Honduras

Partners situated in Honduras

None.

Honduras in a nutshell

(sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honduras)

Honduras (Spanish: República de Honduras) is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras (now Belize).

The country is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, and to the north by the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea.

Its estimated population is almost 7.5 million in a country whose size is just over 110,000 km²

Its capital is Tegucigalpa.

Honduras is divided into 18 departments. The capital city is in the Central District of the department of Francisco Morazán.

The economy has continued to grow slowly, but the distribution of wealth remains very polarized with average wages remaining low. Economic growth in the last few years has averaged 7% per year which has been one of the most successful growths in Latin America, but 50%, approximately 3.7 million, of the population still remains below the poverty line. According to the World Bank, Honduras is the third poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, after Haiti and Nicaragua. It is estimated that there are more than 1.2 million people who are unemployed, the rate of unemployment standing at 27.9%.

Honduras was declared one of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund which made it eligible for debt relief in 2005.

Some 90% of the Honduran population is Mestizo (a mixture of Amerindian and European ancestry). About 7% of the Honduran population are members of one of the seven recognized indigenous groups.

Although most Hondurans are nominally Roman Catholic, according to one report membership in the Roman Catholic Church is declining while membership in Protestant churches is increasing.

The official language is Spanish.

Currently Honduras is undergoing a period of political turbulence.

Honduras education policy

The governmental institute, responsible for the Honduran education, is the Department of Education (Secretaría de Estado en el Despacho de Educación). The Educational portal is , providing teachers and students with resources relevant to ICT and multimedia in education:

The overall objective of the First Educational Portal of Honduras is to encourage the introduction and curriculum integration of ICT into teaching-learning processes in the national education system to help raise the quality of education in Honduras.

The portal also links to a Virtual Campus (although it's not sure what that is). The portal is a member of Red Internacional de Portales Educativos (REIPE), the International Network of Educational Portals.

Ministry of Education of Honduras(Spanish) By constitutional mandate, the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH), "enjoys the exclusive right to organize, lead and develop the higher and vocational education. In the spirit of this mandate was issued the Law on Higher Education (Decree No.142-89 of the National Congress), which states that "The organization, management and development of higher education level is in charge of the National Autonomous University Honduras, by the following bodies:

   a. Claustro Pleno Universitario, University Faculty House
   b. Consejo de Educación Superior, Council for Higher Education
   c. Consejo Técnico Consultivo, Technical Advisory Council
   d. Dirección de Educación Superior, Directorate of Higher Education 

Dirección de Educación Superior (Spanish) Directorate of Higher Education

It is the executive body of the resolutions of the Council for Higher Education. Acts as Secretary's level and its Director is the means of communication and link with higher education institutions. Its organization will be determined in the regulation of the Directorate.

Honduras education system

(sourced from the very brief and out of date article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Honduras)

Education in Honduras is free and compulsory for six years. In 1999, the gross primary enrollment rate was 97.3 percent and the net primary enrollment rate was 85.7 percent. Among working children, an estimated 34 percent complete primary school. A lack of schools prevents many children in Honduras from receiving an education, as do costs such as enrollment fees, school uniforms, and transportation costs.

In 1998, Hurricane Mitch damaged more than 3,000 schools nationwide. The poor quality of education and the lack of vocational education are other education concerns.

The UNESCO report INFORMATION AND MONITORING SHEET FOR STATISTICAL CAPACITY BUILDING IN EDUCATION 2003-2005 (see http://www.uis.unesco.org/template/pdf/scb/StateReports/InformationAndMonitoringSheet/Honduras.pdf) paints a rather depressing picture of trying to collaborate with the Ministry of Education as the ministers come and go.

The USAID report on Education Sector Reform for 2008 at http://www.usaid.gov/hn/reforms.html gives an update.

Higher education

Universities in Honduras

(sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Honduras)

This is a much longer list than is given in other Wikipedia and web entries.

