Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0097/00970.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 23KB | 378 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00970}
$Pretitle{290}
$Title{Costa Rica
Chapter 2E.   Education}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Irving Kaplan}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{education
health
costa
early
students
1970s
population
1980s
ministry
programs}
$Date{1983}
$Log{}
Country:     Costa Rica
Book:        Costa Rica, A Country Study
Author:      Irving Kaplan
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1983

Chapter 2E.   Education

     As early as 1869 the constitution declared the government responsible
for free and compulsory education, but the institutionalization of the
school system did not really begin until the 1880s. The income from coffee
permitted a building program to be undertaken, and the anticlerical
orientation of the political leaders of the time encouraged them to replace
the church-sponsored schools with public, secular education. Church-run
schools and other private institutions remained open, however, in part
because Costa Ricans objected to an end to religious teaching. Despite this
early and auspicious start, education remained rudimentary for most Costa
Rican boys and rarely reached girls. There were improvements in
organization and growth in the numbers of young people educated in the
first four decades of the twentieth century, but real increases in the
numbers of schools, teachers, and pupils did not take place until after
World War II.

     Throughout the earlier period and through most of the modern era, the
conception of education that has guided the state, the educational leaders,
and others has been of a system that turns out cultured, literate persons
who would, among other things, constitute an informed electorate. The
notion of educating a diverse population for a changing society and
economy did not become significant until the 1960s. Even as some of the
goals of education have been changing, the emphasis that Costa Ricans at
all levels give to education has persisted. Political leaders and others
point to the proportion of the budget expended on education-nearly
one-fourth in the early 1980s. Of all the government ministries and
autonomous agencies, none has more employees than the Ministry of Public
Education. These expenditures notwithstanding, teachers in 1983 were not
highly paid. Attempts to reduce expenditures, if they entailed real
reductions in the availability of educational opportunity, would probably
be strongly resisted.

     It cannot be said that the goals of the early visionaries were
achieved. Far too many students dropped out of school before completing the
six years that, until the 1970s, constituted primary education. And many who
did complete it were not very well educated, nor did they retain much of what
they had learned, given the lack of textbooks and trained teachers and the
emphasis on rote learning. Moreover, the benefits derived from a largely
academic education by a peasant or an unskilled worker were limited.

     Costa Rica's literacy rate was estimated in 1973 at a little less than 89
percent for those over 10 years of age and at more than 90 percent in the
early 1980s. There was little difference between the sexes, but a
considerable one between rural and urban dwellers. These estimates were based
on minimal criteria, however; counted as literate were all who had ever gone
to school or could sign their names. In the mid-1970s the minister of public
education, emphasing functional literacy, suggested 30 percent of the
population over age 10 was illiterate, rather than the 11 percent officially
estimated. Even so, the illiteracy rate was lower than that of many comparable
countries in the region.

     Until the early 1970s only primary grades one through six were
compulsory and free. Secondary education was nominally free but not
compulsory. Beginning in 1973 compulsory education was extended through the
ninth grade, in principle encompassing all children between the ages of six
and 15. The extension was a response to the view of many Costa Ricans that
even those students who completed the six-year primary school were not
adequately educated and that some students, as well as Costa Rican society,
might be better served by vocational or technical training after a basic
general education had been acquired. It was not expected that all of the
institutions and teachers would be fully in place to cope with the influx of
new students until the early 1980s.

     Primary schooling, comprising two levels of three years each, continued
to provide a general basic education to all students. Some Costa Rican
observers seemed to think that distinctions in the curriculum ought to be
made at these levels to take into account the different needs and experience
of urban and rural students, but others thought that distinctions would
amount to discrimination and would negate some of the goals of universal
education-to give all Costa Ricans an all-around basic education in
mathematics, science, language, and art, to provide moral and physical
training, and to prepare them for citizenship.

     By the late 1970s and early 1980s there were more pupils enrolled in the
first two levels than there were children between the ages of six and 11,
despite the continued, if much diminished, problem of dropouts. That seemed
to be a consequence of the tendency of some pupils to begin schooling after
the age of six and to complete primary school well after the age of 12.

     The third level, the equivalent of what was formerly the lower level of a
five-year secondary program, had two parts. One, the third level proper,
continued the academic training begun in primary school. If it was completed
and an examination passed, the student went on to another two years of
academic education and, if further examinations were passed and other
requirements met, eventually to higher education. The other part of the third
level was termed diversified education and included a number of programs in
crafts, agriculture, and technical subjects that led to a middle-level
diploma. The diversified program presumably integrated the relatively small
number of public vocational schools that have existed since 1956. Although
many who were enrolled in one of the diversified programs did not go beyond
this level, there were more advanced technical and agricultural courses for
which some of them were eligible. In the late 1970s, when compulsory
attendance in the academic or diversified programs had not yet been fully
instituted, about 40 percent of the age-group between 12 and 15 was enrolled,
a considerable increase over the pre-1973 era and likely to rise still
further. Available data did not indicate the distribution of students between
the academic and diversified programs.

     The fourth level also contained several programs, one of which was
academic. The remainder were technical schools of several kinds. Among the
most numerous and widespread were schools of agriculture and livestock, but
there were also schools for industrial and craft skills, commercial training,
and other specialized fields.

     The oldest university dates from 1940 when the Universidad de Costa Rica
(UCR) was founded on a campus in San Pedro, a suburb of San Jose. The first
university, Santo Tomas, established soon after independence, was closed in
1888. Its Faculty of Law remained in existence, however, and other separate
entities were founded after 1888, e.g., faculties of fine arts, pharmacy,
education, and agriculture. All of these and other newly established ones were
incorporated in the UCR. The core of the university in late 1983 was the
Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which provided an education to those who did
not wish a professional degree and a common general education to those who
went on to obtain degrees from the special faculties.

     The demand for higher education in Costa Rica had been overwhelming. The
UCR had fewer than 6,000 students in 1965; by the early 1970s there were
more than 20,000, in part a consequence of the population growth of the 1950s,
in part a product of the g