Experts analyze the role of teacher evaluations at UNESCO meeting

In the framework of the regional strategy on teachers

• © UNESCO

The contribution of teacher evaluations to the definition of educational policies was one of the central themes analyzed in Panama at the technical meeting “Key Education Challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean: Teachers and Evaluation,” held on May 28th and 29th, 2012. Participants included educational experts, representatives from several countries of the region who are responsible for teacher policy and quality in education, along with officials of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports.

The meeting focused on analyzing challenges and opportunities related to educational quality in Latin America and the Caribbean, with special emphasis on teacher evaluation as a mechanism that can contribute to orienting policies in this area. Atilio Pizarro, Head of the Planning, Management, Monitoring and Evaluation Section of OREALC/UNESCO Santiago, explained that “…diverse evaluation processes generate useful and timely knowledge and information for decision making that seeks to improve the quality of education in educational settings, provided that these products are analyzed as part of a whole and not in an isolated manner.”

The event was inaugurated by Lucy Molinar, Panamanian Minister of Education, accompanied by Una McCauley, Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Panama, and by Marcela Gajardo, co-Director of the Program for the Promotion of Educational Reform in Latin America and the Caribbean (PREAL) and Jorge Sequeira, Director of the Regional Bureau for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC/UNESCO Santiago).

At the meeting, Jorge Sequeira explained that “the purpose of the Regional Strategy on Teachers is to influence the design of the region’s public policies for teachers. Our hope is that the reports of the project and the activities that were made to prepare them, which involved a broad-based regional network of stakeholders and were developed around a suitable analytical framework, will serve as a foundation for generating agreements to enable the mobilization of resources in favour of teacher policies.”

Also present at the event from various countries of the region were professionals holding positions of responsibility in areas related to teachers, delegates of ministries of Education, national coordinators of the Latin American Laboratory for Assessment of the Quality of Education (LLECE), representatives from academia and teachers’ unions, technical staff from the UNESCO offices in the region, and the technical team of PREAL.

The meeting was organized jointly with Panama’s Centre for Studies in Educational Policy and Practice and the country’s Ministry of Education. It was supported by PREAL, which facilitated the participation of representatives from Central American countries and the Dominican Republic at the meeting and in the Regional Strategy on Teachers. The inestimable contribution of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of Spain, which made the meeting possible, was also widely acknowledged by those in attendance.

More information

Website of the meeting

• 31-05-2012