In Latin America, there is still concern that Guatemala has been the country with the worst educational performance in the region, according to the results of the recent PISA tests. However, none of the other 12 Latin American countries that were evaluated also excelled globally, and their students lagged behind countries in Asia and Europe in science, mathematics and reading.

First modification: 11/08/2026 - 20:12

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It is afternoon in Santo Domingo Xenacoj, in the heart of the Guatemalan highlands and the municipality's public school vibrates with students from the Mayan Kaqchikel ethnic group.

On the first floor, adolescents between 13 and 17 years old learn to differentiate the parts of the cell under microscopes, while on the second floor they solve addition and subtraction equations of complex numbers.

Knowledge in which Guatemala fell short and was last in Latin America, in the results of the recent international PISA tests, focused on evaluating 15-year-olds in reading, science and mathematics. Of the 760,000 students evaluated by the OECD - the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development - those from Guatemala finished in 84th place out of 91 in the world.

In the classrooms of this Mayan indigenous school, a clear majority of female students are observed, dressed in their iconic clothing with the cut (skirt) and the huipil (blouse) of multiple colors and hand-woven geometric shapes that symbolize the orography, animals and flowers. The men wear a classic school uniform. According to the institution's data, of the 180 students between 13 and 17 years old, 107 are women and 73 are men.

One of the students is Rosa Ecot, who at 17 years old works in the morning in a textile factory, producing pants, to earn a salary that allows her to pay her tuition fees. Like her, all of her colleagues also work in other sectors such as the fields, planting flowers, although weaving is predominant.

According to the Ministry of Education, the immense Mayan population, in a country where the indigenous peoples -Maya, A reality confirmed by the rector of the institution, Mildred Chuc, with the figure of 13 students in 2026 who left school to go to work in mechanical workshops.

But Rosa does not plan to defect. Of course, when she arrives to study in the afternoons, she usually yawns again and again: "Well, I'm already very tired, and in some periods because my body no longer gives it, I feel like I want to fall asleep and I don't pay as much attention anymore."

Although Rosa is one of the most outstanding students in the equations of addition and subtraction of complex numbers, as well as in fundamental physics, the country's average fell in the results of the PISA tests.

In mathematics, Guatemala obtained only 334 points, the lowest in Latin America. It means that 92% of its 15-year-old students did not meet the minimum level of proficiency. It is worth clarifying that no other Latin American country reached the OECD minimum average of 463 points in mathematics. The best in the region was Uruguay, with 405 points, far from the best in the world, Macau, with 572 points, followed by Singapore (563) and China (560).

Knowing that, on this evaluation scale, 20 points are equivalent to approximately one year of schooling, the gap between the average of Latin American students and Asian students is about 5 years. That is, an average 15-year-old from Latin America has the mathematics skills that an Asian student masters at 10 or 11 years of age.

For the mathematics teacher of this Mayan school, Fabiola Tomás

The case of women in a culturally sexist country

At 18 years old, Nohemí Chigüinchón dreams of studying criminology: “I would like to see decomposed corpses and things like that.” He shows it with a screwdriver in hand, while making an electricity circuit to light four light bulbs, with the background noise of a public school in the municipality of San Lucas Sacatepéquez, near Guatemala City.

Nohemí is one year away from finishing high school, and aspires to enter university when she is 21 years old. According to her, the problem of education in Guatemala is related to the quality of some teachers: "To be honest, both teachers and directors need a little more organization, and what is missing most is English. Personally, we had an English teacher who literally came into the classroom and just put everything on the blackboard and didn't explain anything, so how were we going to understand?"

Like Rosa, Nohemí is one of the most diligent students. Although she does not belong to the Mayan Kaqchikel ethnic group, she defends the role of her gender in education: “The generation of women has changed a lot since they are no longer carried away by what men say, women now have more self-esteem, more sense of deciding about themselves, because before they were housewives and literally received orders from either the husband or the boss.”

For the expert in neuroeducation and innovative pedagogy, Beatriz Erazo, current dean of Human and Social Sciences at the Mesoamerican University, the backwardness of women in Guatemala suffers from the country's sexist culture. After having interviewed numerous low-income families, they responded:

“I don't send the girls because why, if they are going to get married and they are going to have to take care of the home and the children.”

However, according to studies by the World Bank and ODI Global, in Guatemala there are currently more women who complete their high school studies with a rate of 51% versus 48% for men, in part because many of the men are only interested in finishing primary school. For Erazo, the explanation is simple: "in low-income families, if adolescents know how to read and write, at 12 and 13 years old, it is enough, and they are sent to work."

“In Guatemala we do not have the culture of reading”

Guatemala is a country where an illiteracy rate of 18% is reached, which is equivalent to more than 2.3 million Guatemalans not knowing how to read or write. The problem is that those who do master this aspect in the country do not necessarily understand the texts and develop critical thinking.

This is stated by the rector Claudia Morales, director of the National Institute of Basic Education where Nohemí studies: “Unfortunately, what happens to us in Guatemala is that we do not have a reading culture, so young people do not have reading comprehension, because it is not that we are bad, or that we do not know, or as many told us, stupid, that is not it.”

Guatemala's reading result in the PISA tests was 337 points. For the Ministry of Education, the educational lag in reading is due to the years of the pandemic, where students were confined, as well as the misuse of technological tools such as cell phones and tablets. In contrast, the country that performed best in Latin America was Chile, with 436 points, still well below Singapore, the best in the world with 535.

One of the great challenges in this matter is that in Guatemala, 24 languages ​​other than Spanish are spoken, 22 Mayan, one Xinca and another Garífuna, so many students arrive with strong grammatical gaps in Spanish. Faced with this Guatemalan educational crisis, the current Government proposes the training of new teachers, curricular changes and a profound digital transformation.

However, for Dean Erazo, the problem of education goes further: “It is linked to poverty, exclusion and gender inequality and it is not enough to simply open more literacy spaces.” Furthermore, in his opinion and that of other education experts consulted by France 24, Guatemala should promote its ancient ancestral culture belonging to the Mayan civilization, where mathematics, astronomy and calendars were considered of high scientific precision and of immense contribution to universal knowledge.

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