 |
| Bill Blank, Eduardo Rey-Aguirre (ProAndes-Talcahuano Director), Victor Hernandez, and Barham Madaín (ProAndes CFT President). |
The International Seminar was organized by the City of
Talcahuano and ProAndes—a postsecondary institution offering technical education
endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce in Chile. Representatives from different
sectors in Chile contributed with presentations describing current trends in
technical and professional education and proposals for related reforms. As part
of this conversation, Bill Blank and Victor Hernandez, Career and Workforce
Education faculty at the University of South Florida, shared the experience in
the United States. Victor Hernandez described the historical factors shaping
career and technical education, while Bill Blank described the premises and
specific strategies for the integration of career and academic education.
The interest in Chile is in technical education reforms
leading to coherent policies for program development in alignment with demand
for specific skills in the labor market as outlined by Carlos Figueroa Salazar
of Educación 2020 and Hernán Araneda representing the Foundation for Human
Capital and Innovation in Chile. In this context, Eduardo Rey-Aguirre, Director
of ProAndes-Talcahuano, shared plans for specific strategies calling for the
articulation of secondary and postsecondary education under a 2+1 plan. That
is, to develop articulation agreements to align the last two years of high
school with the first year of postsecondary education in technician preparation
and make related curricular pathways more coherent.
By all accounts, the Seminar was a success as demonstrated by an overflow of attendance during the second day when planning meetings were scheduled to follow up with planning conversations. Much of the credit for spearheading this conversation on technical education reform goes to the City of Talcahuano, ProAndes, and the Chamber of Commerce—the organizations providing the leadership for this movement.
By all accounts, the Seminar was a success as demonstrated by an overflow of attendance during the second day when planning meetings were scheduled to follow up with planning conversations. Much of the credit for spearheading this conversation on technical education reform goes to the City of Talcahuano, ProAndes, and the Chamber of Commerce—the organizations providing the leadership for this movement.
