The Guatemalan Ministry of Education reports that 95% of the primary school age population attends school (Ministerio de Educación Guatemala [MINEDUC], 2008a). Working to meet the Education for All goal of all children attending primary school by 2015 (MINEDUC, 2007; UNESCO, 2007) it appears the country is on the right track. However, this high primary school enrollment is deceiving. Within the primary school, girls have many barriers to receiving a complete primary school education.
This thesis looks at the effect of urban and rural location on girls’ primary school enrollment, the differences in girls’ initial and final enrollments in primary school, and the comparison between girls and boys’ primary school enrollments, in order to determine the extent to which Guatemala will meet the international Education for All goal of all children, boys and girls, to attend and complete primary school by the year 2015. Data for this thesis are from the Guatemala Ministry of Education, and were used in single, independent, and related samples t-tests to calculate significance in population means. Data were selected from 1996 and 2007 in order to see how girls’ education access has changed over time.
The analysis results show that location of schools, retention, and gender are all significant issues in the primary education of girls. Girls in rural areas are less likely to attend school than girls in urban areas. There are fewer girls that attend primary school than boys, and when girls do have initial access to school, there is not a guarantee that they will complete their education. Thus, Guatemala is not making adequate progress to have all girls attend primary school by 2015 in order to meet Education for All goals.