If you are an English teacher, we invite you to publish your experience through an academic poster in this event that will be held virtually during the last week of October. Posters selected to present will receive a one-time payment of 4 UF after the seminar for the work done.
The seventh version of the international English seminar Expanding Opportunities will be held during the last week of October. This year it will address relevant and contextualized topics for the teaching of English to children and youth.
In addition to the international speakers, this online event organised by Fundación Educacional Oportunidad will once again provide an important space for English teachers to share their successful experiences.
This year, the call is focused on 4 themes:
STUDENTS
- Development of students' autonomy in the process of learning English.
- Incorporating students' personal and local identity in English language learning.
FAMILY
- Family involvement in the process of learning English.
- Maximising the use of English at home.
COLLABORATION
- Articulation of projects to promote English at school level.
- Networking projects to promote English.
LEADERSHIP
- Importance of leadership in the process of improving English in school communities.
- Leadership strategies to enhance the processes in the English classroom.
Those wishing to apply should include the name of the initiative, the general description and the main achievements in the form available at expanding.fundacionoportunidad.cl. The posters selected to exhibitwill receive a one-off payment of 4 UF after the seminar for the work carried out.
Applications will be open until 21 June at 18:00 hours. If you have any questions or need more information, please write to seminario@fundacionoportunidad.cl
Together We Learn" is aimed at management teams, English teachers, PIE professionals, educators and kindergarten technicians with the objective of generating changes at an institutional level in their establishments. A total of 77 people will join the initiative created by Fundación Educacional Oportunidad.
On Wednesday 20 April, the "Together We Learn" course was formally launched in the municipality of Nacimiento, dedicated to educational communities that wish to promote the learning of English among their students from an early age.
In this course created by Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, 77 people will participate, including management teams, English teachers, PIE professionals, educators and nursery technicians. "Together We Learn" will have two main objectives. On the one hand, to analyse methodologies and strategies to promote English from different roles in the school and also to develop an English improvement project for the school, using the methodology of continuous improvement.
To this end, participants will have at their disposal online trainingmodules, live classes and virtual meetings for reflection and advice, to finalise their activities in November.
Tatiana González, coordinator of Together We Learn, explained that "the contents of our course are based on the learning acquired over the years by the We Learn program. Our strategies and tools have been tested in different educational contexts, and that is why we know that the results obtained can help teachers to achieve their objectives in the process of teaching and learning English".
He added that "Together We Learn" was designed "with the aim of providing concrete tools and strategies to all educational communities that want to promote English in their schools".
36 young people from Liceo Carlos Mondaca and Colegio Edmundo Vidal Cárdenas will be part of the initiative that we carry out together with the U.S. Embassy in Chileand will have 360 hours of formal instruction in this language over two years.
36 high school students from Liceo Carlos Mondaca and Colegio Edmundo Vidal Cárdenas in the commune of Vicuña were awarded scholarships to participate in We Learn Access, an English language program that will seek to enhance their English language skills.
The aim is that in the two years of the program they will be able to reach level B1 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). At this level, students will be able to introduce themselves, converse on everyday and personal topics, describe images and people, understand short and long texts of medium complexity, write informal communications, express opinions on specific topics and understand medium-length speeches.
This extracurricular course is a collaboration between Fundación Educacional Oportunidad and the U.S. Embassy in Chile. It has a duration of 180 hours per year, will be taught by two English teachers, one for each group, and will have a local coordination team and the collaboration of the management teams of both schools involved, to monitor and support the development of the program.
The head of the We Learn program at Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, Paz Collao, explained that "English is a communicative tool that, if it is not used, it is forgotten. It is important to continue to promote its learning and practice at all levels of schooling, from early childhood to secondaryeducation".
He added that "this program is also framed in the development of very important skills for the young people who participate, for example, youth leadership and the development of local identity. The aim is for them to continue to improve their level of English, but always in a context of comprehensive training".
ABOUT WE LEARN
In response to the need for improvements in the teaching of English in public education at a national level, Fundación Educacional Oportunidad and its We Learn program have been collaborating with schools in the Elqui Valley since 2006 with the aim of promoting the teaching of English from an early age.
In addition, thanks to the collaboration with the US Embassy in Chile, since 2018 it has been implementing the We Learn Access scholarship program, to provide continuity to the development of students in this language at secondary level.
These are young people from the Gabriela Mistral and Luis Cruz Martínez high schools who will receive 360 hours of formal instruction in this language. It is expected that, upon graduating from this course carried out with the support of the U.S. Embassy in Chile, they will be able to reach an intermediate level of linguistic competence in the language.
