Lima, March 12, 2007.- The Executive Secretary of the Andrés Bello Convention (CAB), Francisco Huerta Montalvo, announced that the organization he heads will study legal mechanisms and consult the Member Countries in order to find mechanisms for joining the Andean Community (CAN), with a view to acting as the Secretariat of Education, first, of the Andean integration process and, later, of the South American Community. 

He made this announcement at the conclusion of a working meeting with the Secretary General of the Andean Community, Freddy Ehlers.

Francisco Huerta reported that the Secretariats of the CAN and of the Andrés Bello Convention have decided to revise their respective programming and to draw up a Joint Action Plan for working together as if they were a single institution, even going so far as to take advantage of certain financing available to the two institutions in order to put their resources to use for joint actions.    

He pointed out that in order to accomplish this, a Meeting of the Secretariats of the CAN and of the Andrés Bellow Convention has been scheduled for the end of this coming April, in Bogotá, which will produce a series of guidelines for “achieving the longstanding aspiration of integrating our two institutions and working together, each keeping its respective autonomy and within the framework of its respective programming.”

Insofar as the actions that would comprise the Action Plan are concerned, he reported that they have talked about the importance of improving teacher qualifications and, in general, the quality and equity of basic education, as well as about the need to promote the participation of civil society in the integration process through projects in the areas of education, culture, science and technology.   

He further indicated that actions have been discussed that would make it possible to take maximum advantage of the new technologies, like virtual conferences and even a television program through which the two organizations would have the opportunity to inform the citizens about the work that has been done.   

Francisco Huerta reported that there have been joint efforts, like the Education for Integration Project, that have made it possible to evaluate the educational systems of the four CAN countries plus Venezuela and that will enable a proposal to be formulated for introducing integration values and contents into school curricula.   

He considered the present situation to be favorable to the Andean process because of the obvious vocation for integration of all of the leaders, despite their differing visions of development. “We should take advantage of this to join efforts,” he pointed out.