Over 12,000 Less Students Enrolled This Season Due To Lower Birth Rate
The public and private schools this school year will start with 12,759 fewer students than last year.
This figure does not mean that many children do not attend classes, but reflects the decision taken by Costa Rica for more than a decade: having fewer or no children.
In fact, the 470,632 children enrolled in primary education correspond to 100% of those who should attend.
The biggest drop in the number of students registered in the fourth, fifth and sixth, as 9,619 fewer children will be at that level from the academic year which begins on Wednesday February 8.
Students in these grades are between 9 and 11 years of age, ie birth of a good part of them coincide with a drastic drop in the birth occurred in 2002.
At that time less than 5,000 babies born in 2001, and demographers associate it with the entry into force of the Responsible Fatherhood Act.
This legislation allows single mothers to declare the name of the alleged father of the child and force him to cooperate with the support of the child.
Leonardo Garnier, Minister of Education, said the main advantage that he brings to this situation is to have classrooms in smaller groups. This enables teachers to explain to each child further.
That advantage, however, not possible in all schools, especially those located in densely populated communities.
The decrease in elementary students did not require the Ministry to open new schools. The same was true for the course of 2011.
“The only reason to open new schools is a migration process is given within the country. There are neighborhoods where low population not only because it decreases the number of births, but because it moves to other places, “said the minister.
This situation puts the teachers in trouble because it is increasingly difficult to get a job because they must wait for another become disabled, pensione or resigns.
Figures. Although the fall in primary enrollment is drastically this year there is an increase in the number of children who go to preschool and youth enrolled in school.
For example, more than 1,262 attend preschool the past school year, while the classrooms of the schools will accommodate 3,403 additional young.
A total of 959,209 students start classes, that is, 8,094 fewer than in 2011.
Leonardo Garnier explained that the increase in kindergarten and the ‘school’ is due to improved coverage.
Even the MEP opened nine new technical colleges in Oreamuno de Cartago, San Ramon, Naranjo, Aserrí, San Isidro de Heredia, Santo Domingo, Mercedes Norte de Heredia, Pavas (San Jose) and Cañas (Guanacaste).
In primary does not appear to landscape change in the future, because in 2010 there was another sharp decline. In that year 4,000 children came to light less than a year earlier, leaving the lowest fertility rate in history: only 1.82 births per woman of childbearing age.
Demographers fear associated with the economic crisis.
Given this, it is likely that the classroom first grade are far more empty in 2016, when these children are appropriate to read and write.
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