The Education Systems of the Americas (Global Education Systems) 303041650X, 9783030416508

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Global Education Systems

Sieglinde Jornitz Marcelo Parreira do Amaral  Editors

The Education Systems of the Americas

Global Education Systems

This series of handbooks presents analytical descriptions of the educations systems around the world. It provides easily accessible, practical, yet scholarly, sources of information about the structural features of the respective education systems, including the history of the education system, the socio-cultural context of the education system and the organizational context. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13430

Sieglinde Jornitz • Marcelo Parreira do Amaral Editors

The Education Systems of the Americas With 69 Figures and 79 Tables

Editors Sieglinde Jornitz DIPF - Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Marcelo Parreira do Amaral Institute of Education Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster Münster, Germany

ISSN 2570-2262 ISSN 2570-2270 (electronic) ISBN 978-3-030-41650-8 ISBN 978-3-030-41651-5 (eBook) ISBN 978-3-030-41652-2 (print and electronic bundle) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

After the turn of the millennium, political and scholarly attention to national systems of education surged, as is illustrated by the large number of books and edited collections on education systems worldwide as well as by the public debates on the state of education. This increased attention was partly motivated by the international debates on improving the outputs of education – in terms of performance in literacy and numeracy tests, but also in terms of efficiency and efficacy as well as value for money. Partly, this emphasis on better governance of education systems was also linked to nation states’ efforts in improving and/or securing their positions in the competition of a global knowledge-based economy. Here, education has become a production factor and a crucial element in justifying social structure and in enabling social mobility and justice. This volume of the Global Education Systems series focuses on the education systems on the American continents – North, Central, and South America – and includes chapters for most countries in this hemisphere. The Education Systems of the Americas aims at providing readers summarized information derived from primary or secondary sources. The chapters were authored by scholars recognized in their fields as knowledgeable of education in the particular country and contain digested knowledge in an easily accessible format. They provide for up-to-date and informative reading on the historical and social foundations of the education systems, including political, economic, and cultural contexts and conditions, on the institutional and organizational principles, the structure of education, and the supply of human resources such as teachers and other educators from pre-primary to tertiary level. Chapters also include a discussion of three topics that are of particular interest in recent developments in the countries: dealing with inequality, information and communication technologies and digitization activities, and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM-related policies and programs. We would like to emphasize here the efforts and the large amount of work needed to compile such a collection of chapters, which was made possible by all authors’ diligent contributions, who are sometimes working under difficult conditions as their countries experience political, economic, and social turmoil and gave their best to deliver high-quality scholarly discussions of education systems in their national contexts. We extend our gratitude to all contributors who made this publication possible. v

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Preface

Three individuals’ contributions went well beyond authoring a single chapter. Karen Thomas-Brown, Paul Fossum, and Wivian Weller were critical in helping us identify and secure contributors in the three continents. They were highly successful in drawing on their scholarly expertise as well as on their academic and personal networks, thus guaranteeing as large a coverage of the countries as possible. We are indebted to them in many ways, but in particular for their continuous support and for their patience with our treadmill of questions and requests. We also would like to thank colleagues at Springer who dealt with the logistical and organizational aspects of publication, making sure we stayed on track and reminding us of the abundant tasks necessary to complete this publication. Not least we would like to thank our student assistants – in particular Joseph König, Mayan Kōtaro S. Johrden, and Viktoria Schneider – and colleagues Ellen McKenney, Christine Meyer, and Gwen Schulte for their tireless support with proofing, processing, and editing the manuscripts. Frankfurt am Main and Münster December 2021

Sieglinde Jornitz Marcelo Parreira do Amaral

Contents

Volume 1 1

The Education Systems of the Americas: Introduction Sieglinde Jornitz and Marcelo Parreira do Amaral

.........

1

2

Education Systems Between Global Changes and National Orientations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sieglinde Jornitz and Susanne Timm

15

3

National Education Systems in the Post-national Era Marcelo Parreira do Amaral and Sigrid Hartong

..........

37

4

The Education System of Argentina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Felicitas Acosta and Victoria Rio

59

5

The Education System of The Bahamas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marky Jean-Pierre

91

6

The Education System of Barbados . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nigel O. M. Brissett

119

7

The Education System of Bermuda Phyllis Curtis-Tweed

........................

141

8

The Educational System of the Plurinational State of Bolivia . . . . Luis Fernando Carrión Justiniano

175

9

The Education System of Brazil: An Overview of History and Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wivian Weller and João Luiz Horta Neto

10

The Education System of Brazil: Historical Context and Challenges to Federative Equity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Célio da Cunha, Denise Gisele de Britto Damasco, and Nelson Adriano Ferreira de Vasconcelos

213

241

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12

13

14

Contents

The Education System of Brazil: Financing of Education in Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . José Marcelino de Rezende Pinto

265

The Education System of Canada: Foundations of the Canadian Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sharon Friesen and Michele Jacobsen

291

The Education System of Canada: Multiculturalism, Multicultural Education, and Racialized Students in Canada . . . . Carl E. James and Philip S. S. Howard

313

The Education System of Canada: ICT and STEM Balancing Economics with Social Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marguerite Koole and Vicki Squires

327

15

The Education System of the Cayman Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oneil Hall

349

16

The Education System of Chile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cristina Alarcón López and Alejandra Falabella

369

17

The Education System of Colombia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ana Elsy Díaz Monsalve, Ruth Elena Quiroz Posada, and Marco Rieckmann

405

18

The Education System of Costa Rica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Susanne Müller-Using and Alicia Vargas Porras

431

19

The Education System of Cuba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rosa María Brandhorst and Anna Lidia Beltrán Marín

465

20

The Education System of the Dominican Republic Molly Hamm-Rodríguez and Cledenin Veras Diaz

............

495

21

The Education System of Ecuador . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marco Rieckmann, Stefany Flores, Mayra Karina Pabón Ponce, Edda Vélez, and Silvia Leonor Mera Pincay

523

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The Education System of El Salvador Thomas Beier

......................

557

The Education System of the French Overseas Departments of America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maurizio Alì

583

Volume 2 23

24

The Education System of Grenada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lerona Dana Lewis, Oliver Benoit, and Lennox Lewis

607

Contents

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25

The Education System of Guatemala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ligia Oviedo Gasparico

631

26

The Education System of Guyana Tavis D. Jules

.........................

659

27

The Education System of Haiti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marky Jean-Pierre

681

28

The Education System of Jamaica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Karen Thomas-Brown

707

29

The Education System of Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eugenia Roldán Vera and Adriana Robles Valle

737

30

The Education System of Montserrat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gertrude Shotte

763

31

The Education System of Nicaragua . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vanessa Castro Cardenal and José Ramón Laguna

791

32

The Education System of Panama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Karen Thomas-Brown and Paul R. Fossum

825

33

The Education System of Paraguay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dalila Zarza Paredes and Sonia Suarez Enciso

855

34

The Education System of Peru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Luis Martín Valdiviezo Arista, Jonathan Eduardo Alvarado Ramos, and Mayra Salas Matienzo

881

35

The Education System of Puerto Rico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paul R. Fossum and Karen Thomas-Brown

915

36

The Educational System of Suriname . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Krishna Autar

941

37

The Education System of Trinidad and Tobago: Overview and Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Talia Esnard

973

The Education System of Trinidad and Tobago: Focusing on Early Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sabeerah Abdul-Majied

995

38

39

The Education System of the United States of America: Overview and Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1015 Paul R. Fossum

40

The Education System of the United States of America: Equity in K-12 and Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1043 Kirsten Dara Hill and Christopher Burke

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Contents

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The Education System of the United States of America: ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1071 Mesut Duran

42

The Education System of the United States of America: STEM Education – Progress without a Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1105 Christopher Reimann

43

The Education System of Uruguay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1133 Tabaré Fernández Aguerre, Santiago Cardozo Politi, and Agustina Marques Hill

44

The Education System of Venezuela . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1181 Stefan Peters

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1207

About the Editors

Sieglinde Jornitz is senior researcher at the DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, and a regular lecturer for the Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main in the field of Teacher Education. She has been engaged in various projects at DIPF that are focused on national, European, and international developments in education and information science. Her research interests focus on education theory as much as on international and European education policy and school education. Her research combines her overall interest in national and international education policies with the analysis of specific documents from educational practice, like school interaction transcripts or images. She is involved in projects on the professionalization of teachers by analyzing school lessons to contribute to an educational theory of teaching. Being a member of the international team at DIPF, she organizes various network events for bringing together German and international partners in the field of education. Besides these activities, she is also a member of several research groups on reconstructive hermeneutics in education and on digital media.

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About the Editors

Marcelo Parreira do Amaral is Full Professor of Education at the Institute of Education of the University of Muenster, Germany. Parreira do Amaral teaches and researches in the field Comparative and International Education, Education Policy Studies, Lifelong Learning, and Education Institutions. His current research focuses on international educational policy and governance issues at various levels and scales. More recently, his work concentrated on the emergence and expansion of a Global Education Industry (GEI) and on how it is transforming conceptualizations of “good” education. His research on (new) providers and policy actors within education aims at analyzing the possible consequences for education research, policy, and practice. Beyond discerning particular expressions and manifestations of the GEI phenomenon in international contexts, it also looks into the rationales, processes, and impacts of the GEI developments on education systems. Parreira do Amaral has collaborated on and coordinated several national and international research projects. From 2016 to 2019, he coordinated the ongoing project “YOUNG ADULLLT” (Policies Supporting Young People in their Life Course. A Comparative Perspective of Lifelong Learning and Inclusion in Education and Work in Europe, www.young-adulllt.eu), funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Research Framework. Parreira do Amaral is also member of NESET II (Network of Experts on the Social Aspects of Education) funded by the European Commission. The focus of attention of his research lies on understanding how education institutions and systems are impacted by the relationships between the local, national, and international levels, with a particular attention to issues of access to and equity in education.

Contributors

Sabeerah Abdul-Majied Faculty of Humanities and Education, School of Education, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Felicitas Acosta Instituto del Desarollo Humano, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Los Polvorines, Argentina Cristina Alarcón López Institut für Bildungswissenschaft, Universität Wien, Wien, Österreich Maurizio Alì CRREF Research Lab (EA4538), EASTCO Research Lab (EA4241), CIERA Research Centre, INSPE de Martinique, Université des Antilles, Fort de France, Martinique, France Jonathan Eduardo Alvarado Ramos Departamento de Educación, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru Krishna Autar Independent Researcher and Consultant, Zoetermeer, The Netherlands Thomas Beier Fachbereich Erziehungswissenschaften, Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Anna Lidia Beltrán Marín Centro de Estudios de Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad de Sancti Spíritus, Sancti Spíritus, Cuba Oliver Benoit Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, St. George’s University, St. Georges, Grenada Rosa María Brandhorst Faculty of Sociology, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany Nigel O. M. Brissett International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE), Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA Christopher Burke Department of Education, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA xiii

xiv

Contributors

Santiago Cardozo Politi Deparment of Sociology, Faculty of Social Science, University of Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay Luis Fernando Carrión Justiniano Centro Pedagógico y de Investigación en Educación Superior (CEPIES), Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), La Paz, Bolivia Vanessa Castro Cardenal International Consultant, Member of several NGO´s directives: IPADE, Nicaragua Lee, OLI (Online Learning Initiative), Managua, Nicaragua Phyllis Curtis-Tweed Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs, Bermuda College, Paget, Bermuda Célio da Cunha Postgraduate Program of Education, Catholic University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Brazil Denise Gisele de Britto Damasco Programa de Estudos Pós-Graduados em Educação, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil Nelson Adriano Ferreira de Vasconcelos Postgraduate Program of Education, Catholic University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Brazil Ana Elsy Díaz Monsalve School of Languages, University of Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia Mesut Duran College of Education, Health, and Human Services, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA Talia Esnard Department of Behavioural Sciences, University of the West Indies, Arima, Trinidad and Tobago Alejandra Falabella Facultad de Educación, Departamento de Política Educativa y Desarrollo Escolar Erasmo Escala 1825, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, Chile Tabaré Fernández Aguerre Deparment of Sociology, Faculty of Social Science, University of Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay Stefany Flores Faculty of Engineering in Applied Sciences, Universidad Técnica del Norte, Ibarra, Imbabura, Ecuador Paul R. Fossum College of Education, Health, and Human Services, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA Sharon Friesen Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada Ligia Oviedo Gasparico Independent researcher and consultant, Guatemala City, Guatemala

Contributors

xv

Oneil Hall Department of History and Philosophy, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Bridgetown, St. Michael, Barbados Molly Hamm-Rodríguez School of Education, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA Sigrid Hartong Fakultät für Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, Helmut Schmidt Universität, Hamburg, Germany Kirsten Dara Hill College of Education, Health and Human Services, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA João Luiz Horta Neto Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira – INEP, Brasília, DF, Brazil Philip S. S. Howard Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada Michele Jacobsen Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada Carl E. James Faculty of Education, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada Marky Jean-Pierre Foreign Language Department, Faculty of Liberal and Fine Arts, The University of The Bahamas, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas Sieglinde Jornitz DIPF - Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education, Frankfurt/Main, Germany Tavis D. Jules Cultural and Educational Policy Studies and Comparative and International Education, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA Marguerite Koole Educational Technology and Design, Department of Curriculum Studies, College of Education, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada José Ramón Laguna Independent Consultant World Bank, Managua, Nicaragua Lerona Dana Lewis Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada Lennox Lewis Principal and Community Educator, St. Georges, Grenada Agustina Marques Hill Department Skill Formation and Labor Markets, Berlin Social Science Center (WZB), Berlin, Germany Silvia Leonor Mera Pincay Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, Department of Education, University of Vechta, Vechta, Lower Saxony, Germany Susanne Müller-Using Education Science, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany University of Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica

xvi

Contributors

Mayra Karina Pabón Ponce Faculty of Education, Universidad Técnica del Norte, Ibarra, Imbabura, Ecuador Marcelo Parreira do Amaral Institute of Education, Westfälische WilhelmsUniversität Münster, Münster, Germany Stefan Peters Fachbereich Rechtswissenschaft, Instituto CAPAZ, Justus-LiebigUniversität Giessen, Giessen, Germany José Marcelino de Rezende Pinto Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil Ruth Elena Quiroz Posada Faculty of Education, University of Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia Christopher Reimann CREATE for STEM Institute, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA Marco Rieckmann Department of Education, Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, University of Vechta, Vechta, Lower Saxony, Germany Victoria Rio Instituto del Desarollo Humano, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Los Polvorines, Argentina Adriana Robles Valle Department of Educational Research, Center for Advanced Studies and Research (CINVESTAV), Mexico City, Mexico Eugenia Roldán Vera Department of Educational Research, Center for Advanced Studies and Research (CINVESTAV), Mexico City, Mexico Mayra Salas Matienzo Departamento de Educación, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru Gertrude Shotte School of Arts and Education, Middlesex University, London, UK Vicki Squires Department of Educational Administration, College of Education, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada Sonia Suarez Enciso Instituto Nacional de Evaluación Educativa, Ministerio de Educación y Ciencias (MEC), Asunción, Paraguay Karen Thomas-Brown College of Education, Health, and Human Services, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA College of Engeneering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Susanne Timm Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany Luis Martín Valdiviezo Arista Departamento Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru

de Educación, Pontificia

Alicia Vargas Porras Institute for Research in Education (INIE), University of Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica

Contributors

xvii

Edda Vélez Postgraduate Institute, Universidad Técnica del Norte, Ibarra, Imbabura, Ecuador Cledenin Veras Diaz School of Education, Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE), Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Wivian Weller Faculdade de Educação, Universidade de Brasilia, Brasília, DF, Brazil Dalila Zarza Paredes Consejo Nacional de Ciencias y Tecnología (CONACYT), Presidencia de la República, Asunción, Paraguay

1

The Education Systems of the Americas: Introduction Sieglinde Jornitz and Marcelo Parreira do Amaral

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 National Education Systems in the Global Era: Conceptual Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.1 National . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.2 Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.3 Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3 Structure of the Country Chapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Abstract

The chapter introduces the readers to the contents and rationales of this handbook. This Handbook focuses on the education systems on the American continents – North, Central, and South America – and includes chapters for most countries in this region, also the Caribbean. This introductory chapter first offers a conceptual discussion of central concepts that build the object of interest of the chapters, namely national education systems, and discusses their status and relevance for understanding education in the global era. By doing so, it sets the intellectual framework for the country chapters. By deliberating on the conceptual leverage of each term, it aims at both sharpening their analytical traction and pointing to their multifaceted nature – a crucial intellectual activity before any comparative exercise. It closes with a brief outline of the common structure that builds the backbone of the individual country chapters is then presented. This section briefly expounds the rationale of the different parts of the chapters, offering some justification for the organizational principles deployed, including their selective S. Jornitz (*) DIPF - Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education, Frankfurt/Main, Germany e-mail: [email protected] M. Parreira do Amaral (*) Institute of Education, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Münster, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_1

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S. Jornitz and M. Parreira do Amaral

nature. In making these decisions transparent, the section also functions as a useful reading aid. Keywords

Introduction · Education systems · National · Americas

1

Introduction

The global dimension of education is a feature commonly highlighted in contemporary discussions of educational matters, be they related to organizational and pedagogical arrangements, to performance and quality issues or to participation and equity or equality of opportunity for different groups within the systems and/or, for instance, to reaching the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Furthermore, social scientific researchers have emphasized common international features of education worldwide (Meyer et al. 1992a, b; Meyer and Ramirez 2003), such as institutionalization of formal organizations stipulating the nature and giving legitimation to education (Meyer et al. 1997), the diffusion of typical structures and organizational forms (Scott 1981; Scott et al. 1994), the expansion of compulsory education and the accompanying state institutions to operationalize and control it (Meyer and Ramirez 2003), or the emergence of a social science curriculum (Meyer et al. 1992). At the same time, education systems have developed idiosyncratic characteristics closely related to the specific cultural and linguistic traits and the local practicalities of those establishing education infrastructures. From the nineteenth century onward, education has been tasked with the making of citizens that would eventually form the nascent nation states (Tröhler et al. 2011). Shaping common linguistic patterns, histories, and traditions as well as political views and values became a central element in educational efforts of the national resp. republican era (Condorcet 1966 [1792]; Anderson 2016 [1983]). The context of development shaped education systems amidst varying political, cultural, and social formations (Archer 1979; Green 1997; Benavot et al. 2006), giving them singular expressions that made it conventional to speak of national education systems. The focus on institutionalized forms of learning and teaching framed what is seen as education, i.e., its manifestation in formal and structured settings leading to formal certification and credentials. Since its establishment as one of the state’s central institutions encompassing almost the totality of the population nearly everywhere, efforts to ensure the functionality and enhance the efficient performance of education have led to the design and implementation of organic structures that are treated as systems of education. Recognizing the global character of our present education systems while at the same time accounting for distinctive pathways of development lies at the heart of this compendium. It aims at providing information on structures, organization forms, and operations as well as an overview of the historical development and a discussion of recent trends. Students and scholars in the field of education and the social sciences are supported who seek concise and systematic knowledge about education in a particular country. The editors are moreover convinced that comparative researchers

1

The Education Systems of the Americas: Introduction

3

will also find information for better understanding issues concerning foundations and developments of the national education systems. This handbook focuses on the education systems on the American continents – North, Central, and South America – and includes chapters for most countries in this region, also the Caribbean. Building upon the successful experience of the two editions of “The Education Systems of Europe” edited by Hörner et al. (Springer 2007 and 2015), the chapters follow a common structure and include information on the organization of mainstream education from pre-primary to tertiary level. By providing such a structure for each country contribution, we aimed at ensuring a fundamental description of the educational system, including information about how it is shaped and respectively cared for by national stakeholders. This common framework served as a blueprint for each single contribution. Authors are thus equipped with a useful manual for their writing and readers can compare and contrast different education systems. In the remainder of this introductory chapter, we first offer a conceptual discussion of central concepts that build the object of interest of the chapters, namely, national education systems, and discuss their status and relevance for understanding education in the global era. By doing so, we set the intellectual framework for the country chapters. By deliberating on the conceptual leverage of each term, we aim at both sharpening their analytical traction and pointing to their multifaceted nature – a crucial intellectual activity before any comparative exercise. A brief outline of the common structure that builds the backbone of the individual country chapters is then presented. This chapter briefly expounds the rationale of the different parts of the chapters, offering some justification for the organizational principles deployed, including their selective nature. In making these decisions transparent, the chapter also functions as a useful reading aid.

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National Education Systems in the Global Era: Conceptual Remarks

Comparative research always has to deal with the fact that the objects or phenomena of study vary in terms of nature, shape, and content. Comparing thus, in this sense, entails a great deal of leveling differences in order to treat them as comparable. Without careful consideration, this methodological necessity risks obstructing opportunities to understand the objects of study in their own terms and not only in relation to similar or different entities. The issue at stake is resisting to treat them as “fixed, abstract and absolute” (Fine 2003, 465) but rather problematizing their “sameness” and shared meanings. Roger Dale and Susan Robertson (2009; see also Robertson and Dale 2017) provided useful ways of reflecting and dealing with what they termed methodological “isms” – three “isms” were identified: methodological nationalism, statism, and educationalism. By referring to “isms,” the authors allude to the tendency to view certain categories, such as national, education or state as natural, fixed, and unalterable – in other words as ontologically and epistemologically ossified (Dale and Robertson 2009, 1113). They meant to problematize the nature, i.e., the ontological status of the core objects of study – “national” “education” “system” – since, as they write, “it has rarely been the case

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that ‘the state did it all’ in the case of education, that educational activities and governance have ever been confined to the national scale and that ‘education’ has ever been a single straightforward, unproblematic conception” (ibid., 1114). Methodological nationalism refers to seeing the nation state as the container of “society,” so that comparing societies is equated with comparing nation states. As Dale and Robertson write, it operates both about the state and for the state, to the point where the only reality that can be comprehensively described statistically is a national, at most an international one. There is also a tendency to relate this “national reality” to a concept of “globalization” that is not further specified, leading to a zero-sum relationship with “either/or” assumptions that usually lead to statements of how the global “acts upon” the “national” level or how the “national” mediates the influence of the “global” (Dale and Robertson 2009, 1114f.). Methodological statism refers to the tendency to assume an intrinsic form for all states. In other words, it is assumed that all states are governed primarily in the same way, are confronted with the same problems and tasks, and are organized and managed by the same institutions. This is problematic because the state is itself an object of analysis that exists both as a material force and as an ideological construct (ibid., 1115 f.); in other words, the state itself needs to be explained, rather than explaining anything (cf. Dale 2007). Methodological educationism refers to the tendency to consider “education” as a single category for purposes of analysis, with a taken-for-granted general range and implicitly shared knowledge, methods, and assumptions. It occurs when education is treated as abstract, fixed, absolute, ahistorical, and universal, i.e., when no distinction is made between its purposes, processes, practices, and outcomes. The authors point to the need to tackle this problem by dealing with at least three elements: “The first is to disaggregate, or ‘unbundle’ these different components. The second is to seek to establish the determinants and consequences of the boundaries and content of education as a separate sector; and the third is to focus on questions of how, by whom and under what circumstances education is currently represented” (Dale and Robertson 2009, 1119). National education systems may be questioned not only in terms of the concepts used to grasp them but also in terms of social, political, and cultural transformations that contemporary societies are undergoing in the global era. The following paragraphs succinctly deal with each concept – national, education, and systems – in turn. The topics are discussed in more detail by Sieglinde Jornitz and Susanne Timm (see ▶ Chap. 2, “Education Systems Between Global Changes and National Orientations,” by Jornitz and Timm, in this volume) as well as by Marcelo Parreira do Amaral and Sigrid Hartong (see ▶ Chap. 3, “National Education Systems in the Post-national Era,” by Parreira do Amaral and Hartong, in this volume).

2.1

National

The term and concept of the nation were developed amidst the political struggle for liberation and sovereignty after the 1450s in Europe, directed against the

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dominance of the Emperor and the Pope and purporting to give a voice to and representing the interests of single (linguistic/ethnic) groups at local and regional level (Koselleck 1992). In the aftermath of the Thirty Years War, when incipient nation states of the Westphalian type stabilized, religious not “national” traits became more relevant for political affiliation, as illustrated by the principle of “cuius regio, eius religio” (ibid.). Later, the concept of the nation was reinvigorated in the eighteenth century amidst free intellectuals who opposed feudal conditions. This refers to another dimension of the concept, namely, that of culture that gave rise to ideas such as “national theater” and “national education.” The latter was advocated by Wilhelm von Humboldt, who propagated the idea of an “education by the nation,” which he saw as a community of free citizens (Humboldt 2010 [1792]; see also Herder 1887; Fichte 1808). The revolutionary struggles in the New World and in France during the last third of the eighteenth century were even more relevant for modern times, with the US-American and French Revolutions as epitomes of the development toward national states and societies worldwide. Nation from here onward represented the legitimate political power and sovereignty of a social entity, whose government derived its raison d’être from the goal of protecting and bettering the nation – or in other words, the goal of national progress, like it is represented in the slogan “Ordem e Progresso” which is part of the Brazilian flag up to now. Emerging nation states underwent a thorough process of bureaucratization with the purpose of securing national progress, a development that was emulated and transformed well beyond Europe (cf. Meyer et al. 1997) it was a driver – both: positively and negatively – for the conceptualization of many nation states in America. In relation to the construction process, the newly created nation – Balibar and Wallerstein call it “the self-manifestation of the national personality” (Balibar and Wallerstein 1991, 87) – had to design itself as a linking force and determine what was special to the nation. This is, for instance, documented in a country’s constitution and is not imposed by a superior metaphysical power but based on reason, common sense, and rationality of thought. The people living under this constitution become citizens of that nation state. A constitution does not only define an individual’s rights and obligations, but it also outlines the tasks of a state – which in turn marks the institutional expression of a nation. This is symbolized and visualized by established symbols, such as a national flag, national anthem, but also by national history. It hints at the active creation of a nation – a process substantially performed by means of educational practices and content – which, in turn, correlates with a drawing of boundaries to other nations. The specific character of a nation is recognizable by this difference (see Kapuściński 2013) but may also lead to nationalism and its ideological abuse, as was the case with Nazi Germany in the past. At present, trends of renationalization have a similar effect in many countries impacting on international economic and political cooperation processes. Also, and importantly, it must not be forgotten that the concept of “nation” has been an artificial intellectual construction also used for dominance and rulership. While the founding of nations is usually linked to the histories of peoples’ emancipation, it has in many cases entailed the subjugation and displacement of other communities already living

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in a given area, as is evident in the histories of the United States, Canada, and many Latin American states (Geulen 2018, 6). Given the context of discussion of education systems in the Americas in this volume, “national” first of all refers to a given political unit, e.g., a nation state that is in charge of an education system. The nation is the political framework that delineates the individual education systems. Whether or not national aspects – national culture – play a role in a respective country depends among others on the constitution and codified principles and historical traditions of the country. They illustrate how an education system is prepared to raise children and adolescents in terms of becoming future citizens. Balibar and Wallerstein (1991, 94) identify as the crucial question: “What makes the nation a community?” If the national is most of all conceived in cultural and social terms, this rather relates to something Benedict Anderson described as “imagined communities” (Anderson 2016 [1983]). Thus, social practices emerge from people dealing with each other in ways that are specific to the nation; practices determine the social and the practical. The imagined element of the national in Anderson‘s terms is not fictional and unreal but immaterial. It is hidden in the practices respectively it has entered them. As Chong et al. state: “[. . .] this reimagining is being fostered through formal schooling, other public institutions such as museums, galleries and historic sites, and cultural ceremonies and traditions” (Chong et al. 2016, 5). Individuals experience this cultural or social level of the national in their daily lives; they shape it and alter it, and it is also evident in the education system. Interactions of teachers and students are affected by it as well as relationships between parents and children or caregivers and infants or interactions of adolescents and their peers. The social or cultural shape of a nation is revealed in interactions between caregivers and children in kindergarten, in morning rituals at school or in university graduation ceremonies or those held upon obtaining a vocational qualification (Alexander 2000). But the national has also been relevant for education systems in another way. With regard to the rise of international large-scale assessments, the national is being revitalized at an institutional level, from a global perspective – including the alignment of developmental aid being linked to the Millennium Development Goals and since 2015 to the Sustainable Development Goals. The education systems of nation states are competing against each other via test procedures and statistical data, and their respective output is measured in comparison to other countries. Access to financial aid and loans offered by intergovernmental institutions such as the World Bank depends highly on adherence to Development Goals (Spring 2018, 290ff.). Even the simple presentation of outcomes in league tables displays the delimitation of nation states in formal systems (Lawn 2013). Yet, “[. . .] the cultural conditioning of assessment has not received sufficient appreciation”(Alarcon and Lawn 2018, 12). Therefore, the comparison implies that all participating nations are measured by the same yardstick, claiming universal validity and simultaneously pushing back particularities of a nation which might explain different outcomes. Such measures are geared toward a competition that is supposed to improve education systems. However, it is mostly enacted as an economic fight for human resources and resulting growth of value. In such a global assessment context, the

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national represents a certain educational achievement. Against this background, the chapters contribute to a more differentiated view by including insights into the political and philosophical foundations of each system, corroborating an understanding of the genesis of specificities of national education systems. Historical and social contexts of establishment are traced as well as contemporary structures, and education systems are thus definable in terms of their characteristic pathways. These contexts of origin can clarify differences and commonalities across education systems and why they have adopted a particular form.

