Troya

Education in Honduras


Honduras has the most backward educational system in Central America (Date of Publication: 6/20/04)
The educational system in Honduras is the most backward in all ofCentral America; hardly 32 of every 100 students finish primary school without repeating grades, indicate statistics from the United Nations.
Data from the Program for the Development of the Organizationof the United Nations (PNUD) reveal today, moreover, that 51% of the matriculates finish primary school, in an average of 9.4 years, and that the number of dropouts increases each year. The acutestproblem is that the basic educational system only covers 86.5% of school-age children, while the remaining 13.5% cannot get access to an education.
Although the Honduran Constitution formallystipulates that minors have to have their educations taken care of, many arrive at adulthood without learning to read or write, while the state tries to justify this by the insufficiency of resources at itscommand. Illiteracy encompasses more than half a million people in this country, which is the equivalent of the entire population between 15 and 40 years old.
Sources add that the problem is becomingmore acute due to the scarcity of public resources and an insufficient and slightly equitable offer in the educational order, both in quantity and in quality. Also, the necessity of increasing thefamily earnings forces many children to leave school for work, usually permanently. For similar reasons, this connects the low level of education reached by many parents with the precarious livingconditions for more than 80% of Hondurans. In 10 of the 18 departments in which Honduras is divided, the second poorest of Central America, more than ninety percent of the students need to repeat grades.The statistics collected by the ministry reflect that no department in Honduras reaches, on average, the six-year minimum of primary education. According to recent data indicating educational...