Education in Panama

As of 2004, more than 92,500 Panamanian students attended the University of Panama, the Technological University of Panama, West Coast University – Panama, Polytechnic University of Central America and the University of Santa Maria La Antigua, a private Catholic institution. Including smaller colleges, there are 88 institutions of higher education in Panama.

History

Public education began in Panama soon after separating from Colombia in 1903. In 1906, the Panama College was found by Methodists. Nowadays it is called the Panamerican Institute. The first efforts were guided by a paternalistic view of the goals of education, as evidenced in comments made in a 1913 meeting of the First Panamanian Educational Assembly: "The cultural heritage given to the child should be determined by the social position he will or should occupy. For this reason, sex education should be different in accordance with the social class to which the student should be related." This elitist focus changed rapidly under United States influence.

By the 1920s, Panamanian education subscribed to a progressive educational system, explicitly designed to assist the able and ambitious individual in search of upward social mobility. Successive national governments gave a high priority to the development of a system of (at least) universal primary education. In the late 1930s, as much as one-fourth of the national budget went to education. Between 1920 and 1934, primary-school enrollment doubled. Adult illiteracy, more than 70 percent in 1923, dropped to roughly half the adult population in scarcely more than a decade.

By the early 1950s, adult illiteracy had dropped to 28 percent. The rate of gain had also declined and further improvements were slow in coming. The 1950s saw essentially no improvement; adult world life illiteracy was 27 percent in 1960. There were notable gains in the 1960s, however, and the rate of adult illiteracy dropped 8 percentage points by 1970. According to 1980 estimates, only 13 percent of Panamanians over 10 years of age were illiterate. Men and women were approximately equally represented among the literate. The most notable disparity was between urban and rural Panama; 94 percent of city-dwelling adults were literate but less than two-thirds of those in the countryside were—a figure that also represented continued high illiteracy rates among the country's indigenous population.

From the 1950s through the early 1980s, education enrollments expanded faster than the rate of population growth as a whole and, for most of that period, faster than the school-age population. The steepest increases came in secondary and higher education enrollments, which increased ten and more than thirty times respectively. By the mid-1980s, primary school enrollment rates were roughly 113 percent of the primary-school-aged population. Male and female enrollments were relatively equal overall, although there were significant regional variations.

Enrollments at upper levels of schooling had increased strikingly in relative and absolute terms since 1960. Between 1960 and the mid-1980s, secondary-school enrollments expanded some four-and-a-half times and higher education nearly twelve-fold. In 1965, fewer than one-third of children of secondary school age were in school and only 7 percent of people ages 20 to 24 years. In the 1970s, public schools transitioned from 8 hours of classes a day to 4 or 5 depending on grade in order to better utilize existing schools as it allows for 2 shifts a day instead of one, and a large number of schools were built under the rule of Omar Torrijos Herrera. Private schools still have 8 hours of classes a day. In the mid-1980s, almost two-thirds of secondary-school-age children were enrolled, and about 20 percent of individuals ages 20 to 24 years were in institutions of higher education.

Currently Panama has an overall literacy rate of more than 94%. Private schools are required to own their buildings. The governing entity for education, the MEDUCA, has two education systems, the regular one, and a non-regular one for students who weren't able to complete primary or secondary education around the age of 18-20 due to their living conditions or due to intellectual or physical disabilities. The non-regular system allows students to complete their studies on a reduced time frame at night, to allow students to work during the day, and there is a specialized school, the IPHE for the intellectually or physically disabled. After the age of 20, a student is no longer allowed to stay in the regular education system. An example of an alternate system school is Panasystems. Once a student transfers to the alternate system, it is not possible to transfer back to the regular system.

Schools can have 1 or 2 psychologists on staff as well as a nursery which is not always staffed. A school can have a cafeteria with meals for those who arrive early to their shift and cafeterias during recess sell items similarly to a convenience store, over a counter and there might be tables for eating, or not. There is often no place to reheat lunches and staff do have their own separate break room with tables as well as their own restrooms. During recess, students in the secondary level are allowed to leave the school, and must return before the end of recess. In elementary and preschool, students are not allowed to leave the school except at the end of the school day. No lockers are provided and students must bring their own backpacks. The government provides a card known as the Pase U, formerly Beca Universal, to allow parents to purchase school supplies, uniforms, backpacks and school textbooks, none of which are provided otherwise by the school except in rare circumstances such as for the poor. The money is given to prevent school dropouts. Panamanian law enshrines education as universal and free of charge. It is common for parents to pocket the government given money at the detriment of the student, so the government has implemented strict controls in the Pase U to prevent this.

