As of 2004, more than
92,500 Panamanian students
annually attend the University of Panama, the Technological University, and the
University of Santa Maria La Antigua, a private Catholic institution. Including
smaller colleges, there are 88 institutions of higher education in Panama.
The first 6 years of primary education are compulsory, and for the
2004/2005 school year there were about 430,000 students enrolled in grades one through six. The total
enrollment in the six secondary grades for the same period was 253,000. More than 90 percent
of
Panamanians are literate.
HISTORY
Panama's history has been shaped by the
evolution of the world economy and the ambitions of great powers. The earliest known
inhabitants of
Panama
were the Cuevas and the Coclé tribes, but they were decimated by disease
and fighting when the Spanish
arrived in the 1500s.
Rodrigo
de Bastidas, sailing westward from Venezuela in 1501 in search of gold,
was the first European to explore the Isthmus of Panama. A year later,
Christopher Columbus visited the isthmus and established a short-lived
settlement in the Darien. Vasco Nunez de Balboa's tortuous trek from the
Atlantic to the Pacific in 1513 demonstrated that the isthmus was, indeed,
the path between the seas, and Panama quickly became the crossroads and
marketplace of Spain's empire in the New World. Gold and silver were
brought by ship from South America, hauled across the isthmus, and loaded
aboard ships for Spain. The route became known as the Camino Real, or
Royal Road, although it was more commonly known as Camino de Cruces (Road of
the Crosses) because of the frequency of gravesites along the way.
Panama was part of the Spanish empire for
almost 300 years (1538-1821). From the outset, Panamanian identity was based on a
sense of "geographic destiny," and Panamanian fortunes
fluctuated with the geopolitical importance of the isthmus. The colonial
experience also spawned Panamanian nationalism as well as a racially
complex and highly stratified society, the source of internal conflicts
that ran counter to the unifying force of nationalism.
BUILDING THE
CANAL
Modern Panamanian history has been shaped
by its trans-isthmian canal, which had been a dream since the beginning of
Spanish colonization. From 1880 to 1890, a French company under Ferdinand
de Lesseps [builder of the Suez Canal earlier] attempted unsuccessfully to construct a sea-level canal on the
site of the present Panama Canal. In November 1903, with U.S.
encouragement, Panama proclaimed its
independence and concluded the Hay/Bunau-Varilla Treaty with the United
States.
The treaty granted rights to the United
States "as if it were sovereign" in a zone roughly 10 miles wide
and 50 miles long. In that zone, the U.S. would build a canal, then
administer, fortify, and defend it "in perpetuity." In 1914, the
United States completed the existing 83-kilometer (52-mile) lock canal,
which is one of the world's greatest feats of engineering. The early
1960s saw the beginning of sustained pressure in Panama for the
renegotiation of this treaty. [See discussion of U.S.-Panama relations and
the 1977 Panama Canal Treaties below.]
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