In public sector classrooms there are 140 thousand 88 teachers that serve the Guatemalan student population at different levels. The Mineduc reached this staff after the hirings made in recent years.
The teaching workforce increased 33.3% during the current government, according to official figures. While the previous administration, which concluded in 2023, hired 30 thousand 023 teachers, the current sum 40 thousand 035that is to say, 10 thousand 12 more teachers between permanent and temporary positions.
Seven out of every 10 students in the public sector are enrolled in primary school, so that level concentrates the largest number of teachers and also the majority of hiring. In the previous administration, they incorporated 20 thousand 760 primary school teachers and in the current 23 thousand 850an increase of 3 thousand 90 teachers (14.9%).
The pre-primary school also experienced improvements, with the hiring of 1,526 teachers more than those hired during the previous government. He increase is 29.3%.
The most relevant incorporation of teaching staff is observed in secondary school. Between 2024 and what has passed since 2026, at the diversified level, Mineduc has hired 2,222 more teachers than those incorporated between 2020 and 2023. Hiring for this level almost quadrupled, since the increase is 377.9%.
The same happens in basics, where the increase is 112.8%since it went from 3 thousand 38 hires to 6 thousand 464.
With the previous data it is observed that the increase in places in the Mineduc has been uneven, and it is even more so when comparing the registration of incorporations in the General Directorate of Extracurricular Education (Digeex), where there is a decrease of 59%. The number of teachers hired to care for elderly children and young people decreased from 424 to 172; the drop is 59%.
According to Mineduc, during this administration six calls have been launched (from 29 to 34) to hire teachers for pre-primary, primary, aesthetic education, physical education and to attend the middle level, in permanent and contract positions. It is indicated that the latter had not been carried out for 12 years.
Processes were also opened to incorporate directors, deputy directors and mid-level assistants.
Of the 140,088 teachers who work at Mineduc, the 74.3% occupy a permanent position, while the rest is in lines 021 and 022.
Expand coverage
According to Francisco Cabrera, Technical Vice Minister of Mineduc, the hiring of teachers is and should be one of the pillars of the ministry, since it allows expanding educational coverage and filling the places that remain vacant for different reasons, such as retirements or resignations.
He adds that Guatemala has a historical deficit of educational attentionso it is necessary to increase the teaching workforce, mainly at the middle level, where coverage is low: only half of those who finish primary school go on to the basic cycle and a quarter reach the diversified cycle.
According to the Statistical Yearbook of Education, the 44% of the students taking the basic cycle does it in the public sectora proportion that is reduced when moving to diversified: 22.7%. The greatest educational offer at these levels is in private schools.
“Hiring more secondary school teachers allows us to expand the offer of public education, particularly in areas where there is no other service, such as rural or semi-rural areas,” says Cabrera.
He adds that, on this account, this year they created 226 new official institutes of basic level and 278 diversified distributed in the 22 departments of the country, so that students who graduate from primary school can continue their educational career in their locality.
The decrease in hiring at Digeex is due to the fact that the teachers incorporated into the system remain in their positions and only a few more have joined. “The capacity to care for the population is not decreasing, but rather it has increased with new contracts,” indicates the vice minister.
Educational quality
According to the official, “educational quality” is an aspect that should not be ignored, which is why the best qualified applicants are hired from the eligible banks of the Mineduc, which are satisfied with each call.
To improve education there are two ways. Teachers who are already part of the system constantly participate in training and education processes, in addition to the Academic Program for Teacher Professional Development (PADEP). At the same time, new teachers will begin their training next year, when the Normal Schools and Institutes with Specialties.
For now, Mineduc will not launch new general calls to hire teachers, because it already has banks of eligible candidates from which it will be able to select the personnel that need to be incorporated into the system. However, it will continue to carry out local processes in municipalities where the databases have already been exhausted or are about to be exhausted.
Verónica Spross, executive director of Entrepreneurs for Education, indicates that it is important to contrast the hiring of teachers with a study of teaching demand, in which the number of students in each place and region is analyzed. Based on these data, the incorporation of personnel is determined, although it also depends on whether the Ministry of Education seeks to expand educational coverage.