Guatemala Computer Centers Program

Rural, indigenous Guatemalan students are being left behind. Approximately 60% of entry level jobs in Guatemala require computer skills, but in some rural communities, none of the kids have ever even touched a computer keyboard. Without marketable job skills, they are destined to repeat the cycle of poverty and migration that plagues their region. Cooperative for Education sets up high-quality computer labs in rural middle schools that help to bridge this digital divide. Our labs enable youth to gain highly marketable skills, compete for professional jobs, and permanently raise their standards of living. Each student’s family agrees to contribute about $3 per month to guarantee the program’s longevity; their contribution pays to maintain the computers, train the teacher, and even eventually upgrade the computers so that future students will have the same opportunity. 95% of program graduates have gone on to find employment or further their education.

CoEd is a nonprofit founded in 1996 with the mission of breaking the cycle of poverty in Guatemala through education. Our four complementary programs address separate gaps in Guatemala’s education system, especially in the Western Highlands, where the vast majority of people are subsistence farmers who earn less than $4 a day. More than a third of indigenous Guatemalans cannot read or write; they complete less than five years of school on average; and four out of five live in poverty. Many resort to migration, making the dangerous journey north in search of better opportunities. 

Our Computer Centers Program in particular addresses the technical skills gap in rural Guatemala. Although 60% of entry level jobs in Guatemala require computer skills, and computer education is mandated by the national curriculum, impoverished communities do not have the resources to provide the technical education students need to be competitive in the job market. Students must either learn computer theory in isolation (without even touching a computer), crowded around a handful of outdated computers, or by traveling to the nearest town with a pricey computer “academia”—a prohibitive expense for most of the families we serve, with an inconsistent quality of education.

CoEd Computer Centers serve middle schools in Guatemala’s impoverished Western Highlands, where poverty rates for the area’s indigenous inhabitants reach 79%. Schools are underfunded and lack the basic supplies to enable the children they serve to compete for higher-paying jobs that will allow them to break the cycle of poverty. “The government doesn’t really support towns like ours, especially in the area of technology,” says the principal of a school that received a CoEd Computer Center in 2012 (and upgraded their equipment in 2017 using money saved entirely through their revolving fund). “They demand many things of us, as far as advancements in the sciences, but that’s very difficult to deliver when they do not provide us with any technology.”

CoEd Computer Centers empower local communities to transform their quality of education. Beneficiaries are partners in every step of the process. Training and follow-up coaching enable teachers to become experts in the technology and build their pedagogic skills. Students’ families commit to paying a small amount into the program’s revolving fund to cover operating costs and future equipment upgrades. School administrators also receive training to ensure that the center will continue to operate for generations to come.

The Guatemala Computer Centers Program brings access to high-quality technical education to the most remote corners of the country. Donors around the world (individuals, Rotary clubs, foundations, and corporate partners) provide the initial investment to purchase a classroom-full of recent-model computers or laptops. CoEd staff work with local contractors and the school community to renovate and secure a classroom for the lab. Computers are networked and installed with programs like the Microsoft Office suite, Scratch programming, and RACHEL, a portable server that stores vast amounts of educational content offline. These tools ensure that students go beyond basic typing and web navigation skills to learn the applications, offimatics, and programming basics that are internationally recognized as the skills needed for the next century. The curriculum draws upon methodology developed by Cambridge Education, the Internet and Computing Core Certification Global Standard 5 (IC3 GS5), and the specific guidelines of Guatemala’s national curriculum. Students complete at least 60 minutes of hands-on computer instruction per week.

To prepare teachers for the complex challenge of helping students develop 21st-century technical skills, the program also provides extensive teacher training. Teachers at schools receiving new Computer Centers (or new teachers at existing centers) benefit from 84 hours of training in the first year, covering the curriculum and general pedagogy as well as the use, management, and maintenance of the technology. CoEd staff conduct this training in collaboration with instructors from Educational Technology Consulting Iberoamérica, who provides the IC3-GS5 curriculum. Teachers also receive follow-up coaching every 2-4 months (depending on each school’s needs) from CoEd staff to ensure that the level of education the students receive is on par with international standards. Finally, teachers learn strategies for engaging students in the material and adapting the curriculum’s activities to the level and interests of their students. Teachers complete 54 hours of refresher training in each following year to remain current with the latest standards.

CoEd Computer Centers are sustainable thanks to their innovative revolving fund model. Each year, students pay a small fee (customized to each community, but about $3/month on average) to use the computers. The fees go into a revolving fund that covers ongoing operating expenses (including computer teacher salaries) and pays for equipment upgrades. After approximately six years, enough money will have accumulated in the fund to replace the computers, ensuring that students in these communities have access to high-quality technical education for generations to come.

