Honduras

Original Re.ViCa entry by Paul Bacsich assisted by Gertjan and with desk research by Iris Velasquez Noguera

For entities in Honduras see Category: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).

Source map: CIA World Factbook > Honduras

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, and Honduras is divided into 18 departments so the capital city is located 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 Educación de Honduras). By law, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (UNAH) or National Autonomous University of Honduras enjoys the exclusive right to organize, lead and develop the higher and vocational education. It therefore manages the Dirección de Educación Superior (Spanish) or Directorate of Higher Education, which 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.

The Educational portal provides 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.

Schools in Honduras

(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

1. Universidad Católica de Honduras (UNICAH) (Spanish)
2. Universidad José Cecilio del Valle (UJCV)
3. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (UNAH)
4. Universidad Pedagógica Nacional Francisco Morazán‎ (UPNFM)
5. Universidad Tecnológica Centroamericana (UNITEC) (UNITEC) (Spanish)
6. Escuela Agrícola Panamericana (ZAMORANO) (Spanish)
7. Centro de diseño, Arquitectura y Construcción (CEDAC) (Spanish)
8. Centro Universitario Tecnológico (CEUTEC) (Spanish)
9. Universidad de San Pedro Sula (USPS) (LaUprivada) (Spanish)
10. Universidad Tecnológica de Honduras (UTH) (Spanish)
11. Universidad Cristiana de Honduras (UCRISH) (Spanish)
12. Universidad Metropolitana de Honduras (UMH) (Spanish)
13. Universidad Evangelica
14. Seminario Mayor Nuestra Señora de Suyapa (Spanish)
15. Instituto Superior de Educación Policial
16. Universidad Cristiana Evangélica “Nuevo Milenio (Spanish)
17. Instituto Superior Tecnológico “Jesús de Nazareth” (Spanish)
18. Universidad Politécnica de Honduras (Spanish)
19. Universidad de Defensa de Honduras (NDU) (Spanish)
20. Universidad Politécnica de Ingeniería (UPI) (Spanish)

Sources:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Honduras (English)
• http://www.unah.hn/?cat=1816&fcats (Spanish)

Polytechnics in Honduras

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

Administration and finance

The Universidad José Cecilio del Valle for instance lists its fees online.

Quality assurance

Up to this point, accreditation in Honduras has been a task taken on by the relatively new regional accreditation organizations like the Central American System of the Evaluation and Accreditation of Higher Education (SICEVAES), the Association of Private Universities of Central America (AUPRICA), and the Central American System of Research and Postgraduate Study (SICAR). Individual institutions of higher education have taken it upon themselves to submit to the accreditation process in varying degrees ( typically on an institutional basis at private universities and on a departmental level at public) from these various regional accreditation organizations.

The Council of Higher Education has put into motion plans to create the National System of Accreditation of Higher Education in Honduras (SINAESH), an autonomous organization that will be responsible for guaranteeing and certifying the quality of both public and private Honduran tertiary institutions.

Source: WES > Accreditation in Latin America and the Caribbean: Honduras

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 initiatives

Interesting Virtual Campus Initiatives

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (UNAH) has its own Moodle virtual campus (Spanish)

Universidad José Cecilio del Valle (UJCV) has a Dokeos virtual campus

Universidad Pedagógica Nacional Francisco Morazán (UPNFM) has a Moodle platform (link currently not functional) and a visual Campus Virtual

Distance Learning

Universidad Tecnológica de Honduras (Spanish) runs programs according to the profiles of Curriculum approved and registered by the Council for Higher Education. Distance education is based on learning-action-reflection-action, incorporating an educational technology that encourages a high level of participation.

Other

Honduras Aprende. Portal Educativo de Honduras (Spanish) ("Honduras Learns. Educational Portal of Honduras"): includes an exclusive space for people involved in the administration of the Boards of Educational Innovation, which offers information, content and educational materials of interest, as well as news and information specifically aimed to this group. It also includes a series of free application software for the development of teaching materials for the network, and its instructive and interesting links.

Universidad Metropolitana de Honduras (UMH) (Spanish)

With the establishment of distance learning through the Sistema Universitario de Educación Presencial Periódico, University System of Regular Face to face Education (SUEPP) in partner institutions, seeks to extend the educational level of young people and adults who complete the IV Cycle of Secondary Education and above all, provide the opportunity to continue their studies with career counseling.

Consejo Hondureño de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (Spanish)

Honduran Council for Science, Technology and Innovation

The Distance Learning Center is a member of the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN, www.gdln.org) from the World Bank.

DLC activities are directed to:

• The Public Service locally and nationally
• Companies and private organizations, small and medium enterprises
• University Centers and Research
• Nongovernmental organizations
• Other institutions and organizations of social and economic order

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
• Wikipedia's page on UNAH

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

• UNAH's official web site
• UNAH > Datos Estadísticos > Documentos Relacionados > Algunos Indicadores Estadísticos 2007

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For OER policies and projects in Honduras see Honduras/OER

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