A Role Model, A New Precedent
The unfortunate truth for the majority of primary school students, and a widespread problem throughout Honduras, is that they will lack the necessary foundation of skills in basic subject areas to enter middle school prepared for success. Many of them will be more than 3 grades level behind and still struggling to solve simple addition and subtraction equations. As the frustration adds up, this can lead to low levels of self-esteem that increase the likelihood a student will dropout before completing the year.
The dismal quality of primary education is largely a result of several challenges affecting rural areas: lack of adequate teaching materials and classroom supplies to engage students in fun learning activities, spotty teacher attendance or adherence to a full school schedule, and poor commitment to individual attention to students with greater learning difficulties.
As an organization covering secondary school education, we’re often directly impacted by the quality of education students received at the primary level. It is more the rule than the exception that E2E can expect to receive 7th grade students into our program who are far behind.
E2E students are taking matters into their own hands to protect the younger generations from falling behind. Serving as tutors, mentors, and motivators — children now have local role models inside and outside of the classroom to inspire them to aim higher. After normal classes wrap up, E2E students take over from there providing extra support in the areas of math and reading to those children who have been identified as “falling behind”.
This is a trend we see across each of our school sites in Honduras where E2E students are laying the groundwork for the younger ones to be as prepared and confident as possible when their turn arrives to enter secondary school for the first time. These action steps taken by young leaders will help transform the education landscape by decreasing drop out rates and increasing the number of students who are performing at their grade level. Many teachers welcome the extra hands especially in cases of student to teacher ratios at times reaching up to 50 students for 1 teacher in multi-grade classrooms.
Investing in secondary school access creates necessary role models in the community who not only contribute to boosting the average education levels in the community, but play a direct role in improving the quality of education that they likely did not receive as children.
