to a type of democracy that exclu1 There are countries where this concept cannot be applied today, obvious examples of
this being Venezuela and Bolivia, where the
state has a central role and assumes the responsibility of dealing with society’s needs
and interests.
Education International Latin American Regional Office
them economically and socially
6 des
and manipulates them politically.
In the 70s and 80s of the past
century, educational concerns basically revolved around expanding
coverage. It was only in the 90s
that quality became a central concern, in response to the new needs
posed by globalization for the business sector: to improve product
quality and reduce production
costs through greater competitiveness. This competitiveness would
be achieved by the training of “human capital”, and in developing
countries it comes accompanied by
low wages and job insecurity.
Twenty years after the beginning
of the reformist era in education,
the basic problems have still not
been solved. Coverage has increased considerably, especially in basic
education, but repetition and particularly desertion have substantially relativized achievements in this
area. Equity has improved from
the standpoint of gender equality,
but has still not been achieved in
terms of attention to and quality
of education for all. The tendency,
rather, is for inequity to expand,
given the growing fragmentation and inequality among social
groups with respect to the type of
educational services to which they
have access. The unfortunate consequence of this is that education
has stopped being a vehicle for social mobility and become but one
more vehicle for reproducing social
inequality. Neither has enough
equity been achieved in terms of
rural and urban areas or for the indigenous population. There is still
a gap between what is taught and,
sometimes, the way it is taught, and
society’s needs. Particularly worrisome is the loss of the centrality of
education for growing fringes of
youth who don’t see education as
guaranteeing them access to stable,
adequately paid jobs (decent work,
in the ILO’s words), and who at the
same time see that so much education doesn’t seem necessary for
“successfully” entering the growing
world of informal work.
Another important aspect is the
deteriorating conditions for teachers not only in terms of wages
and job insecurity, but also with
respect to the extremely low prestige into which the work of teaching has sunk, thanks largely to
the defamation campaigns launched first by dictatorships and then
continued by the newly democratic
governments and international fi-
Teacher Training in Latin America
nancial institutions (IFIs), broadly
supported by the media.
Quality2 (which remains undefined) is measured officially by
standardized national and international tests, forms of measurement
with which we do not agree for
various reasons: because they ignore economic, social, ethnic, linguistic, local, regional and national
diversity (and inequality); because
they radically decontextualize that
which only exists and makes sense in its contextual reality; because
the rankings punish, humiliate and
degrade the poorest students, their
schools – which are usually public
– and their teachers; because they
eliminate curricular diversity and
flexibility in practice; because they
impoverish the curriculum3 by di2 According to the WB, students should acquire cognitive skills, since these are what
contribute to personal income, income
distribution and economic growth. World
Bank: “The Role of Education Quality in
Economic Growth,” Erick A. Hanushek
and Ludger Wößmann.
3 Education International points out, with
respect to the WB’s stance: “Cognitive competencies are indeed important, but they are
not the only skills that matter in a quality
education. Knowledge, attitudes and all life
skills are also important. For example, social
skills or qualities such as responsible citizenship, tolerance, peace, love and democratic
values are equally important, especially in
today’s world which is sometimes characterized by xenophobia, civil conflicts and
terrorism. Artistic skills, such as drawing,
singing and dancing are also important, and
rectly eliminating any content deemed “irrelevant” and not included
on the tests, such as philosophy,
civics, art, physical education and
sports, and compress and cut back
on social studies, etc.; and because
they end up impoverishing cultures and threatening what would be
an integral education. The standardized national and international tests in fact impose a cut back
curriculum that is functional (for
business), homogenizing and impoverishing, and eliminate in the
everyday classroom the possibility
of an integral education that develops people and societies.
In addition to the cultural and social damage caused by standardized
tests, no significant progress is being
seen in the results, which are still
very far from the results expected
by their official sponsors and those
obtained in countries achieving sucso are sports. As with cognitive competencies, these skills can contribute to personal
income and economic growth. Therefore,
the study centers on the cognitive skills as
the only contributor to economic growth,
which is a serious limitation. That is therefore the measurement of educational quality, which is limited to learning or test
results. In this way the study has a very
limited view of educational quality and a
simplistic view of its measurements.” At:
Analysis of the World Bank report, “The
Role of Education Quality in Economic
Growth”. 2008-08-05. http://www.ei-ie.
org/es/
7
Education International Latin American Regional Office
in global competition. The pro8 cess
blems of public funding for educa-
tion have not been resolved, either,
although this has improved slightly
with respect to the 80s and part of
the 90s, when it was deteriorating.
Despite certain improvements, budgets today are still far from what are
needed for full educational coverage
and a quality that is inclusive and
without social stratification.
The organized participation of
parents, which at first may be seen
as very positive and necessary, in
practice was oftentimes used as one
more way of putting pressure on
teachers and public schools. In the
context of School Autonomy in Nicaragua, for example, it can be said
that most parents were not, and are
not, prepared for organized participation in the administration of educational institutions. In everyday
practice, the participation of parents
was used to strengthen the power of
directors, control educators, destabilize labor relations and continue
to impoverish teachers by minimizing their rights and hiring uncertified teachers in order to pay less and
keep them in a dependent situation.
In reality there has not been participation, but rather hidden, progressive privatization through the
contribution of parents with their
work or contribution in kind and
the collection of “voluntary” and/or
supplementary payments.
The fundamental problems of
education have not been solved
in Latin America; it may rather be
that they are intensifying, when
speaking, for example, of quality,
equity and funding.
From another angle, the official
world has made a recent discovery,
if not as an issue, at least as an
emphasis. The so-called McKinsey
& Company report4 claims that
available evidence shows the quality of the teachers as the main reason for differences in school learning. It also states that successful
educational systems confirm the
importance of three aspects:
• getting the right people to become teachers;
• developing them into effective
instructors; and
• ensuring that every child benefits
from high-quality instruction.
These aspects, which, as can be
appreciated, have “always” been
present in educational discourse,
4 Barber, Michael and Mourshed, Mona:
How the World’s Best-Performing School
Systems Come Out on Top, p. 12, PREAL
N° 41, July 2008, Santiago, Chile.
Teacher Training in Latin America
have been taken up again by the
reforms under different modes of
intervention, especially through
training programs and performance incentives measured indirectly
by scores obtained by class groups
and reduced desertion rates, and
under the premise of the need for
accountability. In addition, reformers have promoted more and more the issue
of teacher evaluation, although in
most cases this has not been used
for state interventions for improving initial education and training
but rather to put more pressure on
teachers and their union organizations and to continue blaming
them for their students’ poor results on standardized tests.
With regard to official trends
on the subject, and under its own
principles and premises5 of improving educational quality and equity
and conceiving it as a human right
rather than a merchandise, we at
EILA took on the task of resear5 For EILA, quality does not exist without
equity, and this, of course, includes school
coverage and universal permanence. Quality also presupposes its historical relevance
with respect to the integral development of
individuals and societies, economic development and social justice, within a context
and perspective of environmental sustainability. Quality is also education for living
in peace and with participative democracy.
ching teacher training in several
countries, taking into account a
certain subregional representativeness, but also assuming factors that
made its presence valuable. Chile,
then, was included for having the
oldest and most neo-liberal educational reform; Peru was included for
its overflowing number of training
institutions and overwhelming private sector growth in education,
added to a renewed neo-liberal
onslaught; Nicaragua was added
as the most representative case of
so-called School Autonomy and its
recent suppression by the current
government; and the Dominican
Republic was included as one of
countries making the fewest changes to its system and where the state
spends the least amount, after Haiti, on education as a percentage of
its gross domestic product (GDP).
It is also worth noting that the
four study cases present ample diversity in terms of legal regulation
and deregulation, institutions, curricula, etc. They also show that,
beyond the perceptions of and
behind their overall educational
reforms, their processes are clearly
distinguished by the economic and
political interests and beliefs of the
governments and business people
9
Education International Latin American Regional Office
power, and by the opi10 exercising
nions, proposals and impositions
of IFIs. Initial teacher Training
(ITT) and in-service teacher training (ISTT) are not excluded from
these statements.
Finally, it should be pointed out
that this document is an analytical synthesis of national studies.
For more detailed information on
the issues and cases, a detailed review must be made of the respective reports for each country.
Teacher Training in Latin America
II. Initial teacher training
Organizational Structure
and Ownership of Initial
Training (ITT)
The studies show that initial teacher
training (ITT) is highly privatized
in Chile and Peru, but less so in the
Dominican Republic and almost negligibly so in Nicaragua.
This present-day situation and tendency toward privatization is explained by the belief, touted as undisputed, that private is better than
public by nature, and therefore the
way to achieve educational quality
is to eliminate public education
and expand private education1 – all
1 The results of the assessments made by
the LLECE (Latin American Laboratory for Assessment of the Quality of
Education) of the OEALC-UNESCO
disprove this privatizing idea, as they
show that in Cuba the students who
were assessed obtained the highest
mathematics, language and science
scores, surpassing all the countries
in the Latin American region, and in
this country all education is public,
including TT. The SERCE specifically
states: “To start with, the scores of the
from a perspective of commercialization and competition, where
students and parents are seen as
customers buying a service from
the sellers, who are the owners of
the educational institutions.
In
this scenario, where privatization
has especially taken place in higher
education, initial teacher training
has become good business for the
countries’ private employers.
Based on this privatizing, neoliberal viewpoint, the continent has
been immersed since the 80s, or in
most cases, since the 90s, in an intense process of educational reform
lowest-performing students are similar
to the performance achieved by the
average student in Latin America and
the Caribbean. This places the lowestperforming students in Cuba at a much
higher starting point compared to the
rest of the countries in the region…
Furthermore, while Cuba has more
than 40% of its students at the highest
level (IV) in all areas and grades, there
are countries that have close to 50% of
their students at level I or low I, in almost all areas and grades.” SERCE pp.
176 and 177, LLECE, 2008.
11
Education International Latin American Regional Office
a perspective of structural
12 within
adjustment and globalization. The
basic distinguishing trends have
been decentralization and privatization. Teacher training has been
and continues to be an integral
part of the process, but it has espe-
cially been wrapped up in what has
been the great privatization of higher education, although there has
not always been a linear correlation
between privatization of education
and privatization of ITT. Generally
speaking, privatization began befo-
Table 1
Number of Institutions Involved in Initial Teacher Training
by Type and Ownership in 2009
Country and Institution
Chile
Nicaragua
Peru
Universities1
Public
Private
Community
Teachers Colleges
Public
Private
Higher Pedagogical Institutes
Public
Private
Professional Institutes5
Technical Education Centers
(CFTs) 6
Total institutions
52
15
37 2
0
N.E.
54
26
27
0
N.E.
N.E.
10
2
6
2
14
8
6
N.E.
18
21
N.E.
N.E.
91
24
341
122
219
N.E.
N.E.
395
Dom.
Rep.
22
33
19 4
0
N.E.
N.E.
N.E.
N.E.
22
1. These may not be all the universities existing in each country, since some do not have ITT.
2. Out of the total, 2 are transnational and 9 are state-subsidized private universities.
3. These are the UASD, ITECO and ISFODOSU (the last two are the old teachers colleges).
4. All the private universities receive state subsidies, as they declare themselves not-for-profit.
5. IPs can offer the degree in elementary and initial or kindergarten education, but only those
created before March 10, 1990 were doing so; those created after that date are not allowed to
offer this.
6. The CFTs are in a similar situation to that of the IPs.
“NE” means they do not exist (nonexistent).
Teacher Training in Latin America
re the so-called debt crisis of 1982
and is still underway.
