Cousin in-law Vanessa would like to know what schools are like south of the boarder! In a short answer, they’re similar, yet different.
Preescolar = Kindergarten? Starts at age 3/4 and goes for 3 years. I’ve never been to one so I don’t know what they learn/do there. Only in the mornings for 3 or 4 hours.
Escuela Primaria = Middle school. Ages 6/7 and lasts for 6 years. Again no experience here.
Insituto = Highschool. 12/13 years old and is a 5 year curriculum. This is where I work so I have a decent idea of what goes on. The students attend either in the morning or the afternoon for a little less than 5 hours (7am-11:45 or 12:15-5pm). Of course a borderline obnoxious amount of this time is wasted or lost by students arriving late or what have you. Classes are in 45 minute periods. From what I observed, the only classes that meet nearly every day are Spanish and math. Other classes include: history, sciences, psychology/sociology, English, physical education and OTV. This is a little embarrassing because my course is in the OTV curriculum and I really don’t know what it stands for. Anyway, throughout the first four years of OTV students learn life skills such as word processing, self-esteem etc.. Then in fifth year comes OTV Emprendedurismo aka Entrepreneurship aka my class.
After they graduate highschool they can attend a vocational school or a university. These are usually three or four years and offer all higher level education for everything from teachers to doctors.
This may be needless to say but I feel I should state that Nicaraguans are very intelligent. I observed a math class during training and was expecting the students to be doing long division or something. Instead they were graphing trigonometry functions, yuck.
Well I had a rough three day work week, off to the beach!
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