The Minister of Education, Universities, Culture and Sports of the Government of the Canary Islands, Manuela Armas, presented this Friday, November 27, in Lanzarote, the Viera y Clavijo 2019 awards to teachers and educational centers of the islands, who have stood out for their trajectory, dedication and pedagogical innovation.
The recognized people are Dámaso José Luis Pérez Almeida and María Luz Divina Prieto Fraile, in retirement, for their exceptional professional career; María Encarnación de León Corujo, María Elena González Vega and Francisco Urbano Melián Peña, for their exemplary dedication, and the Secondary Education Institutes Gran Canaria, Bañaderos-Cipriano Acosta, Virgen de Candelaria, Virgen de las Nieves and La Guancha, for the execution of innovative projects.
During the award ceremony, which took place at the Teatro de San Bartolomé, the spokesperson for the group of awarded centers and people, María Encarnación de León, vindicated the rural school "for its capacity to be an alternative to a world dominated by the material, which can be transformed into a place full of opportunities to grow and learn in freedom, knowing the roots, loving and caring for people and breathing the pure air of our countryside, of our land".
She stressed that in all areas of public education "it helps to shape and transform the future so that students perceive the reality that surrounds them." "We have in our hands the opportunity to foster imagination and creativity, providing the necessary tools for children and adolescents to develop in life autonomously," she said.
For her part, the Minister of Education, Universities, Culture and Sports of the Government of the Canary Islands, Manuela Armas, recalled that, for two decades, "the Ministry of Education thanks, every year, those who are its reason for being: the educational centers of the Canary Islands, its teachers, its management teams and all those groups that, in one way or another, ensure public education and work for the benefit of our students."
"From small schools in rural areas to urban macro-schools, linked to diverse or vulnerable communities, the range of educational facilities and socio-economic realities is enormous, but throughout this map there is a common element, the energy with which collective intelligence is deployed to address the challenges that mark the new times," added Armas.
Likewise, the Minister mentioned the internationalization and language, scientific and technological projects and those that promote environmental, equality or coexistence values. "In our schools, institutes and Vocational Training centers, generations of sensitive, prepared and good citizens are formed, of which the Ministry of Education is very proud," she said.
After the musical performance of Merceditas Corujo, who performed a mazurka accompanied on the piano by Rubén Fariña, the event was opened by the Deputy Minister of Education, Universities and Sports, Dolores Rodríguez, who mentioned that, once again, the educational community was sending a message of normality. "And we do so with the celebration of the most relevant institutional act of all those carried out in the field of teaching in the islands, organized in this edition under the strictest security measures against the pandemic," she added.
"We already demonstrated with the return to school, that the school has been and will be a safe place, thanks to the commitment and dedication of hundreds of teachers and management teams, represented here today by these ten awarded people and institutes, in addition to the responsibility of students and their families," she said.
The mayor of San Bartolomé, Alexis Tejera, welcomed the municipality and highlighted the importance of the work carried out by rural schools, "where education attached to the ground germinates, regrows and gives harvests of responsible, sensitive and committed neighbors with their territory."
The president of the Island Council, Dolores Corujo, also congratulated the winners, who assured that the response of the administration and the educational community "has been worthy of praise." "Classes are developed with an extraordinary degree of normality and this is due to the enormous effort of management teams, teachers, mothers and fathers and the students themselves," she acknowledged.
Among the public, limited by the application of preventive measures against COVID, were relatives of the awarded people, representatives of the educational communities of the islands and members of the management team of the Ministry of Education, such as the general director of Planning, Innovation and Educational Quality, Gregorio Cabrera, the general director of Centers, Infrastructures and Educational Promotion, Laly González and the general director of Personnel, Fidel Trujillo.
María del Carmen Sánchez (IES Gran Canaria), Otilia Oliver Frade (IES Bañaderos-Cipriano Acosta), Jerónimo Morales Barroso (IES La Guancha), Julián Fariña Rodríguez (IES La Candelaria) and Luis Roberto Ponce Acosta (IES Virgen de Las Nieves) collected the award on behalf of the honored institutes. María Luz Divina Prieto was replaced on stage by Encarnación Brito Betancort.
