The Traveling Teachers: Education in El Salvador & Seeds of Hope (by Laurel)

To better understand our Salvadoran students back in Washington, we wanted to get a better understanding of the education system from which they come. This has amounted to discussions with students, teachers, community leaders, union representatives and even El Salvador's Vice Minister of Education.

The meeting with the Vice Minister on our second day in San Salvador was largely uninspired. His overview of the government's education initiatives (better teacher training, improving infrastructure, increased spending for education in general) lacked substance and detail. We knew that there would be a disconnect with what we would see and hear as our tour of the country continued.

The following day we met with the leaders of three teachers' unions who filled us in on the flip side of the Vice Minister's story. The increase in government spending hasn't accounted for the increase in the number of students, so schools are actually making do with less money per pupil. In cases where funding is there, schools may not receive it in a timely manner. Significant "processing fees" are deducted from schools' funding. New materials are provided, but without the support necessary to use them. And how absurd, they pointed out, to provide new computers to schools in areas without electricity!

It's difficult to tease apart how much of the disconnect between the national government and the local communities is the result of incompetence, corruption, or as the community leader of Amando Lopez suggested, a calculated plot to suppress the poor. Whatever it is, the locals, at least in the communities that we visited, have lost faith in their government and are doing their best to fill in the gaps themselves.

The idea of "solidaridad" was evident in both of the rural villages that we visited. By working and living in cooperatives, community members are trying to take matters upon themselves. Residents of Amando Lopez, for example, have worked together to establish and maintain a small library. Running the school depends on an active parent/teacher association, and community leaders have figured out how to connect with NGOs to get funding for local projects. Elsewhere, in the village of San Luis in Morazan, one elderly resident spoke of the history of grass roots literacy programs in which residents who can read teach those who can't.

Despite the inadequacies of the public education system, and along with the realities of poverty and insecurity, there's a lot of hope in these communities. Hope is particularly evident in the dedicated teachers of Amando Lopez. The Ministry of Education pays them about $68/month, but not always consistently. They occasionally go several months without their salary, and when a check arrives, it may or may not account for back pay. In the face of injustice, these teachers still show up. They even take in students from outside their community - just because. They stay focused on their work.

And so we made our rounds, from the fancy air-conditioned office of the Vice Minister to schools without plumbing in remote parts of the country. We listened. We asked good questions. We tried to process the information overload.

As human rights advocate Jeanne Rikkers told us, the trick is to look for the small seeds of hope and find ways to water them so that they'll grow. For example, Voices on the Border, our host organization, is paying a teacher's salary so that the school in Amando Lopez can offer 7th grade after 6th grade. They have covered the cost of a substitute teacher so that the regular teacher can receive pay during her maternity leave. They are also providing a grant to renovate the rundown library in San Luis. Kudos to them for watering the seeds!

~Laurel

PS. I almost forgot to mention that our group team taught a 45-min English lesson to a group of 6th graders in Amando Lopez! Never mind the rudimentary facilities, these kids were smart, engaged and totally entertained by us Gringos!