Developing Youth? Part 1, The Situation

In all my blogging during my first three months in site, I’ve come to realize that I haven’t really talked about what I actually do—what my job and primary program is.

I am in Guatemala’s Youth Development Program, which is only in its second year. A “pilot” group of 5 volunteers came before my group of 15, and they’ve only been doing it for a year. So it’s a brand new program in Guatemala, and its success is still to be determined. We work in the middle schools, or “institutos básicos,” teaching a “Life Skills” program.

(From here, I am going to break it up into segments because there is a lot to be said about the Guatemala education system and our program and my personal experiences so far… so hopefully in bits it will be easier to get through!)

The Situation

The reality in Guatemala is that about half of the population continues onto middle school. The other half drop out after between one and six years of elementary school. Only about 1 in 10 continue to high school (or “diversificado”), and a very small percentage (maybe 2%) go to university.

What’s maybe even a sadder reality is that those few years of education that most Guatemalans receive is often less-than-quality (to put it nicely). There is very little regulation and standardization of how the schools are run and how professional and motivated the teachers are. My schools seem to be better than some, but even so, often a teacher won’t show up for class, leaving the students to just sit around for one or several class periods. (Other volunteers have told me stories about showing up at their Institutes to find only the students sitting around waiting for teachers that never showed up.) Even when they do show, many teachers will just read from a text book or have their students copy from one. Using class time to grade papers is the norm. Typically, teachers and directors (or principals) show up a half hour late. The students are often there before them. School is also canceled for the slightest reason. For a month leading up to the Independence Day Activities, school went from 1-3 or so (instead of from 1-6:30), so the rest of the afternoon could be dedicated to practicing for the parade. I’ve also seen class cancelled for soccer games. Teachers will abandon class to have meetings. Any holiday (and Guatemala has a lot of ‘em) is reason enough to cancel school or hold celebratory activities in place of class. Really, the amount of time the students actually spend learning is sadly little.

Of course there are exceptions. In all of my institutes, I have seen some teachers that are very professional, that obviously put a lot of work into their lessons, and that really value class time. But unfortunately, they’re a minority. This seems ridiculous considering Guatemala actually has an excess of people who are trained as teachers. The high schools here are all focused on some sort of career training, and the vast majority of them are for training teachers. So almost everyone that goes to high schools ends up being trained to be a teacher… which means that most of them won’t actually find a job teaching.

With so many teachers looking for work, you would think that only the very best would be the teaching in the middle schools. But this is not the case. Most middle schools (and elementary schools) are managed by a co-op of parents (usually all men) called the Junta Directiva. The members of the Junta don’t have to have had any formal training or background in education. They just have to be influential and respected members of the community. But that doesn’t mean (in my opinion) that they’re equipped to hire and evaluate the teachers. Many times teachers get their jobs through some connection with a member of the Junta. Often the Junta will take into consideration the input of the Director, and sometimes they rely on the Director completely to make their decisions. But that can mean that an Institute’s Director can have incredible power to set the tone and standards of an Institute… which can be good or bad depending on the Director. It can also mean that some Institutes are corrupt because they are run almost single-handedly by corrupt Directors with almost unbridled power (who may choose to skim some money off of the budget for him/herself). Also, it’s the director’s discretion as to whether or not they get in the classroom to observe the teachers and get an idea of how well they’re teaching. In some smaller schools the Director is also a teacher, which doesn’t allow time for observation. I have yet to see a Director enter a classroom to check on the teachers.