The novel 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher, is a trending topic these days among teenagers and concerned parents, especially after Netflix released the drama series based on the book. For those that are not familiar with this novel, it basically tells the story of a teenage girl, Hannah Baker, who kills herself and left behind a series of tapes for the people she blames for her suicide, explaining h...

This week, Costa Rican public health officials are launching an “intense information and education campaign … with the goal of having Ticos incorporate in their daily diet more salads and fruits, water as a main drink, use weekly meal plans, and internalize the concept of a ‘healthy plate’,” said the Costa Rican Social Security Agency (CCSS). The most comprehensive data on obesity shows a 275 p...

Health officials point to a disturbing continuation of high teenage pregnancy rates, and ready access by children in Costa Rica to pornography, and are calling for stronger sexual education in the country’s schools. On any given day, around 35 teenagers give birth to a child in Costa Rica, according to public health data. And though the trend has seen some recent declines, the numbers are fa...

Laureate International Universities, through the Latin American University of Costa Rica, will invest more than US$40 million in infrastructure this year in the construction of a new campus in Heredia, and THINK, an innovative higher education center focused on online education and with a center at Terrazas Lindora. "In a globalized world, it is vitally important that universities seek to stren...

If you practice yoga on a regular basis and are looking for the opportunity to learn more about this discipline or even become an instructor, here is the chance. Antonio Corrales and Dahiana Chaves, certified yoga instructors, will be offering a course that will begin on May 6 and will extend for three months. Classes will be scheduled during the weekends from 8 a.m. through 2 p.m. and the work...

Nicole Birkner Alier is just 17 years old, but she makes it a point to live her life to the fullest and give her best effort in everything she takes on. Birkner attends Lincoln High-School where she is preparing to graduate from the International Baccalaureate program, she send her application to several Universities in the United States hoping to receive a positive response from at least one o...

The Boston Globe detailed a report released yesterday on alleged cases of sexual abuse and assault on Choate Rosemary Hall students by former educators at the New England private boarding school over the past more than four decades. One of the cases detailed includes jaw-dropping allegations by a former female student whose story was confirmed by eyewitnesses about how her former Choate Spanish...

The Pulitzer Prize is a recognition given by the University of Columbia in New York, for achievements in newspaper, magazine and online journalism, literature and musical composition. This year the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists received this prize for their work in the Panama Papers in the category Explanatory Reporting. This investigation exposed the hidden structure us...

 - Researchers and teachers throughout the country are developing a tool to prevent, detect and eradicate racist practices in Costa Rica's classrooms. An initiative called "Racial-Discrimination-Free Educational Centers," is under development with workshops being held in the country's different provinces with over 200 teachers to gather input on the cirruclum and discuss its importance. The ef...

The University of Costa Rica (UCR) climbed 30 spots in the “QS World University Rankings” for the 2016-2017 period. The QS World University Rankings provides an index of the world’s leading higher education institutions, based on six performance indicators: Academic reputation, Employer reputation, Student-to-faculty ratio, Citations per faculty, International faculty ratio and international st...

This week the legislature approved in a second and final debate a cooperation agreement between the Republic of Costa Rica and Palestine that supports technical, economic, scientific and cultural cooperation activities, as reported in various Costa Rican media. The original agreement was signed in 2013, but faced some legal hurdles in the legislature. One vocal detractor, National Liberation...

Despite persistent areas of concern, Costa Rica has consistently improved on its human development indicators since 1990. Over the past 25 years, the average years of schooling have increased by 44 percent and its income has doubled, according to the most recent United Nations Development Program's Human Development Report (UNDP) released last week. Likewise, life expectancy in Costa Rica has i...

Costa Rica shows steady overall improvement in human development, with increasing educational opportunities and income rates, but with nagging concerns over gender equity and growing economic inequality. This was revealed in the latest Human Development Index (HDI) published this week by the United Nations Development Program. Costa Rica is currently situated in 9th place in human developmen...

One of Costa Rica’s cornerstone programs for addressing hunger and poverty may not sound glitzy, but it does seem to get the job done. There’s no catchy slogan or matching corporate funder, but the country’s 616 Centers for Education, Nutrition and Comprehensive Child Care (CEN-CINAI) have been recognized by the region’s foremost nutrition agency for their work. The pioneering regional leade...