Tegucigalpa

1. Universidad Católica de Honduras
2. Universidad José Cecilio del Valle
3. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras
4. Universidad Pedagógica Nacional Fco. de Morazán
5. Universidad Tecnológica Centroamericana (UNITEC)
6. Escuela Agrícola Panamericana
7. Centro de diseño, Arquitectura y Construcción - Cedac
8. Centro Universitario Tecnológico CEUTEC

San Pedro Sula

1. Universidad de San Pedro Sula (USPS) (LaUprivada)
2. Universidad Tecnológica de Honduras (UTH)
3. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras en el Valle de Sula
4. Universidad Pedagógica Nacional Fco. de Morazán
5. Universidad Tecnológica Centroamericana (UNITEC)
6. Universidad Cristiana de Honduras (UCRISH)
7. Universidad Catolica de Honduras (UNICAH)

La Ceiba

1. Universidad Tecnológica de Honduras (UTH)
2. Universidad Pedagógica Nacional Fco. de Morazán
3. Universidad Tecnológica Centroamericana (UNITEC)
4. Universidad Catolica de Honduras (UNICAH)

Other universities

1. Universidad Metropolitana de Honduras
2. Universidad Evangelica
3. Universidad Catolica Nuestra Senora Reina de La Paz Siguatepeque
4. Seminario Mayor Nuestra Señora de Suyapa
5. Instituto Superior de Educación Policial
6. Universidad Cristiana Evangélica “Nuevo Milenio
7. Instituto Superior Tecnológico “Jesús de Nazareth”
8. Universidad Politécnica de Honduras
9. Universidad de Defensa de Honduras
10. Universidad Politécnica de Ingeniería

Polytechnics in Honduras

See:

1. Escuela Nacional de Agricultura - Catacamas, Olancho
2. Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Forestales (ESNACIFOR) Siguatepeque

Honduras's HEIs in the information society

Towards the information society

(sourced from http://www.marketresearch.com/product/display.asp?productid=2222865)

One of the poorest countries in Latin America, Honduras has a fixed line teledensity of only 11%. The telecom infrastructure is inadequate to meet basic demand, especially in rural areas. Laws governing full liberalisation have been delayed mostly because of political wrangling over the role of Hondutel, the state-owned telecom incumbent. Three companies compete in the mobile market: Millicom’s Tigo, América Móvil’s Claro, and Digicel, the latest market entrant, which launched services in November 2008.

ADSL is still mostly limited to corporate customers. There are good investment opportunities for wireless broadband, since the fixed-line and cable networks have insufficient capacity to satisfy growth rates.

Virtual Campuses in HE

Interesting Virtual Campus Initiatives

The Google search "campus virtual" AT site:hn in English and Spanish generates 32 hits. Below are the two from universities.

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (National Autonomous University of Honduras)

(sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Autonomous_University_of_Honduras)

The National Autonomous University of Honduras is the national public university of Honduras. It was founded in 1847 and has many campuses throughout the country - the main campus is in Tegucigalpa the capital (and is home to the university's Medical School hospital and campus); other major campuses include the San Pedro Sula Campus, the Comayagua Campus and the La Ceiba Campus. It is currently the largest university in Honduras in terms of student enrollment - and one of the largest university systems in Central America.

It has a substantial Virtual Campus programme - see http://www.campusvirtual.unah.edu.hn/dgt/index.html - this was interrupted for a few days due to lack of electric power but has been reinstated (see http://www.unah.edu.hn/?art=1241).

Universidad José Cecilio del Valle (University José Cecilio del Valle)

The University José Cecilio del Valle offers its students the virtual campus mode to "attend" some of the compulsory classes in their curricula and, as support to some of the classroom classes taught. This modality allows people to have difficulty in attending face-to-face classe to take courses from the comfort of their home or Office at the time most convenient for them. See http://www.ujcv-virtual.net/dokeos/

Interesting Programmes

There are also several training programmes using e-learning for employees - see for example SEFIN at http://www.sefin.gob.hn/portal_prod/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=848&Itemid=85

Re.ViCa Case-study

None.

Lessons learnt

Despite Honduras being a poor and politically turbulent country with limited telecoms capability, Virtual Campus initiatives are still present.

References

Wikipedia

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honduras
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Honduras - very brief and out of date
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Honduras
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Autonomous_University_of_Honduras

Other

1. Honduras This Week, online newspaper and blog, http://hondurasthisweek.com
2. INFORMATION AND MONITORING SHEET FOR STATISTICAL CAPACITY BUILDING IN EDUCATION 2003-2005, UNESCO, http://www.uis.unesco.org/template/pdf/scb/StateReports/InformationAndMonitoringSheet/Honduras.pdf
3. Education Sector Reform for 2008, USAID, http://www.usaid.gov/hn/reforms.html
4. Government of Honduras site, http://www.gob.hn
5. Department of Education (Secretaría de Estado en el Despacho de Educación), http://www.gob.hn/portal/poder_ejecutivo/secretarias/educacion

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