(MissionNewswire) Three teachers from the Salesian Spain-St. James Major Province have been selected to take part in the Google for Education Certified Innovators Program. This program offers training to teachers all over the world to aid them in developing innovative educational projects that change and improve classroom education.

The Google for Education program takes place several times a year in different cities around the globe. Salesian teachers, Raúl Diego from the Salesian Primary School of Santander and member of the provincial school innovation team, Charo Fernández from the Salesian Institute of Madrid-Atocha and Martín García from the Salesianos Ciudad de los Muchachos Center, will attend a Google training session in Madrid from Oct. 3-5. The program will also offer additional online training that will run to October 2019.

The three Salesian teachers will join 33 other teachers from Spain and Latin America who have been accepted into the Google for Education program and will attend the Madrid training session. The candidates were selected based on their professional experience, passion for teaching and learning, innovative use of classroom technology, ability to influence other educators and desire to tackle some of the biggest challenges in the industry.

The program aims to promote educational transformation through innovative projects, inspire other educators through various support opportunities and develop teachers’ abilities through training, development and ongoing collaboration with other innovative figures in the education sector.

After completing the program, innovators become ambassadors of change who provide valuable tools to other educators and students through a culture of innovation. The Salesian teachers will join more than 1,500 educators from over 50 countries who have completed the Google program.

“With so many young people out of work and facing conditions of poverty in Spain, it is vital for Salesian centers to keep up with technology and innovate in this digital age,” says Father Mark Hyde, director of Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco. “Students in Salesian programs have a real opportunity to enter the workforce prepared both in terms of the skills they have learned and in their social development, ensuring a lifelong ability to retain livable wage employment and escape poverty.”

“Teacher training programs such as this one provided by Google help ensure that Salesian teachers have the skills needed to educate youth in a way that meets market demand,” adds Fr. Hyde.

Hard hit by the current economic troubles in Europe, Spain, although slowly improving economically, has the third highest rate of income inequality of the countries of the European Union. The richest 1 percent of the Spanish population accounts for a quarter of the national wealth, according to the World Bank. It also notes that 10.2 million people in Spain live below the poverty line, equivalent to a poverty rate of 22.3 percent.

Close to 37 percent of young Spanish workers under the age of 25 are unemployed and a growing number of them can’t afford to buy enough food to live. Poor youth with few employable skills struggle the most to find and retain stable employment. Women in Spain face inequality in the workforce. They earn up to 14 percent less than men and represent only 34.5 percent of those listed as the highest earners in Spain.

Salesian missionaries have been working for many years to provide educational and workforce development opportunities for poor youth and women in Spain through residential and technical and vocational training programs.

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Sources:

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ANS – Spain – Google selects three teachers from schools of Spain-St James Major Province for its educational innovation course

World Bank – Spain