{"id":2373,"date":"2017-03-21T18:48:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T18:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sosvolunteertrips.org\/?p=2373"},"modified":"2017-03-21T18:48:14","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T18:48:14","slug":"country-profile-education-in-nicaragua","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentsofferingsupport.org\/country-profile-education-in-nicaragua\/","title":{"rendered":"Country Profile: Education in Nicaragua"},"content":{"rendered":"
SOS’s Executive Director, James Arron, spent 10 days visiting partnering organizations\u00a0and communities in Nicaragua and Costa Rica in March 2017.<\/em><\/p>\n Schoolhouses marked with blue and white stripes cover Nicaragua. The design is now standard on all new builds. But there are still classrooms of different colours leftover from an era prior; the age before the revolution. They are still in use, and teachers still receive their government salaries, but they are not \u201cofficially recognized\u201d. The result is the government is no longer responsible for their maintenance.To my uninformed perspective it seems like an arbitrary line to draw: the blue & white schools get electricity and books and new doors, whereas the others don\u2019t.<\/p>\n But such is the complexity of education in this country; considered the 2nd poorest in the Americas. By all accounts, the government is serious about its investments in education and health (albeit still battling pervasive corruption). Yet, there are more needs than there are resources and this seems to be some form of convenient way to set the priorities.<\/p>\n Its part of my lesson in the ways of Nicaragua\u2019s education system. Its foreign to my own childhood experience. Class schedules are often dictated by the time of year to accommodate the long walks students typically need to make through the rainy season and the needs of parents who sometimes need the extra labour of their children to make ends meet.<\/p>\n Classrooms typically combine at least three grades. Schooling is considered mandatory until only grade 6. Still many do not make it that far, but after that attendance drops sharply. For those that go on, secondary school takes place just once a week, on Saturdays, to make use of the free space of the elementary schools on weekends.<\/p>\n Yet despite the challenges, like any school there are still drawings hung upon the walls, still teachers speaking about their passion for their jobs, still there is a roll call for what students are on cleaning duty each day, and what parents are on rotation to cook the morning snacks provided by the government.<\/p>\n