The goal of this study is to analyze the changes in the regulation and practices of school infrastructure management in Latin American and the Caribbean. 

The goal of this study is to provide an analytical vision of alternative methods of school infrastructure execution relevant to Latin America and the Caribbean. The document seeks to facilitate the understanding of these methods and to provide tools to facilitate their replication and adequacy for successful implementation in the region. 

This study aims to diagnose and compare the school infrastructure management processes of the different countries in the region to identify common challenges. It also focuses on identifying areas of improvement of each country and better practices that could be replicated in other parts of the region.

This note provides a brief explanation of the basic concepts related to disaster risk management. The primary threats and conditions of vulnerability to disasters will be detailed, with a focus on six selected countries: Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico.

This technical note contains information, criteria, and ideas compiled during direct interactions with public officials working in the fields of education and school building in Argentina, Barbados, the City of Bogotá, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, and the Province of Buenos Aires. It also includes the results of the author's own observations made during visits to a large number of educational institutions in those countries and from reading official technical and strategic documents available on the subject.

As a general rule, regional educational systems have dissimilar school building patters, with many dating back to the 19th, or buildings that have responded to various architectural, pedagogical, as well as political currents and that have been adapted more or less successfully to today's requirements. At the same time, investment in recent years has favored the emergence of modern buildings with greater comfort levels, better suited to changes in teaching and learning processes, including the use of technology and computing, accessibility, and community participation.

The study of comfort levels considers the factors that affect the balance between the body and its environment in buildings in order to ensure that classrooms fall within what are referred to as "comfort zones", or in some cases, "life zones". There is a need to provide a suitable design that can provide the parameters and elements with which to generate concrete solutions.

Several Caribbean countries are now considering the use of PPPs to modernize their infrastructure and improve the delivery of public services, with Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago currently providing the most advanced examples in terms of the institutional arrangements that have been put in place. Trinidad and Tobago is currently undertaking preliminary detailed analysis to determine the potential value for money of two pilot projects involving, among other things, the PPP-based procurement of 10 early-childhoods education centers and 10 primary schools.

The objective of this chapter is to provide the tools needed to support the governments of Latin American countries in assessing potential operations and opportunities that can be carried out as PPPs, a mechanism which facilitates the development of these countries by promoting the participation of the private sector in the provision and funding for infrastructures, facilities, and educational sector services

The process of developing a methodology for the management of school infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean began with an analysis and discussion of types of variables, common content, and unified criteria across this group of countries. This produced a definition of school infrastructure as well as implications for managing it in accordance with each country's legislation, plans, and policies. Countries recognizing educational infrastructure as a key factor in improving the quality of education, are including in their national policies the need to build, renovate, and maintain the physical plant of the schools.

This series of notes summarizes work performed by the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean under the Project “Learning in Twenty-First Century Schools”, a Technical Cooperation on Regional Public Goods funded by the IDB. The project's main aim was to study the states and challenges of schools infrastructure, to suggest solutions, and to encourage the adoption of subregional building standards. In general, all recognized the need to have a workable system for school maintenance and a flexible, real-time way of keeping track of the state of t

In 2010 the Education Network organized an event that examined the state of school infrastructure in the region and the financial role of the private sector. Infrastructure and Learning in the Twenty-First Century was held in Santiago, Chile, on October 26 and 27, 2010. This book contains the presentations made at the conference, edited and, in some cases, revised for publication. The chapters of the book follow the conference agenda, which focused on designing, financing, building, and maintaining school buildings.

La selección del sitio adecuado para la ubicación de un edificio es uno de los aspectos críticos que surge en el inicio de un proyecto de infraestructura, y tiene incidencia en el ciclo de vida del proyecto. 

Para la elaboración de diseños de infraestructura social existen varias modalidades: pueden ser realizados por el propio personal de la unidad ejecutora o de otra institución pública del país prestatario, pueden contratarse consultores individuales o una firma consultora especializada y luego, en un proceso independiente del anterior, contratarse la construcción, o puede contratarse una empresa responsable tanto de la realización de los diseños como de la construcción de estos mediante un contrato de diseño y construcción.

Además del suministro de un insumo esencial para el funcionamiento de una edificación como lo es la energía eléctrica, el empleo de la energía solar fotovoltaica puede perseguir objetivos económicos, al reducir el costo del suministro de energía, y ambientales, al sustituir una fuente de energía contaminante por una fuente de energía limpia. + SOL + LUZ pone a la mano de cualquier persona, en un lenguaje y formato simple, las respuestas a muchas de las inquietudes en cuanto a qué son los sistemas fotovoltaicos, cómo funcionan, por qué utilizarlos, cómo calcular su costo, dónde es posible emplearlos, qué se requiere para emplearlos, cómo dimensionarlos, cómo instalarlos y cómo operarlos y mantenerlos. 

This analysis investigates the characteristics of school infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean, using information from TERCE comparatively around the concepts of sufficiency, equity and effectiveness. It enquires whether schools in LAC are adequate and sufficient to ensure learning; examines how school spaces are distributed, according to geographical area of the students and their socioeconomic and cultural status; and looks at the effectiveness between physical resources within schools and learning.

Educational spaces, apart from their functionality and efficient use of natural resources, should be conducive to learning and offer comfort and security to the people entering them. This requires construction and maintenance processes that keep in mind both the occupants and the environmental conditions that surround them.

This study explores the state of infrastructure in the region's primary education schools, using the SERCE database, and analyzes the connection between school infrastructure conditions and student performance tests results. The results of the analysis indicate that school infrastructure and the access to basic services (electricity, water, sewerage and telephone) in the region's schools are highly deficient; there exists a large disparity between countries as well as between private urban, public urban and public rural schools; and there are large gaps between schools with children from high income families and schools with children from low income families.