Education
19 Aug 2010
The main objective of the NICHE programme is to develop capacity in post-secondary education. Below is a brief outline of the higher education sector in Guatemala.
Higher education
Higher education is offered at one state university and ten private universities. The University of San Carlos (USAC) is the oldest in Central America and it is the state university.
The private universities are: Francisco Marroquín University, Rafael Landívar University, Valle de Guatemala University, Mariano Gálvez University, University of the Isthmus, Galileo University, Rural University, Panamerican University, Mesoamerican University and San Pablo de Guatemala University.
Students can apply for four academic levels: technical/teacher, licentiate, master’s and doctorate.
A lack of higher education policies
The Ministry of Education does not have an underministry for Higher Education. According to a 2005 Unesco study, this deficit reflects the lack of higher education policies, the low budgetary and the state’s lack of the forward-looking attitude needed to take advantage of propositional capacity from the universities. To these deficiencies we must add the inadequate search for new research-based knowledge.
As the sole state university, the University of San Carlos (USAC), founded in 1676, is forced to provide state higher education by presidential decree. The USAC’s degree of influence in higher education extends to the right to submit draft laws relating to national requirements for higher education.
In Guatemala, higher education includes non university technical education and university education. Technical and university-level education is accessible to a small percentage of society (20% in the year 2007) due to factors relating to poverty, social exclusion and discrimination. Women are the most disadvantaged. This limited access to, above all, private universities, promotes elitism at this educational level.
More funding and more collaboration needed
The above issues make an increase in education finance imperative, particularly spending on quality and control mechanisms. In addition, as the UNDP states, universities should work together to incorporate all multicultural dimensions in their training curricula for professionals and to facilitate access for the most disadvantaged as a part of their higher education policy.