A look at the number and ownership of higher education institutions that educate or can educate
teachers, as well as enrollment distribution, gives us a quantitative
idea of what is private and what is
public.
Enrollment figures also show us
the privatization of TT processes;
as is logical, there is a quantitative
correlation between the privatization of institutions and the privatization of enrollment2, which is
clearly seen if we compare the information in both tables.
The following graphs give us an
overview of the process for the last
three decades, showing how priva2 This is not true for the case of the Dominican Republic, with a huge majority of private institutions and mostly public enrollment.
tization has progressed in universities and higher education in Chile
and Peru.
It should be noted that, in the
case of Chile, only 52 universities
offer ITT, although 61 exist. Moreover, before the 80s there were no
Professional Institutes or Technical Education Centers that trained
teachers; these, together with the
proliferation of universities, represent one more aspect of privatization. Since 1980, no new public
universities have been created, as
the graph seems to indicate. What
has occurred is that the Pinochet
dictatorship separated by decree
the campuses that the University
of Chile and the State Technological University had in several places
around the country; for this reason
they are called “derivative” universities. At present 91 higher educa-
Table 2
% Distribution of Enrollment by Institutional Ownership,
circa 2009
Country/Enrollment
Public
Private
Chile
26.4
75.6
NicarAgua 1
87.5
12.5
Peru 2
51.4
48.6
Source: National teacher training research reports
1. ITT students in universities only; not including teachers colleges
2. Those studying ITT in the ISPs only; not including universities
Dom. Rep.
78.6
21.4
13
Education International Latin American Regional Office
14 Graph 1
Chile: Teacher Training Institutions by Type and Ownership (1980-2008)
40
37
35
Institutions
30
25
21
20
18
15
15
10
Public Universities
Privates Universities
Other Privates CFT
Other Privates IP
6
5
2
0
1980
2008
Years
Prepared based on the national report on teacher training for Chile.
Graph 2
Peru: Teacher Training Institutions by Type and Ownership (1981-2008)
250
226
222
219
Institutions
200
150
124
100
50
0
31
127
122
117
85
49
31
2
1981
35
28 29
25
10
9
0
1990
0
0
1995
2000
0
0
2005
2008
0
ISP Public
ISP Privates
Public Universities
Privates Universities
Years
Prepared by the author of the national report for Peru. A “0” indicates a lack of information.
Teacher Training in Latin America
tion institutions are training teachers, with only 15 of these public.
Looking back at the numbers in
Table 1, private universities were
also in the majority in Nicaragua
and the Dominican Republic in
2009, although their presence is
more extensive and dominant in
the latter country. Privatization in
Nicaragua was a phenomenon occurring from 1990 to 2006, when
neoliberal governments prevailed
and were set on erasing the Sandinista revolution and its educational
efforts from reality and memory
(1979-1990). In effect, in those 16
years public teachers colleges were
closed down and private ones opened up. Most of the public professionalization centers were also
closed, since only 3 remain of what
used to be 53. In the case of the
Dominican Republic, the proliferation of private higher education
centers is a phenomenon of the 70s
and 80s, and can be considered a
preliminary to the educational reform.
It is important to note that in
the cases of Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, although private institutions prevail, ITT enrollment is concentrated in the public
institutions. A powerful reason for
this is the poverty of a wide layer of
the population, which keeps them
from accessing the private ITT system.
Another interesting aspect to
point out is that the two countries
with the highest degree of privatization went through the 70s and
80s (Chile) and 90s (Peru) with
authoritarian and dictatorial regimes that made it possible for them
to carry off repressively this type of
privatizing reform, and although
the dictatorships have ended, the
policy orientation not only continues but, in both cases, has been
entrenched.
The privatization that has been
occurring is not only a quantitative
phenomenon, however; qualitatively it is very significant, referring
as it does to a political and ideological transformation and one of
power relations in society that have
become state policies. The change
involves policies such as deregulation, which leads to the unlimited
freedom to create private educational institutions, equal treatment for
public and private institutions and
even for national and transnational ones (aspects sanctified in free
trade agreements with the U.S.,
for example), absolute control by
15
Education International Latin American Regional Office
owners and predomi16 institutional
nance over other stakeholders such
as teachers, parents, students and
authorities. Finally, there is also a
growing trend in self-funding of
public institutions (Chilean universities), shared funding and unchecked commercialization of private institutions.3
2. Intercultural Bilingual
Education
It can be said that there is an insufficient development of intercultural bilingual education in all the
study countries, and this is reflected
in the equally scarce number of ITT
institutions aimed at preparing teachers with this kind of education
and capacities. The explanation for
this structural trend is linked to the
mestization process, the dominant
concept of modernity and its vision
of development as a process of cultural homogenization, the hidden and
open racism present since colonial
times, and the fact that diversity is
not appreciated as wealth, but rather
viewed as a synonym of underdevelopment. It should be pointed out that
only in Peru has interculturalism
been established as a transversal axis
for all education.
3 For a more detailed view of the privatization processes you will need to consult the
respective national case reports.
In the case of Chile, only two universities train teachers in this capacity; one is geared to the Aymára
population in the north, and the
other to the Mapuche population
in the south. The subject is poorly
developed, and interculturalism
does not exist as a transversal axis.
Chile’s slow progress in this area
can be explained by the size of its
indigenous population (some 5%
of the total), its early and intense
mestization, and a hundred-yearold racism that is not always visible.
As for Peru, the National Intercultural Bilingual University of
Ucayali is the only national university that trains bilingual teachers from the Shipibo, Awajun,
Quechua, Cocama, Cocamilla and
other ethnic groups, which group
together the six linguistic families
with the largest populations in the
Amazon. Created from what used
to be the Summer Linguistic Institute, it opened its doors in 2004,
with its first graduating class scheduled for 2010. The higher pedagogical institutes (ISPs) cover a large expanse
of the national territory, but most
do not train the bilingual teachers
needed for each area and region. In
the absence of official data, it was
Teacher Training in Latin America
possible to identify public bilingual
ISPs (apparently there are no private ones) located in Cuzco (Tinta),
Loreto, Apurímac (Andahuaylas),
San Martín, Ucayali and Lambayeque (Ferreñafe province, in operation until 2003).
In Nicaragua, a bilingual and
bicultural program was set in motion on the Atlantic Coast in the
80s. Training of primary and secondary school teachers is carried
out by community universities on
Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, such
as the Bluefields Indian Caribbean
University (BICU), which is defined as a “multiethnic, politically
independent, ecumenical, multicultural, not-for-profit, community-owned university”, and the
University of the Autonomous Regions of the Nicaraguan Caribbean
Coast (URACCAN), defined as an
“intercultural community university for the indigenous peoples and
ethnic communities”. Interculturalism has not been a transversal axis
in all ITT or the educational system in general.
In the Dominican Republic
there is no intercultural bilingual
teacher training, although there is
presently pending the delicate issue of addressing the growing po-
pulation of Haitian origin with a
different language and a different
culture.
3. Regulation of Initial
Teacher Training
Privatization and commercialization, and the incapacity and ideological and political commitment
to a market society of the respective
secretariats of state and governments,
have lead to fragmented, strongly heterogeneous and unequal and quite
irrelevant training efforts that fail to
form part of an integral educational
process; they also occur in the perspective of a state conceived and defined
as subsidiary (this last would not occur in Nicaragua in 2010). All the
cases studied reveled that there does
not exist a ITT system which articulates this training with education
in general neither with the needs of
national development.
In Chile, the military dictatorship
privatized, commercialized and deregulated higher education. As a
result, there is no national curriculum, with each institution at liberty
to establish whatever it deems appropriate, in line with the concept
of university autonomy. Without
contradicting the above, in 1998
several universities began to develop a program for Strengthening
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Education International Latin American Regional Office
Teacher Training, which
18 Initial
pushed for reforms for updated
curricula, continuing education
for academicians, funding for new
infrastructure and resources for
university teaching. Although the
program has been discontinued, it
has left its mark on the institutions
that worked on it and has served in
some ways as a point of reference
for other institutions.
There was an indirect impact
of this initiative on the commercial autonomy of ITT that has
been continued through other
recent instruments: the Ministry
of Education’s initial teacher training standards4 and accreditation
through the use of degree program
assessment criteria.
Within the framework of the
National Education Council and
the National Undergraduate Accreditation Committee for university
degree programs and institutions
(CNAP), both public regulatory
bodies, voluntary accreditation by
the National Committee was established for teaching degree programs; this measure was achieved
through the active participation
4 The standards came out as qualitative criteria from the Program for Strengthening
Initial Teacher Training (1997-2004) that
operated in the 16 state and derived universities.
of the Professional Teachers Association. Since assessment is voluntary, a major percentage of the degree programs have not submitted
to the process. Pressure from the
teachers union finally succeeded
in getting a law passed making it
obligatory for pedagogy degree
programs to be accredited (2006),
which meant that by 2009 some
89.1% of the programs had started
or completed their accreditation
process. The law, however, stipulates that accreditation is not granted
by the CNAP but rather private
bodies authorized by the CAN,
and the accreditation outcome
does not have major consequences;
that is, an unaccredited institution
can continue operating but is sanctioned by not being able to receive
public funding.
In Peru, the constitution and
operation of teacher training
institutions, whether public or
private, is governed by special ordinances. The majority of public
or private higher pedagogical institutes (ISPs) currently in operation
were created by authority of DL
882-94 and DS 023-2001-ED,
which approves the General Regulations for Higher Pedagogical Institutes. On August 5, 2009, Law
Teacher Training in Latin America
29394, the Institutes and Schools
of Higher Education Act, was passed to regulate the creation and
operation of institutes and schools
of higher education, including
ISPs.
The teacher training system currently has two subsystems that are
fully independent from each other:
the Centralized Teacher Training
Subsystem (ISPs, the Higher Technological Institute (IST) and the
Higher School of Art Education
(ESFA)) and the Autonomous University Teacher Training Subsystem, stipulated in the University
Act, which allows for the creation
of faculties of education. This gives
rise to a problem of articulation
in teacher training, since the ISPs
depend directly on the Ministry of
Education and the Ministry designs a single plan of studies at the national level, while the universities
are governed by their own law and
enjoy academic, administrative and
economic autonomy, with each designing its own plan.
The General Education Act, Law
28044-2003, gives the right to all
individuals and companies to set
up and conduct educational programs and centers. The state recognizes supports and supervises
private education but does not limit it, leading to its anarchic and
disproportionate growth. With the
announced intention of regulating
this growth, the General Education
Act created in 2006 the National
System for the Evaluation, Accreditation and Certification of Educational Quality (SINEACE) for the
purpose of guaranteeing educational quality in public institutions.
It only regulates and supervises the
private ones in theory, however,
since in practice they make their
own decisions regarding teacher
training.
There are no foreign organizations
in Peru for accrediting teacher training institutions.
In the case of Nicaragua, ITT
for primary education is handled
at present by 8 state teachers colleges, 2 subsidized and 4 private,
and there are also 3 professional
training centers, all urban. Secondary education teacher training is
handled by the public and private
universities. It should be pointed
out that in the 80s, with the government that came into power after
the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship, 14 public teachers colleges
were already in operation and 53
professional training centers were
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Education International Latin American Regional Office
The goal of this ITT ex20 created.
pansion was to be able to address
all those students excluded from
the regular system, adult education
and the national literacy campaign.
The privatizing institutional structure for ITT in existence today was
generated at the start of the 90s
and up to 2006, and has still not
changed much with the new Sandinista Front government.
The Ministry of Education (MINED) is responsible for designing
basic national curricula in consultation with the educational community, and must coordinate with the
autonomous regional authorities
for adapting them to the distinctive
characteristics of each region. These curricula are diversified locally
to respond to environmental and
student body characteristics, and
each educational institution builds
its curricular adaptation within this
framework.
