The education system in

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...

is characterized by five stages of

formal education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Vari ...

; PrePrimary, Primary, Middle, Secondary, and Tertiary.

Public education State schools (in England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand) or public schools (Scottish English and North American English) are generally primary or secondary schools that educate all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in pa ...

in Honduras is provided free for children aged 6 to 15 where it is mandatory for children to attend at the primary level (Age 6 to 12). The

Honduran Constitution The Political Constitution of the Republic of Honduras () was approved on 11 January 1982, published on 20 January 1982, amended by the National Congress of Honduras 26 times from 1984 to 2005,Dates of ratification. and 10 interpretations by Con ...

moreover stipulates that parents have the right to choose the education ; whether free or private, of their children.

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...

statistics put the

adult literacy Adult education, distinct from child education, is a practice in which adults engage in systematic and sustained self-educating activities in order to gain new forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values. Merriam, Sharan B. & Brockett, Ralp ...

rate (% of people ages 15 and above) of Honduras at 83.6%. However,

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

statistics reveal a 12% repeater rate, and only an 80% progression and completion rate in

primary education Primary education or elementary education is typically the first stage of formal education, coming after preschool/kindergarten and before secondary school. Primary education takes place in ''primary schools'', ''elementary schools'', or first ...

. Moreover, only 64.5% enroll for

secondary education Secondary education or post-primary education covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education scale. Level 2 or lower secondary education (less commonly junior secondary education) is considered the second and final pha ...

Poverty

Poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...

is rife in Honduras, with the poverty headcount ratio at national

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for t ...

standing at 60% as of 2010. In typical situations, children have to quit school permanently to work at an early age to help support their families. Even though school is fully state-subsidized up till the 5th grade, many children are still unable to attend school because their families can not afford to buy uniforms and school supplies. A study conducted in 2006 by National Institute of Statistics estimated that as many as 368,000 of the 1.7 million children ages five to 12 did not receive schooling in that year.

Gender inequality

Honduras is a

patriarchal society Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males ...

, and males are favoured over females when it comes to

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...

. While parents may send both genders to primary school; the females are likely the first to be withdrawn to help at home and made to work to provide income. This is further supported by the belief that occupational opportunities resulting from education are greater for males, as females have greater difficulty in finding jobs that match their academic credentials even if they have the same education level. Both genders have equal access to the limited available educational facilities; however, attendance rates for females were slightly lower than for males.

Education infrastructure

The quality of the

curriculum In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...

in Honduran public schools is poor, evidenced by the fact that for much of the last century, Honduran students were required to memorize useless or impractical data at the expense of sharpening their reasoning powers and

critical thinking Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgement. The subject is complex; several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, and unbiased analysis ...

skills. Teachers are paid low wages, they do not have access to effective teaching materials, and they are not trained in the latest technologies and current teaching methods. In addition, there is a scarcity of teachers, with a teacher:student ratio of 1:33 in 2008. The destruction of over 3000 schools nationwide caused by

Hurricane Mitch Hurricane Mitch is the second-deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record, causing over 11,000 fatalities in Central America in 1998, including approximately 7,000 in Honduras and 3,800 in Nicaragua due to cataclysmic flooding from the slow motion ...

further weakened the country’s poor education infrastructure.{{cite web, url=http://www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2001/honduras.htm#_ftnref1206, title=Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) - U.S. Department of Labor, publisher=United States Department of Labor, accessdate=2011-09-17, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080830085954/http://www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/TDA2001/honduras.htm#_ftnref1206, archive-date=2008-08-30, url-status=dead

References

Education in Honduras