In this world of global communication, English language skills provide multiple opportunities for development and access to various fields of knowledge. At the national level, it has become evident that there is a need to promote the teaching of this language from an early age and to constantly support students throughout their careers in order to improve.
In this context, and thanks to the collaboration between Fundación Educacional Oportunidad and the U.S. Embassy in Chile, 36 high school students from the Gabriela Mistral and Luis Cruz Martínez high schools in the commune of Puerto Natales were awarded scholarships to participate in We Learn Access, an English language program that will seek to enhance their English language skills.
The aim is that in the two years of the program they will be able to reach level B1 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). At this level, students will be able to introduce themselves, converse on everyday and personal topics, describe images and people, understand short and long texts of medium complexity, write informal communications, express opinions on specific topics and understand medium-length speeches.
This extracurricular course has a duration of 180 hours per year, will be taught by two English teachers, one for each group, and will have a local coordination team and the collaboration of the management teams of both schools involved, to monitor and support the development of the program during the year.
The head of the We Learn program at Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, Paz Collao, explained that "English is a communicative tool that, if it is not used, it is forgotten. It is important to continue to promote its learning and practice at all levels of schooling, from early childhood to secondary education".
He added that "this program is also framed in the development of very important skills for the young people who participate, for example, youth leadership and the development of local identity. The aim is for them to continue to improve their level of English, but always in a context of comprehensive training".
ABOUT WE LEARN
We Learn Access began to be developed in 2018 in the communes of Paihuano and Vicuña in the Coquimbo region and this year will have its first version in the commune of Puerto Natales, where Fundación Educacional Oportunidad has been implementing the We Learn program in pre-school and primary education since 2019.
15 professionals from educational centres in the municipalities of Carahue, Nueva Imperial, Toltén, Teodoro Schmidt and Saavedra, together with the territorial early education coordinator of the Local Service, are taking part in this professional development program for educational leaders. The aim of the program is to generate concrete improvements in educational processes, focused on ensuring the quality of teaching and learning for children.
On Monday 4 April, the Diploma Course "Leadership for continuous improvement for JUNJI VTF kindergarten directors" began. The program involves 15 professionals from educational centres, together with the territorial coordinator of early education of the Local Service Costa Araucanía, in the region of La Araucanía.
The diploma course, given by Fundación Educacional Oportunidad in agreement with C Líder: Centro Asociativo para el Liderazgo Educacional, seeks to develop leadership skills for the continuous improvement of the processes of educational units, through the application of tools for leadership and continuous improvement in the development of a project to improve the practices of classroom teams.
Carmen Montecinos, executive director of C Líder, highlighted that "Fundación Educacional Oportunidad has a vast experience developing high-impact projects to improve educational opportunities for children in the early education stage. For C Líder, this collaboration is very valuable, as it allows us to have a greater reach in terms of the levels of the educational system that we hope to support through our various training activities. Supporting the development of educational units in the SLEP Costa Araucanía demonstrates our commitment to strengthening public education.
The academic coordinator of the Diploma, Lorena Espinoza, explained that the relevance of the program lies in the fact that "it is a unique instance, because usually head teachers usually participate in training in contexts that do not respond in such a specific way to their reality. Last year, the students of this diploma course told us that this was a unique experience, since, as kindergarten educators, we have to adapt to the models developed for primary and secondary education".
He added that "what is remarkable about this methodology is that they work on a real problem in their educational centre and apply what they have learnt in their management, the short and fast improvement cycles mean that the students see results. This, together with the accompaniment of a tutor, who guides them in this new learning process, makes them feel motivated and supported".
The course has a duration of 56 chronological hours and the directors will participate in theoretical and practical sessions, reflection activities, feedback and design. For this, there will be face-to-face and remote instances.
José Mauricio Gutiérrez Millanao,in charge of training and professional development at the Local Public Education Service Costa Araucanía, highlighted that this is "an instance of professional development that is directly related to the new reality that kindergartens are facing, mainly those that have official recognition or are in the process of obtaining it, that have to understand the functioning of an Improvement Plan and that are beginning to be incorporated into the teaching career".
José Mauricio added that he hopes that "at the end of the training, our kindergarten directors will have a broad vision of the process of continuous improvement and how the Educational Improvement Plans support it".
The directors participating in this diploma course are from the nurseries and kindergartens Los Rieles, Omilen Kuyen, Conejito Blanco, Mis Primeros Pasos, Los Pecesitos Nehuentue, Taiñ Ruka, Antü Newén, Las Golondrinas, Meli Rewe Kayupul, El Esfuerzo, Agua Luna, Semillitas del Sembrador, Los Pitufos, Los Cisnes and Los Pecesitos del Budi.
