BARBADOS – The current landscape of education for democratic citizenship in the Caribbean takes center stage as Caribbean and hemispheric educators and experts gather in Barbados on July 12 and 13 for a stakeholder meeting on education for democratic citizenship in the Caribbean.
Organized by the Organization of American States (OAS) Department of Education and Culture under the Inter-American Program on Education for Democratic Values and Practices, the two-day stakeholder meeting will also analyze challenges and opportunities with respect to citizenship education. Participants are drawn from education ministries, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), universities, civil society and teacher training institutes, among others.
It will be the first meeting of stakeholders for a three-year project in the Caribbean that is being funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The project focuses on developing a distance course for educators in education for democratic citizenship. Laurie King, Acting Deputy Chief Education Officer for Planning Research and Development, Ministry of Education, Barbados will inaugurate the meeting, with Lenore Yaffee Garcia, Director of the OAS Department of Education and Culture, delivering the welcome and outline of the meeting’s goals.
Participants will, furthermore, discuss underlying themes such as essential elements of democracy in the Caribbean that should be reflected in what students learn and implications for the Caribbean Distance Course. An array of other topics will also be examined, including the presence of citizenship in pre-service and in-service teacher preparation programs; implementation issues in monitoring and evaluation; creating synergies and building sustainability for the project; and identifying and communicating best practices in the area of education for democratic citizenship.
Specific recommendations emerging from the meeting will be used to craft the content of the course through amendment and adaptation of the content of a similar course based on the principles of the Inter-American Democratic Charter that was originally created in the Spanish language by the OAS and partner organizations and piloted by the Ministry of Education of Peru in 2006.
