Assessing Nicaragua’s Primary School Policy: A Limited Notion to Education?

The objective of this research paper is to analyze the notion of education of the primary school policy as seen in Nicaragua‟s National Human Development Plan (PNDH). For the last half-century, education has obtained a key role in the development organizations such as United Nations, World Bank, etc. Education gained widespread recognition as being crucial to development in 2000, when world leaders agreed on a set of eight development goals knows as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In such set of goals, achieving Universal Primary Education (UPE) for all children by 2015 became goal 2 (MDG2). Nicaragua committed itself in 2000 to achieving the MDGs and the current government has reaffirmed its compromise towards achieving MDG2. This research paper will attempt to reveal how the MDGs set forth a limited notion of education and how the Nicaraguan government has adopted it. I believe that in effect MDG2 is limited because it only provides three quantitative indicators to measure progress, while not providing attention to other issues e.g. inequalities. Imperative to understand that the adoption of a limited notion to education is just one of the many factors that can help explain why the Nicaraguan primary school system is in such dire straits. Hence for example, enrolment rates may be above average but other crucial aspects such as teacher training, infrastructure problems, budget allocations, etc, are being overlooked by the government. This study will draw on secondary sources and on a discourse analysis of Nicaragua‟s National Human Development Plan (PNDH) to present these issues.