In days when citizens and civil society are rapidly seeking to have their initiatives included in the new constitution, 19 foundations grouped in Acción Colectiva por la Educación are calling for the urgent collection of 15,000 signatures to ensure the right to comprehensive, quality, inclusive and free education.
A total of 19 educational foundations from civil society, grouped in Acción Colectiva por la Educación, presented the Iniciativa Popular de Norma (IPN) "Por una educación integral, de calidad, inclusiva, equitativa y gratuita", with which they seek to reach 15,000 citizen signatures so that the articles can be discussed in the Constitutional Convention and incorporated into the new Constitution.
This is initiative 43.926, which proposes seven points to be included in the new Magna Carta, from the fact that the State must guarantee all people the right to a comprehensive, equitable, inclusive, non-discriminatory, quality education, with a gender perspective, and with territorial, cultural and linguistic relevance. The proposal also recognises the role of teachers in the new Constitution, ensuring initial and continuous training and adequate working conditions for teachers, male and female educators, something unprecedented in very few constitutions worldwide.
In addition, it establishes that "the State shall ensure compulsory and free education between the second level of kindergarten transition and secondary education, extending free education from the nursery school level and, progressively, to higher education" (check the full article here).
The articles are based on the results of the citizens' process "Tenemos que Hablar de Educación" (We need to talk about education) - also promoted by Acción Colectiva between 2020 and 2021 - which involved the participation of nearly 8,000 teachers, parents, students, managers and funders from all over the country.
"For us at Acción Colectiva por la Educación, it is very satisfying to lead this Popular Initiative for Standard, because in addition to being born from the educational communities themselves, it also has the support of 19 organisations with years of experience in the field, talking and getting to know closely the different realities that coexist in our education system, from kindergarten education, hospital schools, rural education, among others. This makes it a solid and grounded proposal, created with and for the educational communities of our country," said Gonzalo Plaza, representative of Acción Colectiva por la Educación and Executive Director of Fundación 99.
The popular initiative already has nearly 3,000 signatures of support and has the backing of various figures linked to the field of education and children on social networks. However, they need to reach at least 15,000 signatures for it to be discussed in the Convention.
"Today more than ever, the children and young people of our country need our support. We cannot leave education out of the discussion. We invite you to support this popular initiative for a standard that was built from a participatory process from which the voices of thousands of people from educational communities in our country were rescued. Let's make those dreams and desires of achieving quality, equitable, inclusive and free education for all a reality", said Marcela Marzolo, Executive Director of Fundación Educacional Oportunidad and also representative of Acción Colectiva por la Educación.
The organisations driving this Popular Initiative of Norma, as part of Acción Colectiva por la Educación are: Elige Educar, Fundación 99, Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, Educación 2020, the CIAE of the University of Chile, Súmate, Crecer con todos, Mis Talentos, Arzobispado de Santiago, Fundación Chile, Tu clase tu país, Fundación Portas, Co-crecer, ONG Canales, Fundación Re-Imagina, Diálogo País, Didaksis, Fundación Origen and Momento Constituyente.
What is a Popular Norm Initiative? The IPN is one of the mechanisms for popular participation in the drafting of the New Constitution. It is a suggestion of a text that, with the support of 15,000 signatures from at least 4 regions of the country, can be discussed and voted directly by the Constitutional Convention. Organisations and individuals can submit an initiative, and after being analysed and admitted, it can be disseminated in order to gather the necessary support so that it can be part of the construction of the New Constitution. Each person has the right to support 7 IPN.
How to support Collective Action for Education's IPN? Go tothis link, on the right hand side, you will find a green button that says "Support". When you click on this button, the system will ask you to authenticate yourself, either by entering your unique password or the serial number of your ID card. Once you have done this you will return to our IPN website and just click on the green button. To support 6 other IPNs you can click here and search with keywords for the topics you are most interested in. The deadline for signing up is 01 February.
Nearly 100 educational units of the National Kindergarten Board (Junji) in the regions of Antofagasta, Coquimbo, Maule, La Araucanía and Magallanes will seek, through various strategies tested by Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, to promote kindergarten attendance, so that children have permanent and continuous access to quality learning.
It is no mystery that the pandemic affected the education system at every level, especially those children who went from in-person attendance to remote educational experiences or, even more so, those who were not even able to enter kindergarten or school when their age was due.
