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IDB funds innovative agricultural technical education in Ecuador

1.5 million students benefitting from the project

More than 200 students in the Agricultural Technical Education Experimental Unit in Limoncito, Guayaquil, Ecuador, are participating in a educational project founded on the methodology "learning by doing."

At the school in Limoncito, which is located on six hectares of land, the students receive secondary technical education in agriculture. About 80 percent of the students live at the school.

Instruction is carried out in the classrooms as well as in agricultural plots and farm buildings.The students learn beekeeping, animal husbandry, crop production, tree and fruit nurseries, and traditional subjects such as mathematics, history, science, English, theater, among others.

Gardens and orchards tended by the students provide food for the school. A project is being developed to supply products to the local community, which would make these agricultural activities self-sustaining.

The school is one of eight similar institutions participating in the project Support for the Universalization of Basic Education, which is being carried out by the Ministry of Education with support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) since 2007.

The project, financed by a $296 million IDB loan, is benefiting 1.5 million students and is expected to be completed in June 2011.

The Millennium Educational Units being used in the project are experimental, high-level initiatives based on inclusion and modern and innovative technical, administrative, pedagogical, and architectural concepts. They are part of a new public education concept being carried out in accordance with current Ecuadoran legislation and the country’s Ten-Year Plan.

The project’s aim is to support the strategy of providing 10 years of universal basic education in border, rural, and low-income urban areas through improvements in the quality, equity, and internal efficiency of education.

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