Abstract:

Active Urban School (EAU) has been designed and developed since 2002 in a partnership of Luker Foundation with the Manizales Major’s Office. Manizales is a medium size city of Colombia, located in the center of the country in the coffee region. EAU aims at improving the quality of public education (preschool, elementary and high school) in low income areas in Manizales through the inclusion of active teaching methods in the classroom, the strengthening of the school’s institutional management and the relationships with parents and the community. The project has a special emphasis in fostering social and emotional skills, indeed the Interamerican Dialogue – PREAL recognized Active Urban School as a model that fosters non cognitive learning. In the last PISA test applied in 2012, Urban Active Schools obtained superior results (average) than all public schools around the country in three areas evaluated: Mathematics, Reading and Science. This model is inspired in the Escuela Nueva methodology which has been recognized by Unesco in the early 90’s as one of the most innovative education initiatives around the world. Today the 58% of the public schools of Manizales have been beneficiated by Active Urban School and New School models.

Keywords:

School, Educative, Innovation, Colombia, Pedagogic, Education, Educational, Students.