In compliance with the General
Education Act, a national consultation was held in 2007 on the new
curricula for basic, secondary and
regular education, which made it
possible to formulate the basic national curriculum. The particular
curriculum for initial teacher training is still under construction.
It should be noted that private
teachers colleges are not regulated
at all by MINED, while state teachers colleges require an admission
exam. With subsidized ITT centers, some of the rules for public
centers must be followed, especially with respect to curriculum. The
government has to include a budgetary item in its general budget to
cover the cost of salaries, vacations
and thirteenth-month pay for educators in subsidized teaching centers, including administrative staff.
In addition, the General Education
Law states that private educational
institutions are companies that are
subject to private law, created at the
initiative of individuals or companies and authorized by the authorities of each educational subsystem.5
It also provides for teacher training to consist of initial teacher training for preparing primary school
teachers, handled by teachers colleges (which give a teacher’s degree in
primary education), and secondary
school teachers, handled by universities (which grant graduate degrees
5 The current General Education Law
states that “The state, in concordance
with academic freedom, the right to
education and the encouragement of
plurality in the educational offering,
recognizes, evaluates and supervises
private education.”
Teacher Training in Latin America
in educational science), and professional studies to complete the studies for empirical teachers teaching
education.
Teacher training schools will be
adding training in or studies of
Nicaraguan sign language to their
programs.
In the Dominican Republic,
the legal framework for teacher
training is found in General Education Act 66-97, which provides
that “the state will encourage and
guarantee teacher training at the
higher education level for its integration into the educational process at all levels....” This same law
creates the National Institute for
Teacher Education and Training
(INAFOCAM) and makes it the
coordinator of teacher training at
the higher education level; it also
provides for free continuing training and education for all teachers.
The strengthening of human
resource training in the education
sector began in 1992, and as a result more than half the teaching
staff under the Secretariat of State
for Education (SEE) had a graduate degree or higher by 2007. Despite this, the current strategic plan
(2008-2018 Ten-Year Education
Plan) admits a failure to improve
the quality of the system, pointing
out that the quality of professionals
coming out of ITT does not appear
to have improved.
Higher education institutions
have academic, administrative and
institutional autonomy. The requirements, regulations and supervision for the setting up and operating of teacher training institutions
are the same as those applied to
university level educational institutions in other areas of knowledge, and are covered by the Law on
Higher Education, Science and Technology, number 139-01 of 2001.
The Salome Ureña Higher Institute for Teacher Training (ISFODOSU) is governed by a national curriculum provided by
ordinances, but given the variety
of ITT institutions (19 in all) with
autonomy for defining their curricula, an inconsistency can be said
to exist in the content, processes
and objectives for teacher training
that keeps it from conforming to
the profile designed and expected
by the Education Ministry. Moreover, the ISFODOSU’s curriculum is quite inflexible at the regional and local levels.
The body within the Secretariat
of State for Higher Education in
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Education International Latin American Regional Office
of approving the creation of
22 charge
higher education institutions is the
National Council of Higher Education, Science and Technology
(CONESCT), which approves the
suspension, intervention or closing
of these institutions when deemed
necessary due to violations of the
law.
An important assessment instrument provided by the law is a
diagnostic, to be applied at least
every five years, of the operations
of the entire higher education system “with the aim of recommending readjustments and changes
in its policies and goals, and in the
quality requirements and criteria
that must be met by the system’s
institutions.” After two five-year
assessments with favorable results,
the CONESCT will grant full
exercise of autonomy to the institution, allowing it to create and offer
programs within its corresponding
realm of action without requiring
its authorization. This does not
apply to institutions that were already enjoying autonomy when the
law was enacted.
predominance of the female gender is
greater in ITT for early or kindergarten education and primary or basic
education. In secondary or senior
high school education there is a better
balance, although women still prevail in numbers. In addition, ITT
students tend to come from poor or
lower middle-class families. This was
seen in the cases of Nicaragua, Peru
and the Dominican Republic, while
in the case of Chile the middle class
had a greater representation.
Entry profiles tend to respond to
different forms of selection and admission testing, which due to their
standardization end up discriminating against rural and indigenous
candidates (the case of Peru), and
also against candidates from poor
families (the case of Chile, where
ITT is not free). That is to say, ITT
is not taking in the richness of diversity or considering and adequately taking into account existing
social inequities and inequalities.
In general, candidates are entering
with “barely sufficient” or relatively
low scores.
At present, the profession is not
very attractive for other higher income social sectors, and the idea
4. ITT Entry Profile
official reformers and IFIs have
In the researched countries, most
education students are women. The today of attracting the best talent
to teaching is frankly unrealistic
Teacher Training in Latin America
under the current conditions. The
real situation, and the explanation
for what was just said, is that the
teaching profession pays little and
lacks social prestige. The low wages
are a result of the crises and structural adjustments of the 80s and
90s that prioritized foreign debt
payment to the detriment of social
spending and investment. The lack
of social prestige, for its part, comes in direct response to intensive smear campaigns conducted by
governments, business people, IFIs
and the media to weaken teaching
unions socially and politically and
create conditions for destabilizing
labor relations.
A closer look at the entry profile
shows us that the following is happening with respect to the economic and social situation:
In Chile, most ITT students
belong to the low and middle socioeconomic classes; 55% fall into
quintiles II and III,6 and the majority is of urban origin. Students can
access educational loans – handled
by private banks – for their studies.
With respect to the situation
6 Income distribution analyses divide the
population of a country into quintiles; that
is, they divide it into 5 equal parts. Quintile
I includes the poorest 20% of the population and so on successively, in such a way
that quintile V includes the richest 20%.
in Peru, a study by José Díaz in
metropolitan Lima concludes that
pedagogy students generally tend
to be of lower social extraction7,
known as the ‘C’ and ‘D’ sectors, or
middle-poor and poor social classes. There is also an upper middle
class sector that studies pedagogy,
but at private teacher colleges and
universities, accounting for 9% in
this study. Another important piece of data that helps us in part to
identify the socioeconomic origins
of pedagogy students is that 89%
studied in public schools and 11%
went to private schools.
No information is available in
Nicaragua on the socioeconomic
profile, but given the country’s
general economic situation where
poverty abounds and teaching salaries are low, we can conclude that
it is similar to the other countries
in this.
In the Dominican Republic,
most students are originally from
rural areas but study in cities.
Statistics are lacking on this rural
origin; the information has been
7 Díaz, Juan José: Educación superior
en el Perú: tendencias de la demanda
y la oferta. In: Martín Benavides, (ed.),
Análisis de programas, procesos y resultados educativos en el Perú: contribuciones empíricas para el debate. Lima,
Peru: GRADE, 2008.
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Education International Latin American Regional Office
with teachers and edu24 confirmed
cational leaders, however, and the
phenomenon is visible in the classroom. The vast majority of the
candidates hale from the lower
social classes, or poor households.
The social origin of the candidates appears to be confirmed if you
look at the concentration in two
public institutions where the cost
of enrollment is minimum or free:
the Autonomous University of
Santo Domingo (UASD) and the
ISFODOSU (former Teachers Colleges).
With respect to the way ITT
candidates are selected, we have
the following situation:
In Chile, to enter the system
you have to have passed a national
exam. This occurs in most universities – but not all, since there
is no law forcing these institutions
to accept students who have sat for
this exam. In Peru, there are two
selection systems for pedagogy studies. One, used by the faculties
of education, consists of giving an
exam prepared by each university (according to its own timeline)
and opening up spaces by order of
merit. The other, used by pedagogical institutes, consists of giving
a national exam prepared by the
MED where the minimum passing
grade is 14 (out of 20). In the case
of Nicaragua, there are 3 entry modes: completion of the sixth year of
primary school, completion of the
third year of secondary school, and
completion of secondary school.
In the Dominican Republic the
basic requirement for entering the
studies is a high school degree. In
the old teachers college system, entry was permitted without having
finished high school.
5. Induction or
Accompaniment Programs
In most cases there are no induction
or accompaniment processes for teachers entering the system, and if there
are they are still weak and seem to
lack in relevance. Given that an integral part of the first formative stage
for beginning teachers is when they
are starting out in the classroom, the
lack of, or precarious, weak or poorquality existence of these processes seriously impairs the final ITT phase,
with long-term adverse consequences.
None of the countries studied has
adequate opportunities for practice
or contact by education students with
the profession during the course of
study, either.
In Chile, there is no national in-class
accompaniment program for begin-
Teacher Training in Latin America
ning teachers, although this was
recommended by the Organization
for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) in 2005. A
program for providing support to
beginning teachers – joining the
work of the Ministry of Education,
universities and schools – was formalized in 2009 at the Center for
In Service Teacher Training, Experimentation and Educational Research (CPEIP).
In Peru, teachers awarded positions are incorporated as teacherappointees into the public teaching
career, according to Law 290622007, the Public Teaching Career
Act. In accordance with Article
15, they go through an insertion
period that comprises the first stage
of their in-service training, the purpose being to reinforce their professional autonomy, capacities and
competencies for the full exercise
of their teaching functions. This
insertion program is the responsibility of the educational institution’s
most highly qualified teacher and
lasts nine teaching months; the
teacher receives an additional 10%
of his or her monthly wage for this
counseling, according to Article 49
of the law. Aside from the abovementioned goals, another feature
of this insertion program is that if
the beginning teacher successfully
passes this stage he or she is awarded points that are added to their
first regular evaluation.
In Nicaragua, there is no induction or accompaniment process for
teachers entering the classroom.
The topic of induction or accompaniment is absent in the Dominican Republic’s educational system;
no policies exist to this effect. The
system has conceived the figure
of educational district technician
to be called upon to play this role
together with the school directors,
but as these are often selected outside of institutional criteria many
do not have the capacity to perform this function. In practice,
induction for newly entering teachers does not exist. This is one of
the issues salvaged in the strategic
planning for the new 2008-2018
Ten-Year Education Plan.
6. Educational Research
There is generally not enough educational research carried out in the
study countries, and the state has tended to abandon this task. When it
does carry it out, it does so through
entities contracted for that purpose.
This abandonment was particularly
serious during part of the 80s and the
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Education International Latin American Regional Office
depending on which country we
26 90s,
are referring to.
Prior to the 1973 military coup
in Chile, educational research
was concentrated in the universities, with some participation on
the part of the state – especially
through the CPEIP in the Ministry
of Education, created in 1967. The
Center lost this capacity with the
coup, and universities also reduced
their role. This led to the partial
taking up of this task by several
centers and NGOs, including the
Interdisciplinary Educational Research Program (PIIE), the Center for Educational Research and
Development (CIDE), the Latin
American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) and the Center for
the Promotion of University Studies (CPU).
After 1990, the situation began
to change. The role of NGOs is
declining and the production of
the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) is expanding; many times
the MINEDUC opens bidding on
this research and awards it to universities or private organizations,
thus strengthening some universities with this task. Old NGO-type
research centers have also been seen
to associate themselves with the
education schools of some private
universities.
At present in Peru there is no
structured state organization dedicated to educational research. Public universities, as part of the state,
have serious limitations (especially
financial) for working in this field,
and most of the research literature at these universities consists of
graduate or post-graduate dissertations. The majority of research
has been done on request or autonomously by NGOs. Diagnostic
research has been done with the
support of IFIs that has served in
educational policy decision-making by the governments.
