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Will education quality strengthen as Latin America’s economic growth continues? With Latin America’s GDP projected to grow 4 – 5% in real terms over the next three years, and most major economies holding positive trade balances, Latin America’s growth engine is far from slowing down. Recent developments in Chile, Mexico, and Brazil show civil society and government pushing to improve the education systems that will help to sustain this growth.

Education data on Latin America provide a bad evaluation. Each Latin American country that participated in the OECD’s 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) scored “statistically significantly below the OECD average” in every category of assessment. PISA is an examination of analytical skills for students near the end of compulsory education (about age 15). Latin American participants were Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Panama, and Peru. University education has received lackluster reviews as well; according to Quacquarelli Symons, an educational consulting firm, USP (Universidade de São Paulo) is the top university in Latin America. However, according to Times Higher Education of the UK, USP ranks only 178th in the world, up from 232nd last year. Going against Latin America’s universities are the policy of recruiting top students directly to academia, lack of financing for lower-income students, and lack of foreign faculty.[1]

Chile, whose schools are “the least bad in Latin America, according to the OECD’s PISA tests”[2], has seen street marches and school occupations erupt in a backlash against its school system. The problem is cost: 40% of school funding comes from parents, the highest ratio in the OECD. About half of Chile’s students attend “subsidized” schools where parents pay a fee. Many secondary schools, as well as technical and vocational schools, are for-profit. Activist Mario Waissbluth decries this “educational apartheid”, and says that the system condemns Chile to social stratification. The situation on the ground has only gotten more confrontational. President Sebastián Piñera fired his education minister, and has proposed both a 7% rise in education spending and a reduction in student loan interest from 6% to 2%. However, student and teacher groups demanded the end of for-profit schools and public education fully funded by the state. This demand leaves little room for compromise.

In contrast to Chile, Mexican civil society has pushed for change within the educational system. The current consensus on Mexico’s schools is of unmet potential. The Economist estimates that Mexican 15-year-olds are improving in math skill faster than those in all other PISA countries. However, Mexico, an OECD member, has to catch up with other developed countries. Over 33% of Singaporean students meet PISA’s second-best math hurdle, in Mexico the figure is under 1%. The education budget is 22% of public non-capital funding, the highest percentage in the OECD. Mexico’s key problem is where the money goes: teacher salaries with few strings attached. Mexico’s teachers’ union has no less than 1.2 million voters, and it has extracted rich concessions at federal level. The state has reached out to parents through programs like “School Management Support” (AGE), in which poor schools’ parent groups receive grants around $6 per student per year, which the parents then invest in schools. The World Bank doubled the contribution to $12 per student for one set of schools, and noted progress: dropout rates down 1.5% and an advance in reading and math. The money has been used for tasks like classroom refurbishment, and has motivated parents: in one school, fathers volunteered to guard school property day and night.[3] Parents have worked to confront teacher absenteeism, as has the NGO Mexicanos Primero, whose website carries reports of teacher attendance. Mexican families are involving themselves directly in school affairs, with the help of funding from the state and NGO’s. However, wholesale improvement may require reform of the teachers’ union. There is no independent body to assess schools, and teachers’ incentive structure is cared for by the union.

The Brazilian system’s challenges are similar to those of Mexico. According to PISA, Brazilian students improved performance in math, science, and reading from 2000 to 2009. This is largely due to the Lula government’s policies to compensate poor families who kept children in school. Nonetheless, Brazilian schools remain significantly below the PISA average. In some states, teachers can miss up to 40 out of 200 annual school days without losing pay. Also, according to The Economist, 15% of secondary-school graduates are 25 are older.[4] The problem is not funding, but what the funding targets. Female teachers can retire after 25 years on full pay and male teachers after 30 years. The result is bloated pension expense, and a reason for all teachers to stifle change. Such a guaranteed benefit is contrary to accountability, where teachers are rewarded based on performance of students. As in Mexico, civil society and governments have partnered to assist teachers, who suffer from being under-trained. São Paulo State has implemented a career plan for teachers with strong subject knowledge, and the charity Itaú Social trains teachers in deficient schools. These programs are positive, but seem to apply on a local rather than national basis.

In both Mexico and Brazil, civil society and governments have responded to demand for quality in education through customized programs to invest in schools, and assist parents and teachers. Chile, by contrast, has erupted in a scathing debate over funding such that “vital issues such as the quality of teaching or evaluations of school performance have hardly been broached.”[5] In the cases of Brazil and Mexico, sustained improvement may require governments to move their relationship with teachers toward more accountability and away from guaranteed job benefits. The power of teacher unions could mean plenty of votes against this at the ballot box.

 


[1] http://www.economist.com/node/21531468

[2] http://www.economist.com/node/21525920

[3] http://www.economist.com/node/18682699

[4] http://www.economist.com/node/17679798

[5] http://www.economist.com/node/21534785

 

Author

Hunt Kushner

Hunt Kushner is a John C. Whitehead Fellow with the Foreign Policy Association. He currently works in Corporate Development with Ports America Group, the United States' leading port terminal company. Prior to this, he worked for 6 years at Deutsche Bank in the Corporate Finance and Mergers and Acquisitions for Latin America Group. In his 6 years at Deutsche Bank, Hunt worked on mergers and equity offerings for companies across Latin America in sectors such as energy, real estate, transportation, and banking. Hunt graduated from Yale University in 2006 with a BA in Political Science.