School Education
Our educational activities in Santa Rosa de Copán and the youth project in La Entrada had to be completely "interrupted". Nationwide, all schools, universities and other educational institutions have had to remain closed since mid-March until further notice due to the new coronavirus. Therefore we also had to stop all planned courses.
However, in order to ensure that the building is not empty, we made our classrooms available to the two emergency commissions SINAGER (Sistema Nacional de Gestión de Riesgos) and COPECO (Comisión Permanente de Contingencias). These two commissions coordinate public and private disaster relief measures within the framework of the National Risk Management System.
Student Day
On June 11th, Honduras celebrates Student Day in honor of José Trinidad Reyes. José is considered the national hero who founded the foundations of higher education in the country.
Therefore we granted our children a day off from school and used the time to celebrate and motivate them, in recognition of the work done, the homework and the good intermediate grades of the last months.
For lunch there was pizza for everyone and for entertainment in the afternoon various games, gifts, activities and delicious cakes were organized.
We also tried to use the day to make our children aware that it is a great privilege to attend school and that they should internalize Nelson Mandela's saying "Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world” forever in their hearts!
For me personally, this day was a motivation to analyze the Honduran education system, which has one of the lowest coverage rates in the Latin American region, and to scrutinize the Covid-19 school solution.
Figures
ASJ, Asociación para una sociedad mas justa (Association for a fairer society) has published that more than 2 million pupils have no access to school education and that a solution must be found as soon as possible. They have interviewed 700 pupils aged between 7 and 18 years. Of these, 26% attended a private school and 74% a public school.
The following result has arisen from this:
Private School
Public School
TECHNOLOGY
1. Do you have a computer with internet access at home?
Yes, 80%
Yes, 33%
2. Do you have a mobile phone with internet access at home?
Yes, 97%
Yes, 80%
3. Do you have a TV at home?
Yes, 99%
Yes, 91%
COMMUNICATION
4. Do you have WhatsApp?
Yes, 88%
Yes, 71%
5. Do you have an e-mail-address?
Yes, 83%
Yes, 46%
6. Do you have a Facebook account?
Yes, 75%
Yes, 62%
SCHOOL MATERIAL
7. Do you have the necessary school material for this school year?
Yes, 85%
Yes, 55%
8. Do you have the necessary materials to do the homework?
Yes, 83%
Yes, 50%
TEACHER CONTACT
9. Have you communicated with your teacher in the last 7 days?
Yes, 91%
Yes, 69%
10. How good is the support from your teachers?
good 77%
good 54%
medium 23%
medium 39%
bad 0%
bad 7%
11. Did your parents help you with your homework?
Yes, 69%
Yes, 60%
12. Why did your parents not help you?
No time 5%
No time 9%
Lack of ability 7%
Lack of ability 21%
Do not need any help 67%
Do not need any help 37%
Another person helps me 12%
Another person helps me 14%
No homework 9%
No homework 19%
If we look at public schools, the following aspects are very worrisome:
- Only 33% of students have a computer with internet access
- Only 50% of the students have the necessary materials to work from home
- Only 55% of the students have the necessary textbooks
- The contact with teachers in public schools is significantly lower than in private schools. In the public schools about 1/3 of the pupils had no contact with the teachers during one week.
Children with limited economic resources would lose the school year due to the new coronavirus
Home schooling through the public education system with the aid of electronic means is of no benefit to many children with limited economic resources in rural Honduras. Poverty is, among other social problems, the main factor that prevents them from adapting to the new method.
They therefore run the risk of losing their school year because there is no minimal technological infrastructure in their place of residence, i.e. because they do not have smartphones, not have a television or because there is no electricity.
Internet access, telephone reception and lack of teaching materials were clearly identified as the main barriers to a successful learning experience at home. The low level of education of parents also contributes to the fact that they cannot help their children with their homework.
Only 7% in rural areas have access to a computer or the internet. Even before the pandemic, one in three children was not enrolled in the school system. One can therefore only guess how significantly this figure must have increased as a result of the pandemic. In many families there has been a debate in recent months about either buying food or getting internet access.
Our foundation was asked by the Department of Education of Santa Rosa de Copán for support to copy didactic material as well as to print weekly work programs and then distribute them to the students at home. With this support, 5'619 students from rural schools, who have not been taught for more than 3 months, could pass the school year.
We see this emergency measure as the only solution. We have now started printing and will start distributing the material in the villages next week.
We have also provided 5 computers to the secondary school Alvaro Contreras, so that the teachers have the possibility to teach virtually during the pandemic period.
Here in the city of San Pedro Sula the lessons are held via the ZOOM platform or the teachers send the homework via WhatsApp or e-mail.
But even here in the city it is difficult for many parents. They now have to take over the function of the teacher, whereby they themselves sometimes have great difficulty with reading and writing.
In Honduras it is not common to have flat rate internet access at home. Therefore, they have to buy a daily amount of data for the internet to firstly receive the homework and secondly complete it afterwards. Furthermore, very few people have access to a printer.
In addition, many people were unable to work during this time and therefore did not receive a salary, making it difficult to pay the school fees. However, the schools still demand that the monthly costs be paid, as they too have to pay the teachers.
At the beginning of the corona crisis 90% of all students of San Pedro Sula were connected to the internet, now at the beginning of July, only 55% of them are connected. For example, the Institut Primero de Mayo, with more than 2000 students enrolled, has published figures showing that only 25% of parents can still afford to pay for the internet and a computer.