Committing to educational leadership in Latin America

The Santillana Foundation continues to actively promote educational leadership in Latin America, a strategic issue in educational policies in many countries due to the enormous importance that school leaders have in the successful transformation of schools.

The Colombian city of Cartagena and Brazil's Sao Paulo were the two cities chosen this time to host international seminars on Leadership and Innovation in Education, which brought together hundreds of rectors, regional secretaries of education and school principals seeking useful information that might prove applicable in their centers.

The experts agreed on the importance of training teachers and school managers, the participation of the school community to ensure the success of the initiatives, the increasingly active role of students in education, and the key role that technology and innovation play throughout the process of educational transformation.

Participants at the Sao Paulo seminar included David Albury (director of Innovation Unit and consultant for Global Education Leaders' Partnership); Ricardo Cuenca (director of the Institute of Peruvian Studies); and Maria Rebeca Otero (Education Coordinator of UNESCO in Brazil). Also present were advisers from the Brazilian Ministry of Education, Walisson Mauricio de Pinho Araújo and Helena Singer.

Meanwhile, in Cartagena de Indias, participants included Ricardo Cuenca once again, along with speakers Moritz Bilagher; Andrés Gutierrez (director of assessment at ICFES); Father Mauricio Galeano (CONACED); Carlos Hurtado (Intel Education Program for Ibero-America); and Juan Daniel Cruz (Universidad Javeriana). Both events were presented by Mariano Jabonero, director of Education at the Santillana Foundation.

The seminars, held with the support of the Telefonica Foundation and UNESCO, are part of the project "Educational Leadership", promoted by the Santillana Foundation since 2014. To date, there have been training programs for school managers in Spain, Brazil, Peru, Colombia and, most recently, in Chile. The program is beginning to show promisingresults, with a network of 3,000 school leaders being trained in innovation and efficiency in the management of education.