The 2007 Education Reform in Nicaragua: Is it a step forward or backwards?

• Main Authors: Lester Abdul Zamora Rizo, 薩磊
• Other Authors: Sheng-Ju Chan
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/m94zn6

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 教育領導與管理發展國際碩士學位學程 === 103 === Governments used to have more power over their own domestic issues, but nowadays their authority is under external factors mostly dictated by the globalization. This process is getting stronger and subtly changed the nation’s government capacity. What used to be under the control of a strong central government switched to be regulated by others stakeholders of a nation and influenced by the international trends. Nicaragua, a small country in Central America, was also part of such movement; however in 2007 the situation transformed due to a new political scenario in the country. Instead of promoting a decentralized system, as many other countries are doing, Nicaragua decided to re-centralize/re-regulate its school system with an education reform. A situation that debates whether this is a step forward or backwards. One way to evaluate such situation in Nicaragua, whether is positive or negative, is using the indicators collected by UNESCO with the Millennial Development Goals (MDG) and Education for All (EFA) programs as reference. This organization and these two international programs action frameworks give the theoretical rational to set three dimensions of analysis. They help to focus the evaluation of the Nicaragua schooling system in three aspects. These are Access to Education, Resources Investment and Quality of Education, each of them containing a number of indicators with respect to the performance of education in Nicaragua. Since the aim of the research is to measure the impact of such changes on education, data from the period before the reforms (2000-2006) and after (2007-2014) were collected. Subsequently, the results of the research indicate an improvement in Nicaragua education; the indicators used in each dimension show a better performance after 2007. For instance: there are more students going to school, the illiteracy rate is lower, the amount of money invested per student increased, a higher percentage of student graduated from school, etc. The key element of this positive trend is due to the stronger government participation in the re-centralization of many aspects of the schooling system. However, compared to the international situation of education, Nicaragua still is far away from providing a comprehensive quality education. Therefore, were the 2007 reforms a step forward or backwards? According to the UNESCO indicators, it has been a step forward since the schooling system in the country is performing better. Nevertheless, Nicaragua still has a long way to go.