USAID Partners With Scholastic Inc. to Help Caribbean Youth Learn to Read
WASHINGTON, DC 20523
PRESS OFFICE
http://www.usaid.gov/
Press: (202) 712-4320
Public Information: (202) 712-4810
2003-097
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 5, 2003
Contact: USAID Press Office
Washington, DC - As part of President George W. Bush's initiative to improve basic "learning and literacy" throughout the Western Hemisphere, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced today that it has joined with Scholastic Inc., the world's largest publisher of children's books, to improve the education of children throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Over the first five years of the program, this initiative will strengthen reading instruction throughout the hemisphere and increase the reading skills of more than one million primary schools students
"Scholastic provides high quality reading materials for school libraries and teachers," said Karen Harbert, USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean. "They are the perfect partner for the Centers of Excellence for Teacher Training (CETT) program due to their ongoing corporate commitment to provide families and educators with materials to help all children maximize their reading potential."
"Scholastic believes children will become lifelong readers and learners if provided with access to wonderful books supported by strong teaching," said Hugh Roome, President of Scholastic International Group. "We are very proud to play a role in this important initiative by donating 150,000 books throughout the Caribbean, and we are particularly pleased to also offer classroom resources to teachers in the region."
The CETT program is a public-private partnership with additional funding to come from the private sector in the United States and the Latin America and Caribbean region. USAID is committing a total of $20 million to the CETT program. To date, a total of $4 million has been allocated to the Caribbean CETT.
The objective of the program is to improve teacher and school administrator quality and to improve the quality of reading instruction in the classroom, with special emphasis on poorer countries and teachers who work in disadvantaged communities. The focus of the program will be on improving reading instruction in grades one through three by upgrading the knowledge and pedagogical skills of poorly qualified teachers. Overall, the CETT Program will enhance the skills of over 15,000 teachers by providing continuing education courses and reading techniques for primary school teachers, as well
as learning resources to participating primary schools and colleges that offer degrees in education. In addition to the learning resources, newly trained teachers will receive at least six hours of course work in reading education methods to ensure that educators are instilling "best practices" in the classroom. The program is targeted to reach one million students over five years.
The program will serve the reading instruction needs of teachers through five program components:
- The training-of-trainers program will provide the opportunity to teachers and school administrators to take the training they received back to their communities and instruct others. Teachers and school administrators will be introduced to effective reading methodology and classroom management techniques;
- Development of diagnostic tools to enable teachers to identify and address student weaknesses;
- Development of materials for teachers to use to improve their reading instruction;
- Applied research to ensure the effectiveness of training, tools, and materials; and
- Through the use of information and communications technology, the CETT program will create an Internet portal for teachers and a clearinghouse of training materials and URLs to training institutions, think tanks, schools and universities.
Over three years, Scholastic will donate a total of 150,000 books to school-aged children throughout the English-speaking Caribbean. Fifty thousand children's books will be delivered to schools in Jamaica, St. Lucia, Belize, Guyana and St. Vincent and the Grenadines in January 2004. These books will help train a total of 2,300 teachers and help 69,000 children learn to read in the first year.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has provided economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for more than 40 years.
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