Meeting EFA: Honduras Educatodos

This 12-page report examines the contributions of Honduras's alternative educational programme "Educatodos" in the areas of access, completion, quality, cost and cost-effectiveness, human resources and staffing, and policy and the enabling environment.

As detailed here, Educatodos is an effort on the part of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Secretary of Education (SE) to contribute to the effort to meet Education for All (EFA) goals. Designed to cost-effectively respond to the demand for basic education in a significantly shorter time frame than the traditional education system, Educatodos uses a combination of audio, texts, and communitiy projects to educate the out-of-school population: 540,000 students and an additional 1.1 million young adults age 19 to 30 who failed to complete 9 years of basic education, as well as other adults seeking alternative means of attaining basic education. Established in 1996, the Educatodos programme offers youth and adults the opportunity to complete grades 1-6 in 3 years; in 2000, the programme expanded to include grades 7-9. Volunteer facilitators with diverse academic backgrounds implement the programme from learning centres situated in factories, businesses, schools, and community centres throughout the country.

Access:

Since its inception in 1996, Educatodos has enrolled over 500,000 students in its primary school programme, producing over 350,000 person years of education from grades 1-7. The grade 7-9 programme is newer, initiated in the year 2000. Even so, seventh grade enrollment rose from 2,728 in 2000 to 8,824 in 2003. Enrollments in grade 8 rose from 2,187 in 2002 to 2,957 in 2003. In 2003, 1,436 students completed grade 9, giving the programme an efficiency rate of approximately 54%, compared to 35% in the public schools. Reduction of the average age of participation is particularly important to Honduras's achievement of its EFA and Poverty Reduction goals. For example, the Poverty Reduction goals are to provide 70% coverage in grades 7-9 for children ages 13 to 15. Data show that 2 of every 3 participants in seventh and eighth grades are under 18 years of age and that 36% are under 16 years of age.

Completion:

Completion of the Educatodos programme relates to the number of students who complete both the individual 2-year grade cycles and the full primary cycle of grades 1-6. Examining the completion rates for Educatodos reveals that the programme is as efficient as the public system, with an average completion rate of 61% from 1996 to 2003 (vs. 78% in the public educations system). Completion rates held steady at 71% from 2000 to 2003. Completion rates for the grades 7-9 programme, where students are closer in age to their peer population in the public system, are 54%, compared to 35% in the public education system; 7,188 students have completed seventh, eighth, or ninth grade since 2001.

Quality:

A study conducted in October and November 2001 by researchers from Universidad Pedagogica Nacional Fransisco Morozan (UMCE) and published in Logros Academicos del Septimo Grado de Educatodos: Estudio Comparativo External de los Centrosde Educatodos e los Centros Regulares by Unidad Externa de Medición de Calidad Educación measured student learning in the Educatodos pilot centres and expansion centres and in the traditional school system. A pre-test was conducted for students in the seventh grade pilot centres at the beginning of the year, and post tests were conducted for students in the pilot centres, expansion centres, and government schools.

• Students from Educatodos demonstrated similar and, in some cases, better performance on measures of Spanish and mathematics than students in the regular public school system. These results were achieved in spite of having fewer resources, less school time, and volunteer facilitators instead of teachers.
• The performance of students in the Educatodos pilot centres was significantly better that the performance of participants in the expansion centres and the students in traditional schools. The result was statistically significant.
• An analysis between the pre- and post-tests given to students in the Educatodos pilot centres indicated that their performance improved significantly in each of the Spanish and mathematics tests at the grade 4, 6, and 7 levels.
• In Spanish, 67% of seventh grade participants achieved full mastery of the competencies corresponding to fourth grade competencies, 46% achieved mastery of sixth grade competencies, and 22% achieved full mastery of the skills associated with seventh grade.
• Mathematics results were slightly lower: 53% of students in the pilot centres achieved full mastery of the fourth grade competencies. Of the seventh grade participants, 76% began at the non-mastery level and only 2% achieved mastery by the end.

