Our private free school “Costa Rica”
In 1994, due to a boundary problem between Esmeraldas and Pichincha provinces, the Pueblito Agrupación de los Ríos School, located close to our farms, was left without teachers and six children from our employees families lost the chance to finish their studies. As a desperate response, we contracted a particular teacher so our children could continue with their studies. This became the beginning of our education project, which has continued to grow and develop during the coming years until it established into a legal school, approved by the National Ministry of Education and where nowadays 85 children study.
The current government policies have stimulated the spread of Corporate Social Responsibility principles, where the enterprise projects have the obligation of sharing and supporting the community whole development and not being only elements of wealth extraction.
The academic level of our school is guided by that stablished by the Education Nacional System and probable exceed its goals since we count with seven teachers (most of them with a third level degree of studies) and in charge of no more than twelve children per class; only 50% of the students belong to families that work at our processing plant, the other 50% are children from nearby communities.
The infrastructure of our school includes a computer lab with broadband internet, a well endowed library, videoconference room, varied educational materials, sports fields and wide playgrounds. We also offer the following services: school breakfast, textbooks for all the students, school and sports uniforms, school transportation within communities and a permanent medical assistance service.
The school is located in one of the farms, next to a protected primary forest, which allows us to impart practical teachings on issues of environmental protection and care of nature. The supervision and training of teachers are in charge of the school´s Academic Director, who has a fourth level degree and is responsible for the pedagogical counseling, assessment and daily supervision, done by regularly attending the school and through the Internet.
All the costs of this educational project are borne directly by Protropic and, for it to be sustainable, we have assigned it a 10 ha. plot of land with a hearts of palm plantation. The production of this plot is intended exclusively to fund our school. For all these characteristics, the children of the nearby communities and their parents are always willing to support our school, which moves us to keep working and improving its academic level even more.