Costa Rican Humanistic Secondary Schools

The Humanistic Schools are inspired by the principles, aims, values and aspirations of the Universidad Nacional.

A group of academic members from the UNA drew up the proposal of Basic and Regulatory Standards for the Educational Process of the Costa Rican Humanistic Schools, which was supported by the Ministry of Public Education, by means of decree 26436-MEP: “The Costa Rican Humanistic Schools (CHC) are by definition pre-university institutions that offer their students the opportunity to develop and acquire skills, abilities, knowledge and professional orientation. These schools will stimulate the analytical, critical, creative and relational capacity of human beings with their cultural and natural reality.”

In 1998, it began its work with the first group of tenth-year students at the Omar Dengo Campus of the Universidad Nacional in the province of Heredia. These schools were created in response to the demand for educational options that emphasize reflection and the formation of fundamental human values, and in response to the profound ethical challenges of the present. In this way, it is conceived as a pedagogical modality that places the human being, his or her thought, history, legacy and harmonious relationship with the natural world, at the center of all knowledge endeavors.

This option is aimed at students with a vocation for literature, philosophy, history, art, critical thinking, culture and the exact sciences in a comprehensive way, with the purpose of developing the sensitivity proper to humanism.

Locations:

• Humanistic School, Coto Campus
• Humanistic School, Nicoya Campus
• Humanistic School, Sarapiquí Campus
• Humanistic School, Omar Dengo Campus
• Scientific School, Pérez Zeledón Campus.

^{Photograph: Humanistic School students-  2023, North and Caribbean Huetar Regional Section-Sarapiquí-Heredia}