Foreign students who transfer into Panamanian schools up to the secondary level have their school records checked and are often set back by 2 years, for example, if a foreign student was in 9th grade in their origin country, in Panama, they will often be required to start over from the 7th grade onwards. At all levels, school classrooms can receive visits from any interested party for educational or PR outreach purposes, previously authorized by the school's director and MEDUCA. Classrooms can also be used for teaching by other organizations outside school hours, which are mondays to fridays, 7 AM to 6 PM, and Saturdays can also be used by private schools. Private schools have dual lunches in the morning and a single shift from 7 AM to 3 PM and evening and public lunches have a single lunch per shift. Changing schools up to the last secondary level requires a good health certificate for the student from a doctor or clinic which often involves bloodwork. A school year up to the secondary level is divided into periods, formerly lasting 2 months each for a total of 8 months, called bimestres, and currently lasting 3 months each for a total of 9 months, called trimestres. It is possible for a student to fail a subject in one or more periods. The grades in a subject are averaged per period and again for the year. Depending on the number of failed periods and the student's level, they might be required to take summer classes. If severe like failing the whole year in a subject and the student is in the secondary level, they might be required to retake the subject for a whole year, in the year that immediately follows. If a student fails more than 3 subjects for the year, they will be required to retake the entire school year, no matter the level except preschool, and in elementary school this is usually accompanied by a social worker visit to the student's home.

It is not possible for a student to skip school years, unless authenticated from overseas as a foreign student. Teachers and professors up to the secondary level are required to teach specific curricula handed out by the MEDUCA. Schools keep transcripts of a student's school grades in paper and electronically and an original copy must be supplied by the student to enter a university. The transcript cannot be obtained online and the student must personally visit the school to obtain an original copy, for a fee. In schools, Classrooms are grouped by grade and grades and classrooms are kept separated from each other. On the first week of class, the class student list is posted next to the door of each classroom. It is difficult for students to be changed between classrooms and doing so requires a parent or guardian to submit a request and students are assigned to classrooms randomly with no option to choose the classroom nor professors or teachers. Public schools maintain strict dress codes for students imposed by the MEDUCA with military-style haircuts for men, no makeup for women, no accessories, electronics, toys or anything that can be a distraction or stolen during classes, no hair dyed in unnatural colors, and the use of uniforms for students which can vary according to the school, to prevent discrimination and bullying among students. Pants for men and skirts for women must have a defined length. A less strict dress code is maintained for visitors, which only bans sexually suggestive or revealing clothing, tank tops, shorts and weapons. The dress code is enforced by an inspector at the school entrance who doubles as a security guard and can refuse entry for students and visitors. Another security guard called a velador watches the school grounds at night to prevent theft. Public schools rarely have air conditioning in classrooms except for those built in the 2000s and public schools, even those in urban areas are often in poor condition without working restrooms. The average school was established in the 1960s to 1970s during Torrijos' rule. Some schools only use air conditioning in classrooms used by students in the 10th to 12th grades, as they aren't compulsory. Starting from the COVID pandemic, public schools may use Microsoft Teams to assign homework, but this is not compulsory and homework may still be assigned on paper.

Private schools often focus on a second language such as English or two additional languages such as English and Mandarin. Depending on the school this involves teaching classes in English or Mandarin, that are not the English or Mandarin classes themselves, so that the languages are learned by immersion, as a lifestyle, involving heavy reading of english or mandarin literature. Most students who speak English attended a private school, and they usually have air conditioning in classrooms. The most expensive private schools, such as international schools, have robotics classes and robotics competition teams that participate in the FIRST challenge in the US, and focus on enabling students to pursue an undergraduate degree overseas in an English-speaking country. Private schooling is seen as an area that saves the government around 563 million dollars a year. Schools have parent committees which can collaborate to supply students and the school. There are activities such as Escuela para padres, designed to boost parent participation in school activities.