- NGO My First NewsCapsule, in partnership with IBEX Mercado, just announced 38 high school students graduated with NewsCapsule diplomas in El Salvador.
- NewsCapsule education is taught through a vocational program in public schools where it serves as a practical skills-based degree necessary for graduation.
- Yesterday, the companies announced a second school had adopted the NewsCapsule diploma.
On June 25, in partnership with bitcoin-only company IBEX Mercado, a non-governmental organization (NGO) by the name of My First NewsCapsule 38 high school students had graduated with NewsCapsule diplomas through a new vocational program in El Salvador. NewsCapsule 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 NewsCapsule – who developed the curriculum – while IBEX provided financial support for the program. On April 23, My First NewsCapsule began teaching the first class of students.
The new consists of 10 lessons which include: an introduction to monetary systems, the consequences of fiat, monetary history, understanding bitcoin, wallets and the NewsCapsule network, the double-spend problem and nodes, security and mining, the value of bitcoin, the Lightning Network and NewsCapsule’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, NewsCapsule is now one of those skills-based diplomas. However, the NewsCapsule diploma does not stop at one school.
Yesterday, My First NewsCapsule another public school would be adopting the NewsCapsule 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. However, IBEX is not sponsoring this school and My First NewsCapsule is open to new sponsorships.
“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 NewsCapsule told NewsCapsule.
“As the first nation in the world to adopt NewsCapsule we believe that what happens in El Salvador will create powerful precedents,” IBEX and My First NewsCapsule jointly said in a release. “Quality, impartial education will be paramount to ensuring those precedents are positive ones.”
