LITERACY & EDUCATION
Goals and Objectives:
To help the government of Belize improve their education system, by reducing the dropout rate of students and improving the achievement results on government standardized tests for students in the eighth grade.
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Development Context:
The Rotary Club of San Ignacio identified (in cooperation with the Belize Ministry of Education) a distance learning educational project that would assist the country to raise its educational outcomes, improve its educational communications infrastructure, and reduce its significant student dropout rates between “junior” and senior high school levels. A group of District 5370 representatives traveled to Belize and worked with members of the San Ignacio club and the Ministry of Education in Belize to select and define the project.
Subsequent to this a 3-H (Health, Hunger and Humanity) Grant Application was developed by representatives of the San Ignacio Rotary Club and those of Rotary International District 5370, and submitted to the Rotary Foundation. Rotary International District 5370, the Rotary Club of San Ignacio (D4250) and the Government of Belize signed a Memorandum of Understanding on February 21st, 2008. This memorandum stated that, subject to the approval and funding of the 3-H Grant Application by the Rotary Foundation, the parties agreed to the following project components:
Organizational Information:
- First Phase:
- Master teacher training in Belize plus educational infrastructure improvement. These activities will be completed under auspices of the 3H Grant (completion March 31, 2011).
- Second Phase:Pilot delivery of distributed learning in selected schools using laptops connected to a high speed network (completion March 31, 2012).
- In this phase the Belize Ministry of Education will be directly involved in selecting the pilot schools, receiving the required technical training and supporting the teachers that will be providing distributed learning for their students.
- This phase will be completed under auspices of the CRCID application and corollary Rotarian projects that support this program.
