User:Particular.Individual/sandbox

= Provision of digital classrooms in rural Guatemala =

Practice Experience Summary

 * Location: Rural Guatemala
 * PE Org: New Sun Road, a small public benefit corporation
 * Activity: Build "digital classrooms" equipped with electricity, computers, and internet access
 * Development Sector: Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D)
 * Role/Responsibilities: Structural design, electrical engineering and construction (possibility for expansion into impact assessment, teaching digital literacy)

Project Description: This effort is part of a collaboration between NSR, the Guatemalan Ministry of Education (MINEDUC), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international financial bodies, and corporate backers. The aim of the project is to deliver off-grid "digital classrooms" equipped with solar power, desktop computers, and internet connectivity at rural sites in Guatemala. Collaborators envision the program proceeding in several phases dependent on funding, with an eventual delivery of several thousand classrooms throughout rural Guatemala. The purpose of the project is to bolster proficiency in computing and internet use (a.k.a. "digital literacy") among schoolchildren and others in host communities.

I. Education in Guatemala
This start class article has basic information about Guatemala's public school system and educational trends. As I anticipate doing research elucidating aspects of infrastructure in Guatemalan education to inform my PE, it would be pertinent to update this section, which is listed at only 41 percent completion.

- (Addition to § "Education resources")

 * Topic: The state of rural Guatemalan schools, specifically construction, electrification, facilities, and provision of computers and internet; essentially, what things are like right now.
 * Purpose: To identify any systemic deficiencies in rural education infrastructure [to help explain why this intervention scheme is needed].

II. Economy of Guatemala
A lengthy and well-cited article featuring both macro- and micro-level relevant topics. It is currently lacking a section on government and private sector efforts to extend infrastructure services such as provision of electricity, internet, and cell phone service.

- (New § Electrical Infrastructure in Rural Guatemala)

 * Topic: Elucidate the situation and trajectory of infrastructure provision in rural areas of Guatemala.
 * Purpose: To situate the need for off-the-grid digital classrooms in the spectrum of state state willingness and means to extend utilities to rural areas.

Sector - Off-the-Grid
This fairly basic article mainly pertains to utility-independent living in developed economies and uses primarily non-academic references.

- (New § Off-grid Power for Marginalized Communities)

 * Topic: Off-grid power as a solution for lack of available or reliable grid electricity in some developing countries.
 * Purpose: Create a new section discussing the approaches in the expanding field of off-grid power provision in areas unlikely to receive grid connections in the foreseeable future.

Area I: Education in Guatemala (Addition to § "Education resources")
'''Bastos, P., Bottan, N. L., & Cristia, J. (2017). Access to Preprimary Education and Progression in Primary School: Evidence from Rural Guatemala. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 65(3), 521–547. https://doi.org/10.1086/691090 '''


 * Primary education has been compulsory in Guatemala since 1985, with public schools charging approximately US$1-5 in tuition to defray operational expenses (525).
 * Teachers in Guatemalan public schools have been found to use ineffective teaching methods given the "sociodemographic context" (524) of nearly 40% of students hailing from indigenous backgrounds and who are non-native Spanish speakers (ibid.). This is also reflected in high rates of repetition of grades, up to 30% in first grades (524).
 * In rural areas, education is not highly valued, with children's career plans revolving around pragmatic considerations of farm and housework (524).

'''Cuesta, A., Glewwe, P., & Krause, B. (2016). School Infrastructure and Educational Outcomes: A Literature Review, with Special Reference to Latin America. Economía, 17(1), 95–130. Retrieved from https://muse.jhu.edu/article/634033 '''


 * In 2006 only 10 percent of Guatemalan schools had computer labs (100), and 68 percent were equipped with electricity (ibid.), roughly corroborating the findings of Murillo, et al. below.
 * There is a dearth of high quality studies looking at the effects of electricity and computers/internet on educational outcomes in Latin America (22 out of 8,820 papers considered)(108, 110). Why is this topic being under-researched while others are given more attention and resources? To whom is it important or not important, and why or why not?

