ININPE-Introduction

INTRODUCTION

San Marcos, an almost thirty three-year-old community, is a beautiful place located in the heart of the Peruvian jungle. It is surrounded by exuberant mountains which give the village a particular view. Owing to its peculiar features, San Marcos has been considered by many people as a place to rise up from poverty. Unfortunately, most of the people who got rich from San Marcos' natural resources moved to other places. On the other hand, there are people, who in spite of the hardships suffered through living there, are still trying to do their best to make San Marcos improve in its different areas.

What's more, the economical, social, and political situation through which Peru passed a few years ago made the poor Peruvian villages poorer than ever. Of course, San Marcos and other villages around were greatly affected, too. Besides that, on May 29 of 1990, when Peru was suffering one of the most crucial situations in its history, an earthquake occurred in the Department of San Mart》 (Peru is divided in areas called departments. San Marcos belongs to the Department of San Mart》). Such natural phenomenon brought about more poverty in all the cities and villages affected. Worst of all, less than one year later, on April 4th of 1991, another earthquake came about. As a result, the cities and villages in the area remained in very poor conditions.

Focusing on San Marcos' situation, which I have observed very closely, I would like to say that everything worsened after the earthquakes. Most of the families remained without houses. In October of 1988, I started doing a research entitled, "San Marcos: Socio-Educational Diagnostic" which was finished after a lot of hard work in December of 1989. With such an investigation I presented the following conclusions and recommendations.

Conclusions:

The infrastructure of the school and the sports courts are in bad condition.
There are less registrations every year.
Most of the teachers are not professionals in the educational area. Anyone who finishes secondary can go to San Marcos to work. They don't even want to live in the village. They return everyday to Soritor (Soritor is the closest city). So, they arrive late to most of their classes and sometimes they don't show up.
The teachers are focusing only in academic-theoretical orientation.
Neither the administration nor the teachers are working with the community. It seems that they think that their work begins in the classroom and ends there.
Most of the teachers who go to "teach" in San Marcos leave, after one year or as soon as they can get to "a better" place. That is, they use San Marcos as a jumping off point. They don't care about how the repeated changes affect the educational system.
There are also frequent changes of principal. Sometimes, the school had a principal on paper, but not in the office. Many times, the school has had two to three principals in one year.
The relationship between school and home is scarce.
The children work with their parents on the farm. They go to class in the morning, and as soon as they go back home they put away their books because they have to go join their parents on the farm. Once back home, it is already dark and they are too tired to do school work.
Neither mother nor father take time off to help their children with their school work. They both are so tired that as soon as they get home the only thing they want to do is go to bed.
The only institution that is doing social projections is the SDA Church.
The institutions which are supposed to help and guide the San Marquinians are not really concerned about their job. They visited San Marcos only when somebody gives them a very "special" invitation.
The natural resources are being destroyed due to the lack of an adequate use of them. This neglect has made the weather change. All as a result of having neither technical nor ecological orientation.

Recommendations:

The administration of the school has to work in interaction with the community, so they can be engaged in helping to improve the buildings and the sports courts.
At the same time there must be social and academic activities in which the parents can feel that they are an important part of the education. That is, the school has to organize social projection programs in which the community can be taught about its role in the education of the children, so that it can help the school to carry out its job in a better way. This would help to improve the academic level.
As a result of the projection, the parents will be more likely to send their children to school. They will feel that the school is not just interested in teaching the children to read and write, but also in their well-being at home. Thus, registration will increase.
Teachers must take the initiative of preparing themselves to offer a higher academic level.
It should offer seminars, early in the year, in which the teachers can be reminded of the the most important aspects of their work as a teacher. It is important for them to understand that their labor doesn't end in the classroom.
In order to make the parents understand that the children need to spend time doing school work at home, it would be very beneficial to remind them that they are also teachers of their children, so they have to spend time helping them in their school work.
The Department of Education of the area, must not permit constant changes either of teachers or of principals. The frequent changes have affected the school in its different aspects, because each new principal has a different way of working and before one project is finished another principal comes and changes everything. So there is no way to go forward.
The Department of Education also has to restructure the curriculum in order to add subjects which offer more practical orientation. And at the same time, subjects can be added about information and protection of the natural resources.
The institutions that deal with the development of San Marcos need to take more time doing their job there.

When I was defending my thesis, one of the judges asked me, "Now that you know what is happening there, what would you like to do to improve the situation, especially the academic one?" My answer was, "I would really like to go back there and establish a school and try to help to improve the situation." Such a question made me think very seriously about going back to San Marcos and use my thesis as a platform to do a better job.

Unfortunately, by then the country was going through a horrible situation, socially, politically, and economically. So my ideas remained on the back burner.

However, the last time I went back to Peru, my heart was broken by the things I saw, especially the educative aspect. The secondary school was about to disintegrate. According to some people, the academic level is worsening day by day. Only three grades of the five are being offered and there are very few students. Most of the parents are sending their children to study in Soritor or other cities. The parents who don't have possibilities of sending their children to continue their education simply ask them to give up school.

On the other hand, there were two primary schools--a public and a private one. The private belonged to the Adventist church. This school was growing quite fast, but it was closed two years ago due to administrative problems.

Solutions
The problems discussed above have brought back into my mind the idea of creating a private school in order to offer the young people other alternatives and at the same time help to improve the academic level of the San Marquinians' education.

The school I have had in mind since the summer of 1988--the year in which I was doing my research--would be semi-industrial. That is, a school where the students, especially the ones who can't afford to pay their school fees, can work and help their parents with the tuition.

The first time the idea of creating a private school came to my mind, I commented it to my uncles in a very informal conversation. After hearing me out, they told me that they would be glad to support me. But as I said before, Peru was by then in a very difficult situation, so it was impossible to carry out my plans.

Almost eight years have passed since the idea first was born, and I haven't been able to do anything yet. However, the last time (Dec.-Jan.) I was in San Marcos, the idea came into my mind stronger than ever. Therefore, after mulling it over, I decided to talk it over with one of my uncles. After this conversation, I was more convinced that God wants me to do something to help the San Marquinian young people.

Once again my uncle, Hector, was hoping to support me. So we talked about where we would have the school. We talked about the pro's and con's of three alternatives : my grandfather's land that now belongs to my Uncle Hector and two other uncle's land. Finally we decided that the best place would be Uncle Hector's land. We discovered that legal documentation wouldn't be a problem because the government is encouraging private education. At the same time, we decided that the next school year, beginning March of 1997, would be the best time to start.
Contact us by: E-Mail: Gates@andrews.edu or Loide@Uinca.edu.pe

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