During 2017, various companies plan to strengthen their relations with public institutions through public-private initiatives aimed at social and environmental problems. Since 2013, the Purdy Motor Group has teamed up with the Ministry of Public Education to develop a program called Purdy Cole, which aims to have employees of the company complete their studies. Purdy turns their meeting rooms i...

The International Project Habesha and Cenfotec University are gathering efforts to provide a Syrian refugee with the necessary financial help so he can conclude his college studies. The young man/women has yet to be selected through an interview process, “We are working together with NGO’s and educational centers in the Middle East that represent the first contact to recommend candidates for th...

By Wendy Anders Over 11,000 elementary school students currently receive scholarships to aid their families to send them to school, said the Costa Rican President’s office. The scholarships are part of a series of investments being made to reduce poverty under the Bridge to Development program started under the administration of President Luis Guillermo Solís. The children, whose ages ran...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s Ombudsman's Office has given the Ministry of Public Education (MEP) a timeline to insure their compliance with across-the-board road safety educational programs in all of the country’s schools, from pre-school on up, said the Defensoría de Los Habitantes this week (The Defender of the Inhabitants or National Ombudsman’s Office). The country’s traffic and road saf...

By Wendy Anders One of Costa Rica’s most remote schools, the 15-student Shinabla public school in Limón province’s Talamanca region, was awarded a grant from the Ministry of Public Education (MEP, in Spanish) to establish a garden. The school’s teacher, Antonio Lázaro Leiva, took the initiative to apply to the MEP’s School Gardens Program, and the support was provided last August. The stu...

During 2015, a total of 9,300 college students from the United States chose Costa Rica as their learning destination, even over other countries like Australia or Japan. This number has grown in a 156% since 2001; back then the number of foreign students from the United States was of under 4,000. The statistics were offered by the Institute of International Education, Open Doors, and the inform...

Once again the platform TEDxPuraVida “Ideas worth spreading”, will bring plenty of motivating and inspiring conferences as well as new ideas to the Coca Cola Amphitheater at Parque Viva from March 1st to March 3rd. This year’s edition will involve the three versions of this program, the TEDxPuraVidaED (education), TEDxPuraVida and TEDxPuraVidaJoven, one each day. The schedule was modified to he...

The Central America Circus and Social Art Encounter a program part of the Cirque du Monde, a social responsibility program of Cirque Du Soleil will be taking place in Costa Rica February 16th through the 19th. Two experts from the famous Cirque Du Soleil, Mariano López from Canada and Tomasso Negri from Italy, will train seven Costa Rican instructors and eight Central Americans in the arts of “...

By Wendy Anders The Max Planck Society of Germany (MPG), the National Council of Rectors (CONARE), and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications (MICITT) signed an agreement in January to strengthen scientific collaboration on joint research projects and research-based training. The agreement is result of the visit of a high-level delegation headed by the German Federal Mini...

The University of Costa Rica (UCR) increased the budget invested in scholarships for this 2017, making it one of the highest in all Latin America. According to the data of the Scholarship and Social-Economic attention Office, the University of Costa Rica went from investing ¢13,512 million in 2014 (over $24 thousand dollars), to a total of ¢24,400 million in 2017 (around $44 thousand USD). O...

Two Republican senators said Wednesday they would break ranks with their party and oppose Donald Trump's nominee to become the United States' next Education Secretary. It marks the first time during the Senate confirmation process that GOP lawmakers have expressed opposition to a nominee chosen by the U.S. president. If Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska follow through and ali...

Ismael Cala Foundation (ICF) and Urbe University announced in Miami the grant of two scholarships to two young Latin Americans to study Social Communication in the United States. The spots will be channeled through four organizations that work in five countries: Mentores Solidarios (Nicaragua), Fundación Carvajal (Colombia), Glasswing Internacional (El Salvador and Honduras) and Passion (Guatem...

