Implementing institution: Consejo Nacional de Fomento Educativo (CONAFE)
Country: Mexico
Source: OECD
Execution period: 2008 – in progress
Plataforma de Prácticas Efectivas:
To create environments that enable vulnerable school communities to build their own knowledge and improve their levels of learning.
A program of advice to community teachers, tutoring to students with difficulties and encouraging community participation.
Low-level students in Language were reduced by 10 percentage points and in mathematics by 20%. Reading comprehension, self-esteem and children's interest in their future increased.
Within the framework of the “New Community Education Model” promoted by the National Council for the Promotion of Education (CONAFE), an exploratory phase of the Itinerant Pedagogical Advising (API) program was implemented in Guerrero during 2008 and 2009.
API is a comprehensive pedagogical advisory intervention that includes support for teachers, students and the community, and focuses on marginalized rural communities with high levels of vulnerability.
The API strategy is the promotion of collaborative work at all scales, recognizing the central role of the individual in the construction of their knowledge. More practical activities are proposed, such as more individual support with permanent feedback, horizontal discussion, and meta-cognition centered on math and reading.
All activities are based on the Itinerant Pedagogical Advisor, who is in charge of implementing, monitoring and reporting the progress of the program to CONAFE. Advisors must be graduates from a national university in Education or related careers; and must also have some pedagogical experience in complex rural schools.
The Itinerant Educational Advisor attends classes in order to diagnose the initial situation and identify children with difficulties. The results will then be used to define, together with the teacher, an intervention strategy focused on the identified children.
Families are encouraged to participate actively, proposing relevant activities, measures and solutions. To remain involved throughout the process, families are asked to organize themselves into an Association for the Promotion of Community Education (APEC). This way, they can define their own internal rules for monitoring program performance. As a counterpart to the intervention, the APEC has to provide accommodation and food to the Advisor.
From that initial stage, there is a plan of bi-monthly pedagogical activities that includes recreational activities, individualized tutoring, and recommendations to help teachers achieve their goals. The Advisor is in charge of facilitating the network and reporting the results to CONAFE, through monthly and annual reports. To do this, the Advisor has guidelines that explain the steps to follow and a standardized monitoring sheet.
Mexico has managed to improve its level of school participation in the last 15 years, with net participation rates at any school level, increasing steadily (UNESCO). However, youth enrolment at the secondary and tertiary levels is below regional and global averages. In addition, the results of 15-year-old Mexicans in mathematics, reading and science are in the group of countries lagging behind in comparison to global trends (PISA, 2015).
To reverse this situation, Mexico has signed a cooperation agreement with the OECD with the purpose of reinforcing the importance of the role of teachers and supporting leadership and excellence in school management. The agreement therefore focuses on improving teaching and learning methods, with the aim of increasing the results of Mexican students (“Mexico-OECD cooperation agreement to improve the quality of education in Mexican schools”, 2010).
Through a process of continuous monitoring of the activities, positive effects of the pilot project on students’ abilities, self-esteem and interest in their future academic performance were rescued. With respect to their abilities, the results of the National Evaluation of Academic Achievement in Educational Centers (ENLACE), reveal a decrease of 10 percentage points of children in “unsatisfactory” level with respect to the comprehension of the language, and in almost 20 percentage points with respect to mathematics.
It is worth noting that one of the key factors for the success of the APIs was the feasible inclusion of parents and families, through APEC partnerships that allowed for a significant increase in the performance of the Advisor in the school.
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