2.2

Education

Education is a social activity or practice, and its definition is contested and varies across different places and times. For instance, it may be defined with view to the intention of the educators, to the function education has for society, but it may also refer to the effects of education for individuals in terms of knowledge, dispositions, and abilities. Concerning the intentions and aims of education, definitions may draw from a variety of conceptualizations – from classical Greek philosophers to modern educationalists, from concepts such as Plato’s paideia, Dewey’s intrinsic link between democracy and education, to Freire’s concientização – all of which differ substantially in terms of the purpose of education, organization, contents, and methods. In its broadest sense (including the meaning of the German term Bildung–often translated as cultivation), education is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character, or physical ability of an individual (Humboldt 2010 [1792]; see also Masschelein and Ricken 2010). In a narrower sense, education might be associated with specific learning domains or the acquisition of skills and competencies (cf. Rychen and Sagalnik 2003) or of human capital (Becker 2009 [1964]). With reference to the function education has for maintaining society, it is defined as the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills, and values from one generation to another (Durkheim 1938; Parsons 1959). In this sense, education is a social activity, first, in which different kinds of people – be they qualified or not – are involved (e.g., parents, teachers, youth workers, peers), second, that can be institutionalized or not (formal or not), and, third, that is based on processes of learning and methods. Education – in particular: school instruction as the dimension that is focused in this handbook – has been central in the formation of nation states: education “enable[s] the state to some extent to fabricate public consciousness” (Balibar and Wallerstein 1991, 96). A nation needs citizens who do not only incorporate it but take on responsibility in constitutional terms and render societal stability to the state. The education system is thus not only drafted by a nation but also shaped and responsibly maintained by it. The nation thus secures basic literacy skills for each citizen. The increasing development of states and their demands for well-educated citizens lead to rising demands to school education. In more analytical terms, it is useful to discern three types or forms of education: informal, nonformal, and formal. Informal education – whether or not deliberate and

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conscious – occurs outside the structured curriculum of educational settings, usually in everyday life situations and interactions, for instance, in the context of work, family, and leisure; that is, it does not require external support, and it is not institutionalized. In educational processes, thus, education occurs via practical interactions that enable people to actively make use of knowledge and experience to achieve their personal ambitions. Nonformal education is characterized by a deliberate learning activity, which takes place in any organization pursuing educational and training purposes, such as volunteering, civil or social service, and in enterprises. Thus, nonformal education refers to any type of structured and organized learning which is institutionalized, intentional, and planned by an educational provider but which does not lead to a formal level of qualification recognized by the relevant national education authorities. Formal education, in turn, refers to what takes place in the education and training system of a country. It is official, generally compulsory, structured, organized by public organizations, or recognized private institutions, and it culminates with formal certification and formal levels of qualification recognized by relevant national educational authorities. Formal education is usually organized as full-time education, and it is a continuous process with defined stages, encompassing pre-primary, primary, lower and upper secondary education, higher and university education, as well as adult education programs. It is thus little surprising that during the nineteenth century, not only nation states were constituted but also their national education systems. In many cases, the basic original structure has prevailed and was expanded and differentiated over the years, adapting thus to changing societal needs. For example, the range of subjects taught has been expanded from the humanities to natural sciences – and even today, new subjects are being added to the curriculum, such as computer science, foreign languages or social sciences, and teaching of democratic values. Bearing in mind such developments, Christel Adick has written about the “universalization of modern schooling” (Adick 1992, 1992a). Against the common notion that such nineteenth century and later developments are “European” or “Western” in nature, Christel Adick (1992) has called to redress comparative research perspectives by including the history of schooling in non-Western countries. This entails the challenge to encompass a re-evaluation of education and colonialism which leads to the “universalization of modern schooling” (Adick 1992, 251 f). From a comparative perspective, this “universalization” results from the fact that states across the world set up education systems that are more or less structured in the same way (cf. Meyer et al. 1997; Meyer and Ramirez 2003). Indeed, while this particular model of education originated in Western Europe, it was disseminated across the globe (cf. Ramirez and Boli 1987). Joel Spring pointed out an important feature of modern education, namely, that: “[. . .] the Western school model fosters dreams of upward social and economic mobility. Ideally, schools would create meritocracy in which people achieve their place in society through education and hard work in contrast to being given an ascribed social status at birth” (Spring 2020, 283). Accordingly, this school model does not only prevail because it is rationally grounded but because it bears a promise for a better life. Education has in this sense always been tied to the idea that a human being can be someone else. A person will

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no longer be limited to the situation he or she was born into, because they can leave the situation by means of education and effort. People can be educated and educate themselves and acquire qualifications that enable them to obtain an alternative social status to the one assigned at birth (Parsons 1959). Education thus becomes inalienable and tied to the modern subject. In the German tradition which radiated across nineteenth-century Europe and spread out to the American continent, education always entails this aspect. While education usually refers to a formal teaching of certain knowledge domains and skills, the German term “Bildung” (education as cultivation, self-construction, and self-education) calls attention to a certain relationship between the individual and the world or object that is being worked on in a process of appropriation (cf. Masschelein and Ricken 2010). This concept of education calls upon human beings to understand respective knowledge themselves – becoming a different and better person through doing so. Human beings cannot return to a status they were in before acquiring the knowledge. As Walter Benjamin puts it in one of his childhood memories entitled “The Reading Box”: [. . .] I can dream of the way I once learned how to walk. But that doesn’t help. I now know how to walk; there is no more learning to walk” (Benjamin 2002 [1938], 396). In short, while concepts of education are contested and vary substantially, contemporary understandings of the term still resonate the promise of a better life and social mobility. Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that this redemptive feature of education has historically been closely associated with governmental rationalities, or, as aptly phrased by Thomas S. Popkewitz, “the register of freedom became tied to the register of social administration” (1997, 19, Ital. in original). Indeed, in the liberal tradition of the Western hemisphere, education has become part and parcel of governmental infrastructures for social and economic progress (Smith 1976 [1776]; but see also Kosack 2012). In this regard, the OECD falls short of acknowledging this perspective as it indicates that “Skills have become the global currency of twenty-first century economies” in the Trends Shaping Education, published in 2013 (OECD 2013, 11 and 60). At the same time, a focus is placed on what a state’s education system determines as its defining element. Are these the skills necessary for future craftsmanship or profession, is it pedagogical work nurturing individual personalities, or the creation of a national identity by the state via the school system? Regardless of their structure and be they privately funded or public, education systems are therefore always also challenged to determine the purpose and intention why the children and adolescents are supposed to learn something.

2.3

Systems

In terms of understanding “systems” of education, the etymology of the word is useful in hinting at the active and intentional character of designing and setting up a structure for educational practices. Systemic thinking is an interdisciplinary approach to the natural and social sciences that aims to investigate phenomena from a holistic approach. While it can

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be traced to Greek antiquity with Aristotle’s notion of holism, its modern conceptual origins are linked to the nineteenth-century evolution theory of Charles Darwin (1859) and the work of European sociologists Herbert Spencer (1867) and Émile Durkheim (1933). In short, systemic thinking conceptualizes various types of systems that are seen to display numerous features, including (a) complexity as point of departure for system formation, (b) a form of internal networked structures connecting system elements, (c) the interdependence of the parts of a system, (d) the relation of any structure and process in a system to its environment(s), (e) the assumption of equilibrium and continuous (re-)adaptations to environmental demands, and (f) internal self-organization as the principal means of responding to external impulses (cf. Stichweh 2011). In general, systemic thinking shifts attention from parts to the whole and considers the observed reality as integrated and interacting. System has its origins in the Greek term σύστημα and refers to the act of placing and/or arranging something in specific ways (e.g., pillars in a temple, soldiers in the battlefield) (Riedel 1990, 285). In the English language, it has since the seventeenth century referred to a “group or set of related or associated things perceived or thought of as a unity or complex whole” (“system,” in OED Online 2019a). It has been used to denote “an organized scheme or plan of action” and later to elementary practices of arranging and ordering objects and phenomena (ibid.). As such, the word “system” is closely linked to “system” complementary term, structure (from Latin struere ¼ to pile up, assemble, build) (“structure,” in OED Online 2019b), in particular when used in its figurative meaning of an “arrangement and organization of mutually connected and dependent elements in a system or construct” (ibid.). In short, both terms are relational concepts that connote part-whole relationships that form an organized, structured scheme. In contrast to similar contemporary terms in the same semantic field, the word system has been utilized in the social-political language of the nineteenth century to denote order but also to implicate organic and dynamic characteristics (Riedel 1990, 317 f.). That is, system refers to a totality of elements, related, ordered, and structured in a historical development, which builds an organic scheme of action. The historical process of creating “national education systems” for the schooling of the masses also entailed important changes for learning. Learning in planned, ordered, and structured systems underwent different processes of structuration and institutionalization that transformed it in spatial, temporal, symbolic, institutional, and social terms (cf. Herrlitz et al. 1984). Learning in modern, functionally differentiated societies became independent from time and place. In contrast to previous forms of learning in pre-modern societies in which imitation and learning in day-today living, learning in formal settings is detached from immediate experiences of daily life. Children “go to school,” and learning has its separate environment, where learning is happening “now” for “later.” Further, the content of learning is no longer determined by the immediacy of life but is symbolically mediated. This refers to the need of learning in formal school settings to mediate concrete “objects” of reality symbolically by means of systems of signs (letters, numbers, etc.). The subject matters of learning then become passive of planning; they may be directed,

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portioned, and systematized so that learning becomes an independent sphere of social practice. Moreover, the temporal structuring of learning paired with the separation of symbolically mediated subject matter to be taught in a temporal sequence also involved changing the short-term motivation of learning. Other than the immediate temporal motivation of learning of former times, formal schooling requires long-term motivation and a temporal structuring that is characteristic of modern societies with their complex division of labor and which represents it as progress. Learning in formal settings correspondingly involved the development of professional instruction and the institutionalization of teaching roles/functions that are separated from other walks of life. In contrast to a pure orientation toward the student/learner or the accomplishment of a task at hand, formal schooling introduced a double orientation toward the learner on the one hand and toward the institution/ state/nation on the other. In institutional terms, the formal social organization of learning entailed the rationalization and bureaucratization of pedagogical activities, organizing them along a more or less clear labor division and hierarchization in separated organizations that have a clear purpose and aims. Last but not least, learning in formal settings has been further characterized by its legislated compulsory nature of schooling/learning. A further important aspect of the concept refers to political attempts, mainly after the Second World War, to establish, align, and render more effective and efficient education activities in the newly independent former colonies, in the wake of the Cold War competition for cultural hegemony in East and West but also in European countries recovering from war devastation. A key role in popularizing a so-called manpower approach to systematic educational planning was played by international organizations such as the UNESCO (cf. UNESCO/IIEP 1968), the World Bank (Psacharopoulos et al. 1983), and the OECD (and its former organization) (OEEC 1960). The next section provides a brief overview of the structure of the Country Chapters in this handbook.

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Structure of the Country Chapters

While conceptualizing the handbook and looking for authors who are experts in the field, we offered an overarching structure. For the reader, this might serve to prepare comparative studies, because the handbook offers systematic descriptions of the education systems. The similar structure for each contribution facilitates comparative perspectives regarding historical, social, political, and current developments. The chapters in this handbook are organized along three main parts: First, each chapter starts with a description of the historical and social foundations of the education system, as of the foundation of the nation and its education system up until today, including its political, economic, and cultural contexts and conditions. By highlighting important dates and structural decisions, the current education system can be understood as resulting from past developments. Available data deliver the background for a description of the societal condition of the state

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and its people. This part is rounded out with a description of the offered transitions to the labor market and how these are organized. Secondly, an overview is provided of the institutional and organizational principles as well as of the structure of education from pre-primary to tertiary level. A focus lies on the legislative bases and financial provisions for the education system and a description of the structure in terms of the ISCED classification. Furthermore, the supply of human resources such as teachers and other educators is presented here to give a precise picture of the implemented institutional structure of education and the conditions under which education experts act. Finally, thirdly, this part discusses selected educational trends and aspects. In this context, we asked the authors to focus on three topics that are globally of particular interest: dealing with inequality, the implementation of information and communication technology in education settings, and the promotion of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related policies and programs. Here, authors also found a space to discuss other recent developments in their countries in relation to special activities and developments that are important for the country and its current education system. These three parts act as an overarching guideline for the authors, but they also give orientation to the reader. The editors hope that this handbook will be a sufficient and inspiring resource for study and research in the field of a globally connected comparative education community of researchers, students, and practitioners.

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OED Online. (2019a). System. Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/196665? redirectedFrom¼system. Last accessed 18 Mar 2020. OED Online. (2019b). Structure. Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/ 191895?rskey¼X2pzGb&result¼1. Last accessed 18 Mar 2020. OEEC. (1960). Forecasting manpower needs for the age of science. Paris: OEEC Publications. Parsons, T. (1959). The school class as a social system. Some of its functions in American society. Harvard Educational Review, 29, 297–318. Popkewitz, T. S. (1997). A changing terrain of knowledge and power: A social epistemology of educational research. Educational Researcher, 26(9), 18–29. Psacharopoulos, G., Hinchliffe, K., Dougherty, C., & Hollister, R. (1983). Manpower issues in educational investment. A consideration of planning processes and techniques. Washington D. C: The World Bank. Ramirez, F. O., & Boli, J. (1987). The political construction of mass schooling: European origins and worldwide institutionalization. Sociology of Education, 60(1), 2–17. Riedel, M. (1990). System, Struktur. In O. Brunner, W. Conze, & R. Koselleck (Eds.), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland (Vol. 6, pp. 285–322). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. Robertson, S., & Dale, R. (2017). Comparing policies in a globalizing world. Methodological reflections. Educação & Realidade, 42(3), 859–876. https://doi.org/10.1590/2175-623670056. Rychen, D. S., & Salganik, L. H. (2003). Key competencies for a successful life and a wellfunctioning society. Göttingen: Hogrefe. Scott, W. R. (1981). Organizations: Rational, natural, and open systems. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. Scott, W. R., Meyer, J., & Associates. (1994). Institutional environments and organizations. Structural complexity and individualism. Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Smith, A. (1976 [1776]). In C. Edwin (Ed.), An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Spencer, H. (1867). First principles. London: Williams and Norgate. Spring, J. (2018). The American school. From the puritans to the trump era (10th ed.). New York/London: Routledge. Spring, J. (2020). American education (19th ed.). New York & London: Routledge. Stichweh, R. (2011). Systems theory. In B. Badie, D. Berg-Schlosser, & L. Morlino (Eds.), International encyclopedia of political science (Vol. 8, pp. 2580–2582). New York: SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412959636.n597. Tröhler, D., Popkewitz, T., & Labaree, D. F. (Eds.). (2011). Schooling and the making of citizens in the long nineteenth century. Comparative visions. New York & London: Routledge. UNESCO/IIEP. (1968). Manpower aspects of educational planning: Problems for the future. Paris: UNESCO/IIEP.

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Education Systems Between Global Changes and National Orientations Sieglinde Jornitz and Susanne Timm

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The Need to Consider Multiple Perspectives on National Education Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Concepts of “Imagined Communities” and “Positioning” as Factors for a Nation’s Identity in School Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 A Nation’s Identity Challenged by Global Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 France as an Example for the Centralistic Concept of Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Pluralization of Perspectives: Canada and Questioning Concepts of Nations . . . . . . . . 4.3 Nation as a Concept of Multiplicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion: The Nation as a Challenged Element for Education Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Education systems are shaped by the history of the nation they are intended to serve. This chapter discusses how education systems are constructed by either putting the nation center stage or rejecting such a construct altogether. Rather than focusing solely on the system level or on the political level, this chapter also examines the individual level. The systems chosen as examples here are those of France and Canada, as these can be seen as opposed conceptions which exemplify how differently national identities can be constructed in the light of globalized and ongoing changes in citizenship.

S. Jornitz (*) DIPF – Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education, Frankfurt/Main, Germany e-mail: [email protected] S. Timm Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_22

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Keywords

Education systems · Nation-state · Global challenges · Identity · Canada · France

1

Introduction

Education systems have in recent years come under pressure to adapt their national orientation in the face of global transformations. Since the formation of nation-states, education systems have been organized to suit the values of the national states and have had a key role in educating citizens of and for the state (cf. Adick 1992; Wenning 1996). These educated citizens have been conceptualized as a more or less homogeneous entity into which the idea of a “national identity” could be easily integrated (cf. Robertson 2007; Jullien 2017). At present, this conception is facing challenges due to increasing globalization, taking the form of, among others, refugee movements, (labor) migration, and far-reaching transformation of communication through digitalization, all of which are irreversibly destabilizing the concept of a homogeneous nation-state (cf. Wilmers and Jornitz 2021). Consequently, education systems are forced to deal with a more heterogeneous student body, bringing with it a variety of different languages, concepts of family, or cultural rituals, as well as different conceptions of education and teaching. So far, one of the central functions of public education had been the enculturation of young people, their integration into the shared culture and finally the stabilization of the nation-state by education and instruction of its citizens. In this line, Hermann von Holst – a German-American historian – called education already in 1893 “the bed-rock” of a republic or state (cf. von Holst 1893). Considering the changes to the role of national states, we enquire into the position and consequences of public education systems within the former national state as we know it, focusing on the challenges deriving from these changes, and give an outlook on the range of opportunities to act. As public education is still organized mainly at the national level, understanding these systems and making any sort of comparisons between them still requires us to take a look at the nation-state, with all its ambiguity and possibilities. We will approach these issues in the following way: First, an outline of the research in this field will be presented with the intention of offering the reader a possibility to gain deeper insights into the challenges faced by public education systems by providing an overview of the theoretical perspectives and descriptions of empirical constellations. Second, we will examine the formation of a national identity as envisaged by the national state. We focus on education systems as forming a so-called “imagined community” (Anderson 1983/2016). Here, France serves as an example for the idea of forming a national identity through the education system’s (re-)actions and for endeavoring to overcome the challenge within the framework of institutional constellations. Third, we will look at the Canadian public education system to provide not only yet another example but also different perspectives on the conditions of acting. Here, historical conditions and societal developments in the country resulted in concepts of nationhood which differ substantially

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from European ideas of national cohesion and homogeneity. Finally, we will introduce hypotheses concerning the ongoing debate.

2

The Need to Consider Multiple Perspectives on National Education Systems

Considering the inherent intricacies of public education systems and their historical role as an instrument for shaping and reinforcing national identities, there are both arguments which emphasize the decline in the importance of the nation as well as ones that favor a contradicting view. At least four lines of argument need to be taken into account to get a proper picture of the challenges to the structure and even more so the legitimization of national education systems. Regarding theoretical arguments, we must assume worldwide relations in communication, whereby each education system and each school are located within this context of the world society (cf. Luhmann 1971; LangWojtasik 2016). From the perspective of World Polity (cf. Meyer 1980), a convergence of institutional systems is identified, which is based on education systems dealing with similar problematic situations in the light of similar horizons of expectations (cf. Adick 2009). Furthermore, the understanding of education systems has changed as they are thrown into global configurations of competition by international comparisons, such as the PISA study (cf. Höhne 2015). This development is reflected by new paradigms of governance and accountability for all levels (cf. Wilmers and Jornitz 2021). As new international and transnational actors entered the scene (cf. Adick 2008; Münch 2009), the relevance of nation-states as regulating authorities has diminished (cf. Amos 2009). A third aspect which calls for putting the national focus of public education into question is a growing awareness of internal diversity. By now, the idea of a nation held together by internal homogeneity is becoming more and more obsolete. It no longer reflects the overlapping hybrid constellations within the repertoire of identities of persons and groups, not only for reasons of normativity but also in regard to the empirical situation. Last but not least, the expansion of communication networks available to everybody and the growing mobility have revealed the arbitrary character of national borders. Altogether, and in regard to arguments concerning the spread of communication networks, mobility of persons and ideas, and the emergence of transnational actors, education systems can now be seen as ones in a post-national era. In line with these considerations, the conception of a nation school which introduces the nation’s youth to the (desired) culture of that nation, and which replicates this national culture, comes to an end. On the other hand, the end of a nation-state as such does not deliver any specific diagnoses and projections for education systems, and there is therefore no end to a scientific perspective on education systems that are based on nation-states. First of all, this is because the national impetus of the school system can be seen as implicit knowledge which continues to guide the institution. For example, this is brought to

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light in debates on curriculum issues. A second argument comes from the anthropological approach to human existence and experience. The horizons of an individual and their belonging to a group are rooted in their surroundings. Both children and adults need “a tiering” as local or regional belonging. The reference frame cannot be just substituted for another, instead the entanglement of the horizons in the sense of globalization (cf. Robertson 1998) should be taken into account as a condition of living and as a subject of learning for orientation in the world (cf. Lang-Wojtasik and Conrad-Grüner 2018). A further aspect is obvious: Public school systems are organized as entities of the state, most of them of the nation-state. There, the network of actors operates and makes decisions concerning the school system. International or transnational challenges are translated into the specific context, interpreted against the backdrop of the country’s own history. There are many indications that different school systems find different solutions to the same challenges and problems. This can be explained by path dependencies (cf. Streeck and Thelen 2005; Maroy 2009) or different interpretations of the situation according to the backdrop of the country’s own specific history (cf. Schriewer and Caruso 2005). There are scholars who go as far as to claim that the globalization and the spread of the same problems are reflected by a multiplication of local variety (cf. Robertson 1998, 212). Beside trends of comprehensive and transnational progression toward assimilation or at least convergence, different trends can be identified which go in the opposite direction, promoting pluralization between education systems and within them (cf. Schriewer and Caruso 2005, 18f.). The following paragraphs outline and discuss two concepts of identity and their implications for an education system. Benedict Anderson as well as Stuart Hall have posed theories to explain how human practices and behavior create the ground on which the system level is built. These concepts will be exemplified by presenting the rationales of the education systems of France and Canada. These countries were chosen because of their contrasting concepts of nationhood, which are reflected in their education systems.

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Concepts of “Imagined Communities” and “Positioning” as Factors for a Nation’s Identity in School Education

A country’s education system reflects the state on the system level. Adick coined the term “universalization of the modern school” (“Universalisierung der modernen Schule”; Adick 1992), with its focus on the organizational aspect. Taking this perspective, it still remains unexplained how a national education system can retain the idea of forming a national identity. In the following, two concepts are outlined which describe how nation-states and their citizens are connected to each other. The first concept is the one of “imagined communities” put forth by Benedict Anderson (cf. Anderson 2016); the second is the concept of “positioning” by Stuart Hall. As a starting point, the problem can be visualized by referring to a series of photographs by the photographer Julian Germain. In 2012, Germain published a book on classroom portraits that he had shot in different countries between 2004 and

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2012 (cf. Germain 2012). He had travelled not only to Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands, and Peru, but also to Bangladesh, Russia, Yemen, and the USA. Everywhere he went, he asked the class to arrange themselves as a group in front of the camera. Most of the classes remained seated, and some of them stood or arranged themselves freely. The photos show not only students dressed in their school uniforms or without uniform; we also see the classroom itself, the shape of chairs, tables, and blackboards or the absence of such furniture. Taking a closer look at the pictures, we cannot help but notice their differences and may try to guess where the students come from, of which nationality they are, or in which state they go to school. To answer such questions, we must look for hints and evidence in the visual representation of the students. The photographs lead us to the matter of meaning in regard to questions such as what does the color of a pupil’s skin or the arrangement of the classroom tell us, what do the differences mean besides their objective quality and composition. The idea of national idiosyncratic classrooms that can be distinguished from each other corresponds to an underlying hypothesis that Julian Germain brings to the forefront by visual artwork. He might have decided to include only those classes in the project that reflect a more or less homogeneous group of students, though at this point it is impossible to know if this homogeneity is produced by the students themselves or by additional arrangements such as uniforms or classroom structure. Germain visually guides us to the perception of classifications that are directed to questions of national identity. In his influential study first published in 1983, Benedict Anderson described communication processes and the creation of a sense of belonging within nationstates (cf. Anderson 2016). For Anderson, building a nation is connected to the fact of building a community. He characterizes this community as an “imagined” one because most of the people who belong to that specific community never meet or get to know each other personally, they stay – we would say today – virtually in contact. Communicative networks, such as the press, (digital) media, or the establishment of a common history, are the elements which help form this sense of belonging. Anderson argues in favor of distinguishing communities “by the style in which they are imagined” (Anderson 2016, 6). As an imagined construct, the formation of a nation as community becomes fluid and open to (re-)interpretations, for imagined communities. From this perspective, nations work as machines of integration, and for Anderson “nation-ness is the most universally legitimate value in the political life” (Anderson 2016, 3). Using several examples of imagined communities, Anderson emphasizes how their creation depended on elements such as media and travel, both bringing people who are separated by physical distance together and offering them an opportunity not only to connect, but also to relate to the same stories, rituals, and values as much as a common language and shared experiences. Although Anderson focuses on a broad range of communication networks, he does not explicitly mention the education or school system itself as one of the drivers or creators of identity or belonging, though it could be easily added as one of the cornerstones of an imagined community of a nation.

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Stuart Hall offers a deeper insight into such processes. In his Du Bois lectures – held at Harvard University in 1994 and only first published in 2017 – Hall explains how concepts such as race, ethnicity, and nation “work discursively” (Hall 2017, 43). Despite the lack of a scientific argument that supports the existence of something like a biological or genetic basis for race, ethnicity, or nation, it is an indisputable fact that people still believe in these concepts as natural categories. This is possible because we as humans look for and see differences – in the most literal sense like the photographs of the classrooms taken by Julian Germain. We only “have to use the evidence of our own eyes to see the inscription of racial difference in the skin color, hair, and bones – in the physiology, morphology, and melanin composition” (Hall 2017, 45). Seeing is believing while evidence is right at hand. The visible elements seem intellectually linked to a “natural meaning” of objects, but that is a logical fallacy, a wrong conclusion. These visual elements do not convey any real meaning besides their shape, color, or structure. It is we who give them meaning, not the object itself. The meaning is the element that is essential, which is historically and socially constructed, but it is not a given or objective fact such as the color of hair or sex. Drawing on Ferdinand de Saussure’s linguistic theory, Hall argues that each concept and term works “like a sliding signifier” (Hall 2017, 45). This signifier denotes “not genetically established facts but the systems of meaning that have come to be fixed in the classifications of culture” (Hall 2017, 45). Language is the transportation and codification system for meaning, and it has an impact on the actions and thoughts of people, leading Hall to conclude that these classifications of meaning “have real effects” (Hall 2017, 45). We mark differences by using language. Judith Butler states that a “delimitation, which often is enacted as an untheorized presupposition in any act of description, marks a boundary that includes and excludes, that decides, as it were, what will and will not be the stuff of the object to which we then refer” (Butler 1993, 11). Having this concept of meaning as a “sliding signifier” in mind, Hall defines language, values, and beliefs, as well as customs, rituals, and traditions as “signifiers of cultural difference” (Hall 2017, 126). For him, they are the constituting elements of identification with the place where a person lives. From this perspective, there is no question of having an identity, but of establishing and working on a process of identification in the sense of “taking up positions of identity” (Hall 2017, 127). As a process, it is an ongoing work on oneself; it is not a fixed set of elements that could be taught and will stay unchanged but is shaped and transformed continually. The need for identification is connected to the matter of belonging to a place and/or a group of people and global migration processes – motivated by various reasons – which intensify and reinforce the production of such “new points of identification” (Hall 2017, 117). Similar to Anderson, Hall does not refer to the education system itself, yet it is easy to see how his concept of positioning is related to it. For every child and adolescent, regardless of migration experiences, schools become the key societal institution that affects the individual’s positioning in society (cf. Parsons 1959). Many countries and cultures assign social positioning according to educational

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achievement and educational qualifications, giving the education system a prominent role in an individual succeeding and in offering a place where identification can be developed, because “identity is not a matter of essence but of positioning” (Hall 2017, 130). For schools, this means that they must work with the students’ diverse cultural backgrounds in terms of language, values, and traditions as something that is to be transformed to the language, values, and traditions of the country students live in – not in a simple process of assimilation, but in a way of transformation that keeps former experiences while adding the new ones. At the same time, these processes might change the image we have of the people that form the nation-states and their culture, because not only newly arrived citizens are expected to transform their cultural beliefs, but also the “old citizens” are made to face new challenges. Their own identities are no longer perceived as being stable and timeless, but as questionable and changeable. Their identification and positioning lose ground and lead in some cases to fear and rejection of those they make responsible for the changes in society. This is in no small part because “globalization powerfully fractures the temporal and spatial coordination of the systems of representation for cultural identity and imagined community” (Hall 2017, 109). Some might feel they are losing their identity, but others develop “new kinds of local identifications, new forms of symbolic attachments to the connotations of place and cultural specificity, and new discursive formations of the traditional” (Hall 2017, 115). The education system can thus be seen as being at the center of these social processes as an institution intended to accompany these different and diverse ways of becoming part of the specific society of the nation-state. It has the duty to offer possibilities of identification in a sense of positioning oneself in society. From this perspective, nations become not only a political entity that awards the legal status of citizenship, but much more importantly they also produce meaning and construct identification processes for children and adults (cf. Hall 2017, 137). The nation serves “as a container for the shared experiences” (Hall 2017, 138) and should be seen as an amalgamation of diverse and transformative experiences.

