“Online education has been our lifeline”
2020 Julio Nicaragua
I am an anthropologist and my doctoral thesis was a sociological analysis of the results of neoliberal reforms in university education. I want to discuss...
“We’re facing an educational emergency”
2020 Marzo Nicaragua
What is the educational context in today’s world? And in what context is education happening in Nicaragua? The answers to these questions and a brief...
Seven priorities for achieving quality education
2017 Marzo Nicaragua
In 2006 a group of education professionals formulated a public proposal we called “Seven priorities of Nicaraguan education.” Our objective was to put...
We’re overwhelmed by an enormous educational backwardness
2017 Febrero Nicaragua
In 2006 a group of education professionals formulated a public proposal we called “Seven priorities of Nicaraguan education.” The objective was to...
Peña Nieto’s “imbecility” and the teachers’ ability to keep struggling
2016 Octubre México
The Mexican teachers’ constant and determined struggle, underpinned by their unshakable resistance and convictions, continues in a context in which President...
There’ll be no development by ignoring Science
2014 Agosto Nicaragua
If impoverished countries are to progress towards a knowledge-based economy, the environment has to be conducive to innovation and the economic regime...
A resounding NO to the PRI's education reform
2013 Agosto México
Most primary and secondary education teachers in Mexico belong to the National Education Workers’ Union (SNTE), which is the largest union not only in...
Nicaragua’s future development depends on quality teacher training
2013 Junio Nicaragua
On March 2, Nicaragua’s Ministry of Education initiated a diploma in continuing education and values for teachers of public and subsidized schools. ...
Memories of a scholarship generation
2012 Junio Nicaragua
Many young people left Nicaragua in the eighties with grants to study in countries that were part of the Socialist Bloc. The majority of them went to...
The quality of public education is endangering the country’s future
2012 Marzo Nicaragua
I want to reflect on the public education the State is offering the majority of the population, financed with the public money contributed by Nicaraguan...
What education priorities should this or the next government have?
2011 Septiembre Nicaragua
I want to begin by acknowledging that despite the continuing precariousness of Nicaraguan public education and the fact that education can only be planned...
The Two Main Electoral Issues Must Be Education and Fiscal Reform
2010 Noviembre Nicaragua
The most recent analyses by international finance organizations and socioeconomic institutions that study Central America are now sounding an optimistic...
An Urgent Call to Use the Demographic Dividend
2009 Septiembre Nicaragua
On August 8, the Civil Coordinator, a Nicaraguan civil society umbrella organization made up of some 600 nongovernmental organizations, networks and...
In These Times of Uncertainty and Insomnia…
2008 Noviembre Nicaragua
We often state that we live in uncertain times, harassed by injustice and a lack of well-being. In this regard, we have already cited a brief but extraordinary...
An Educational Adventure Loses Its Midwife
2008 Septiembre El Salvador
That Tuesday dawned with the threat of rain in Morazán, the northeastern department of El Salvador. As it does every winter, the area’s cool, damp climate...
To Read or Not to Read: That is the Question
2008 Agosto Nicaragua
According to Moroccan-French writer Daniel Pennac, readers are subject to 10 rights, the first of which is the right not to read. It appears that, consciously...
Our Education System Is Increasing Poverty and Inequality
2008 Mayo Nicaragua
In Nicaragua we’re all gradually beginning to agree on three ideas regarding education. The first already sounds like a cliché: education is a key factor...
Are Raw Materials Our Only Contribution to Science?
2008 Enero Nicaragua
The state of scientific development in Nicaragua is depressing and worrying. The current rate of growth in this area is increasingly threatening the...
We Can’t Go on Paying Our Teachers Miserable Salaries
2007 Mayo Nicaragua
The day after the new government took office, Education Minister Miguel de Castilla declared that he had abolished the school autonomy system set up...
A Train Ride Through Memory and History
2006 Octubre Nicaragua
In August 2005, Jan Kees de Rooy—a Dutch-born Nicaraguan national who always thinks big—called to tell me about a dream he was working on in the Institute...
What Must We Change To Provide Quality Education?
2006 Junio América Latina
It isn’t enough to guarantee the broadest possible infant education coverage. We also need to guarantee its quality. For many theoretical reasons and...