'''Murillo, F. J., & Román, M. (2011). School infrastructure and resources do matter: analysis of the incidence of school resources on the performance of Latin American students. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 22(1), 29–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/09243453.2010.543538 '''


 * The lack of infrastructure such as adequate potable water, electricity, or sewage services in Guatemalan schools can have significant negative impacts on student performance (37).
 * Only 14 percent of Guatemalan schools had computer rooms in 2010 (39), while only 53 percent had sewer services (37). Surprisingly, the authors claim that 75 percent of Guatemalan schools had sufficient electricity supply in 2010 (ibid.), higher than anecdotal accounts from development practitioners.
 * In infrastructure data compiled across 16 Latin American countries, Guatemalan schools score mid-pack on some measures such as supply of potable water, but near the bottom on others, for instance sufficient number of bathrooms (37).

'''Gershberg, A. I., Meade, B., & Andersson, S. (2009). Providing better education services to the poor: Accountability and context in the case of Guatemalan decentralization. International Journal of Educational Development, 29(3), 187–200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2008.08.002 '''


 * In 2007, the Guatemalan government spent less than 2 percent of GDP on education, one of the lowest rates in the world (191). Of this funding, public primary schools received less than half, of which 99 percent went to teacher compensation (ibid.). In public primary schools, teachers are often placed by administrators irrespective of whether they speak the local indigenous language, forcing them to provide instruction via pictures, Spanish, and a few local words (196).
 * Guatemala operates two programs which offload decision-making for public education to local communities: PRONADE (the National Community-Managed Program for Educational Development), and PROESCOLAR (the Education Development Program)(188). PRONADE was mostly implemented in existing schools, while PROESCOLAR created and ran its own schools with government funding (ibid.), analogous to US charter schools.
 * By 2004, around 21 percent of Guatemalan primary school students attended upwards of 4,500 PRONADE schools (191). Community members involved in PRONADE school boards have the authority to hire and pay teachers, monitor teacher and student attendance, facilitate school food programs, and maintain facilities, whereas PROESCOLAR boards are only vested with power over the latter two (193).
 * PRONADE teachers are paid considerably less than their peers at public schools, giving rise to a stigma against PRONADE positions, resulting in high turnover and less experienced teachers (192).
 * Cultural gender roles can result in female community members being restricted in their participation on school boards (195). Some do help with school meal preparation, but gendered domestic responsibilities mean that women are often too busy with childcare and cooking to leave the home for school board meetings (ibid.).

'''Davis, J. (2016). ¿Educación o desintegración? Parental migration, remittances and left-behind children’s education in western Guatemala. Journal of Latin American Studies, 48(3), 565–590. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X1600002X '''


 * In case studies from 2008, remittances to Guatemala from family members working in the US are used directly for educational purposes such as school uniforms, computers, and internet access (584) to compensate for “the government’s poor record of funding public schools” (578), in some cases even funding tuition at higher quality private schools (567). Remittances can also allow for regular meals and provision of electricity and sanitation in the home, which enhance children’s ability to access education (582). With remittances, families can sometimes hire labor to work their land, allowing children to stay in school rather than be pulled out to assist with farm work (585) or domestic activities like caring for siblings (571, 577).
 * Children are in fact sometimes abandoned by a parent who forms a new life in the US, making life harder for those left behind who are often saddled with debts related to securing their illegal passage to the US (579, 581). Grandparents who raise children when both the mother and the father have migrated often do not get involved with school activities because they lack familiarity with school systems and suffer high rates of illiteracy (586).


 * In communities where houses are closer in proximity and feature higher social cohesion, community members were better able to monitor children’s activities and reduce absenteeism (584). In other cases, educators frequently noted children of migrant parents skipping class, or who suffered from poor attention when they did attend (580). Two driving forces for these behaviors in schoolchildren are: 1) feelings of abandonment which can lead to attention-seeking disruptive behaviors in the classroom (581), and 2) a culture of migration, leading to “brain waste” (589) as especially male children view school as a waste of time (580) because they plan on migrating for work as soon as they are able in their teenage years (571).

