Through the Guatemala Advanced Teacher Education (GATE) program, CoEd aims to improve the quality of education in Guatemalan classrooms by training instructors in modern teaching methods. Since the project’s inception in 2006, 40 teachers have participated. The program will expand to an additional 219 teachers in 44 mostly rural secondary schools in the coming year.

Teachers in rural Guatemala often use “chalk and talk” instructional methods that fail to engage students, resulting in boredom and low morale. Poorly trained teachers lack the tools needed to engender higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills in their students. CoEd designed GATE as a joint endeavor with the International Reading Association to train all textbook program teachers in advanced teaching techniques. These methods draw on international best practices that emphasize reading and writing for critical thinking. Through GATE, teachers will improve student outcomes and prepare rural youths to succeed in a complex world.