📋 Tender Overview
Educational offer adapted to your needs promotes learning for a dignified, active and healthy old ageSince I learned to read and write, I feel happier and more confident, says 67-year-old CEBA student Brigida Silva Ochoa.
At 64 years old, Juana Leon Huaranga decided that it was never too late to fulfill her dream: learning to read and write. She couldnt do it as a child because her father didnt let her study. Not to study, to work, he told me. But he did send my brothers to school, he remembers.
Today, at 67 years old, Juana punctually attends the Tupac Amaru de Villa peripheral classroom, of the Brigida Silva Ochoa Alternative Basic Education Center (CEBA) in Chorrillos, where she attends basic education. Since I learned to read and write, I feel happier and more confident. I always tell my friends: its never too late to study, she says proudly.
Like her, more than 20,500 people over 60 years of age attend the 1,564 CEBAs distributed in all regions of the country, with an educational offer adapted to their needs and contexts that promotes learning for a dignified, active and healthy old age. Of this total, 71% are women and 29% men, which also reflects a process of female empowerment through education.
According to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI, 2024), in the country it is estimated that there are 4.4 million people over 60 years of age, of which 11.2% remain illiterate and 66% have not completed basic education. Faced with this reality, the Minedu, through the Directorate of Alternative Basic Education, promotes policies and programs that guarantee the right to education throughout life.
The Alternative Basic Education Program for Youth and Adults is offered in public and private CEBAs with appointed or contracted teachers, and includes the initial, intermediate and advanced cycles (equivalent to primary and secondary school).
The Literacy Program, implemented directly by the Minedu in targeted areas, is aimed at people who are just beginning their educational process. It covers from initial learning to the completion of the intermediate cycle (equivalent to primary school), with a flexible organization, shorter periods and spaces close to the community, under the leadership of a literacy team.
Exclusive classrooms and community alliances
Currently there are about 400 exclusive classrooms for older adults in the country. Of them, 104 were implemented by the Literacy Program in Lima, San Martin, Piura and Abancay, thanks to the coordination with local governments, churches, health centers and other institutions that facilitate community spaces for learning.
To guarantee quality care, Minedu trains teachers, literacy facilitators and local allies through virtual courses on theoretical and pedagogical foundations for the care of older adults, as well as on socio-emotional support. More than 20,000 people have participated in these trainings.
Thanks to these efforts, educational coverage for older adults has increased steadily in recent years, going from 15,826 students in 2022 to 20,555 in 2024.
The Minister of Education, Jorge Figueroa, highlighted that, through Minedu, more and more older adults have access to quality education that allows them to continue learning, share knowledge and fulfill their dreams, because the right to education has no age. Adult education is also a space for meeting and recognition: there the elderly learn, but they also teach, he noted.
