Centers of Excellence for Teacher Training Formally Launched in El Salvador

At Copinalito Elementary School in Tejutla, Chalatenango Department, Tully Cornick, Deputy Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in El Salvador and Salvadoran Education Minister Rolando Marín presided over the formal inauguration in El Salvador of the Centers of Excellence in Teacher Training (CETT). This education initiative to improve learning and literacy for children in the Western Hemisphere was announced by President George W. Bush at the Summit of the Americas in April 2001.

The training centers in El Salvador will provide teaching workshops and materials to 100 primary school teachers in 84 schools in rural areas of the Department of Chalatenango, with the goal of strengthening the teaching of reading in the classroom for some 2000 students in the first, second, and third grades. The CETT in El Salvador is administered by USAID and carried out by the private educational-development foundation known as FEPADE.