4

A Nation’s Identity Challenged by Global Processes

In the history of nation-building, the discussion of a nation’s identity has always been interwoven with the topics of migration and immigration processes. Wimmer and Schiller (2003) outline how most Western hemisphere countries transformed from an agricultural to an industrialized society since the end of the nineteenth century and how this process was accompanied by diverse forms of colonialization and labor migration worldwide. Nation-states took it upon themselves to organize these movements and came up with passport and visa systems that suited the market. Globalization means at least the movement of goods, money, information, and people and leads to a reduced relevance of borders; nation-states and people draw closer:

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Migration processes for their part have become a global phenomenon and lead directly to questions of identity and culture, also in education systems. To outline how these developments lead to different conceptions of education systems, France’s and Canada’s education systems are juxtaposed as two contrary conceptions. While France offers the young generation the possibility to link themselves to the historical values of the nation, Canada acts in a pluralism-driven approach that is linked to a multicultural and multifaceted understanding of nation.

4.1

France as an Example for the Centralistic Concept of Nation

Within the different approaches to building a nation and to forming it by a national education system (cf. Ulich 1967), France can be seen as a model for placing education center stage in the formation of a national identity. France serves as an example for a nation that relied strongly on education in its nation-building efforts and continues to do so – although this is challenged and questioned by the specific factors of its own immigration policy. In this regard, France imagined its community as offering integration by national education as the key element of the nation-state and its self-concept. The following three aspects show the main arguments put forth by France to justify the systems and how the state reacts to societal processes: (a) historical cornerstones shape the French understanding of education; (b) the exclusion of religion and the importance of secularism for the education system; and (c) civic education as a predominant subject in schools.

4.1.1 France’s Historical Cornerstones in Education Conceptualized as a republic, France’s founding principles, hailing back to the ideas that guided the French Revolution in 1789 – Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité – form the basis for the understanding of French society in general and the education system in particular. The slogan of the Revolution echoes the fight for equal rights for every human being regardless of his or her station in society, color, faith, or any other attribute, accompanied by the idea of individual freedom and solidarity with humankind. These ideas were the main points of departure for the conception of the national education system at the end of the nineteenth century. At the beginning of the Third Republic (1870–1940), France established secular, compulsory, and free school education “as a founding principle in the development of citizenship” (Proeschel 2017, 64). After the defeat in the French-German War in 1870/71, “the founders of the new republic wanted to create a system of compulsory education able to integrate all children in France (even Basques and Bretons) in love of the unique French

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fatherland” (Hörner 2008, 263). The creation of a national education system was meant as an act of unifying the people and giving them back a sense of self-esteem as a nation after a war. The nation was accordingly meant to fill in the gap and to provide something to be proud of. Therefore, a “common school for all” (Hörner and Many 2015, 270) was brought into existence. After 200 years, in 1989, the French government reinforced this credo by passing an Education Act on July 14th which defined education as a “first national priority” (Hörner 2008, 265). Education was placed at the top of the political agenda and functions as Stuart Halls’ “sliding signifier” to build up an “imagined community” (Anderson). The Education Act defined the target of enabling 80% of students to enter the last grade of upper secondary education by the end of the twentieth century, and acquire the right to pass the baccalaureate examination (ibid.). Both were reaffirmed in 2005 and 2013, while the “Orientation Act” in 2013 calls on “respect for the values of the Republic.” All of these political acts, as well as the public debates on curricular reforms or the discussions on the national final examination and the topics that were chosen, mirror and underline not only the great importance of the school system for French society (cf. Hörner and Many 2015), but they also reflect the orientation to the highest level of education (cf. Waterkamp 2012) and produce a fundamental tension between the principle of egalitarian mass schooling and the forming of elites by school achievement (cf. Hörner 2008, 265; Eribon 2016; Louis 2014). This conception puts the education system center stage of the political reality in the country to create a space of identification with the nation and build an imagined community where children and adolescents can develop their positioning to the prevailing rules and values. Here, teachers are key actors in fostering integration and take responsibility for positioning and identification in line with national principles (cf. Flitner 2009). This is clearly illustrated by the role of the school principal. Principals are representatives of the Ministry of Education and are therefore responsible for the execution of central orders.

4.1.2 The Exclusion of Religion and the Importance of Secularism The central aim of such a national education system was to instill loyalty to the nation and its values of enlightenment. The alignment of education to the founding principles of the Republic was accompanied by a simultaneous removal of the influence of the Catholic Church from the system. Instead of the church, the nation itself – following the principle of secularization – fills the void. In the pursuit of an egalitarian approach, clericalism loses its power on both levels, the individual as well as the societal (cf. Hörner and Many 2015). In contrast to other European countries which still align their moral principles with those of the churches (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, or other), France chose new moral foundations and established what they call “laïcité,” the total separation of church and state. Therefore, French schools “had an imminent anti-clerical character” (cf. Hörner 2008, 263; Flitner and van Zanten 2009). The moral code that was formerly shaped and disseminated by the church was transferred to the education system (cf. Hörner 2008; Hörner and Many 2015; Proeschel 2017).

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At the same time, the principle of laicité was conceptualized “as a tool of integration into the Republic and the nation [. . . and] has faced social changes and new challenges which have had an impact on the institution of schooling and its civic and integrating mission” (Proeschel 2017, 65; cf. Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale 2015c). From the beginning, school was meant not only as a secular institution, but also one that offers education for every child regardless of social status and cultural background: Schooling was meant for everybody. Lately, ethnical conflicts have been intensifying in France despite a steady number of arrivals of immigrants (cf. Hörner and Many 2015, 272). It seems that the principle of egalitarianism, which calls for an equal treatment of all persons regardless of their ethnic or religious specificities, is “no longer a sufficiently effective tool in the fight against discrimination and the struggle for social and economic integration” (Proeschel 2017, 65). The lack of identity – or “homelessness” – that is felt by many immigrants who have lived in France for a long time or were born there, and the diversity of religious traditions have become more and more visible and salient, bringing along a religious influence on French society. A lot of these students are among the ones who fail to reach the educational targets. This process became evident as the conflict concerning the Islamic headscarf surfaced between 1989 and 2004. This visible sign of religious faith became a signifier of an anti-Republican movement that provoked or at least challenged the self-concept of the French Republic. The right to self-expression enshrined in French legislation includes the freedom of religion, but in an education system that follows the guiding principle of laicité, the visible headscarf was not only seen as an item of clothing but also as a sign for a religious belief, and therefore an item that was to be banned from school premises. The societal conflict finally ended with the enactment of a law forbidding the wearing of religious head coverages in education institutions published and agreed in 2004. The development was also accompanied by another ongoing debate since the 1980s about a “secular approach to teaching religion in view of addressing the students’ insufficient knowledge of religions” (Proeschel 2017, 66). This second debate resulted in religion being included in school curricula in around 2000, taught within an interdisciplinary subject in order to not challenge or detract from the secular foundations of the school system. The religiously founded moral education was replaced by moral and civic education in school.

4.1.3 Civic Education as a Predominant Subject in Schools From the beginning, civic education or citizenship education was part of the curricula of French schools. In a comparison of European countries, the French curriculum was the one that provided for both the earliest and the most enduring citizenship education (Eurydice 2017). The topic of citizenship permeates students’ entire school educational careers and is part of a humanistic education, being one of the seven compulsory subjects (cf. Hörner and Many 2015, 281). The effectiveness of these efforts at citizenship education, however, was criticized at least following the terror attacks on the satirical French magazine “Charlie Hebdo” in 2015, when students sympathized publicly with the terrorists and boycotted

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commemoration events. These educational developments were broadly discussed in French society, and it seemed that the basic values of the Republic became destabilized. In consequence, the French government launched an extensive education program for schools called “the great mobilization of schools for the values of the republic” (Grande Mobilisation de l’Ecole pour les Valeurs de la République), announced by the Minister of Education Najat Vallaud Belkcacem in January 2015 shortly after the attacks. The proclaimed initiative stated effectively: Schools are an indicator of the tensions that cut across French society and the inequalities that characterise it. The breakdown of social bonds during thirty years of economic crisis has not left schools unaffected. [. . .] After the terror attacks that targeted the core values of the Republic, mobilisation of the French people poses demands on all of society, particularly schools; a vital part of their role and place in the Republic is to promote and disseminate secularism. [. . .] Schools are an indivisible part of the Republic. They must remain so. (Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale 2015b, 4; translation taken from Busch and Morys 2016, 48)

The French Minister emphasized the need to uphold and continue to believe in the founding principles of the Republic and the education system. Both are connected and indivisible. Still, the central task of the schools is seen in educating children to become citizens that could fully represent and live the values of the Republic. The most obvious manifestation of this national education initiative was the creation of a new school subject for primary and secondary education called moral and civic education (enseignement morale et civique – EMC) that has been planned since 2013 (cf. Busch and Morys 2016, 48). The most interesting aspect is not that the government decided to promote and introduce a new school subject explicitly dedicated to moral education, considering that the French system had that already. The astonishing part is rather the reasoning for and the exemplification of the school subject. The EMC outlines: The aim of these classes is to transmit and spread the values of the Republic that are accepted by everyone, whatever their convictions, beliefs or personal life choices. [. . .] These classes require that teachers have an understanding yet firm attitude. Listening to everyone, they encourage independence, a critical attitude and cooperation. They are careful to avoid any discrimination or lack of respect among pupils. [. . .] Developing moral and civic tendencies means developing a tendency to reason, to take into account the other person’s point of view and to act. (Ministère de l’Education National 2015a; translation taken from Busch and Morys 2016, 49)

To focus on social relations and actions rather than topics and teaching content gives the impression that these principles are not central or guiding for teaching and learning in schools in general. It seems that the implementation of the new subject seeks to create a shift in the teacher-student relationship. Not the memorizing of texts such as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, but reasoning by discussing topics, respecting each other’s arguments, and finding compromises are listed here as guiding pedagogical principles. The subject is thus seen in terms of practicing an active participation in a democratic state.

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Notwithstanding the implementation of the new subject and the training of teachers and volunteers, the general framework of school education has remained the same. The implementation of the subject was accompanied by a discussion in French society on its effects, or lack thereof. Some teachers called the subject “completely artificial” (cf. Busch and Morys 2016, 52). To conclude, France’s idea of forming a sense of national belonging in its younger generation through the education system remains the guiding principle of the nationstate. It is tied to the egalitarian and secular idea of integrating every child and citizen into the state regardless of cultural boundaries. Within the school system, citizenship education is seen as the central place where the values of the Republic should be mediated. But as an offer for positioning and becoming a member of the imagined community, the school system is still finding it hard to meet its own targets. In comparison to the centralistic approach of the French education system that aims to integrate all students regardless of their cultural boundaries, language experiences, and religious traditions by teaching a fixed set of values, Canada has geared its education system toward the multicultural approach.

4.2

Pluralization of Perspectives: Canada and Questioning Concepts of Nations

The various theories and scientific debates by themselves already raise serious doubts regarding the prudence of drawing on the concept of nationality while shaping, constructing, and comparing education systems. A cursory look at the actual situation only serves to strengthen these doubts about the viability of concepts of “nations.” These concepts are firmly rooted in European history, with a tradition of designing nation, territory, society, and cultural homogeneity as congruent or at least interwoven. Canada’s way of dealing with nationality in the context of education systems further strengthens arguments not to trust the perspective of nationality, or to at least reflect on the inadequacy of terms and concepts which were developed in different historical settings. Second, the pressure under which the education systems operate (and are reformed) exerted by processes such as globalization must be differentiated in terms of consequences, as the nation-building functions are formed in many ways, different historical situations, periods, and political frameworks. To put this briefly, even if the global impulses seem to be similar, they encounter different situations. In this regard, Canada can serve as an example for a country with an educational system not born of the state-nation-educationidentification complex in its history.

4.3

Nation as a Concept of Multiplicity

The example of Canada serves to provide insight into different areas of conflicts and different ways of problem identification as well as different solutions concerning the integration of young people into society. Four aspects are emphasized to outline the

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characteristics of the Canadian pathway regarding the state-nation-education-identification complex: the common governing structure of the educational system (a), the interlocking yet conflict-prone relationship between the two “founding nations” (b), the parallel struggles of First Nations (c), and finally the decision to define multiculturalism as a constitutional objective (d).

4.3.1

The Governing Structure of the Canadian Education Systems: No Nation on the Pathway The Canadian education system can generally be characterized as being decentralized both against the historical background and with regard to the contemporary structure of decision-making (## referring to the chapters of Canada). Historically speaking, it was not uncommon for churches to represent the local center of power. The different denominational communities set up school-governing entities, aiming at integrating the younger generation into society just as in the sense of integrating into religion. The focus was placed on the issue of Catholic or Protestant denominations rather than a secular idea of nationalism. For example, the province of Quebec appointed its first minister for education in 1964; until then the churches had been in charge of deciding on educational issues. Regarding structural patterns, the most powerful authority is located at the level of the provinces and territories, while at the federal state level, agreements are made which are seen as declarations of intent with no legally binding effect, even if the Council of Ministers of Education Canada (CEMC) acts mostly in consent. This intergovernmental body, founded in 1967, serves a double function: (1) to harmonize the decisions made on the province level, especially with regard to solving general problems, and (2) to operate on the international stage and represent or transfer Canada’s international education interests (cf. D’Arrisso and Lessard 2008). Within the provinces themselves, not only the regional but also local bodies are influential, i. e., the school boards, whereby decisional power is split between these local entities and the provincial government. School boards are established and elected by local citizens and are historically the founders of schools. Local people took on the initiative for their schools, creating a system which, as a whole, functioned in a bottom-up way, and even today the local orientations, interests, and aims affect the organization of schools, the subject matter, and its school-wide focus. In summary, the Canadian education system is shaped by a prevailing understanding of communal responsibility which guides the formation of schooling (cf. Lessard and Brassard 2005). As a consequence, the decisions of the provincial governments regarding schooling are always discussed against the background of the distribution of power. An additional aspect within the structure of schooling shows a special approach in the context of integrating young people into society. As in the USA, the provinces of Canada do not have legal regulations for compulsory school attendance, but rather compulsory education. This function could be fulfilled by parents, religious communities, or private microschooling units – the young people only need to pass public examinations. These regulations could never be reconciled with the idea of integration into a national identity, which did not exist as a concept for society. Canadian sovereignty did not begin until 1931 – one reason for pathways diverging

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from a European nationally orientated thinking within schooling. Only in the 1960s did the idea emerge of a nation-building function in education. At the time, a new liberal government strove to create the Canadian nation: It chose a flag (1965), presented Canada at the international scene (to mark some particularly prominent examples: hosting of the Universal and International Exhibition (Expo) in 1967 in Montreal and the 1976 Summer Olympic Games in Montreal). During this period, the government of Canada tried to gain more control on education by supporting provincial funding. The emphasis was on modernization and, given the new orientation pursued by the government, this reconstruction of society was to address Canada as a whole.

4.3.2 Two Founding Nations The efforts to unify Canada, undertaken by the central Canadian government in the 1960s, brought further interests into the arena, those of the “founding nations.” The French had accounted for the first group of European settlers resp. conquerors, who had arrived during the sixteenth century. In the eighteenth century, the French settlers in the territory lost political power to an administration under the British Crown and English-speaking settlers, and even today the history of Québec is seen as a story of conquest (cf. Arbour 2015). This was a constant bone of contention between the two “founding nations.” The resultant set of arguments is reflected by each systemic and content-related educational debate. Arguments have, for example, focused on teaching language and bilingualism, schooling of minorities (e.g., the role of French in predominantly English-speaking provinces) and the responsibility for them, tailoring of school districts and respective criteria, and finally curricular contents (cf. Anderson 2000). While the federal level of Canadian government maintains a concept which is based on ideas of an integration of both groups, the French in particular perceive themselves as a group in its own right with a distinct national identity. The Francophone Canadians represent a minority compared to the Anglophones, and respond to this historical “insult” by means of distinction, which quite often goes along with separatist aspirations against Canada or the Canadian government. This is linked to the rise of the “Quiet Revolution” in the 1960s, when the French majority in Quebec rose against the English-British elite, reflecting a mixture of modernization, secularization, and nationalization interests which opposed Anglophone power and ended in the creation of a Quebec nation (cf. Juteau 2002). This development became significant through the denomination of the Quebec provincial government as “Québec National Assembly.” Titley states: “As Roman Catholicism lost its symbolic importance in Québec life, the French language assumed even greater significance as an emblem of identity” (Titley 1982, 53). The government and the population chose a hymn, decided to rename the provincial parliament into “national assembly,” and had referendums on a separation of Canada. Finally, the status as a nation was recognized by the Canadian parliament in 2006. The impact on schooling was subject to decisions on languages of instruction, and perspectives of teaching history and literature. Until today, discussions involving different perspectives have nearly always led to similar solutions: “In Québec the discussion of standards and a core curriculum are intimately tied to the issues of French language and culture” (Chan et al. 2007). One issue of importance for

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steering students’ integration into Francophone society has been the regulation of access to English. While Canada has two official languages, the French province of Quebec accepts one official language only, and only French is defined as the language of instruction, nearly without exception. Not long ago, students in Quebec did not learn enough English to achieve free mobility within the bilingual Canadian state. Yet, this ongoing rivalry between French and English groups of interest shows a bias: The discussion neglects the fact that these two language groups represent only a certain share of the Canadian population. Further, European groups of immigrants are also relevant, as are people from the Middle East, Pacific regions, and currently from Asia and – of course the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis.

4.3.3 Indigenous People Canada’s indigenous people comprise three distinct groups of people. First Nation people are spread across the south and in the boreal zone. Inuit live in the northern and subarctic or arctic parts of Canada, and Métis are recognized as an ethnicity and include descendants of early fur traders and First Nation women. Semantically, the term “First Nations” was first used in 1982 in a resolution on the constitutional rights of indigenous people. It is a self-imposed term and currently very common in Canada, but it remains a semantic anomaly as the use of “nation” is disconnected from a recognition as a nation. Canadian First Nations are still treated as a minority in law. The education of indigenous people constitutes one of the darkest chapters in Canadian history. This began in 1867 following the Constitution Act, culminating in a peek of more than 80 residential schools in the 1930s – the last institution was closed in the 1980s. Even in the cases where churches were given responsibility for these schools, they were often found to be used by the Canadian state as a key instrument for the devastation of the culture of indigenous people. Children were forced into residential schools far away from home and their own social and cultural environment. The official aim was to integrate indigenous people into the Canadian society, be it by conversion to Christianity or by being trained for employment at industrial schools. Instead, the covert aim was to cut the children’s cultural affiliations and to disconnect them from their family backgrounds. The impact of the system was felt not only by the children who attended schools but by the families and communities that were deprived of their children and had to subsequently cope with children who returned. In that sense, communities, parents and, indeed, children later born to former students of the residential schools were all ‘enrolled’. (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Canada 2012, 370)

Until today, the discursive negotiations on remembrance, recognition, and exculpation continue and show the importance of cultural belonging. In Canada, these issues are linked to aspects of inclusion and exclusion, and even more to the balance of power among groups within the state, as opposed to the idea of citizenship of one state as a conglomerate of ethnically homogeneous communities. One success of the legal debates over decency is that people may decide on their own over their national affiliation, which leads to a demographic growth by self-identification, for example, as belonging to an indigenous people. This discourse is also affected by circulating

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ideas such as postcolonialism, which can be seen at first as a foundation for the description of the internal context of Canadian society, rather than putting them in relation to people far away or coming from different contexts (cf. Binda and Lall 2013). At least within the territories, which have a different legal status than the provinces, the education system is governed by local authorities of indigenous people. This organizational structure came into effect in 1978 when the first school board of indigenous people started its work, the Kativik School Board (cf. VickWestgate 2002). These institutions consider it their mission to preserve nationhood and their own culture. Questions of recognition seemed to be well on the way, not only with regard to communities and territories but also to indigenous students as a minority within Canadian schools. Today, awareness is growing and curricula are being adopted to include narratives, language, and elements of values from the culture of indigenous peoples also in areas outside territories in places where indigenous students represent considerable proportions of a school population, though new challenges have emerged regarding equity. Among other issues, they are related to the use of mother tongues and a probable limiting effect on results.

4.3.4 Multiculturalism in Canada While in 1963 the Canadian Prime Minister Leser B. Pearson established a Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism to find agreements between the two “founding nations,” more and more ethnic groups came forward and objected to being allocated to one of the two groups. In 1971, multicultural policies were introduced at the federal level. Following some provincial regulations, the development of policies culminated in the inclusion of multiculturalism into the Canadian Constitution in 1983 and the adoption of the Multiculturalism Act in 1988. Guo and Wong summarize the key objectives of the policy as: 1) to assist cultural groups to retain and foster their identity; 2) to assist cultural groups to overcome barriers to their full participation in Canadian society; 3) to promote exchanges amongst cultural groups; and 4) to assist immigrants to learn an official language. (Guo and Wong 2015, 3)

While the impact of this policy and its politics are changing over time (cf. Ghosh 2010, 265), it is obvious that the societal framework for nationhood, belonging, and identity was orientated toward citizenship, not toward ethnic-national unity. The consequences for schools and education have been a position of more and more neutrality against cultural diversity and belonging, at least theoretically.

5

Conclusion: The Nation as a Challenged Element for Education Systems

The challenges brought by global processes affect more than only the two examples of France and Canada. All education systems are facing these challenges, showing varying degrees of preparedness in their concepts of integrating the next generation

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into their societal structures and institutions. But besides the necessity to reflect on how the system level has an impact on the action level, the question arises as to whether education systems are able to offer enough encouraging perspectives for all students to become an active and responsible citizen of the nation-state. This further raises the central question of how to face the dilemmatic relationship between nation as a tool for the organization of educational systems and its ideological impact on the identification of young people. Looking at Canada and France, it is easy to see that the way in which these countries deal with nationhood and identity in the context of schools differs. These are only two examples, and an examination of further examples will in all certainty show more variations. While Canada offers a configuration of multiplied structures of belongings, France sets the idea of one nation as a shared, ultimate entity for identification. From the formation of the first Republic, France has made education a pivotal component of its political system, considering it a “national priority.” As a national education system, it is steeped in the egalitarian and secular ideals that are constitutive for the nation-state itself. Education takes a central role in the conception of a national identity. France retains the idea of forming that identity by teaching the values of the French Republic that should be accepted by everybody. But for immigrant students or those with diverse cultural backgrounds, this can be seen not only as an invitation to become part of French society and a “full member” in the sense of a full-fledged citizen, but also a demand or an obligation to do so. The French education system in its political conception pays little attention to the fact that society itself is changing as the diversity of students increases. Under changing circumstances, each nation is challenged to reinterpret its foundations. They are in Stuart Hall’s sense “sliding signifiers.” In this regard, the French education system is struggling to integrate into its founding principles other views or other ways of connecting to them. The changes in the curriculum and attempts to include more interactive and discursive teaching methods might be seen as a sign of change and of giving room within the classrooms not only for the teacher’s perspective but also for students’ different and various perspectives, reflecting the need for integration. In this regard, the real fulfilment of its founding principle will be the building of a secular and egalitarian nation. In a completely different vein than France, Canada shows varying levels of belonging. They result in a framework which offers choice for identification to the individual. Graduation of choice has differed over time, and for decades, choice was made by the authorities rather than being a matter of individual choice for the personal position and identity. On the other hand, Canada never had one national identity, whereas the multiplicity of different seminational constellations changed over time. As the question of national identity has always been situated in a multilayered environment, a unidirectional answer has never been possible. While the constellation of different layers claiming the status of nations seems to be problematic and to hinder productive developments, Canada can be seen as a role model in managing just this sort of situation. Across all strata of difference, we can find broad agreement on states of multiple belonging:

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belonging to a school area, to an ethnic group, to a nation-like province, to Canada, and to the globalized world. The question only remains how these different layers within the offered multiplied identity are positioned against one another or even overlap. With respect to integration of the younger generation into society, enculturation as a function of the school system has no connotation of integration into one nation, but into an open and positive mindset toward cultural diversity and multiplicity. Apart from the examples of France and Canada, finding possibilities for acting within these dilemmatic frames requires taking additional issues into account. We therefore shift the perspective from the education system to its representatives in interaction with young people, to the teachers. It is their task to provide possibilities of orientation and to open space for identity-building in various ways. As recent research has shown, though, at least teacher students show narrow corridors of belonging (cf. Costa et al. 2018; Timm 2021; Timm and Scheunpflug 2020). Respectively, teacher education would benefit from opening up meanings, enabling prospective teachers to question the habitus and to promote a reflective attitude toward their own position, belonging, and elements of identity. Scholars propose the goal of meta-reflection within teacher education (cf. Cramer et al. 2019), and others emphasize cultural sensitivity as a professional requirement in general (cf. Sander 2014). The challenge can be described as the need for a “professional habitus” which encompasses the implicit routines of the individual’s own socialization (cf. Helsper 2018). In reflecting and analyzing teaching routines (cf. Gruschka 2009; Alexander 2000), the way of addressing students is relevant in terms of how they are positioned in the hierarchy of the classroom (cf. Rabenstein and Reh 2013). In this perspective, students get a notion of their belonging to society itself and disconnect from it in some cases. In raising awareness of these fluid actions and underlying meanings, studies on teacher education prove helpful for teachers to work in coaching or supervised groups (cf. Reusser et al. 2014; Leser and Jornitz 2019). In the end, the school systems’ function of enculturation has not disappeared, but the change has rather taken place in relation to the mode of enculturation and the ideal of society which would provide a background for enculturation. One of the most significant changes is that society’s own foundations are no longer perceived as being stable and timeless, but as questionable and changeable. Identification and positioning lose ground and lead in some cases to fear and rejection of those people whom the country’s general population make responsible for the changes in society. The education system is forced to deal not only with changing modes of enculturation, but also to adapt them and to include the new forms of expressing identity. From this perspective, not only the students are expected to learn and represent the nation, but also the nation needs to change to allow students to connect to it. For this reason, the teaching staff as human representatives of the education system should be prepared to work on the future of an open and inclusive society.

