RIGHTS-CENTRAL AMERICA: Innovative Program for Community Education

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia

TEGUCIGALPA, May 2 1999 (IPS) - Approximately 105,000 boys and girls in rural Honduras will benefit from a community preschool education project launched this year by the Government and the World Bank.

The project is expected to reduce school drop out rates as well as illiteracy, which affects 40 percent of the population in this Central American country.

The Honduran Project for Community Education (PROHECO), which will be implemented for three years in seven of the 18 departments (provinces) in Honduras, uses accessible methods which permit the real participation of the community and parents in their children’s education.

This year, it is hoped that some 20,000 children will benefit from the educational initiative in this Central American country where eight of 10 people live in conditions of poverty or extreme poverty.

Rodrigo Wong, a founder of PROHECO, said they are trying to involve the community in the education issue, and aiming for high participation in the management and administration of resources designated for hiring teachers and obtaining educational materials.

With this formula, “we are sure that the people will feel like an essential cornerstone in educational development, and will supervise the teaching of their children, share initiatives and ensure efficient, high-quality educational methods,” he said.

The Minister of Education, Ramon Calix, stated the principal objective of the project is to open up citizen participation in poor communities where school drop out rates are highest.

The project is backed by 4.1 million dollars coming from the World Bank and the Honduran Government.

According to a study carried out by the educational authorities, the level of schooling in Honduras is one of the lowest in Central America with an average of 4.5 years while the mean in the region is 5.5 years.

The educational system loses 20 percent of its student population each year to drop out or school failure, forcing the government to rethink its educational policies and to design long- term strategies that permit them to visualise a model of educational development in their country.

Soroguara, a town of 500 people located in the central department of Francisco Morazan near Tegucigalpa, was chosen as one of the pilot communities for PROHECO. The town faces high drop out rates and only 28 percent of the population can read and write.

“I don’t know how to read or write, but at 65 years old, I think I can learn how to at least write my name because I’ll study with my children,” commented the president of the town’s board, Leonidas Morales.

In the school where they will be holding preschool and fourth grade classes of primary school, the townspeople work on building desks, hanging chalkboards and have already hired two teachers who will each have 65 students.

Oscar Amador, one of the new teachers, said that before, the boys and girls had to go to class in the nearby town of Zambrano. Most of the children walked there, which was dangerous as they had to walk along the highway.

Honduran president Carlos Flores said that PROHECO is an initiative which not only seeks to teach reading and writing, but also “goes beyond education by helping to foster the country’s development, because only an educated population is able to move ahead and overcome poverty.”

The quality of education is one of the main problems facing Honduras, where the last educational reform took place at the end of the 1950s. Since then there have been only minor changes according to reports from the Ministry of Education and organisations from the United Nations.

In Honduras it is estimated that each year approximately 900,000 students register for primary school, but a high percentage drops out before the year is over as a result of financial problems and lack of family support.

In rural areas especially, children abandon their studies to help their parents with farm work. (FIN-IPS-tm-ag-ld-ak-99)