Out of Reach: Rural Schooling in the Highlands of Peru

The Andes stretch across Peru like a jagged backbone, beautiful but isolating. In tiny villages tucked into those mountains, a school day begins long before sunrise. Children wrap themselves in woolen shawls and start walking, sometimes two hours or more, down steep, dusty trails to reach a classroom perched on a neighboring ridge. When the rainy season turns paths to mud, many simply stay home, missing days or weeks of lessons. Money is tight in these farming communities. Families barter potatoes or quinoa, and cash rarely changes hands. Buying notebooks or paying a bus fare to the nearest secondary school can feel impossible. Some parents pull children from class during harvests to help in the fields. Others decide that, beyond the basics, education is a luxury the household cannot afford.

Schools that do operate in these remote areas face serious limitations. Buildings may be no more than single-room adobe structures with leaky roofs. A teacher often juggles multiple grade levels at once, moving from fractions to the alphabet in a single hour. Science labs and libraries are virtually nonexistent, and reliable electricity is far from guaranteed. Internet connections are rare, leaving students cut off from the wider world of information.

Language deepens the divide. Many children grow up speaking Quechua or Aymara, while instruction is usually delivered in Spanish. Young students must first translate lessons in their heads before attempting to absorb them, slowing progress and discouraging participation. Some simply drift away from school, convinced it offers little that relates to their daily lives.

Despite the hardships, families value education. Community groups sometimes pool money to hire an extra teacher or to buy a shared computer. A few nonprofit programs distribute solar-powered tablets loaded with bilingual content. These small advances matter, but the scale of need dwarfs local efforts. Without significant investment in roads, teacher training, and culturally responsive curriculum, children in Peru’s highlands will remain at the margins of the country’s educational gains.