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Some 40 percent of Honduran children never finish
grade school and 10 percent, like Nadia’s older
brother and sisters, never go to school at all
because their families can not afford even a public
education. For Nadia, things were different. She
went to Ramon Rosa Elementary School in the town
of El Progreso and made it through the Fourth
Grade.
Then,
Nadia’s dream of getting an education appeared
to be a victim of Hurricane Mitch. Striking late
in 1998, the storm washed away everything the
Villatoros owned as raging floodwaters destroyed
not only their modest home, but also their entire
neighborhood on the banks of the Pelo River. It
was emergency and supplemental U.S. aid that provided
the family with food and shelter after the storm.
But it was a long-standing USAID-financed program
called EDUCATODOS that revived Nadia’s dream of
obtaining an education. The program, which since
1995 has specialized in providing educational
opportunities outside the traditional classroom
setting, moved into the provisional community
where a majority of El Progreso’s Mitch refugees
stayed for up to two years while working on permanent
housing solutions. In a dynamic atmosphere with
community volunteers at the head of the class
and motivated students of all ages on all sides,
Nadia completed Fifth Grade and then Sixth. "I’m
very happy because I was able to finish my primary
school," Nadia said. "And not only that,
EDUCATODOS gave me a scholarship to study at the
private San Jose Secondary School in El Progreso."
The
EDUCATODOS program has been accelerating its forward
momentum in recent years. The grades 1-6 program
enrolled approximately 45,000 students per semester
in 2001 and more than 3,000 students were enrolled
in the pilot Grade 7 program.
Working
with the Center for Development of Human Resources
(CADERH), USAID also has taken an active role
in the support of a network of 25 vocational education
centers serving approximately 5,000 youths. The
network has grown and been consolidated. Center
directors and instructors have received intensive
training. In 2001 more than 1500 young people
were certified in skill areas, and more than 80
percent of them were expected to readily find
jobs in the areas in which they have been certified.
USAID-supported
education reform efforts led to the creation of
a reform unit within the Honduran Ministry of
Education, and the adoption of education reform
as a national priority via Honduras’ Poverty Reduction
Strategy. Examples of key policy reform initiatives
include: the development of national education
standards; decentralization of education sector
management; expansion of secondary school opportunities;
expansion and improvement of preschool; and expansion
of vocational education opportunities for disadvantaged
youth.
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