Education

1. Summit of the Americas, Miami, USA (December 1994)

The Miami Summit approved initiative 16, on "Universal Access to Education", the main points of which relate to: access to quality education; vocational training and adult education; technical, vocational and teacher training; greater access to higher education, of better quality; universal access to education for women; strategies to overcome nutritional deficiencies; and decentralization and community participation.

2. Between Summits (January 1995 – March 1998)

The consultation mechanisms on the Education initiative consisted of three principal meetings: a) Santiago, Chile, August 1997; b) Mexico City, November 1997; and c) Merida, Mexico, February 1998, where the ministers of education issued a Policy Declaration.

That declaration calls for a number of specific actions, including reducing illiteracy throughout the hemisphere, increasing investment in education, paying closer attention to the most disadvantaged groups, making greater use of new information technologies, reducing school drop-out rates, providing greater training opportunities for teachers, and establishing common indicators for comparing hemisphere-wide progress in the area of education.

At the Santiago and Mexico City meetings, a consensus emerged to the effect that the OAS, through the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CIDI), should serve as the forum for discussion on implementing education initiatives.