What Culture Are We Legitimizing In Our Classrooms?
2006 Mayo América Latina
Of all the quality criteria for an educational curriculum for children at the initial or infant education level, or any other level for that matter,...
What’s Our Concept of Children and Classrooms?
2006 Abril América Latina
Education is always based on a curriculum: a consistent and coherent set of different factors and elements that we intentionalize and organize to foster...
What Kind of People Are We Forming In Our Kindergartens?
2006 Marzo América Latina
The most recent contributions to neurology have shown that three quarters of the neuronal connections that human beings use during their lifetime for...
“The Whole Country Was a Huge School”
2005 Agosto Nicaragua
For five months, half of Nicaragua’s population lived for the Literacy Crusade. Some 60,000 young people, mostly teenage girls and boys, spread out...
Nicaragua’s Future: Hooking Children on Books
2003 Julio Nicaragua
Libros para Niños is a nongovernmental organization that promotes reading with a very specific objective: we want children and the adults in...
Six Realistic Theories About the Mythical 6%
2003 Marzo Nicaragua
Between February 19 and 21, university students again took to the streets to demand 6% of the national bud get for the ten universities that make up...
Brazil’s Landless Movement: “Our Aim Is to Topple Three Walls...”
2003 Enero América Latina
One of the great challenges Lula faces is how to achieve agrarian reform in Brazil, where 500 latifundistas (large estate owners) own unproductive...
The "Sun-Child": Everyone’s Responsibility
2002 Julio Internacional
An oft-heard lament in western societies is that today’s young people are individualistic and violent, that they lack any deep convictions or motivations...
Education Is Not School And School Is Not Business
2001 Abril Nicaragua
Millions of dollars. Billions. Economists, sociologists, business administrators, psychologists and more "economists." Consultants, advisers, counselors,...
Educational Reform in Latin America: "It Needs to be Turned Around"
2000 Septiembre América Latina
The start of a new decade and of a new century is an invitation to reflect on past achievements and to prepare a future agenda based on new available...
A Passionate Memory in Times of Disillusion
2000 Septiembre Nicaragua
In 1980, we Nicaraguans were better than the people we have become after so many ups and downs. In two decades our dignity has been mortgaged off, our...
A School Where People Learn How to Learn
1998 Enero América Latina
THE EFFECTS OF ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL GLOBALIZATION ARE DENOUNCED DAILY but, given that transnational interests move with the same objectives in the...
Does a Trap Lurk Behind the Struggle for 6%?
1997 Octubre Nicaragua
The struggle of Nicaragua’s universities to get the government to provide 6% of its ordinary and extraordinary income to the public universities, as...
Nicaraguan Youth: What Do They Want and What Are They Like?
1995 Noviembre Nicaragua
Nicaraguan youth, "the muchachos," led the challenge to the Somocista dictatorship during the 1970s. They were at the forefront of the revolutionary...
Is It Time for Another Literacy Crusade?
1993 Diciembre Nicaragua
Thirteen years have passed since the National Literacy Crusade, one of the revolution's most beautiful undertakings. Today, illiteracy levels have...
New Times, New Role for Universities of the South
1993 Julio Nicaragua
Given the challenges we are facing at the end of this century, defining the role of the university is difficult and perplexing. This is especially true...
Battle for the Budget
1992 Noviembre Nicaragua
With the battle to assign 6% of the national budget to the universities entering into an uneasy truce after one of the most significant and decisive...
Scholarship Students Slip Through the Cracks
1991 Octubre Nicaragua
When Iván Hernández left Nicaragua in 1983 to study foreign relations in the Soviet Union, he was one of the country's best and brightest. A good student...
The Transformation of Education: UNO's Political Project
1991 Septiembre Nicaragua
This article, written by Dr. Juan Bautista Arrién, won first prize in envío's fourth annual writer's contest. Dr. Arrién is currently the Ministry...
Education: UNO Goes To School
1990 Octubre Nicaragua
“Everything [in the Sandinistas' educational objectives] is applicable except the revolutionary part,” said UNO education minister Sofonías Cisneros...
The University is Shaped by the Revolution
1990 Marzo Nicaragua
Rector César Jérez, S.J., Central American University (UCA), Inaugural Address 1990 Session March 14,1990
I do not think it is pretentious...