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Parsons, T. (1959). The school class as a social system. Some of its functions in American society. Harvard Educational Review, 29(4), 297–318. Proeschel, C. (2017). Commentaire: “Mobilising for the values of the republic” – France’s education policy response to the “fragmented society”: A commented press review. Journal of Social Science Education, 15(4), 64–66. Rabenstein, K., & Reh, S. (2013). Von „Kreativen“, „Langsamen“ und „Hilfebdürftigen“. Zur Untersuchung von Subjektpositionen im geöffneten Schulunterricht. In F. Dietrich, M. Heinrich, & N. Thieme (Eds.), Bildungsgerechtigkeit jenseits von Chancengerechtigkeit. Theoretische und empirische Ergänzungen und Alternativen zu PISA (pp. 239–257). Wiesbaden: Springer. Reusser, K., Pauli, C., Brühweiler, C., Heitzmann, A., Niggli, A., tettenborn, A., & Tremp, P. (2014). Beiträge zur Lehrerinnen- und Lehrerbildung: Schwerpunkt: Fallarbeit/Kasuistik in der Lehrerinnen- und Lehrerbildung, 32(1), 6–88. Robertson, R. (1998). Glokalisierung: Homogenität und Heterogenität in Raum und Zeit. In U. Beck (Ed.), Perspektiven der Weltgesellschaft (pp. 192–220). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Robertson, S. (2007). Globalisation, rescaling National Education Systems and citizenship regimes. Bristol: Centre for Globalisation, Education and Societies, University of Bristol. Available at https://susanleerobertson.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/2007-roth-rescaling-citizen ship.pdf Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Canada. (2012). Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples: Truth and reconciliation. Winnipeg: Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Canada. Sander, T. (Ed.). (2014). Habitussensibilität. Eine neue Anforderung an professionelles Handeln. Wiesbaden: Springer. Schriewer, J., & Caruso, M. (2005). Globale Diffusionsdynamik und kontextspezifische Aneignung: Konzepte und Ansätze historischer Internationalisierungsforschung. Comparativ, 15(1), 7–30. Streeck, W., & Thelen, K. (2005). Introduction: Institutional change in advanced political economies. In W. Streeck & K. Thelen (Eds.), Beyond continuity. Institutional change in advanced political economies (pp. 1–39). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Timm, S. (2021). Kulturelle Dimensionen des professionellen Handelns – eine empirische Rekonstruktion der Orientierungen von Lehramtsstudierenden. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, Available at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11618-021-00990-0. Timm, S., & Scheunpflug, A. (2020). Professionsbezogene Orientierungen von Lehramtsstudierenden im kulturellen Feld. Empirische Einblicke und Konsequenzen für die Lehrkräftebildung. In S. Timm, J. Costa, C. Kühn, & A. Scheunpflug (Eds.), Kulturelle Bildung. Theoretische Perspektiven, methodologische Herausforderungen, empirische Befunde (pp. 147–162). Münster: Waxmann. Available at https://www.waxmann.com/index.php?eID= download&buchnr=4150 Titley, E. B. (1982). Tradition, change and eduation in French Canada. In E. Brian Titley & P. J. Miller (Eds.), Education in Canada. An interpretation (pp. 45–56). Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Limited. Ulich, R. (1967). The education of nations. A comparison of historical perspective (Rev. ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vick-Westgate, A. (2002). Nunavik: Inuit-controlled education in Quebec. Calgary: University of Calgary Press and the Arctic Institute of North America and Katujiniq. Nunavik’s Regional Development Council. von Holst, H. (1893). Nationalisation of education and the universities. The Monist, 3(4), 493–509. Available at www.jstor.org/stable/27897101. Waterkamp, D. (2012). Pädagogische Charakteristik der Schulwesen in zehn Nationen. Dresdener Vorlesungen. Dresden: University Press. Wenning, N. (1996). Die nationale Schule: Öffentliche Erziehung im Nationalstaat. Münster: Waxmann.

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National Education Systems in the Post-national Era The Territorial and Topological (De-)construction of National Education Marcelo Parreira do Amaral and Sigrid Hartong

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The Construction of National Education Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Territorial and Topological (De-)Construction of National Education in Global Digital Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The chapter discusses two sets of developments that impact national education systems in the post-national era. After a brief recollection of the development of education systems as a national endeavor, the chapter explores the (de-) construction of national education as it unfolds amid, first, territorial shifts related to what has been coined as “globalization” and “internationalization,” and second, amid topological processes fueled by digitalization and datafication. The contribution addresses new governmental arrangements that are related to digitalization, focusing particularly on new topological spaces, which seem to be brought into existence through new – global, digital, market-based – relations also impacting the understandings, socio-political-cultural legitimations, and operations of national education. By doing this, the chapter both introduces an international context in which national education systems are currently enmeshed and aims at sharpening our understanding of what national education can mean in contemporary times. M. Parreira do Amaral (*) Institute of Education, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Münster, Germany e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] S. Hartong Fakultät für Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, Helmut Schmidt Universität, Hamburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_18

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Keywords

National education systems · Post-national era · Globalization · Digital governance of education

1

Introduction

Historically, the development of mass education went hand in hand with the development of the nation state. During the last two and a half centuries in which education for the masses has developed, it has been predominantly state-sponsored and eventually became a crucial means in state and nation building efforts. Since the early twentieth century, modern education systems have been described and researched as institutions along their predominantly national character and public control (Kandel 1933; Schneider 1947). Education researchers have put forward different explanations for these developments, for the varying shapes national education systems have taken on (cf. Benavot et al. 2006; Ramirez and Boli 1987; Green 1997; Archer 1979), as well as for their role in bringing about national identity and citizenship (Zajda 2009; Anderson 1991; Heller et al. 1986). Since the eighteenth century, education has thus come to be a national – economic, social, and cultural – concern for which large organizational and administrative apparatuses were created, in most cases by the state. Although in most cases these did not function as a system, the national characteristics of “education systems” were constantly emphasized and, in particular after World War II, efforts were made to improve their coherence and effectiveness as “systems.” (See ▶ Chap. 1, “The Education Systems of the Americas: Introduction,” by Jornitz and Parreira do Amaral (in this Volume) for a brief discussion of the concepts “national,” “education,” and “systems” and their relevance for learning.) In short, national education systems became traditionally viewed as a genuine activity of the state, carried out under the prerogatives of national policy and constituting what German comparativist Wolfgang Mitter (2006) poignantly termed “national educational sovereignty.” The idea that nation-states are the central pillars of regulation and governance of education still figures prominently in a large share of the research literature on the topic. This is in spite of the fact that, particularly over the past decades, a growing number of research have convincingly questioned the naturalized idea of “national” education systems, pointing instead to an ongoing (de-)construction of such systems. (See ▶ Chap. 2, “Education Systems Between Global Changes and National Orientations,” by Jornitz and Timm (in this Volume) for a discussion of the global challenges to national education systems from the perspective of the cultural construction of the nation.) This chapter addresses two related yet distinct developments that call into question the reality of national education in the post-national era. In what follows, the chapter first briefly recollects the national construction of education as a national endeavor, setting the scene for the discussion of more recent developments. In the next section, we discuss, second, territorial shifts related to what has been coined as “globalization” and

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“internationalization” and their implications for national education. Third, we address the topics of digitalization and datafication of education. Here we focus new governmental arrangements that constitute new topological spaces that seem to bring into existence new – global, private, and digital – relations impacting the understandings, socio-political-cultural legitimations, and operations of national education systems. The next section briefly reconstructs national education systems in terms of the construction of its national character.

2

The Construction of National Education Systems

Over the past century or so, much of the historical literature on the development of education systems remained focused on the nation state as frame of reference, with which the history of national education systems was told (see, for instance, Ravitch 2010; Boers 2007; Tyack 1974). At the same time, research on the historical legacies of national education and its global expansion pointed out to the divergent rationales for the establishment of education for the schooling of the masses. Benavot and Resnik, for instance, concluded that “[. . .] although the establishment of compulsory school laws increasingly accompanied nation-state formation, the meanings and intentions of such legal provisions reflected diverse configurations of local political, economic, and cultural conditions” (Benavot and Resnik 2006, 13). Moreover, research on the passing of legislation on education confirm these substantially different national rationales and motivations (cf. Westberg et al. 2019, 4f.). Several strands of research developed that explained the intrinsic relationship between the nation state and education systems from varying perspectives. A more structural-functional explanation for the emergence of public, nationally organized education systems suggested that this institution was established itself as a response to social problems and challenges. In pointing out to the needs and requirements of changing societies due to industrialization and urbanization, a link between processes of social modernization and differentiation and the emergence of mass school systems was made that explained the interest of the nascent nation states in education (cf. Parsons 2000; Katz 1973, 1975, 1976). Other explanations share the idea that education and training fulfilled essential functions to societies. They differ, however, in that they took a more critical stance, pointing to how education as an institution served certain groups in their quest to maintain their dominant position in the “ruling order.” From this viewpoint, schools contributed to this by conveying a legitimating “illusion of equal opportunities,” thus fulfilling the purpose of “cultural reproduction” and stabilizing the status quo of national societies (Bourdieu and Passeron 1971; Carnoy 1974; Bowles and Gintis 1976). In a further study, Margaret Archer (1979) presented a macro-sociological explanation by examining the processes that led to the emergence of national education systems. She reconstructed this as a sequence of cycles – structural conditioning, social interaction, and structural elaboration – and concluded, in a nutshell, that national education systems have their

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social origins in the interactions between dominant and challenging groups, which changed the relationships between education and society and its social institutions, as well as in the internal structure of education and education itself. Her study also showed how different degrees of centralization of state control of education have shaped (Archer 1979, 181ff.). Another line of research in educational sociology is the work of a research group that does not explain the emergence and dissemination of mass schooling systems from the internal structures of a society, but sees them as part of the modern world system. Sociological neo-institutionalism sees mass education systems as a means of universalist integration of individuals into the institutions of modern society (Ramirez and Boli 1987; Boli et al. 1985; Soysal and Strang 1989). Mass school systems have emerged, from this perspective, as a means of transforming individuals into members of the institutional orders that emerged in Europe after the Middle Ages. Ramirez and Boli concluded [. . .] European states adopted a state educational system as part of a nation-building process imposed on them by the larger environment within which they competed. The state educational system became a sensible, and even imperative, organizational undertaking because it was broadly legitimated by the dominant model of a national society. (1987, 9)

Despite adopting varying theoretical approaches in their reconstruction of the processes that led nation states to introduce, fund, and control education as national state apparatuses, research on the topic share the view that education systems were part and parcel of the national infrastructure (Meyer and Ramirez 2000) and that they embodied a “national character” of countries (Schneider 1947). Reinforcing this, the development of national education systems has paralleled the international development of nation states and thus has always entailed a great degree of international mutual observation, competition, and imitation, as illustrated by the buoyant traveling literature about education in foreign countries. This type of literature can be tracked as far back as to antiquity, with the Greeks comparing and commenting on Persia’s education, or with Roman’s admiring training in Greek Sparta; this observance was motivated by curiosity, civilizational admiration, and missionary outreach and yielded rather unsystematic and value judgment reports, yet it gave wings to contemporary imaginations of what it meant to be educated, proper and moral (cf. Noah and Eckstein 1969). Later, the sociopolitical context of the nascent national societies and later nation-states in Europe have given rise to the common practice of sending and inviting foreign “experts” to advise on organizing or reforming education as well as of commissioning reports on the state of educational development abroad. Horace Mann and Matthew Arnold stand with Victor Cousin as pertinent exemplars of this borrowing tradition in CIE: as figures who acted both as intellectuals and as practitioners or administrators interested in transferring educational ideas and practices in order to reform or legitimate reforming public education in their own countries (Kaloyannaki and Kazamias 2009; Kazamias 2009; see also Fraser and Brickmann 1968). Briefly, resulting from this animated mutual observation a common practice of educational transfer across places and cultures (see Parreira do Amaral 2018, 589ff.; Beech 2006; Steiner-Khamsi and Waldow 2011).

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Despite divergent positions toward the feasibility and desirability of transferring educational ideas, concepts, and policies from one place to another, cultural and knowledge transfer remains a ubiquitous trope among policy-makers and continues to command significant scholarly attention from comparativists, constituting a key “unit idea” in research (Cowen 2009). From a more political perspective, the development of national education was closely linked to “two overlapping but conceptually different processes,” that of nation-building and of state-building (Linz 1993, 355). A common understanding of state has been formulated by Max Weber: “a human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory” (Weber 1948a, 78, emphasis in orig.; see also Tilly (1975) for a further discussion). Nation, for Weber, referred to an ideal type, not an empirical concept, that “means, above all, that one may exact from certain groups of men a specific sentiment of solidarity in the face of other groups” (Weber 1948b, 172). While state-building, in most contexts, entailed processes of building structures and reinforcing of a state’s capacity to act and pursue the goals of a polity, nation-building may be seen as concerning the specific relations between citizens and the state and involving the creation and establishment of shared identities, values, histories, and goals of a specific community (Linz 1993). The processes of state building through education involved establishing legislation such as “school acts” (cf. Westberg et al. 2019), enforcing compulsory attendance, stipulating regulations on the organization, funding and control of educational institutions as well as on the content of instruction. Until late in the nineteenth century, in most places, the state shared responsibilities – in some contexts, it was the church that had the actual monopoly. Yet, by the early twentieth century a process of statization and bureaucratization of education had taken place that consolidated a monopoly of the state in providing funding and controlling education in public institutions for the masses (Inkeles and Sirowy 1983; Mitter 2006; Meyer and Scott 1983; Meyer et al. 1992; Meyer 1994). A key role in the process has been played by the collection of administrative records, data on attendance as well as on pupil performance and success (Meyer et al. 1992; Ramirez and Boli-Bennet 1982). Although utilized unevenly across countries, educational statistics provided nascent states with a governance tool that was crucial in the construction of the state itself; in other terms, the collection, visualization, and use of data on education (cf. Lawn 2013) contributed substantially to “the unification of space which is the nation, its constitution as a ‘space of equivalence’” (Desrosières, in Lingard and Rawolle 2009, 214) Indeed, as Desrosières writes, numbers, indicators, and statistics constitute a “field of interaction between the worlds of knowledge and power, of description and decision – ‘there is’ and ‘we must’” (1998, 3) and serve political ends; they make the administration of education possible in that they link description and prescription by gathering “support from things that have stable meanings” (Desrosières 1998, 6). At a more fundamental level, numbers and data may be viewed as inscription devices (Foucault) which in some ways constitute that which they wish to represent (cf. Lingard and Rawolle 2009).

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Similarly, the processes involved in nation building included among other things the construction of a national identity and national citizenship and were crucially pursued by means of education (see Boli et al. 1985). (These themes were discussed in the ▶ Chap. 2, “Education Systems Between Global Changes and National Orientations,” by Jornitz and Timm (in this Volume) and shall not be reproduced at length here.) For instance, the teaching of geography, national languages, and history was pivotal in bringing about a vision of the nation as an “imagined community” (Anderson 1991) and as a central feature of modernity (Popkewitz 2008). In particular, school textbooks played a central role in defining nation and state by the recollection and transmission of a collective past and of national heroes, in linking the state and the nation by means of cognitive and affective rituals and symbols, and not least in inculcating national membership in the minds of the young generations, thereby creating national citizens, or in the words of Thomas Popkewitz: “a particular kind of person whose mode of living embodies norms and values that link the individual with the collective belonging and ‘home’” (Popkewitz 2013, xv). History teaching indeed has been termed a core discipline in the construction of citizenship, permanently shaping the understanding of the nation, the national identity, and the patriotic sentiments of educated citizens (Morin 2000; Carretero 2011; see also: Williams 2014; Carretero et al. 2012; Schissler and Soysal 2005). In summing up this section, education systems developed in parallel to the establishment if nation states as a form of organization of the social, political, economic, and cultural life. As such, it has nurtured close ties both to the nation state, helping it pursue its goals (economy, welfare, social cohesion, etc.), which in turn secured a taken for granted sociocultural validation and justification of this institution. That is, the use and value of education were undisputed, logical consequences of its pursuing the common goals of national unity, progress, wealth, and welfare at individual and collective level. For most part of the twentieth century the assumptions about the nature of national education systems remained unquestioned. Indeed, much effort has been put in reforming and improving the systemic features of schooling/education – with more incremental than systemic effects (cf. Tyack and Cuban 1995) (Nevertheless, a systemic approach is still widely popular in policy making. See for instance; the work by the RISE Programme at https:// riseprogramme.org/about-rise. See also: OECD 2004.). More recently, such assumptions that the nation constituted “the natural social and political form of the modern world” were criticized as constituting a methodological nationalism (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002, 302) in general, and in particular posing conceptual and methodological obstacles to the sound comparative study of “national systems of education” (Dale and Robertson 2009). Also, by focusing on idiosyncratic developments viewed as singular, national legacies, research glossed over the fact that the establishment of national education systems unfolded amid booming mutual observance and cultural transfer at the international level (cf. Fuchs 2006; Parreira do Amaral 2018). The following section discusses two developments that challenged the premises of a singularly national lens in discussing education.

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The Territorial and Topological (De-)Construction of National Education in Global Digital Times

Although most of the twenty-first century is still ahead of us, there are many reasons to speak of it as the post-national era, at least as to what concerns several developments in the field of education. The term post-national is taken here to generally refer to a context in which the nation state no longer is the sole frame of reference in political, economic, and cultural life. Nation state and national identity loose some of their relevance and cross-national, supra-national, and global entities become increasingly important in shaping policy and practice (see on the term post-national: Habermas 2001; Jessop 1999; Soysal 1994). At a general level, globalization and internationalization, on the one hand, and digitalization and datafication, on the other, can be seen as developments that characterize this era, impacting heavily on the understanding and operations of education. Globalization and internationalization have changed and continue to change “national education” and has received much attention in the educational debates of the past three decades; these have concentrated on the relevance and implications of these processes for national education systems (Green 1997; Dale 2003; Wells et al. 1998; Burbules and Torres 2000). In this context, the controversies surrounding the changing status of the nation state were significantly stimulated by world system, world culture, and world society theories. Since the 1970s, scholars working from these conceptual lenses have argued that the nation state no longer was the appropriate unit with which to examine most social phenomena (Hopkins and Wallerstein 1979; Luhmann 1990; Meyer et al. 1997; with regard to the education sector Arnove 2009; Caruso 2008). Concurrently, at the turn of the millennium, political commentators and social science scholars alike saw the challenges arising from global developments as constituting an emergent “post-national constellation” (Habermas 2001, 58f.). Analyses abounded of the “fraying out” of the nation-state and the concomitant “internationalization of political responsibilities” (Hurrelmann et al. 2008; see also Zürn 1998; Leibfried and Zürn 2006). From a political economy perspective, Jessop (1999) analyzed transformations of the state’s economic and social policy roles, including the territorial scales of political activity performing the latter roles, and the modes of governance with which they are associated. Bob Jessop (1999) pointed to important transitions and shifts within social, political, and economic frameworks of the present time that can be seen to be characteristic of a post-national era. He pointed out that there was a fourfold movement in the relations among politics, economy, and society, during the social democracy’s “golden era” (late 1970s and 1980s) in Western Europe (Jessop 1999) that collectively led to the shift from “government to governance” as a new coordination mode. First, in the sense of withdrawing the earlier strong support of the (national and production-based) economy by the state, the first change is indicated as a shift in the economic and political sector – especially by macroeconomic control technologies of the economy which are commonly associated with the name of John Maynard Keynes. Managing the aggregate demand in the economy is one example, and Jessop refers to this relation between politics and economy as “Keynesian” to contrast it with the current

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situation, in which the role of the state is limited to the creation of a legal and political infrastructure. In doing so, the maximum possible scope of the free market’s development is to be achieved. This indicates a “global knowledge society” and could be called after the Austrian economist as “Schumpeterian,” as stated by Jessop (Jessop 1999, 350). Relating to the role of education, this shift is becoming recognizable in the transition from an understanding of education as the provision of human capital, which contributes the national economy, to one, in which education itself is a key element of the national competitiveness. The second area of change refers to the state’s role concerning social security. Jessop contrasts the earlier welfare state, which was expected to guarantee equal opportunity, to distribute wealth more fairly, and to ensure a minimum social security, with the, in Jessop’s point of view, nowadays significant “workfare” state: By this, the state’s role is minimized by giving the responsibility for social protection to individuals. Thereby, anyone is personally responsible for their own integration and for preventing societal risks. Within the workfare state it is seen as the individual’s responsibility to become and remain employable by acquiring and updating their own qualifications. Jessop’s third element of changes and shifts is related to the locus of economic activities. In the previous case these were national economies that have changed dramatically during the past 30 to 40 years. Using the phrase “postnational,” Jessop points out that education itself can now be considered as an element of a state’s competitiveness in the global economy. Finally, fourth, the very basis of government changed. Jessop highlights this as s shift from a national state – in a traditional social democratic sense, in which the state is strongly and directly involved and takes on the central switching points of power – to a post-national regime, in which the activities as well as the protagonist actors of governing and controlling are rather fragmented and geographically distributed (cf. Jessop 1999, 350ff.). In sum, Jessop coins these changes as the passing from a Keynesian welfare national state (KWNS) to a Schumpeterian workfare post-national regime (SWPR), with implications for the primary functions, scales, and modes of coordination of the state. Further, analyses of the implications of these developments for education policy, research, and practice identified an emerging international education regime consisting of complex sets of rules and institutions in which education is enmeshed, a high level of interdependence of the actors involved in its policy formulation, especially International Organizations, and a high degree of similarity of the orienting principles of educational reforms worldwide (Parreira do Amaral 2010, 2011, 2021; see also Jules 2012, 2015, 2018; Tikly 2017). More recently, in trying to better grasp these developments, various research strands related to education have adopted the attribute “global” or “international” to their denominations in order to flag a perspective to their analyses that goes beyond the national (Verger et al. 2016, 2018; Mundy et al. 2016; Parreira do Amaral et al. 2019). In summarizing, resulting from processes of globalization and internationalization the focus on education shifted away from the nation state level. In terms of policy-making, it became more and more visible that no longer is education policy shaped solely at national or subnational level – themes, agendas, policy instruments, and justifications all focus to a large extent the level beyond the nation (see Martens

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et al. 2007; Parreira do Amaral 2016; Mundy et al. 2016). Research has also become more and more aligned to international debates – trends and “standards” that are said to be “world class” or generally international (see Steiner-Khamsi 2009; Normand 2016; Powell 2020). As refers the practice level, education provision is increasingly dealt with as an international issue, both in what relates international development (as illustrated by the initiative Education for all or the Millennium Development Goals, see: Verger et al. 2018; Tikly 2017) and in terms of its being itself a commodity to be traded (produced, exchanged, and consumed) as part of a Global Education Industry (Verger et al. 2016; Parreira do Amaral et al. 2019). All in all, education has in many cases loosened its ties to the nation state, if not always in terms of actual jurisdiction and governance, in any case in terms of orientation and justification. No longer is education simply a national policy tool to harness the economy and the progress of the nation; rather, education is itself part and parcel of a global competition in knowledge-intensive capitalism. A second set of developments refer to shifts – at global level – in the use of digital technologies in the field of education that are referred here as digitalization and datafication. At a general level, they are related to public and policy discourses since the 1990s on the recurrent results of large-scale assessments such as OECD’s PISA or IEA’s TIMSS, among others, that have emphasized the global dimension of education performance (largely by means of amassing large digital data-sets), crucially shaping both national and international debates with more than 70% of all countries participating in one or the other study (Best et al. 2013; see also: Kamens and Benavot 2011). Digitalization in the field of education can be understood as the ongoing sociotechnical transformation of existing pedagogical structures and arrangements, which are increasingly mediated into and, simultaneously, affected by algorithmic logics and formats. Put differently, digitalization is not only about converting analogue into digital but instead about installing new logics of algorithmic-based knowledge production, visibility, and interaction (e.g., via platforms), which have the potential to deeply disrupt and re-“form” educational practices (Decuypere and Landri 2020). Hereby, digitalization interrelate educational provision (e.g., learning environments, didactical formats), content (e.g., curricula, teaching material), and control (e.g., monitoring and evaluation of performance, governance) in new ways, consequently affecting education at all levels (see Williamson 2016a, b; Hartong et al. 2021). The overall logic of that interrelation is datafication, that is the installment of data practices and interoperable data infrastructures (Sellar 2017; Hartong 2018), informed by values, skill- and mindsets of educational data science (Williamson 2021). Different from data collections which have always been central in educational monitoring and (state) governance – one is reminded of the documentation of attendance, of school grades or generally educational statistics – datafication today is increasingly shifting the authority of data production and interpretation away from the teaching profession, and toward (producers of) digital technologies themselves (e.g., automated learning analytics). A rising number of big data produced by such technologies in real time has been opening up various new options for automated educational knowledge production (e.g., data mining) – and also for new visions

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regarding the “true personalization” of learning and teaching, and the evolvement of “precision education governance” (Brunila et al. 2018). On the one hand, the digitalization and datafication of (public) education have become core activities of a global edtech-industry, including consultancy and policy brokering in education reforms, but also tailored business models for the provision of education (see Verger et al. 2016; Steiner-Khamsi and Draxler 2018). On the other hand, the digitalization, datafication, and algorithmization of education is deeply transforming the (nation) state and modes of public governance itself (see OECD 2020), which particularly includes the dynamics of newly implemented data infrastructures or digital spaces to (better) govern education (Hartong 2017, 2018; Williamson 2016a, b; Sellar 2017; Landri 2018). Over the past decades, education policy and practice have witnessed highly dynamic and also ambivalent processes of global-local respatialization (Ozga et al. 2011, 88; Hartong and Nikolai 2017), resulting in new governing architectures in which the national has somewhat paradoxically been simultaneously losing and (re-) gaining importance. We argue that a crucial mechanism in this ambivalent shift lies in the active fabrication of various new (transnational) policy spaces of datafied/ digital comparison that facilitate, but also strategically mediate mutual observance between policy actors and “places,” while evoking a “[. . .] newly imagined world of education and its governance” (Lawn 2013, 10). Many scholars have described this orchestrated configuration as the emergence of a global education policy field (Lingard and Rawolle 2009; Beech 2009; see also: Mundy et al. 2016), whereby “traditional government structures and institutions are destabilized and respatialised by new geopolitical configurations of power and influence” (Savage and O’Connor 2015, 626) In the past, statistics operated as a “spatial framer” (Robertson and Dale 2015, 165) of national bordering, used as an instrument for strengthening the state, and physically “held” by state institutions. Very differently, large parts of educational data (statistics, performance data, project data) today have shifted toward territorially non-fixed spaces of commensuration and become physically dislocated from the state and state institutions (Lury et al. 2012, 15). Hence, such data spaces have evoked new and/or alternative imaginaries of educational bordering than the national, but paradoxically at the same time have re-strengthened the idea of national education systems, indeed at least for their intelligibility they seem to need the national imaginary to work. Nevertheless, they construct and reconstruct the spaces of education, including the national. Main players of this respatialization of education through (digital) data are international organizations (IOs) such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO, in particular UNESCO Institute for Education (IEA)); the World Bank; or the European Commission (see Lawn 2013, 18ff.; Sellar and Lingard 2013; Gorur et al. 2019; Normand 2016). In fact, as Lawn shows, IOs such as UNESCO/IEA with its Data Processing Center have been actively challenging “static” administrative data (e.g., from states) by dynamic project data with international scope (2013, 22ff.).