Costa Ricans rank in the fourth position when it comes to English proficiency in Latin America with a score of 51.35 according to Education First. This index ranks the level of English in different scales from “Very High”, “High”, “Average”, “Low and “Very Low” and provides information with regards to the direct relation between English proficiency and a variety of economic and social indicator...

The International Baccalaureate (IB) high school diploma offered in Costa Rica by 26 private high schools is accessible to students in public schools through scholarship programs and the help of companies, universities and private schools. The initiative is part of a social responsibility program carried out by companies such as Boston Scientific, Britt Coffee and DHL along with the Association...

By Wendy Anders Universities in the U.S. are stepping in the fill needs of foreign companies with branches, plants and offices in Costa Rica to train their workers in specialized technologies and digital innovations, reported Costa Rica’s business daily El Financierio. From 2015-2016, for example, at least 40 Costa Ricans attended the University of Wisconsin Stout’s specialization program in...

By Wendy Anders The International Baccalaureate (IB) high school diploma offers students an internationally recognized, high quality education, that is a global gold standard of education, said a report on the program in Costa Rica’s EKA business magazine. Students at one of 26 public and private IB high schools in Costa Rica can apply to universities all over the world after graduating, and...

The Costa Rica Ministry of Education announced the launching of a project that will teach Portuguese language to students from six public high schools starting in 2017. “Falemos Português” is the name of the project that will benefit teens from technical high schools in Santa Ana, Sabana Sur and Pavas and the bilingual experimental schools from San Ramon, Grecia and Belen. In each of the sch...

Although two students of the Vicente Lachner High-School in Cartago did not turn in their Civics project, the Costa Rica Ministry of Public Education forced the teacher to give them a grade of 100. During the second trimester of this year, the two students didn’t turn in any advances of their work or their final project, and therefore the teacher gave them a “1”; however, the mother of one of t...

By Wendy Anders University students in Nicoya, Guanacaste. On Tuesday, Costa Rican Legislator Luis Vásquez of the Social Christian Party (PUSC, in Spanish) filed a motion against Education Minister Sonia Marta Mora in the Constitutional Court, reported Elmundo.cr, a Costa Rican digital news source. The Legislator claims that requiring high school students to take mandatory admission test...

Costa Rica is positioned third in the Latin American region in the last Program for the International Evaluation of Students (PISA) study, which evaluates quality, equity and efficiency of the educational systems. Chile continues to lead the list in the region and it takes position 44 globally, followed by Uruguay (47 in the world), Costa Rica (55), Colombia (57), Mexico (58), Brasil (63), Per...

By Wendy Anders University students in Nicola, Guanacaste. According to the San José, Costa Rica-based American University (UAM, its acronym in Spanish), students who push to earn a college degree can wind up earning up to a 60 percent higher salary than their counterparts who don’t. According to recent census data, there are a total of 703,000 people with a higher education degree in Co...

According to the 2016 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange data released by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in partnership with the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs,  there is a significant increase in the student mobilization between the United States and Costa Rica. President Obama launched the initiative “The force of 100...

An alliance between multinational company Generac and Costa Rican company Alco, will allow the creation of a Training Center for professionals such as electrical engineers, electricity technicians and other professionals in this area. This Training Center in Costa Rica will be the only one of its kind in Central America and the second in Latin America, their current one functions in their 15,00...

A group of students of the Technology Institute of Costa Rica (TEC) won the silver medal in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) event, organized by MIT and that took place in Boston, MA, USA, October 27th to the 31st in the category Diagnostics. The Costa Ricans participated with their project Prostal, a system for the diagnosis of prostate cancer through the development of ...

According to a study by human resources firm Manpower titled “Shortage of Talent”, the difficulty of Costa Rican employers to fill the different vacancies in their companies has lowered from a 46% to a 35%; the average in the countries evaluated is of 40%, while in some countries like Colombia is close to 50%. In general, the positions that are hard to fill have remained the same in the past el...

“Somos 2021” (We are 2021) is the name of the initiative presented by the Costa Rican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the chancellor Manuel González; this initiative hopes to obtain 200 scholarships by 2021 to celebrate the 200 years of the independence of Costa Rica. The objective is to find the best universities and the best academic offers in countries such as: Canada, U.S.A., Mexico, Colomb...