Developing human capital
Just as economic capital was the engine that drove the industrial revolution, this new century opens its doors to knowledge as the capital that will be generating prosperity. In the future, man -understood as a material and spiritual being- will be the most secure and productive investment for the knowledge-based welfare state.
Financial assistance for training educators
Study Credits
Improving the Teaching of Science - Math Refresher Course (Programa de Actualización Matemática - PAM
All-round teacher training support
Postgraduate in family medicine studies
Postgraduate course in health service management
Health center training and development
Upgrading university nursing studies
Training instructors for rural areas
Environmental and natural resource economics training program
Environmental education for young people on the Peninsula Macanao (Nueva Esparta state)
Virtual EsCienciA Clubs
History of Venezuela courses at Venezuelan universities sponsored by Fundación Polar
Maltín Polar Fine Arts and Music Workshops
Support to the start-up of Centro de Formación Profesional San Francisco (San Francisco Professional Training Center), sponsored by Cervecería Modelo (Model Brewery) and Invecapi (the Church's Venezuelan Professional Training Institute)
Tenth Course in Arts Management
Training for teachers from Venezuela's indigenous groups
Financial assistance for training educators
To enhance the standing of the teaching profession and the quality of teaching by offering funding opportunities for those wishing to take undergraduate studies, and by supporting centers offering specialist training.
Specific Objectives
- BTo offer funding opportunities to the most outstanding undergraduate students in pre-school education, comprehensive education and mathematics so that they can continue and complete their training to become teachers in Pre-school, Primary or Secondary Education.
- To encourage the improvement of education, particularly in mathematics, by providing better teacher training.
- To acknowledge the teaching profession's academic and professional merits through agreements with institutions of higher education offering teacher training.
- In institutions offering teacher training, encourage high performance by supporting these institutions with equipment, improving the quality of teaching, and experimenting with new forms of distance education.
- To encourage institutions offering teacher training to reflect on teaching as it relates to ethical, moral, and professional issues inherent in the role of the teacher as role model and player.
Study Credits
To support professional training, preferably in the fields of health and education, at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, with special emphasis to the postgraduate course in Health Management sponsored by Fundación Polar and Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB).
Specific Objective
- To fund loans for student for higher education courses (under- and postgraduate) in Venezuela or abroad.
Improving the Teaching of Science - Math Refresher Course (Programa de Actualización Matemática - PAM)
To contribute by improving the quality of mathematics teaching by promoting permanent self-instruction and refresher training for teaching staff.
Further teaching improvement strategies in schools.
Specific Objectives
- To give job training to primary school teachers to update their knowledge of mathematics.
- To provide teachers with modern tools for teaching school mathematics, self-learning techniques, and new evaluation concepts and methods.
- To process the results of the evaluation conducted in the year 2000 and use them to fine tune the regular and refresher math teaching program (PAM) developed by Fundación Polar and Fundación CENAMEC (Centro Nacional para el Mejoramiento de la Enseñanza de la Ciencia).
All-round teacher training support
To create a program of incentives that will enable teachers to learn about and come to appreciate cultural works, in cooperation with the Vice-Ministry of Culture.
Specific Objectives
- To improve the cultural information level and education of Venezuelan's teachers by creating a system that facilitates their access to cultural goods and services.
- To encourage teachers to attend artistic events and activities.
- To make books and records available for teachers at more accessible prices.
Postgraduate in family medicine studies
To contribute to the development and enhancement of first-rate academic processes that will make it possible to adapt the training of specialists to the present needs of Venezuela's population, particularly by facilitating access to and control of community health.
Specific Objective
- To support the training, in the country, of doctors specializing in Family Medicine to help by consolidating the timely, efficient provision of comprehensive, primary health care services aimed at the individual, the family and the community.
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Postgraduate course in health service management
Specialist and interdisciplinary third-level training of health sector's human resources so as to be in a position to provide, successfully and efficiently, an ad hoc management function in the fields of medical-care, hospitals, and public health..
Specific Objectives
- Training in administration and management for those who direct public health centers by consolidating the UCAB's postgraduate program.
- Funding for undertaking actions that will make it possible to enhance the academic level of this postgraduate course.
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Health center training and development
Strengthen the teams in charge of directing health centers by providing them with administration and management tools and methods to improve performance levels in the provision of medical and associated care at the establishments selected for this type of assistance.
Specific Objectives
- To review and update the "job training" program, together with CEP-UCV (Central University of Venezuela's Professional Extension Education Center).
- To create conditions for and monitor management and impact evaluation processes aimed at improving the quality of public health services.
Upgrading university nursing studies
To contribute by strengthening, improving the standing of, and promoting the advancement of nursing as one of the professions that are part of health teams and whose achievements are focused on performing with excellence, both in providing patients with quality care and in making effective use of technological resources.
Specific Objective
- To support a center offering intermediate-higher training by providing it with human and technical resources.
- Raise the level of students accepted on nursing courses.
