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Overview of Education in the Toledo Region

Improving and increasing education is a major key to improving the quality of life in Belize. In the developing world in general, those countries committed to investing in education and universal literacy have experienced the highest reduction in the number of families below the poverty line and the highest sustained economic growth rates. Each additional year of education that a person gains is linked to a substantial increase in personal wages or farm output, and increased education for girls is a major factor in decreasing infant mortality and the number of children per family. Nearly half of the population of Belize is under the age of 15. As this large group moves into adulthood, the education levels of its members will significantly affect their abilities to provide for their families and to assure a positive direction for Belize's development.

Improving access to and quality of education is imperative in the remote Toledo region since poverty and dependency have the strongest grip there. The quality of education in Toledo is below that in other parts of the country. While 42 percent of all primary teachers in Belize are fully trained, only 24 percent of Toledo’s 296 primary teachers have received full training. Over half of Toledo’s primary teachers have no schooling or training beyond high school. Overall, Toledo’s teachers face onerous conditions, including multi-grade classrooms (several grade levels in one room) and few supplies. In a 1998 TFABB survey of 36 local teachers, 21 listed the lack of supplies as one of their greatest obstacles. In 2002, 174 out of 194 teachers expressed the need for more reading and resource books and supplies. In our yearly "supply need" survey, teachers continue to list books–especially teacher resource books and story books–as the number one item they need.

Because relatively few children from the remote Mayan villages of the Toledo district attend high school, there are even fewer high school graduates who return to their villages as teachers. Thus, the district often must send non-Mayan teachers from the town of Punta Gorda to staff the small primary schools in the remote villages. Being posted to the "back" villages–many reachable only by canoe or mud paths through the dense jungle–is considered hardship duty as the teachers must live in the small village without their families for weeks at a time, coming to town once a month to pick up their pay checks. Not surprisingly, it is often the teachers with the least seniority who work in the remote villages. In Toledo, new teachers are typically 18 years old. Most have finished high school but have no teacher training. Thus, Toledo’s most remote two and three-room schools are staffed by two or three untrained teachers in their late teens or early twenties. By default, the most senior of these young, untrained teachers must also serve as principal. The schools and children with the least resources and fewest opportunities are allotted the least experienced teachers and principals in schools with the highest teacher turnover.

Though 88 percent of young Belizean children are in primary school, only 45 percent of Belizean teenagers are in secondary school. The disparity is more glaring in Toledo, where 86 percent of children are in primary school but only 14 percent of adolescents are in secondary school. This is a particular problem for girls in Toledo whose attendance lags behind boys in high school.

Frustration keeps many children from finishing primary school. One of the main reasons young people drop out of school is frustration with frequent repeating of grades. Only 43 percent of all Belizean children finish primary school in the normal course of eight years. The situation is far worse in Toledo where repetition and drop out rates are well above the national average. Most of the repetitions come in the first four grades. One-quarter of all Toledo children in the first level of primary school will repeat, in large part due to lack of English and lack of access to preschool. Perhaps less than one-quarter of children entering primary school have had access to one of 12 small preschools in a district of over 40 villages. By the time children reach the upper grades of primary school, they may have repeated several grades and tend to drop out. Only 57 percent of Toledo’s children ever finish primary school versus 70 percent of children nationally. Another reason many children in Toledo do not attend high school is their inability to do well on the national high school entrance exam (again due in part to lack of English fluency).

Studies by the Government of Belize indicate that Mayan and other populations in Toledo (including Garifuna, Mestizo, Creole, East Indian, and others) do place a high value on education for children, although Mayans are more likely to pull their girls out of school when they reach puberty. Beyond frustration with frequent repetition of grades, families must also make the difficult decision to remove their children from school because of poverty. Children may drop out because they lack money for books and fees (especially for high school) and/or because their parents need extra hands around the house or farm. Toledo accounts for 45 percent of all recorded child labor occurrences in the country, largely because of the high number of Mayan children participating in subsistence agriculture.

Children who do not go to high school have little chance of escaping poverty. Many are sent to work in the towns or tourist centers to supplement family incomes. Many young women sent to these areas are soon pregnant, with little hope for a stable relationship. Toledo’s urban-bound youth are increasingly at risk for illegal drug involvement and HIV/AIDS. Belize’s location makes it a convenient stopover for drug smugglers traveling between South America and the United States, and the local population is inevitably affected by this dangerous trade. Even worse, compared to the rest of Central America, Belize has the highest percentage of its population between the ages of 15 and 49 who are living with HIV/AIDS (2.5% in 2005, up from 2.1% in 2003). This prevalence rate is the fourth highest in the world outside of Africa.

Sources:

Government of Belize; Population and Housing Censuses, 2000

Government of Belize; Written Replies Concerning the List of Issues Received by the Committee on the Rights of the Child Relating to the Consideration of the Second Periodic Report of Belize (CRC/C/RESP/76), 12/2004

Ministry of Education; School Effectiveness Report: A Study of Primary Schools in Belize; December 1999

Ministry of Education Planning Unit; Belize: Educational Statistical Digest; 2004-05

Ministry of Education; Education Statistics at a Glance; 2004-2005

National Committee for Families and Children and UNICEF/Belize; The Right to a Future: A Situation Analysis of Children in Belize; 1997

National Human Development Advisory Committee; Belize 1996 Poverty Assessment Report; 1996

National Human Development Advisory Committee; Belize 2002 Poverty Assessment Report; 2004

Population Reference Bureau; World Population Data Sheet; 2006

United Nations Children’s Fund, Belize; A World Fit for Children; 2004

United Nations Development Programme and National Human Development Advisory Committee; Belize Taking Stock: National Human Development Report; 1997

Background on Belize

• Background on Belize and the Toledo Region
• Toledo's Educators Voice Their Needs
• Educational Demographics for the Toledo Region

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