From: clarinews@clarinet.com (JOHN OTIS)
Newsgroups: clari.news.gov.international,clari.news.politics,biz.clarinet.sample
Followup-to: biz.clarinet.sample
Subject: Tuition and textbooks signal changes in Nicaraguan schools
Keywords: international, non-usa government, government, education,
	political parties, politics
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 92 12:12:49 PDT
Location: nicaragua
ACategory: international
Slugword: nicaragua-school
Priority: regular
Format: regular
ANPA: Wc: 837; Id: z3717; Sel: niigf; Adate: 4-12-315ped
Codes: yigfrni., yid.rxx., yipprxx.
Note: (editors: repeating story that moved friday for monday)

	MANAGUA, Nicaragua (UPI) -- When classes opened at Nicaragua's public
schools last month, students received a quick lesson in economics: Each
had to fork out a tuition fee of up to $2.
	The payment plan is part of a broad package of school reforms
initiated by President Violeta Chamorro, whose election two years ago
ended a decade of Sandinista rule in the Central American nation. Other
measures, such as replacing the old Sandinista textbooks, are meant to 
``de-politicize'' education.
	While some applaud the moves, others say the government is pushing
its own brand of ideology and argue that tuition fees will prevent
thousands of children from attending school.
	``There is a tremendous amount of discontent with the tuition policy.
For rural families it is already a major effort to send their children
to school,'' says David Trigeros, an education specialist at CEPAD, a
Protestant church organization in Managua.
	Former dictator Anastasio Somoza had little interest in education and
used to refer to the country's poor as ``oxen.'' But after he was
overthrown in the 1979 Sandinista uprising, the new regime built 1,400
schools, sent brigades into the mountains to teach peasants to read and
conducted the first adult-education classes.
	Such advances were eroded as the eight-year civil war and U.S.
sanctions sapped the economy. Meanwhile, thousands of teenagers dropped
out of school to avoid being drafted into the Sandinista army. In war
zones, classes were canceled.
	The war ended after Chamorro was elected, but education has continued
to slide because of the country's severe economic troubles.
	Hundreds of teachers have quit because of salaries that start at $60
a month. Buildings are rundown, and in many rural areas there are still
no high schools at all.
	Families often keep their children out of school to work or because
they cannot afford to pay for books and uniforms. Eighty percent of
young people never reach high school, and under current conditions, it
takes 129 students entering first grade to produce one university
graduate, according to a CEPAD study.
	In an effort to raise teacher salaries by 10 percent and upgrade
school buildings, Education Minister Humberto Belli announced that
primary school students will be charged a voluntary $1 monthly fee while
high school students will pay a mandatory fee of $2.
	Francisco Arellano, an adviser to Belli, said fees will not be
charged to the poorest families and argues that no one will be turned
away. In the past, he said, schools asked for donations to help pay
teacher salaries and for sports equipment. ``In reality, school has
never been free,'' he said.
	But critics point out that the constitution says ``basic education''
is obligatory and must be free. They also see the plan as part of a
larger government tendency to privatize state-run businesses and
institutions.
	``If you have to pay, you start to think that education is no longer
a right,'' said Carlos Tunnerman, education minister during the
Sandinista government.
	Norma Morales Araica, who teaches at the Clementina Cabezas
elementary school in a rundown Managua neighborhood, says less than half
of the 1,800 pupils at the facility can afford tuition fees.
	Although he had no figures, Arellano says public school attendance
has increased since the tuition policy was introduced and says the
ministry has received requests for additional teachers in several
districts.
	In another break with the past, the ministry has been introducing a
new series of textbooks that omit any mention of the Sandinista
revolution.
	The old ``Los Carlitos'' series was named after Carlos Fonseca, a
revolutionary hero, and included some Sandinista propaganda. They also
pushed an activist approach to education by encouraging students to take
part in government-sponsored health, literacy and coffee harvesting
programs.
	Under Chamorro, the books were immediately burned or turned into
pulp. The U.S. Agency for International Development donated $12 million
to produce a new series that deleted references to the revolution.
	Roger Cano Lara, a Chamorro supporter and principal of a Managua high
school, says the new series avoids political judgments. ``They don't say
whether Chamorro is good or bad,'' he said.
	Tunnerman acknowledges that the Sandinista texts were partisan but
says destroying them was rather extreme. By stressing traditional family
values and ignoring the revolution, the new series pushes its own,
subtle political line, he says.
	Arellano says the revolution remains too controversial to cover in
the public schools and that chapters about the period were omitted in
the interests of supporting national reconciliation.
	``You can't hide history,'' Arellano said. ``But it is more prudent
that the texts not be used as a judge of history. The people know what
happened.''
Xref: sparky clari.news.politics:562 clari.news.politics.people:63 clari.news.election:274 biz.clarinet.sample:1213