Training instructors for rural areas
To support the creation of a permanent formal training effort for instructors who will be working in rural areas, taking advantage of the educational and organizational infrastructure of SIHCA (Hemispheric System of Training for Agricultural Development).
Specific Objectives
- To organize regular and refresher training activities, in cooperation with Venezuelan and foreign universities and educational support institutions.
- To establish a medium-term strategic alliance with SIHCA.
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Environmental and natural resource economics training program
To train professionals, inside the country, in environmental economics, economic valuation of natural resources, and the inclusion of these aspects in Venezuela's environmental policies.
To provide technical and financial support for the creation of a permanent formal training and refresher training effort (fourth level) on environmental economics, taking advantage of the educational and organizational infrastructure of the country's universities.
Specific Objectives
- To organize, in cooperation with Venezuelan and foreign universities and educational support institutions, regular and refresher training activities in the field of environmental economics.
- To provide technical and financial support for the creation and implementation of a master's and a specialization course in environmental and natural resource economics at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the Universidad Central de Venezuela.
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Environmental education for young people on the Peninsula Macanao (Nueva Esparta state)
To support educational efforts aimed at preserving the threatened biodiversity of the Macanao Peninsula, Nueva Esparta state.
To contribute to the training of talented people in the field of marine mammal research and conservation.
Specific Objectives
- To renew and improve the exhibition halls of the Marine Museum located at Boca de Río by providing didactic and promotional support.
- To conduct the first marine mammals course in Venezuela with a view to strengthening Nueva Esparta state's Stranding Network.
- To design and produce a series of informative publications on the marine and land biodiversity of Margarita Island.
- To encourage and support educational and productive activities of microenterprises in the fields of tourism and craftwork.
Virtual EsCienciA Clubs
(Note: EsCienciA is a science magazine for young people published by Fundación Polar)
To improve the quality of science teaching in primary schools and get children early interested in science on using the new information and communication technologies.
Specific Objectives
- To contribute to the setting up of permanent Science Centers in schools to facilitate and provide backup for school science projects and where there is an opportunity to use the new information technologies.
- To complement the existing technical and organizational infrastructure in order to be able to set up the EsCienciA Clubs.
- To facilitate access to the Internet as a suitable means for generating communication among participants, as well as for getting users to share their experiences in and concerns regarding science subjects.
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History of Venezuela courses at Venezuelan universities sponsored by Fundación Polar
To create incentives so as to raise the academic level of university studies on Venezuelan History.
To contribute to the education of historians so that they can contribute new knowledge about and new analytical proposals with which to interpret our past and so achieve a broader characterization of Venezuelan society.
Specific Objective
- To encourage the creative analysis of didactic resources that will lead teachers to improve the quality of their teaching.
- To offer courses, seminars and lectures that will increase students' interest in taking this subject.
Maltín Polar Fine Arts and Music Workshops
To help with the education of children from low-income families who attend public pre-school institutions in Guarenas and neighboring towns, Barcelona, El Tigre and the communities in Maturín located near Empresa Polar's distribution companies DIPOMESA, DIPOLORCA and DIPOSURCA.
To encourage children aged between 7 and 12 years from low-income homes to start learning music and art.
Specific Objective
- To foster the use of music and art as universal languages to encourage learning in pre-school and school-age children, help develop their self-esteem, and teach them to share in groups.
- To complement the fine arts education started with the pre-school children who attend the workshops.
Support to the start-up of Centro de Formación Profesional San Francisco (San Francisco Professional Training Center), sponsored by Cervecería Modelo (Model Brewery) and Invecapi (the Church's Venezuelan Professional Training Institute)
To take an active part in starting up the Center.
Specific Objective
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Tenth Course in Arts Management
To support cultural institutions by offering an alternative for enhancing management skills.
Specific Objective
- To provide, generate, develop and/or consolidate theoretical knowledge and methodological skills for cultural managers and artists that will enable them to optimize the processes inherent in culture management and developing artistic projects.
- Given the challenges of today, to create the conditions for reflection on and structuring of new paradigms for culture management.
- To create favorable conditions for reflecting on how the creator in the arts relates to his history, his society and his social processes.
- To promote knowledge and the exchange of experiences, both those of Venezuela and those of other countries.
Training for teachers from Venezuela's indigenous groups
To train teachers from Venezuela's indigenous groups in different fields of knowledge that will help them to form solid bases for taking informed decisions, participating in the life of the nation on an equal footing, and, in general, improving the quality of life for their people.
Specific Objectives
- To train individuals from Venezuela's indigenous groups to improve their performance as teachers.
- To produce reading materials in the languages of Venezuela's indigenous groups for use inside and outside the classroom.
- To give the following courses and workshops: Innovative Experiences for Teaching and Encouraging Reading and Writing; Logical-Mathematical Thinking; Reading Skills and Developing Writing Skills; Linguistics Applied to Developing Reading Skills; Graphic Design and Illustration; Computer Editing; Making Cloth Books; Copyright; and Self-esteem and Reasserting Ethnic Origins
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