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Costa Rica Education

Costa Rica has the highest literacy rate in Latin America (95%) and 20% of the national budget goes toward education. Elementary school is free and obligatory. Around 70% of secondary education is provided by public high schools, the other 30% by accredited private schools. Many national and international universities offer a variety of degrees in different majors. There are also some schools that offer a North American or European education from pre-kinder through high school.

The briefest sojourn in San José makes clear that Costa Ricans are a highly literate people: the country boasts of 93% literacy in those 10 and over, the most literate populace in Central America. Many of the country's early father figures, including the first president, José Maria Castro, were former teachers and shared a great concern for education. In 1869, the country became one of the first in the world to make education both obligatory and free, funded by the state's share of the great coffee wealth (as early as 1828, an unenforced law had made school attendance mandatory). Then, only one in 10 Costa Ricans could read and write. By 1920, 50% of the population were literate. By 1973, when the Ministry of Education published a landmark study, the figure was 89%.

The study also revealed some worrying factors. Over half of all Costa Ricans aged 15 or over--600,000--had dropped out of school by the sixth grade, for example. Almost 1,000 schools had only one teacher, often a partially trained aspirante (candidate teacher) lacking certification. And the literacy figures included many "functional illiterates" counted by their simple ability to sign their own name. The myth of "more teachers than soldiers" and the boast of the highest literacy rate in Central America had blinded Costa Ricans to their system's many defects.

The last 20 years have seen a significant boost to educational standards. Since the 1970s the country has invested more than 28% of the national budget on primary and secondary education. A nuclearization program has worked to amalgamate one-teacher schools. And schooling through the ninth year (age 14) is now compulsory. Nonetheless, there remains a severe shortage of teachers with a sound knowledge of the full panoply of academic subjects, discredited rote-learning methods are still common, remote rural schools are often difficult to reach in the best of weather, and the Ministry of Education is riven with political appointees who change hats with each administration. As elsewhere in the world, well-to-do families usually send their children to private schools.

Village libraries are about the only means for adults in rural areas to continue education beyond sixth grade. The country, with approximately 100 libraries, has a desparate need for books and for funds to support the hundreds of additional libraries which the country needs. Books (Spanish preferred) can be donated to the National Library (c/o Vera Violeta Salazar Mora, Director, Dirección Bibliotecas Públicas, Apdo. 10-008, San José; tel. 236-1828).

A new program recently instigated by the Ministerio de Educatión accepts volunteers to teach English (Departamento de Inglés, San José 1000). WorldTeach (Harvard Institute for International Development, 1 Eliot St., Cambridge, MA 02138; tel. 617-495-5527, fax 617-495-1239) also places volunteers to teach English in schools that have requested assistance. The local school or community provides housing and a living allowance; you pay a participation fee of $3500 that covers airfare, health insurance, training, and field support.

Universities

Although the country lacked a university until 1940, Costa Rica now boasts four state-funded schools of higher learning, and opportunities abound for adults to earn the primary or secondary diplomas they failed to gain as children.

The University of Costa Rica (UCR), the largest and oldest university, enrolls some 35,000 students, mostly on scholarships. The main campus is in the northeastern San José community of San Pedro (UCR also has regional centers in Alajuela, Turrialba, Puntarenas, and Cartago). The National University in Heredia (there are regional centers in Liberia and Perez Zeledon) offers a variety of liberal arts, sciences, and professional studies to 13,000 students. Cartago's Technical Institute of Costa Rica (ITCR) specializes in science and technology and seeks to train people for agriculture, industry, and mining. And the State Correspondence University, founded in 1978, is modeled after the United Kingdom's Open University and has 32 regional centers offering 15 degree courses in health, education, business administration, and the liberal arts.

In addition, there are many private institutions, including the Autonomous University of Central America and the University for Peace, sponsored by the United Nations and offering a master's degree in Communications for Peace.