GRADE and IDB held the launch of the book “Profession: Teacher in Latin America”
GRADE and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) held the launch of the IDB new book “Profession: Teacher in Latin America: Why was teacher prestige lost and how to recover it?”. The book analyzes the policies and good practices that Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru carry out to attract, train and select effective teachers.
“The duty of recovering the prestige of the teaching career has never been so valid,” said Miguel Jaramillo, GRADE’s executive director, during the welcome to the event.
During the presentation of the main findings of the book, Diana Hincapié, an economist from the IDB’s Education Division, mentioned that the study found high levels of teacher absenteeism (13% in Peru), inadequate classroom practices and low levels of knowledge. On the interest of young people to study the teaching career, she said: “Teaching is a refuge for many in the region.” Thus, for example, only 3% of young people in Peru want to study this profession.
The leader economist of the Division of Education in IDB’s Social Sector, Gregory Elacqua, said that countries have established standards that aim to improve the quality of teacher training. However, he said that “incentives are still needed to attract teachers to rural or vulnerable areas, which must be higher for the most effective teachers”.
During the round of comments, the Director of Educational Development of the Ministry of Education (Minedu), Liriama Velasco, said that the reconversion of the teaching profession is a medium and long term process. On the other hand, the president of the National Council of Education (CNE), César Guadalupe, said that, when talking about teaching, there are problems in autonomy, expert knowledge and collegiate work. However, the book “should help to demystify some issues about the teaching career and advance”. The member of the CNE, Jorge Jaime, said that the teaching policy should be regarded as a State policy: “It must be a strong pact, between institutions and the teachers’ own unions”. Hugo Ñopo, GRADE’s senior researcher, mentioned that while salaries, in general, have improved in the last 20 years, teachers’ salaries are between the 30th and 40th percentiles, that is, between 60% and 70% of the professionals and technicians of the country earn on average more than teachers.
The closing remarks were in charge of the Deputy Minister of Pedagogical Management, Susana Helfer, who demanded the need to investigate the factors that should be sought in the best candidates. “The big teaching laboratories in education is where the initial teaching training should be,” she said.