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A further driving force behind these developments is the expanding global education industry sector (GEI) in which education is positioned as an international (commercial) trade object, dealt with by advocacy networks, philanthropy, nongovernmental organizations, and corporations with global reach (see Verger et al. 2016; Parreira do Amaral et al. 2019). The use of (digital) data is seen as a main logic of action in a context, in which the production, exchange, and consumption of education is framed in “evidence-based” terms of “what works” and what is effective (see Parreira do Amaral and Thompson 2019, 278ff.; for examples see: Lingard 2019; Hartong 2015, 2016a, b, 2019b). In close relation to the activities of IOs and the operations of the GEI, parts of (global) education policy research have also embraced research styles and approaches that not only “simplified the world” but also corroborated the influence of “familiar and emerging political and economic interests in education” (Carney 2019, 253). Also, comparison has become a mode of governance (Nóvoa and YarivMashal 2003). For instance, the World Yearbook of Education 2019 has extensively discussed how “Comparative Methodology in the Era of Big Data and Global Networks” (Gorur et al. 2019) changed this knowledge generation approach shifting how comparison acts as a way of knowing (ibid., 4). For Gorur and colleagues, the comparative methodologies of IOs, GEI, and education policy research shape and transform the world, and make the world be known in particular ways (ibid., 6). They also show how the “comparative age” has brought about a new political economy of educational research. In terms of research modalities, this equates what Michael Crossley pointed out as part of processes of international policy transfer: “the growing privileging and prioritization of expensive, large-scale quantitative research initiatives, designed primarily to meet the expectations of policy-makers and influential research funders; and tendencies towards the hegemony and uncritical international transfer of such research modalities from the Western contexts in which they are currently being developed to a diversity of educational contexts, systems and cultures – rich and poor, large and small – worldwide” (Crossley 2014, 16). Indeed, a key mechanism of governing by comparison lies thus in the observation of data differences as the legitimation for action (Lewis 2017). The orchestration of these new actors engaged in measurement and comparison has embraced digitalization as a tool to speed up mutual observance, resulting in “Fast Policy” (Peck and Theodore 2015), which is no longer explainable in terms of territorial transfer. At the same time, another part of these ongoing transformations is related to a different shift in education policy and research and also responds to fast policy and new spaces, namely what several scholars problematized in terms of the “units” of research/of comparison – their becoming national containers, their ontological ossification, and methodological nationalism (see Dale and Robertson 2009) and question the privileging of any kind of single dimension of socio-spatial, scalar, or otherwise (such as the national) (Jessop et al. 2008, 389). This body of research often builds on research in critical geography as opposing policy transfer studies (Peck and Theodore 2015, 22ff., Clarke et al. 2015, 15). Instead, a strong focus lies on networks that foster the “de-spatialization,” on the processes of constant embedding and disembedding, translation, and mutation

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policies (Takayama et al. 2016, 5). Examples of this body of research point out that “scales should be considered as effects, not as frames or structures of practices [. . ., rather, scales should be . . .] critically considered as a narrative device, a measure of distance and a technique of governmentalities” (Legg 2009, 1, 235). Also, Savage and Lewis’ (2017) study on national teaching standards in Australia argued that the national became a phantom within a complex interaction of subnational, federal, and transnational “scaling.” More recent research on the topic has also embraced topological and/or assemblage approaches to describe new relations that reach across territorial relations and also construct new/reconstruct old spaces (see DeLanda 2006; Hartong 2017; Lingard and Rawolle 2011). In short, such topological notions of relations – where data spaces equal topological spaces – are useful to better understand the impact of digitalization and datafication in education (Hartong 2019a), and help us simultaneously see the ambivalent ways in which the national imaginary gets translated into (digital) data, and is represented within new transnational spaces. In fact, such spaces are arguably very differently shaping and representing the national; such spaces differ in what they include and exclude in these “national representations” (e.g., regarding indicators, values, and also samples/data selection/information), ultimately resulting in numerous different (sometimes even contradictory) spaces within the imagination of the global. In other words, it seems important to reflect on what the national is – a type of representation that is powerful but also ambivalent and that involves specific kinds of construction and deconstruction in territorial, topographical, and topological ways. In the following paragraphs we would like to illustrate the argument by referring to three different examples of the territorial and topological transformations discussed; these are related to the European Union, the OECD, and the World Bank. The first example refers to how most countries in Europe, through the European Union, are creating a new policy space in education as part of the market and its governance (Lawn 2011). The creation of a European Education Area is being formed through law, regulation, networking, and harmonization. Indeed, as Lawn writes, “The governing of European education depends on the production of abstract and commensurable units, enabling exchange across borders and places, and producing a newly transparent domain” (Lawn 2011, 259). The construction of Europe here is done via numerical, digital representations of national systems, that is, making them comparable, standardized, and also digitally “visible.” This of course is done by means of selected indicators, for instance those included in the Education and Training Monitor publications (see Landri 2018). The member countries of the European Union are used as units of comparison, and are seen as in comparison/ competition with each other – the setting of benchmarks and the subsequent monitoring of their achievement represents a main governance tool at the European level (the so-called Open Method of Coordination). Yet at the same time, new spaces of relation within Europe emerge that are deconstructing national “units” of comparison – mainly by means of digital technology and the amassing of large data sets at various levels of aggregation, explicitly using these different levels to frame policies in a Europe of Regions (Data collection

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by the European statistics agency, Eurostat, uses the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics, abbreviated NUTS (from the French version Nomenclature des Unités territoriales statistiques) is to collect data at three different levels, NUTS 1, 2 and 3 respectively, moving from larger to smaller territorial units and encompassing lists 104 regions at NUTS 1, 283 regions at NUTS 2 and 1345 regions at NUTS 3 level. See: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/nuts/background). A further example refers to collaboration in the field of education that foresee the spanning of the national level via harmonization and networking, such as the European Schoolnet (http://www. eun.org/) or the Europass (https://europa.eu/europass/en), that somehow reaching across and into national systems, linking them differently within different digital tools. A second example may be seen in the activities of the OECD in the field of education, mainly the large-scale assessment studies PISA, including the PISA database, but also the recurrent publication Education at a Glance, and the national reviews. PISA illustrates well the various ways how nation state representations are de/reconstructed. It relies widely on “classical national bordering” by means of the comparison countries. As perceptively argued by Susan Robertson and Roger Dale: “[Its] reach as a global tool is enabled by the ways in which hierarchical space, temporal rhythms, evaluative trajectories and scales are mobilized as complex modalities of power. As a powerful spatial framer and lever for allocating status, it pitches one country and its teachers against another in terms of a global hierarchical ordering of performers and underperformers” (Robertson and Dale 2015, 165). PISA functions thus as projection, that is, as a new way of national relations (discourses, policy transfer, best practices, etc.) (see Steiner-Khamsi and Waldow 2012). Yet, at the same time, commensuration also includes global cities (e.g., Shanghai) or schools, as well illustrated by PISA for Schools; this, in turn, also illustrates the global policy mobility of “what works.” As Steven Lewis (2017) remarked: “the effect of PISA for Schools is to position schools, alongside schooling systems, within a global commensurate space of measurement, comparison and governance, in which local schooling practice can now be directly influenced by international organisations and education systems” (Lewis 2017, 298). In short, it is a one-sizefits-all understanding of policy respectively fast policy solutions (Lewis and Hogan 2016, 1), a form of “decontextualized contextualization” (Lewis 2017, 2020) that dispenses altogether with the nation as a frame of reference. A third topical example is the Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER). SABER may be used to illustrate our argument that current imaginations of national education systems are based on topological thinking that privileges relational aspects while retaining – or rather, reterritorializing – spatial categories such as the nation. Systems Approach for Better Education Results is an initiative by World Bank launched in 2011 “to collect and analyze information on policies and identify actionable priorities for strengthening education systems” (World Bank 2013, 9). It is part of its Education Sector Strategy 2020 and has two main thrusts: first, reforming education systems at the country level, and second, building a highquality knowledge base for education reforms at the global level.

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Data collection in SABER consists of a questionnaire, collection and analyses of policy data, and a review of the evidence for the most effective policies to promote learning. This process is set forth in a “What Matters” framework paper, which covers 13 individual policy domains, culminating in an online tool that provides stakeholders access to the comprehensive data, secondary documents, country reports, and diagnostic tools and questionnaires. SABER thus acts as a tool to construct and access an information repository, enabling stakeholders to evaluate and analyze their own and other countries’ policies and, ostensibly, subsequent performance in one or more of the domains. In practice, this means that SABER offers countries the possibility to conduct a detailed examination of their own institutions and policies through a standard methodology, allowing for comparisons around global “best practice” in education, which were in turn constructed by the World Bank. Two observations may be made of how SABER embodies a topological approach to constructing and de-constructing education systems: First, the database effect (as argued by Thompson and Cook 2014) prompted by the advent of digital technologies that allow the collection, comparison, and proliferation of data. This creates “standardized, inoperable and dynamic databases to support evidence-based policy, enable individually tailored and targeted services, reduce costs and provide robust population statistics for analysis and research” (Ruppert 2012, 119). SABER thus may be viewed as a governance tool premised on a topological understanding of relationships, interconnectedness, and proximity/distance. Second, SABER’s documents and webpages may also be seen as deploying tactics specific to a visual epistemology that serve as expressions of knowledge, or in other words, as a “representation of knowledge, not a knowledge generator, whose graphic display conceals the decisions and processes on which it was based” (Drucker 2014, 3). Users thus are forced into subjectivities that pose them as consumers, while masquerading them as prosumers since they are offered the possibility to actively participate in the process of knowledge production.

4

Discussion and Conclusion

Interestingly, although the developments discussed above and the debates they sparked have increasingly emphasized the “global,” they have concurrently reified and rekindled assumptions about the national character of education, reproducing notions about the essence and the functions of national education systems. What we see are in sum ambivalent transformations, causing messy realities and posing challenges to understanding the implications for education.

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In this chapter, we set out by briefly reconstructing education as a national endeavor. As discussed, education has been part and parcel of processes of state and nation building of polities that constituted themselves as nation states. In a nutshell, national education systems became intrinsically related to the different historical traditions and political, economic, social, and cultural foundations in which they were embedded, but also they helped bring about exactly the same polities that brought them about. The validations and justifications of education as a national endeavor included sociocultural validations of creating a community of solidarity by means of a shared identity – with all positive and negative effects to it – but it also included politico-economic reasonings of a national economy that sustained the nation’s wealth and welfare. Of course, this has become a reality only for a small share of the countries worldwide, and also only for a short period of time (Esping-Andersen 1994), yet it provided for most part of the history of education systems a national rationale for its operations. Notwithstanding this, although both the political and scholarly discourses well until the end of the nineteenth century emphasized the national character of education systems, it became clear that “national education systems” developed amid a highly international contexts, and resulting from extensive processes of mutual observation and emulation. As discussed above, more recent developments for which the terms “globalization” and “internationalization” were coined changed this situation. In many cases loosening education’s ties to the nation state, if not always in terms of actually supplanting state’s monopoly, but in any case, shifting frames of orientation and providing other justifications. As we argued above, no longer is education simply a national policy tool to harness the economy and the progress of the nation; rather, education is itself part and parcel of a global competition in knowledge-intensive capitalism. To a large extent, the justification for national education systems changed in the post-national era, being more and more framed in economic terms of output and international performance. As Frank-Olaf Radtke phrased it, one could see an analogy between the gross domestic product of a country and what he referred to as “gross education product” (Radtke 2013). The expansion of the use of digital data in education – together with extensive processes of digitalization, datafication, and algorithmization – have also contributed to a further shift in education, corroborating to changed relations between education and the nation state. In this chapter, we argued that these processes brought about topological notions of education with data spaces being understood as topological spaces, and simultaneously (and ambivalently) changing the ways in which the national is imagined and translated into (digital) data, and represented in new transnational spaces. As argued, such spaces shape and represent differently the national. In concluding, what the meaning of national education system takes to be depends on the “simultaneity of the nonsimultaneous” – to (mis)use a phrase by Ernst Bloch – and the varying processes of construction, destruction, and reconstruction of the spaces of education, be they framed historically by means of referring to a common heritage, history, and identity; be it by means of political,

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territorial, and topographical devices; or by topological assemblages by means of digital data and data infrastructures. In any case, it seems more important than ever to reflect on what the national is taken to be, by whom it is constructed, and for whom it works.

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The Education System of Argentina Coping with the Past, Dealing with the Future Felicitas Acosta and Victoria Rio

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations and Present Situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Foundation and Expansion of the Educational System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 An Overview in the Face of the Changes of the 1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 A New Period of Reforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of the Education System According to the ISCED Classification . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Personnel Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Transition to Work: Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects. Current Issues Towards the System’s Inequalities and Disadvantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Access to ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 International and National Assessments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

60 61 61 64 70 71 72 72 74 76 77 79 81 82 84 84 86 87

Abstract

This chapter presents a description of the Argentinian educational system considering its historical configuration as well as its present-day challenges. The chapter is divided into three parts. The first one introduces an overview of the system’s history with an emphasis on two different moments: foundational strands and massification. An analysis of those two moments in the face of the changes promoted by the reforms during the 1990s and 2000s closes this section. F. Acosta (*) · V. Rio Instituto del Desarollo Humano, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Los Polvorines, Argentina e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_2

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The second part covers a wide range of aspects related to the organization of the system. Starting from most recent changes, the section outlines a synthesized, yet thorough description of the system’s main features related to government and administration, school structure, curriculum, private education, assessment, teacher training, ICTs, and higher education. Difficulties related to the central system are described for most of them. Finally, the last part of the chapter refers to current issues mainly associated with the implementation of the National Education Law passed in 2006. Changes and continuities between past and present-day administrations are considered in order to provide an overview of the challenges still faced by the education system and the role played by the central state. Keywords

Historical expansion · Federal organization · Inequality · Present challenges

1

Introduction

As the development of education systems in the West in the late nineteenth century and their expansion in the twentieth-century attest, the internationalization of schooling has historical roots (Tröhler and Lenz 2015). National governments played a crucial role in establishing and sustaining those systems (Tröhler et al. 2011). In this sense, Argentina’s central state has a long-standing tradition in education due to the somewhat quick organization and expansion of its national education system between the last decades of the nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth century. Since the late 1990s, the education system has undergone successive reforms whose results are currently under debate. Many of those reforms have sought to address the tension between access to schooling and quality learning outcomes. In particular, during the last decade, the education policies undertaken by a centerleft administration were based on a traditional device, mainly the passing of federal laws on education. The Argentinian administration from 2016 to 2019 had a different political bent, and it has quickly dismantled some of the previous government’s most essential programs, even overriding some of the laws passed. The new policies seem inclined to adopt the global agenda wholesale. Therefore, the Argentinian education system faces old and new challenges in a scenario where local and global actors are reluctant to accept the idea of the state as the leading provider of education. It is within this context that the chapter presents a description of the Argentinian education system considering its historical configuration as well as its present-day challenges. The chapter is divided into three parts. The first one introduces an overview of the system’s history with an emphasis on two different moments: foundational strands and massification. An analysis of those two moments in the face of the changes promoted by the reforms during the 1990s and 2000s closes this section. The second part covers a wide range of aspects related to the organization of the system. Starting from most recent changes, the section provides a synthesized, yet thorough description of the system’s main features related to government and

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administration, school structure, curriculum, private education, teacher training, ICTs, and higher education. Difficulties related to the central system are described for most of them. Finally, the last part of the chapter refers to current issues mainly related to the implementation of the National Education Law passed in 2006. Changes and continuities between past and present-day administrations are considered in order to provide an overview of the challenges still faced by the education system and the role played by the central state.

2

Historical and Social Foundations and Present Situation

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is located in the Southern Cone. With a mainland area of 2,791,810 km2 (INDEC), Argentina is the eighth-largest country in the world, the fourth largest in the Americas and the second in South America after Brazil. It is the largest Spanish-speaking nation. The State is subdivided into 23 provinces, and one autonomous city, Buenos Aires, which is the capital city. Both the provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system. Argentina’s Basic Data

Area: 3,761,274 km2 of which 2,791,810 km2 are part of the American Continent and 969,464 km2 of the Antarctic Continent and southern islands Division: 23 provinces and 1 federal district Population: 40,117,096 (according to 2010 Census), 44,938,712 (2019 estimate) Urban population: 91% (according to 2010 Census) School-age population (3–17 years old): 24.6% (2016 estimate) Indigenous peoples: 2.3% (according to 2010 Census) Source: INDEC, www.indec.gob.ar and the document “Principales cifras del Sistema educativo nacional,” DiNIEE, Ministerio de Educación y Deportes, May, 2017

Argentina has a long tradition in education due to the rather quick organization and expansion of its national educational system between the last decades of the nineteenth century and mid’s of the twentieth. Since 2015, compulsory education covers 14 years from 4 to 18, theoretical age of completion of secondary education (Table 1).

2.1

General Background

Argentina became a republic with a representative and federal system of government in 1853, the year when its Constitution was passed. Until 1810, the territory that currently makes up the Argentinian republic was part of the viceroyship of Río de la

10

Educación Primaria

4 5 6 7 8 9 Compulsory education ISCED 1

11

13

14

Educación Secundaria (Ciclo Básico)

ISCED 2

12

16

17

Educación Secundaria (Ciclo Orientado)

ISCED 3

15

* ** *

18

Source: SITEAL based on the Ley de Educación Nacional No. 26.206, 2006, retrieved from http://www.sipi.siteal.org/normativas/12/ley-ndeg-262062006-leyde-educacion-nacional as amended by Law no. 27,045, 2014, retrieved from http://servicios.infoleg.gob.ar/infolegInternet/anexos/240000-244999/240450/ norma.htm and UIS UNESCO (Accessed 2019). Note 1: In Argentina, compulsory education extends over 14 years. The extensions of Primary and Secondary Education (ISCED 1, 2 and 3) vary between 7 and 5 years and 6 and 6 years, respectively, according to the specific province (12 jurisdictions have a 6–6 structure and the other 12, a 7–5 one). In this chart, ages and equivalence with ISCED correspond to the 6–6 structure. *Technical education extends for 1 more year Note 2: The International Standard Classification of Education of the UNESCO Statistics Institute (CINE 97) is the one used by SITEAL for standardizing the information resulting from the national household survey of Latin American countries

Educación Inicial

Denomination (education law no. 26,206)

3

ISCED 0

2

Standardization

Age 0 1

Table 1 Equivalence between educational levels established by the National Education Law (Ley de Educación Nacional 26.206) and the International Standard Classification of Education* (1997). Compulsory education, Argentina, 2017

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Plata under the rule of the Spanish Empire. After independence, a series of domestic struggles ensued, including a significant conflict between projects that favored a federalist organization and those that supported a centralization of power in the City of Buenos Aires. Once that period had come to an end with the triumph of the centrists, a process of national organization began – a period known for the founding presidencies of three successive constitutional presidents: Bartolomé Mitre (from 1862 to 1868), Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (from 1868 to 1874), and Nicolás Avellaneda (from 1874 to 1880). During those years, the bases for the political, economic, and social organization of the republic were laid, though there was ongoing political instability and conflict between the provinces and the central government. For approximately 50 years (starting in 1880 until at least 1916), Argentina as a country was constructed according to the interests of the sectors, that held power continuously during that period. Argentina had an agro-export economy and its institutional organization was based on a classic liberal ideology. The legislative bases, on which the nation was built, were established at this time, as was the modality for central state intervention throughout the country’s territory. It is during this period and in this context that the basic organization of the Argentinian educational system took place. This process can be seen as part of a larger one occurring in a number of Western countries at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, a process through which national educational systems were formed. After the economic crisis of the 1930s and mainly the 1940s, the productive profile of Argentina altered as the country deepened nonagrarian industrial sector. Major advances in the living conditions for much of the population – as well as violent interruptions in the country’s democratic political system – accompanied this process, which continued until at least 1976, when the last military coup took place. During the process of industrialization and in the context of the international economic crisis of the 1970s, Argentina’s production and labor structures underwent profound changes. This had an impact on the steady increase in unemployment and poverty rates. Institutional disruption came to an end in 1983, with the return to democracy under the administration of Raúl Alfonsín. His administration was marked by the recovery of the democratic institutions that had been suppressed during the last military dictatorship, although this process would be permanently threatened by political and economic crises. At the end of the decade and in the middle of a hyperinflation crisis, Alfonsín had to end his mandate before completing his full term. In the 1990s, new economic and political structural reforms were undertaken under Carlos Menem’s administrations. Some of them tended to decentralize many of the national state educational and health provision systems. At the end of the decade, Argentina faced a new economic crisis that in 2001 sparked several demonstrations and eventually led to President De la Rúa’s resignation. Since 2003, but particularly since 2005, the country experienced an economic recovery that, with a mild interruption in 2008 and 2009 in the context of the international crisis, extended until 2011. Then Argentina’s economy entered a new

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2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

700000000000 600000000000 500000000000 400000000000 300000000000 200000000000 100000000000 0

Fig. 1 GDP (USD at current prices) 2003–2018. (Source: Drawn up on the basis of Data of national accounts, World Bank and data files on national accounts, OCDE, https://datos. bancomundial.org)

recession phase that has deepened since 2018 and 2019. The recovery during the past decade had an impact on several social areas such as the reduction of the poverty and unemployment rates that had increased dramatically in previous years, and the development of a number of social policies (Fig. 1). During this period of recovery, especially since 2005, the government increased social expenditure significantly. In particular, and regarding education, some social protection policies were implemented to strengthen children’s and young people’s access to compulsory education. The universal allowance per child extends the monetary allowances given to formally employed workers mainly, to those family members who are unemployed or are household or informally employed (with an income below the minimum wage) workers with children up to 18 years old. It was implemented in 2009 and it consists of a cash transfer per child, with certain healthand education-related conditions. The PROGRESAR program, implemented in 2014, intends to support vulnerable students from 18 to 24 years old and consists of a cash transfer to encourage compulsory school completion, and the continuity of studies in higher education or professional training (Fig. 2). All in all, some of the problems that had deepened in the last decades of the twentieth century remained and continued to manifest themselves in indexes of poverty, informal employment, and inequality (Figs. 3 and 4). It was during the second half of the twentieth century that the Argentinian education system underwent a process of massification at all levels. While this process was in many ways similar to analogous processes in centralized countries, there were certain particularities.

2.2

Foundation and Expansion of the Educational System

This section presents the major events in the development of elementary, secondary, and higher education in Argentina. It provides an overview of each educational

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65

35

16

30

14 12

25

10

20

08 15

06

10

04

05

02

00

00 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Social Education

Health Social Protection

Fig. 2 Public expenditure as % of GDP. 1999–2015. (Source: Drawn up on the basis of BID 2017, Harmonised Household Surveys in Latin America and The Caribbean. Total social expenditure is shown on the left axis)

Fig. 3 Indigence and poverty rates measured by income. 2010–2018. (Source: Drawn up on the basis of “Pobreza monetaria y vulnerabilidad de derechos. Inequidades de las condicionesmateriales de vida en los hogares de la Argentina urbana (2010–2018),” retrieved from http:// wadmin.uca.edu.ar/public/ckeditor/Observatorio%20Deuda%20Social/Documentos/2019/2019OBSERVATORIO-DOC-ESTADISTICO-POBREZA-MONETARIA.pdf)

level’s foundational moment together with the changes that took place during the massification period. In particular, a shift from a centrally governed system to a provincial one, and the expansion of secondary and higher levels together with the deepening of disparities and inequalities (Acosta and Marquina 2011).

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Fig. 4 Poverty rate per age group. 2010–2017. (Source: Drawn up on the basis of the “Monetary poverty and rights vulnerability. Inequity of material conditions of Argentina’s urban households” report. Available at: http://wadmin.uca.edu.ar/public/ckeditor/Observatorio%20Deuda%20Social/ Documentos/2019/2019-OBSERVATORIO-DOC-ESTADISTICO-POBREZA-MONETARIA.pdf)

2.2.1 Elementary School Important precursors to the foundational period can be traced back to Buenos Aires mayoral administrations of Manuel Dorrego and Bernardino Rivadavia during the first third of the nineteenth century. Those administrations started to pay attention to the development of “first letter” (elementary or primary) schools. Also during this period the second university was founded in the country: the University of Buenos Aires (the first one, the University of Córdoba, had been founded in the seventeenth century). Those modest early advances and intense debates on teaching were however short-lived. It was not until 1860, with the beginning of the constitutional period, that they re-emerged. Central to this later process was the figure of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, who, after intense experiences regarding schooling on the East Coast of the United States, held a number of different positions in the executive branch. He fostered the reorganization of the Ministry of Education, the creation of the first teacher training high school – the Escuela Normal de Paraná – the creation of kindergartens, prolonged visits of teachers from the United States in order to further elementary school teaching in the provinces, the founding of community libraries, and the law that provided for the organization of elementary education in Buenos Aires province. During the administration of Julio Argentino Roca (1880–1886), and after an intense parliamentary debate between classic liberal sectors and sectors representing the Catholic Church, Law 1420 was passed in 1884. That law established mandatory, free, and secular elementary-level education in the City of Buenos Aires and the national territories. The national government also took control of the education system through the creation of the National Educational Council, whose members

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were appointed by the executive branch. National control over education would later be reinforced in 1905 with Law 4874, known as the Lainez law, which authorized the federal government to create schools in provinces that requested so. At that moment, the Argentinian elementary school assumed a modern, multilevel, or graded format organized around the notion of simultaneous teaching. Administering the education system became a pillar of the centralized government, and the autonomy of schools was limited. Starting in the last third of the nineteenth century, enrolment expanded noticeably. By 1914, almost half of the school-aged children were enrolled in elementary school. By the second half of the twentieth century, that figure would rise to more than 80%. Elementary school became an almost universal experience for Argentinian children, though by the 1980s there were signs that some problems had arisen. First grade retention, difficulties to graduate from elementary school to enter high school, the split between public and private schools as well as within public elementary schools, all became more frequent issues.

2.2.2 Secondary Education The organization of secondary education in Argentina also partakes of the configuration of Western national education systems and their contexts. Starting in 1860, the nature of this segment of the future education system was clearly and decisively defined. The origin of secondary education in Argentina began with the creation of “national high schools” during the second half of the nineteenth century. National high schools were responsible for training the ruling class and preparing their students for the university. These institutions were selective and the content of their curricula humanistic. Since the very beginning, this model of high school education has been prestigious at the social level. Throughout the twentieth century, secondary education expanded consistently. This process entailed, firstly, an increase in the number of national high schools and, secondly, the creation of other educational modalities such as programs based on technical or commercial education. In 1863, the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires (the Buenos Aires national high school) was created by decree by Mitre’s administration. It was defined as a seat for preparatory education in the sciences where literature, humanities, moral sciences, physics, and mathematics would be studied. In 1864, “national high schools” were created in Catamarca, Tucumán, Mendoza, San Juan, and Salta; their curricula mirrored that of the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires. Starting in the late nineteenth century, a number of teacher training schools were also created. While the training at these institutions was similar to that of other national high schools, their curricula were geared towards training would-be teachers. The first two of Peron’s administrations (1946–1955) saw a major expansion in technical education. In 1948, there were 128 technical high schools, and in 1958 there were 775. During the same period, enrolment went from 21,016 students to 146,258. Similarly, during those years the number of national high schools also grew

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rapidly; their enrolment doubled (46,997 in 1941 versus 110,755 in 1955), and so did the number of existing institutions (from 237 in 1941 to 458 in 1955). While this increase in enrolment has continued over time, it was particularly dramatic in the 1950s and 1960s (from 1947 to 1955, enrolment went from 177,912 students to 455,250) and from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s (the rate of school attendance among young people aged 13–17 went from 38.8% in 1980 to 68.5% in 2000). One of the main problems with the expansion of secondary education is that, at the institutional and curricular levels, such education has historically been based on a relatively stable humanities-centered model whose main characteristics are rigid formal logics, unvaried scheduling, a curriculum divided into different disciplines, and teachers hired according to hours of class time. This model has proven incapable of maintaining these high levels of enrolment (Acosta 2012). Indeed, since the beginning of secondary education in Argentina, this significant rate of enrolment has been accompanied by a high dropout rate. Tedesco (1986) points out that during the 1886–1891 period, the dropout rate at national high schools was 68%. More recent studies place the graduation rate in 1950 at 50% (see Giuliodori et al. 2004). This rate peaked in the 1960s when almost 70% of enrolled students graduated. It plummeted in the 1980s and then leveled off at around 40% in the 1990s. Currently, after the major increase in enrolment in the 1990s, only five out of ten students that start secondary education eventually graduate (Acosta 2012). It should be noted that in the 1990s the Education Law extended compulsory schooling from 7 to 10 years, therefore extending elementary school by two years, which resulted positively in increasing years of enrollment in ISCED 2.

2.2.3 Higher Education As indicated above, there were few universities in Argentina during the nineteenth century, though Law 1597 passed in 1885 – known as the Avellaneda law – would provide the framework for the development of the university model until, at least, the university reform of 1918. Universities at that time offered programs in traditional fields. They were legally bound to the executive branch, though the aforementioned student-driven reform would attempt to modify that state of affairs. Nonetheless, political meddling in universities would be a constant in university life in Argentina until 1983, when the most recent military dictatorship came to an end. In the mid-twentieth century, during the first two of Peron’s administrations and even later, there were major changes in the university system. In 1949, an openaccess free of charge university model was instituted. This would change again during the military governments, but it was undoubtedly largely responsible for a leap in enrolment of more than 180% from 1947 to 1955. In addition, in 1948 the university model and its institutions underwent a change through the creation of the Universidad Obrera Nacional (a national working class university), geared towards training a new class of professionals in the field of engineering, holders of a degree in “factory engineering.” Classes started in March 1953, with seats in Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Rosario, Mendoza, and Santa Fe. After

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Perón was overthrown, in 1959 the Universidad Obrera Nacional became what is now the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. The 1960s are considered the golden age of the public university due to the quality of its professors and curricula. That decade also saw the creation of two additional nationally run regional universities and, amidst considerable public debate, the growth of private university education. Nonetheless, not until the first years of the 1970s did the university panorama truly diversify thanks to the creation of nationally run universities, which added up to 26 (until the beginning of the 1970s, there had only been ten national universities) (CONEAU 2012). This, in turn, meant a tripling of the number of students from 1955 to 1973. The military coup in 1976 initially led to stagnation and then a fall in university enrolment. This changed when democracy and the principles of joint student governance and open competition among candidates for senior teaching positions were restored. From 1984 to 1990, the number of students enrolled in universities grew sharply (65%, an increase from 443,400 students in 1984 to 679,400 in 1990). The most recent law on higher education, Law 24,521, was passed in 1995. It is the first rule seeking to regulate universities and other nonuniversity higher education institutions, mostly teacher training institutes, thus giving shape to a system of higher education at large. During this period, new universities were founded, especially in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, some of which attempted to expand professional options and to modify the organizational structures of traditional universities. In 1996, there were 40 state universities, mostly nationally run, and 44 private ones (CONEAU 2012) (Fig. 5). 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Primary

Secondary

Tertiary

Fig. 5 Estimate enrolment ratios by level. 1900–1995. (Source: Drawn up on the basis of Lee, J.W. & H., Lee v.1.0, Jan 2016, Lee and Lee long-run education dataset, accessed on November 2019: http:// www.barrolee.com/. * Lee and Lee use “adjusted enrolment ratios Based on “the ratio of all persons enrolled in a given level of schooling to the population within a specific age bracket, which is consistent across all countries,” except for tertiary education in which they use unadjusted gross enrolment ratios (Lee and Lee 2016: 148–149). Historical enrolment ratios are Based on different sources such as UNESCO’s world survey and other sources Based on surveys and census (Lee and Lee 2016))

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An Overview in the Face of the Changes of the 1990s

Both the founding and massification of the Argentinian education system prove its primary characteristics: organization by a centralized state, minimal coordination between levels, a significant capacity to expand, and trouble implementing institutional changes to address dropout rates. Recurring economic crises since the 1970s, including the one that took place in 2001, have increased poverty among the population, leaving a mark on educational systems and their aforementioned structural problems. The most significant of these problems involves increased educational segregation as well as “deterioration” in the quality of education. Both the structural problems and these new challenges have been affected by the educational reform of the 1990s. Though the origin of this reform lies in previous military dictatorships, it culminated in the Federal Education Law passed in 1993. That law, which was passed in the context of a neoliberal government, faced some of the problems of the education system mentioned above, such as: • A system without overriding regulations and norms geared towards cohesion. Until the passing of the Federal Education Law, elementary school education was regulated by Law 1420 passed in 1884 and provincial laws. Though affected by a number of rulings and interventions, university education was largely determined by the Avellaneda Law, passed in 1885. High school education was regulated by specific measures. The Federal Education Law aimed to coordinate the three levels. • A centralized state-run system dominated by bureaucracy and its rationales. The decentralization in education started in the 1960s and 1970s and, once effected in the 1990s, it released the centralized national government of its financial responsibilities regarding education on all levels (elementary, high school, and nonuniversity higher education) in order to foster “autonomy.” This reform, however, reproduced the pattern of centralized organization within each of the provinces. • A mass education system capable of growing: elementary school enrolment leveled out fairly quickly, and enrolment in high schools and institutions of higher education grew throughout the twentieth century. Supported by a brief period of greater investment in education from 1993 to 1998, this situation intensified in the 1990s. • A mass education system that has trouble retaining its student body, especially at the secondary school and higher education levels. The Federal Education Law modified the structure of the education system, especially at the high school level, by creating intermediate cycles and new curricular modalities that attempt to change the “expulsive” school. The implementation of the law has led to institutional changes that favor the diversity of the system, interrupt traditions, generate an identity crisis among teachers, and fail to resolve the problems facing these levels of education (such as the high dropout rate). • The fragmentation of the education system and growing disparities in terms of quality. For reasons both integral and external to the system, these phenomena

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were already in the works in the 1980s – the reform in the 1990s only seems to have aggravated them. The economic and political crisis that seized the country in 2001 marked the beginning of a new chapter in both the history of the country and its education system. The section on the current legislation governing the system allows for an analysis of whether this stage represents a break from or a continuation of those earlier moments.

