During the visit to the United States by President Michelle Bachelet and her meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House on June 30th, both governments highlighted U.S-Chile bilateral cooperation in education:
Training Plan for Teachers of English in Chile
On June 2014, prior to the Presidents’ meeting in Washington, D.C., University of Georgetown representatives and U.S. and Chilean government officials signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish the basis of cooperation for the development and implementation in Chile of a plan to improve English teaching capacities. Georgetown University will recruit five fellows who will be in charge of conducting a 10-month training plan for teachers of English in public schools throughout Chile.
100,000 Strong in the Americas
Announced by President Obama during his 2011 visit to Chile, the United States and Chile continue cooperating in the 100,000 Strong in the Americas initiative to increase the level of academic exchanges beyond the 3,000 Americans that study in Chile and 2,000 Chileans that study in the United States per year.
Through the first three rounds of the 100,000 Strong Innovation Fund capacity-building grant competitions, five grants totaling over $211,000 will fund partnerships between U.S. and Chilean universities.
In that context, Chile’s Fulbright program, which is one of the oldest in the region and will celebrate its 60th year anniversary this year, recently initiated a teacher-exchange program for U.S. and Chilean high school teachers, and allocated scholarships for qualified Chilean high school teachers to apply to Masters in Education programs in the United States to improve teaching skills.
