Background

Guatemala has one of the highest illiteracy rates and one of the lowest school enrollment rates in Latin America.  Despite the Government’s efforts, many children, especially girls, still do not have access to a good primary education.  These problems are particularly acute in rural areas with high indigenous populations.

The World Bank has been involved in the education sector in Guatemala for more than a decade.  It has supported efforts to increase the number of children in primary schools and improve the quality of education in rural areas, largely through the PRONADE program of community-led schools and multi-grade, bilingual, and intercultural education.

Under PRONADE, rural communities with no access to education services receive financing directly from the Ministry of Education to get a new school off the ground.

The World Bank is supporting PRONADE through the Universalization of Basic Education Project, the second World Bank project in support of primary education in Guatemala.  

Project objective

To ensure that all children have access to primary education, and to improve the quality, efficiency, and cultural diversity of Guatemala’s school system.

Project design

The Project aims to:

• Increase primary enrollment in PRONADE schools.
• Provide bilingual materials, suitable for multi-grade classes, to primary education children in rural areas.
• Support cooperation between the Ministries of Education and Culture to increase awareness of cultural diversity in the country.
• Support institutional strengthening of the Ministry of Education.

Project achievements so far:

Providing universal access to primary education:

• The number of new students in the PRONADE Program is 90,000, more than double the 40,000 originally expected. 
• The project is supporting nearly 5,000 multi-grade schools and has helped provide primary education textbooks in the four main Mayan languages and other bilingual materials.

Cultural diversity, decentralization and modernization: 

• More than 1,000 staff from the Ministry of Education have received training in areas such as pedagogical, management and organizational development.
• The project has assisted the Ministries of Education and Culture in developing websites and other systems to manage information.

Improving the quality of education:

• The project has supported the ongoing education reform in the country through improvements in PRONADE, primary education teaching and learning quality, bilingual and intercultural education, and multi-grade teaching (all supported by key inputs in teacher training, educational materials, and learning evaluations).

A follow-up project is currently being prepared to support needed expansion in lower secondary education, to assist Guatemala in reaching the Education for All goals of universal access and completion of at least nine basic grades.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CLASSROOM - Children at a rural school in Santo Domingo Xenacoj, Chimaltenango.