OREALC/UNESCO Santiago and PREAL agree to work together for education in the region

• © UNESCO /Andrés Pascoe
• OREALC/UNESCO Santiago Director Jorge Sequeira and PREAL Co-Director Marcela Gajardo signing the agreement

The Regional Bureau of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC/UNESCO Santiago) and the Partnership for Educational Revitalization in the Americas (PREAL) signed in May an agreement to collaborate and make a growing contribution to the educational needs of the region. For this reason PREAL was invited to participate in the Regional Ministerial Meeting on “Key Education Challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean: Teachers, Quality, and Equity”.

The meeting, organized jointly by a number of UN agencies, was held in Buenos Aires on 12 and 13 May. Its aim was to serve as a preparatory session for the 2011 Annual Ministerial Review (AMR) of the UN Economic and Social Council, ECOSOC.

In an interview conducted at the meeting PREAL, co-director Jeffrey M. Puryear explained that “the importance of this agreement lies in PREAL’s roots in civil society, so what we are doing is connecting worlds – governments, agencies, and society – and thus making it easier for these broad communities to work together”.

The Director of OREALC/UNESCO Santiago, Jorge Sequeira, expressed the usefulness of joint technical assistance, given that “the joint efforts of our two institutions will make a valuable contribution to complying with our education objectives in the service of the region”.

The agreement establishes a number of areas in which the two groups may strengthen their work, exchange technical assistance, and promote shared activities.

A key example is their support of the efforts of the Regional Group “Teachers for Education For All”, led by OREALC/UNESCO Santiago, as well as their work for the Latin American Laboratory for Assessment of the Quality of Education (LLECE), coordinated by OREALC/UNESCO Santiago. Thus, PREAL will promote the generation and dissemination of knowledge on the assessment of high-quality education, among other actions.

• More information on the ECOSOC meeting

• More information on PREAL

• 16-05-2011