Area II: Economy of Guatemala (§ Electrical Infrastructure in Rural Guatemala)
'''Grogan, L. (2018). Time use impacts of rural electrification: Longitudinal evidence from Guatemala. Journal of Development Economics, 135, 304–317. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.03.005 '''


 * Guatemala’s post-civil war efforts to electrify the rural countryside have proceeded under the auspices of the Rural Electrification Plan (Spanish: PER), a public-private partnership between the government’s Ministry of Education and Mines (Mineduc) and private power companies (304).
 * While the subsidized program (304) has its faults, in its absence very few rural Guatemalans would likely have received electricity “because they are particularly poor and socially excluded” (305).
 * Over the period 2000 to 2011, the PER has markedly improved the proportion of non-indigenous (62 to 82 percent) and indigenous (48 to 70 percent) households with electric connections (307). Grid supply is surprisingly robust, with both groups reporting about one hour per day of unavailability (ibid.).
 * Grogan’s data are now 8 years out of date, and could be combined with more current figures from non-peer reviewed reports in my working bibliography to paint a fuller picture of rural electricity provision “on the ground.”

'''Taylor, M. J. (2005). Electrifying Rural Guatemala: Central Policy and Rural Reality. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 23(2), 173–189. https://doi.org/10.1068/c14r '''


 * Guatemalan programs aimed at furthering rural electrification are not highly valued by all of the rural populace (181). Instead, this group tends to prioritize the provision of potable water and firewood (ibid.).
 * The Guatemalan government subsidizes the nation’s main private power company US $650 per new residential connection (178). However, the design of the program incentivizes the power company to only extend service to residences located at a specific radius a few hundred meters from its current distribution (ibid.), ignoring households both closer and farther away. Furthermore, even when rural users are connected to the grid and pay subsidized rates, their inability to afford electrical appliances means that their typically low power consumption (less than five percent of average US residential usage) is not profitable for power companies (186).
 * In the case of my PE Org., their design for an off-grid classroom that can also double as a limited power source may fill a niche for low-cost electricity for limited uses such as night-time illumination in nearby residences.

'''Jimenez, R. (2017). Barriers to electrification in Latin America: Income, location, and economic development. Energy Strategy Reviews, 15, 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2016.11.001 '''


 * In Guatemala lack of access to electricity is concentrated in rural areas although informal settlements around urban peripheries also tend to lack metered service (13).


 * As of 2014, one third of Guatemala’s poorest rural residents still lacked electricity (13). By contrast, only around 8% of high-income rural residents lacked service (13), suggesting that lack of service is due more to unaffordability than inaccessibility of electrical grids (16).

'''Aguilar-Støen, M., & Hirsch, C. (2017). Bottom-up responses to environmental and social impact assessments: A case study from Guatemala. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 62, 225–232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2016.08.003 '''


 * While the other articles in this section focus on the provision of grid electricity and its end-use, this paper focuses on the important political ramifications of large hydroelectric projects as sources of power for the Guatemalan national energy grid. The creation of large-scale hydroelectric reservoirs frequently displaces rural residents living in the areas of the new water bodies.
 * This article examines the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process used by the Guatemalan government and its contractors to evaluate social and environmental costs of mineral extraction and large scale hydroelectric dams (225).
 * In their fieldwork, the authors found that EIA's were never translated into local languages as required by regulations (229), and that generally public servants and private firms have little knowledge of the rights of rural indigenous peoples (ibid.). Aguilar-Støen and Hirsch also note widespread paternalistic and even overtly racist attitudes toward indigenous groups (ibid.). Interlocutors from within the government inform the authors that there is internal pressure to approve EIAs even if they were performed inadequately (227).
 * Firms contracted by the government in turn hire consultants to perform EIAs and liaise with affected communities (228). However, the authors find that there is frequent disinterest on the part of consultants to adequately inform communities of the potential impacts of proposed projects, instead using artifice to obtain their consent (ibid.). Examples of such techniques include bribery, confusing and biased language in written documents, and even asking community members to sign blank pieces of paper which were collected and later used as evidence that they were adequately consulted (ibid.).
 * The authors show that the disparities inherent in the contested EIA process reveal how power can be embedded in a seemingly unobjectionable technical process (225).

