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Our Work

 

 

 

 

 

Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning System

for the Leadership School program –

National Ministry of Education, Colombia

 

 

For the first time, the National Ministry of Education implemented the Leadership School Program in partnership with the Businessmen for Education Foundation. The Leadership School Program is a national initiative to train school principals and academic heads from public schools in leadership skills. The program was implemented by 8 different universities in different regions of the country. CED designed and implemented a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning System that involved more than 500 school leaders. This project involved the design and analysis of surveys and interviews using a 360º system that involved more than 2,300 surveys, 256 interviews, and 253 document revisions. The system allowed identifying key strategic areas for strengthening leadership in schools, y laid out the basis for future strategies for monitoring of evaluation for the Leadership School Program.

 

CED did a series of comparative studies in several cities in Colombia and Latin America for Gray Matters Capital, an impact investment fund based in Atlanta. The studies focused on private schools. Three studies were made:

 

  1. Colombia, 6 cities: Bogota, Medellin, Cali, Cartagena, Barranquilla y Bucaramanga.
    1. Pertaining laws and regulations
    2. Demographic and economic indicators
    3. Change trends in the public and private sectors: coverage, enrollment, number of schools.
    4. Low-cost private schools: income, costs, and availability of financial services.
  2. America, 5 cities: Bogota, Lima, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo y Mexico City.
    1. For each one of the cities a report was made with the following structure:
        1. Pertaining laws and regulations
        2. Demographic and economic indicators
        3. Change trends in the public and private sectors: coverage, enrollment, number of schools.
        4. Low-cost private schools: income, costs, and availability of financial services.
    2. Comparative report of the five cities concerning market potential

 

 

 

 

 

Comparative Studies of the Private Education Sector in Latin America

 

 

 

 

  1. Field study, Latin America: Six metropolitan areas: Bogotá, Lima, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, México City, and the Valley of México. The CED assembled local research teams in each city coordinated from Bogota and New York to collect the following information:
    1. Georeferenced private school database: 5,312 schools
    2. Characterization of the finances and context of 385 schools via visits and in-person interviews and surveys with owners and principals.
    3. Characterization of school’s and communities’ financial needs
   

 

 

Support strategies for student’s academic success

 

 

 

As a result of this intervention, there were marked reductions in the percentage of failing students in the courses of participating faculty. These reductions differed significantly from the reductions in the academic period immediately before the intervention.

 

CED conducted two professional development programs for El Bosque University in Bogotá, Colombia.

  1. The first was a training and follow-up semester-long program for 51 faculty members. The program was about curriculum design and teaching for the promotion of academic success and learning for students. Participating faculty taught at different schools and programs at the university (i.e. physics, arts, law, medicine). This professional development program included:
    1. An intensive, 40-hour, week-long course on evaluation-centered curriculum/instructional design and teaching.
    2. Design of teaching innovations and evaluation instruments to be implemented during the semester
    3. Individualized follow-up by a team of five CED consultants to support the implementation of the teaching and evaluation innovations.
 
  1. Two intensive workshops, each 8 hours long on evaluation strategies for 110 faculty members from all schools and academic programs in the university

 

 

 

 

 

     

Participatory Education for Water Protection

 

CED was in charge of designing, developing, and implementing the professional development component and beneficiaries product evaluation for an environmental education program supported by the Fondo Accion foundation, the Colombian National Science Agency (Colciencias), the National University of Colombia, the Antioquia’s department Center for Science and Technology (CTA), and the SieNi association, a not-for-profit organization of Colombian citizens in Switzerland. CED participated in several key project activities such as:

 

  1. Project design in its pre-operational stage, in partnership with the SieNi foundation.
  2. Design of professional development workshops for training 23 teachers from rural schools in the same number of municipalities in the department of Antioquia, Colombia.
  3. Evaluation of the final products of the “water teams”. Water Teams were teams of between 10 to 15 students led by a school teacher in each of the participating schools. The water teams had as goal to make a diagnostic of the state of their local water sources and propose a plan for its improvement.
 

This project was aimed at making a systematic collection of information for the processes of the project “Closing the gap between evidence and actions: building capabilities and advocacy to address chronic-non transmissible diseases in Colombia”, for the FES Social foundation, a preeminent Colombian NGO. Data collection involved reviewing project documents and interviews in several cities in Colombia: Pasto (Nariño), Tunja (Boyaca), Quibdo (Choco), and Soledad (Atlantico). The Project was aimed at learning lessons for project improvement.

 

 

 

 

Closing the gap between evidence and action in public health

 
     

 

Peace Games – Colombian Ministry of Education

 

CED implemented the “Peace Games” project, a program for peace and citizenship education in the Putumayo department in Colombia. The Putumayo department is a region of the country where several manifestations of the Colombian armed conflict (guerillas, drug trafficking) are still visible. CED developed a professional development program addressed to teachers for the implementation of Peace Games. This involved the follow-up and on-the-field support for participant teachers in rural schools. The program impacted 12 rural schools in Putumayo, 77 school teachers, and 111 parents. During the term of the project, which was one academic semester, 84 visits and 103 class observations were done for the project. This project was supported by the National Ministry of Education of Colombia, with funding from the World Bank.

 

 

This project had as goal guiding teachers, school counselors, and school peace promoters from several public schools in Bogota to build proposals to develop concrete actions to promote the city’s public policy on Human Rights.

 

It involved conducting a 12-hour workshop for 118 public school teachers, school counselors, and school peace promoters. Participants’ proposals for action were collected and synthesized for Bogota’s Education Secretary. This project was supported by an education specialized Colombian publishing house, Editorial Magisterio.

 

 

 

 

Incorporating public policy on Human Rights in School Curricula

 

Professional Development for Faculty,

Politécnico Internacional, Bogotá.

 

This professional development program had as goal training a group of 20 faculty from the Politécnico Internacional, a 3-year job-training higher education institution in Bogotá, Colombia. The project involved five 4-hour long training sessions for faculty to given them tools so they could support their students in basic reading and writing skills. This support was needed for a national mandatory scholastic test required for students to graduate from any post-secondary education program in Colombia. This test is administered by the Colombian National Testing Agency (ICFES)