The Improving Educational Quality (IEQ) Project conducted a study that examined the impact of Educatodos on women. Results from the study suggest that the model assists both facilitators and students obtain control over everyday factors that impact their lives, including social, political, biological, physical, and sexual. Results also indicate Educatodos helped increase women participants' self-esteem and is providing new opportunities for women to enter the workforce, although no statistical data was available.

Cost and cost-effectiveness:

The cost per student enrolled in Educatodos is US$40, compared to $102 in the public education system. The per-student cost rises to US$80 in the programme for grades 7-9, but is still significantly lower than the per-student cost in the public education system.

The cost-effectiveness of the Educatodos programme can be evaluated in terms of its average cost to produce a student who completes the primary school equivalent. The cost per student that completes Educatodos (grades 1-6) is US$197, compared to US$903 for public education. The difference in costs stems partially from the fact that per student costs are lower and students can complete the grades 1-6 programme in 3 years, versus 6 years in the traditional system. The cost per completing student (grades 7-9) in Educatodos is US$180. Per-student costs are also lower in this programme, and students can complete the programme in 25 months, versus 3 years in the traditional system. A 2000 USAID report estimated that the cost per completing student in public school grades 7-9 was US$702. However, recent estimates using 2003 data suggest that the actual cost of completion for grades 7-9 could be as high as US$2,736.

Human resources and staffing:

The volunteer facilitators who comprise the teaching force of Educatodos come from the community itself; they are thought to be "a key element in assuring that participants continue their studies." They receive training on programme methodology and are supported by the programme promoters and coordinators to ensure quality teaching. (Educatodos has a decentralised structure for promoting, monitoring, and evaluating quality at the local level.) At the grade 1-6 level, the facilitators often have 6 years of education or less and are primarily housewives and small farmers, although 18% are teachers. Approximately 35% are former Educatodos participants. The volunteers earn approximately US$100 per month in addition to a food basket, travel, and transportation valued at approximately US$2.90 per facilitator. The student to facilitator ratio for grades 1-6 is approximately 15 to 1.

Fifty percent of the volunteers at the grade 7-9 level have university degrees and 71% are trained teachers or public employees; these personnel earn approximately US$300 per month in addition to a food, travel, and transportation stipend. In contrast to facilitators of grades 1-6, 56% of the facilitators for grades 7-9 are located in the urban areas; approximately 10% are former students of the programme. The student to facilitator ratio for grades 7-9 is 21 to 1.

Policy and the enabling environment:

The SE has been extremely supportive of Educatodos, which is crucial to its success. In August 1995, the Honduran National Congress issued a decree which, in part, ensured that: certificates obtained by Educatodos participants who pass grades 1-6 are officially recognised; participants who pass the sixth, seventh, or eighth grade are authorised to matriculate into the next grade level in basic education centres, middle schools, or other institutions providing basic education; and participants who pass ninth grade are eligible to enroll in secondary education.

As part of the Hurricane Mitch reconstruction package, USAID/Honduras and the SE founded the Improving Educational Quality (IEQ) II project to expand the Educatodos programme to grades 7-9; under the agreement, the SE: assured that the national curriculum department would cooperate with Educatodos to develop appropriate curriculum; adopted the Educatodos grade 7-9 curriculum and applied it to all traditional and alternative education systems in Honduras; collaborated with USAID and its contractors to create sustainable strategies for the programme; officially recognised the agreements and procedures pertaining to the programme; provided the initial sets of texts and audio learning materials to new organisations and groups implementing Educatodos; and assured that the SE personnel at the departmental and district levels cooperated with all participating organisations. The SE has further supported both the grades 1-6 and grades 7-9 programmes through the provision of direct funding.

In conclusion, the author notes that "The Educatodos program has experienced many successes in its first eight years of operation, yet, it also faces dropout and retention challenges, similar to the pubic school system. In the coming years, the program will face the challenge of ensuring that it continues to assist the public school system in reaching EFA targets while reducing dropouts, improving training for facilitators, and ensuring that both youth and adults continue to have cost-effective access to education."