Education in Guatemala

Education in Guatemala is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education which oversees formulating, implementing and supervising the national educational policy. According to the Constitution of Guatemala, education is compulsory and free in public schools for the initial, primary and secondary levels. There is a five-tier system of education starting with primary school, followed by secondary school and tertiary education, depending on the level of technical training.^[1][2]

The official language of instruction is Spanish as mandated by the Education Law in 1965 when Spanish became the official language of Guatemala.^[3] However, Article 76 of the Constitution mandates bilingual education for regions with a predominantly indigenous population.^[1]

The Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI)^[4] finds that Guatemala is fulfilling only 60.5% of what it should be fulfilling for the right to education based on the country's level of income.^[5] HRMI breaks down the right to education by looking at the rights to both primary education and secondary education. While taking into consideration Guatemala's income level, the nation is achieving 74.9% of what should be possible based on its resources (income) for primary education but only 46.2% for secondary education.^[6] 83.3% of the population age 15 and over is literate.^[7]