Germán Alberto Soto

German Alberto is a technical drawing teacher and head of department in Beltrán school in the city of Corrientes. From 2012-2017 he led a team of 50 teachers to implement the Expo Beltrán project which incorporated ideas from Waldorf pedagogy and the Finnish approach to education. This educational proposal was recognised at a national level as one of the ten best proposals of Argentina within the framework of the Argentine Master contest. As a result, President Mauricio Macri visited the school and awarded them a $100,000 grant to reinvest in the same project. The development of the project reversed the school dropout rate, increasing school enrolment over a period of 5 years from 750 to 1100 students.

Other important effects have included:

Activating the process of digital migration of both teachers and students
Attracting elementary school students to choose the school (in five years, 2,000 year 5 and 6 students approached the school)
Boosting access to university education for Beltrán students. Introducing students to the worlds of science, technology and work
Developing robotics and programming projects
Since the project’s inception, the proportion of Beltrán students going on to study at university has reached 10%. Before 2012 it oscillated around the 3% mark. In 2012, the area of influence of the school covered 14 neighbourhoods; to date, the influence is 67 neighbourhoods throughout the city.

German Alberto has attended national exhibitions in Buenos Aires such as Tecnópolis as well as travelling internationally, to Spain, Italy, Uruguay and the United States. This travel enabled him to experience at first hand the latest developments in teaching and educational technology and bring them back to his school.