The Ministry of Economy (Mineco) returned to the Ministry of Finance (Minfin) the amount assigned for the English scholarship program due to lack of competence to execute the funds, and due to findings in that initiative in the previous two years. In the General Budget Law, the Ministry of Economy is assigned Q70 million, of which more than half is for that purpose.
The ministry justifies that the decision was made because it is not the responsibility of the Vice Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises (Mipyme) to execute scholarships, and because there is no trained personnel in the subject. In addition, there are no studies that show the impact of the program on the beneficiaries.
“The past two years, the staff has been working for the Trust, overloading this staff with duties that were not necessarily those for which they were hired,” said Vice Minister Elizabeth Ugalde.
He added that another implementation problem is that in 2022 only 48 percent of the funds were executed. Then, the Comptroller General’s Office made a series of findings. Some were corrected in 2023 but the execution was only 38 percent even with findings.
“Finally, there is no study that shows the impact of this program. We do not know if the young people were employed or if their income increased due to this scholarship. In short, we were executing poorly and without knowing the impact,” said the vice minister.
The program was launched during the government of Alejandro Giammattei as an initiative that would strengthen the capabilities of young people who were looking for formal employment. The methodology was that Mineco was allocated Q60 million for English scholarships, and Q10 million for nursing scholarships. While the Ministry of Education (Mineduc) was allocated another Q30 million for foreign language scholarships.
The funds were transferred to the students or their parents to cover the costs of the English courses taught by the Technical Training Institute (Intecap) and the Guatemalan American Institute (IGA).
A few months ago, the Mineduc published a call for applications for the program, announcing that there would be 20,000 scholarships. Since the Mineco will not execute the funds that corresponded to it, the Mineduc and Minfin were also consulted to see if the funds would be reallocated, but it was not possible to obtain a response.
Program improvements
In April, a study by Entrepreneurs for Education was published in collaboration with the analysis center El Diálogo Interamericano, which describes recommendations focused on human resources, technological infrastructure and educational quality for the implementation of the scholarship program.
The first recommendation urges the ministries to improve the processes of calls and applications with available, sensitized and trained human resources. They also urge that web platforms be standardized, functional and robust.
“It is recommended that they offer the courses in accordance with the Common European Framework of Reference, however, it is recommended to include in the proposals and/or agreements the minimum content of each level that the educational centers must reinforce during the training,” they suggest.
Finally, they recommend that entry-level scholarship holders be encouraged to continue advancing in the programme in order to reach a competitive level relevant to the labour market.
Verónica Spross, from Entrepreneurs for Education, maintains that the programs must be technically improved so that they are better executed. She shared that not implementing them affects young people in terms of job preparation and comprehensive development.
“Training human talent is one of the most important things in a country, especially training young people so that they can have the opportunity to opt for better job offers. If there are implementation problems in the way the programs are organized, it does not mean that they are not successful,” he concluded.
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