COUNTRIES: El Salvador
DURATION: 07/23/2014 - 06/05/2019
FUNDER: USAID
CONTACT[email protected]

Program Description

The El Salvador Higher Education for Economic Growth Project aimed to transform El Salvador’s higher education system to help stimulate broad-based economic growth and social development.

As a sub-partner to RTI International, World Learning was part of a consortium organized to implement the USAID-funded El Salvador Higher Education for Economic Growth Project (Proyecto de USAID de Educación Superior para el Crecimiento Económico). The project was a key element of USAID’s Partnership for Growth (PfG), which represented a framework for deepening and strengthening the U.S. and El Salvador bilateral engagement to promote economic growth.  

Through the project, World Learning trained 55 English language faculty from 14 universities to improve their capacity to teach English for Specific Purposes (ESP), while also improving the capacity of 34 university faculty in the STEM fields to access academic research published in English, participate in research networks, disseminate their own academic research, and support their students and colleagues in accessing research and other academic publications in English.  

To reinforce the linkages between the private sector and the academic sector, World Learning established five career development centers (CDCs) at the anchor universities—Universidad Francisco Gavidia, Universidad Don Bosco, Universidad de Oriente, Universidad Centroamericana, Universidad Catolica de El Salvador. These centers provided university students with a wide array of career services along with Internship and job opportunities for the student population with a range of local and national employers.  

To strengthen the institutional capacity of universities and the higher education system, World Learning conducted seven assessments utilizing Human Institutional Capacity Development (HICD) to study organizational assets and priority improvement needs of five universities, the National Directorate of Higher Education (DNES), and the Quality Assurance and Accreditation process of the higher education system in El Salvador. 

Program Goals

  • Improved the capacity of English Language faculty to teach English for Specific Purposes courses at their universities.
  • Provided training to help university faculty in STEM fields better engage with international scientific research networks and support their students and colleagues.
  • Built connections between the private and academic sectors by establishing career development centers at universities.