Today three schools with familiar names but different interiors open their doors to students in Guayaquil.

The three high schools were designed and built from the ground up by the the national Education Subsecretariat.

Alongside the national government’s rainbow brand on their façades, they bear the names of three of the city’s most historic public schools: 28 de mayo, Técnico Simón Bolívar and Aguirre Abad. These three join the two satellite schools already in operation and also named after iconic high schools: Vicente Rocafuerte and Guayaquil High School.

Students at each satellite will wear the respective traditional uniforms of the schools lending their names to the new schools, but will complete their high school careers in the modern installations of the new satellite institutions.

Some of the workshop classrooms, in particular at the Técnico Simón Bolívar satellite school, cost up to $150,000 to equip. The Técnico school grants high school-level technical degrees in auto or electrical mechanic skills and industrial sewing. The satellite schools will all also have top-of-the-line labs for physics, chemistry, biology, natural sciences, computer skills and English classes.

Today the satellite schools (called “réplica” schools in Spanish) will start classes, as will the rest of the public institutions on the Coast.

Original story