What are the JGM Competitions?

The JGM Competitions are an annual, gamified academic and athletic program designed to ignite ambition, uncover raw talent, and promote student development. Participants advance through multiple rounds that test reading, sports, academics, timeliness, and personal growth.

Who can participate in the JGM Competitions?

The competitions are geared toward children, students, and young adults engaged in educational, developmental, and digital-skills programs hosted by JGM Innovation.

What skills or attributes do the competitions evaluate?

Participants are evaluated across reading, sports, academics, timeliness, and gamified elements of luck. These attributes promote creativity, physical fitness, academic excellence, responsibility, and personal growth.

How often do the JGM Competitions take place?

The JGM Competitions are held annually, with multiple rounds leading to final winners.

What awards do winners receive?

Winners typically receive medals, certificates of participation, and trophies depending on the event category. Top performers also earn an educational field trip to Lima, where they explore museums, amusement parks, and cultural experiences.

What is the purpose of the JGM Competitions?

The competitions aim to foster ambition, uncover talent, and promote well-rounded student development through gamification. They blend academics, athletics, creativity, discipline, and personal growth.

Are the competitions in-person or online?

The JGM Competitions are held in-person, with physical activities, storytelling sessions, academic testing, and school-based participation requirements.

Fewer Schools, Weaker Outcomes: Why Rural Students in Lima’s Valleys Face Higher Education Risk

Tiffany Lin
3 hours ago
4 min read

A deeper analysis of Lima, Perú, reveals how vastly education access and risk can differ between neighboring districts.

Key Takeaways

We compared education access and outcomes in the urban district of Lurigancho-Chosica and the rural district of Santa Eulalia.
Lurigancho-Chosica has 244 primary and secondary schools, while Santa Eulalia has only 16. This matters because fewer nearby schools can make access more fragile.
Rural students have lower learning-achievement rates than urban students in both math and reading.
Transportation, school infrastructure, and learning support should be prioritized for rural schools facing both access barriers and weaker academic outcomes.

The Issue

Education access is not equal across the districts of Lima.

Lurigancho-Chosica and Santa Eulalia are both districts in the Lima region of Perú, but they operate in very different educational environments. Lurigancho-Chosica is a more urban district connected to metropolitan Lima, while Santa Eulalia is a rural valley district with smaller, more dispersed communities surrounded by mountainous terrain. For a student in Santa Eulalia, missing school may not simply mean oversleeping or losing motivation. It may mean a longer trip through a mountain valley, limited transportation, or a road disruption that leaves no practical alternative.

This project examines whether the rural valley school system in Santa Eulalia faces greater education risk than the more urban school system in Lurigancho-Chosica.

Key Insights:

Santa Eulalia Has Far Fewer Schools Than Lurigancho-Chosica

The most immediate difference between the two districts is the size of their school networks. Lurigancho-Chosica has 244 schools identified in the dataset, compared with only 16 schools in Santa Eulalia. Lurigancho-Chosica’s larger number of schools reflects its more urban setting and denser population. Santa Eulalia’s smaller network reflects the realities of a rural valley district, where communities are spread farther apart and schools may serve students across larger geographic areas.

Having fewer schools does not automatically mean lower-quality education. However, it can make education access more fragile. If a road is blocked, transportation becomes unreliable, or if a school temporarily closes, students in a rural district may have fewer alternatives nearby.

Dropout Rates Are Lower in Santa Eulalia

Dropout rates show the percentage of students who leave school before graduation. Santa Eulalia has lower dropout rates than Lurigancho-Chosica at both education levels. At the primary level, Santa Eulalia’s dropout rate is 1.45%, compared with 1.62% in Lurigancho-Chosica. At the secondary level, Santa Eulalia’s rate is 1.99%, compared with 2.31%. This shows that rural education risk is not simply about students leaving school. Despite having fewer schools and greater geographic barriers, students in Santa Eulalia are continuing to stay enrolled.

This suggests that the main challenge may not be student motivation, but whether rural students have the same support and resources to succeed once they are in school.

Rural Students Have Lower Academic Achievement Rates

Academic achievement rate measures the percentage of students who achieve expected learning outcomes. In primary schools, rural academic achievement is 1.84% in math and 1.69% in reading. Urban schools perform higher, with achievement rates of 3.21% in math and 3.55% in reading. The same pattern appears in secondary schools. Rural achievement is 0.63% in math and 0.62% in reading, compared with 1.40% in math and 2.10% in reading for urban schools.

The academic achievement data shows a clear rural-urban gap. Although Santa Eulalia students are remaining enrolled, they are struggling more academically. This suggests that rural students may need stronger education support, access to learning materials, tutoring, and teacher development resources.

These results should not be interpreted as a lack of effort from students or teachers. Rural schools often operate with fewer nearby resources and may face additional barriers related to travel, internet access, staffing, and family economic conditions.

Why This Matters

The data shows that education risk in Santa Eulalia is not caused by a single issue. Instead, it comes from several barriers happening at the same time. Students have fewer nearby schools, and rural students also tend to have lower achievement in both math and reading.

Although dropout rates are lower in Santa Eulalia, staying in school does not necessarily mean students have equal learning opportunities. Many students remain enrolled despite long travel distances, limited transportation, and fewer school resources. As a result, they may find it harder to meet expected academic outcomes. The main concern, therefore, is not whether students are staying in school, but whether they have the support they need to succeed once they are there.

The goal is not to label rural schools as failing. Instead, it is to recognize that they may need additional support to provide the same level of opportunity that urban students can access more easily. For development partners, this highlights an opportunity to invest in transportation, learning materials, teacher support, and academic programs where they can have the greatest impact.

A Final Thought

A student should not have fewer opportunities because their school is harder to reach.

Santa Eulalia’s smaller school network and lower rural learning outcomes suggest that geography can become an education barrier. Mapping these risks makes them easier to see, but the purpose of the map is action.

The next step is to invest in the supports that keep rural students connected to school, learning, and future opportunities.

Appendix: Data

All data were sourced from ESCALE (Estadística de Calidad Educativa), the official education-statistics platform of the Peruvian Ministry of Education (MINEDU).

School-location data: 2026 primary and secondary school data for Lurigancho-Chosica and Santa Eulalia were collected through ESCALE’s “Mapas de Escuelas” tool. The dataset included school names, latitude, and longitude, which were used to map school locations.
Education-indicator data: The 2016–2025 Education Indicators Database was used to compare dropout rates and academic achievement rates across rural and urban schools in Perú.