Sector: Off-the-Grid (§ Off-grid Power for Marginalized Rural Communities)
'''Alstone, P., Gershenson, D., & Kammen, D. M. (2015). Decentralized energy systems for clean electricity access. Nature Climate Change, 5, 305. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2512 '''


 * Over one billion people had no connection to an electrical grid in 2013, and many who were connected endured intermittency (306-7). Eighty percent of those with no grid connection in 2013 lived in rural areas and are projected to remain unconnected in 2030 (305). Alstone, et al. argue that “the lack of modern infrastructure and services … [in rural areas can] ... directly result in low resilience to the harmful effects of climate change” (305), such as damage to agricultural productivity and property due to severe weather (ibid.).
 * The authors lay out a scenario in which those using limited off-grid power as a stepping stool to eventual grid access accumulate energy efficient knowledge, behavior, and products that confer added resiliency while grid networks increase in reliability (312) and carbon neutrality.
 * Alstone, et al. present a comprehensive account of past, present, and projected future trends in off-grid (or “decentralized”) energy access, even drawing attention to significant correlations between electricity access and four of the United Nations’ Millennium Development indices (307). These larger contexts will be incorporated into my Wikipedia sub-section as part of the big picture of off-grid power provision.

'''Feron, S. (2016). Sustainability of Off-Grid Photovoltaic Systems for Rural Electrification in Developing Countries: A Review. Sustainability: Science Practice and Policy, 8(12), 1326. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8121326 '''


 * There are myriad productive (income-generating) applications for off-grid power systems, yet most rural electricity is consumed for residential use (10).
 * “[T]he provision of [off-grid] electricity does not automatically lead to productive uses” (10), unless it is combined with “complementary infrastructure, including training and education” (3), e.g. of end-users (10) and technicians (7).
 * Off-grid systems can be seen as promoting equity by conferring electricity access to a “vulnerable population (e.g., women or indigenous people) where a grid connection would not be viable” (12).
 * Feron's analysis will be used to create a nuanced sub-section highlighting off-grid power for low income users.

'''Sovacool, B. K., D’Agostino, A. L., & Jain Bambawale, M. (2011). The socio- technical barriers to Solar Home Systems (SHS) in Papua New Guinea: “Choosing pigs ... and poker chips over panels.” Energy Policy, 39(3), 1532–1542. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2010.12.027 '''


 * The provision of off-grid power systems should not be viewed as a purely technical enterprise (1534); rather, there are “cultural and social dimensions of energy use” (1535).
 * In off-grid power systems, political, technical, and economic impediments are often interwoven with social barriers, such as “public misunderstanding and psychological resistance” (1535). In case studies from Papua New Guinea, the authors illustrate how these barriers can manifest in communally-oriented groups when cultural mores are ignored by system designers. When systems are not distributed equally among a group, vandalism due to “intense jealousy” has been documented (1540). In other cases, systems stopped working from lack of maintenance because of indifference; none of the recipients perceived themselves as “responsible for it” (ibid.).
 * It is appropriate and beneficial to employ anthropological considerations when designing and installing off-grid power systems and training recipients in their use. My Wikipedia sub-section can benefit from incorporating Sovacool’s “socio-technical systems approach” to off-grid renewable power by relaying the aforementioned cautionary vignettes.

'''Kirubi, C., Jacobson, A., Kammen, D. M., & Mills, A. (2009). Community-Based Electric Micro-Grids Can Contribute to Rural Development: Evidence from Kenya. World Development, 37(7), 1208–1221. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2008.11.005 '''


