DDP 708. Luis Osin. "Dimensiones de Cambio en los Sistemas Educativos de América Latina." (Dimensions of Change in the Education Systems of Latin America) June 1999. 19 pp. Central America Project Series

The crisis of the educational system is felt in diverse strata: economical, technical, and personal. A high percentage of youth who finish primary and even secondary education do not master essential knowledge to live a useful life. Many teachers feel an increasing frustration, with a sensation of non-productive attrition. Students and teachers are not responsible for this situation, which is the consequence of an erroneous conception of the educational system, reflected in the way it is structured. To help solving this crisis, we propose changes in four dimensions. 1) The present “synchronous” education, which assumes that all students must learn the same contents, at the same pace, must be substituted by an “asynchronous” education, allowing each student to learn according to his/her capabilities and learning speed, 2) Massive education, inherited from the Industrial Revolution, should be transformed into personalized education, 3) Expository teaching, teacher-centered education, should give way to student-centered learning activities, 4) Learning should be planned not only for students, but for teachers also.

Keywords: School reform, adaptive education, learning projects, cooperative learning, learning communities, information technology, reform implementation.

JEL codes: I20, I21, N36

Luis Osin, from Uruguay, was the director of the Department of Computers in Instruction, at the Centre for Educational Technology (CET), Israel, from 1976 to 1994. He determined the strategy for the integration of computers within school educational activities, serving more than 700 schools (with nearly 200,000 pupils), and directing the production of some 200 courseware titles. He has been a visiting professor at universities in Israel and the United States, has written books on information technology and mathematical analysis, and is a consultant to the Instituto Latinoamericano de la Comunicación Educativa and the World Bank. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Israel Institute of Technology.