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Edificio escolar público moderno en El Salvador con estudiantes en el patio durante una visita oficial
Imagen alusiva a un colegio público salvadoreño durante una visita oficial. · Imagen generada por EPM

Fujimori visits Salvadoran school and studies technology model

Keiko Fujimori toured a renovated public school in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, observed its technology model for more than one hundred children, and proposed…

--- The context --- The visit by Peru's President Keiko Fujimori to a public school in El Salvador placed a subject that rarely leads diplomatic headlines at the center of a bilateral agenda: how students learn inside a state classroom when resources are limited and technology has not yet reached every territory. The tour took place at the Marcelino García Flamenco School Center in Santa Tecla, one of the schools renovated under the initiative identified as 2EscuelasXDía, which now operates as a hub of innovation within the Salvadoran public system. The context matters because Fujimori herself linked the visit to a concrete need in her own country. As she explained during the trip, many Peruvian state schools, particularly those located in areas far from urban centers, still face shortcomings in both infrastructure and teaching tools, and students there lack computers and screens to access digital content. Against that diagnosis, seeing first hand an experience that combines renovated buildings, interactive learning and individual follow-up appeared as a practical reference, not merely as a protocol gesture between governments seeking closer ties. --- The facts --- Fujimori toured the Marcelino García School accompanied by El Salvador's Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Karla Trigueros, and observed the technology-based teaching model that the center applies to more than one hundred children. During the tour she greeted a student who was working in front of a laptop with headphones, and the child showed her the digital learning method used at the school. On an additional screen, geography content was displayed, including references to kilometers, territorial extension and landmarks of the country, which students explore interactively to identify the most important places in El Salvador. The building that was visited also has a feature that distinguishes it from a conventional school project. According to the information shared during the visit, it was built entirely by low-risk inmates, people with short sentences who entered the so-called trust phase program, through which they can reduce their time in prison in exchange for work on projects of public interest. The result brings together in a single physical space two policies that are usually managed separately: prison reintegration and school modernization, in a school that is home to approximately more than one hundred children. --- The positions --- The Peruvian president publicly praised the Salvadoran education plan and argued, in statements attributed during the meeting, that the plan is already producing results and that PISA test examinations show the major progress being made. She also thanked President Nayib Bukele and Minister Trigueros for the presentation of the plan, and said that she had liked what she saw very much, while acknowledging that implementing it in Peru would take a little time. In her framing, artificial intelligence can have a very strong and still unknown dimension, but El Salvador is using it in a very positive way by establishing the corresponding safeguards. On the Salvadoran side, Trigueros's presence expressed an institutional philosophy defined the previous night by Bukele himself in his meeting with Fujimori: schools must combine technological innovation with order and discipline. The appointment of an army captain to lead education translates that idea into institutional terms. That same appointment, however, generated questions in the teaching sector. Francisco Zelada, general secretary of the Union of Teachers of Public Education, pointed out that no prior experience in educational management could be identified in the minister's profile, an objection recorded as part of the debate over her appointment. --- What remains unknown --- The operational detail of how Peru would adapt what was observed to its own school network is not yet known, nor are the timelines, costs or selection criteria for the first centers that would receive a similar scheme. The source describes the delegation's intention and interest, but it does not provide a signed agreement, an execution schedule or an independent evaluation of the impact of the Salvadoran model beyond the reference to the PISA test mentioned by Fujimori. It also does not specify how satellite connectivity would be financed in remote areas or how teachers would be trained to sustain the proposed daily follow-up. --- Unanswered questions --- In what concrete timelines could Peru build and interconnect the announced schools, and with what financing would that expansion be sustained over time? How will it be ensured that support through artificial intelligence respects clear safeguards for students and does not replace the work of teachers in the classroom? What public evaluation will make it possible to verify whether the model of fast modular construction and interactive learning effectively improves learning in rural and remote contexts? --- EPM analysis --- The visit makes it possible to read a practical convergence between two agendas that are presented as different but share an underlying problem: the state needs to deliver quality services to territories where infrastructure arrives late. El Salvador is showing a school built by inmates in the trust phase, renovated under an intensive program and oriented toward interactive digital content. Peru, according to its president, seeks to modernize remote state schools and compensate for historic shortcomings with connectivity and personalized follow-up. The value of the visit lies in that concrete exchange on methods, construction times and teacher training, more than in the courtesy statements typical of an official tour. Trigueros's trajectory adds another layer to the analysis. Born on April 28, 1990 in Sonzacate, in the department of Sonsonate, she entered at age 16 as a cadet at the Captain General Gerardo Barrios Military School, graduated as a doctor in medicine in 2016 from the Salvadoran University Alberto Masferrer, the same year she received the rank of second lieutenant, served as deputy head of outpatient services at the Central Military Hospital and, since 2019, as medical adviser to the Military Health Command. During the COVID-19 pandemic she led the national vaccination logistics, and on August 14, 2025 she was appointed minister, becoming the first person with military training to lead that portfolio in more than five decades. That biography explains both the bet on order and the controversy over specifically educational experience. 📌 EPM Take: In EPM's view, the most relevant aspect of the visit is not the photograph in a renovated classroom, but the verifiable possibility that two countries with limited resources can share applicable solutions on infrastructure, connectivity and follow-up for each student. If Peru manages to build the announced 500 schools, interconnect them through satellite internet and train its teachers to use artificial intelligence with clear safeguards, the Salvadoran reference will have served as useful learning and not only as inspiration. Follow-up should measure learning outcomes, school retention and territorial equity with public data that can be compared over time.
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