We know that mother tongue is the first language we acquire in our early childhood through our caregivers (parents, grandparents, siblings, and others). While it may seem like a natural process, providing services that empower caregivers to stimulate their children’s language development from an early age can make a big difference for a lifetime.
The gender gap in mathematics is closing in Latin America and the Caribbean. Girls are on par with boys in most participating countries in the most recent regional standardized test. Yet, they continue to be underrepresented in courses and careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Research often attributes the lack of women and girls in STEM to stereotypes and discrimination.
My first trip to Salvador, Bahia was in 1996 during one of the many renovation waves of historic Pelorinho. I was traveling with my mother and as we walked around the historic center, we could feel that things were changing. There was a sense of uncertainty about who would be the future occupants of this community. One of our tour guides even told us if you come back, “we” may not even be here. It was if places were being cleaned up and maybe even cleaned out to make them better, without the people or a sense of their belonging and the human elements of design.
This paper studies whether household surveys precisely identify the LGBT population and are suitable to measure labor market discrimination in Colombia. We first quantify the size of the LGBT population and estimate labor market inequalities from these data, highlighting potential pitfalls from using this approach. We then present findings from a list experiment in Bogotá, Colombia. Results show that household surveys underestimate the size of the LGBT population and may yield biased estimates of labor market inequalities.
Is it goodbye to teachers? Is it goodbye to schooling as we know it? Will it lead to reinventing education, schools, and educators? ChatGPT, an innovative tool that answers questions about almost anything, was released toward the end of 2022. Put this way, it would seem like the exact old wine in a new bottle. After all, Google and Wikipedia have been doing this for decades.
From 2018 to 2020, we conducted a groundbreaking, nationwide study in Mexico to assess service quality at public child care centers for children under three. The assessment is representative at the national level of the main child care models. We gathered evidence from 245 centers, 426 classrooms, and 2,115 children attending the centers throughout the country, as well as from their households, in order to identify specific interventions to promote child development at the centers.
Our guest author for this blog is the artificial intelligence platform known as GPT. We asked GPT to tell us what are the main challenges to digital transformation in health in the region. Our Editorial Committee did not add any subtitles, hyperlinks or make any edits. So, here is the result:
Measuring 21st century skills is one of the most important tasks of education and training systems. Measurement is what allows program managers to evaluate the effectiveness of a particular education program, diagnose the needs of individual students, or assess their development over time. Still, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and around the world face challenges in this area.
Addressing the challenges and the future of education involves recognizing that we are facing an unprecedented context, which is not solely the result of the pandemic and a complex global geopolitical and economic scenario. It is also a consequence of the structural issues that the region was already facing, combined with other persistent global challenges like climate change, migration, and conflict.
In this 21st century, when social change is occurring at a dizzying pace, societies are demanding that people develop an increasing number of the skills needed to navigate complex life challenges. These skills include resilience, critical thinking, and empathy, among others. What are the life skills that matter and how can education systems contribute to people’s prosperity?