Profiles and merits
1.- Exemplary dedication
María Encarnación de León Corujo is a cornerstone of the Rural Schools Collective of Lanzarote and a staunch defender of this educational model in which she has developed her work, based on proximity to her community, the environment and intergenerational coexistence. She took charge of the small school of Montaña Blanca, in San Bartolomé, threatened with closure, and turned it into the CEIP María Auxiliadora, a reference and model of a 0 kilometer teaching, especially valued in the current situation.
María Elena González Vega was quick to understand the special circumstances and peculiarities of life on a small island. In her capacity as director of the CEIP Ignacio Aldecoa of La Graciosa, she worked together with the rest of the educational community in the conversion of the school into a center of Compulsory Education, with the incorporation of the ESO to its educational offer. Today she continues to lead the school with firmness and passion, and ensuring the interests of her students.
Francisco Urbano Melián Peña personifies the transformative capacity of Education, beyond the limits of the school, qualifying neighborhoods and populations, and placing the centers in the heart of the community. The inhabitants of Las Remudas and La Pardilla, the families and students of the old Institute of Technical-Professional Training of Ingenio and the IES Profesor Antonio Cabrera Pérez, social institutions and organizations of Telde highlight their commitment, modernizing will and love for teaching.
2.- Exceptional trajectory
Dámaso José Luis Pérez Almeida has gone through many centers in his extensive teaching career and in all he has left his mark for his good work, dedication and dedication. But without a doubt, the CEIP Las Rehoyas is the most benefited by his wisdom and experience, which he still shares today, already retired. For years, he directed this school, born from the union of Ramón y Cajal and Calvo Sotelo, and located in the neighborhood of El Polvorín. He always worked so that his students received a quality education, opportunities for progress and equal access to a hopeful future.
María Luz Divina Prieto Fraile has in her credit the recognition of several generations of readers of the island of El Hierro. The students of the CEIP Taibique-El Pinar, who have had the fortune to experience her passion for books. Her awareness-raising vocation led her to share some of the projects to promote reading and writing with other Herreños schools. But she did not stop there, because her desire for knowledge soon led her to become interested in new technologies and their implementation in the school environment.
3.- Educational centers for innovative projects
The Gran Canaria Institute of Vecindario has been recognized for its school results, which are above the rest of the centers in our autonomous community. Both the Diagnostic Evaluation tests and the PISA reports show meritorious evaluations, which respond, without a doubt, to good practices in the classroom and the strenuous work of the teaching teams. The high qualifications, maintained over time by the different generations of students, demonstrate that it is not a specific phenomenon but a way of being and understanding teaching.
The IES Bañaderos-Cipriano Acosta is an Ambassador Center of the Canary Strategy for Internationalization until 2022 and the only public institute of the islands recognized as an E-twinning Center, an educational platform of the European Union. In addition, this center of Arucas, also bets on promoting values typical of its closest environment, with gastronomic projects, opening in non-school hours, participation in coastal safety campaigns or in robotics competitions, among others.
The Virgen de La Candelaria Secondary Education Institute is a reference center in its field that has managed to project students beyond its island and national borders. From its beginnings as a Vocational Training Workshop-School, in 1944, to the present day, it has worked to promote the internationalization of students and teachers as a transforming axis of the social environment. Its numerous Erasmus + projects support this.
The Virgen de las Nieves Secondary Education Institute is another veteran of Canarian public education. Its beginnings date back to 1960 and its first location was in the convent of San Francisco, in Santa Cruz de La Palma. Six decades later, this training center accumulates not only experience but also recognition of its work in the specialties of Cooking and Health Emergencies; collaborates with institutions and entities in the organization of events and participates in solidarity activities.
The La Guancha Secondary Education Institute brings together a multitude of merits, among which its forty years stand out, imparting a quality public education and an innovative, dynamic and adapted to the times vocational training. The permanent contact with its environment and with other diverse realities, education in values as a common thread of all its activities and the transversal reflection on the Canary Islands have turned this Tenerife center into a beloved and respected institution in its region and by the entire educational community of the archipelago.