The Guatemala Computer Centers Program is the first of its kind to find a viable, enduring method for providing technology access to communities in the most remote corners of the country. Since 2001, we have established 53 sustainable Computer Centers, where 13,858 youth are studying every day with CoEd computers. But thanks to the program’s sustainability model—the revolving fund described above, combined with extensive training to empower local leadership with the knowledge to carry out the program for the long term—more than 65,600 students have passed through the doors of those centers over the years, and graduated with the skills to transform their lives from poverty to opportunity.

We are also continually innovating to bring the Computer Centers Program to smaller, more rural communities. The original Computer Center model provides a high level of ongoing support to schools, but schools must have at least 150 students for the revolving fund contributions to be affordable. Yet smaller schools can still benefit from a Rural Technology Center model, which provides additional up-front training that enables schools to ‘graduate’ with reduced need for ongoing support. Finally, a mobile lab model enables the program to serve schools that do not have a classroom available to house a traditional lab. Instead, these schools receive laptops that can be brought out as needed and stored safely away when the room is needed for other purposes. Small modifications such as these enable the program to be implemented with a great degree of flexibility and efficiency.

Program evaluations have demonstrated that CoEd Computer Centers lead to several positive outcomes along the path to breaking the cycle of poverty for rural students:

1. Students stay in school longer: An analysis of dropout rates at 24 schools before and after receiving a Computer Center demonstrated that the program decreases dropout rates by 35%. Based on this statistically significant result, we estimate that more than 300 students will stay in school this year because their school has a CoEd Computer Center.
2. Students gain skills to obtain professional jobs: The skills that 2010 graduate Sergio learned at his school’s CoEd Computer Center inspired him to open his own technology business, Evolution World, which has been running for seven years and counting. More recently, 18 students (13 of whom are girls) at the Hacienda Maria Computer Center earned the Microsoft Office Specialist certification in Excel 2013 Core—an impressive feat for their resumes in a rural region where such an accomplishment is virtually unheard of! (Read more at https://coeduc.org/blog/girlsintech/)
3. Students graduate with dramatically increased earning potential: According to our survey of program graduates, immediately after graduating from a middle school with a CoEd Computer Center, students who obtain jobs in the formal sector earn an average of $15/day—a 275% increase over the typical $4/day wage of a day laborer in their hometown. The majority of graduates go on to high school, earning degrees that would make them eligible for even higher pay.

Currently, 13,858 students are studying every day at 53 CoEd Computer Centers. Each year, the program grows to approximately 1-3 new schools in rural Guatemala, serving an additional 250-400 students. By 2021, we plan to be operating 54 centers, serving 14,112 students. If program expansion continues at the rate of 1-3 schools each year, in five years, the program will reach the milestone of 60 centers and more than 15,000 students benefiting every day.

This shouldn't be possible for these communities. They have all the odds stacked against them. No one expects to climb up a dirt road to a tiny mountaintop village and walk into a state-of-the-art computer lab. No one expects 18 kids from a town of 1500-2000 people to have a Microsoft Office Specialist certification in Excel. No one expects 32 communities, where the majority of people live on less than $4 a day, to buy brand-new equipment for their very own computer lab. But the innovative model of CoEd's Computer Centers Program is what makes this possible. The revolving fund design enables the most remote rural communities to help themselves, and to keep doing it, for generations. To invest in the education that transforms their children's futures.

Our strategy calls for steady expansion of the Computer Centers Program at a rate of 1-3 new centers per year, serving 250-400 more students each year. In addition to steady expansion, another strategic initiative revolves around investigating a new model to offer alongside our traditional Computer Center offerings. Under the current model, in order for the revolving fund fees to be affordable to families, schools need a minimum of 100 students to be able to receive a Rural Technology Center. However, throughout 2020, we are conducting research and development on a “Traveling Lab” model, which would allow several smaller schools to benefit from a single computer instructor with a designated vehicle to store and transport laptop equipment between the schools for classes. If found to be feasible, such a model would bring this life-changing access to technical education to smaller and more remote schools than ever before—perhaps even as small as 25 students per school. If feasible, this model could easily be replicated to impact a large number of small schools and it would even allow organizations working in other geographies to implement it.

In addition to researching and developing this new model, we are always looking for opportunities to share our current model and learnings with nonprofits working in other regions, so that our innovations can reach more youth beyond our immediate beneficiaries. The revolving fund model lends itself to replication in other countries and contexts and has already been successfully implemented to provide textbooks in Honduras.

