Education of the deaf in nicaragua

Nicaragua now ranks as the third poorest country in the Western Hemisphere (Interamerican Development Bank [IDB], 1995). Occasionally educational improvement has been a national priority (Arrien & Matus, 1989). Usually, however, education rests at the lower end of a long list of national needs. The history of education in Nicaragua is marked by low teacher salaries, deteriorated physical plants, and scarcities of teaching materials (Arnove, 1994). Deaf education has been no exception. Teachers have been expected to learn empirically what deafness is and how to teach deaf children, to teach pupils who have had little or no language exposure before entering school, and to manage with the barest physical resources, all the while receiving only meager compensation. This article places education of the deaf in Nicaragua in a historical perspective, reports the results of a teacher survey, and discusses national policies that, so far, have had only indirect effects, but are likely to gain importance in the future.