UNESCO delivers the outcomes of the Pedagogical and Curricular Congress to the Chilean Ministry of Education

The congress was a process that had wide voluntary participation from school communities, individuals, and civil society organizations from all regions of the country, totaling more than 812,000 members of educational communities, representing 14.7% of Early Childhood and school education. During the Pedagogical and Curricular Congress, discussions were based on a questionnaire designed by the Ministry of Education, dialogues were held, and minutes with agreements were completed.

Participants emphasized the relevance of transversal skills taught in the classroom, the desire of students to learn in educational environments that allow contact with nature, and teaching methodologies that establish connections with experience and enable the development of skills for students' personal development.

At the seminar, the UNESCO MultiSectoral Regional Office in Santiago delivered the executive report of results on the Pedagogical and Curricular Congress, offering some recommendations to the Ministry of Education, including: reviewing the balances between thematic contents, specific and transversal skills in Early Childhood Education; reviewing the balances among the subjects of the curriculum in the different educational cycles, to diversify curricular activities that promote reflection spaces; maintaining a prioritized national curriculum; promoting "pedagogy for life," meaning dynamic, varied, practical, and experiential, suitable for different educational levels; fostering dialogue between the curriculum and the activities held at school, among others.

Valtencir Mendes, the head of the Education Section of the UNESCO MultiSectoral Office in Santiago, indicated that these results of the Pedagogical and Curricular Congress "contribute to rethinking what it means to teach, learn, and be a community in enriching and innovative learning environments that foster a better response to such latent challenges as, for example, climate change, misinformation, and new technologies."

For his part, the Minister of Education of Chile, Nicolás Cataldo, highlighted that the congress was "the first effort made by the State to have a debate of these characteristics. In 1889, the tradition of pedagogical and curricular congresses was born, but all of them were organized and convened from the teaching world. Therefore, when talking about how we face the post-pandemic process and the backlogs being addressed through the Educational Reactivation Plan, we said 'we need to talk with educational communities', it's time to prepare the way, so that the curricular debate is a debate that nourishes the curricular discussion."

Ljubica Definis, one of the participants of the Pedagogical and Curricular Congress, in charge of Rinconcito Feliz, one of the 11 public kindergartens in the Arica and Parinacota region (in the north of Chile), commented on the participatory process of this: "We were super ambitious. We set out to have all families participate in this process. We knew we had the educational community's support, but we got a super positive response from the families. The families had a lot to say. This experience has been a success because it has allowed us to interact, communicate, and be part of a process."

Definis also referred to the need for an integrated curriculum in Chile and how to adopt it, following the results of the congress, and how this would contribute to educational transformation: "As a preschool educator, I see that our children leave the kindergarten, and somehow, the educational continuity is lost. Education should have a learning rhythm that matches the children's capacity," she added.