MOOCs: The region's next big thing?

What do massive open online courses (MOOCs) have to do with private sector development in Latin America and the Caribbean? The concept is to create fee and open content for students to reach scale and allow access, impacting not just the students in a physical classroom but thousands of students who participate via the internet.  MOOCs enable people interested in learning to take a course online on their own time to learn about an interesting topic, develop a new skill for work or learn how to deal with a new problem.  Students can also take courses from accredited schools around the world.

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Diversity and financial returns in higher education in Peru

How the Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola revolutionizes access to higher education while still staying competitive By Bettina Boekle, Social Sustainability Specialist, IDB Would you believe me if I told you that in a large, prestigious Peruvian university, 97 percent of the students receiving a governmental scholarship self-identified as indigenous and speak numerous native languages amongst themselves? Yes, the 97 percent is real. Less and less is higher education in Peru attainable only for the upper class. Thanks to scholarship program Beca 18, Peru is offering free access to higher education for students from low-income families and remote areas of Peru. And the Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola (USIL) is becoming a more diverse institution. To offer more entry points, for example to a growing emerging middle class, this week USIL and the IDB are officially launching an innovative student guarantee fund coupled with a clear implementation map around the principle of shared value.

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Bring your own WHAT to class???

Seguir a @BIDSecPriv BYOD, not to be confused with BYOB, stands for Bring Your Own Device and is an emerging trend in education. With the penetration rate of mobile and other devices skyrocketing both globally and in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), many youngsters are simply inseparable from their devices. The number of mobile subscriptions was estimated to reach the seven billion mark in 2013, higher than the human population (Faille & Morrison, 2013).

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Wish there were more hours in the day? Distance learning can maximize time and earning potential

Doesn’t it always seem like there aren’t enough hours in the day?  How can we possibly fit it all in?  The same is true for young people in Latin America and the Caribbean - especially those in lower income or vulnerable communities. For the high school graduates, many aren’t able to go directly to university for financial, family or other reasons.  For example, Estacio, a large private university in Brazil, estimates that  approximately 40% of high school graduates in Brazil go directly to university.  Many others start a job, or a family or both.

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