A recent report by the Office of the Comptroller General (CGR) indicates some of the most important challenges that the Costa Rican education is facing, which includes the access to primary education and the effectiveness and efficiency of secondary education.
Costa Rica did not meet the goal: not all children have access to and end primary education. The net enrollment rate went from 96.5% in 2000 to 92.8% in 2015.
The country also failed to meet the third goal of the Education for All Program (EFA), which establishes the need to incorporate the entire population of youth and adults into the educational process.
Another criticism made by the Comptroller’s Office is that the investment made per student in the third cycle (from 2.1 to 2.4 million colones for each) does not produce results when the student leaves the classroom, fails or is excluded of the syste. Therefore, it is causing a loss of system efficiency.
However, the report also stated 2 major achievements of the education authorities: One of the goals was to reach a literacy rate of 99% among people aged 15 to 24 years old, and the other is the equality between genders related to education, where the indicative of a good parity according to UNESCO is a figure around 50%.