Education

Schools understaffed and in poor condition

la prensa

Abandoned: Students from the Cruce de Santa Clara school are waiting for renovations to be completed before starting classes.1003861

Two weeks after of the beginning 2008 academic year, the province of Los Santos still needs to appoint 38 preschool, primary school and other teachers and school officials.

But that is only one of the problems faced by numerous schools throughout the country, not only in Los Santos.

Parents, students, and health workers across the country have been complaining about the dilapidated condition of their local schools and, in some cases, the dangers posed to their children's health by fiberglass and lack of proper sanitation.

In the mountains west of Azuero, in the province of Herrera, work on renovating a local school has been abandoned for two years. At the Instituto Profesional y Técnico de Azuero, in La Villa de Los Santos, the gymnasium is filled with fiberglass.

Yet no matter how often school officials or others denounce these conditions to the Ministerio de Educación, little seems to get done.