It's getting worse . . .

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.