TokyoNow: Japan to launch math education program in C. America

Asian Economic News, April 18, 2005

GINOWAN, Japan, April 12 Kyodo

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El Salvadorian Vice President Ana Vilma de Escobar will return home from Japan in high spirits as Japan's development expert Sadako Ogata has pleased her with a Japan-led plan to improve primary school mathematics education in El Salvador and seven other Central American nations.

Ogata, president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, told de Escobar in Okinawa last week that JICA plans to start the project by the end of next March with Canada, Spain and Sweden.

The project involves the training of local teachers with professional teaching qualifications by Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers and using teaching manuals and student textbooks developed separately for Belize, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.

De Escobar, El Salvador's first female vice president, believes spurring economic growth and promoting primary school education in math, science and computer skills are the key to combating her country's problems such as poor public safety, child labor and drug trafficking.

''We think the most valuable resource that we have in our country is human resource, and everything we can do to support and develop human resource is very important,'' de Escobar said on the sidelines of an annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank in Ginowan, Okinawa, which ended Tuesday.

''If we can strengthen that with the mathematic program, that is wonderful. We really appreciate Madame Ogata's initiative,'' she told Kyodo News in an interview.

Under the plan, JICA will help Central American countries turn around high dropout rates in their primary school education, which Ogata attributes primarily to ''poor teaching quality.''

''Math illiteracy itself is cause for insecurity,'' the former U.N. high commissioner for refugees said in a separate interview. ''We must realize that math capacity has intrinsic value for survival and progress in life.''

JICA has set up a model to strengthen primary school math education in Honduras, where the average dropout rate for primary schools is 31.5 percent. The agency has sent 60 volunteers to train instructors in remote rural communities since 2003 while developing and tailoring teaching manuals and student textbooks for the Honduran system.

As a result, JICA has developed 54 core trainers who in turn have taught 7,500 teachers, a move seen as improving the teaching capacity of 38,000 school teachers and upgrading math literacy for 1.2 million students in primary schools.

Ogata believes this model, which cost 400 million yen, should be applied to seven other countries.

Ogata said Sweden and Canada have stepped in to assist with the printing of textbooks in Honduras, and that Spain has decided to adopt JICA's training techniques for its own projects.

''I'm happy to see the number of donors increasing, so as the number of recipients,'' she said.

De Escobar said she was strongly encouraged by JICA's pilot project in Honduras, expressing hope that the Japan-led plan to expand the venture into seven other Central American countries will promote development and bring in greater business opportunities.

''We think that stronger knowledge in math and science, and higher computer and English-language skills that we are working on for our children, are going to help El Salvador attract better jobs,'' the vice president said. ''El Salvador is seeking economic growth, and we can only grow if we are capable of adding technical components into our economy.''