Against this backdrop, and with the aim of ensuring access to quality kindergarten education, the National Kindergarten Board (Junji) proposed, among other actions, to return to the attendance levels achieved before Covid-19's irruption, which in 2019 reached 71.9% in directly administered classic kindergartens, and which to date has averaged 20.7%.
In order to highlight the importance of regular kindergarten attendance in children's learning, and to foster a collaborative culture that promotes coordinated and articulated work, Junji will sign an agreement with Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, with whom it will implement a pilot program during 2022 in the regions of Antofagasta, Coquimbo, Maule, La Araucanía and Magallanes, in the first instance, whose objective will be to promote this collaborative culture.
"These almost two years of the pandemic have made clear the importance of face-to-face kindergarten education, which is where irreplaceable interactions and learning take place. For this reason, we believe that the work to be done with the Foundation will allow families to understand the importance of children attending and remaining in kindergarten," said Junji's executive vice-president, Adriana Gaete.
To this end, the Foundation has proposed to JUNJI to share strategies and lessons learned from its "A Good Start" program, both to the professionals of the Educational Quality department and to the technical and educational teams at the national level. The aim of this collaboration will be to transfer knowledge related to the promotion of attendance and permanence, and thus make progress in reducing chronic absenteeism, focusing on the child through a process of training and support. In this way, interventions developed and tested by the Foundation in hundreds of public schools across the country will be shared.
Some of the issues that will be addressed in this pilot program are related to changing the perspective on group attendance and focusing on particular cases within the educational communities. It will also aim to generate strategies that encourage and safeguard attendance, with the creation of attendance committees being one of the strategies that will be implemented to reverse those cases of high non-attendance.
The executive director of Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, Marcela Marzolo, explained that "for our foundation this collaboration is key, as it opens up a space for us to share what we have been building for years through our work promoting school attendance in kindergarten levels in public schools that are part of the Good Start program".
He added that "this alliance will allow us to learn from Junji's work and to join forces and generate learning to build a proposal to promote attendance in kindergartens and nurseries".
51 teachers of this language and management teams from seven schools of the Municipal Corporation of Puerto Natales met in person to review the progress achieved with the We Learn program and project the challenges they will take on together in 2022.
This December 17th was a special day for English teachers and management teams from seven schools of the Puerto Natales Municipal Corporation, who met to review the work done during the year with the aim of promoting English learning in children and young people of the commune.
The schools Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins, Coronel Santiago Bueras, Capitán Juan Ladrillero, Baudilia Avendaño de Yousuff, Fronteriza Dorotea, Miguel Montecinos and Seno Obstrucción work together with Fundación Educacional Oportunidad's We Learn program, which focuses on improving the quality of English language education from an early age. In addition, this program has fostered network collaboration and has linked these schools with their peers in the Elqui Valley, in the Coquimbo Region.
The progress and achievements made during the year in this local and regional exchange and collaboration were evaluated in a learning session which, according to Pablo Muñoz, head of Continuous Improvement and Evaluation at Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, sought to "celebrate the achievements made during the year in terms of the professional development of teachers and management teams in the teaching of English and also in terms of student learning".
She added that "we reflect on these issues based on data in order to be able to draw lessons that we will incorporate and that will allow us to continue improving the English language learning of children and young people".
The We Learn program began to be implemented in 2019 in Puerto Natales thanks to an agreement with the Undersecretary of Early Childhood Education. The head of the program, Paz Collao, explained that "thanks to the support of the Undersecretary, we have been able to improve our English curriculum proposal at the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten levels, leaving a great input that we hope will contribute to formalising the teaching of the language at these levels through public policies".
He added that "the Puerto Natales Municipal Corporation has led the local implementation of the program in a very successful way. Its commitment to the education of children in Puerto Natales translates into the generation of collaborative work between teachers, management teams, education assistants and educators".
In closing, he added that "this has been fertile ground for innovation, the use of data for decision-making and continuous teacher and management training processes. We are happy to continue collaborating with them in the coming years, to see the We Learn Puerto Natales Improvement Network grow even more".
Together with the management and DAEM teams of 15 public schools in the municipalities of Vicuña and Paihuano, they reviewed the results for 2021 and sought opportunities for improvement to further enhance the learning of this language in children and young people.
During the pandemic, between distance and remote classes and sending materials to homes, 43 education professionals from public schools in Vicuña and Paihuano have worked together and shared the best strategies so that children and young people can continue to improve their English language learning. With the aim of analysing what has been done and looking for opportunities to continue improving, they met in person on 14 December for a learning session of the We Learn program.
