Xavier Ureta and Pere Puig, Professors from the Faculty of Education in UIC Barcelona, recently travelled to Guatemala. There they taught sessions to teachers from rural schools and FUNDAP trainers, a foundation that was set up to fight against poverty and which our university holds an cooperation agreement. This agreement means that students taking a Bachelor's Degree in Primary Education can travel to this South American country to undertake work experience.
Guatemala is a country which, via the current Minister of Education, Oscar Hugo López Rivas, formerly Dean of the Faculty of Education at the San Carlos State University, aims to qualitatively improve in this field. The Faculty of Education at UIC Barcelona has been aiming to achieve this progress for some time.
Professors Xavier Ureta and Pere Puig attended due to funding they received from a project in the Belgian government, through the Association for Comprehensive Development and Training (APDIF), of which Puig is secretary.
One way to help is to ensure that “professors provide experience and knowledge”, explained Xavier Ureta. In fact, he continued, “they are also doing very good work here in the field of health”.
Each year, the Faculty of Education provides “a couple of students from fourth year who are doing a work placement and, when they ask for it, a professor who is an expert in a specific area to give classes to the educators in this country”. The current two students are Pol Budó and Celia Fernández. “They are both doing an admirable job of providing support in schools and in the FUNDAP headquarters. Their supervisors are very happy with them- said the Professor- they have been here since the first of February doing their work placement and they already have a huge number of accumulated experiences”.
