Program to “Open Doors” To Technology for Youth

Getting good grades could result in jobs awaiting graduating students at 39 vocational high schools around the country – a new program in coordination with the First Lady’s Office and the technology company ITS offers jobs to students selected for excellent scholastic performance and performing well in an interview.

The program “Abriendo Puertas” was announced earlier this month at Casa Presidencial. To participate, students must be in their final year of high school and send their grades to an evaluating committee at the First Lady’s Office. Each year, the committee will select 10 finalists, interview them and select five winners to be offered jobs as Level One Technicians at ITS.

President Abel Pacheco spoke at the press conference, calling the program “a model of social and business responsibility in the field of education” and “a new opportunity for Costa Rican youth, through academic effort, to have access to the latest technological training and first-class working spaces.”

In addition to offering jobs to selected students, ITS will send its technicians into classrooms at these technical schools to give workshops.

The five students selected this year will be announced at a ceremony at Casa Presidencial today.

Though faces at Casa Presidencial will change when Pacheco is replaced by President-elect Oscar Arias May 8, ITS President Vladimir Vargas and Minister of Science and Technology Fernando Gutiérrez both expressed a desire for the program to continue and be expanded in years to come.