Good leadership is fundamental to better education. That’s why our ground-breaking work in Latin America focuses on transforming leadership in schools.
Programmes
Argentina is at the heart of the work we do in the region. Our Leadership and Innovation programme (PLIE, because of it's acronym in Spanish) has had a major impact. More than 3,800 school leaders have completed a six-week course that sparks transformational change in schools throughout the country.
The leaders we train create schools where innovative curricula and teacher education is championed and the community is engaged in school life.
This flagship programme, which has been supported by the Argentinian Department of Education, has helped thousands of pupils benefit from a higher quality education. Harvard Graduate School of Education recognised it in 2018 as a case study you can access here.
Furthermore, since 2016, many more programmes with focus in leadership and innovation have been delivered in the region.
To learn more about programmes in the Latam region, click here
Policy and research
The Latin-American Coalition For Excellence on Teaching is a network held by the Varkey Foundation, Inicia Educación and the Interamerican Dialogue in order to discuss, research and advise on teaching policies. It aims to promote the professionalisation of teaching so that all children and young people can count on the support and guidance of an excellent teacher. The network of more than 14 countries brings together academics, public policy makers, teachers and foundation directors.
You can learn more here.
- The Global School Leadership Network brings together school principals and experts to strengthen leadership roles in schools. The group focuses on understanding the characteristics of effective School Principals and their main challenges while empowering school leaders to become effective change agents. The group oversees leadership and its impact on education to generate innovative ways and ideas to strengthen principals’ and teachers’ leadership roles, facilitating them to be agents of change at their schools and supporting quality education. The group aims to reinforce educators’ voice within the academic and policy-makers community as well as other interested stakeholders.
The creation of the network is an initiative we promote with Global School Leaders as part of the Teacher Task Force promoted by UNESCO.
You can learn more here
Global Teacher Prize and National Teacher Prizes
We are very proud to celebrate the best teaching across Latin America through support for National Teacher Prizes in Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay and our $1 million Global Teacher Prize.
In 2021 Ana María Stelman from Argentina and Diana Rubio from Mexico were part of our Global Teacher Prize Top 10 finalists. Every year many Latam teachers make it to the Top 50 finalists - the community has more than 50 Latam members.