The primary barrier to continued expansion of the Guatemala Computer Centers Program is funding. The current COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the global economy is creating a large degree of uncertainty: not only as to how our programs will be able to operate for the remainder of this year (with schools in Guatemala currently closed), but in regards to potential impact on the future performance of the nonprofit sector in general.

As previously stated, the minimum population size of schools under the current models is a barrier to serving more rural and underprivileged communities. This is why development of the Traveling Labs model would allow us to serve a greater base of beneficiaries. However, there are a number of potential barriers to the feasibility of the Traveling Labs model, which we are investigating this year (and potentially into 2021, if the process faces delays due to the situation with COVID-19). The specific research activities that must be carried out before we could consider a pilot project include conducting a detailed market assessment, determining management components, planning for certification of the traveling lab, creating a budget, and developing a plan to secure the equipment.

CoEd has an extensive partner network to leverage for continued funding to bring the program to new schools each year. In recent years, the expansions have been funded in part by the P&G Alumni Foundation, which is also helping us network with P&G alums living in Guatemala, who in turn will help further build our local network of resources. The TPrize challenge also provides a crucial opportunity not only for funding, but to spread the word about our solution and spark additional interest.

Despite the uncertainties surrounding COVID-19, the situation does reinforce the importance of education for all—being able to read and understand information, to think critically, and to interpret the government’s recommendations. More education translates directly to improved resilience in events like natural disasters and pandemics. The situation also underscores the fact that we live in a global community and each of us truly plays a part in our larger world. Our hope is that some good will come out of this—more connectedness, more empathy, and a deeper care for the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters.

Finally, we are hopeful that through extensive research and careful planning, we will be able to develop ways to overcome the potential barriers surrounding the Traveling Lab concept. We are well-positioned to address this challenge thanks to almost 20 years of experience implementing Computer Centers plus close partnerships with hundreds of rural school communities (including those in other CoEd programs) as well as Guatemala’s Ministry of Education.

Since 2001, Cooperative for Education (CoEd) has established sustainable Computer Centers in 53 schools throughout rural Guatemala. Every day, 13,858 students are studying at these centers. We have also trained 145 educators in technology education and didactic practices for engaging and motivating students. 98% of teachers with at least a year of experience have demonstrated their competency with the technology by passing the Internet Core Competency Certification (IC3) Global Standard 5 (GS5). Teachers are also in various stages of completing the different Microsoft Core Office Specialist certificates. Teachers have reported that the quality of our training exceeds even that offered by the Ministry, as one teacher related an anecdote where he ended up helping the Ministry instructor demonstrate the technology to his fellow teachers from schools without CoEd labs.

Each year, we are growing the program at a rate of 1-3 new centers, providing refresher training for teachers and principals at existing centers, and working with schools that are ready to renew their equipment through the revolving fund to help secure volume discounts on purchases. 32 labs have renewed their equipment through the revolving fund (several of them more than once!), and 9 schools using the Rural Technology Center model (first offered in 2010) have become certified to run their own labs with minimal ongoing assistance. Over the years, the current centers have helped more than 65,600 students gain marketable technical skills that enable them to compete for professional jobs—and that number grows by 5,300 students every year.

CoEd has a dedicated Computer Centers Program staff of six full-time employees—a program coordinator, operations coordinator for existing centers, three supervisors who oversee and work directly with the centers, and an administrative assistant. In addition, their work is overseen by a general director for Guatemala operations and a subdirector of programs, whose role involves strategic development and coordination between all of CoEd’s programs, as well as managing our relationship with the Ministry of Education. (CoEd has a total of 62 full-time and 2 part-time staff across all programs and functions.)

CoEd’s Computer Centers Program has a 19-year track record of successfully establishing sustainable labs, improving the quality of education, and producing highly skilled and employable graduates. Specific strengths to deliver this solution include:

• Strong partnership with Guatemala’s Ministry of Education, who certifies our labs and teacher training, recommends schools/regions for new expansions, and often provides computer teacher salaries at program schools.
• Proven curriculum and lesson plans combining Guatemala’s national curriculum with best practices from Cambridge Education and Internet and Computing Core Certification (IC3) Global Standard 5.
• Ability to negotiate volume discounts when renewing equipment for several labs at the same time through established relationships with suppliers.
• Experienced staff with bachelor’s degrees or coursework in fields like business administration or systems engineering; certifications in IC3 and Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Microsoft Certified Educator; long-standing relationships in the local communities; and experience traveling in remote regions to provide training and supervision.
• Experience in running laptop and wireless server-based computer labs in schools.
• Experience preparing customized financial plans for sustainability.
• Access to lessons learned and new developments by other actors in technology education, including Microsoft, Intel Education, Cambridge Education, and the Strachan Foundation Network.
• Offices in both San Lucas Sacatepéquez and Guatemala City. These local presences allow us to remain familiar with government, business, and nonprofit actors; maintain long-term relationships with officials in local and national government; and understand the changing political, social, and educational landscape that directly affects our programs and beneficiaries.

