(Teachers UA Gran Chaco and Authorities – Digital Tools Training Workshop – Caiza June, 2023)
This year we are working with the Higher School for Teacher Training in the department of Tarija, which is made up of a central office in Canasmoro and two Academic Units also located in rural areas.
This month we visited for the first time the Gran Chaco Academic Unit located in the community of Caiza, a small town far from the urban area of Yacuiba in Chaco Tarijeño. The U.A. de Gran Chaco houses a total of 12 teachers who train regular education teachers, currently offering 5 specialties and has a total of 262 enrolled students.
It was very complex to agree on a calendar in Gran Chaco, I spent several months trying to agree on dates and times for the training processes, actions that were interrupted by communication problems due to the internet and telephone signal; or because the signal would not allow digital courses to be given, or the lack of availability of rooms on the scheduled dates. All this seemed very strange to me, until we managed to reach the place.
We find ourselves with an Academic Unit that does not have its own environments, which has always shared these with the Isaac Maldonado Reque Educational Unit and that it is with this educational nucleus that coordination must be carried out every time you want to do an extracurricular activity or that involves use of the environments, because in addition to passing the ESFM classes to those same environments, students from the surrounding area come to study at the school, so that in Caiza each year two schools operate in the same place.
Although the provided environments are comfortable, the situation is unusual and involves several difficulties along the way; but this has not stopped either the Academic Coordinator, or the teachers, and even less the students who aspire to be teachers, who meet all year round to train. This has undoubtedly caught our attention, because in this short visit we have seen how all these people are working so that, despite the adversities, they are able to continue with the training of students. Without a doubt, this experience motivates us to give our best and also to look for new paths that we can follow to support these teachers and students.
By:
Zorana Sfarcich Rojas
Tarija-Bolivia Coordinator