1. Lenore Yaffee Garcia, Head Education and Culture Division Office of Education, Science and Technology V Meeting of the Authorities and Executive Committee of the Inter-American Committee on Education Washington, D.C., November 9-10, 2005 Report of the Technical Secretariat to the Interamerican Committee on Education

2. Presentation Outline Overview of Meeting and Documents Background: Summits, Ministerials, CIE Technical Secretariat (OEST) Accomplishments and Challenges Resources (2005 Education Subfund Budget)

3. Supports political dialogue and partnership for development activities Inform political dialogue with technical knowledge Help to translate the informed dialogue into concrete cooperation strategies Summits of the Americas Ministerial Meetings Inter-American Committees Horizontal Cooperation Mechanisms Organization of American States Set hemispheric priorities for 34 member states Tools to engage in cooperation across governments and with int’l. organizations, civil society

4. Summit Goals "... We (governments)…reiterate the commitment to assure, by 2010, universal access to and completion of a quality primary education for 100% of children, and access for at least 75% of young people to quality secondary education – with ever greater percentages of young people finishing secondary school --, and we assume responsibility for offering lifelong learning opportunities to the general population.“ --Santiago Summit Plan of Action

5. Interamerican Committee on Education: created at 2003 Mexico City Ministerial Who: A representative of each Education Ministry, designated by the Minister Purpose: Advance inter-American dialogue on education Follow up on Summit mandates and ensure that commitments of Education Ministers Meetings materialize into concrete actions Serve as breeding ground for ideas and proposals Prepare future Ministerial meetings Define funding priorities Serve as a voice for the education sector in policy development and execution within OAS

6. Office of Education, Science and Technology (OEST) Promote continuous communication among Ministries through CIE representatives (translation to maximize exchange) Promote horizontal cooperation –In Person (Knowledge Sharing Seminars) –Virtually (Websites, Virtual Forums, On-line Surveys) Institutional memory and continuity Link between CIE and political authorities; international and civil society organizations Technical assistance to projects In sum: YOUR technical secretariat

7. The creation of this unique space within the OAS was developed as an alternative to the traditional vision that there is one best practice that works equally well for all circumstances. Instead, the OAS method reviews and jointly constructs experiences and models. Hence, all parties offer and receive experiences with the understanding that all countries have something to share and something to learn from the other member States. CONARED: Sharing Knowledge in a horizontal manner

8. Communicating via the Web OEST: http://www.oest.oas.org/ CIE: http://www.oas.org/udse/espanol/cpo _cie.html http://www.oas.org/udse/espanol/cpo _cie.html

9. PRIE Website

10. www.prie.oas.org Regional Education Indicators Project

11. Knowledge Sharing in Citizenship Competencies Workshop and Online Forum, Bogotá, Colombia (April 2005) www.oest.oas.org/colombia

12. Ready to Learn Knowledge Sharing in Early Childhood Development

13. Virtual Forums A space to get information and give feedback on a topic of common interest. http://www.oas.org/udse/espanol/cpo_educ_foro s.html

14. Opportunities Major attention to education in IV Summit Significant momentum from IV Ministerial Energy around: –Social Charter –Possible new priorities (e.g., education for democracy) Knowledge sharing tools Resources from subfund and partners

15. Challenges Proliferation of mandates, priorities (How to choose?) How to obtain active country participation Limited human and organizational resources Risk of duplicating efforts How to demonstrate what works? Financial resources

16. Thank You! Office of Education, Science and Technology (OEST) Executive Secretariat of Integral Development (SEDI) http://www.oest.oas.org