Like all higher education institutions in the country, the Universidad del Norte de Nicaragua (UNN), which is present in four departments, faces the challenge of maintaining enrollment from previous years at a time when there are hundreds of young people who have emigrated in search of better opportunities.
This 2023, the UNN opens with a varied academic offer, in the areas of administration, engineering and its special offer in educational sciences, with specialties in Biology-Chemistry, Spanish, Social Sciences and English, although it is planned to expand it in the coming years .
The engineer Ebert Rivas Bejarano, vice rector of the UNN-Jinotega, points out for this report that the issue worries them. “We are concerned about the future of a Jinotegan society where most of the young people have left,” he said. “Some classrooms have been seen empty,” he notes.
Bet on family remittances
This university is present in four of the eight municipalities of the department, San Sebastián de Yalí, Wiwili, Santa María de Pantasma and Jinotega. According to the educator, the vast majority of young people who leave the country are from rural areas, which is precisely where this university recruited its students.
“Obviously, the country’s economic crisis has hit us more, which hits our pockets and that means that many young people who had hopes of moving forward, cannot continue studying, as a result of the same crisis,” he lamented.
The expectations for this year are that the arrival of family remittances can have a positive impact on homes and this can make it easier for young people to enter private universities, although it is a very harsh reality for Jinotega. “We are confident, yes, that we can move forward,” said the official.
They bet on optimism
The educator explains that by having fewer professionals, the impact on society is less development, in the medium and long term, because “the most valuable capital” of any country is the education of its youth. “A home where there are professionals is a home with economic development, which eventually helps you get out of poverty,” says Rivas Bejarano.
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This university has twenty years of working in this department. It has already graduated nearly two thousand professionals, most of whom work in both State institutions and private companies. “We are committed to continuing to improve. We hope that this phenomenon is temporary, like all economic and social phenomena, that “this cycle can be closed and another one started,” he adds optimistically.
The engineer Rivas Bejarano ends by making a call to have faith in the future and to remember that the biggest investment for Jinotega and for Nicaragua is education.
By United Voices
