We are pleased to share with you the most recent edition of PREAL’s Best Practices Series, No. 40, “Private Sector Initiatives to Increase the Status of the Teaching Profession” (Iniciativas desde el ambito privado para elevar la valoración social de la docencia).”

This edition highlights private sector initiatives in Chile, Guatemala, and Peru that seek to promote the contributions that teachers make to society and, as a result, attract strong candidates to the profession. Each emerged from the private sector but have been implemented with government support.

The first is “Choose to Educate” (Elige Educar), an initiative in Chile that includes several methods to attract young people to the teaching profession. By 2014, the initiative aims to have all teacher candidates come from the top 30% of high school students and to ensure that teaching is one of the country’s five most prestigious careers. The other two experiences seek to recognize the work of effective teachers so as to call attention to their work within society. The “100 Point Teacher Prize” (Premio Maestro 100 Puntos) in Guatemala identifies best practices in the classroom and innovative projects from the best teachers, so that they can be replicated by other teachers. The other prize is the “Teacher Who Leaves a Mark” (Maestro que deja Huella), implemented in Peru to identify and disseminate teacher practices that have a positive impact on students.