In Honduras, the Ministry of Education has officially recognised the SAT programme, a Bahá’í-inspired programme for secondary students designed especially for rural students and their communities.

Over the past five years, the UK Bahá’í community has invested a quarter of a million pounds in supporting the development of the SAT programme, and a final evaluation was carried out earlier this year by an international team of educationalists.

Students, tutors, parents and community leaders were interviewed during that evaluation, together with local education authorities. Official recognition of the programme by the Honduran Ministry of Education followed shortly afterwards.

The programme has come a long way since 1997, when it involved ten communities and just 100 students in the remote Department of Gracias a Dios, in the Mosquitia region of Honduras.

Today it is a State-sponsored education programme operating in three Departments on the north coast of the country, with nearly 1,000 participating students. By the end of 2005, the programme is expected to expand to provide for nearly 5,000 students.

Working with a trained tutor, SAT students study a set of interdisciplinary textbooks, which do not compartmentalise education into traditional disciplines. Instead, areas of study such as agricultural technology, maths, science, language and communication are linked together through a general theme of service to a community. In this way, the students acquire knowledge in a way that will improve both their lives, and that of their society.

Interviews with community leaders, parents, tutors and the students themselves have found the students strongly committed to improving their communities, and a genuine pride in their studies. Students on the SAT programme were also more likely to be involved in community life and non-governmental organisations. CP