© 2013 Anna

Access to Education

“Inadequate access to education: 26% of Nicaraguans aged 15-24 years have no schooling, and 49% have less than 3 years’ education (INEC, 2001), often due to poverty.” –OECD Nicaragua Country Evaluation Repord by Meg Braddock, Corinne Grainger, and Fidel Moreira

 

Urban, rural and regional economics are the  largest obstacle to Nicaraguan education–that is to say, the biggest barrier to access is whether a student lives in a rural or urban part of the nation, which ties directly to socioeconomic status. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in Latin America, with two thirds of Nicaraguans living on little more than US$1 per day. Much of this poverty is due to the economic crisis that came with civil war between 1980 and 1990. It was exacerbated by natural disasters including Hurricane Mitch and the Managua earthquake of 1972. Most of poor Nicaraguans are living in rural areas and are farmworkers or families of farmers. Taking this into account with the fact that better Nicaraguan schools are in central, urban areas, we see that many Nicaraguan children are put to work in the farms instead of attending school.

While the Sandinista literacy campaign increased interaction between rural and urban Nicaraguans, we see that these areas are still incredibly separate, not only in terms of location and finances, but also in terms of access to education and healthcare. Nicaraguan students typically attend school for 4.5 years, and very few complete primary schools—41% in urban areas, and 7% in rural. Of the approximately 900,000 children under the age of six, 50% are living in poverty. Additionally, 33.6% of rural Nicaraguans are illiterate, versus 11.1% in towns and cities. In the area of health issues, 33% of these children suffered from some form of malnutrition, 67% had a vitamin A deficiency, and 28% were anemic.

While much of this data is significant, it is only an opening to our understanding of this issue. Almost all information on Nicaraguan education is published in Spanish–limiting my research. It was because of this inaccessibility that I decided to interview a fellow Monterey Institute student about her experience teaching in Nicaragua. Below is an image of Kate, who was there teaching from 2009-2010. She shared with me a story about living in rural northern Matagalpa, Nicaragua. The image below is of a classroom in Matagalpa where one teacher managed children of the 2nd through 6th grade. Children, who were coming from farming families, would walk to school everyday not knowing if their teacher would be coming to class that day.  When the teacher did come to class, she was often exhausted, pacing back and forth between groups of students, attempting to teach.

KateUnknown

In Matagalpa, Kate lived with a family with 3 kids. She referred to the oldest son as “quite bright,” while noting that it was completely unlikely that any of the kids would continue past sixth grade, if they even got that far. Most children would have to go to work on the farm instead of attending school. She also noted that it was likely for the youngest girl to make a family of her own very early, which was made more likely by the fact that the town did not value women’s education. Kate said, “The mothers and young girls that I talked to were not concerned about getting past sixth grade, if they’d even get it to. It just didn’t matter to them. They’d get married and live on a farm. It wasn’t relevant.” She noted that the few who did care were boys and even then, the education system and its curriculum were not relevant for them.

At the end of our conversation, Kate and I discussed the fact that while this was only her experience in one specific town, we can imagine and expect that it was not the only town in Nicaragua with this situation. I recognize that it is definitely hard to generalize this issue, yet the statistics support Kate’s story. This leads us to hope that education reform will come to affect these rural areas. In Kate’s story and in the data, it is suggested that education should adjust for time and content. The current system does not allow for rural families who may be moving to follow the crop and requiring family members to participate in crop collection. Additionally, that which is taught in the school system is not seen as valued by the children nor the community.

In education development, there is a theory or tool for the ten building blocks of change. These include the following:

  • Change the Learner
  • Change the Place
  • Change the Time
  • Change the Teacher
  • Change the Community role
  • Change the Curriculum
  • Change the Pedagogy
  • Change the Management system
  • Change the Financial support system
  • Change the Linkages to other sectors

While I found nothing that supports any idea of this change occuring, I hope that we see Nicaragua adopt these areas for reform—particularly that of the time, community role, and curriculum. Considering that the rural population is continuing to grow (as show in the graph below), I feel that Nicaragua needs to alter their education system as soon as possible, as to positively influence the civic, health, and social aspects of their citizens.

Rural Population Nicaragua

 

Sources:

http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/country/home/tags/nicaragua

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/nicaragua/rural-population-wb-data.html

http://www.international.ac.uk/resources/Nicaragua%20-%20Case%20Study%20in%20Education.pdf

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001460/146007e.pdf

http://www.childhealthandeducation.com/articles/documents/3rd-Paper-Eng-Verdisco.pdf

http://www.nicaraguadispatch.com/news/2012/10/save-the-children-decries-deficiencies-in-education/5841

http://www.oecd.org/countries/nicaragua/36750611.pdf

Kate Dimercurio, Monterey Institute of International Studies, MPA Candidate 2014

 

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