According to the Office for Educational Documentation, Supervision and Research (DISDE-MED),
the MED has done 27% of the
educational studies itself and 10%
together with other institutions,
while 62% of the studies have
been done by other institutions.8
It is thus in the private sector and
among certain international institutions where most attention has
been paid to this issue, through
non-governmental organizations
8 MED. DISDE. Plan Nacional de Investigación Educacional. Document under consultation, 2007-2021.
Teacher Training in Latin America
(NGOs) and organizations such as
the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI).
In the case of Nicaragua, there is
educational research at the universities, and particularly at the UCA
(Central American University, a Jesuit institution), but in general the
field of study is still incipient.
Research on education is limited in the Dominican Republic;
the state does not do research, and
the universities where most initial
teacher education takes place lack
consolidated, operative research
programs. Available data and information comes largely from studies
done sporadically under advisory
contracts as part of projects funded
by international organizations.
The planning department at the
Secretariat of State for Education
(SEE) has generated a statistical
base that is partially available, and
a few private institutions working
in the sector also occasionally conduct a specific study or two. In
April 2008, the CNE created the
Dominican Institute for Educational Quality Assessment and Research (IDEICE), which still lacks
the necessary structure to begin
operating.
Union organizations have not carried out a systematic, widespread
process of educational research, either,
although an exception to this is the
Chilean Professional Teachers Association. Undoubtedly this is a sphere
of work requiring more development
so that organizations can enter national debates on educational reform
and teacher training with greater
force and authority. As we know, the
last three decades have seen intense
change and fierce conflicts between
governments and IFIs and education
workers’ union organizations.
The Chilean Professional Teachers Association has had to enter
into research under heavy pressure, and the Pinochet dictatorship’s
line of attack and neo-liberal, privatizing policies – and their subsequent continuation during the
formal democratic phase – has
left them with no alternative. It
has had to defend what remains of
public education and try to rescue
education as a right in an attempt
to limit its expansion as a merchandise. In line with this, it has stood
up as a technical counterpart to
the government on several studies
carried out for evaluating certain
educational policies, including
studies on evaluation of the entire
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Education International Latin American Regional Office
day, teachers’ health, and
28 school
another called “Teachers for the
is defining its educational ends and
goals for building an ideal country.
The union organization in Nicaragua (CGTN-ANDEN) has encouraged several relevant studies
and participated in different studies with the EILA office. It has
also participated in studies conducted by organizations in Central
America and assisted at educational
observatories in the subregion.
Up to now, the ADP in the Dominican Republic has not developed
any systematic research, although
recently it has set up an institute for
this purpose at its offices.
Future: Meeting Teacher Shortages
to Achieve Education for All,” funded by the International Labor Organization (ILO). Several studies
have also been done with EILA.
What may be considered the most
relevant study, however, is one
being done by the teachers themselves in the Professional Teachers
Association as part of their Pedagogical Movement. It is not only the
subject matter of these studies that
is significant; it is the fact that they
involve the widespread, organized
participation of many teachers.9
In Peru, the SUTEP is in the
process of developing its research
capacities, but in some relevant
areas not enough progress has been
made. The organization’s discourse
is clear and precise in its judgment
of the educational system, but still
lacking in terms of coming up with
proposals. The most significant
breakthrough has been the preparation of a national education project, an important contribution to
understanding education as an essential part of a more integral social
phenomenon. In terms of this understanding and proposal, SUTEP
Although teacher evaluation was
not initially included in this study,
in the end it was deemed necessary
to say something about it due to its
importance and the conflict it has
generated in the relations between
governments and teachers unions.10
Teacher evaluation appears as
one more pressure on teachers,
although in the official discourse it
is brought up as a way of improving educational quality by diagnosing teacher quality and from there
going on to policies for improve-
9 For more detailed knowledge, see the national report prepared for this study.
10 The issue is very controversial and relevant,
and requires a specific study.
7. Teacher Performance
Evaluation
Teacher Training in Latin America
ment. In Chile, the first attempt
was to establish discretional ratings
of teachers in the Teaching Statute of 1991; in the end a formative
evaluation system was negotiated
for teaching performance. In Peru,
this has been imposed by the current president, Alan García.
In both countries, teachers who
fail to satisfactorily meet the requirements will be withdrawn from
service after a third negative evaluation.
In the cases of Nicaragua and
the Dominican Republic, the law
provides for teacher evaluation but
this has apparently not been enforced in Nicaragua, since promotions
are given based on accumulated
merit points on a pay scale.11 In the
Dominican Republic, for its part,
teacher evaluation is used more for
applying teacher incentives, and up
to now has had neither a punitive
function nor one of providing support for educational improvement
policies.12
As teacher evaluation in Chi11 In the case of Nicaragua the law states that
personnel can be withdrawn from service
by means of the evaluation. In addition, the
law provides that the results of the evaluation will have an educational and feedback
function.
12 Staff will be evaluated taking into account the
students’ scholastic performance on the measurement instrument entitled National Tests.
le is the result of long, drawn-out
negotiations (which does not presuppose equal conditions for the
parties), it seems to merit a closer
look. Negotiations concluded with
a new law in 2006 that provides
for an evaluation of teachers based
exclusively on their professional
performance, taking into account
working conditions and context;
teachers are not graded on administrative performance or their students’ learning results. The evaluation is based on teaching practice
evidence assessed against criteria
established in a Good Teaching
Framework, and teacher ratings
fall into one of four categories:
outstanding, competent, basic and
unsatisfactory. Teachers with unsatisfactory ratings must be re-evaluated the following year, and after
three consecutive ratings of unsatisfactory must leave the system, with
indemnification. Teachers with basic and unsatisfactory ratings must
take continuing education to overcome their weaknesses, which the
state must provide free of charge.13
13 Both the Framework for Good Teaching
and the Teacher Performance Evaluation
System are available at www.docentemas.cl
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Education International Latin American Regional Office
30
Teacher Training in Latin America
III. In-Service Teacher Training
In-Service Teacher Training
and its Regulation
deficient ITT and generating lowquality teachers are later contracted
In-service teacher training has simi- to try to solve the problem of quality
lar problems to those pointed out for they themselves have generated.
ITT. It is scattered and fragmented
and not part of any formal, inte- In Chile’s situation, the teaching
grated system. The state tends to be profession reinforcement axis of
subsidiary in the process, and ISTT the educational reform and its
has become an attractive market op- preparatory years (1990-1996)
portunity for private organizations
(including NGOs) as well as public incorporated in-service training
institutions seeking to obtain the ne- or continuing education to give
cessary budget funding that the go- functional support to the different
vernments are not providing.
educational reforms and deal with
problems arising from the changes.
One part of ISTT is found in diplo- Some of these courses were given
ma, master’s degree and doctorate directly by the CPEIP, others by
programs; that is, it is geared more
for getting a degree or diploma than universities and the vast majority
for relevant or “functional” prepa- by private individuals or comparation for classroom needs. It is not nies. Of the 108 institutions idenclear if these programs are contribu- tified as working in ISTT, only the
ting to improving the relevance of CPEIP (a ministerial agency) and
training or leading to better teachers 15 universities are state entities.
and better education. Not only that,
but there tends to be a paradox in The rest are 32 private universities
ISTT in that the private educational (although 9 of these receive state
institutions providing inadequate or funding) and other private ins-
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Education International Latin American Regional Office
Courses related to the
32 titutions.
reforms were generally provided
free of charge to teachers and held
outside of work hours. The rest of
the continuing education courses –
those not strictly related to the reform – are paid for by the teachers,
and offer a wide range of quality
and value depending on the educational market.
Teachers in Chile’s public system
(primary and secondary schools
administered by the municipal governments) have a right provided
by the Teaching Statute to a continuing education allowance of up
to a maximum of 40% of the base
wage. Payment is based on the submission by teachers of courses they
have passed, which must be registered in the National Public Registry
of Continuing Education administered by the CPEIP, an agency of
the Chilean Ministry of Education.
The law does not obligate payment
of this allowance to private sector
teachers, although state-subsidized private establishments receive
funds for doing so. In the case of
continuing education required of
teachers by the teacher evaluation
system when their ratings are basic
or unsatisfactory, the responsibility
for this education falls on the Mu-
nicipal Education Administration
Departments (DAEMs) or Municipal Corporations.
In Chile, continuing teacher
education, as well as ITT, is organized from a state-assisted approach
and based on a logical positivism,
making it depend primarily on
market supply and to a lesser extent
on the state’s instrumental need for
teachers to take ownership of the
curricular reforms – resulting in
the absence of a policy for medium
and long-term continuing training.
At the same time, the quality regulations agreed upon by the Chilean
Professional Teachers Association
and the Ministry has turned out
to be mere formalities, since the
CPEIP has not been given more capacity and funding to oversee their
compliance.
In addition, ISTT programs suffer from problems such as: a lack
of planning and programming articulation by the Ministry of Education, since the perception has been
of a sort of invasion of initiatives
demanding teachers’ time, especially in public institutions; a lack of
conditions in the schools for taking
on eventual improvements; teacher
overload and stress, since many of
the educational policies assume
Teacher Training in Latin America
they will be playing an active role,
though because of the conditions
noted above this active role implies
a work overload for them; a technocratic view of training, since the
ministry programs, like continuing
education in general, are enmeshed
in educational technology, without
purpose or opportunity for critical
reflection.
In the specific situation of
Peru, in-service teacher training
is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, which provides
it through third parties for political and ideological reasons and
because it lacks the logistics and
professionals to carry it off. The
MED has been contracting third
parties to carry out in-service teacher training, and recently – as of
2002, with the creation of the National In-Service Training Program
(PNFS) – it has set minimum requirements for organizations seeking to participate in the process.
As a result, it has been contracting
private and public ISPs and universities, NGOs, private basic education institutions and preparatory
academies, among others – most
of which have a profit motive. Moreover, it is not known what criteria
are used for determining in-service
training time, which tends to vary
from year to year.
ISTT administered by the state
is completely free of charge, with
no difference being made for the
type of management of the institution providing the training. In the
past the National Teacher Training
Plan (PLANCAD), then the National In-Service Training Program
(PNFS), and currently the National Teacher Education and Training Program (PRONAFCAD)
have all been part of the National
System for the Continuing Training of Teachers (SNFCP) and
have responded to in-service teacher training policies in accordance
with relevant rules and regulations,
such as the National Education
Plan (PEN), Education-for-All
Plan, General Education Act and
the new Public Teaching Career
Act, among others.
In addition to free public ISTT,
an infinity of capacities are promoted by private institutions working
with education that offer their services at widely varying prices (for
a profit motive), the cost of which
is covered by the teacher. There are
no specific bodies charged with
controlling or regulating the operations of ISTT providers; insomuch
33
Education International Latin American Regional Office
they are the same institutions in
34 ascharge
of the initial training they
are governed by the rules and laws
regulating ITT providers.
As for in-service training of BILINGUAL TEACHERS, the National Intercultural Bilingual University of Ucayali has participated
in the latest in-service training programs for bilingual teachers at the
initial and primary school levels.
Multilateral financial organizations help with the funding
through loans for carrying out
ISTT programs.1 It is important to
note that one condition for these
loans is the permanent presence of
these financial organizations’ technicians. Up to now, these training
1 In a first stage covering the years from 1996
to 2003, the IDB provided US $167 million for funding in-service teacher training projects; in a second stage, covering
the 2001-2006 period, it provided US
$85 million. This money was used for inservice teacher training at the initial and
secondary levels. The IBRD provided US
$271,307,000 for financing training for
the primary level from 1995 to 2001. The
IBRD (in a second stage) and PEAR also
provided $46,500,000 in financing from
2004 to 2007, making for a total of $625.6
million in foreign debt.
