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Country updates

Country updates for the Americas and the Caribbean - Costa Rica

Document prepared for the 5th global conference on national youth service
June 2000
Author's details: Carmen M. Castillo
Contact details

Costa Rica: a country profile

• Background on Costa Rica
• National youth service

Costa Rica has had a singular development within the Central American region since the second half of the Twentieth Century. It was after 1948 when Costa Rica followed a different path in its social, economic and political development.

The economic growth came together with stability in the political system, and with significant social advances, thanks to the efforts and investments made on human capital.

Nowadays, Costa Rica is classified among the countries with high human development. In the last sixty years, poverty was reduced, life expectancy was doubled, infant mortality was diminished, the population rate was increased five times. A democratic State was built.

Costa Rica is the oldest democracy in Latin America, the most democratic and egalitarian nation in this region.

It has an extensive welfare system, with a well developed infrastructure. The entire nation has access to utilities, water, electricity and telephone service. The literacy rate is among the highest in the world. 90% of the population is covered by a health insurance. There is a large middle class and a strong sense of equality.

Despite the many positive things mentioned above, there are still important problems or areas of Costa Rican society that need to be solved.

For example:

• Extreme poverty at the national level: 5.3%
  
• Open unemployment: 5.6%
  
• Some problems regarding youth:
  • 21.1% are out of the school system in urban areas and 51.3% in rural areas;
  • 20% of births are of adolescent mothers;
  • 13% of people between age 5 and 17 work
• There are important gaps between education and knowledge:
  • rural education versus urban
  • public education versus private.
• Gaps between men and women:
  • unemployment
  • wages
• Social development differences among regions within the country.
• 45% of active labor force are out of a retirement system.
• increase in domestic violence reports.
• etc, etc.

(Data taken from: Informes Estado de la Nacion no.4 and no.5; San Jose, Costa Rica, 1998-99).

National Youth Service

Although the army was abolished in 1948 and there is a commitment for peace and democracy, this ideology has not been translated into a non-military service ethic within the country. There isn't a broadly-based system of national service.

Trabajo Comunal Universitario

Nonetheless, there is a program at the University of Costa Rica which meets some of the characteristics that Michael Sherraden (1990) mentions in his definition of national youth service: 'organized programs wherein young people engage in a period of civilian service to the community or nation'. This program is Trabajo Comunal Universitario (University Community Work), known as TCU.

The official purpose of this program is to repay society for the higher education received. The general objectives are:

• to contribute directly, by way of academic action, to national development, community well-being and social justice, and,
• to raise the consciousness of students regarding issues of national interest.

TCU is a requirement for graduation. All undergraduate university students are expected to comply with 300 hours of community work. From a number of projects available, the student must choose one. Along with other students from different disciplines, they execute the project chosen. The work is supposed to be done from an interdisciplinary perspective.

The group of students have a professor assigned, someone who will supervise and guide their work and help them to discuss, analyse and reflect on the TCU experience that they are having. At the end of the process, the student is supposed to write a paper reflecting on his/her particular experience.

The TCU program evaluates the results of each project.

A more detailed description and analysis of the TCU program is included in the book, 'The Moral Equivalent of War', edited by Don Eberly and Michael Sherraden, 1990.