 * "Off-grid" is taken to mean not connected to a national energy grid. However, off-grid electrical systems can be either systems for individual residences or a community linked in a shared arrangement known as a micro-grid. This article evaluates a community scale diesel-powered micro-grid in rural Kenya (originating in 1997) called the Mpeketoni Electricity Project (MEP)(1208). The diesel-generator supplying power for the MEP differentiates it from the renewable energy installations (solar, wind, micro-hydro) which comprise many contemporary off-grid systems.
 * Post-WWII development paradigms emphasized the expansion of national energy grids to rural areas and residents as central to economic development (1209). However, the high costs associated with grid extension to rural areas forced a re-think of this approach in the 1980s (ibid.). In addition, as recently as 2008, the World Bank concluded that the evidence suggesting rural grid electrification leads to poverty alleviation was marginal (1211).
 * The MEP project was started with an initial outlay of approximately US$40,000, and grew to serve 105 residences and 116 commercial, educational, government, and healthcare buildings (1211-12).
 * The MEP project demonstrated unanticipated supply and demand effects when artisans using tools powered by MEP electricity increased their productivity enough to cause depreciation of their wares, necessitating lowering of their prices; however, higher volumes of sales offset these losses (1212-13). Additionally, one aspect of local agricultural production was bolstered in a counter-intuitive way: owners of tractors used to clear land for farming came to the Mpeketoni community as soon as the project came online (1214) because owners perceived that MEP electricity nearby could be used to weld any structural parts of their tractors that might get broken (1215); without this assurance, Mpeketoni farmers had previously had to wait months to hire tractors to clear their land (1214). MEP electricity also facilitated cold storage of agricultural products (1215), well pumping, which allowed students who previously spent several hours per day fetching water to spend that time studying in the evening by electric light (ibid.), and expanded teaching hours and sanitation at local schools through electric lighting and pumped water (1215-16).
 * As highlighted above, the MEP off-grid project had numerous direct and indirect benefits for community members, and as of 2007 had purportedly achieved 94 percent cost recovery in ten years of operation (1218). The authors conclude that the MEP project underscores the potential of the micro-grid model to meet needs of rural communities (1219), conditional on the promotion of uses for electricity and the ability to charge nominal rates for its use (1218).

'''Bouffard, F., & Kirschen, D. S. (2008). Centralised and Distributed Electricity Systems. Energy Policy, 36(12), 4504–4508. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2008.09.060 '''


 * The advantages of central power generation and distribution are receding in the face of climatic degradation due to fossil fuel powered generation, vulnerabilities to extreme weather events and electronic manipulation, and increasingly complex design and regulatory processes (4504-5).
 * Full decentralization would have its own drawbacks and is not the goal (4504).
 * Reliable centralized systems have provided constancy in electrical supply which has bolstered economies and their societies (4506). On the other hand, the geographic separation of power generation and end-use afforded by centralized systems has given rise to lack of awareness among consumers of the impact of their energy use (4506).

'''Campbell, B., Cloke, J., & Brown, E. (2016). Communities of Energy. Economic Anthropology, 3(1), 133–144. https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12050 '''


 * Electricity provides opportunities for improved productivity, learning, and hygienic end-uses in the home, such as cooking without the use of dirty biomass fuel sources, yet 20% of people world wide live without it (133).
 * In order to attain sustainability in the developing world, decentralized systems must be robust and context-specific, as well as predicated on empirical research showing that they can contribute to quality of life and poverty reduction (134).
 * There is disagreement over the environmental, productivity, and poverty alleviation capabilities of solar power, with some critics claiming that the benefits in all three areas are minimal (134), because they are embedded in the larger problem of systemic poverty (136).
 * Electricity use can be gendered (137) or generational (139) in some cultures, and to fail to account for these differences risks exacerbating existing inequalities (137). Different stakeholders can also have alternate visions of how decentralized energy systems will be used or what their ramifications will be (139-40), necessitating incorporation of all relevant perspectives in a community diagram depicting their intentions and relative power and agency (141).

'''Guruswamy, L., & Neville, E. (Eds.). (2016). International Energy and Poverty: The Emerging Contours. 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017: Routledge.'''


