There are a handful of high schools in Copan Ruinas, but the vast majority of students who pursue secondary education in the area attend the central high school in Ostuman, a community about 1km from the town center. Now, as I've mentioned before, just completing sixth grade is considered an important accomplishment in this part of Honduras. Most of the students who choose to continue their education beyond this point come from middle and upper class backgrounds.
For students from the small rural villages in the surrounding areas or from poor families in town, the material and transportation costs often make continuing schooling beyond sixth grade an economic impossibility. However, there are many young Hondurans who find ways to manage the cost and to enroll in the colegio (high school). Some of them are lucky enough to find individuals or organizations to help cover costs, others get jobs in town and work to support their studies.
In recent years, a new program has emerged at the local high school. This program operates on weekends and crams five days worth of school into the two-day weekend. The program is wildly popular because it enables students to work during the week and attend school during the weekends. For students in the rural areas, this program cuts transportation costs, as they only need to travel two instead five days per week. The program had great potential to increase school access. Unfortunately, things are not going as planned.
Now, I should mention at this point that my primary sources on this matter are students, and that I have not yet been able to track down education officials to verify their reports, but I will at least share what the common understanding of the situation seems to be.
1. The weekend school runs for approximately ten hours each weekend and supposedly covers content equivilent to that taught during twenty-five hours of normal weekly classes.
2. There is a matriculation fee for the weekend classes, but none for the daily classes.
3. Enrollment in the weekend program swelled from 600 to 900 students this year.
4. Many students were turned away on matriculation day because the school is beyond capacity.
5. The weekend program was scheduled to begin last Saturday, but did not.
6. Students are pulling out of the weekend program and trying to enroll in the traditional weekly program because it now seems that the weekend program may not happen this year.
7. 900 students who enrolled in the weekend program for high school level this year in Copan Ruinas, may find themselves without any oportunity to continue their education this year.
In the next few days, I hope to track down the local education director, as well as the school directors, in order to sort out rumor from fact. Regardless of the outcome, it seems safe to say that their is a crisis in education at the secondary level in Copan Ruinas.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Education Denied
Last week, a new school year began in Honduras. My once-quiet morning walks are now punctuated with the sound of children shouting to their friends as they clamor to get to school. It should be a hopeful sound, but I know that there are many young faces absent from the blue and white uniform clad masses this year. Some are in the fields, working to help feed their families; others, after years of overcrowded classrooms and insufficient attention from teachers, have simply given up, resigned at age ten to years working in the fields under the hot sun. The Honduran government has failed these children and allowed them to complete a cycle of poverty that an adequately funded education could have broken.
In no situation is the government’s failure more evident than in the case of Marisol. Marisol is sixteen years old and she is the hope of her community. When she completed sixth grade, a feat in itself in her village, she convinced her skeptical parents to allow her to continue her education. Because the cost of transportation to and from the nearest high school was more than she could afford, she enrolled in an alternative, self-directed program called “El Maestro en la Casa.”
Anxious to share her educational good fortune and help her community, Marisol started teaching kindergarten, as there was no official post for the position in her village. She wasn’t paid much, but she saved what she could. She had high hopes of becoming a teacher one day and she knew enrolling in a bachillerato program would be expensive. In December, she completed ninth grade and she had a stroke of luck: an American volunteer in her community agreed to help Marisol pay her school fees. She was one step closer to her dream of becoming a teacher.
Then, she had the door slammed in her face. On enrollment day, Marisol arrived at the front of the matriculation line, after hours of waiting, only to be told that the school was full. She was devastated. Marisol overcame long odds to even consider standing in line to matriculate that day, but despite having done everything right, Marisol was denied the educational opportunity that she deserved.
Who deserves the blame in this situation? The school? The teachers? The government? It’s true, strings could be pulled and another student could be added to the already swollen student body, but what would that accomplish? Marisol was one of many turned away on matriculation day and the school barely has sufficient resources to educate the students already enrolled. To ask teachers to take on more responsibility and expand their class sizes even further would do little more than lower the overall quality of education for everyone. No, it is not the school, nor the teachers, who must take responsibility for this educational crisis: it is the Honduran government.
It is a sign of progress that more Hondurans are reaching secondary school, but getting them to the door is not enough. The Honduran government must guarantee that there are enough qualified teachers and secondary schools available to meet the educational needs of every young Honduran like Marisol. To do this, they must inject sufficient resources and funding into secondary education. By denying an adequate education to its most promising youth, the Honduran government is disabling its citizenry’s most powerful tool for sustainable, long-term development.
In no situation is the government’s failure more evident than in the case of Marisol. Marisol is sixteen years old and she is the hope of her community. When she completed sixth grade, a feat in itself in her village, she convinced her skeptical parents to allow her to continue her education. Because the cost of transportation to and from the nearest high school was more than she could afford, she enrolled in an alternative, self-directed program called “El Maestro en la Casa.”
Anxious to share her educational good fortune and help her community, Marisol started teaching kindergarten, as there was no official post for the position in her village. She wasn’t paid much, but she saved what she could. She had high hopes of becoming a teacher one day and she knew enrolling in a bachillerato program would be expensive. In December, she completed ninth grade and she had a stroke of luck: an American volunteer in her community agreed to help Marisol pay her school fees. She was one step closer to her dream of becoming a teacher.
Then, she had the door slammed in her face. On enrollment day, Marisol arrived at the front of the matriculation line, after hours of waiting, only to be told that the school was full. She was devastated. Marisol overcame long odds to even consider standing in line to matriculate that day, but despite having done everything right, Marisol was denied the educational opportunity that she deserved.
Who deserves the blame in this situation? The school? The teachers? The government? It’s true, strings could be pulled and another student could be added to the already swollen student body, but what would that accomplish? Marisol was one of many turned away on matriculation day and the school barely has sufficient resources to educate the students already enrolled. To ask teachers to take on more responsibility and expand their class sizes even further would do little more than lower the overall quality of education for everyone. No, it is not the school, nor the teachers, who must take responsibility for this educational crisis: it is the Honduran government.
It is a sign of progress that more Hondurans are reaching secondary school, but getting them to the door is not enough. The Honduran government must guarantee that there are enough qualified teachers and secondary schools available to meet the educational needs of every young Honduran like Marisol. To do this, they must inject sufficient resources and funding into secondary education. By denying an adequate education to its most promising youth, the Honduran government is disabling its citizenry’s most powerful tool for sustainable, long-term development.
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