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The Development of an Educational System in a Rural Guatemalan Community*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Oscar H. Horst  and
Avril McLelland
Oscar H. Horst
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Western Michigan University
Avril McLelland
Affiliation:
International and Area Studies Program, Western Michigan University
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Extract

In the United States there is a constant preoccupation with the qualitative aspects of our educational system. This occurs in a nation where over 98 per cent of all children between the ages of seven and fourteen are attending school and where over 95 per cent of all inhabitants are considered literate. Thus, in terms of literacy and level of education, the United States is classified as highly advanced. Not so fortunate are the developing nations of the world.

Latin America, as a major world region, is classified as underdeveloped and shares many of the economic and social misfortunes which plague that sector of the world's populace. Within Latin America there is a wide diversity of educational attainment. Although seven nations may be classified as advanced or moderately advanced, these represent less than one quarter of the region's population. The vast majority are less advantaged and among these are the inhabitants of Guatemala. Less than one quarter of its children between the ages of seven and fourteen attend school; less than 30 per cent over ten years of age are considered literate.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , July 1968 , pp. 474 - 497
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1968

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Footnotes

*

The authors acknowledge the support of The National Science Foundation and a Faculty Research Grant provided by Western Michigan University for joint field research in Guatemala during the summers of 1966 and 1967.

References

1 Inter-American Statistical Institute, Characteristics of the Demographic Structure of the American Countries (Washington: Pan American Union, 1964), p. 115.Google ScholarPubMed

2 Ibid., pp. 116, 128.

3 Whetten, Nathan L., Guatemala, The Land and the People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), p. 30.Google Scholar

4 Consejo Superior Universitario Centro América, “El sistema educativo en Guatemala: situación actual y perspectivas,” Estudio de Recursos Humanos en Centroamérica, No. 2 (Costa Rica: Ciudad Universitaria, 1964), p. 3.

5 A department is comparable to one of our states and the municipio to a county. The cabecera, in this instance, would be equivalent to a countyseat. The aldea is a political subdivision of the municipio.

6 A ladino has culturally adapted himself to a Westernized way of life in terms of mode of living.

7 Inter-American Statistical Institute, Characteristics of the Demographic Structure of the American Countries, p. 131.

8 Under the Ydígoras Plan the cost of school construction was divided in three ways: one-third was provided by the municipio, one-third by the Guatemalan government, and the remaining one-third by the government of the United States. A rural school in Monrovia and the village boys’ school of Lorenzo Montúfar were constructed under this arrangement.

9 Oficina de Planeamiento Integral de Educación, Diagnóstico de la educación guatemalteca (Guatemala: Ministerio de Educación, 1964), p. 2.

10 There are a number of national holidays such as “Promulgación de la Constitución de la República,” (March 15), and “Aniversario de la Independencia Nacional” (September 15), as well as local holidays commemorating patron saints.

12 Whetten, Guatemala, p. 199.

13 Oficina de Planeamiento Integral de Educación (OPIE), Questionnaires of 1965 (mimeographed), Ministerio de Educación, Guatemala, C.A.

14 This applies only to the urban teachers, since the rural schools are not in session during the afternoon.

15 Lemus, Luis Arturo, “Situación de la educación nacional,” Humanidades, IV, No. 11 (1965), 4.Google Scholar

16 All figures cited in this paragraph have been approximated on the basis of limited census material and the personal accumulation of field data.