The project will focus on actions that improve the quality of basic education programs and develop girls’ and boys’ capacities to become constructive actors in the democratic, social, and economic development of their communities. The project will transform “passive school-communities” into “active school-communities” that exemplify the use of active learning methodologies in the classroom and the active participation of parents and the communities in classroom learning activities, school life, outreach, and management. Active learning methodologies are particularly effective in increasing girls’ school participation – their enrollment and completion as well as their academic achievement and their ability to actively contribute to development.

The project will support the newly formed National Council on Education (Consejo Nacional de Educación – CNE) and regional decentralization entities and will build on the extensive experience of public and private organizations in Lima and in San Martín. During Phase I, the IDEA project will focus on 70 schools in all provinces of the department of San Martín, with the aim of developing an approach to decentralized local management of quality basic education the Government of Peru can build on as it initiates its nation-wide decentralization of the education system to begin in 2005. The Program will engage in systematic consultative processes intended to create involvement and ownership in these schools as “provincial decentralization laboratories.”