Training on teacher policies in Latin America

By Laura Fumagalli, Project Coordinator, IIEP Buenos Aires

In recent years, teacher policies have come into the spotlight in Latin America. The region is facing challenges in terms of both securing a sufficient supply of teachers and maintaining the quality of teacher training. Concurrently, the targets of the Education 2030 Agenda are calling for more and better teachers.

Consequently, many Latin American countries are implementing professional career reforms and introducing changes in initial and continuous teacher training. However, few initiatives are proposing expansive innovations and are rather opting for traditional training formats. When innovative proposals are brought forward, they are translated into small-scale initiatives with low impact for the teaching profession as a whole. Therefore, analyzing the proposed innovations, monitoring them, and evaluating their impact is of great importance for Latin America.

To address this issue, IIEP Buenos Aires has introduced a Short Online Training Programme (SOTP) focused on teacher policies. This SOTP uses case studies of teacher reforms from various countries in the region to provide guidance on how to design, monitor, and evaluate large-scale teacher reforms that effectively address the challenges of the sector.

The programme lasts five months, which translates into 380 training hours structured into four thematic courses. The participants access the training through the IIEP Buenos Aires’ Virtual Campus. The activities are done both individually and in workgroups, with a methodology that encompasses discussion forums, practical exercises, case studies, literature reviews, participation in collaborative networks, and written essays.

There are four main goals of this SOTP:

1. Provide knowledge of trends in teacher policies at a regional and global level, as well as the theories that support them;
2. Develop analysis capabilities based on the identification of conceptual and management issues related to teacher policies;
3. Foster knowledge and the ability to design, manage, and assess teacher policy programmes;
4. Advocate the construction of networks and communities of practice that address teacher policies in the region.

IIEP Buenos Aires launched the SOTP as a new training format in 2018. They are part of the regular training offer from IIEP Buenos Aires and will be offered every year. The purpose of the SOTP is to provide updated information on specific current issues in educational policy in Latin America and to develop the technical capabilities of its participants. In 2018, IIEP Buenos Aires offered three programmes, training 69 participants in evaluation policies, ICT policies, and teacher policies.