2.4

A New Period of Reforms

The decade of 2000 witnessed a new period of educational reforms, and within this framework, the current legislation was passed. A common characteristic of these laws was that, from an official perspective, they aimed to “fix” some of the policies developed in the past decade (Caderosso and Schoo 2011). First, in 2005 the Argentinian Congress passed the Technical and Professional Education Law, which sought to reorganize and restructure hierarchically this offer at the secondary and higher levels as well as within the professional training circuit. It should be noted that the previous reforms had eliminated the technical track at the secondary level (although some of those certificates had some kind of continuity by linking general education with technical and professional programs). The Education Funding Law was also passed that year. This legislation established several aims in terms of financial growth. In particular, it set the objective to increase education, science, and technology spending to 6% of GDP (Bezem et al. 2014). It also introduced some new forms of coordination between the different levels of governance, since the previous reforms had tended progressively to federalize the education system (Morduchowicz 2014). Finally, it established mechanisms, together with further legal instruments, in order to agree on a bottom line for diversified teachers’ salaries and working conditions (due to the federal structure), and introduced the collective bargaining institution between the federal government and the representative national unions (Claus and Sánchez 2019). According to some specialists, however, some of the financial instruments provided for by the Education Funding Law and by further regulations are limited in protecting spending goals regardless of economic volatility (Claus and Sánchez 2019). Finally, in 2006 Congress passed the National Education Law, which ratified some of the policies developed in the previous years to regulate the whole education system. Among some of the main reforms, compulsory education was extended from 10 to 13 years, until the completion of upper secondary school. In 2014, compulsory education was extended to 14 years as preschool at the age of 4 was established as mandatory. Regarding higher education, the law passed in the 1990s was not changed but some of its provisions were modified in 2015 in order to guarantee unrestricted free access to universities. Also, since 2005 new universities have been created, most of them in the outskirts of Buenos Aires city. By 2016, Argentina had 131 universities

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(strictly, 111 universities and 20 university institutions), of which 66 were state-run, 63 private, and 2 foreign and international (available at: estadisticasuniversitarias. me.gov.ar, accessed on November 2019). After this period of compulsory education extension, system expansion, and reforms, secondary school net enrolment rate ascended from 52.78% in 1993 to 86.63% in 2014, according to IIPE-UNESCO/OEI based on the permanent household survey. In the same period, the percentage of population of age 20 or more with a secondary school degree went from 17.14% to 24.29%. Also, according to the same source, the percentage of population 25 years old or more with a higher education degree also ascended from 11.68% in 1998 to 20.16% in 2014 (IIPEUNESCO/OEI, available at: http://archivo.siteal.iipe.unesco.org/, accessed on November 2019). The following sections detail some of the main regulations and characteristics of the Argentinian education system in the present and analyze some of its trends and current challenges.

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

3.1

General Principles

The Argentinian education system was developed earlier than in other Latin American countries. With its origin in central administration, it evolved since the first Education Law in 1884, which established compulsory free secular primary education. Even though secondary education did not have any specific regulation until 1993, it was also organized during the last decades of the nineteenth century with the creation of colegios nacionales (national high schools) all over the country. Other offers such as Teacher Training schools and Industrial and Commercial schools followed later on. Enrolment had a continuous growth throughout the twentieth century with periods of particular increase in the 1950s and the 1980s. The absence of any specific legislation that regulated secondary school together with the evolution of enrolment especially at that level led to the passing of a new Education Law in the 1990s and a series of reforms which altered the traditional structure of the system. However, failures in the implementation of these reforms, among other factors, led to a new period of reforms and the passing of the current legislation. At present, the system is organized under the National Education Law, the Education Funding Law, the Technical and Professional Education Law, and the Higher Education Law. This legislation applies to the entire national territory. While each province must pass its own specific legislation, the Federal Education Council is in charge of the coordination and agreement on general matters of the education system. Regarding the system’s structure, the current legislation establishes four educational levels: preprimary, primary and secondary school, and higher education. Furthermore, it defines 14 years of compulsory education starting from preschool

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at the age of 4 until the end of secondary school. Finally, it allows each province to choose between two possible structures: either 6 years of primary school and 6 years of secondary education, or 7 and 5 years, respectively. In relation to its financing, it should be noted that after a period of substantial disinvestment due to the economic crisis that unfolded in the second half of the 1990s and exploded in 2001, expenditure on education recovered progressively until 2011 and, after a year of renewed growth in 2015, it contracted again during the administration of the period 2016–2019. It is to note, however, that structural historical problems related to students’ trajectories at secondary school remained and led to high rates of repeaters, early school leaving, and over-age students. Table 2 shows some of the main indicators of the system. A special comment must be made on private education. Although it has its origins in the foundations of the system, there were a series of changes in terms of both its regulation and enrolment growth in the second half of the twentieth century. Regarding the first issue, the government started implementing a subsidy policy to partially finance private schools (through the contribution to teachers’ salaries) (Ruiz 2012) in the 1940s. Later on, in the 1960s, a policy of deregulation of private education was implemented. Some of those changes were incorporated in the Federal Education Law in the 1990s together with the provision that all education in Argentina should be public while administration could be state-run or private. The National Education Law passed in 2006 maintains much of those regulations. It allows denominational institutions, social organizations, cooperatives, unions, foundations, companies, and physical persons to offer private education (Ruiz 2016), under state authorization and supervision. This law also regulates general criteria for private institutions to receive state subsidies – although according to specific literature such criteria may be subject to the education authorities’ political will (Narodowski and Moschetti 2015). According to Sleiman (2018), in 2016, 12.4% of education spending represented state transfers to private education. However, this was not distributed evenly among the different provinces: while some provinces transferred around 20% of their spending, in others, this percentage did not reach 5 p.p. Another interesting issue is the difference between the percentages of denominational and secular schools that receive subsidies. Again, according to Sleiman (2018), while both at primary and secondary levels 70% and 77%, respectively, of all private schools receive some type of state subsidies, when analyzed in detail, this percentage is bigger among denominational schools (74% and 80%, respectively) than among secular ones (63% and 70%). It is important to note that of all private schools, denominational ones represent 63% at the primary level and 81% at the secondary level. Regarding enrolment growth, an upward trend was initiated in the 1960s, especially in primary schools, among which the percentage of students attending private schools grew from 10.6% in 1960 to 17.3% in 1980 and 21% in 2001 (Rivas 2009). It is important to add that this occurred in a period of general expansion of education. In addition, enrolment in private institutions grew particularly since 2003. According to Narodowski and Moschetti (2015), the percentage of students attending private schools rose from 25% in 2003 to almost 30% in 2010 for common education

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(accompanied by a growth in state subsidies to the private sector, according to these authors). Feldfeber et al. (2018) show a similar evolution of enrolment, in this case for the whole system: from 24.7% in 2002 to 28.9% in 2016. All in all, as it is shown in Table 2, in 2017, private education represented no more than 33% of the total of students attending educational institutions at any of the system levels. Finally, enrolment in private and state-run institutions is not evenly distributed among the different provinces of the country. As an example, between 2008 and 2016 the largest percentage could be found in Buenos Aires City, where more than the 50% of students attended private schools in 2016 (Feldfeber et al. 2018), while in other provinces this percentage descended to less than 15%. The percentages vary also according to the socioeconomic backgrounds of students. A study carried out by Gamallo (2011) concluded that in 2009, while 87% of students (5–17 years old) from lower income households attended state-run schools, 74% of students from the highest income households attended private institutions.

3.2

Education Administration and Governance

Briefly, in the second half of the twentieth century, Argentina shifted from a mainly nation-centered system to a provincial decentralized one (Paviglianiti 1988, 1995). As it was mentioned before, national primary institutions were transferred to the provincial administrations in the 1970s (although the process could be traced back to the 1960s) and secondary and nonuniversity higher national institutions were transferred in the 1990s. As part of this development, also in the 1970s, the national council (created in the nineteenth century) was replaced by a federal council (Paviglianiti 1995), which gained more relevance in the 1990s, in the context of an entirely decentralized system. This process involved a reorganization of the levels of education governance in Argentina as well (Ruiz 2016). The process described was mainly based on financial arguments and motivations (Cetrángolo and Gatto 2002) and therefore was not accompanied by any specific budget to support the institutions that had been transferred and the implications of such transferences (Cetrángolo and Gatto 2002). Moreover, the tax co-participation scheme was not altered, which in turn, considering the very unequal financial capacities among provinces, tended to deepen the inequalities among the different provincial education expenditures (Rivas 2009). Although in the 1990s, and especially in the last decades, some policies were aimed at addressing this issue, the problem remains and has a direct impact on variations through provinces in terms of teachers’ salaries as well as in general schooling conditions (Claus and Sánchez 2019). According to legislation, provincial administrations are in charge of the education system within their territories (including preprimary, primary, secondary, and nonuniversity higher institutions, since universities are mostly national and have autonomous and self-governing administrations). The central tier (the national government) is not directly in charge of any educational institution, though it has important powers – mainly, among others, to establish, in coordination with the

4,832,979

3,866,041

Non university: 980,020 University (2016):1,939,419

Primary

Secondary

Higher education

Non university: 668,997 (68. 3%) University: 1,519,797 (79%)

2,738,539 (70.8%)

3,537,684 (73.2%)

Students (private education) 586,700 (31.6%) 1,295,295 (26.8%) 1,127,502 (29.2%) Non university: 311,023 (31. 7%) University: 419,622 (21%) 81.25%

96.7%

Effective promotion rate (20182019)

10.02%

2.83%

Repeaters rate

29.09%

8.02%

Overage rate

8.73%

0.49%

Inter annual school leavers rate

54,1%b

95%a

Graduation rate

Source: Annual survey by the Argentinian Ministerio de Educación, Cultura, Ciencia y Tecnología, and Annual Statistics by the Secretaría de Políticas Universitarias a 2014 data, obtained from “Principales cifras del sistema educativo nacional,” a document by DiNIEE, Ministerio de Educación y Deportes, Presidencia de la Nación, retrieved from http://www.bnm.me.gov.ar/giga1/documentos/EL005678.pdf b 2018 data, obtained from “Evaluación de la educación secundaria en Argentina 2019,” a document by Ministerio de Educación, Presidencia de la Nación, retrieved from https://back.argentina.gob.ar/sites/default/files/sintesis_de_datos_destacados_evaluacion_de_la_educacion_secundaria_en_argentina_2019pdf. pdf

Students (total) 1,851,601

Levels Preprimary

Students (public education) 264,901 (68.3%)

Table 2 Main indicators of the education system, 2019

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federal council, the objectives and common basic syllabi for all levels of the education system and to organize and implement a national assessment. The federal council – which represents all 24 jurisdictional administrations, the national government, and the universities council – is in charge of the coordination of as well as reaching agreements on educational policy. It should be pointed out that the Education Law passed in 2006 and several further regulations sought to introduce centralized instruments by either regulating some of the federal council resolutions as mandatory (Ruiz 2016), creating national bodies (such as the teacher training national institute), and strengthening existing ones (such as the technical education national institute). Finally, it has been discussed whether the policies of the 1990s constitute a decentralization or rather a re-centralization process, since the national government has adopted important control mechanisms such as the definition of the basic syllabi and the implementation of national assessment tools (Senen González 2001; Feldfeber and Ivanier 2001; Rodrigo 2006).

3.3

Structure of the Education System According to the ISCED Classification

Regarding its organization, as it was mentioned before, the current legislation establishes four levels: preprimary, primary, secondary, and higher education. The preprimary education level (ISCED 0) constitutes a pedagogic unit and includes children from 45 days up to 5 years of age, inclusive, and the last 2 years are compulsory. According to official statistics, 1,851,601 pupils attended this level in 2019. The primary education level (ISCED 1) is also compulsory and makes up a pedagogic and organizational unit addressing children from 6 years of age. It can last 6 or 7 years (from 6 to 11 or 12 years of age) according to the structure chosen by each province. The secondary education level is compulsory and constitutes a pedagogic and organizational unit for students who have finished primary education. Secondary education has three tracks: general, technical, and artistic education. The first one is divided into two cycles: a Basic Cycle (ISCED 2), common to all students, and an Orientation Cycle (ISCED 3), with a diversified nature according to different areas of knowledge. Until 2019 it included 13 orientations: social sciences and humanities, natural sciences, economics and administration, languages, arts, agricultural and environmental studies, tourism, communication, computer science, physical education, literature, physics and mathematics, and pedagogy. The technical education track is also divided into two cycles and its specializations are defined nationally by the Institute of Technical Education. Artistic secondary education is also divided into two cycles – basic and orientation– and may lead to a bachelor-oriented or a technical certificate, depending on the specialization chosen. It is important to add that transition between orientation (academic), technical, and artistic tracks is possible at any moment of schooling (depending the stage and direction of the track change students might have to sit for equivalence exams) and either of them allows access to any course of study or institution of higher education.

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The higher education level is not compulsory and includes university studies and nonuniversity higher studies provided by teacher training institutes and technical or vocational higher training institutes. Besides the levels described above, the current law also establishes the existence of educational modalities aimed at people with specific training interests (such as technical or artistic education, offered at secondary and higher education levels), people who have not been able to complete the secondary level during their school age, groups with cultural identities to be preserved (e.g., aboriginal communities), or sectors of the population that demand special forms of attention. Eight modalities are distinguished: technical professional education, artistic education, special education, young and adults’ lifelong education, rural education, intercultural bilingual education, education in contexts of deprivation of freedom, and home- and hospital-based education. It is clear that many of them existed before the passing of the new law (i.e., technical, artistic, special, and adult education), but for others this means an important advance as they have achieved a new status: from special programs designed by different education offices to legally recognized constituent parts of the education system.

3.4

Personnel Supply

The history of teacher training in Argentina goes back to the end of the nineteenth century, when the education system was taking shape. There are three distinct lines of teacher training. The first one, which was mentioned in the historical section of this chapter, began with the creation of high schools geared towards teacher training (escuelas normales) in 1870. Then followed the creation of specific training for preschool teachers and the training of educators to train future teachers in the 1880s. Except for teacher training schools (the abovementioned escuelas normales), the other two involve post-high school phases of the educational process. The second line, which began in the early twentieth century, entails universitylevel training through the creation of seminars on pedagogy and university departments of education. These programs aimed to complement the training of university graduates who would work in high schools with a humanities orientation. Starting in the mid-twentieth century, universities developed their own programs in education and issued degrees that enabled teaching at the high school level and beyond. The third line is, in fact, an outgrowth of the second. To respond to dissatisfaction with university training for high school teaching, institutes specifically geared towards that sort of training were created. Though they were initially few in number, they would have a great impact on teacher training in the largest cities in Argentina. What would eventually become a divide between training for teachers and for secondary school teachers, especially those trained at the university, is the emphasis placed on pedagogy and actual teaching. Whereas those two concerns would be central in high schools geared towards training teachers (escuelas normales), higher

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education programs that trained high school teachers and especially university professors placed an emphasis on the subject that the professor or teacher would eventually teach. Similarly, there would be a major difference between training at institutions geared towards high school teachers and training received at universities to become a high school teacher. Programs for future high school teachers would tend to echo the content of the school curriculum, whereas the more autonomous programs at universities would offer a more classic education. The shift from high-school level teacher training (at Escuelas Normales) to posthigh school teacher training is among the major changes that took place in teacher training starting in the 1970s, as well as the transfer of nonuniversity teacher training from the national government to the provinces. This transfer was accompanied by an institutional reorganization of the teacher training system geared towards reducing the number of training institutions and imposing an accreditation system. The accreditation system was not applied in all jurisdictions, nor could the ministries and their policies sustain it in those years. Currently the government oversees training of preschool, elementary, and high school teachers, as well as professors of higher education specifically at Institutos Superiores de Formación Docente (institutes for teacher training, some of which have technical programs) and universities. After the aforementioned transfer, different levels of administration oversee these institutions, that is, they are supervised by the governments of each of the provinces and the City of Buenos Aires, whereas universities, which are autonomous, are supervised by the National Ministry of Education. The challenges posed by the complexity of the system and the range of teacher training institutions were met with the creation of the Instituto Nacional de Formación Docente (INFoD), a national institute engaged in teacher training), as provided for by the National Education Law in 2006. This is a body responsible for coordinating teacher training policies at all levels. Article 77 of that law establishes that INFoD should have a Consejo Consultivo (advisory council), whose members should represent the Ministry of Education, the Federal Education Council, the Council of Universities, relevant trade unions and private sectors, and the academic sphere. The Consejo Consultivo is conceived as a forum for policy debate among all agents involved in the teacher training system and its oversight. At the same time, Article 139 under Title XII on temporary and supplementary regulations establishes that coordinated technical measures on teacher training policy agreed on by the Federal Education Board will be enacted through federal meetings that ensure the participation of the authorities responsible for governing the institutes under INFoD. In the brief experience of the past few years, these regular meetings have encouraged the sort of debate that teacher training demands. A recent study on teacher training options in nonuniversity higher education institutions indicates that there are 1083 post-high school nonuniversity institutions that provide basic teacher training (Terigi 2007). Their characteristics include the following:

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• Of these 1083 institutes, 657 (60.7%) offer teacher training exclusively and 426 (39.3%) also offer technical and/or professional training. • Twenty-seven point nine percent (27.9%) provide training for preschool, 45.9% for elementary school, 66.8% for high school, and 20.5% for other levels or specialized training. There are major discrepancies in quality, and the number of teacher training institutes does not ensure enough teachers everywhere, or teachers with the necessary specializations. • Of nonuniversity teacher training institutions, 57.5% are public and 42.5% private. • Most of these institutions are located in the most populated provinces, which logically have the largest education systems. Most provinces have training institutions for each level of the education system, though some do not have enough graduates to provide the necessary number of teachers at all levels. This problem is most severe for preschool and specialized high school education. Most nationally run public universities offer teacher training: according to data of 2007, of 38 such universities, 35 have teacher training programs (92.1%). Most of those universities (28) train high school level teachers in a variety of disciplines, only 8 train elementary school teachers, and 10 offer programs in preschool education. Proportionally fewer private universities offer teacher training than public universities: of a total of 42 private universities, 26 offer teacher training programs (61.9%) (Terigi 2007). The heterogeneous nature of the teacher training system – one might even ask if it merits the term system – currently faces a challenge due to the prolongation of mandatory education and the growth of preschool education, goals established by the aforementioned National Education Law.

3.5

Transition to Work: Organization

The relation between education and labor and specifically the mechanisms of transition from school to work are long-standing much debated issues in Argentina, and different policies and reforms can be identified throughout the history of the system. Unlike other countries with a strong tradition of having specific mechanisms to support this transition, Argentina has a history of steps forwards and backwards (that could be analyzed in the framework of the transformations of Argentina’s economy and labor market and the process of schooling extension, together with the political discussions about the aim of these policies). Firstly, in 2008 the minimum age for admission to employment was set at age 16, though the law defined a range from age 16 to 18 of protected adolescent labor. This means that it is legal for young people at this age to work under some regulations such as their parents’ or tutors’ authorization, a shorter workday and the condition to attend and finish school. It should be noted that this amendment was passed 2 years after the extension of compulsory education to the end of secondary school. Also, in

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this framework, several social and employment programs implemented in the last decade included the completion of mandatory education. Regarding school-to-work transition, as it was briefly introduced, until the 1990s secondary school was diversified into orientation tracks: general, technical, commercial, and teacher training (this was an orientation of secondary school only until 1969), which provided a specialized degree. Also, historically, in the 1940s, the government regulated and institutionalized corporate apprenticeship programs, although they were terminated a decade later (Muiños et al. 2012). In the 1980s, under the last military dictatorship, the national technical council implemented for a period of time a dual apprenticeship system as an alternative plan in the orientation cycle of technical secondary schools (De Luca and Alvarez Prieto 2014). In the 1990s, after the implementation of the new education structure and the incorporation of lower secondary school into the general basic education level, upper secondary school – Polimodal – shifted to a general knowledge, mildly orientation based type of schooling, which provided no specialized certificate. However, in order to give continuity to technical education, the national institute of technical education implemented short technical courses of study and combined them with Polimodal, granting a specialized technical degree (Hirsch 2015). Regardlessly, this was again modified by the new education and technical education laws, and currently technical education constitutes a diversified orientation of secondary school (mostly in the first years tough, its curriculum includes much of the general curriculum). Students can change from general to technical and otherwise, and both technical and general (and artistic) tracks allow access to any higher education course of study and institution. Graduates from technical secondary school obtain a specialized technical degree regulated within the framework of the National Catalogue of Degrees and Certificates of the National Institute of Technical Education (Hirsch 2015). On the other hand, some mechanisms have been developed in the last decades. In the case of secondary technical education, the regular curriculum includes a certain amount of professional practice (Rueda Rodríguez 2014) during the orientation cycle of secondary school. Such practice is arranged by the school and carried out within the school itself or at companies or ONGs. As stated by the law, the aim is to bridge the transition to work, but the professional practice does not guarantee any present or future job contract. Also, the regulation of internships has undergone some changes in the last decades. In the 1990s, a specific law provided for an internship system (which received much criticism since it might constitute a form of precarious work). In 2008, a new law introduced some changes such as the shortening of the workday (to 4 h) and a maximum term for the internship (from 2 to 12 months), and the establishment of minimum compensation (associated with the minimum salary) together with some guarantees such as health insurance (Adamini 2011). The existence of a professional training circuit regulated by the Professional and Technical Education Act and the National Education Act should also be noted. Professional training has also a changing history and this institutions offer training courses and specializations of a wide variety (Jacinto 2015). Recently, national and

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some provincial governments have been implementing a closer articulation of these institutions with school completion. To sum up, in the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the present one, the Argentinian educational system can be characterized by the progressive expansion of all its levels, especially secondary and higher education, the extension of compulsory education, and a series of institutional and academic reforms. In the 1960s and 1970s, a process of deregulation of private education and decentralization of the system of government took place. Later on, two periods of reform attempted, among other changes, to modify the academic structure. While more population attended progressively more years of schooling, research started to show a process of differentiation of schooling related mainly to socioeconomic disparities in the last decades of the twentieth century. Although adolescent’s access to secondary school tended to be universal, one of the main difficulties is related to progression, graduation, and to school quality disparities. The next section presents an overview of some of the inequality problems in terms of schooling.

4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects. Current Issues Towards the System’s Inequalities and Disadvantages

The pending issues that the current and future administrations must address in the education field in Argentina are significant. That is why it is necessary to design longterm policies far exceeding a specific period of government. For analytical purposes, we differentiate these issues into two groups: the historical and current ones. Among those to tackle originating in the system’s history, we point out the statecentered organization of the country, which has caused reduced provincial capacities for their autonomous development. In this context, the decentralization of the education system has collided with this limitation, causing uneven growth of each provincial system and resulting in unequal distribution of educational quality according to the student’s place of residence. Another historical challenge for governments is to address the strong expansive capacity of the Argentinian education system associated with a weakness in producing equal quality outcomes. This situation explains why there are many students in the system, but with little chance of having success in their educational trajectories, mainly in secondary and higher education. These two historic weaknesses of the education system translate into current challenges to be addressed by current and future governments: • Addressing the deepening difficulties arising from the relationship between the central government and the provinces, and the inequality among them that result in uneven teacher’s salaries, an unequal funding system based on the development level of each province, and unequal capabilities for innovation of management and renewal of structures and institutions.

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• Facing the increasing difficulties of provincial and national governments in terms of students’ retention and graduation at the secondary and higher education levels which originate not only in socioeconomic factors but also in schooling conditions. • Tackling the increasing fragmentation of the education system as a consequence of the existence of differentiated quality circuits by social sector, both among jurisdictions and between the public and private sector, and even within each of those sectors. • Putting an end to the educational segregation process caused by the apparent “deterioration” of public schools’ quality and subsequent transferal to the private sector (in many cases subsidized by the state), especially in urban more developed areas. • Making secondary school universal, not only in terms of access (an area in which much progress has already been made) but in terms of progression and graduation. Also, ensuring that this inclusion process is accompanied by equal quality offer to all adolescents.

4.1

Inequality

As it was mentioned before, in Argentina, schooling enrolment has extended progressively in the last decades, particularly in secondary and tertiary levels, and compulsory education was successively extended. However, some scholars discuss that school has expanded in qualitatively unequal forms, continuing to reproduce original social inequalities (Krüger 2014). In the first place, access to education increased at all levels and ages, particularly among students from poorer households. As it is shown in Table 3, in more than a 10-year period, access to secondary school increased almost 20 points among the young from the lower socioeconomic level, while it grew by 3 or 4 points in other Table 3 Schooling rates for adolescents and young people according to the socioeconomic level of households, and access to and graduation from secondary school. Urban areas of Argentina, 2000 and 2016 Age group % of adolescents aged 12– 17 that attended school % of young people aged 20–22 that attended secondary school % of young people aged 20–22 that graduated from secondary school, among those who had access to it

Low 2000 *

2016 84.5

Medium 2000 2016 91.4 91.0

High 2000 98.4

2016 97.4

Total 2000 91.7

2016 93.0

67.9

85.3

85.5

89.6

94.6

97.2

81.9

89.8

53.1

57.9

64.9

72.8

85.3

86.9

68.5

70.0

Source: SITEAL, based on a household survey by INDEC (Accessed July 2018)

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socioeconomic levels where access to secondary school had already tended to expand. However, when it comes to compare graduates, although in absolute terms the figure might have increased, proportionally the increase was much slighter. Also, while 58% of those coming from lower socioeconomic levels eventually graduated, the percentage increased to 73% and 87% in middle and high socioeconomic levels, respectively. It is important to note that these data do not provide information about other age groups, and studies have shown that in the last years, more young students might have tended to graduate from secondary school in their twenties (Scasso 2018). Related to this, data in the last years have shown that while secondary school enrolment expanded, retention problems remained, especially in the orientation cycle (upper secondary), much of which was expressed in difficulties in progression and graduation. In the context of this development and the expansion of compulsory school, some programs and policies were implemented, both small and large scale (Terigi et al. 2013). In the case of higher education, as it is shown in Table 4, access increased in all strata although the proportion of young people (30–32 years old) that attended this level is much larger among those from high-income households. Something similar can be said about graduates: while, in 2016, 66.6% of people aged 30–32 who had attended higher education finished it, this percentage decreases to 49.4% among the young from middle-income households and to 35.5% among those from low-income families. In the second place, schooling expansion has had an unequal form. Scholars have studied processes of segmentation (Braslavsky 1985), fragmentation (Tiramonti 2004), through which diversified quality circuits are generated, constituting an important factor for the reduction of learning opportunities and future trajectories for young people. Therefore, inequality has not only affected access but also the way in which students undergo schooling. In an early study, Braslavsky (1985) had shown the existence of segmented education circuits which threatened an egalitarian access to secondary school. Later on, in the Table 4 Schooling rates among young people according to the socioeconomic level of households, and access to and graduation from higher education. Urban areas of Argentina, 2000 and 2016 Age group % of young people aged 18–24 attending school % of adults aged 30– 32 that accessed higher education % adults aged 30–32 that graduated from higher education, among those who had access to it

Low 2000 31.6

2016 38.2

Medium 2000 2016 44.6 51.5

High 2000 No data available

2016 60.4

Total 2000 45.4

2016 46.5

7.8

12.6

22.1

34.0

57.0

66.5

29.1

35.6

38.7

35.5

46.2

49.4

61.0

66.6

55.6

58.0

Source: SITEAL, based on a household survey by INDEC (Accessed July 2018)

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context of a new significant high school expansion, scholars studied processes of differentiation within this education level expressed by mechanisms such as the distribution of material resources, teachers’ allocation, enrolment distribution and students’ access to schools, and school governance (Krüger 2012). Likewise, Cervini (2002) and Quiroz et al. (2018) have shown the relation of socioeconomic factors and secondary students’ learning outcomes. This field of study – particularly the way original social inequalities tend to be reproduced and expressed in educational inequalities as the system expands and more students gain access to higher levels – continues to be a central issue of exploration in the context of recent reforms, the progressive universalization of secondary school, and the expansion of access to higher education.

