Inter-American Program on
Education for Democratic Values
and Practices
Office of Education and Culture
Department of Human Development, Education
and Culture
Educating to Strengthen a Culture of
Democracy in the Americas
Why was the Program created?
• The Program was created to develop and strengthen
a democratic culture in the Americas through
education.
• It was adopted by Ministers of Education in the
framework of the IV Inter-American Ministerial
Meeting of Education (Trinidad and Tobago, 2005)
and reflects the commitment of OAS Member States
to the Inter-American Democratic Charter, in
particular articles 26 and 27.
Specific Objectives
The Program contributes to building and
strengthening the capacities of public and
private institutions and civil society
organizations of the OAS member states to
develop policies, programs and initiatives in the
field of citizenship education.
The achievement of this objective is possible by
promoting an informed policy dialogue, the
exchange of experiences, the creation of
knowledge in the field, and different types of
cooperation among a diverse range of
institutions from member states.
Structure of the Program
• Our activities are framed under three
mutually reinforcing components:
Professional Development and
Educational Resources; Cooperation
and Information Exchange; Research
and Analysis.
• The Program has an Advisory Board
composed by 40 renowned experts
on citizenship education from all
over the hemisphere.
Professional Development and
Educational Resources
•
All three courses were evaluated jointly with the Educational Portal of the Americas (EPA) and a strategy has been
implemented since February 2011 to transfer them to the EPA´s Virtual Platform.
-Hemispheric Course on Evaluation of Policies and Programs in Education for Democratic Citizenship.
-Education for Democratic Citizenship in the Caribbean: An Online Course for Educators
-Hemispheric Course for Teachers: The Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Teaching of Democratic
Values and
Practices.
•
Participants: 1000 educators were trained, including policy makers, classroom teachers, teacher educators, school
authorities , civil society leaders, etc.
•
Future online courses: a) working collaboratively with the IADB and the Educational Portal of the Americas to
jointly deliver an online course targeted at Spanish-speaking teachers, and focused on preventing corrupt
behaviors among secondary school students; b) exploring opportuniies to develop an online course to provide
classroom teachers with content and teaching strategies to help them incorporate democratic principles and
values into their classrooms through the use of the arts and communications media
•
Working colaboratively with ITEN: 6 Webinars on Peace Education. Creation of a virtual group on gender and
citizenship education.
•
National Seminar on Education For Democratic Values and Practice. To mark the tenth anniversary of the
adoption of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Panama and the
Office of Education and Culture of the OAS organized this event, held in Panama City, on September, 2011.
•
“Virtual library for democratic classrooms”, to be launched in November 2012.
Cooperation and Information Exchange
•
Two rounds of Technical Assistance Missions in citizenship education were
implemented (2009- 2010 and 2011- 2012).
•
To date almost 2,000 people had a direct and/or indirect participation in both
rounds.
•
A total of 193 institutions submitted their cooperation proposals for both rounds.
19 technical assistance missions were selected to provide funding for logistic costs.
These missions were carried out by 57 institutions: 30 governmental, 18 non –
governmental, 18 CSOs, 7 universities and 2 private non-profit institutions.
Topics: Electoral Education, The Use of the Arts and Communications media for
Promoting Youth Participation, Student Governments, Youth leadership, Peace
Education, Conflict Resolution, School Mediation, Early Childhood Education, The
Right to Education for Indigenous People, Women and Migrants.
Research and Analysis
• The Inter-American Journal on Education for
Democracy has published 7 editions.
• Production and publication of online bulletins and
articles within the “Policy Brief Series: Education and
Democracy”, in partnership with prestigious
institutions working in the field and related topics.
• Future editions will be focused on: Evaluation of
Policies and Programs in Education for Democratic
Citizenship, Human Rights Education, Service
Learning and The Role of Civil Society Organizations
in promoting education for democratic citizenship.
Citizenship Education: An interinstitutional
and plural building process
Outside the OAS
Inside the OAS
•
Area of Culture and ITEN, Office of
Education and Culture.
•
Participation in the “Armando Paz” Project,
in collaboration with the Secretary of
Multidimensional Security and the Trust
for the Americas.
•
•
Educational Portal of the Americas.
OAS Youth Focal Point.
•
Inter-American Comission of Women
•
Department of International Affairs
•
Department for Electoral Cooperation and
Observation
•
Department of Sustainable Development
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Council of Europe: International Contact
Group on Citizenship and Human Rights
Education.
Council for a Community of Democracies.
Inter-American Development Bank
Ministry of Education of Peru.
Secretary of Education, Government of the
State of Hidalgo, Mexico.
Autonomous University of Mexico
Inter-American Institute of Human Rights.
IIDAC (ONG, Brazil)
Global Issues Resource Center (ONG, USA)
Ministry of Education of Afghanistan.
Future Actions
•
Explore more effective ways to increase the visibility of the Programs´ activities and
results.
•
Redefine and promote a hemispheric discussion about future lines of action of the
Program.
•
Promote policy dialogue among OAS member states to establish an agenda of priority
topics in citizenhip education.
•
Continue pursuing and implementing technical assistance missions among countries on
priority topics in citizenship education.
•
Build and manage a matrix of experencies of cooperation on determined topics.
•
Increase the reach and scope of existent courses and expand the offering of online
courses to strengthen the capacities of teachers, teacher educators, pubic officials,
leaders of civil society, among other educators that work in the formal and non formal
framework of citizenship education.
•
Strengthen the capacities of OAS member states to implement evaluation processes of
policies and programs in citizenship education.
Questions for Dialogue
•
How can the Program’s activities, experiences and results be better known?
•
Which would be the most adequate mechanisms to stimulate discussions on the Program’s future
guidelines, in terms of objectives and actions that the Program should follow in the medium and
long term?
•
What would be the most adequate spaces and mechanisms to promote political dialogue among
member states to establish an agenda that includes priority topics on citizenship education, and
based on these topics, promote different cooperation modalities?
•
How can we promote greater interinstitutional cooperation among different types of institutions of
member states and identify financing mechanisms that permit the continuance of the proesses
already developed?
•
What activities could be created to manage and maintain a matrix of virtual cooperation?
•
How can we achieve a greater reach and scope of online courses and new institutional support to
expand and institutionalize them in programs of professional development? On what priority topics
should the next online courses be based on?
•
How can the Program contribute to strenghten the capacities of member states to implement
evaluation processes of policies and programs on citizenship education?