During its relaunch, the non-profit institution ECALO announced that it has set the largest goal ever set in the history of higher education in Peru: to manage one million educational opportunities by 2030, including scholarships, credits for studies, training, among others.
“The challenge of education in Peru is so great that we cannot look the other way and expect the State to solve it just because it has already shown that it cannot. The private sector also has a responsibility and has understood it that way,” said José Bernal Helguero, president of ECALO.
He added that the scholarship programs do not even reach 50,000 beneficiaries in a country where the enrollment rate for poor young people is less than 10%. “Education is the main vehicle of socioeconomic mobility. If we do not generate access, we are condemning these young people to continue being poor,” he warned.
He specified that ESCALO aspires to be the articulator between the State, the private sector, academia and civil society, for this it is already coordinating with strategic sectors such as the Ministries of Economy and Labor, as well as with 60 associated companies and more than 50 educational and social institutions. allies.
A first and important step is the signing of an agreement between ECALO and the Ministry of Labor to provide training on educational opportunities for employability, self-employment and support for formal job insertion with emphasis on people belonging to vulnerable groups.
Likewise, the instrument will make it possible to make available to employment centers, scholarships, current educational credits and coordination with companies, as well as the linking of the digital platforms of ESCALO and the Ministry of Labor for coordinated work.
The public-private articulation will allow the million projected educational opportunities to be oriented towards careers that the market demands and not to saturated niches, which will facilitate the employability of young people, especially those called “NEET”, who neither work nor study.
ESCALO, which began its work in Peru 60 years ago under the name of the Peruvian Institute for Educational Development, has generated more than 156 thousand educational opportunities, facilitating access to higher and technical education for hundreds of thousands of young people, in order to contribute with their comprehensive professional development.
ESCALO communications office
Contact: 907024840 Sandra Lino