Sandra Cauffman, a Costa Rican engineer who is assistant director of the Earth Sciences Division of The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), declared that public education is one of the critical issues that the country urgently needs to improve and added that there is a “class gap” between the educational platforms.
According to Cauffman, Costa Rica has a high educational quality but it is necessary to strengthen the public education and prevent it from becoming worse in contrast with the advancement of private or scientific schools.
She thinks that the gap began when scientific schools were established because the educational quality of public schools decreased. In fact, students from public schools don’t have the same opportunity to pass colleges and universities’ admission test.
Cauffman confirmed that she is working on a project along with the government to promote internships for Costa Rican students at NASA.
In 2013 the Scientific participated in the MAVEN probe project, whose main objective is to study the atmosphere of Mars.