These figures were cited in the Informe sobre Formación Docente en Perú and were
obtained by its author from the Informe al
Congreso de la República por el Ministro de Educación Javier Sota Nadal en el
año 2004. Information is also available in
PISCOYA H, Luis, Formación Docente y
Acreditación. in Nuevos Retos de la Formación Docente. INFODEM, 2009.
programs, and the debt that has financed them, have not been able to
solve the problem of quality (officially measured by student performance), as shown by the PISA and
LLECE results, the four national
evaluations measuring educational quality and the yearly teacher
evaluations.2 The affirmation of
this inability to solve the problem
of quality does not imply, by any
means, that we agree that teaching
and teacher evaluation can be defined and measured on the basis of
student performance on standardized tests, or that these tests adequately measure a conceptually undefined quality.
In Nicaragua, three courses were
approved in April 2009 to deal
with the implementation of the
new Nicaraguan educational model and the changed curriculum:
training in pedagogical assessment,
aimed at 886 pedagogical assessors;
a refresher course for 1,984 fourthand fifth-grade teachers in Spanish
and mathematics; and a methodological and pedagogical refresher
course for 1,000 multi-grade teachers in focalized rural schools. In
the three courses, coordination, ar2 LLECE. Technical Report (2002), UNESCO. Santiago, Chile. PISA. 2000-2003.
Paris, France.
Teacher Training in Latin America
ticulation and planning for shortand middle-term activities were
set up. In addition, a technical
committee was formed with representatives from the Faculty of Educational Science at UNAN’s León
and Managua campuses and World
Bank – PASEN funding.
Moreover, the trade union (CGTEN-ANDEN) has added to its collective agreement a clause referring
to initial and in-service training; as
a result, 300 teachers graduated in
2007 with a master’s degree in curriculum planning and learning assessment, and there are at present
340 teachers studying for a degree
in middle-school education with
specialties in Spanish, mathematics,
natural sciences and social sciences.
In the Dominican Republic,
the authority in charge of coordinating in-service teacher training
programs is the INAFOCAM.
Created by the General Education
Act, No. 66-97, INAFOCAM is
defined as a decentralized body
under the Secretariat of State for
Education and has as its primary
function the coordination of education, training, refresher and
continuing education courses for
educational staff at the national level. The institutions offering ISTT
are universities, and INAFOCAM
coordinates the recruitment, funding and follow-up for the different programs.
ISTT is obligatory for teachers
and is fully paid for by the state.
ISTT programs are usually implemented during the school year,
mainly outside of class hours.
The relationship of ISTT to teacher evaluation has been aimed at
promotions and wage recognition,
without having generated any other
significant impact. ISTT has a direct impact on working conditions
to the extent that a graduate or
master’s degree secures wage incentives. Refresher courses that are not
at the graduate or master’s degree
level can add to the point count of
candidates competing for technical
or managerial posts within the educational system.
International financial institutions – such as, most notably, the
IDB and the WB, as well as others
such as UNESCO and the OAS –
have had a marked presence in the
country’s teacher training, although
it must be noted that their intervention has focused primarily on
in-service teacher training, while
initial education is mainly paid for
by the state.
35
Education International Latin American Regional Office
One of the first experiences of fi36 nancial
institution participation in
initial teacher training is with the
two projects called the Basic Education Improvement Program and
the Program for In-Service Training of High School Graduates.
Part of this program involved the
launching of the 1992-1998 PRODEP (Primary Educational Development Project), targeting normal
school teachers and implemented
at different universities. An inservice professionalization program
for primary school teachers with
high school diplomas was defined
by Decision 476-86 of April 2,
1986, the goal being to provide all
teachers with high school degrees
teaching at the primary school level with a normal teaching degree
in primary education. More than
8,000 teachers with high school
degrees do not have a teaching degree.
2. Participation of Union
Organizations in the ISTT
In general, the union organizations in the study countries do not
carry out ISTT for a range of reasons, the only exception being the
SUTEP in Peru, which does so autonomously.
In the case of Chile, just as in
the case of ITT the Professional
Teachers Association has decided
not to participate directly in market competition for ISTT, considering this the responsibility of
the state. What it does do is try to
influence its definition, application
and oversight. In addition, it is developing its own continuing education concept and proposal through
the Pedagogical Movement.
As for Peru, the SUTEP does
not participate in ISTT with the
Ministry of Education, either directly or indirectly, but rather automatically provides ISTT.3 The
SUTEP’s opinion4 is that there is
a strong deficit in ITT, to which
is added a lack of state policy on
continuing education for teachers,
since there is no system for teacher
training and development.
In Nicaragua the union organization does not offer ISTT but has
3 “We do it ourselves,” says its Secre-
tary General, “through the José Carlos
Mariátegui Popular Universities during
the months of vacation at the national
level. At this opportunity regional and
national, and even international courses
and pedagogical conferences are organized, allowing us to update teachers on
a variety of topics in both pedagogy and
general culture.”
4 SUTEP. Special Bulletin. (2009). “Aportes:
Educación pública de calidad con sindicalismo firme y propositivo,” p. 22.
Teacher Training in Latin America
advocated for the Education Act
to set up scholarships for ITT and
ISTT. The MINED, for its part,
is committed to guaranteeing the
technical, material, economic and
human conditions for the training
and professionalization of empirical primary and secondary school
teachers, in accordance with the
provisions of the Teaching Career
Act and its bylaws.
The situation for the Dominican Republic is the same for ISTT
as for ITT. There is no trade union
experience with ISTT; it has not
handled any projects for this or had
any influence on the contents of
the programs currently in effect. In
excuse for this, it should be remembered that due to a multitude of
factors, outstanding among which
are the extremely low salaries and
ignorance and violation of the right
to promotions, the union’s activism
has had to focus for quite a long
time on the fight for higher wages
and the right to a public education,
and against attempts at privatization, and lately for compliance
with the agreement to earmark 4%
of the GDP for education. As a result, there has been practically no
debate on the other components of
public education policies.
37
Education International Latin American Regional Office
Teacher Training in Latin America
IV. Untrained Teachers, Teacher
Unemployment And Shortages And
Private Sector Teacher Organization
1. Untrained Teachers
Another important issue in the study
countries is that of untrained teachers
and their actual situation and regulation. Although the use of untrained
teachers is not allowed in any of the
study cases, current education laws
provide advantages for it to exist.
In the situation of Chile, taking
into account the lack of formal
teacher training among a certain
percentage of teachers at the start
of the 90s, standardization became
necessary. Thus in the years from
1991 to 2007 standardization programs were opened up for qualified
teachers with more than ten years
of teaching without a degree. These programs appreciably reduced
the untrained teacher problem. In
addition, at present second degree
programs lasting between 2 and 4
semesters are given at various universities for professionals in related
specialties.
In contradiction to efforts for
strengthening the teaching profession, Article 46, section G of the
recently passed General Education
Act (2009) provides the possibility
of allowing degreed professionals
from eight-semester degree programs to teach secondary school
subjects related to their field, giving
them five years to obtain a teaching
degree through special programs.
With this new legal provision, professionals without teacher training
are allowed automatic entry into
the “educational market”, and no
protection or preference is given to
teachers with teaching degrees.
With respect to Peru, teaching
has been recovering its professionalism, but 8% of its teachers still
do not have teaching degrees. The
teacher training law of 1984 and its
1990 amendment set as a requirement for starting a teaching career
(as a teacher-appointee) the “pos-
39
Education International Latin American Regional Office
of a professional teaching
40 session
degree”, and the Public Teaching
1
Career Act (No. 29062 of 2007),
which in practice nullifies the two
earlier laws, sets as a requirement to
apply for a public teaching career
job the “possession of a teaching
degree or graduate degree in education, granted by a teacher education institution…”.2
The current situation of untrained teachers has improved, at any
rate, compared to decades back.
In fact, in 1981, 23% of teachers
had no teaching degree. By 1988
this figure had jumped to 49% and
then started to gradually decline
until reaching 8% in 2005.3
Despite this, a legal hole exists
making it possible for other professionals to work as teachers, since
the Education Law (No. 28044 of
2003) provides that professionals
with degrees in areas other than
education can teach if they do so in
areas related to their specialty. Their
incorporation into the teacher pay
1 Teacher Training Act N°24029 (1984) and
its amendment, Law N°25212 (1990).
2 Public Teaching Career Act No. 29062
(2007)
3 The period in which half the teaching staff
had no degree was during the first administration of current President Alan García,
and is explained by the political clientelist
interest of giving work to his APRA party
members and sympathizers.
scale is conditioned to obtaining a
teaching degree or post graduate
degree in education.
In the case of Nicaragua, the
number of untrained teachers is
still high and remains a problem
to be solved. The highest levels are
found in irregular education, with
55.8% lacking teaching degrees,
compared to 28.3% in regular
education. In irregular preschool
(community preschools) the percentage of untrained teachers is
higher (88.3%), while in primary
schools (multi-grade and over-aged
children) some 41.4% of the teachers are untrained. In secondary
schools, however, the highest numbers of untrained teachers are found
in regular education (44.3%).
The law states that teachers must
be qualified for the position in order to be hired; only when human
resources are in short supply can
non-teachers be hired if they have
another – higher – qualification.
This has been emphasized in the
last two years in order to improve
educational quality. However, while the School Autonomy model was
in effect many non-teachers were
hired in order to save on funds,
since only a base wage was paid
and savings were made on the pay
Teacher Training in Latin America
scale (degrees and seniority). This
led to an increase in the number of
untrained teachers, especially in secondary education.
This year (2010) there are 6,070
teachers getting their degrees in the
teachers colleges. These teachers
travel from their communities to
the teachers colleges on weekends
or for intensive periods during
vacations in order to earn a professional degree, and are taught by the
professors at the teachers colleges
through self-education modules
prepared by those same professors.
In the Dominican Republic, the
General Education Act (No. 66-97)
does not allow hiring of non-professional teachers. In the past a significant percentage of teachers were
untrained. The goal of the 1986
program for professionalization of
in-service primary school teachers
with high school degrees was to
provide a normal primary school
teaching degree to all in-service
teachers with high school degrees
working at the primary school level;
at that time there were more than
8,000 without teaching degrees.
Efforts made in the first few years
of the reform (1992-2000) enabled
a significant number of teachers to
get their degrees.
The authority in charge of coordinating in-service teacher training
programs is the INAFOCAM,
which has a department of initial
teacher education and qualification4 that coordinates the program
offerings for these categories and
the activities required for carrying
them out in order to train all the
teachers needed by the educational
system. Other departments include
those for continuing training, postgraduate education, research and
evaluation, and a document center.
2. Teacher Unemployment
and Shortages
In the case of Chile, which operates within the framework of a
subsidiary state that liberalizes
higher education, ensuring educational service rather than the right
to such service, the Chilean legal
and institutional structure does not
include enrollment or degree program planning. This task must be
performed by the market, which
is not able to regulate, either. For
example, with teachers needed for
senior high schools in the fields
of physics, chemistry, English and
4 Teacher qualification is the figure that designates the recruitment and training of professionals without pedagogical training, in
order for them to enter the teaching profession.
41
Education International Latin American Regional Office
the universities insist
42 mathematics,
on offering enrollment in basic ge-
neral education, where there is no
lack of teachers and more are being
graduated than the system needs.
It could be said, therefore, without
giving exact numbers, that there is
an excess supply at some levels and
a specific shortage at others.
With respect to Peru, even as the
system is structured with a considerable number of classrooms there
is an oversupply of teachers. The
system absorbs on average some
5,000 teachers per year, but awards
teaching degrees to an average of
15,000, which means some 10,000
teachers are left out of the system,
without work, unemployed. In the
large cities the average number of
students per class is 35, but this is
the minimum number required by
the authorities, and in some places
classes have to be joined to achieve
the required number of students,
leading to surpluses of teachers and
– in the worst case scenario – the
elimination of schools, essentially in
the rural and jungle areas.
