The “I Want to Be a Professional in Education” (QSPE) program, recognized by the MINEDUC, began in 2017 as part of the strategies defined in the Institutional Improvement Plan for Pedagogies of the University of La Serena.

Motivated by the desire to achieve quality education, twenty-nine high school students, from different establishments in the Coquimbo Region, joined the initiative promoted by the University of La Serena, through the Integrated Pedagogy Management Unit (UGIP). The young people, who make up the second generation of the QSPE, have attended since the end of last year all the classes held on Saturdays of each month to strengthen the call to the teaching profession.

The students are currently in their fourth year of high school and during 2018 they had to overcome different selection stages to be part of this experience. They had the first class of 2019 last Saturday, when they were received by the professor, Dr. Karla Campaña, coordinator of the program, final year pedagogy students and students from the first generation of the QSPE.

“My expectations within the program are to learn in advance the key knowledge to be an education professional, to know and put into practice the tools that are given to me and finally to be able to develop my soft and hard skills. I consider it to be a very good initiative, since many of us have the vocation to be a teacher and we cannot achieve it either for economic or personal reasons,” said Carla Videla, who studies at the Claudio Arrau School and hopes to be able to study a career related to the area of ​​chemistry.

On the other hand, Jalima Carmona, from the Andrés Bello Pampa School, hopes that this experience will clarify her vocation. “I find it a good idea, it helps you grow integrally as a person, because it not only trains you to be a good professional, but it focuses more on creating well-rounded and humanitarian people, and it is also within the reach of any socio-economic position. “It contributes by creating a better environment where we already have a good relationship with our peers,” she emphasized.

Mauricio García, from the Pedro Aguirre Cerda School, has a similar opinion, whose goal is to be able to enter the Pedagogy career in Spanish and Philosophy. “This opportunity seems great to me, it is an initiative that thinks of everyone in general, and students can opt for this benefit as long as they are persistent and make an effort to achieve their goals. This initiative builds education for us as a driver of life projects and allows us to realize that things are always possible with perseverance,” he urged.

The program is formative in nature and works on each module in a comprehensive manner, covering academic, psychosocial, and innovation areas, in addition to addressing topics directly related to the educational system. Once they approve the program, and meeting all regulatory and institutional requirements, participants have the opportunity to access any pedagogy taught by the school.

Written by Daniela Ledezma, UGIP