On June 25, in partnership with bitcoin-only company IBEX Mercado, a non-governmental organization (NGO) by the name of My First Bitcoin announced 38 high school students had graduated with Bitcoin diplomas through a new vocational program in El Salvador. Bitcoin Magazine subsequently reached out for an interview to discuss the success and future of this program.
Complejo Educativo Ignacio Pacheco Castro, or La Pacheco, is a public school that has served its community for 75 years. Recently, the school decided it would best serve its students by offering vocational education and degrees in a program called Bachillerato Vocacional.
Rodrigo Ayala, who is a member of the El Salvador Legislative Assembly and staunch supporter of La Pacheco, introduced IBEX to the school this past February with the intention of bringing bitcoin education to this vocational program. Soon after, IBEX partnered with My First Bitcoin – who developed the curriculum – while IBEX provided financial support for the program. On April 23, My First Bitcoin began teaching the first class of students.
The new curriculum consists of 10 lessons which include: an introduction to monetary systems, the consequences of fiat, monetary history, understanding bitcoin, wallets and the Bitcoin network, the double-spend problem and nodes, security and mining, the value of bitcoin, the Lightning Network and Bitcoin’s future, and the final project.
Furthermore, passing the final exam requires students to: create a bitcoin wallet, make a backup for that wallet, perform a wallet recovery from another existing backup, and transfer the bitcoin from one wallet to another.
Bachillerato Vocacional allows students to earn eight skills-based diplomas as part of their requirements for graduation while also providing practical skills for life. For the students of La Pacheco, Bitcoin is now one of those skills-based diplomas. However, the Bitcoin diploma does not stop at one school.
Yesterday, My First Bitcoin announced another public school would be adopting the Bitcoin Diploma in Ataco, El Salvador. Furthermore, teachers, parents, and the surrounding communities will also be offered free weekly courses on bitcoin in each community that offers the course.
“We’re looking for companies, organizations or individuals that want to support our project to take this program to other schools in El Salvador and nearby countries,” a representative from My First Bitcoin told Bitcoin Magazine.
“As the first nation in the world to adopt Bitcoin we believe that what happens in El Salvador will create powerful precedents,” IBEX and My First Bitcoin jointly said in a release. “Quality, impartial education will be paramount to ensuring those precedents are positive ones.”