This program of Fundación Educacional Oportunidad seeks to contribute to the improvement of the quality of education in English from an early age and has encouraged public schools in the Elqui Valley to collaborate and participate in networks that allow them to improve their pedagogical and leadership practices.
The head of Continuous Improvement and Evaluation at Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, Pablo Muñoz, explained that "we met to celebrate the achievements made this year in terms of the professional development of teachers and management teams in the teaching of English and also in terms of student learning".
She added that "we also reflect on these issues based on data to be able to draw lessons that we will incorporate and that will allow us to continue improving the English language learning of children and young people".
Paz Collao, head of the We Learn program, explained that one of the objectives for the coming year will be to analyse the institutionalisation of the learning that the schools have accumulated over the years they have been part of the program. "Schools have done an enormous amount of work over the last few years, creating, testing and implementing ideas to improve English language teaching for their students. When evidence is gathered locally that the ideas work, the next step is to make sure that these changes are sustained over time. We are supporting them in this process of continuous reflection," he said.
Public schools from 14 communes that are part of the Improvement Network A Good Start met again in person in a learning session.
"We wanted to meet again, celebrate our achievements, share our experiences and begin to set our first challenges for the coming year". With this phrase Perla Chávez, director of implementation of the Un Buen Comienzo (UBC) programme of Fundación Educacional Oportunidad explained the objectives of the learning session that brought together the 160 schools and kindergartens that make up the UBC Improvement Network and belong to the O'Higgins and Metropolitan regions.
This network aims to be a space for exchange and collaboration between kindergarten educators and technicians, management teams and school principals in order to enhance the learning of girls and boys in early education. As a result of the pandemic, the network continued to operate virtually, and after almost two years of this process, it will once again hold a face-to-face meeting to evaluate its functioning during this period.
A very important moment of this meeting was related to the analysis and reflection of the data, specifically those that tell us about the functioning of the local networks: "We reviewed the data on how they did with their dynamics in the community meetings to find out if these meetings had a continuous improvement component and also if they were being effective in terms of decision-making", explained Pablo Muñoz, head of the Continuous Improvement and Evaluation area of Fundación Educacional Oportunidad.
A very important aspect of this learning session was that we began to outline the objectives of the work to be carried out next year. "We hope to generate more and better training and meeting spaces to meet the challenges of 2022 in early education, through training, discussions and visits between schools and municipalities, based on certain issues that need to be looked at and improved collectively," explained Carolina Zúñiga, Coordinator of Networks and Supporters of Fundación Educacional Oportunidad.
"Our session had a very important component, which was to celebrate the work that has been done in each commune, especially by the Improvement Teams, who have been the heart that has sustained and mobilised the local networks. We want to thank them for their dedication and all the love they have shown so that, despite the adversities, the children can continue to learn meaningfully," concluded Perla Chávez.
THE COMMUNES THAT MAKE UP THE NETWORK
The Un Buen Comienzo Improvement Network is composed of the communes of Coltauco, Doñihue, Malloa, Machalí, Mostazal, Olivar, Paredones, Pichidegua, Quinta de Tilcoco, Rengo, San Fernando, Chimbarongo and San Vicente in the O'Higgins Region, and Renca in the Metropolitan Region.
Almost a thousand people, including educators and kindergarten technicians, heads of UTP, directors of public schools and heads of DAEM of the municipalities make up this collaborative work network, the only one focused on early education in our country, which exists with the purpose of promoting the continuous development of teaching and management skills in order to sustain school improvement and effectiveness and thus have an impact on the learning of children at the early education level.
In October this year, 17 educational establishments belonging to the communes of San Fernando and Chimbarongo joined the Improvement Network Un Buen Comienzo, a space for exchange and collaboration between educators and nursery school technicians, management teams and school principals, with the aim of enhancing the learning of girls and boys. On 9 December they will meet to share the lessons learned from their work.
"We want to meet again, celebrate our achievements, share our experiences and begin to raise our first challenges for next year". With this phrase Perla Chávez, director of implementation of the Un Buen Comienzo (UBC) programme of Fundación Educacional Oportunidad explains the objectives of the learning session that will bring together, on 9 December, the 160 schools and kindergartens that make up the UBC Improvement Network and belong to the O'Higgins and Metropolitan regions.
This network is a space for exchange and collaboration between kindergarten educators and technicians, management teams and sponsors, with the aim of enhancing the learning of children in early education.
One of the most important news of the year for the Network was the incorporation of 17 educational establishments from the communes of San Fernando and Chimbarongo belonging to the Local Public Education Service (SLEP) Colchagua.
