Cynthia del Aguila Named Guatemalan Minister of Education

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Cynthia del Aguila, an educational manager at RTI International, has been appointed to be the Guatemalan minister of education by President-elect Otto Pérez Molina.

She resigned from her position at RTI at the end of December to focus on her new responsibilities.

"I am honored to be appointed as minister of education, and I want to thank President-elect Pérez Molina for the trust he has placed in me," said del Aguila. "I look forward to the challenges involved in improving the education system in Guatemala and making quality education a reality for each and every student."

As the minister of education, del Aguila will promote a quality of education agenda for Guatemalan schools. She plans to improve access to preprimary and secondary education, increase completion and graduation rates, and ensure the quality of the learning process by supporting teacher training and guaranteeing the availability of textbooks and supplies in each school.

During her seven years at RTI, del Aguila worked as the deputy director and education manager for Alianzas, a United States Agency for International Development-sponsored effort to forge partnerships with the private sector in order to address high-priority health and education issues in Guatemala.

Before RTI, she was a general manager for Futurekids, a professor at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, and held numerous roles at the Ministry of Education of Guatemala, serving as its vice minister in the late 1990s.