At present the oversupply of teachers is up to an estimated 150,000
teachers without work. An estimated teacher-student ratio based on
the experience of other countries
where the number of students per
class is no more than 25 would
easily allow the system to assimilate all the teachers left outside
and create an urgent need to train a contingency of new teachers
to cover the new demand. At present many towns are demanding
the creation of new schools, while
others want to end single-teacher
and multi-grade schools; if this
were to be done, the demand universe would expand notably.
In addition, initial education
coverage (preschool, children ages
3-5) is still not enough. Out of
every 100 school-aged children
only 65 have access in the urban
areas, while in the outlying areas
of the large cities, rural areas and
jungle areas the number is only
30 or 40, meaning that universalizing initial education would make
it possible to incorporate a large
number of teachers. Likewise, if
the government were to design policies aimed at keeping students in
secondary school, the number of
teachers would also rise, since currently only 70 of every 100 students finishing primary school go
on to finish secondary school, the
number being smaller in the rural
jungle and mountain areas.
Teacher Training in Latin America
In the case of Nicaragua, there
is no oversupply at any educational
level, and teachers are needed at
all levels (although no exact figures are available). The explanation
may lie in the fact that wages have
been low for many years – less than
$100 a month – and despite the
current improvement are still not
sufficient. For this reason the career
is not attractive, and enrollment is
moderate in the teachers colleges
and very low in the universities.
There is a shortage of teachers in
all the primary education modalities, especially in rural areas. Upon
graduation, some teachers are reluctant to move in order to cover
schools in the rural areas, and the
districts or the Ministry of Education has to find a way to deal
with this problem by hiring teachers without degrees. At present
teaching students are captured by
coordinating teachers colleges with
the municipal districts, assigning
them quotas in accordance with
their level of need for graduated
teachers. Students entering the teachers colleges come from the countryside, have low income levels and
are often high school graduates
who were not able to get into other
university degree programs. Most
of the current teacher education
students at teachers colleges are inservice teachers working toward a
professional degree.
The government has designed
a strategy for achieving universal
education through the sixth grade
by 2012. To comply with this strategy it will form a “31st Anniversary
Contingency” comprised of young
high school graduates and students
who have completed the ninth grade; these will be studying at the teachers colleges for 6 months, from
July to December, and will be specifically qualified to teach at multigrade schools in need of teachers.
This decision, of course, may lead
to problems of teaching quality.
In addition, Nicaragua currently
has more than 47,000 preschool,
primary and secondary teachers,
but only around 1,000 of these are
qualified to teach children with disabilities. The goal of making sure
special education is not discriminatory would require, at the least, one
special education teacher for every
public school in the country, or
more than 10,000 teachers trained
in special education, to make sure
disabled children have access to
the regular system and are not only
taken care of by specialized centers.
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Education International Latin American Regional Office
is no data in the Domini44 canThere
Republic on teacher unemplo-
yment or lack of coverage. There are
some regions, however, where there
are virtually no teachers, either because they are not available or because they would need to receive a special incentive, such as in the area on
the border with Honduras or in areas
with concentrated tourism growth –
especially in the eastern part of the
country, where hotel work competes
advantageously against such occupations as teaching.
There is an active supply of
teachers, and always an available
supply awaiting openings. In this
case the educational system’s demand for teachers does not offer
sufficient coverage to incorporate
the contingency of available teachers. It should also be pointed out
that most of the spending for over
more than two decades has gone
into basic education, thus intensifying the deficiencies of secondary
education, where there is a shortage
of appropriately trained teachers.
3. Private Sector Teacher
Organization
In the case of Chile, private teachers belong to the Professional
Teachers Association, though in
fewer numbers than for teachers
at public municipal institutions.
There are a few establishment
unions (in Chile, only the company union can negotiate), which
maintain ties with the Association.
The Professional Teachers Association has been developing policies
to motivate their membership, the
difficulty facing it being the widespread scattering of employers and
fear of pressure and repercussions.
The Association represents them
nationally when bargaining with
the Ministry, even though they are
not members.
In the case of Peru, teachers
working in private basic education institutions are unorganized,
both institutionally and territorially. The problem is that teachers in
the private sector are unprotected
from employment contracts drawn
up under legislation enacted at the
onset of the 90s – laws that encouraged then and still encourage
today the deregulation of labor in
this sector. Although teaching laws
numbers 24029 and 25212 provide equal rights for teachers regardless of the labor regime, in practice
this has never been enforced, and
educational employers are at full
liberty to hire and fire teachers de-
Teacher Training in Latin America
pending on their commercial needs
and interests.
There are experiences of teachers
who have been fired after encouraging unionization, and the union
organization (SUTEP) has been
impotent to defend their rights,
since the employers are protected
by free market laws, in addition
to enjoying the cooperation of the
Labor Ministry. Given this background and a scarcity of work,
private sector teachers are loath
to organize for fear of losing their
jobs – which are very unstable
and poorly paid, as generally they
get half as much, or less, as what
public sector teachers get. The current Public Teaching Career Act
(No. 29062, passed in July 2007)
completely overlooks the situation
of private sector teachers, who are
totally unprotected. The argument
is that they are governed by private
sector employment laws. A potential strategy for progress is to press
for bringing private teachers – a
significant group currently consisting of some 150,000 teachers –
under the teaching law.
In the case of Nicaragua, the
CGTEN-ANDEN also tries to
affiliate teachers from private educational institutions, but member-
ship from private schools is quite
small (it should be clarified that
many teachers working at private
schools also work in state schools).
The organization could make more
progress in signing up teachers at
private schools, as there are no legal
roadblocks to get around.
Private sector teachers are not
organized in the Dominican Republic; neither are they members of
the ADP.
45
Education International Latin American Regional Office
Teacher Training in Latin America
V. Conclusions And Final
Recommendations For Teacher
Training
1. Union Organization
Recommendations
regarding Teacher Training
In this section we have literally collected together contents from the
national reports on union organization proposals for teacher training. This implies absorbing differences of style that break in some
way with the expository manner of
the rest of the document, but it was
felt that by doing this we would be
faithful to what the organizations
are putting forward.
Chile. In order to challenge
the current imposed model and try
to influence policies of the state,
which in the Association’s opinion
should be responsible for initial and
in-service training, the Professional
Teachers Association has chosen
to take advantage of every opportunity afforded it for confronting
this model, and to implement
proposals which would enable us,
in alliance with other political, social and educational sectors, to put
a halt to it and open the doors to
democratizing alternatives for the
educational system. To this end
the Association has been actively
involved in a national board on initial teacher training, together with
the Ministry of Education and the
universities that provide this education. It has also participated in
putting together the accreditation
system and criteria for pedagogy
degree programs. In addition, as
has been pointed out, it was decisive in getting accreditation – which
is voluntary – established as obligatory by law for pedagogy programs.
Faced with the problems of education today in Chile, the Association must move forward together
with the other stakeholders in the
realm of education to open the way
to new legislation on initial and in-
47
Education International Latin American Regional Office
teacher training that would
48 service
allow us to progress in at least the
a fairer, more tolerant and democratic society.
following aspects:
• The generation of national poli• Close ties between the univercies for initial and ongoing trasities, and especially the pedaining, with the State taking an
gogy programs, and the eduactive role in the definition, sucational system – mainly the
pervision, oversight and funding
public system – that would lead
of these policies.
to knowledge, feedback and mu- • An overcoming in both pedagogy
tual and continuing support; and
degree programs and continuing
closely articulated work with the
education programs of the predoeducational establishments and
minance of educational technothe Education Ministry itself.
logy in which they are frequently
• Strengthening, in particular, of
enmeshed, training teachers as
the faculties of education, not
mere administrators of the cuonly in the teaching area but also
rriculum without the possibility
in research and outreach, so that
of generating reflection on their
there can be overlapping with the
own practice.
educational system and oppor- • Transformation, in the training
tunities for sharing knowledge,
centers, of the transmission pacommon practices and research,
radigm in which school culture
and mutual feedback between the
finds itself. Today a single set
two systems.
of knowledge is taught as being
• The taking of the helm by puuniversal and valid, disconnected
blic universities, and even private
from its process of construction,
ones, as public institutions, in the
by means of lectures and activities
sense that they open up, beyond
that favor mechanical, dependent
their own projects, opportunities
and not very meaningful learfor diversity, coexistence with dining. For this there is a tendency
fferences, democratic coexistence
to help teachers better repeat the
and plurality, in order to develop
practices designed by the speciaeducation professionals capable of
lists, limiting teachers’ reflections
moving forward in the building,
to questions concerning teaching
from the world of education, of
techniques and internal clas-
Teacher Training in Latin America
sroom organization, oftentimes
the experiencing of educational
overlooking the social and instiinterventions should therefore be
tutional context in which the teafostered.
ching takes place. When reflec- • Continuing training that helps
tion is generated, it does so at the
teachers to be constantly reindividual level, leading teachers
learning, researching everyday
into isolation and inattention to
teaching problems, critically rethe social context of education in
flecting on their own knowledge
the development of the teaching
and task, building new pedagoprofession. As a consequence,
gical knowledge, and preparing,
teachers end up thinking of their
testing and evaluating different
problems as their own, without
teaching strategies. All this would
relating them in any way to those
help foster the building of a more
of other teachers or the structuprofessional role. The idea is to
res of the educational system and
move past the kind of continuing
schools. It is definitely a technieducation that expects teachers
cal training that does not give
to apply techniques without an
sufficient weight to pedagogical
understanding of the underlying
knowledge implying the underspedagogical processes.
tanding of the teaching profes- • A kind of continuing training casion as a social practice.
rried out as part of teachers’ daily
routines at their own institutions,
To reverse this situation, it is nein conjunction with the estacessary to have:
blishments’ educational projects
• National initial and continuing
and the need for teachers to help
training policies that contribute
with the needs of students and
theoretical, technical and practical
the educational community. To
knowledge for ongoing updating,
this end, continuing education
and that have the development
policies need to be very different
of critical and reflexive thinking
from what has tended to be imas one of its axes. Educational replemented up to now.
search, critical assessment of teaching practices and educational
In synthesis, the making of a repolicies, knowledge-building and flexive, critical education professio-
49
Education International Latin American Regional Office
implies ongoing discussion and
50 nal
a vigilant attitude with respect to
teaching practices themselves, educational policies and the discourses
predominating in the educational
field, with a view toward strengthening this view within the teaching
field and the national community
and getting the conditions in place
for developing it.
In conjunction with, and as
a supplement to the above, it is
considered essential to follow the
recommendations summarized in
the report by the National Committee on Initial Teacher Training
in which there was participation by
the Ministry of Education, representatives of the public university
rectors and deans of the faculties of
education, various rectors from a
network of private universities and
the Professional Teachers Association (2006-2009).
• Position, of necessity, pedagogy
in the national and institutional
debate as a discipline that should
direct and articulate needed innovation in initial teacher training.
• Create the conditions for schools
of education to take on more
responsibility for the building of
new pedagogical and educational
knowledge.
• Build a teacher training system
linked to ongoing professional
development, where initial training is one of the components.
• Strengthen and expand the ties
needed between school reality
and initial teacher training.
• Contribute, starting in initial
teacher training, to resolving the
systemic relationship between the
disciplinary education and pedagogy, in both management and
teaching.
• Foster the development of teacher prominence and pedagogical
leadership needed for working as
professionals in schools and lyceums.
• Set up an academic and teaching
degree program in the schools of
education that is in accordance
with their curriculum proposal.
