This week Renato Opertti, IBE-UNESCO Senior Programme Specialist, leading our team in Colombia, was involved in a series of activities organized by the Ministry of National Education
Echoing the fruitful outcomes of the IBE-UNESCO mission to Colombia in April 2018, the collaboration between the UNESCO Institute and the Colombian Ministry of National Education (MEN) continues to grow on two main fronts: the initial planning for the curriculum reform process of basic and secondary education envisaged by the country for the following years, and the final Phase of the project on Global Citizenship Education (GCED) carried out by IBE-UNESCO in partnership with UNESCO-APCEIU.
With regard to the curriculum reform, IBE-UNESCO participated in a roundtable with curriculum experts from different public and private universities as well as education specialists from the MEN. The aim of the meeting was to continue working on the development of a policy document that will set the basis for the next curriculum reform. Particularly, the discussions leaned towards two main aspects: 1) the broadened conceptualization of curriculum, with a specific focus on the main components of a curriculum development process; and 2) strengthening the role of assessment within the curriculum to support the development of learners’ competencies. IBE-UNESCO co-facilitated the discussions and provided feedback and advice for the advancement of the policy document.
IBE-UNESCO also gathered with curriculum experts of science, mathematics and language as well as with MEN staff to discuss options for mainstreaming areas of knowledge and disciplines within a renewed understanding of curriculum, particularly, in light of envisaging a curriculum framework for different educational levels.
As for the GCED project, IBE-UNESCO and UNESCO-APCEIU participated in the validation workshop of the “Guidelines for Training Teachers for Citizenship” where the newest revised version of the document was discussed and agreed among a variety of stakeholders including MEN staff, Secretaries of Education, universities, teacher education institutes and organizations working in this specific field. The outcomes of the workshop were very positive. Namely, participants agreed on the implementation of the guidelines at the local levels with a focus on training teacher educators and revising the teacher education curricula. These commitments assure that GCED related issues are incorporated in the documents, and allow for the implementation of GCED initiatives at the school level.