 * Nearly three billion residents of Africa, Asia, and Latin America who lack modern energy for “cooking, heating, sanitation, lighting, [and] transportation” are especially at risk due to the disruptive effects of global climate change on their fuel sources and livelihoods (113).
 * Many countries have not developed comprehensive policies, regulations, or funding mechanisms for off-grid electrical systems (189). There are three prevalent private sector business models for off-grid systems: community-owned and operated, microfinance lending, or debt/equity financing (190).
 * Promoting and integrating productive uses of energy over merely providing electricity are key approaches to fostering off-grid project sustainability, success, and replicability (191).
 * Bridging the gap from the current under-provision of grid electricity to universal access has been projected to require US$17 trillion and 30 years even on a rigorous timetable (65). In the interim, off-grid power systems can provide subsistence sources of electricity for basic needs such as “cooking, lighting, water, sanitation, and mechanical power” that elevate communities from the bottom to “the intermediate rungs on the ladder of energy” (65).

Area I: Education in Guatemala (Addition to § "Education resources")
Lack of infrastructure such as electricity in schools can have significant negative impacts on student performance. In Guatemala, the strong majority of schools overall had electricity by the late 2000s. However, in the same time period less than a quarter of the same schools featured computer labs, demonstrating a potential need for computers as information and communication technology (ICT) facilities. There is currently a shortage of high quality studies looking at the effects of electricity and computers/internet on educational outcomes in Latin American contexts.

Area II: Economy of Guatemala (New § Electrical Infrastructure in Rural Guatemala)
In the absence of the Guatemalan government's subsidized rural electrification program, very few rural residents would likely have received electricity “because they are particularly poor and socially excluded." Over the period 2000 to 2011, the program ostensibly improved the proportion of non-indigenous (62 to 82 percent) and indigenous (48 to 70 percent) households with electrical grid connections. Continuity of the electrical grid is reasonably robust, with both groups reporting about one hour per day of unavailability. However, programs aimed at furthering rural electrification are not necessarily highly valued by rural residents. Furthermore, even when rural users are connected to the grid and pay subsidized rates, their inability to afford electrical appliances means that their typically low power consumption (less than five percent of average US usage) is not profitable for power companies.

Sector: Off-the-Grid (New § Off-grid Power for Marginalized Communities)
Globally, eighty percent of those with no electrical grid connection in 2013 lived in rural areas and are projected to remain unconnected in 2030. Alstone, et al. argue that “the lack of modern infrastructure and services … [in rural areas can] ... directly result in low resilience to the harmful effects of climate change," such as damage to agricultural productivity and property due to severe weather. Decentralized, off-grid renewable energy systems can constitute a sustainable interim alternative to extending national grids powered by carbon-intensive fuels to rural customers. Alstone, et al. lay out a scenario in which those using limited off-grid power as a stepping stool to eventual grid access can accumulate energy efficient knowledge, behavior, and products that confer added resiliency while grid networks increase in reliability and carbon neutrality. “[T]he provision of [off-grid] electricity does not automatically lead to productive uses," unless it is combined with “complementary infrastructure, including training and education” of end-users and technicians. Building off-grid power systems should also not be viewed as a purely technical enterprise; rather, there are “cultural and social dimensions of energy use” that bear careful consideration.

Article Evaluation: Off-the-grid

 * Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
 * This article's topics are mostly relevant, with the possible exception of an "In Popular Culture" subsection on celebrities who promote off-the-grid (OTG) lifestyles.
 * Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
 * In a section on the "popularity" (i.e. prevalence) of off-the-grid living in the USA and abroad, the article's most recent statistics are over a decade out of date.
 * Current estimates from reliable sources on the numbers of people living unconnected to a national electricity grid would be germane here.
 * The article fails to address the political and economic considerations behind why utility infrastructure is so infrequently incomplete in developing states.
 * What else could be improved?
 * The article's tone is detracted from by numerous sentence fragments, making general grammatical editing warranted.
 * The authors only devote one or two sentences to the economic considerations of why off-grid power may be desirable, i.e. because extending a national grid to all of a nation's rural areas is generally prohibitively expensive. This topic deserves more attention in order to make explicit the possibility that 100 percent electrification may not occur for decades or centuries in some countries, if ever. This realization is the primary justification for the adoption of OTG power systems instead.


