Picture taken from Twitter @ImpulsoDocente

Bernardita Yuraszeck, Executive Director of the Impulse Teaching Foundation, participated as an exhibitor in an open virtual meeting for researchers and professionals in Latin America working on educational issues. The webinar cycle, available from June 2019 to July 2020, is organized by the Research and Innovation Laboratory for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean -SUMMA- of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

Learning to teach: The Mentoring experience for Chile

During the session, Bernadette shared the experience of the program Mentors for Chile, a system that allows to induce novice teachers in the educational system, accompanied by the tutoring of a teacher, with more experience, working in the same school. This project is supported by the Colunga Foundation Strengthening Fund since 2018.  

"There is a lot of potential and teaching talent in each educational community, but the issue is that many times the environment does not allow these good practices to be transferred or to be able to continue developing constantly in the educational system", were the words that Bernardita shared with the participants of the webinar, noting that in Chile, 40% of teachers dropped out of the educational system in the fifth year of exercise, being the lack of accompaniment one of the main reasons, according to a study conducted by the Center for Advanced Studies in Education (CIAE). Therefore, he emphasized:There are many novice teachers who live a clash between the idea and the praxis"

The talk created a wide interest and exchange among participants, including teachers, researchers, and representatives of public, private and civil society institutions from different countries in the region, such as Mexico, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia, El Salvador, Chile, Peru, Argentina and Nicaragua.

Liz Rojas, Pedagogical Supervisor of the Ministry of Education of Peru, thanked the shared experience, stating: “It helps us to have a vision to generate a culture of how to develop pedagogical mentoring in Peru. Here it has not developed flatly as they are doing in Chile"

Also, Olga Ramos, specialist in public policy analysis in education, of the NGO Education Assembly of Venezuela, expressed his gratitude: “I think it is an experience that can give us many lessons"

Carlos Cordero, moderator of the meeting, highlighted the number of attendees connected to the talk and the restlessness that exists around the issues of education and teacher training: “We want to build and implement a network that links the different actors to be able to share and relieve experiences within our context in Latin America"He finished.