McGinn Wins Education Prize

Noel F. McGinn, professor of education at the Graduate School of Education (GSE) and Institute Fellow at the Institute for International Development (HIID), has been awarded the annual Andrés Bello Inter-American Prize for Education by the Organization of American States (OAS). McGinn is the first U.S. citizen, and the first scholar based at a U.S. university, to win the award in its 30-year history.

The prestigious $30,000 prize was established in 1977 "to promote the recognition of the work and character of persons who have distinguished themselves through their contributions to education in the Americas." It is being given to McGinn for his outstanding contributions to educational development.

Born in Panama in 1934, McGinn has spent most of his life working to improve education in North and South America. As a teacher, he has trained generations of educational managers and researchers who today work in all countries of the hemisphere. As a researcher, he has advanced concepts and methodologies on educational planning, the utilization of information for planning, decentralization, and on the links between globalization and education. As an adviser to governments and as a development practitioner, he has pioneered approaches to improve efficiency and equity in education at all levels.

The prize is named for Andrés Bello, an 18th-century Venezuelan educator, scholar, and humanist who was a teacher and colleague of Simon Bolívar -- a George Washington figure for several republics in South America -- and the first rector of the national university of Chile. Bello wrote extensively on the role of education for the consolidation of the new republics and democratic forms of government. In his letter of nomination to the OAS, GSE's Dean Jerome T. Murphy noted that "in many ways Professor McGinn has been a pan-americanist too, keenly interested in the links between globalization and education, and promoting north-south and south-south dialogue as a way to advance our understanding of the education challenges facing the countries of the region today."

Previous winners of the Bello prize include the late Paulo Freire of Brazil (1992) and the late Juan José Arévalo of Guatemala (1981). The Bello prize will be awarded to McGinn at a ceremony at the Inter-American Meeting of the Ministers of Education of Latin America and the Caribbean in Brasilia, Brazil on July 3.