As part of her farewell activities before transferring leadership of Costa Rica to the winner of the upcoming runoff election, President Laura Chinchilla is busy making sure that Guanacaste is no longer known by its previous label of “the forgotten province.” On a return visit to Guanacaste, President Chinchilla recently inaugurated a remodeled vocational high school and an elementary learning center.

The revamped vocational high school is located in Barrio Irving of La Cruz. The cost to taxpayers was $890K for ten new classrooms, a new administrative area, an improved student cafeteria, new pavilions, and new equipment. This vocational and technological school was urgently needed in the community to combat the alarmingly high unemployment rate caused by the loss of agricultural jobs across Guanacaste and saturation of the tourism labor market. This remodeled school will offer 190 students the opportunity to learn Customs and Shipping Operations, Commercial and Service-oriented Management, and Information Technology.

As reported by Manuel Sancho of online news daily CRHoy.com, the Minister of Public Education Leonardo Garnier was pleased to announce that there are now 55 vocational careers that students in Costa Rica can specialize in while they complete their secondary education. Vocational high school students begin learning their specialties in the 10^th grade and are expected to be in the classrooms, laboratories and workshops twice as long as their non-vocational counterparts; plus, they graduate a year later and are less likely to pursue a college or university degree. These students, however, tend to have decent-paying jobs waiting for them upon graduation and plenty of opportunities for advancement.

President Chinchilla also cut the ribbon at the nearby and brand-new Salvador Villar elementary school, which will welcome 400 students at a cost of a little over a million dollars to taxpayers in Costa Rica. The President then visited the Center for Special Education in Liberia, where she announced that the Ministry of Public Education has already allocated $2.6 million in taxpayer-contributed funds for the construction of a new facility, which may begin during the current administration.

As recently reported by the Costa Rica Star, President Chinchilla has certainly been on a roll unveiling projects in Guanacaste, which has prompted criticism from some sectors as being too little, too late. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that there are virtually no “lame duck” former Presidents of Costa Rica; the great majority hurries up to deliver the bulk of their projects as their terms come to an end.