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UNESCO and Huawei team up to strengthen teachers' digital skills in Latin America and the Caribbean
The Regional Bureau of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC/UNESCO Santiago) and the technology company Huawei signed a roadmap that will directly benefit teachers in the region, starting with a pilot in Chile. The agreement, signed on Thursday 24 November in Mexico City, seeks to develop the knowledge and skills of preschool, elementary and secondary school teachers in the use of new technologies, with a particular focus on the hybrid education model.
The project "Teacher training in digital competencies" aims to provide teachers with tools that will allow them to maximize the use of the digital technologies in the educational process, both in the classroom and at a distance, taking into consideration that since the beginning of the pandemic, online teaching has been a daily alternative in the South American country's schools.
UNESCO and Huawei have drawn up a regional roadmap for this cooperation, and the Chilean pilot will include self-assessments by teachers to identify the specific areas in which they need to strengthen their skills. In the second stage, the courses and an evaluation of what has been learned will be carried out. This initiative is expected to be repeated on an annual basis.
The director of OREALC/UNESCO Santiago, Claudia Uribe, stressed that this project is a starting point in the region and is particularly relevant considering that "the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education systems opens up many possibilities to advance inclusion and equity in education systems and to provide lifelong learning opportunities for all".
Huawei Chile, a subsidiary of the multinational telecommunications infrastructure and smart devices company, will make available to this project numerous teams and experts in areas such as 5G, Artificial Intelligence or Internet of Things, taking advantage of its experience and knowledge accumulated in its more than 30 years of existence. "This alliance seeks to strengthen and, in other cases, build technological competencies of Chilean teachers from preschool to secondary education, for them to be able to make the most of digital alternatives in their teaching," emphasized Michael Xue, vice president of Huawei for Latin America and the Caribbean.
The project will consider educators from municipal schools, subsidized private schools, delegated administration corporations and paid private schools, who will be provided with free to courses throughout the country.
The LAC ICT Talent Summit on 24 and 25 November brought together some 300 students, politicians, university professors, as well as business and academic leaders to discuss the situation, challenges and solutions to talent issues.
Since the 2000s, Huawei has steadily increased its investment in digital talent. In Latin America and the Caribbean, Huawei has helped to train 50,000 talents through various talent initiatives and partnerships.
In 2014, it brought the flagship Seeds for the Future program to Latin America, starting in Colombia and further expanded to 20 countries in the region. Since then, it has provided scholarships to some 1,800 students for intensive training in digital technologies and exposure to the latest trends in the digital sector, as well as organized visits to Huawei's headquarters in Shenzhen, China, and other cities.
The company has also partnered with some 400 universities and institutes in Latin America and the Caribbean to establish ICT Academies that are assisted by Huawei in capacity building so that they can offer training and certification courses.
Many students from the region competed in the Huawei Global ICT Competition and the Developer Competition, most of which took home medals representing their universities.
In addition, the company also partnered with international and government organizations on inclusive talent development initiatives aimed at helping women and the underprivileged, such as the Igual TIC in Argentina.
"We are witnessing a rapid digitization of the economy, which means that the digital sector not only accounts for, but contributes to and transforms an increasing proportion of overall economic output, and digital talent is the foundation of the digital economy," said Xue.
