Virtual Educa Caribe Conference: Education, Equity and Competitiveness in Ibero America

The conference, “Education, Equity and Competitiveness in Ibero America,” will be presented by Francesc Pedro, Manager of the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation in Paris, on Wednesday, March 5, 2008, marking the official commencement of the Third Edition of Virtual Educa Caribe, an activity organized by Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD) and Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE), in
coordination with important educational institutions, civil society organizations and businesses, and with support from Virtual Educa Iberoamerica.

 

Public and private sector representatives in the area of education from Latin America, the United States and Europe will assemble in Santo Domingo from March 5-7 to share experiences and innovative methods regarding the use of technological tools in teaching and learning
processes.

 

The forum seeks to promote discussion and foster the use of new technologies in education, capacity building and training. In this manner, Virtual Educa Caribe seeks to contribute to elevating labor efficiency and ultimately economic growth and competitiveness in the country.

 

FUNGLODE Headquarters will be the meeting ground for the long list of conferences and panels
on new educational paradigms and viable alternatives that will facilitate citizen access to quality education, to be presented by prominent international experts. Moreover, the event also strives to contribute to the creation of a responsible and productive citizenry, and therefore, to the nation’s capacity to confront the technological and economic challenges of the 21st century.

 

Virtual Educa Caribe, headquartered in the
Dominican Republic, was launched in Santo Domingo during the Inter-American Forum on New Technologies that took place in April, 2007.

Francesc Pedro was born in Barcelona, Spain in 1960. He holds a
master’s degree in Education from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, a doctorate degree in Comparative Education from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, and a post doctorate degree from the Institute of Education at the University of London. He has served as Professor of Comparative Education and Public Policy and as the program’s Academic Director at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

 

Since 2005 he has worked as the Manager of the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation in Paris, and has headed the New Millennium Apprentice Project, which strives to provide teaching guidelines to educators so that they can reformulate their classes in order to meet the expectations of a new stile of students: “digital natives.” His most recent publication is “Fauna Académica. La
profesión docente en las universidades europeas” (“Academic Fauna. The Teaching Profession in European Universities”) (2004).

 

Virtual Educa Caribe relies on a select group of committed institutions to explore relevant themes during the forum:

 

Civil Society and Private Sector Support:
Alianza ONG
United Nations Association of the Dominican Republic (UNA-DR)
EDUCA
Microsoft
Mujeres en Desarrollo (MUDE)

 

Educational Sector:
Instituto Tecnológico de las Américas (Public Sector)
Ministry of Education
(Public Sector)
Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology (Public Sector)
Univ