Lessons from Nicaraguan and Central American experiences Decentralization and quality of educative centers in Latin America Lessons from Nicaraguan and Central American experiences Josefina Vijil Santiago, January 5 2013

Objectives Improve access, principally to rural zones and the efficiency of the educational system promoting the participation of parents and the local community (EDUCO, PROHECO and PRONADE). In Nicaragua (Nicaraguan Autonomous Schools Program): improving the efficiency of education, but specially ideologically.

What did we learn and what lessons did decentralization experiences leave us in Central America? Increased access, especially to rural zones of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador Amplification of the participation of parents in the education of their children. This models does not count with mechanisms of formation and mentoring to the people who must make decisions, leading to participation almost only in administrative and simple tasks.

… continue This models were taken forth in moments of reform to the State and reduction of fiscal deficit, therefore, they were focused on the transferring of administrative load and costs to communities. (Castillo, 2000, Rubio, 2011). The results of research were not returned concerning schools’ performance and these results were also not used as a basis for making decisions.

… continue In the classroom, as a fundamental place to achieve educational quality, lied the great absence of these models: there was little attention given to pedagogic aspects, and policies were not promoted to attract and conserve qualified teachers and to train teachers that were less qualified.

Some comentaries about the Nicaraguan experience The explicit purpose of the model was to obtain direct support from families concerning the education of their children through a calling to participate in decision making within the scope of the school and with a voluntary contribution to support sustainment, coinciding with the new conception of the State, whose responsibility of public services must be shared with families.

Gráfico No. 1 Tasas Netas de Escolaridad en Educación Primaria Fuentes: Elaboración de Melba Castillo en base a datos de PNUD, 2000 y MECD, 2005.

Possibility Requirements That the educational authorities accept the existence and necessity of participation of other actors in defining public policies and implementation of educational innovations and reforms. Conduction of social educational contracts that give origin to educational policies in the long run concurred with different sectors. In the core of educational reforms, the objectives must be directed to improve the quality of education that affect students’ learning.

That it be clear that education is a system composed of multiple components if we expect an improvement. We have too many unilateral failed experiences that lasted as long as their financing without any sort of sustainment because it did not intervene integrally in the educational process. We have wasted too much time, money and especially important phases for the development of our countries.

Thank you