Latin America and the Caribbean

The Education Model for Life and Work (Modelo Educación para la Vida y el Trabajo, MEVyT) is an innovative basic education model for youth and adult learners in Mexico. The programme is a cooperative effort of the National Institute of Adult Education (INEA) and Federal States Adult Education Institutions (IEEAs) and was launched in 2001. It offers an opportunity for youths and adults who do not have sufficient formal education to renew their studies through distance education and other means of learning. Participating in the programme gives the learners an opportunity to obtain accredited and officially recognized 6th- and 9th-grade qualifications. The key component of the programme is literacy learning combined with skills training, creating a flexible model of autonomous learning. It offers not only basic modules on language and certain skills but also special modules designed for disadvantaged social groups, promoting inclusivity. In addition to developing basic and essential skills and facilitating individual development, as well as building an inclusive community, it aims to promote gender equality, raise awareness of human rights and strengthen humanistic values that ensure good citizenship (UIL, 2016).

The ChileValora initiative (CV) was formally established in 2008 with the objective of improving job mobility and employability for people with little or no formal education. It was launched to support productivity and help people progress in education and training by establishing a nationwide system for validation and certification of labour skills within a pre-defined framework of standards. Another key objective of the initiative is to promote lifelong learning and further education and training.

At the end of the twentieth century Medellín, Colombia, was notorious for its crime rate – reaching 368 homicides per 100,000 individuals, excessive drug trafficking and high poverty level. Thanks to the implementation of lifelong learning strategies and continuous efforts of both private and public sectors and civic engagement, Medellín has managed to transform drastically and become a creative, proactive learning city. In 2017, the homicide rate was lowered to 19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, with the poverty rate dropping from 22 per cent to 12 per cent (Learning Cities Networks, Medellín, n.d.).

The community colleges and universities in the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina in the south of Brazil emerged between 1940 and 1960 as community-based initiatives with the intention of engaging the local population seeking access to higher education. The distinctiveness of community universities (often referred to as Community Higher Education Institutions, CHEIs) is reflected in their hybrid state: combining the characteristics of both state and private organizations, they cannot be defined as either. Their non-profit and non-religious status, as well as their hybrid governing mode and their aims of social, economic and cultural development, ensure inclusion and result in management structures that enable local community representation and a democratic decision-making process. (Fioreze and McCowan, 2018).

CommUniversity, an initiative of the University of Technology (UTech) in Jamaica, is an ‘outreach intervention to create a local community-university network to collaborate learning, exchange of ideas and knowledge for enhancement of life and prosperity, through partnerships with public, private agencies, and individuals’ (Bartley-Bryan, 2013, p. 2). The concept of the CommUniversity is aligned to one of the UTech strategic goals for national impact: assisting local communities in building their capacities for learning, growth and development.