 * Is the article neutral? Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * It seems generally supportive of OTG power systems, with no real criticism or engagement of scholarly debate over the pros and cons of OTG systems.
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * The OTG page is fairly neutral, and mainly suffers from representation issues in the sense that only two of its seventeen references are from peer-reviewed literature.


 * Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?
 * One citation that I tried had a broken link because the online publisher had gone out of business. Another had a broken link to a .pdf document.
 * One citation linked correctly to an online journalism article, but that article did not list the sources for its information.
 * Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
 * Claims in this article have citations roughly one quarter of the time, using a mixed bag of online news sources, reports, websites, and a few books and journal articles.


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * Mainly fact checking and discussions over the definition of "off-the-grid," e.g. whether it should apply exclusively to electrical power or all utilities.
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * The OTG Wiki is rated "C-Class, an intermediate article with room for improvement."
 * It is listed as being within the scope of two projects:
 * WikiProject Energy (Start-Class; High-Importance), and
 * WikiProject Sanitation (C-Class; Low-Importance).
 * I notice on the article's wikidata page that Spanish language users would only encounter the article in searches if they use the English phrase "Off-the-grid," rather than the equivalent Spanish phrase. This may be detracting from viewership and contributions from Spanish-speaking readers.
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?
 * The OTG article differs from an academic approach mainly in that it fails to compare different points of view on the topic. These needn't disagree on the essence of the topic itself so much as over the best directions and methods for action within the sector.

Area I: Education in Guatemala (Addition to § "Education resources")
Guatemala's spending on education is one of the lowest in the world. In 2007, the country spent less than 2 percent of its GDP on education, of which public primary schools received less than half. By the late 2000s, the majority of Guatemalan schools had grid-supplied electricity, allowing for the use of electrical lighting, heating, and computers and the provision of running water for drinking and sanitation. However compared to other countries in Latin America, Guatemalan schools score mid-pack on measures such as the supply of potable water, and near the bottom on others such as the number of bathrooms. Research has found that lack of infrastructure such as adequate potable water, sewage services, or electricity in Guatemalan schools can have significant negative impacts on student performance.

Primary education has been compulsory in Guatemala since 1985, yet the populace has one of the lowest rates of cumulative education in Latin America. Educators in Guatemalan public schools often use teaching methods that do not account for the nearly 40% of students hailing from indigenous backgrounds who are non-native Spanish speakers. This is reflected in high rates of repetition of grades, for instance up to 30% in first grade.

In attempts to reform the country's education system, particularly its rural schools, the Guatemalan government created the PRONADE (National Community-Managed Program for Educational Development), and PROESCOLAR (Education Development Program) initiatives in the 1990s to give communities more say in local school affairs. Together with the parents of students, these programs administered thousands of rural public and quasi-charter schools in the late 1990s and early 2000s, governing teacher hiring, monitoring teacher and student attendance, facilitating school food programs, and maintaining facilities.

To counteract low levels of school funding, remittances to Guatemala from family members working abroad are often used for educational purposes such as school uniforms, home computers, and internet access. Remittances are also used to provide regular meals, electricity, and sanitation in the home, which enhance children’s ability to access education. Families can also use remittances to hire labor, allowing children to stay in school rather than be pulled out to assist with farm work or domestic activities like caring for siblings. In some cases, successful migration has paradoxically given rise to “brain waste,” in which male children especially view school as a waste of time because they plan on also migrating for work as soon as they are able in their teenage years. This outlook is reflected in findings showing that education is not highly valued in rural areas of Guatemala.