The president of Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, Claudia Peirano, said that "we are grateful for the trust placed in us by the Colchagua Local Service team to join this pioneering work network with educators and technicians that allows us to promote educational projects relevant to the reality of each school and kindergarten. We hope to continue contributing to ensuring that kindergarten education in the territory meets the purpose and objectives of quality and participation that the SLEP has presented in its Local Strategic Plan".
A very relevant aspect that will be experienced in this learning session is that it will begin to outline the objectives of the work to be carried out next year. Perla Chávez added that "the work with the SLEP of Colchagua will be a great learning experience for the UBC Improvement Network, considering that it is the first local service in the region".
He added that "the knowledge and experience of working with the SLEP of Colchagua will generate a more amicable transition, maintaining what has been achieved so far with the different municipalities. It is very important that civil society can create synergies with the new state institutions, all in order to strengthen resources for quality education in the territory.
The Executive Director of SLEP Colchagua, Leonardo Fuentes Román, highlighted the importance of the work carried out in recent months with the foundation. "Our mission is to deliver quality public education, an aspect that goes hand in hand with the incorporation of 17 educational establishments of SLEP Colchagua to the UBC Improvement Network. We will continue to strengthen the pedagogical skills of early education, through this programme that has been a great support for management teams and kindergarten educators in the territory".
THE COMMUNES THAT MAKE UP THE NETWORK
The Un Buen Comienzo Improvement Network is composed of the communes of Coltauco, Doñihue, Malloa, Machalí, Mostazal, Olivar, Paredones, Pichidegua, Quinta de Tilcoco, Rengo, San Fernando, Chimbarongo and San Vicente in the O'Higgins Region, and Renca in the Metropolitan Region.
Almost a thousand people, including educators and kindergarten technicians, heads of UTP, directors of public schools and heads of DAEM of the municipalities make up this collaborative work network, the only one focused on early education in our country, which exists with the purpose of promoting the continuous development of teaching and management skills in order to sustain school improvement and effectiveness and thus have an impact on the learning of children at the early education level.
The initiative Juntos por una Educación Inicial 2030 para el futuro de Chile, led by the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Fundación Choshuenco, brings together 19 entities from academia and civil society with the aim of enhancing learning opportunities for children in the country.
Better learning opportunities for children, educators and teachers empowered around teaching tools with a focus on the importance of early education, as well as the development of more nursery schools and kindergartens. These are some of the objectives that bring together and inspire Juntos por una Educación Inicial 2030 for the future of Chile, an unprecedented initiative in the country that brings together 19 institutions specialised in research and in contributing to the quality of early education in the least favoured sectors of Chile.
The launch of the initiative took place at the Central House of the Catholic University and was attended by representatives from the public and private sectors, as well as important entities such as the Undersecretary of Education and the National Kindergarten Board (JUNJI). The event also featured via streaming Hirokazu Yoshikawa, international expert in globalisation and education from New York University, as well as Co-Director of the Global TIES for Children Center. In his keynote speech "Quality early childhood education and care systems: key to the future of countries", he discussed the US experience in early childhood, as well as public policies that seek to promote intensive family programmes and support after the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Rector of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Ignacio Sánchez, praised this initiative in relation to a stage that is key in the formation processes of the next generations. "Early education is a key driver of development for the country. Much is said about building a fraternal country, but part of this challenge is related to promoting and enhancing learning. Today it is key to work on collaboration to improve educational and social conditions in early childhood. Thus, from this meeting, we have proposed to work on early education and care for the most vulnerable families on the basis of a more equitable and sustainable future for the next generations of children in Chile.
Beatriz von Appen, director of Fundación Educacional Choshuenco, warned that early education today faces important challenges at the local level, which was intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic. "In less favoured environments, it is key to have an education of excellence to reduce gaps. In 2020, we saw that the months of quarantine had an impact on many families, especially on children's educational processes. That is why we joined in this alliance to reinforce the importance of early childhood education. If we want to have a society with greater human wealth, it is essential to have early education with the right tools. We want to ask the authorities and the media to put early education at the centre of the discussions. We want to accompany vulnerable families so that their children can reach the maximum possibilities of development. The richness of a society is undoubtedly measured by how it treats its children and older adults," said the expert in early childhood education.
At the event, the Rector of the Adolfo Ibáñez University, Harald Beyer, also shared his views on the cognitive contexts of the next generations. "There is an enormous vulnerability among children aged 0 and 4, who do not reach the minimum threshold of equal opportunities. Early education can go a long way in alleviating various problems faced by children, enriching the linguistic environment and also reducing the stress of the realities they experience in vulnerable contexts. It is through early education that this project wants to make a mark. These are foundations and organisations that will contribute with their practical experience," she said.
