Berkley Center

Background: As part of the Education and Global Social Justice Project, in May 2012 undergraduate student Charlotte Markson interviewed Rosina Pérez of the Catholic University of Uruguay and Mora Podestá of Fe y Alegría Uruguay. In this interview, Pérez and Modestá discuss their organizations' common goals, progress in improving educational quality, and challenges that they face.

What is the focus of Fe y Alegría Uruguay?

Mora Podesta: Fe y Alegría Uruguay, just like all the other Fe y Alegría branches, works towards the education of the poorest part of the population, as the Jesuit Father Vélaz proposed it. In Uruguay we have a special focus on educational quality.

Fe y Alegría Uruguay started its work in cooperation with the Catholic University, and the department for educational policy and management in particular. This department already has a lot of experience in the subject area of educational quality, and has been working with a system for quality control and improvement for the past six years. We suggested Fe y Alegría use the same system, because we had seen good results in this country with this particular methodology. Nowadays, educational quality is strongly tied to the area of information and communication technology (TICs).

Tell me about the XO computer [a durable laptop created for diverse educational settings] and other information and communication technologies.

Rosina Pérez: The government’s “Ceibal Plan” gave every public school student and every teacher a computer. These are special computers, however, because their operating system is particularly designed for educational purposes. Because teachers weren’t trained to use them before they were introduced, many do not know how to navigate the computers.

For the children with whom Fe y Alegría works, the use of computers is especially important when trying to improve social justice and equality. The only point of access these children have to technology is by using their XO computers, and if teachers don’t use them in class, children will only use them to play and communicate with each other. Obviously the computer has a potential for learning that goes far beyond that.

At Fe y Alegría we evaluated the TICs’ impact, and realized that while children were learning many things, the educational practices in the classroom, which stem from the nineteenth century, need to be adapted to students from the twenty-first century.

In this context I proposed a group project to help teachers learn about these technologies, by using a closed Facebook group that all Fe y Alegría faculty have access to. There are about 60 members in the group right now, and we are making progress. Obviously change in education is not achieved from one day to the next, but I do believe that there is a lot of enthusiasm now to change something. The teachers are discovering interesting new tools, and now they need to start using them in the classroom context. We want the TICs to add value to any subject area that is discussed in the classroom, as it can be used when traditional means are not sufficient. The final goals is for teachers to share things they have developed for a certain lesson plan with each other, so it becomes a nutritive process for everybody.

Podesta: As opposed to last year the level of participation has increased significantly, so one can tell that the motivation among teachers to learn about these things has risen.

What is the educational quality improvement program?

Podesta: Educational quality is usually linked to centers that have the resources to maintain it and invest in it. But because everyone has a right to a quality education, we decided to work with a system of quality evaluation that could be applied to all Fe y Alegría schools that were interested. The system lets schools self-evaluate, and let them discover their strengths, weaknesses and areas where they can improve.

This self and external evaluation tool is applied to different areas such as the institutions’ different areas, the curriculum, the organizational structure, the classroom atmosphere, the individual accompaniment of every student, resources, and work done with every family. When we started working with Fe y Alegría they decided to add an additional dimension, which is the area of school ministry.

If a center decides to use this tool it starts a process that involves the entire center, it is not simply applied from the outside. It requires work from the entire faculty and directorship, and looks to see whether the center has a clear vision for its work and what the center defines as “quality” in its particular context. It is an empowering tool, which is the same for every center, but which calls for an individual process in every individual context. We accompany this process, but the centers’ motivation to work on these issues is of fundamental importance. If there is not inner conviction that this work needs to be done it cannot be achieved.

But once these preconditions are reached, the success rate is high. Today, for instance San Adolfo has a curriculum, which is clearly defined and was reached by consensus with the entire faculty. This school is following its strategic plan and accomplishing its goals. Don Bosco developed a strong project concerning communication and cooperation with its students’ families.

The important thing is that this is a self-evaluation, which is based on very rigid standards. The indicators are clear and well defined, and every school has a facilitator to work with. It is important to see which standards are met and which are not, and you can’t acquiesce to “more or less.” The facilitators are there to help keep the self-evaluation critical.

Since the Catholic University already had such a program before Fe y Alegría Uruguay, there was already an established team working on this program. Many of these people now work for Fe y Alegría. Of course when the program was introduced in Fe y Alegría new components were added, but a lot is the same as before.

What are some common challenges among educational centers?

Podesta: Most of the Fe y Alegría centers are concerned and challenged with creating good relationships faculty and their students, and faculty and their students’ families. Sometimes teachers are extremely qualified in their subject area, but lack the necessary training in order to meet other standards of being a teacher such as communicating well with their students.

Another challenge is the curriculum offered in schools. While there is an official curriculum, which should be followed, every school designs its own personalized version based off of this. But oftentimes schools don’t succeed in developing their own program, and simply follow the standardized version.

Pérez: Schools also don’t have established processes of self-evaluation and often lack internal debate, which is need in order to achieve consensus on even simple matters. In terms of educational quality I would not say that all schools are lacking. But is important to keep evaluating whether one’s work is meeting the necessary standard. Combining the focus Fe y Alegría has on providing the poor with quality education with the academic contribution the university has made, I think we have developed something valuable. Obviously there is still a lot of work to be done, but at least we have our focus set. We deal with very poor centers, but we believe they can achieve their goals.

Could you evaluate the current situation?

Pérez: I see a concern and commitment to educational quality today which people were not concerned about a year ago. We don’t know how this process will end, and there are still many conflicts to resolve, many of them being personal conflicts which teachers have to work through. But conflict, if it makes us think and reflect, is better than simply always doing the same thing. So I believe an important step has been made.

I also see that directors of schools, who were completely opposed to letting their students use technology in the classrooms, because they did not know how to use them themselves, are opening up to the idea. Nowadays they say that their foremost interest is the student’s learning so that they can integrate into society as well as possible, and they are ready to do whatever is necessary to accomplish this. This openness which was not present a year ago is already an important step which goes beyond simple grades.

We still have a long and difficult path in front of us, but at least we are moving. Changes in education are slow processes. The fact that we have started evaluating and questioning ourselves I think is an important improvement.