Area II: Economy of Guatemala (New § Electrical Infrastructure in Rural Guatemala)
In Guatemala lack of access to electricity is concentrated in rural areas, although informal settlements around urban peripheries also tend to lack metered service. Guatemala’s post-civil war efforts to improve electrical access in the countryside have proceeded under the auspices of the Rural Electrification Plan (Spanish: PER), a public-private partnership between the government’s Ministry of Education and Mines (Mineduc) and private power companies. Over the period 2000 to 2011, the PER improved rates of electrical grid connectivity among non-indigenous (62 to 82 percent) and indigenous (48 to 70 percent) households in Guatemala. Continuity of the electrical grid is robust, with both groups reporting only about one hour per day of unavailability. Even when rural users are connected to the grid and pay subsidized rates, they often have difficulty affording electrical appliances, which translates into low power consumption (less than five percent of average US residential usage). This low power usage by rural customers is often not profitable for power companies, disincentivizing further expansion of the grid. As of 2014, one third of Guatemala’s poorest rural residents still lacked electricity. By contrast, only around 8% of high-income rural residents lacked service, demonstrating that affordability plays a role in the accessibility of electrical grids.

In 2016, domestic hydroelectric power supplied the majority (about 34 percent) of Guatemala's electricity. The planning process for constructing new hydropower dams was updated by the Guatemalan Congress in 1996 and 2007 (Decree 93-96, the "General Law of Electricity"), giving project developers more power over the process, especially with regards to environmental impact assessments (EIA). A study in Guatemala covering the period 2009 to 2014 found that private construction firms generally have little knowledge of the rights of rural indigenous peoples their projects may be affecting. Firms typically hire consultants to perform EIAs and liaise with affected communities. However, consultants are frequently disinterested in adequately informing rural communities of the potential impacts of proposed projects. Instead, consultants frequently resort to bribery and manipulation to obtain consent to proceed with hydroelectric projects. Interlocutors from within the government say that there is internal pressure to approve EIAs even if they are performed inadequately, showing that visions of Guatemala's energy future may be overriding the interests of segments of its populace.

Sector: Off-the-Grid (New § Off-grid Power for Marginalized Communities)
Reliable centralized electricity systems have provided supply constancy which has bolstered societies and their economies. Electricity provides opportunities for improved productivity, learning, and hygienic end-uses in the home, such as cooking without the use of polluting biomass fuel sources, yet as of 2016, 20 percent of people world wide lived without it. Bridging the gap from the current under-provision of grid electricity to universal access has been projected to require US$17 trillion and 30 years even on a rigorous timetable. Researchers have argued that a lack of centralized energy infrastructure can result in low resilience to damage to productivity and property from changing climates and severe weather. In addition, the advantages of central power generation and distribution are receding in the face of climatic degradation due to fossil fuel powered generation, vulnerabilities to extreme weather events and electronic manipulation, and increasingly complex design and regulatory processes.

Decentralized, off-grid energy systems can constitute a sustainable interim alternative to extending national grids to rural customers. Those using limited off-grid power as a stepping stool to eventual grid access can accumulate energy efficient knowledge, behavior, and products that confer added resiliency while grid networks increase in reliability and carbon neutrality. However, providing off-grid electricity to rural users without also including training and education about its use and applications can result in under-utilization. To counteract this possibility, off-grid systems should reflect the cultural structures, values, and mores of host communities.

The term "off-grid" is taken to mean not connected to a national energy grid. Off-grid electrical systems can power individual residences or a community linked in a shared arrangement known as a micro-grid. In addition, they may be powered by renewable energy sources or by conventional fossil fuels. In Kenya, Mpeketoni township began a community-based, diesel-powered micro-grid project (the Mpeketoni Electricity Project [MEP]) in 1994 with an outlay of approximately US$40,000, and eventually grew to serve 105 residences and 116 commercial, educational, government, and healthcare buildings. The MEP demonstrated unanticipated supply and demand effects when artisans using tools powered by MEP electricity increased their productivity enough to cause depreciation of their wares, necessitating lowering of their prices; however, higher volumes of sales eventually offset these losses. MEP electricity facilitated cold storage of agricultural products, in addition to well pumping, which allowed students who previously spent several hours per day fetching water to spend that time studying in the evening by electric light. Electricity provided by the MEP also expanded teaching hours and sanitation at local schools through electric lighting and pumped water. The MEP off-grid project had numerous direct and indirect benefits for community members, and because the MEP emphasized promotion of the uses for electricity and the community had the ability to pay nominal rates for its use, the project achieved 94 percent cost recovery in its first ten years of operation.