4.2

Access to ICT and Digitalization

Digitalization and access to the Internet and technology are one of the main remaining challenges. Although in the last decade great efforts have been made in this direction, mainly by the implementation of the national program Conectar Igualdad, universal Internet access and the use of computers in class are still an outstanding obligation, especially in state-run schools. Launched in 2010 and terminated in 2016, Conectar Igualdad program aimed to provide students and teachers of secondary and nonuniversity levels with a personal computer, together with the development of digital content and training. In 2016, 63% of primary schools and 82% of high schools had access to the Internet; however, for both levels, the percentage of state-run schools misrepresented the total while in private institutions access was almost universal (Fig. 6). Regarding the frequency of computer use in class, big differences can also be found among levels of the system and between state-run and private schools. As shown in Fig. 7, the use of computers is much more frequent in primary than in secondary school, at least according to the information provided for the last year of each level. Similarly, some differences can be found between private and state-run schools in both levels regarding Internet access.

4.3

International and National Assessments

Argentina started implementing standardized national assessments in the 1990s, as it was established in the Federal Education Law, with the creation of the National System of Quality Assessment. Later on, national assessment was pursued through the National Assessment Operations which were taken to a sample of students and schools in some cases, and to all of them in the case of the last year of secondary school. As mentioned before, assessment constituted an instrument of the national state in the context of the decentralization of the educational system. Since 2016, the right oriented administration under President Mauricio Macri has implemented the Aprender assessments, together with the creation of new institutions and political

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120 100 80 60 40 20 0 State

Private

Total

State

Primary

Private

Total

Secondary Yes

No

Fig. 6 Percentage of schools with Internet access by level of education and sector. 2016. (Source: Drawn up on the basis of “Aprender 2016: Acceso y uso de TIC en estudiantes y docentes,” retrieved from https://www.argentina.gob.ar/sites/default/files/acceso_y_uso_de_tic_en_estudiantes_ y_docentes.pdf) 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 State

Private

Total

State

6° grade Primary Once a week

Private

Total

5°/6° grade Secondary Some times in a month

Some times in a year

Fig. 7 Percentage of students that use computers in class by frequencies of use, level of education, and sector. 2016. (Source: Drawn up on the basis of document “Aprender 2016: Acceso y uso de TIC en estudiantes y docents,” retrieved from https://www.argentina.gob.ar/sites/default/files/ acceso_y_uso_de_tic_en_estudiantes_y_docentes.pdf)

plans, placing national standardized assessment as a central element of educational policies (Oreja Cerruti and Carcacha 2017). In addition, some jurisdictional administrations have been implementing their own assessment instruments since the 1990s, as established in the law. A special comment might be made on the distribution of the national assessment results. While it originally promoted schools’ comparison through rankings, the National Education Law regulated anonymity of students, teachers, and schools (Oreja Cerruti and Carcacha 2017). Although scholars and the educational

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600 500

486

494

490

506

479

493

491

495

493

400

418

409

433

417

425

425

440

432

Female

Male

Male

Average

400 300 200 100 0

Average Female

Math

Male Reading

Argentina

Average Female

Science

International average (OECD)

Fig. 8 Assessment results for PISA, by gender and subject. Argentina and OECD average. 2015. (Source: Drawn up on the basis of reports at: http://piaacdataexplorer.oecd.org/ide/idepisa)

community give further discussion to the National Assessment’s methodology, implementation, and communication, test results serve to show some of the system’s inequalities. As regards PISA, Argentina has participated since 2001 except in 2003, when it did not take the tests for reasons associated with the country’s economic crisis in 2001. The national ministry of education through its evaluation department is in charge of the tests. Between 2000 and 2012 Argentina did not improve significantly in any of the subjects since the country started to participate in PISA tests. While results in PISA 2015 showed improvement, the country was affected by a change in the sampling criteria, which cancelled the comparability of country results both in terms of other countries and previous years. According to OECD, Argentina’s results were excluded from the PISA 2015 publication because the population complying with the selection requirements for the sample was lower than expected. Rivas and Scasso (2017) agree: the Argentinean sample does not comply with the minimum quality standards. But the key questions about the reasons why this problem could not be identified on time and solved remain unanswered (154). Nor has the OECD offered further explanations, nor has the new administration, in office since late 2015, demanded them (Fig. 8).

5

Conclusion

From a regional comparative perspective, the Argentinian education system has stood out among other systems due to its high democratization, with high schooling rates on both elementary and high school levels. The role played by education in forming the State was crucial, showing during the twentieth century a gradual incorporation of various social sectors into increasingly higher levels of education. This capacity of expansion of the education system was not accompanied by

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processes that ensure high quality education to the same extent. The country’s economic and political difficulties during key periods explain part, though not all, of this phenomenon. The 1990s was a decade of profound changes that sought to overcome these difficulties on the basis of paradigms that privileged the efficiency in terms of cost/ benefits rather than the democratization of the education quality. Decentralization processes applied from the central government without properly estimating provincial resources led to the fragmentation of the education system and deepened inequalities. Currently Argentina faces the challenge of retrieving the notion of a single education system and introducing the idea of a system which, while reflecting the local particularities, should ensure equivalent outcomes with high levels of quality for all students, regardless of where they live or which sector (public or private) they attend. This challenge involves not only the availability of national and provincial resources but also innovation and the exchange of learning experiences in a coordinated system. The extension of compulsory education and prolongation of the initial school level in addition to social security policies such as the Asignación Universal por Hijo (universal allowance per child, implemented during the last administration and maintained by the present one) are precisely aimed at achieving not only the incorporation of increasingly more students into the system – an issue where the system has proven successful – but also the students’ permanence and progression until graduation, a historical difficulty at the secondary level and higher education.

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The Education System of The Bahamas The First Quarter of the Twenty-First Century Marky Jean-Pierre

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 General Historical Background and the Social and Educational Foundations of The Bahamas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Geographical, Historical, Social, and Political Foundations of Education in the Bahamas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 The Bahamas in the First Quarter of the Twenty-first Century: Its Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts, and Social Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Social Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Transition to Labor Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Education System of The Bahamas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles, Administration, and ISCED Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Education Administration and Governance in The Bahamas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 The Structure of the Bahamas Educational System According To ISCED Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Other Educational Trends and Emerging Issues in the Bahamian Education System: Vision, Inclusion, Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 How the Educational Authority Navigates Issues of Inclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 The Orientation of the Teaching of Sciences, Technology, and Mathematics Subjects in the Bahamian School Curricula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Emerging Issues in the Bahamian Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

92 93 93 99 101 101 102 102 104 104 109 110 112 113 115 116

Abstract

This chapter illustrates that in the period from the second half of the twentieth century to the first quarter of the twenty-first century The Bahamas has seen changes in the educational landscape with its attendant impact on the social and M. Jean-Pierre (*) Foreign Language Department, Faculty of Liberal and Fine Arts, The University of The Bahamas, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_32

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economic landscapes that surpass by far those of the period from the 1730s when formal education started to take place to the period of the second World War. More precisely, since 1973, when the Archipelago became an independent Commonwealth till today, arguably, this bare half a century has brought changes to the life conditions of Bahamians that are in no way comparable to the nearly 250 years when Britain took over The Bahamas in 1717 to when the country became free to develop with the mind power of its citizens. This chapter outlines the general background of The Commonwealth of The Bahamas focusing on its historical, geographical, social, economic, and political foundations; and assesses the development of the education sector along with its strength, challenges, and perspectives. This chapter maintains that while the education system is facing its own challenges, progress in this sector is commendable given a country that emerged from colonization only recently and where access to education was contingent upon belonging to a particular social class. Keywords

Education · Bahamas · Caribbean · ISCED · Education plan

1

Introduction

The Bahamas has progressed far since the time when access to education in the Americas intersected with the skin color of school age children. However, the history that informs the postcolonial Americas cannot be condoned in the reflection on the social structures that emerge from the 500 years of history of the Western Hemisphere. Although the subjugation of human beings is a common thread in the history of the American Continents, each society has its unique ways of experiencing realities. This chapter aims to look at the education system of the postcolonial nation of The Bahamas with an emphasis on the World War II period. The Bahamas became an independent nation on July 10, 1973, and the anniversary of this date is celebrated annually with great pride by Bahamians. While reasons for these celebrations are evident in different social structures of the country and its political self-determination as a nation, the education sector is a specific area where changes can be assessed. The 2018 report on human development of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) ranks The Bahamas 54th out of 189 countries surveyed (UNDP 2018), placing the country among the top 30% of countries for human development in the world, and among the 58 countries with very high Human Development Index (HDI). Its HDI of 0.80 surpasses the world average HDI of 0.72. In terms of quality of human development, The Bahamas “performs better than at least two thirds of the countries assessed (i.e., it is among the top third performers); better than at least one third but worse than at least one third (i.e., it is among the medium performers)” (United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] 2018, 5). In terms of education, more specifically, The Bahamas is located in the middle range. The quality of education is measured

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by the UNDP in terms of indicators pertaining to “pupil-teacher ratio in primary schools; primary school teachers trained to teach; proportion of schools with access to the internet; and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores in mathematics, reading and science.” This chapter focuses on the contributing factors to the rank that The Bahamas maintains on world stage, particularly at the level of education. In parallel, considering the UNESCO’s International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), we ask how the Bahamian education system compares to the ISCED levels. What are some of the areas of challenges faced by Bahamian educational stakeholders? What are the perspectives advocated to address these challenges? In conformity with the prescribed layout of this volume, to address these questions, this chapter examines the education system of The Bahamas, placing it into the broader history that informs the post-Columbian Americas. It outlines key events that have contributed to the existence of the nation of The Bahamas along with its emergence as an independent Commonwealth nation. By so doing, this chapter briefly outlines some aspects of Bahamian society such as culture, politics, demography, and economy, which impact how the education sector has been developing. A prevailing aspect of this chapter is the analysis of the education sector in light of the UNESCO’s ISCED classification of world education. This chapter relies on the review of existing documents such as statistical records and education plans available at the Ministry of National Education and other agencies of the Bahamian Government as well as scholarly productions and reports by international institutions such as United Nations. Our method consists in reviewing these materials in search of key elements that inform the development of Bahamian society, particularly the education sector.

2

General Historical Background and the Social and Educational Foundations of The Bahamas

2.1

Geographical, Historical, Social, and Political Foundations of Education in the Bahamas

Particular historical moments have contributed to the socioeconomic development of the Bahamas, rendering it both similar to and different from other Caribbean nations. Varied elements have contributed to the overall structure of the post-World War II Bahamian society and its education system. This section outlines the general background of The Commonwealth of The Bahamas focusing on its geographical, historical, social, economic, and political foundations.

2.1.1 Locating The Bahamas Geographically The Commonwealth of The Bahamas comprises multiple islands, of which 30 are inhabited. It is a 13,939 sq. km coral archipelago distributed into approximately 700 islands and more than 2,000 rocks and cays in the West Atlantic south-east of the coast of Florida, USA, and northeast of Cuba. The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism

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considers the country as “an ecological oasis sprinkled over 100,000 square miles of ocean, starting just 50 miles off the coast of Florida [. . .] boasting the clearest water on the planet [. . .] with a visibility of over 200 feet” (For more information, see https://www.bahamas.com/). The country has a total area of 5,382 square miles (More information is available at https://www.reference.com/geography/physicalfeatures-bahamas-91b6e59bed1a1e90). The highest point in The Bahamas is Mount Alvernia, which is located on Cat Island, at 206.7 ft. The most populated islands are New Providence, which occupies a central position in the archipelago and is the location of the capital city, Nassau; and Grand Bahama at the northernmost part of the country. According to the 2010 census, New Providence has a population of 210,832 while the Grand Bahama is home to 46,994 inhabitants. The third most populated island is Abaco with a population of 13,170. Although the island of Andros is the largest island, the 2010 census indicates a population of 7,686 inhabitants. The rest of the inhabited islands, around 30, constitute what is known collectively as the Family Islands or Out Islands. Information available at The Commonwealth website indicates that the islands sprawl on a submarine shelf arising sharply from deep waters in the east, and that shallower waters are found in the west around the Great Bahama Bank. Formed out of coralline limestone, the islands have an undersea depth of about 1,500 m. The profile drawn by the Food and Agriculture Organization indicates that the 15 largest islands are: North Andros (3,439 km2), Great Inagua (1,544 km2), South Andros (1,448 km2), Great Abaco (1,146 km2), Grand Bahama (1,096 km2), Long Island (596 km2), Eleuthera (518 km2), Acklins (497 km2), Cat Island (389 km2), Exuma (290 km2), Mayaguana (285 km2), Crooked Island (241 km2), New Providence (207 km2), San Salvador (163 km2), and Little Inagua (127 km2) (For more information visit the site at http:// www.fao.org/countryprofiles/index/en/?iso3¼BHS). According to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2012 estimate, “the total physical cultivated area [is] 12 000 ha [. . .]. Permanent meadows and pasture cover 2 000 ha, which brings to total agricultural area to 14 000 ha.”

2.1.2 The Bahamas: Brief Historical Perspective Europeans settled in The Bahamas in mid-1600s, specifically on Eleuthera in 1649 and New Providence in 1666. The American Revolution that led to US independence in 1776 brought new economic propulsion to the Bahamas. Loyalists to the Crown fled the former English colony, and many debarked unto the Bahamian archipelago, particularly in the New Providence and Great Abaco islands. Here, they pursued their production of cotton with the forced labor of the enslaved Africans that they brought from the USA (For more information about these historical events, see Caribbean Islands – Country Profile: The Bahamas: http:// www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-3338.html). The National Archives indicates on its website that “The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed on 25 March 1807.” According to this source, “Slavery was abolished on 1 August 1834 but only children under the age of six were freed immediately under the terms of the 1833 Emancipation Act.” Yet, The National Archives maintains that “1838 is often considered to be the date that slavery was

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abolished in the Caribbean” (For more information, visit the site of the National Archives of the UK Government at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/slavery/ about.htm). The new dynamics of post-emancipation in the Commonwealth would curb the economic gain of the upper social class at a moment when slavery was no longer trendy. Colonists had to contend with the fall in price of products as well as global competition. The economy of the Bahamas benefited from the US Civil War, because Nassau, its capital city, became an important base for blockade running by the Confederate States. Two other key historical moments when the Bahamas economy benefited from sociopolitical evolutions and geopolitical events include the Eighteenth Amendment of the US Constitution and the Second World War. First, the Volstead Act in the USA substantiated the Eighteenth Amendment of 1919 and 1920 restricting the sale, manufacturing, distribution, and consumption of alcohol (For more information about the Volstead Act, see the Encyclopaedia Britannica: https:// www.britannica.com/topic/Eighteenth-Amendment). This turned the islands of the Bahamas into an area of prime interest for prohibition runners from the USA. Secondly, World War II encouraged a symbiosis between the USA and Britain that benefited the Bahamas’ economy. As the world experienced devastation from different angles, the need to take actions to ensure the survival of humanity became the priority. Arguably, the post-World War II era largely contributed to an impetus for educational development in all former colonies and territories of European powers and even in the world, more generally; one of the most notable being the creation of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). For the Bahamas, it meant a reshuffle of the geopolitical context that would bring unprecedented change to the overall social landscape of the archipelago as England and the USA established their military bases in the region following the Lend-Lease Agreement, under which the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945) referred to the Caribbean as a coastal frontier and “the bulwark that we watch. (Caribbean Islands – World War II. Encyclopedia of the nations. http://www. country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-3368.html)” From this perspective, Bethel (1998) also suggests that the governance of the Bahamas by the abdicated King Edward contributed to elevating the Bahamas to higher significance.

2.1.3 Early Educational Development in The Bahamas History traces the development of formal education in The Bahamas back to 1721 when an individual known as Mr. Isaac and an ecclesiastic organization – Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) – endeavored to offer formal instruction in the colony. The state power of the archipelago intervened as early as 1729 in education; however, it relied heavily on the ecclesiastic organization. Following a 1729 request from Governor Woodes Rogers, an SPG mission arrived in Nassau from England in 1733. Over a decade later, the impetus for education in the colony led to a series of power decisions by the state that were materialized in the Education Act of 1746, 1770,

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and 1795 (Government of The Bahamas – Ministry of Education, Youth, Sports, and Culture 2008). The Education Act, introduced in 1746 and revised in 1763, imposed taxes on the population between the ages of 16 and 60 in the colony so as to collect funds for the construction and operation of one school. The 1770 Education Act which turned into law in 1772 opted for more schools, not only on the island of New Providence where Nassau, the capital city is located, but also on the other islands. This bill resulted in the establishment of more schools in New Providence and the other islands, particularly on Harbour Island, Savannah Sound Island, and Rock Sound. The Education Act of 1795, which resulted from the entry of the loyalists into the House of Assembly, continued the fledging momentum of the education sector. A notable accomplishment of this Education Act was the establishment of a unit under which all existing schools were organized and assigned the label of Single Central Authority. This unit barely survived a decade; nevertheless, it marked early tendency in the colony toward organized education, which was materialized in the establishment of the Central School of the Bahamas in the early 1820s. An entire century of efforts on education, from the 1720’s to 1820, resulted in basic education everywhere on the archipelago. Next, a push to offer education beyond primary level began to emerge. During the first decade of the 1800s, the 1795 Education Act was revised. The establishment of the first high school in the colony represented a key element in the revision of the 1795 Education Act in 1804 (Government of The Bahamas – Ministry of Education, Youth, Sports, and Culture 2008). There is a linear progression in the history of education in The Bahamas from basic education to tertiary education. As Bethel (1998) contends, early efforts to establish higher education on the entire archipelago were mistakenly referred to as a level of education that was beyond the scope of available resources. Efforts aiming at developing higher education in The Bahamas can be traced back to 1804 when the Parliament ordered the establishment of a high school, which was inaugurated in 1806. That was followed, in 1835, by another institution, namely, King’s College High School, which operated until 1849, until it was replaced in 1854 by The Grammar School, enduring for another decade of operation. The church intervened and established three schools, all of which survived until the end of the 1800s. The Anglican Church operated two of these, The Nassau Grammar School from 1865 to 1922 and then St Hilda’s School from 1886 to 1931. Under the direction of the Methodist Church, the Bahamas Collegiate, established in 1871, became Queen’s College in 1890; it is now considered the oldest private school in The Bahamas. In 1925, the government funded the Government High School that scholars such as Bethel (1998) recognize as forerunner of the University of The Bahamas. The establishment of the Government High School was pivotal for the overall education system of the country both at the level of tertiary education and teacher education. As indicated, the Bahamian education system has gone through multiple developments, but it is particularly marked by an alternation between the church and state for more than a century. This partnership between the church and the state needs to be recognized as an important impetus in the growth of the education system, leading to their being 13 open and operational primary schools in the colony by the dawn of

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the 1900s. Conversely, with more robust interventions by the state, the system began to evolve to more advanced levels of schooling.

2.1.4

Post-World War II and Post-Independence Educational Developments in The Bahamas The post-World War II period brought significant evolution to The Bahamas as a country and its educational system, particularly with the advent of the development of the tourism industry. But an analysis of this education system in light of preindependence and the post-independence contexts is warranted, as it allows us to situate the evolution of education in light of social and historical developments. Primary school enrollment jumped from around 12,000 students to 23,000 students during the decade 1947–1957 and to 33,000 by 1973. According to Bethel (1998), this figure had not changed significantly in the decades following Independence in 1973. Authority over education was comprised of a Board of Education made up of five members of parliament. The Board ensured that 6–14-year-old children found a placement either in schools under the authority of the Board, schools that obtained financial assistance from the Board, or schools operated by religious groups. Bethel (1998) also mentions that the School Graduating Certificate that the Board issued upon the successful completion of the program was awarded to a bare 38% of the students in 1950 and to 53% in 1958 (Bethel 1998, 3). Following the report produced by Harold Houghton on education in the country at the end of the 1950s, commonly named Houghton Report, the Board of Education instituted a 6-year primary school that replaced the former system which enrolled children from ages 6–14 (Bethel 1998). The Board of Education instituted by the Education Act of 1836, with the aim to centralize the governance of schools, did not have secondary education under its authority. The only high school that was under the control of the government, established in 1925, was led by a school committee. According to Bethel (1998), in 1957, besides the 268 students that were enrolled in this high school, the private sector and ecclesiastic institutions held the greater share of secondary education. Access to secondary education was limited because of factors such as tuition fees, racially motivated admission policies, and geographical locations. The only public secondary school was in New Providence, and before 1967 it was not fully tuitionfree. Its small fee of ten pounds per year, as Bethel (1998) indicates, was quite substantial for many Bahamian families. By 1947, there were around 800 students enrolled in public secondary schools, and around 1,500 by 1957. With the establishment of new secondary schools in New Providence and on other Islands of the Commonwealth in the late 1960s and early 1970s, more Bahamian young people were able to access secondary education. A UNESCO study found that by 1985, of the over 27,000 Bahamian high school students, 85% of them were in the age bracket of 11-14 (Bethel 1998, 26). Data published by the Bahamian Ministry of Education in 1994 suggested that over 24,000 11-18-year-old Bahamian students attended high schools. National student enrolment statistics published around a decade later in 2003 indicated that 49,385 students were enrolled in 158 Public Schools and 16,422 in 43 Independent Schools (Government of The Bahamas – Ministry of Education 2015). A document released by the Ministry of National Education in 2015 indicates

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80,000 students in the Bahamian school system distributed in over 260 schools. All told, the public sector accounts for about 50,000 students in its 168 establishments and the other 30,000 students are spread among 99 private schools nationwide. Although the development of education in The Bahamas can be dated to the 1720s, the last 60 years have been pivotal in the development of education in the country. It must be stressed that this evolution is intricately interwoven with the overall political, social, and economic development of the country. This was aided by the efforts of the British government, although it limits its interventions into some of the internal and communal affairs of the Commonwealth, and the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) in particular. Particular icons such as Harold Houghton, Dr. C. T. Leys, Williams along with their respective reports of 1968 (Houghton Reports), 1968 (Leys Report), and 1969 (Williams Reports) played key roles in the evolution of the education sector, which the leaders have seen as the means of economic and social development of the archipelago (see Dames 2010) for more information. Full name of Williams is missing in the source reported i.e., Dames 2010). The impetus for higher education started with an interest in teacher training. Technical and vocational training and nursing also constituted the educational needs that the government found necessary to advocate for, and would later contribute to the drive for higher education development. Following a series of social movements in the colony aided by the teachers who returned to the colony after studying abroad, Black males obtained the right to vote in 1959 followed by females in 1962. These changes have contributed to the rise of a majority rule expressed through the Progressive Liberal Party, which won its first election in 1967. From the second half of the twentieth century to the first quarter of the twenty-first century, The Bahamas has seen changes in the educational landscape with its attendant impact on the social and economic landscapes that by far surpasse those of the period from the 1730s when formal education started to take place to the period of the Second World War. More precisely, if we consider the date of 1973, when the Archipelago became an independent Commonwealth till today, we can argue that this bare half a century has brought changes to the life conditions of Bahamians that are in no way comparable to the nearly 250 years of rule beginning with Britain taking over the Bahamas in the second decade of the 1700s to when the country became free to develop itself with the mind power of all of its citizens. Admittedly, the period of the earlier 1700s is used here with respect to the year 1718 when the King of England officially appointed Woodes Rogers as the Royal Governor (Government of The Bahamas – The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism and Aviation 2021). Until the 1940s, access to education was defined by a social configuration, whereby the 10% White population disproportionately occupied access to wealth, state leadership, higher social settings, and quality of education. The National Task Force of 1994 concludes its report maintaining that “there are many factors influencing the nation’s schools which go beyond the educational arena itself (1994, 296).” The Task Force report substantiates its statement with societal elements such as those affecting particularly Bahamian youth including teenage pregnancy, violence, drug and alcohol abuse, prevalence of AIDS. While these factors are worthy of attention, progress in the education sector is commendable

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for a country that emerged from colonization only recently and where access to education was contingent upon social class.

2.2

The Bahamas in the First Quarter of the Twenty-first Century: Its Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts, and Social Conditions

2.2.1 The Bahamas and Its Political System The Bahamas is a parliamentary democracy operating under a constitutional monarchy and is defined in Chapter 1-1 of the Constitution as “a sovereign democratic State (Government of The Bahamas 2006).” Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, and the Judicial Branch comprise the governing bodies that maintain authority in the country, with varying degrees of responsibilities. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is recognized as Head of State and is represented by the Governor-General. The Government of The Bahamas is ensured by the Executive Branch that is comprised of the Cabinet of Ministers, at least nine, including the Prime Minister, Attorney General, and the Minister assigned to the education sector. The Prime Minister is appointed by the Governor-General; however, he or she must be the leader of the Political Party gaining the majority of the seats in the House of Assembly. The appointed cabinet Ministers are chosen from the Senators and House of Assembly. 2.2.2 The Bahamas and Its Economic Structure The Bahamas’ economy is primarily a market economy heavily relying on tourism and services related to financial activities, particularly international financial activities (see Table 1). The tourist industry has grown steadily since independence. From 1967 to 1986, the number of tourists significantly increased, going from less than a million around 1967 to three million in 1986. The agricultural sector contributes to the economy of the country, but to a lesser extent. According to the Department of Statistics of the Bahamas, in 2018, the country’s GDP is estimated at $12,424 billion in nominal dollars and $10,763 billion in real dollars, which indicates an increase of 2.3% in nominal growth and real growth of 1.6% from 2017 data. The Bahamas Government refers to tax neutrality, stable currency, a climate for business and investment, business incentives, and a vibrant economy to describe the economic environment of the country (For more information, the reader is advised to visit the site of the Bahamas Government via the following link: https://www.bahamas.gov.bs). 2.2.3 The Bahamas and Its Cultural Context Although Bahamians do not usually see themselves as creole in the manner that some groups with similar history in the region such as Haitians see themselves, the definition of Creole matches squarely well the cultural context of the Bahamas. The concept of creole alluded to here is in line with Barnabé, Chamoiseau, and Confiant’s

Industry Classification (Revision 4) Agriculture, forestry and fishing Mining and quarrying Manufacturing Electricity and gas, Water supply and sewerage Construction Wholesale and retail trade, Motor Vehicle repairs Transport and Storage Accommodation and Food Services Information and Communication Financial and Insurance activities Real Estate activities Professional, scientific and technical services Administrative and support services Public administration and defense, Social security Education Human health and social work Arts, Other Services, Household Employment, Extraterritorial Org. Total GFP at Basic Prices Taxes less subsides on products Sub Total Statistical discrepancy GDP by economic activity at purchaser current prices Current Growth Rate

ISIC Code A B C D&E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R,S & T

2012 115.0 57.6 315.8 228.5 795.4 1,342.9 471.3 936.9 342.2 1,000.7 1,704.9 318.6 210.9 549.5 317.5 319.7 733.3 9,760.6 959.9 10,720.4 – 10,720

2013 R 97.2 74.7 287.6 341.3 772.9 1,380.5 556.6 913.4 396.1 892.2 1,689.7 362.2 259.1 532.5 322.5 299.5 768.2 9,846.0 891.4 10,737.4 109.8 10,627.6 0.9%

2014 R 93.4 97.3 311.6 255.6 854.8 1,392.2 600.4 810.1 494.2 961.5 1,727.0 367.6 320.0 572.6 316.9 317.1 793.6 10,275.7 973.0 11,248.7 291.3 10,957.3 3.1%

2015 R 96.5 79.4 266.9 272.5 693.3 1,389.6 613.2 1,042.7 478.5 1,020.4 1,746.3 404.2 394.9 581.5 313.3 353.9 860.6 10,611.0 1,330.8 11,941.8 149.5 11,792.3 7.1%

2016 R 104.2 50.1 374.3 267.7 979.1 1,551.5 600.3 933.0 401.7 970.0 1,788.4 374.7 353.1 588.4 324.2 362.6 840.7 10,651.9 1,285.0 11,936.9 98.2 11,838.8 0.4%

2017 R 121.8 53.5 317.3 287.8 948.4 1,614.3 555.9 854.0 369.5 898.1 1,816.9 397.4 389.4 640.8 317.5 363.5 894.7 10,840.9 1,329.1 12,170.0 7.9 12,162.1 2.7%

Table 1 Gross Domestic Product by Economic Activity (B$ Millions) at Current Prices (Government of The Bahamas. Ministry of Finance – Department of Statistics 2018a)

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insight on creoleness. When these thinkers exclaimed “We declare ourselves Creoles (Barnabé et al. 1990, 891),” they refer to the general configuration of the postColumbian population in the region, as indicated in the following assertion: We declare that Creoleness is the cement of our culture and that it ought to rule the foundations of our Caribbeanness. Creoleness is the interactional or transactional aggregate of Caribbean, European, African, Asian, and Levantine cultural elements, united on the same soil by the yoke of history (Barnabé et al. 1990, 891–892). While it is true that The Bahamas is less than 100 miles off the coast of Florida in the USA, the history of its population is similar to that of the groups that Barnabé et al. refer to as they elaborate their notion of creoleness. In fact, The Bahamas is defined by the Government of The Bahamas, via The High Commission of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas’s website as “a distinct culture which has evolved over generations, from a mixture of mostly African, combined with some British and American influences, which developed into a unique and colourful style of Bahamian self-expression (2019).” (For more information, visit http://www. bahamashclondon.net/default/culture/).

