J&A Awarded 2014 USAID Guatemala Education Project

April 2013by admin

Los Angeles, CA – April 2014

Juárez & Associates is proud to announce the USAID/Guatemala Lifelong Learning Education Project contract award.

The five year contract seeks to improve access to education by underserved populations such as indigenous children, girls, and out-of-school youth in Guatemala. It aims to better the overall quality of schooling in the country through two components:

  • Learning to Read in the early years of education
  • Education for Employment and Lifelong Learning.

Lifelong learning is a human self-driven motivation that reaches all aspects of life, enhancing social inclusion, autonomy and responsible citizenship, competitiveness, employability, personal development and a sense of wellbeing. It is not confined to formal education but occurs on an ongoing basis. In a modern society, lifelong learning also rests with persons having appropriate and complex enough reading skills. The project’s aim is to impact both learning to read and reading to learn.

To this end, the project will provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Education to increase teacher effectiveness; improve classroom learning environments as well as first and second language (Mayan languages and Spanish) acquisition and reading performance; and expand parents’ and stakeholder participation in student learning. It is particularly exciting that youth in the Western Highlands region of Guatemala will also be the focus of the project. Interventions will enable youth in Quetzaltenango, Huehuetenango, San Marcos, Totonicapán and Quiché to achieve greater economic self-reliance and higher levels of civic engagement and educational achievement through increased education and through economic and civic participation opportunities. The long term objective is to increase stability and economic growth in the regions benefiting from the project.

The USAID/Guatemala Lifelong Learning Education Project builds upon gains made in the last decade through the J&A/USAID/Ministry of Education partnerships in the Education Reform in the Classroom project (2009 – 2013), the Education Standards and Research Program (2005-2009), and previous programs of the USAID/Guatemala Better Educated Rural Society Strategy (1999-2004) to enhance equitable access to quality intercultural bilingual education. As a result, significant advances in Guatemalan education have been made in curriculum policy, teacher training, applied research, monitoring and evaluation, information technology and improved classroom management as well as systems to promote transparency and accountability through the public education system.

It is with great pleasure that J&A embarks in the launching of the USAID/Guatemala Lifelong Learning Education Project to further assist the Government of Guatemala to continue improving the quality of education and opportunities for future success of its children. J&A has a long history of providing technical assistance in Guatemala, where we have collaborated with USAID for over 35 years. Inclusive partnerships have been the cornerstone of our development model since the firm’s beginnings. It is within this spirit of cooperation that we continue our efforts to support the children of Guatemala in partnership with USAID, as well as local community stakeholders and families to create synergy to maximize potential results to beneficiaries.