Neblinas is a rural community of 950 habitants in Queretaro State mountains, kids from this community must walk 20 kms around 12 miles just to go to School. Edith is a 16 year old girl, who is very proud of her older sister, the first student of this community to attend the National University of Mexico UNAM located in Mexico City. In her story Edith tells that she arrived to school with her white socks all brown because she walked through mud for one and a half hour to get there.
Rural School as the one in Agua Zarca, Queretaro
Yesterday, march 3rd,2014 Mexico´s President Peña went to this community to deliver 20 school buses to transport the students to and from school. Javier a high school student told him: "I like to go to school and walking between Neblinas and Agua Zarca, the community where the school is located its 20 kilometers. It is very far. Imagine that. It is very far".
Rural classroom in another community
As per this example, rural education in Mexico is very scarce, young kids in these small communities in the mountains or the desert have little or no access to education. These students make the 20 kms walk everyday back and forth just to get to school. Three hours walking just to have the right to learn and with that build a better life for them and their families. Edith despite having lost her father 12 years ago and in a very critical economic situation understands the importance of studies and urges her classmates to study and not waste time.
Inside a classroom
In Mexico there is still 12 states that have high rates of iliteracy, the highest one being Chiapas with 17% of the total population that do not know to write or read. Chiapas is Mexico southern state that share a large border with Guatemala, the state is mainly rural as there is a lot of jungle and deserted areas. Private funded education projects are the solution to reach education for the majority of the population. The goverment have serious problem reaching to all the communities in a country of 117 millions of habitants. In the total rural areas there is 333,593 students with only 36,707 teachers from which more than 20% leave their position before the first year. Of these students more than 80% have a very low or insufficient spanish and math level.
Mexico and its 32 states
