Continuing with the reasons why Hondurans say “Estamos Fregados“, her is a little bit about what I´ve observed about the Honduran educations system:
The vast majority of the Hondurans I have met are concerned about education. Just as a college education is seen as the key to success in the United States, Honduran parents dream of providing a university education for their children. However, for most families, just putting their children through secondary school requires an effort.
The Honduran education system is structured similarly to the U.S. education system. Children start out with kindergarten and then six years of primary school. Secondary school is divided into two parts: ciclo común, which is three years of general high school, and carrera or bachillerato. Carrera or bachillerato lasts for two or three years and it is at that point that students start to specialize. Students that are going to continue studying in the university usually get their bachillerato, which is a general arts and sciences education. Students who want to enter a profession study a carrera. The most common carreras seem to be perrito mercantil, accountant, and negocios, business.
Normal Honduran children seem to make it through primary school and most probably make it through ciclo común. Studying a carrera is another step up though. Honduran families I have met take pride in having kids who are professionals, meaning that they studied enough to get a carrera. Most of the kids I know in Ojojona and Tamara were on a track to study a carrera but I probably know kids who have more resources than most. Some students need to work by the time they’re 15, so study at night or on weekends to get their carrera. In Ojojona, the only carreras offered are tourism and business. For anything else, students have to travel to the nearby town of Santa Ana or to Tegucigalpa.
While public education is available at all levels up through university, it is not free. Families must provide uniforms and school supplies. There are also various other incidentals that I did not realize would be part of education. For instance, every sixth grade class that graduates from Ojojona’s primary school gives a gift to the school, such as new desks or chairs. Each family is expected to contribute something like 500 lempiras (25 dollars) toward the gift. They pay by making periodic installments throughout the year. For “Día del niño“, kids’ day, there is a party with food at school. Parents are expected to pay for the cost of the food.
Some educational expenses are not mandatory, but are more of a status symbol. For instance, on September 15, Honduran independence day, students march in the parades that take place in every town. In Ojojona, some students just marched in their school uniforms. Others were part of different groups dressed in costumes: cheerleaders, Indians, drummers. Those that wear costumes have to buy them. Every year, the Ojojona primary school elects a queen from the student body. The election is decided by ticket sales. Students sell tickets as a fundraiser and the girl who sells the most tickets is chosen as the queen. This year the girl who won has a mother working in Spain. Esperanza said that she sold 6000 lempiras ($300) worth of tickets, mainly to her mother, in order to win.
For teenage students, the biggest cost of studying is probably their time. Many teenagers have to work to help support their family, making studying a considerable burden. Because of this limitation, many Honduran teenagers study at night or on the weekends.
The biggest complaint I have heard about Honduran public schools is lack of instruction time. Hondurans have holidays for everything: kid’s day, women’s day, teachers’ day, even taxi drivers’ day. Many of these holidays are days off from school. Combining holidays with teacher workshop days and days that the teacher is sick, students spend quite a bit of time on vacation. Teachers also strike regularly, causing students to lose more class time. School days here are also much shorter than in the United States. Primary school is only in the morning, from about 8 a.m. until noon. Reina, the woman whose house I eat at in Tamara, said the teachers have a tendency to send kids home early, sometimes as early as 10 or 11 a.m.
Honduran teachers seem to be paid pretty well. Antonio told me they start at about 5000 L a month, well above the minimum wage of about 3000 L. They can work their way up to make much more and have good job security. Teachers must study two or three years beyond Ciclo Común to be certified to teach. The disadvantage to the job is that they usually have to start out teaching in aldeas, small communities relatively far from civilization. Teachers must work their way up to acquire jobs in larger more desirable communities such as Ojojona. Because teachers are paid well and strike often, many Hondurans I have talked to think they don’t work hard enough.
For families who don’t want to put up with teachers’ strikes and countless holidays, there are private schools of varying price ranges. The priciest private schools are bilingual. Students receive half of their instruction immersed in English. Several of Esperanza’s nieces and nephews go to bilingual schools and speak English proficiently. The schools follow the U.S. school calendar and even celebrate U.S. holidays such as Thanksgiving.
While on paper the Honduran education system looks just like the U.S. system, it clearly is lacking in substance. Honduran kids go through the same number of years of primary and secondary school, but receive much less instruction time because of short school days and frequent days off. The fact that Hondurans who can afford it send their kids to private schools does not speak highly of the public system.