Opportunities and challenges 2030
Together for Early Education 2030 for the future of Chile is based on three main objectives, which are related to the construction of a public narrative on early education from an international perspective. In addition, there is a need to articulate and mobilise resources and conditions to make early education a priority issue for both the public and private sectors. The third objective of the initiative focuses on creating a platform for knowledge transfer between different organisations for the dissemination and understanding of the scope of early education for the country's development.
The Chilean scenario in this area was analysed by Hirokazu Yoshikawa, who, in contrast, described the US experience. The expert referred to comprehensive initiatives such as Head Start, which are centres that focus on community services. This is based on resources linked to breastfeeding advice, the promotion of sport, the strengthening of cognitive processes and the development of a culture based on innovation. It is a comprehensive model that also includes training on the best teaching methodologies for teachers. The renowned specialist highlighted the efforts being made in Chile, while calling for the strengthening of the exchange of experiences between our country and the United States.
At the launching activity, held in person and online, a panel discussion was also held, comprising the Dean of the Faculty of Education of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Alejandro Carrasco; the Vice-President of JUNJI, Adriana Gaete; and the Director of the Santa Rosa de Lo Barnechea Kindergarten and Nursery School, Andrea Arceu. The meeting, moderated by the Executive Director of Fundación Choshuenco, José Manuel Jaramillo; and the Director of Centre UC, Ernesto Treviño; addressed the main advances that today outline the first steps of the initiative Juntos por una Educación Inicial 2030 for the future of Chile.
The objective of the Diploma in Leadership and Continuous Improvement for Junji-VTF Kindergarten Directors, given for the first time by Fundación Educacional Oportunidad together with C-Líder and the Catholic University of Valparaíso, was to install leadership skills for continuous improvement in educational communities.
As of 2021, the kindergarten level was integrated into the Quality Assurance System (SAC) through the design and implementation of Kindergarten Education Improvement Plans (PME-EP) consistent with the curricular references, which allow kindergartens to promote concrete improvements in their educational processes to ensure the quality of the education they provide.
In this context, Fundación Educacional Oportunidad together with the Centro de Liderazgo en EducaciónC-Líder and the Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, created the "Diplomado de Liderazgo y Mejoramiento Continuo para Directas/es de Jardines Infantiles Junji-VTF", with the objective of supporting the entry into the Quality Assurance System of kindergartens and installing leadership skills for continuous improvement in the educational communities.
The diploma course, which took place virtually between March and October 2021, was attended by kindergarten directors and officials from the Puerto Cordillera Local Education Service, which covers the municipalities of Coquimbo and Andacollo, and the Education Corporation of La Serena, in the Coquimbo Region.
This diploma course, which closes its first version this week, used a methodology based on the development of skills for continuous improvement. To achieve this, each student designed and implemented an improvement project and developed practical workshops, tutorials and virtual accompaniment that allowed the gradual application of the content and improvement tools delivered in the sessions, always focused on addressing a real problem in the kindergarten.
It also promoted constant reflection based on the use of data for decision-making. The course also developed collaborative and networked work between the participating establishments and within each of the kindergartens and nursery schools.
Sixty-six per cent of the educational improvement projects designed by the students had as a priority focus the recovery of learning and 33% of the projects were framed under the priority focus of school coexistence and socio-emotional protection of children. The topics most frequently addressed by students in their continuous improvement projects were related to the participation of families in the context of remote or hybrid education, and to the evaluation and monitoring of children's learning.
At the closing session of the diploma course, Claudia Peirano, President of Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, said that "this group of directors is a milestone because they are completing a programme that has allowed them to put into practice the central principles of public education. I think they are a very important step forward in putting the policies, designs and principles of public education into practice and in the daily work in kindergartens".
For her part, Milanka Jeria, Director of the Intercultural Kindergarten Coquimbo, belonging to SLEP Puerto Cordillera, expressed her gratitude for the opportunity, highlighting that the diploma course took place in a complex scenario due to the pandemic. "I thank the team for their dedication, for guiding us on this path and for their patience. I am extremely grateful to the coaches who always urged us to continue, guided us and supported us in our tasks. I know that the first beneficiaries of this course will be our children, and they are already benefiting," she said.
High school students from the Carlos Mondaca (Vicuña) and Bicentenario Mistraliano (Paihuano) technical high schools benefited during the first semester from an English scholarship created jointly by Fundación Educacional Oportunidad and the Instituto Chileno Norteamericano de La Serena, which was renewed for the second semester.
