BackHome
Refresh: OffView Personal Schedule
Session Submission Summary

COVID-19, Education, Technology, and Private-Public Partnerships: Successes and Challenges from Rural Education Initiatives across LAC

Thu, April 21, 9:00 to 10:30pm CDT (9:00 to 10:30pm CDT), Pajamas Sessions, VR 117

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Across the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic compelled schools to close in the spring of 2020 in an effort to protect the well-being of society. The Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region was no exception, since the pandemic it has accounted for over 40% of the world’s COVID-19 deaths (Reuters). The move to close schools not only negatively impacted students’ education widening the learning gap, but also exacerbated and brought to the forefront several issues in rural education.
During the majority of the 2020 school year, the Ministries of Education from the LAC region opted to close schools and eventually shift to online or remote learning mechanisms. In a region like LAC, where over 77 million people live in rural areas with no access to constant internet, the move to remote learning left nearly all the children in these zones isolated (IDB & Microsoft). Though the internet was not the only issue, many students also lacked access to technology, electricity, materials, and even teachers, as it is not uncommon that in rural communities there is often one to three teachers available for all the students in grades 1 through 6, making the situation even more difficult for them to provide service to all the students remotely.
Each community has distinct needs and requires unique solutions, which are often not implemented in isolation, but in cross-sector partnerships. Through the power of partnerships and volunteerism, three communities in Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay were able to identify ways to improve the quality and access of education. The panel will highlight the efforts of local communities to build effective partnerships in developing “glocally-led” solutions by identifying the proper private and public entities in order to address the inequities and issues uncovered during the pandemic.
The panel will highlight how communities adapted to the current tectonic shifts of the COVID-19 pandemic prioritizing education in their communities, by building private-public partnerships to meet the needs beyond the horizon, not just identifying solutions for the moment, but to improve the trajectory of their path.
The first panel will introduce the Bolivian initiative - “Chistisitos Reading Club and workshops”, which took place in the region of Cochabamba, uniting 6 partners, to empower and develop a children’s reading community in the region.
The second panel will be from Peru “Yachaykuna Project” focused on improving the formation of teachers in the Huaraz Province. It primarily focuses on enhancing the methodologies of teaching, leadership, and research within the teacher training programs.
Lastly, the third panel introduces a virtual teacher exchange between Paraguay rural teachers and Kansas educators to improve capacity and access to information by developing an 8-month professional development training focused on improving early childhood literacy.
Each of the panels will answer the following questions:
• How successful have the partnerships been and what was the impact on the community?
• What were some of the challenges between the transnational collaboration?
• What has been the value to the project and the private sector partners?
• In what ways have these partnerships ensured the sustainability of their efforts?

Sub Unit

Chair

Individual Presentations

Discussant