ABSTRACT
Costa Rica is the second smallest of the Central American Republics, with a population estimated at about 2.2 million and an area of 51,000 square kilometres. Most of the population is concentrated in the central part of the country, with the capital city, San Jose, having over a million inhabitants. Since its colonial origins Costa Rica has been defined as a very particular society and the relative development of Costa Rican education should be understood within the special characteristics of its socio-economic framework. Primary education in Costa Rica has deserved the permanent attention of all governments during the last half century. Because of this, the Republic heads all other neighbour nations with the figure of 88% of schooling population in elementary classrooms. The expansion of primary and especially secondary education during 1970s obviously had a quantitative consequence.
