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Boosting
Enrollment at the Expense of Quality in Peru
By By Abraham Lama, Inter Press Service |
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 LIMA,
Apr 25 (IPS) - Peru has taken primary school enrollment to an
impressive 90 percent, but independent experts say the expansion
has been achieved at the expense of quality. |
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| They
point to high dropout and repetition rates and poorly- trained
teachers who earn low wages. Moreover, enrollment figures are
mere projections that fail to factor in dropout rates, say experts
like Hugo Diaz of the independent Institute of Research for
the Development of Education. |
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| "The
children wandering around the streets, whether working or just
bumming around, are not taken into account by the Education
Ministry statistics,'' said Diaz. |
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According
to Education Ministry figures, more than 90 percent of children
aged 6 to 12 and 54 percent of adolescents are enrolled in
school in this South American country of 24 million.
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| Of
a total 7.8 million students in preschool, grade school and
high school, 6.7 million are enrolled in cost-free public education
institutions. |
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| Education
authorities stress that all government-run primary school students
receive free textbooks and breakfasts. |
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| The
state spends around 255 dollars a year on every student enrolled
in public schools. The free breakfasts are not included in that
calculation, however, as they are not financed by the Education
Ministry, but by the office of food assistance set up by the
government of President Alberto Fujimori.. |
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| The
administration of Fujimori -- who has been in office since 1990
and is currently seeking a third term -- has built and refurbished
public schools, which are equipped with sanitation services
and electricity, except in the most remote and sparsely populated
areas of the country. |
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| In
his campaign for re-election, Fujimori has pledged to accelerate
the installation of computers in high schools ''in order for
all schools to have access to Internet in the near future.'' |
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Although the delivery of the first computers took place amidst
great fanfare, it is not clear how many public schools actually
received equipment and how many are still on the waiting list. |
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| ''In
the past few decades, Peru has expanded enrollment, but at the
cost of reducing quality,'' according to 'Data Social', a bulletin
on social policies produced by the local independent thinktank
Apoyo. |
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| One
big problem affecting quality is the low salaries earned by
teachers, which make it virtually impossible to attract the
more highly-qualified applicants, who are drawn by the higher
pay offered elsewhere. |
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| "We
cannot make the most of investment in school infrastructure
if the training levels and salaries of teachers are not improved,''
said Maria Teresa Tovar with the non-governmental Educational
Forum. |
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| Diaz
at the Institute of Research for the Development of Education
pointed out that of the 110,000 applicants for the 30,000 new
teaching positions that opened up last year, only 16 percent
qualified. |
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| ''Only
17,000 were hired, 60 percent of whom qualified with the minimally
acceptable number of points -- 11 or 12 out of 20 points --
while less than one percent scored 14 or more points,'' said
Diaz. |
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| The
low quality of education is also reflected by the high repetition
rates. More than half a million primary school students, or
14.9 percent of the total, failed in 1998, according to statistics
compiled by another independent thinktank, Cuanto. |
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| In
urban areas, 17 percent of students have repeated at least one
year of primary school, while that proportion rises to 26 percent
in the countryside. |
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| Another
shortcoming in the educational system is the number of hours
spent in school: 450 hours a year in towns and cities and 226
in rural areas, compared to 1,000 hours a year in Chile and
1,750 in Japan. |
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| ''Besides
the low training levels of teachers, the educational situation
in Peru is affected by the poor nutritional levels of the 49
percent of the population living in poverty,'' said university
professor Oscar Rivera. |
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''Undernourished kids have problems concentrating, tire easily
and fall asleep in class, and in general are less motivated
to study,'' Rivera pointed out. |
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The distribution of publicly financed free meals in poor urban
and rural areas, through mothers' clubs, and of school breakfasts,
are aimed at boosting nutritional levels among children living
in poverty. A school lunch programme has also been announced. |
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Another reason for the high repetition rate is that children
often skip class in order to work and contribute to the family
income, or due to a lack of parental supervision. |
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Since its implementation in 1995, a programme designed to upgrade
the quality of primary education, financed by the government
and the World Bank, has trained 64,000 grade school teachers,
which is around 55 percent of the total. |
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A similar programme, backed by the Inter-American Development
Bank and focusing on secondary-level education, has trained
4,000 high school teachers, around 18 percent of the total.
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| This
article is free of copyright restrictions and can be reproduced
provided that Inter Press Service is credited. |
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