Bill 119.

Summary.

The bill amends Law 47 of 1946, the Organic Law of Education, to expand the availability of the second level of education in corregimientos (districts). It assigns the Regional Education Directorates (Direcciones Regionales de Educación) responsibility for building new schools, maintaining or restoring existing ones, and adapting schools in corregimiento administrative centers to provide classes through that level. The provision covers both the construction of facilities and the adaptation of schools already in operation, with the second level of education as the scope of the proposed adaptation.

The bill revises Article 72 of Law 47 of 1946. It provides that each corregimiento must have the schools needed to serve children and young people of school age. It requires the State to open a school wherever there is a group of minors of no fewer than one hundred within an area with a radius of no less than two kilometers. It also requires schools in each corregimiento to be adapted to provide classes through the second level of education. To implement these provisions, it directs the Ministry of Education (Ministerio de Educación) to make the necessary estimates on the basis of the latest national population census. The population and geographic criterion thus governs the opening of schools, while the adaptation requirement applies to schools in each corregimiento.

The bill adds Article 84-A to Law 47 of 1946. It allows school regions without their own facilities for the second level of education to use existing first-level school facilities during the afternoon session. This measure concerns the use of facilities already available at a specified time to provide second-level classes in those school regions.

The bill creates secondary school programs in logistics, multimodal services, and technological innovation as part of the second level of education in the regular education subsystem. It assigns the Ministry of Education the task of developing the study plan and curricular content for each program. As a transitional provision, it places the pilot implementation of these programs in Coclé Province (provincia de Coclé), taking into account the scientific, technological, and socioeconomic impact expected from the development of the Aguadulce Special Economic Area, named for Aguadulce.

Finally, the bill identifies the amendments to item 3 of the second paragraph of Article 40 and to Article 72, together with the addition of Article 84-A to the Consolidated Text of Law 47 of September 24, 1946. It provides for the proposed law to take effect on the day after its promulgation. Its provisions concern the Ministry of Education and the Regional Education Directorates and could be of interest to school communities in the corregimientos, the education sector, and the logistics, multimodal services, and technological innovation sectors.