• Explore new ways, and improve
existing ones, to ensure quality in
initial teacher training from the
viewpoint of the country.
Peru. SUTEP views the state’s
educational policies as being responsible for initial teacher training.
Today’s problems are due to privatization, which opened the way to
the rapid, extensive growth of private institutes and universities, and
Teacher Training in Latin America
which in turn gave way to a proliferation of teacher training curricula. This unregulated, uncontrolled
proliferation of institutions and
curricula has led to a fragmented,
anarchic situation that has had negative effects.1
SUTEP’s National Education
Project incorporates the university system without breaking its
link to basic education, giving the
educational system continuity and
fostering a quality democratic and
patriotic education. In addition, it
emphasizes two essential educational supports: the teacher profile,
and that of the student.2
To achieve these goals, the following is proposed:
a) An educational reform starting
with the teaching profession, from
top to bottom;
b)Repeal of DL 882 to stop the proliferation of private institutions;
c) The conformation of a technical
team that would first diagnose the
status of initial teacher training in
the different institutions preparing
teachers at the national level, and
then research and design the type
of curriculum needed for training
1 SUTEP. Special Bulletin. (2009). “Aportes:
Educación pública de calidad con sindicalismo firme y propositivo,” p. 22.
2 Ibid., p. 25.
teachers in accordance with our
reality.
With respect to ISTT, the
SUTEP Bulletin3 tells us that, in
addition to the deficit in initial training, there is a “dearth of state policy on continuing training for teachers
through a teacher education and development system…When we refer to
it as a system we are differentiating
it from the current courses and training programs, the results of which
are neither positive nor measurable.”
The following is therefore proposed:
a) Prepare and propose a continuing training system;
b) Propose and ask the MED to
set up a national refresher and
training plan as part of the inservice training system;
c) Establish incentive policies:
scholarships, assistantships, monetary incentives, etc.
NICARAGUA. The CGTNANDEN affirms that the old teacher training model is obsolete and
has many weaknesses; it should be
changed, taking into account that
this education is not a teachable
3 Ibid., p. 22.
51
Education International Latin American Regional Office
but a process involving
52 technology
participation, involvement, enga-
gement and ownership. Teacher
training should thus be seen as a
long-term strategy for quality. It
should be conceived from an integral approach that combines content development and experiences in pedagogical and academic
knowledge, human development,
ethics and morals, professional
practice and ecological practices.
If a new educational model is
to work and be successful, the following is necessary:
• Recognize that teachers must be
the subjects of and key players in
the educational transformation.
• Ensure the conditions (material,
organizational, knowledge, affective and symbolic) for making
teaching an attractive professional activity, capable of attracting
and retaining the best human resources. Prioritize the conditions
(objective and subjective) for getting teachers to agree to ongoing,
integral and quality training,
both before and throughout their
service.
• Give value to the teaching task as
one of great complexity and pedagogical, ethical and social responsibility, and as having high social
•
•
•
•
productivity. Recognize, at the
same time, that this task requires
the active cooperation and critical
support of other stakeholders in
the educational process. To achieve this, the planning workshops
need to be transformed into a
true workshop for the sharing of
experiences.
Restore the school institution
to its essential function, which
is teaching and learning, democratizing of knowledge, transforming and integrating society,
and identifying and developing
students’ potentials, learning to
learn and enjoying learning. This
is the institutional context for the
practice and development of teaching as a professional activity.
Accept ongoing learning as a necessity for all and the responsibility of the entire society.
Open up to change as an inherent
and ongoing dimension of education, making a commitment
in the first place to change itself.
Reinforce innovation and develop the capacity to innovate and
effectively manage innovations.
Ensure and demand quality, transparency, responsibility for results
and accountability at all levels,
from the school up to the directors
Teacher Training in Latin America
of educational policy and actions
of international agencies.
• Make a deep commitment to
education, with the goal of an
equitable, quality education for
all, centered on the achieving of
relevant and socially useful learning – from the position and responsibility each may have in the
achievement of this goal.
• Pay attention to teacher training
and updating, such as training on
how to contextualize the curriculum.
• Plan in the long term for changing the current educational policy into one of the state and not
the government; this planning
must be done with the participation of the educational community, and especially teachers,
without leaving out labor unions,
companies, trade unions, local
governments, etc. at the central,
regional, departmental and municipal levels.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.
The ADP does not have a systematized opinion on the current state
of teacher training in the country,
although it has started to draw up
the balance sheet. Various union
leaders have been consulted for this
study, and below is a summary of
their opinions and assessments.4
The reconversion of the old teachers colleges into higher, university-level institutes is generating doubt and questions as to their current
operations. The change is seen to
be just one of form, and the feeling
is that in certain ways the teachers
college was more effective than the
new model for developing the vocation of teacher candidates. The
old school concerned itself with
having students master content; it
put emphasis on critical awareness,
on providing students with techniques for analyzing social reality
that incorporated a perspective of
transformation; moreover, it tried
to see the school as a community
project in real terms.
With respect to the mastery of
content, many weaknesses can be
seen; the test statistics show that we
are not doing well. 5 It is felt that
follow-up in the classroom is essen4 Interview by Aquiles Castro with María Teresa Cabrera, 2009.
5 “Where emphasis is supposedly being
placed, which is in pedagogical training, things aren’t being done well either, since many of the candidates that
show up for a teaching position can’t
make a lesson plan. The written test
they take is general culture, and even
though the items are basic some 60%
are not able to pass it.” (See Aquiles
Castro, “Informe sobre…”, p. 25)
53
Education International Latin American Regional Office
in order for a teacher training
54 tial
program to meet its goal. To this
end the trade union is in favor of
strengthening the public entrance
examination for teachers to enter the
educational system, and to add an
entrance examination for recruiting
technicians, many of whom – because of the way they are recruited – are
incapable of providing teachers with
effective assistance in the classroom.
A crucial challenge in the entire issue of education is the improvement of the academic profile of
candidates entering education or
pedagogy studies, an aspiration
linked to the necessity of making
the career attractive with policies
for adequate social recognition
and salaries so that it can compete with other careers that are more
attractive for students. In this sense, it should be warned that the
necessary budget funds have still
not been earmarked for education.
This year, 2010, the education budget accounts for 9.9% of all public
spending, or about 2% of the GDP.
2. Additional Conclusions
and Comments
1.As has been pointed out, there is
a clear privatization reality and
trend in teacher training (TT)
that runs parallel to the privatization of education in general
and of all social life. This trend
has suffered an about-turn only
in Nicaragua, and in education,
with the administration that
came into power in 2007 and
eliminated the so-called School
Autonomy program, but even
in this case whatever private TT
existed at that time still exists
today. In the other countries the
education workers’ struggle has
been able to moderate or partially stop privatization, but not revert it. In the cases of Chile and
Peru the governments are clearly
attempting to reinforce privatization.
2.Privatization and commercialization is also expressed in the
ideological and political commitments and specific policies
of the secretariats of state and
governments. All of this leads
to fragmented, strongly heterogeneous, unequal, inequitable
and irrelevant teacher training
processes that fail to make up an
integral, ongoing training system, and that moreover occur
in the view of a state conceived
and defined as subsidiary. The
rapid proliferation of private TT
Teacher Training in Latin America
institutions and the lack of strict
material progress and cultural
controls over the institutions
homogenization, the hidden
and their processes have caused
and open racism present since
the quality of TT to deteriorate.
colonial times, and the fact that
It can be derived from this that
diversity is not appreciated as
no national education system or
wealth, but rather viewed as a
teacher training curriculum or
synonym of underdevelopment.
6
system exists in the study cases.
From this standpoint, education
The governments call what exists
has been considered a key insas TT today a system, but this is
trument for getting away from
no more than an abuse of terms.
what is “primitive” – understood
We are looking at a teacher traas indigenous – and imitating
ining non-system. This absence
the western world, which in its
contributes to the nonexistence
essence would be an expression
of clear, precise goals and proof development. It should be
cesses, and therefore fosters the
pointed out that only in Peru
obtaining of deficient, anarchic
has interculturalism been estaand irrelevant outcomes.
blished as a transversal axis for
3.There is an insufficient develoall education.
pment of intercultural bilingual 4.In the researched countries,
education in all the study counmost education students are wotries, and this is reflected in the
men. The predominance of the
equally scarce number of ITT
female gender is greater in ITT
institutions designed for prepafor early or kindergarten educaring teachers for this task. The
tion and primary or basic educaexplanation for this historical
tion. In secondary or senior high
and structural trend is linked to
school education there is a better
the mestization process, the dobalance, although women still
minant concept of modernity
prevail in numbers. In addition,
and its vision of development
ITT students tend to come from
as an uninterrupted process of
poor or lower middle-class fami6 The existence of a national curriculum imlies. This was seen in the cases of
plies that one of its characteristics must be
Nicaragua, Peru and the Domia partial flexibility that allows it to address
each country’s local, regional, ethnic, culnican Republic, while in the case
tural, linguistic, etc., diversity.
55
Education International Latin American Regional Office
56
of Chile the middle class had a
quate opportunities for practice
greater representation.
or contact by education students
5.Entry profiles tend to respond to
with the profession during the
different forms of selection and
course of study, either.
admission testing, which due to 7.The educational research carried
their standardization end up disout in the study countries is gecriminating against rural and innerally insufficient, and the state
digenous candidates (in the case
has tended to abandon this task.
of Peru), and also against candiWhen it does approach the task,
dates from poor families (in the
it does so through entities concase of Chile, where ITT is not
tracted for that purpose. This
free). That is to say, ITT is not
abandonment was particularly
taking in the richness of diversiserious during part of the 80s
ty or considering and adequately
and the 90s, depending on which
taking into account existing socountry we are referring to.
cial inequities and inequalities. 8.Union organizations have not
In general, candidates are entecarried out a systematic, widesring with “barely sufficient” or
pread process of educational
relatively low scores.
research, either, although an
6.In most cases there are no inexception to this is the Chilean
duction or accompaniment proProfessional Teachers Associacesses for teachers entering the
tion. Undoubtedly this is a sphesystem, and if there are they are
re of work requiring more devestill weak and seem fairly irrelopment so that organizations
levant. Given that starting out
can enter national debates on
in the classroom is an integral
educational reform and teacher
part of the first formative statraining with greater force and
ge for beginning teachers, the
authority. As we know, the last
lack of, or precarious, weak or
three decades have seen intense
poor-quality existence of these
change and fierce conflicts betprocesses seriously impairs the
ween governments and IFIs and
final ITT phase, with long-term
education workers’ union orgaadverse consequences. None of
nizations.
the countries studied has ade- 9. The quality of teacher trai-
Teacher Training in Latin America
ning and education in general
tious use of these technologies.
is another one of the pending
Moreover, they are provided
debates. Up to now a more or
without tying them in to speless implicit view of quality has
cific processes or concepts that
been imposed that runs through
would give them meaning, rethe training of “human capital”
levance and the capacity to geby means of active pedagogies
nerate results. It would seem to
aimed at generating functional
be just the technology itself, as
“competencies” for hegemonic
if its presence alone could geneglobalized capitalism –comrate “pedagogical miracles” and
petencies that are supposedly
lead to the attainment of the
measurable through the use of
awaited-for quality.7
standardized national testing. 11.The situation mentioned above merits a comment apart, in
This concept must be deconsthat some governments are betructed and an intense discusginning to think the teaching
sion must take place within the
profession should be accredited
educational community and
by means of exams administethe society at large on the issue
red to graduates of ITT instituof quality, linking the concept
tions That is, on the one hand
to participative democracy and
the states refuse to regulate and
equitable, inclusive and ecosupervise teacher training (in
logically sustainable developorder to protect business and
ment.
the market) for it to be as best
10.The states’ lack of clear horias possible; they refuse to make
zons concerning what must be
an attempt at that point, begindone to achieve quality (undening with the training process,
fined and therefore unattainato guarantee teacher quality.
ble from the start) is expressed
On the other hand, they want
in the efforts being made to
to solve the problem – after
provide education with new
technologies such as compu- 7 It should be remembered that there are
no consensual, explicit definitions of qualters and virtual classrooms.
ity, and that in the end an implicit concept
This is at odds with the lack of
is imposed that responds to the needs and
priorities of businessmen, governments and
teacher training in the expediIFIs.
