
We were initially in Santiago, Veraguas, and out there we had a choice of about eight private schools, aside from the public schools. Some of the private schools are international schools that are franchised around the world.
This year, our family is living in the Western Azuero, so right now the options are only public schools, but we are also starting to build this community, so we have reached out to a couple of retired teachers to come to the schools and tutor the kids in English. It is kind of a volunteer program. We ask kids to join and we ask developers to chip in. The retired teachers come to the schools during the week after school and give classes to give the kids there the extra edge they need.
All over Panama, there are a lot of options for schools. There are several private universities and there are quite a few options for kids going to junior college or community college and special universities. They are all over the place. But, when you get out into the smaller communities here in Western Azuero, we really have a few options for school. We have one high school. There is a couple of elementary schools and maybe two junior high schools in this area.

I do not think the quality of the teaching is the same quality as the schools in the US, but it has been a long time since I have been to school, and we know that the quality of education in the US is diminishing quite fast. A lot of the schools here have the internet and the students work on computers. Some of them, although they are not 100% funded, keep their English classes. Each grade is asked to have an English class. The newly-elected president has mandated that all schools must teach Spanish with English.
Here in Western Azuero, we are looking right now towards building our own volunteer- assisted program at the public school with our retired teachers from North America. We are already looking at our first elementary school. All my kids will be going to that school.
I have met families that lived in and out of here for some time, and most of those American and European kids were home-taught. Quite a few expats who are traveling and living from place to place homeschool their kids. We sometimes see homeschooled kids go into the public schools for a semester. If you go to Western Azuero, you will find a place where your kids will learn, and your kids will learn a second language and that will be sufficient. That is our objective here in Western Azuero because we are a brand new community of expats here. Up until now, this area had mostly been cattle farms and fishing villages.