PRESENT
The ‘Meeting of Ibero-American Leaders for Education’, inaugurated today by the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI) and the International University of La Rioja (UNIR), will take place until June 24 between Madrid and Logroño.
PHOTO GALLERY: Representatives of international organizations and institutions from the educational field of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Spain participate.
The Meeting contemplates a wide program of academic sessions, round tables, presentation of educational projects and institutional and cultural activities. On the day of next Thursday will be presented 26 successful projects, recognized for their good educational practices in the region
The International University of La Rioja (UNIR) and the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI)have inaugurated today the ‘Meeting of Ibero-American Leaders for Education’, an international summit that brings together more than 30 experts from the region to exchange successful educational experiences promoted by the Ministries of the branch of their respective countries.
Until next Friday, representatives of international organizations and institutions in the field of education from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Spain will have the opportunity to present projects of good educational practices that can be replicated in other similar contexts. Likewise, they will exchange experiences and points of view in academic sessions and debate tables scheduled during the week, with the aim of promoting quality higher education in the different Ibero-American territories.
The opening ceremony of the Meeting was held in the OEI auditorium and was chaired by Mariano JaboneroSecretary General of OEI, and Raphael Puyolpresident of UNIR, who especially thanked “the talent and effort in preparing the projects, which are of great intellectual rigor and undoubted interest.”
Puyol emphasized the vocation of UNIR as an international university of reference in virtual training in Spanish, and highlighted the support of the OEI “in the common objective of development, progress and improvement of the quality of Education in Latin America”. Likewise, he recalled the social dimension of UNIR that facilitates access to training for institutions and people with difficulties and that the online University allows it.
For his part, the Secretary General of the OEI highlighted practically all of the organization’s activity and investment in America, “98%”, and offered relevant data on the growth of Higher Education in the region: “We have the world‘s fastest growing higher education students: 32 million. 70% of them come from families from which no one studied a university degree, who are committed to higher education to get out of poverty, which requires a very strong commitment because there you cannot fail ”, he stressed.
Jabonero also pointed out the 20% growth in the offer of higher education, especially virtual training with a growth of 80%, “the one that grows the most, because it is the one that can offer the highest quality. It also has a high inclusive capacity… it reaches where the face-to-face university cannot reach and to those social sectors that most need education”, he highlighted.
Other interventions and start of the official program
They also participated in the presentation ceremony Isabel Diez Vialvice-rector for Development and Economic and Social Impact of UNIR, who offered a broad vision of the link between the University and the territory, “whose basic idea is to transfer knowledge from the university to society and from the company to society”, remarked .
In this sense, Díaz Vial wanted to emphasize the need to create communication vessels between the different actors to create value relationships and explained some strategic lines aimed at finding “a balance that has an impact on the territory and what we can offer from UNIR, such as psychological and emotional care in schools, or training support and introduction to digitalization for the transformation of SMEs”.
In its turnJuan Jose Leal Martinez, responsible for Educational Cooperation Agreements at the OEI, recounted the activities in education, which are manifested in the work of the General Secretariat and its offices in countries. “Within the framework of our Digital Transformation program, we launched a study on the future of artificial intelligence in education, in which we asked experts their perception of this field”, he highlighted.
After the inauguration, the official program began with the presentation ‘Educational innovation as a transversal process in education’, given by Elena Martinez Car, dean of the UNIR Faculty of Education, in which she reviewed the evolution of Education, with early schooling as a priority, and listed advances and novelties detected in this field, such as special needs and childhood syndromes. “Educators have new challenges. The fight against inequalities is one of them, for which we must have greater scientific rigor and improve didactics. Other challenges have to do with balance in learning, where communicative competence plays a relevant role”, said the UNIR academic.
The day was completed with two more presentations. Manuel Echanove, CEO of Emotional Well-being at UNIR, with his presentation ‘The integration of emotional well-being in educational environments’, dissected one of the priority concerns in the field of education; and he gave details of the work model that UNIR carries out at Colegio Fuenllana, “where not only the mental and emotional health of children is cared for, but also that of parents and teachers through scientifically endorsed online therapeutic care,” he said. he.
Finally, Monica Gomarizdirector of the Ibero-American Institute for Training and Learning for Cooperation of the OEI, gave her presentation on the school of education and the training needs most in demand among teachers and the educational community.
Academic and institutional activities during the Meeting
The Meeting includes an extensive program throughout the week that will take place in Madrid and Logroño. Thus, there will be a set of academic type activitiesdistributed between presentations, debate tables and presentation of educational projects.
Once again, the presentations will serve to highlight relevant and highly topical issues in the educational field. The importance of digital skills both students and teaching staff; conflicts in the classroom after the pandemic; and the importance of tutorials in education, will be some of the issues that will be addressed.
Some of this content and other new ones will be on the discussion table -in hybrid format: face-to-face and online- where the secretaries of Education of the different delegations participating in the event will participate.
Presentation of successful educational projects
On Thursday the 22nd there will be outstanding presentations, one dedicated to
the TEA Classrooms (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and a space dedicated to 26 successful projects promoted by the main education organizations in Colombia, Ecuador and Panama.
The participants in the session will be able to exchange significant experiences and get to know these works recognized as models of good educational practice. A wide variety of projects dealing with pedagogical strengthening in dispersed rural areas, dignifying the teaching career, educating for peace through art and games, or the creation of hospital classrooms within health establishments.
They will not be missing on the agenda either institutional actssuch as the visit to the Ministry of Education in Madrid and the welcome reception at the rectory of the International University of La Rioja, led by its rector, José María Vázquez García-Peñuela.
Finally, those attending the Meeting will be able to enjoy some cultural visitsespecially to the monasteries of Suso and Yuso in S. Millán de la Cogolla, cradle of Castilian.