57
Education International Latin American Regional Office
58
the damage has been done and 13.The research has emphasized
poor quality “products” (teathe non-existence of teacher
chers) have been produced – by
training systems in each of the
excluding from the profession
study countries. What is consianyone who does not pass the
dered necessary and urgent is a
accreditation exams.
major national debate in each
12.At present the profession is not
country on the creation of a
attractive (due to low salaries
national teacher training sysand lack of social prestige) for
tem linked to the needs of the
wide sectors of the student body
classroom at the different levels
who aspire to higher education,
and to the development of indiand the idea official reformers
viduals and societies – a teacher
and IFIs have today of attractraining system and general
ting the best talent to teaching
education that corresponds to
is frankly unrealistic under the
the country’s history and natiocurrent conditions. However,
nal, cultural, regional and local
almost assuredly the official
identities, and which is amply
decision-makers will try to put
relevant to a quality aimed at
into practice the recommendathe integral development of
tions suggested by and deriving
individuals, the building of a
from the so-called McKinsey &
participative democracy, and
Company report mentioned in
an equitable and sustainable
this paper’s introduction. What
development.
is more, President Alan García 14.In-service teacher training has
of Peru has already tried to put
similar problems to those poininto practice the idea of hiring
ted out for ITT. It is scattered
new teachers from among only
and fragmented and not part of
the top 30% of their class, and
any formal, integrated system.
moreover, it has already been
The state tends to be subsidiary
established that only those
in the process, and ISTT has
candidates earning a grade of
become an attractive market
14 out of 20 on the admission
opportunity for private orgaexams for ISPs will be able to
nizations (including NGOs)
enter the degree program.
as well as public institutions
Teacher Training in Latin America
seeking to obtain the necessary
zers of political parties connecbudget funding that the goverted to the government in power
nments are not providing. One
at the time, even though they
part of ISTT is found in diploare not teachers; educational
ma, master’s degree and doctoreform policies that transform
rate programs; that is, it is geaeducation into business opred more for getting a degree
portunities where the largest
or diploma than for relevant
possible profit is sought, even
or “functional” preparation for
if it is necessary to hire persons
classroom needs. It is not clear
without TT; the doors opened
if these programs are contribuby education laws to the hiring
ting to improving the relevance
of professionals in disciplines
of training or leading to better
related to those of the curricuteachers and better education.
lum, but who lack any teacher
Not only that, but there tends
training; and also by an absento be a paradox in ISTT in that
ce of TT planning and regulathe private educational institution that makes it impossible to
tions providing inadequate or
adequately handle the supply
deficient ITT and generating
and demand of teachers at the
low-quality teachers are later
different educational levels. In
contracted to try to solve the
short, the problem of untraiproblem of quality they themned teachers is the result of
selves have generated.
privatization, deregulation and
15.The number of untrained teadecentralization policies that
chers has fallen, but the prohave led to the transforming
blem still exists and is partiof education into merchandicularly serious in countries
se, thereby generating serious
like Nicaragua. The causes are
chaos in general education and
myriad: low salaries, which
TT in particular.
make the teaching profession 16.The chaos resulting from privaunattractive; political interests
tization, deregulation and dethat in specific historical situacentralization, and the developtions have led to the hiring of
ment of the education business,
party militants and sympathitogether with the dominant
59
Education International Latin American Regional Office
60
neoliberal political and ideolo- 17.There is little or no organization
gical stands of the governments
of teachers in the private eduin recent decades, has made it
cation sector, which moreover
“impossible” to research, plan,
is growing rapidly in countries
regulate and supervise TT at
like Chile (thanks to subsidized
the different levels. This has
privatization), moderately in
resulted in teacher unemployPeru, and more slowly in the
ment – especially in Peru and
other two cases. Organization
the Dominican Republic – and
is made difficult by the represa generalized shortage of teasion of teachers who attempt it
chers in Nicaragua, while in
and usually end up being fired.
Chile there is a surplus of teaIn general, the private sector
chers in basic education and a
comes under the labor codes,
shortage in certain secondary
which provide little or poor
school subjects, which is also
protection and allow for the
repeated in the other three capossibility of all types of abuses. The official educational
se. Private sector teachers are
policies that maintain saturated
not usually protected by laws
and multi-grade classrooms,
for the teaching profession. In
insufficient coverage of initial
the case of Chile, there is some
education, children left out of
unionization by establishment
school, and widespread seconand individual affiliation to the
dary and senior high school
Professional Teachers Associadesertion in some cases do not
tion, which acts as a de facto
allow for hiring unemployed
teachers union; the Association
teachers, and in other cases lead
includes the situation of private
to policies for “producing” the
teachers in its negotiating and
necessary teachers. This chaos
is able to achieve benefits for
opens the door to waste and
them. In the other 3 cases there
misuse of resources, and occurs
are no teacher unions for privafor the sake of preserving marte teachers, and the tendency is
ket freedom and in the belief
for them not to be included in
that the market will be capable
teacher union negotiations.
of balancing out the chaos.
Teacher Training in Latin America
These conclusions and conside- • The teacher must be trained in
rations give us leeway to put forpedagogy, but also have the cath a few comments on the general
pacity to research and reflect on
characteristics of a teacher training
his practices and the educational
profile, to shed light on the type
reality.
of teacher we need – which is qui- • The teacher must be trained to
te likely not the type governments
conceive the teaching profession
and businesses want or think we
as a social practice and not an isoneed.
lated, individual activity.
• Of course this teacher must have • The teacher must be capable of
a solid knowledge of the content
handling new educational techmatter to be taught in the clasnologies so that they can be made
sroom.
relevant and pertinent and beco• The teacher must ascribe to an
me an articulated part of the learactive pedagogy that allows for
ning process.
focusing on learning and making
the student the center of that
learning.
• The teacher must be capable of situating the learning process in its
specific, global, national, regional, local, cultural, ethnic, social,
historical, etc. context.
• The teacher must be prepared to
work with the group in the classroom and also address aspects of
the individualities he is working
with.
• The teacher must be the product
of an integral teacher training in
terms of values, ethics, content,
pedagogy, social responsibility
and a democratic vision of his
task in the classroom and society.
61
Education International Latin American Regional Office
62 Basic Bibliography
Jenny Assaél B; Guillermo Scherping V;
Jorge Inzunza H, Informe de Investigación sobre la Formación Docente en Chile, Santiago, Chile, February 2010.
LLECE, Second Report of the First International Comparative Study. Published by OREALC-UNESCO. Santiago,
Chile, October 2000.
Brígida Rivera, Informe de Investigación
sobre la Formación Docente en Nicaragua, Managua, Nicaragua, June 2010.
LLECE, Student Learning in Latin
America and the Caribbean. First Report
on the Second Regional Comparative and
Explanatory Study (SERCE). Published
by OREALC-UNESCO. Santiago, Chile,
June 2008.
Jorge Sánchez, Informe de Investigación
sobre la Formación Docente en Perú,
Lima, Perú, May 2010.
Aquiles Castro, Informe de Investigación sobre la Formación Docente en República Dominicana, Santo Domingo,
Dominican Republic, May 2010.
LLECE, First International Comparative Study. Published by OREALCUNESCO. Santiago, Chile, 1998.
Barber, Michael and Mourshed, Mona,
How the World’s Best-Performing School
Systems Come Out on Top. PREAL N° 41,
July 2008, Santiago, Chile.
Teacher Training in Latin America
Glossary
ADP Dominican Teachers Association (Dominican Republic)
APRA American Revolutionary Popular Alliance (Peru)
CAN National Accreditation Commission for Higher Education
(Chile)
CGTN-ANDEN General Confederation of Nicaraguan Workers – National
Association of Nicaraguan Educators
CIDE Center for Educational Research and Development (Chile)
CNAP National Undergraduate Accreditation Committee for university
degree programs and institutions (Chile)
CNE National Education Council (Chile)
CNE National Education Council (Dominican Republic)
CONESCT National Council of Higher Education, Science and Technology
(Dominican Republic)
CPEIP Center for In Service Teacher Training, Experimentation and
Educational Research (Chile)
CPU Center for the Promotion of University Studies (Chile)
DAEM Municipal Education Administration Department (Chile)
DESP Directorate of Pedagogical Higher Education (Peru)
DL Decree-law
DS Supreme Decree
EILA Education International, Latin America
ESFA School of Higher Education in Art (Peru)
FLACSO Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences
GDP Gross Domestic Product
IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
IDB Inter-American Development Bank
ILO International Labor Organization
INAFOCAM National Institute for Teacher Education and Training
(Dominican Republic)
IP Professional Institute (Chile)
ISFODOSU Salome Ureña Higher Institute for Teacher Training (Dominican
Republic)
ISP Higher Pedagogical Institute (Peru)
IST Higher Technological Institute (Peru)
ISTT In-Service Teacher Training
ITT Initial Teacher Training
63
Education International Latin American Regional Office
64
ITECO Eastern Cibao Technological Institute (Dominican Republic)
LLECE Latin American Laboratory for Assessment of the Quality of
Education (OREALC)
MED Ministry of Education and Sports (Peru)
MINED Ministry of Education and Sports (Nicaragua)
MINEDUC Chilean Ministry of Education
OAS Organization of American States
OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
OREALC Regional Office for Education in Latin America and the
Caribbean (UNESCO)
PEN National Education Plan (Peru)
PIIE Interdisciplinary Educational Research Program (Chile)
PLANCAD National Teacher Training Plan (Peru)
PLANGED National Educational Management Plan (Peru)
PNFS National In-Service Training Program (Peru)
PRONAFCAD National Teacher Education and Training Program (Peru)
SEE Secretariat of State for Education (Dominican Republic)
SEESCYT Secretariat of State for Higher Education, Science and Technology
(Dominican Republic)
SINEACE National System for the Evaluation, Accreditation and
Certification of Educational Quality (Peru)
SNFCP National System for the Continuing Training of Teachers (Peru)
SUTEP Unified Union of Education Workers of Peru
UASD Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (Dominican
Republic)
UCA Central American University (Nicaragua)
UCMM Catholic University Mother and Teacher (Dominican Republic)
UNAN National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (Managua and
León campuses)
USAID United States Agency for International Development
WB World Bank
Education International is an education unions global federation
gathering nearly 35 million members around the world. Latin America
has a regional headquarter in Costa Rica that develops support activities
and joint projects with the member union organizations in more than
18 countries. The work developed by Education International for Latin
America focuses on strengthening the unions for the defense of quality
public education in the region.
Education International Latin America believes it important to
systematize the process that has deepen the deteriorating
and commercialization of public education imposed by
neoliberal policies and its impact on the region’s countries.
This study on teacher training is the product of that
systematization, and was conceived with the goal
of encouraging analysis, alternative thinking and the
formulation of proposals among Education International
members.
A group of countries representing each of the continent’s
subregions was chosen for this study: Nicaragua for Central
America, the Dominican Republic for the Caribbean, Peru for
the Andean region and Chile for the Southern Cone.