RICO’s Q — The numbers should raise alarm bells. According to the released information, 99,000 Costa Ricans dropped out of free English learning courses offered through the Hello Brete program, a partnership between the government, the Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje (INA), and Open English.
That is a dropout rate of around 48% of the 204,000 slots that have been enabled since it was launched on April 16, 2026. Almost one out of every two!
The courses are part of the Hello Brete project, which aims to train 2 million people in English over the next four years, opening slots on demand. Each license costs the country US$80 annually, and if a user is inactive for 15 days, they lose their slot, which can then be given to someone else.
Experts had warned of the risk of dropout
Academics had warned about the risk of dropout and the difficulties that a self-directed learning model like Hello Brete could face since it began operating.
Allen Quesada, director of the School of Modern Languages at the University of Costa Rica (UCR), pointed out that online education tends to have higher dropout rates than in-person education.
Susana Jiménez Sánchez, an education and educational technology specialist at the National University (UNA), warned that self-learning platforms may be ineffective for students with low levels of education or little experience in independent learning processes.
INA Did Not Evaluate Retention Before Contracting
As CRHoy.com revealed in April, the INA did not conduct a technical study to determine the effectiveness of platforms like Open English for teaching English before awarding the contract. The public institution had also not evaluated student retention rates in courses offered under this modality.
The pre-contract analysis focused on the need to expand English language instruction beyond the Greater Metropolitan Area (GAM) and meet existing demand.
During 2025, the INA offered 19,800 places to study English through its training programs and scholarships, compared to at least 71,000 interested individuals identified in an institutional survey.
Regarding the dropouts registered since April, the INA indicated that it reassigned the 99,100 freed-up slots so that other students could use them.
And here’s where things get worrying:
- A pilot program was reportedly not conducted before enrollment.
- The level of English the student is expected to reach is not clearly defined.
- A deadline for reaching that level was not established.
- There is reportedly insufficient evaluation of the economic impact of such a high dropout rate.
- The mechanisms used to measure the quality and effectiveness of the program are being questioned.
And we’re talking about a lot of money. If 500,000 licenses, the original goal of the program, were activated, at US$80 per license, that is US$40 million dollars.
Last week, lawyer José Eduardo Vargas filed an addendum to his complaint of August 10 against Rodrigo Chaves and the former head of the INA, Christian Rucavado, regarding the Open English contract, adding the 99,000 dropouts the program experienced in its first four months.
The complainant requests an investigation into how the beneficiaries were selected and whether the populations requiring priority attention from the INA were served.
The article “La estafa de Open English y demás ocurrencias del gobierno saliente” from Delfino.cr in May 2026 critiques the outgoing Costa Rican government’s handling of the Open English program, which is described as a costly and deceptive scheme.
The authors, Mónica Zúñiga Rivera and Monserrat Ramírez Castro, highlight how the program, branded as an English language learning initiative, ended up being an expensive burden on the public, with many Costa Ricans ultimately footing the bill for what is framed as a scam.
The article urges vigilance towards similar government “products” and points to broader issues of mismanagement and questionable decisions in the final actions of the outgoing Chaves administration, an administration in which current president Laura Fernández held the position of Minister of the Presidency.
It paints a picture of a government leaving behind costly, poorly thought-out initiatives that undermine public trust and fiscal responsibility.
This critique serves as a call to hold authorities accountable for these kinds of expensive failures and to be wary of such schemes in the future.
Learning English is indeed an excellent investment. Wasting millions due to a lack of controls, if that’s happening, is NOT.
Costa Ricans deserve results, transparency, and clear accountability.