Cooperative for Education has long-standing relationships with many players in international development and education:

• Educational Technology Consulting (ETC): This internationally recognized leader in K-12 computer education and training provides the IC3 curriculum, ensuring standardized technical credentials for all Computer Center graduates, and helps conduct annual training for Computer Center teachers. Occasionally, other guests are invited to provide part of the training, from companies like Pixell.
• Guatemala’s Ministry of Education: The Ministry collaborates in the expansion process, certifies the program, and often provides teacher salaries for our program schools.
• Implementation and funding partners: 685 Rotary International Clubs in nine countries have partnered with support, expertise, and funding for program expansions over the years. We also have established funding relationships with individual donors and foundations such as the P&G Alumni Foundation, the SG Foundation, the Ross Foundation, and the Dewan Family Foundation to support the Computer Centers Program.
• Internationally-recognized nonprofits: We regularly share best practices with other nonprofits and technical training organizations such as Common Hope, Galileo University, Intel Education, World Possible, and INTECAP.
• Marroquín University: Independent evaluators from the Research Division of Marroquín University in Guatemala City, have advised CoEd in developing past evaluations of the program's qualitative and quantitative impact.

The key customers of the Guatemala Computer Centers Program are the local communities who are able to transform the quality of education for the long term thanks to our sustainable solution. Teachers benefit from professional development and increased competency with technology, students benefit from gaining marketable technical skills, schools benefit from the improved quality of education and lower dropout rates, and whole families benefit from their children going on to obtain professional jobs (many times supporting their entire families with their increased earnings). “In our now globalized world, computer education is an even more important part of our students’ education,” says the principal at Hacienda Maria, which has had a CoEd Computer Center since 2004 and has renewed its equipment twice through the revolving fund. He continues, “This lab has contributed to the success of professionals as they graduate from this school. Our graduates are working in all sorts of jobs thanks to the preparation they received in this computer lab.”

In addition to paying for equipment renewals, the revolving fund also helps pay for ongoing training and support from CoEd, enabling us to invest in the key resources of staff, training, and ongoing curriculum evolution and improvement. In summary, our business model is about implementing high-quality labs in remote communities, combined with extensive training for teachers and administrators, a proven curriculum, and a customized sustainability plan at an affordable price so that even the most impoverished communities can have a sustainable lab for generations.

In order to continually bring the Computer Centers Program to new communities, we primarily leverage the long-term partnership between Cooperative for Education and Rotary Clubs around the world, known as the Guatemala Literacy Project. This partnership is complemented by additional funding from long-standing relationships with a number of foundations, individual donors, and corporate partners. We also frequently pursue new opportunities such as the present challenge and outreach to new foundations that may be interested in our work.

Once the new centers are established thanks to these donors’ initial seed investment, the centers become perpetually self-financing through their innovative revolving fund model. Families contribute a small fee each year for their child to use the equipment, and 100% of fees are used to pay for ongoing operating expenses (including refresher training and ongoing support from CoEd) and future upgrades to the equipment (generally after about 6 years). Furthermore, the communities are involved in every step of the process, including the management of the centers once they are up and running. The equipment delivery is combined with extensive training for teachers and administrators that builds local capacity and ensures that the knowledge to operate the centers for the long term resides in the local community.

The TPrize Challenge presents an important opportunity for our organization to seek funding as well as spread the word to a larger audience about the effectiveness of CoEd Computer Centers in helping rural Guatemalan communities break the cycle of poverty. This is an especially important time for us to pursue this recognition in the face of the uncertainty surrounding the current COVID-19 pandemic. Since the Computer Centers Program is scalable, the number of new centers established each year can be adjusted based on the amount of funding raised. 

We are also excited for the possibility to build connections through the TPrize Challenge, as described further below. 

There are a number of connections we hope that the exposure gained through the TPrize Challenge will help us create:

• If there are other organizations in MIT’s network who have successfully implemented traveling computer labs or traveling education solutions in other parts of the world, we would love to hear about their experience to guide our research and development of this potential new model. 
• We hope to gain exposure to new potential funding partners interested in narrowing the skills gap in Latin America and bringing access to high-quality technical training to youth in the most remote communities. 
• We would also welcome the opportunity to connect with organizations in earlier stages of developing their own model to bring sustainable technical training to rural communities, so that our learnings from nearly two decades of experience could be leveraged to guide other initiatives and benefit youth beyond our immediate beneficiaries.