Senior year high school students from Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador have an appointment from September 21st to 25th at the fair: “Un Futuro Pura Vida. Study in Costa Rica”, the first virtual event that Costa Rican universities and the Costa Rican Foreign Trade Promoter (PROCOMER) organized to recruit young Central Americans who desire a quality higher education.
During the event, which will take place from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. And to which they can register, foreign students will have the opportunity to learn about the educational opportunities of 20 Costa Rican universities, where some will offer scholarships and discounts to participants.
The higher education centers that will be present at the fair and that represent the Global Edu consortium are: Universidad Santa Paula, UACA, ULACIT, ULEAD, UIA, Veritas, San Francisco de Asís, Texas Tech, UCIMED, UISIL, Creative University, UNIBE , Universidad Hispanoamericana, Universidad San Marcos, UPEACE, Universidad San José, Universidad Latina, UAM, CENFOTEC and Universidad Earth.
For Álvaro Piedra, PROCOMER Export Director, “Central America is one of the main markets for Costa Rican exports of goods and services, where one of the factors that has generated this rapprochement is that we share language, culture and geographic proximity, and this fair allows us to get even closer to these Central American countries and show the benefits and quality of the educational system in Costa Rica”.
The virtual platform that will be available to students from Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, allowing parents and students to make an access account to find the academic offer of Costa Rica, make video calls and appointments “one to one”. In addition, this system has a capacity to host up to 1000 users daily.
Nelson Rojas, Director of Communication UNIBE, stated that “the Central American students will find an alternative to make their dreams come true. UNIBE has established very attractive benefits and discounts for students from Central America to study in our country, as well as student support conditions that allow them a quick and comfortable adaptation, both for the safety of the student and also their families.
In the same way, they will know that our country offers foreign students a peaceful environment and that it enhances academic quality. The students will definitely find opportunities to have a global vision and the experience of being more qualified professionals, with greater empathy, enriching their own culture with ours”.
For her part, Paula Brenes from CENFOTEC, added that “we are excited about the opportunity to participate in this fair to tell the success stories of our graduates who started in technology and are now leaders or entrepreneurs; show the testimonies of professionals who could not find work and after training at UCENFOTEC in the field of computer science they managed to re-emerge in new disciplinary fields. This space that the fair offers us is a showcase to exhibit the most innovative training areas such as digital transformation, data analysis, IOT, AI and cybersecurity”.
Why study in Costa Rica?
– 1st destination in Latin America for US students with 8,981 students who came to Costa Rica for study purposes 2018/2019 (EIE, 2019). Home of the best university in Central America (UCR) and # 25 in Latin America ( QS, 2020).
– Headquarters of the UN Institute for Central America and the only one authorized to grant masters and doctorates in World Affairs. The nation has 3 international universities with a population of international students greater than 85%.
– Approximately 11,000 graduates in STEM careers(2018).
– 2nd most innovative economy in Latin America and the Caribbean (Global Innovation Index, 2019).
– 1st in digital skills in Latin America. (Global Innovation Index, 2019).
– 1st in Latin America in which ICT allows new organizational models (for example, virtual teams, remote work, teleworking) within companies. (Global Innovation Index, 2019)
– 2nd best destination in the world for foreign investment in tourism (fDi Intelligence 2019/2020)
– 2nd in talent retention in Latin America (World Economic Forum 2017).
– 7th in percentage of GDP spending on education in the world (7.4%).
– Costa Rica is home to 1 of the 17 United World Colleges and is the only one in Latin America (UWC , 2020)
– The most peaceful country in Latin America (Global Peace Index, 2020).