The pandemic, and all the difficulties associated with it, were not an impediment for students of the tourism speciality of the Carlos Mondaca (Vicuña) and Bicentenario Mistraliano (Paihuano) technical high schools to participate in a course that allowed them to enhance their English speaking skills and thus generate new opportunities related to the speciality they study.
This opportunity arose thanks to a scholarship promoted by Fundación Educacional Oportunidad and the Instituto Chileno Norteamericano de La Serena. Thus, the young people participated in beginner and intermediate level courses that lasted 36 teaching hours each.
May Ling Janis, a student from Liceo Mistraliano, was grateful for the possibility of accessing this course and noted that "it helped me to improve my English, meet new people, learn new words and as a tourism student it will help me a lot to interact with foreign clients".
Rony Rojas, a student at Liceo Carlos Mondaca, added that "English will help me a lot in the future, in my work, studies or if I go abroad. Now I also feel able to meet new people.
"This initiative allowed us to continue to strengthen the teaching of contextualised English, connected to local needs. The students mentioned feeling more confident and secure to communicate in the language, as well as having enjoyed the methodology of the classes and meeting new people. We are very happy to have contributed a grain of sand to their learning process", said Paz Collao, head of the We Learn Programme at Fundación Educacional Oportunidad.
The director of the Instituto Chileno Norteamericano La Serena, Ruth McBride, explained that "the purpose of the project was to stimulate the students' oral production and that is difficult, it is a skill, the oral capacity is a capacity that is difficult to stimulate in the classroom. So this project was much more than stimulating oral English among the students, it was to create a community where the students felt happy and calm and to establish bonds between them so that they felt confident enough to dare to speak".
Fundación Educacional Oportunidad has been collaborating with schools in Vicuña and Paihuano since 2006, developing its We Learn programme, which aims to promote the learning of English by students in pre-school and primary education in the public sector.
In addition, in 2018, thanks to an agreement with the US Embassy, the We Learn Access course for secondary school students began to be developed and will continue in 2022, after being interrupted in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.
To track the participation of more than 5,900 students from 143 schools and kindergartens in the public system in the Metropolitan, O'Higgins, Coquimbo and Magallanes regions, Fundación Educacional Oportunidad created a registration system that alerts those who have not participated or had contact with the establishment.
The pandemic presented a great challenge for the school system: not to lose any students. Given this scenario, Fundación Educacional Oportunidad detected in 2020 that around 20% of children in early education (pre-kindergarten and kindergarten) did not participate in either virtual learning experiences or in those that schools sent them home - virtually or in print - and this could lead to subsequent school exclusion, which is understood as a progressive distancing of the student from the school for different reasons.
Thus, the proposal was born to change the view of attendance for the concept of "participation", which takes into account the different ways in which children are involved. It is no longer just a matter of recording attendance in person, but also of recording participation in learning experiences, whether they are synchronous (done at the same time with the kindergarten educator) or asynchronous (done independently and sent later for review and feedback).
Yanira Aleé, head of the Assistance programme at Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, explains that "according to the reality of our schools, the year 2020 was 100% remote education, mainly through asynchronous activities, i.e. activities that were sent home via WhatsApp for example, which were carried out by the children at different times, and only in the first semester of 2021, around 70% of the schools incorporated virtual classes and with the change to phases 3 and 4, in the second semester, only some schools started with face-to-face classes".
To facilitate this process, Fundación Educacional Oportunidad created a registration system to measure the participation of each of the children, not only in person, but also through their involvement in learning experiences, whether synchronous or asynchronous.
"This registration system works both on-site and in a hybrid or remote education system, which is what we are experiencing this second semester. It allows us to record whether the child was present and also whether he or she participated from home in a virtual class or by carrying out an activity sent from the school or kindergarten during the week," says Yanira Aleé.
The result of the registration is an interactive report containing a graph that is automatically updated weekly with information on how many children meet the participation target and the percentage of children according to the type of participation: face-to-face, remote synchronous or remote asynchronous.
Javiera Sotomayor, coordinator of the Continuous Improvement and Evaluation area of Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, says that "this system allows schools to efficiently analyse data. In this case on the participation of their students, through the exploitation of information by means of different technologies that currently constitute the basic standards to improve practices and help organisations in decision-making".
The challenge for the remainder of the year will be for schools to activate the linkage committee, to identify the causes of non-participation, to propose a particular intervention for each child who is not participating, and to follow up to see if this intervention progressively increases their participation.
