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Good practice Imported

SART — Honduras's National School Dropout Early-Warning System

Honduras · Tegucigalpa · See the Honduras profile · See the Tegucigalpa profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 73% 40/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Honduras's national SART platform flags students at risk of dropping out — with a focus on displaced, migrant and returnee children — across all 18 departments; a 2024 fact-check found the government's own dropout-reduction claims 'not verified' due to incomplete national data.

6,054
Migrant/returnee children reinserted into school (2024) (2024)
~19,000
Children identified at risk of dropping out (2024)
~9,000
Children flagged in irregular-migration circumstances (2024)
6,869
School principals oriented on SART's 'critical route'

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Secretaría de Educación de Honduras
Period
2021–present
Keywords
education, dropout prevention, migration, early warning systems

Context

The Sistema de Alerta y Respuesta Temprana (SART) is Honduras's national platform for identifying students at risk of dropping out, operated by the Secretaría de Educación with technical and financial support from the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Launched in July 2021, it draws on a data-driven dropout-prediction methodology developed through an earlier World Bank-supported research collaboration between Honduras and Guatemala.

Activities

SART assigns risk levels to students based on attendance, academic performance and vulnerability indicators - including internal displacement due to violence, disability, sexual or domestic violence, and refugee or asylum status - generating school-level alerts through a 'critical route' that principals and teachers are meant to act on. It has a specific focus on migrant and returnee children through the Ministry's National Program for Attention to Migrant and Returned Children and Adolescents.

Results

By 2024, the Ministry reported 6,054 migrant and returnee children reinserted into the education system via SART, alongside roughly 19,000 children identified as at risk of dropping out and 9,000 flagged in irregular-migration circumstances; orientation on the system's use reached 6,869 school principals across all 18 departments.

Conclusions

SART lacks independent evaluation of its predictive accuracy or impact. A 2024 fact-check by Honduran outlet El Heraldo rated a government official's claimed reduction in the national dropout rate (from roughly 3% to under 1%) as 'not verified', finding that the Ministry of Education and national statistics institute lack current, complete underlying data.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — Operated by the Secretaría de Educación with technical and financial support from the Norwegian Refugee Council and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation; no specific budget figure disclosed.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Launched July 2021 and has been running nationally for multiple years as of the record date (2026).
Staffing & skills
Secretaría de Educación de Honduras operational staff, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) technical/financial support team, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation funding partner, School principals and teachers acting on 'critical route' alerts, National Program for Attention to Migrant and Returned Children and Adolescents staff

Conditions for success

  • Principals and teachers actually acting on the 'critical route' alerts generated by the system
  • Complete and current underlying administrative/attendance data (identified as a current gap)
  • Continued donor co-funding (NRC, Swiss Cooperation) to sustain operations across all 18 departments

Common failure modes

  • Ministry of Education and national statistics institute lack current, complete data, per a 2024 El Heraldo fact-check that rated the government's own dropout-rate improvement claim 'not verified'
  • No independent evaluation of SART's predictive accuracy or impact exists
  • System processes highly sensitive personal data (domestic-violence, displacement, asylum status) via undocumented 'Information Management Tools' with no published methodology or safeguards

Where it fits

Governance type
national ministry programme with international donor support
Scale
national, all 18 departments
Income level
lower-middle-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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