2.3

Social Conditions

2.3.1 The Bahamas and Its Demographics The 2010 general census indicates a total population of 351,461 in the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. The population grew by 15.8% during the first decade of the 2000s, but growth was 3.2% less than the last decade of the twentieth century. The census of 2000 showed a population of 303,611, indicating a growth of 19.04% in comparison with the one of 1990 that showed a figure of 255,049; whereas the census of 2010 revealed a population of 351,461 indicating a growth of 15.8% for the 2000–2010 decade. Post-World War II, The Bahamas have seen steady growth at all levels among the population. In 1943, the population of the Commonwealth was 68,846, which was already an indication of a growth of 15.07% in comparison to 1931 when it was 59,828 (Government of The Bahamas – Ministry of Finance – Department of Statistics 2012). Considering the medium range of the population estimate based on the 2010 census, the current population of The Bahamas would be around 350,000 to 400,000 if one contemplates the general dynamic of censuses where there is a likelihood for underreported people. Islanders from other Caribbean nations often seek to integrate into the society due in part to its tourist-based booming economy.

2.4 2.4.1

Transition to Labor Market

The Structure of The Bahamas Labor Market and the Role of Education In terms of human capital, the total labor force of the Bahamas is made up of 235,695 workers including 113,100 women and 122,595 men. Employment data from late

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2018 suggest a number figure of around 211,000 employed persons, 110,280 men and 100,280 women, indicating an employment growth of 3.4%, 83.1% of employed labor force and an unemployment rate of around 10% (Government of The Bahamas. Ministry of Finance – Department of Statistics 2018b). The 2010 census counts 18,323 postsecondary technical/vocational graduates: 9503 males and 8,820 females. The same census shows 19,590 college/university (tertiary) 1-2-year graduates, 6,851 males and 12,739 females. 24,418 college/ university (tertiary) 3–4 years graduates, 9,021 males and 15,397 females. 8,423 college/ university (tertiary) 5+ year grads, of which 3,651 are males and 15,397 are females. The census indicates 3,241 members of the population having some form of education that is not specified. As Fielding (2014) put it, a total of 57% of managers have a postsecondary or college-level educational attainment and 41% have a high school educational attainment. A total of 87% of professionals have postsecondary or college-level educational attainment and 11.9% have a high school educational attainment. Around 98% of technicians and the clerical workforce have either a secondary, postsecondary, or college-level educational attainment. According to Fielding, “between 2000 and 2009, the College of The Bahamas graduated almost 4,000 persons at the associate and baccalaureate levels (2014, 3)” and these graduates represent a significant amount of the said educated workforce. In its Vision 2030 document drafted in 2015, the Ministry of Education made mention of the contribution of the Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute (BTVI) and the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) as well as the two major statefunded vocational schools to the economy. Furthermore, the Ministry notes that “Recent labour market surveys suggest that the need for skilled workers in the Bahamian labour market far exceeds the current capacity of BTVI and BAMSI to supply such skilled workers” (2015, 13). This remark added to the above outlined data offer indications that there is a drive to make the labour market of The Bahamas fairly dependent upon the formal educational sector. With this in mind, it is plausible to assert that the workforce is more likely to be considered as an “Occupational labour market (Shavit 1998).”

3

The Education System of The Bahamas

3.1

General Principles, Administration, and ISCED Classification

This section outlines the structure of the educational system of The Bahamas following the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED). It looks at the laws that inform education in The Bahamas, the administration and governance of the system, and highlights elements of the primary, secondary, and postsecondary levels of the education system. According to Bahamian law, the statutory educational system shall be organized in three progressive stages to be known as primary education, secondary education and further education; and it shall be the duty of the Minister, so far as his resources permit, to contribute towards the spiritual, moral, mental and physical development

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of the community by ensuring that efficient education throughout these stages shall be available to meet the needs of the population (Statutory System of Education (Chapter 46-11 2001, 9). In reference to The Bahamas Statutory System of Education, The Ministry of Education views education as an endeavor to address the constitutionally embedded values and skills that are necessary to promote excellence and the highest degree of social mobility. According to The Ministry, “the principal objective of the Bahamian education system is to produce productive citizens capable of caring for themselves and contributing positively to the national development process (Government of The Bahamas – The Ministry of Education 2015, 8).” The Ministry’s vision for education encompasses “a Bahamian education system that will foster academic excellence, social responsibility and equip students with multiple literacies that will enable them to make meaningful contributions as nation builders who are globally competitive” (The Ministry of Education 2015, 8). It sets itself the mission “to provide all persons in The Bahamas an opportunity to receive a quality education that will equip them with the necessary beliefs, attitudes and skills required for life, both in a democratic society guided by Christian values and in an inter-dependent changing world (Government of The Bahamas – The Ministry of Education 2015, 8).” In its “Vision 2030” document drafted in November 2015, the Ministry asserts a goal to increase graduation rates from 50% to 85% by 2030. To do so, the Ministry has adopted a series of strategies including developing multiple pathways to graduation as a means of increasing the chances of student success and improving the curricula (Government of The Bahamas – Ministry of Education 2015). The Ministry outlines a series of characteristics pertaining to the profile of these graduates that includes critical thinking, creativity, innovative problem solving, integrity, digital literacy, ethical behaviors, awareness of civil responsibility, and an awareness of one’s role at the level of local, regional, and international settings. At the level of preschool education, the Ministry intends to achieve universal access to preschool education by working to “reduce the proportion of students (currently estimated at 70 percent) entering primary school without pre-school experience” and “ensure that the quality of education offered at that level, which is delivered by a wide range of providers, meets national standards regardless of the provider (ibid., 10).” At the level of primary education, the Ministry wants students to “acquire foundational literacy and numeracy skills while affording them the opportunity to learn how to respect themselves and others and how to live in community (ibid 11).” At the level of secondary school, the Ministry wants to offer Bahamian students “the opportunity to expand on the basic education received at the primary level, but more importantly, should prepare them to transition successfully into society as skilled workers and productive citizens (ibid 13).” At the level of postsecondary education, the Ministry intends to enhance and reinforce The Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute (BTVI) and the Bahamas Agricultural Marine Sciences Institute (BAMSI) as well as the University of the Bahamas, the only state university in the country. Increasing funds for these institutions and encouraging students’ access are among the measures that the Bahamian government via the Ministry of National Education intends to adopt.

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Education Administration and Governance in The Bahamas

As in most countries, the Ministry of Education is the institution primarily in charge of the education sector in The Bahamas. The Education Act currently in vigor establishes a Minister at the head of the Central Administration of the Education Authority institution in the country along with a Department of Education and a National Advisory Council (This Act is identified as “Chapter 46 – Education – An Act to consolidate and amend the law relating to education within the Bahama Islands).” The Statute Law of the Bahamas commits the Minister of Education to “promote the education of the people of The Bahamas by the progressive development, in so far as the resources of the Minister permit, of schools and other educational establishments devoted to that end” (Government of The Bahamas 2001, 7). According to this law “The Minister shall have the Superintendence, direction and control of all primary, secondary and further education in The Bahamas which is wholly maintained from Government funds [. . .] and general oversight of all [educational institutions] (Part I Article 3).” This law establishes a Department of Education along with a National Advisory Council for Education to support the work of the Ministry (For more information, see Government of The Bahamas (2001).

3.3

The Structure of the Bahamas Educational System According To ISCED Classification

3.3.1 The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) is a tool published by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) on educational-related statistics worldwide. It is “designed to serve as a framework to classify educational activities as defined in programs and the resulting qualifications into internationally agreed categories (Unesco Institute for Statistics 2012, 6).” As indicated earlier, education has greatly fluctuated since the early educational activities throughout the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. Until the report produced by Houghton in 1958, children 6 to 14 years old attended primary school. The educational structure that may fit into the ISCED model of educational classification is an outcome of the Houghton Report, which encouraged the Board of Education to replace the school for children aged 6–14 years with a 6-year primary school. Until then, education in The Bahamas was at level 1 according to the ISCED scale. Given the many factors that intersected with the achievement of the primary school, the levels could have varied between some primary education without level completion to what ISCED describes as “successful completion of a lower secondary programme insufficient for level completion or partial level completion.” The preschool age bracket is currently defined as 0 to 6 years old. The first public preschool that was inaugurated in 1989, that counted 70 students in 1990, enrolled 1700 students in 2015. At that time, the Ministry recognized that only 30% of this age group was enrolled in the public sector. 70% of Bahamian children this age were served by the private sector. Data collected from the Ministry of Education indicate that in 2018 there was 67

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preschools, 22 in New Providence Island where Nassau the capital city is located, and 45 in the Family Islands. Altogether, these schools aim to prepare students for the rigor of ISCED level 1, that is, primary education. In 2004, The Bahamas Ministry of National Education established the Early Childhood Care Act to regulate and manage day care centers and preschools and amended it in 2013 to better address the need of this subsector. With regard to ISCED level 1, this level, that is, primary education, started in the 1960s as a result of the Houghton Report published in 1958. Around the time of Independence, that is, 1973, this level counted up to 24,000 students. Data provided by The Education Statistics Office of the Ministry of National Education indicate an enrolment of 27,475 students that are divided into 25,238 at the public sector and 2,237 in independent schools. The 2015–2016 school census indicates that 2,594 of the 4,240 newly admitted 5-year old students attended preschools. The alignment between the ISCED levels and the configuration of the school system in the Bahamas is noticeable. Students start primary school at the age of 5 and exit the cycle at the age of 10, which is typically 6 years of formal instruction. The primary education cycle is compulsory and is subdivided into a lower phase and an upper phase. The lower phase which includes grades 1 through 3 emphasizes the development of basic reading and numeracy skills, and the upper phase exposes students to content courses such as science and social studies while consolidating the basic reading and numeracy skills acquired in the previous phase. An analysis of the statistical data indicates a total of 1,429 primary school teachers for the 2015–2016 academic year. Fifty-three out of these 1,429 teachers are labeled “untrained teacher.” These “untrained teachers” are defined by the Ministry as teachers “who may or may not have an academic degree and do not have a teaching certification.” These statistical figures (i.e., 1,429 teachers and the 53 untrained teachers) do not take into account other academic institutions, special schools, or alternative school programs. They do not include the public all-age schools that are primarily found in islands other than New Providence and the privately operated all-age schools in New Providence. (At the time of the elaboration of this paper, the Ministry was in the process of collecting data on all schools in The Bahamas.) The level 2 of ISCED involves the first part of general postprimary and pretertiary education. It corresponds to the level of junior high school in The Bahamas and enrolls 11 to 13-year-old in grades 7 through 9. Data released by the Ministry for the academic year of 2015–2016 indicates an enrollment of 7,236 junior high school students in the public system and 106 students in the private sector, in addition to institutions such as special schools, all-age schools, or alternative school programs. With regard to the 7,236 junior high school students, this figure is to be analyzed considering that during the same academic year of 2015–2016, 10,037 students were enrolled in private all-age schools and 1,550 were enrolled in all-age public schools. (Data for the specific levels (i.e., junior high school and high schools) were not readily available at the time of this research, as the Ministry was in the process of data collection as well.) The junior high school stage in The Bahamian education system is sanctioned by The Bahamas Junior Certificate Examination (BJC) which

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evaluates students’ skills in English language, mathematics, General Science, health science, social studies, religious studies, Art, craft studies, home economics, and technical drawing. Statistical figures released by the Ministry indicate that during the years 2012, 2013, and 2014, 7112 students, 7140 students, and 6793 students, respectively, took the BJC exams. An analysis of the statistical data indicates a total of 514 public junior high school teachers including 52 untrained teachers for the 2015–2016 academic year. These figures concern only the junior high schools in the four School Districts in New Providence, that is, New Providence/Northeastern, New Providence/Northwestern, New Providence/Southeastern, and New Providence/Southwestern, and two in the other Islands, that is, Eastern Grand Bahama & The Cays and West Grand Bahama & The Cays (These figures do not take into account special schools, alternative school programs, or all-age schools whether private or public). In the Bahamas, the ISCED level 2 corresponds to 9 years of education, that is, 6 years primary school and 3 years junior high school. Unlike the ISCED level 2, Bahamian students are 13 years old when they complete junior high school. As the Ministry indicates, junior high schools “typically accommodate students between ages 11 and 13 (Government of The Bahamas – Ministry of National Education 2016a, 7). With regard to ISCED level 3, the Bahamas education system evolves to this level by the second half of the 1940s when 800 high school students were enrolled in The Bahamas, reaching 80,000 in 2015 according to data published by the Ministry of National Education. ISCED level 3 corresponds to senior high schools in The Bahamas. This level is designed to enroll 14 to 16-year-old students at grades 10 through 12. The Ministry considers senior high school as “the final stage of mandatory schooling in The Bahamian education system (Directory of Educational Institutions 2015–2016, 8).” During the academic year of 2015–2016, students enrolled in the 22 public senior high schools numbered 4,105. In addition, 1,550 students were enrolled in 13 public all-age schools, 420 in 8 public special schools, and 114 in 6 public alternative schools for the same academic year. Furthermore, privately operated schools enrolled 10,037 students in 41 all-age schools and 207 in 6 special schools. With regard to the teaching force, the four school districts in New Providence with separate senior high schools have a teaching force of 471, including 34 who are “untrained,” and the one in West Grand Bahama & The Cays has 62 teachers including 16 “untrained” teachers. Five of the 14 school districts have separate senior schools. Four of them are in New Providence and the other one is in West Grand Bahama & The Cays.

3.3.2 ISCED Levels 4 Through 8: Postsecondary and Tertiary Education ISCED levels 4 and 5 may correspond to the number of institutions that are considered as postsecondary institutions in The Bahamas. There are 39 of them according to the Ministry’s 2015–2016 Educational Institutions Digest (This “Digest” is published as Directory of Educational Institutions). This directory indicates 12 postsecondary institutions in New Providence/Northeastern, 6 in New Providence/Northwestern, 10 in New Providence/Southeastern, 8 in New Providence/Southwestern, 1 in North, Central Andros & The Berry Islands, and 1 in

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Western Grand Bahama & Bimini. In its Bahamas Education Statistical Data 2013– 2014 Final Draft, the Ministry defines postsecondary as “institutions who offers nontertiary education (21).” The 2010 census indicates that 18,323 Bahamians, 9,503 males and 8,820 females hold a vocational school degree. In June 2019, the National Accreditation and Equivalency Council (NAECOB), which is the statutory body established to register and accredit educational institutions in The Bahamas (primary schools, secondary schools, postsecondary schools, and any institution that offers training) indicates 14 degree granted registered postsecondary institutions and 34 registered postsecondary training institutions (The list of degree-granting registered postsecondary Institutions can be consulted following the link: https://www.naecob. org/bhsregisteredinstitutions; The list of registered postsecondary training institutions can be consulted following the link: https://www.naecob.org/bhsregistered training). The list of 14 degree granted registered postsecondary institutions includes all schools offering at least an associate degree; this list includes two schools that offer master’s degrees, that is, Barry University and the University of The Bahamas; nine schools that offer Bachelor degrees, twelve schools that offer associate degrees, seven that offer diploma programs, ten schools that offer certificate programs. Barry University is the only school that offers primarily Master’s and doctoral programs. The other institutions can thus be considered as institutions offering ISCED level 4 and 5 programs whereas the 34 institutions that are listed as registered postsecondary training institutions offering primarily diploma programs can be considered as institutions offering ISCED level 4 programs more specifically. Besides these locally based institutions, the NAECOB publishes a list of ten recognized and approved Accredited International and Regional Non-Bahamian Institutions that offer their programs in The Bahamas, six of which offer also associate degrees besides higher levels of academic degrees (The list of recognized and approved Accredited International and Regional Non-Bahamian Institutions that offer their program in The Bahamas can be consulted following the link: https://www.naecob.org/list-ofrecognized-institutions). Nonetheless, the state-funded institutions that are more likely to correspond to ISCED level 4 are The Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute (BTVI) and the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI). They constitute the two major state-funded vocational training institutions in The Bahamas. The BTVI claims to be the premier postsecondary institution offering technical and vocational education. This vocational school has a student population of 1,500 enrolled both in full-time and part-time programs in Nassau. Moreover, 400 students are enrolled in part-time programs at a campus established in Freeport, Grand Bahama. It offers associate degrees in Construction Technology, Business Office Technology, Human Resources Management, Office Administration, Electronics Engineering Installers & Repairers, Information Technology Management, Network Engineering, Software Engineering, as well as a variety of diplomas and certificate programs. The Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) is a more recently created center for vocational trainings. The Bahamas Government established this institution in 2014 “to provide training and research in the field of agriculture and marine science to equip Bahamians to have careers in those fields”

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(BAMSI website) as a way to reduce dependency on imported food. BAMSI currently offers associate degrees in Agribusiness, Agriculture, Aquaculture, Environmental Science, and Marine Science. Level 4, “Post-secondary non-tertiary education” of the ISCED scale is conformed with the Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute (BTVI) and the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) as state institutions. The level 4 varies between level 441, “Insufficient for level completion, without direct access to tertiary education” to level 454, “Sufficient for level completion with direct access to tertiary education.” Future research pertaining to students who select to pursue tertiary education upon the completion of these vocational schools is warranted. In terms of tertiary education, considering locally based educational institutions, The Bahamas varies roughly between level 5, “Short-cycle tertiary education” to level 6, “Master’s or equivalent level,” with a variety of subcategories that fluctuate between level 641, “Insufficient for level completion” to 768, “Second or further degree (following a Master’s or equivalent program).” As discussed below, classification beyond 768 can be envisaged in the case of The Bahamas due to offshore educational institutions that maintain some presence in The Bahamas. As its name implies, the National Accreditation and Equivalency Council (NAECOB) is responsible for the accreditation of all educational institutions in The Bahamas at all levels. The list of 14 degree-granting registered postsecondary institutions that the NAECOB published in 2019 includes two schools that offer Master’s degrees, that is, Barry University and the University of The Bahamas. Barry University offers Master’s in Organizational Learning & Leadership, Curriculum & Instruction, Exceptional Student Education, Counseling-Clinical Mental Health Specialization, and Human Resource Development, as well as an EdD in Organizational Leadership and Leadership with a specialization in Organizational Leadership and Human Resource Development at its branches in Nassau and Freeport. The University of The Bahamas is the main institution of higher learning in The Commonwealth. The development of this university is the result of a series of developments in education that have taken shape in the Post-world war II period. Several reports were produced on education in The Bahamas during the 1960s, one of which is the Leys Report that recommended the development of a College of the Bahamas. In 1974, The College of The Bahamas Act established a tertiary education institution under the label College of The Bahamas with the amalgamation of four state-funded institutions, that is, The Bahamas Teachers’ College, San Salvador Teachers’ College, C.R. Walker Technical College, and the sixth form program of the government high school. This Act was amended by the 1995 Act to enhance the college and grant it more autonomy as a tertiary education institution. In the early 1990s, the need for more rigorous tertiary education in the Commonwealth emerged and the idea of a full-fledged University started to take shape among the educational stakeholders. These reflections were consolidated into an Act of Parliament of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas from which the University of The Bahamas was chartered on November 10, 2016 with the mission “to advance and expand access to higher education, promote academic freedom, drive national development and build character through teaching, learning, research, scholarship and service” (the

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University of The Bahamas Act 2016, Article 4). The number of students attending the University of The Bahamas has varied from around 5,000 to around 4,700 for the period 2009 to 2018. While the number of students remains relatively constant throughout this decade, the number of graduates has significantly evolved. The number of total graduates pass from 399 for the academic year 2007–2008 to 646 for the academic year 2017–2018. The University is currently divided into six main areas of study: Faculty of Business, Hospitality & Tourism Studies, Faculty of Liberal & Fine Arts, Faculty of Pure & Applied Sciences, Faculty of Social & Educational Studies, and then Continuing Education & Lifelong Learning. Currently, the University of The Bahamas is not accredited by the NAECOB to offer doctoral degrees, but the university has recently inaugurated a center to engage in graduate studies. Currently, the University of The Bahamas offers Master’s degrees in the areas of Business Administration and Education. Several Master’s degrees are being planned and doctoral-level studies are projected. Meanwhile, several other private institutions offer graduate studies to Bahamian students willing to continue studying beyond the Bachelor’s degree level. These graduate programs are part of the ten recognized and approved accredited international and regional non-Bahamian institutions offering such programs in The Bahamas. While all of these ten institutions are approved by the NAECOB to offer Master’s degrees in The Bahamas, only five are approved to offer doctoral degrees. These five institutions are University of The West Indies – Open Campus Bahamas, Barry University, Liberty University, American College of Education, and Walden University. The outline of the Bahamas education system in this chapter indicates that the country has evolved from ISCED level 1 in early 1960s to ISCED level 6 with regard to levels of education that the Commonwealth of The Bahamas can offer to Bahamian students. There exist opportunities for Bahamians to study beyond level 6 without leaving the Bahamas, but these opportunities are offered by offshore universities such as Barry University that conduct courses in The Bahamas. As the University of The Bahamas continues to develop, it is expected that The Bahamas will soon satisfy requirements for ISCED levels 7 and 8. In fact, with the newly established Graduate Center and the ongoing efforts to obtain SACS accreditation, The University of The Bahamas is poised to allow Bahamians to have access to the highest level of academic credentials. Surely, the challenges associated with the equivalence of its degrees to world-renowned universities will need to be seriously considered, but this is a responsibility that involves not just the administration, but also the teaching force and the student body.

4

Other Educational Trends and Emerging Issues in the Bahamian Education System: Vision, Inclusion, Technology

Issues emerging from The Bahamas educational system are fairly well detailed in several visions and plans the Ministry has elaborated. In these Visions and Educational Plans, the government consciously acknowledged the challenges facing the

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system and set goals and objectives to counter them. Three of these documents are the 10 Year Education Plan elaborated in 2009, the document drafted in 2015 titled Vision 2030 – Shared Vision for Education in The Commonwealth of The Bahamas, and the State of the Nation Report – Vision 2040 National Development Plan of The Bahamas drafted in 2016. The 10 Year Education Plan, in particular, provides a real roadmap for education in the country for the decade 2010–2020, thus prompting the need for research that adequately evaluates its impact on the Bahamian education system. The 10-Year Education Plan the Ministry drafted in 2009 was designed “to provide guidance for the work of the Ministry of Education over a ten-year period (Government of The Bahamas. Ministry of Education 2009, 7).” The plan came into existence as a result of the work of a group of technical officers that the Ministry of Education commissioned in 2008. These technocrats reviewed strategic plans of institutions such as the College of the Bahamas, the Ministry of Health, the University of the West Indies, and The US Department of Education. The plan revolved around Curriculum and Instruction; Human, Material and Financial Resources, Administration and Management, and Partnerships. The Ministry designed 11 goals for the category of Curriculum and Instruction. Each goal is divided into a series of short-term and long-term objectives measured by particular performance indicators to address multiple aspects of the education system. The four major priorities and complete list of 22 Goals are outlined in Table 2. These goals and objectives indicate the depth of education that The Bahamas intends to offer to young Bahamians.

4.1

How the Educational Authority Navigates Issues of Inclusion

The Ministry of National Education of The Bahamas maintains a Special Services Unit with the responsibility for Special Education throughout The Bahamas. This unit provides speech, auditory, and visual screening; physical health intervention; psychomotor evaluation, and diagnosis and remediation of learning and behavioral problems. In its 2015 Shared Vision for Education – Vision 2030 document, the Ministry recognizes that physical, cognitive, psychological, and economic challenges can indeed interact with students’ educational development. In this document, the Ministry acknowledges the 2005 report of the National Commission on Special Education (NCOSE) that indicates that around 25% of the entire school age population has some special education need. The 2015 Shared Vision for Education – Vision 2030 intends to ensure that students can benefit from regular instruction as much as possible while making sure that students facing the most severe disabilities can indeed receive the attention they deserve. Part of this endeavor includes screening students to identify special learning needs as early as possible in order to begin relevant modes of intervention and ensuring that education professionals are properly trained to address the needs of this student population. Meanwhile, the government aims to support a newly established special needs school they consider as the “first class state-of the-art institute for special education.” This school, the Marjorie

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Table 2 Priorities and Goals of the 10-Year Plan for the Bahamas Education System Priority area I Priority area I and its goals

Goal 1 Goal 2 Goal 3 Goal 4 Goal 5 Goal 6 Goal 7 Goal 8 Goal 9 Goal 10 Goal 11

Priority area II Priority area II and its goals

Goal 12 Goal 13 Goal 14

Priority area III Priority area III and its goals

Goal 15 Goal 16 Goal 17 Goal 18 Goal 19 Goal 20

Priority area IV Priority area IV and its goals

Goal 21 Goal 22

Curriculum and instruction Developing national curricula that are relevant to the needs of the individual and society Developing national pride, civic responsibility and a strong work ethic in students Ensuring that children leave primary school with the required literacy and numeracy skills Meeting the needs of special students Furnishing schools with the necessary teaching Offering additional support to enhance the quality of teaching/ learning process Encouraging persons to pursue education after leaving Increasing the number of Bahamian residents pursuing Improving the quality of education at the tertiary level Producing a more skilled workforce for the Bahamian economy Improving student achievement and school Human, material, and financial resources Attracting, supporting, and retaining quality teachers and other educational professionals Constructing and properly maintaining school buildings and education facilities Ensuring the adequate funding of education Administration and management Improving the management of the Bahamian education system Improving the on-site management of public schools Reducing school violence and creating safe learning environments Improving operations at the Ministry of Education’s central office Encouraging the use of educational research to improve the education system Monitoring and evaluating the education system Partnerships Strengthening partnerships to improve the educational system Creating additional opportunities to encourage parents to become more involved in their children’s education

Davis Institute for Special Education, was inaugurated in 2015 and has been tasked with the expansion of services for special needs students including diagnostic services, instructional intervention, public awareness, education and training campaigns, and research. Besides special needs students, the Ministry’s 2015 Shared Vision for Education 2030 establishes some alternative forms of educational delivery to meet the educational needs of some groups of students who experience challenges in the

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mainstream school system. The population that the Ministry targets with regard to this alternative forms of educational delivery are those located in rural and remote areas; students who experience challenges in coping with mainstream schooling “for a variety of reasons such as profound special learning needs and behavioral challenges”; “individuals who are suffering from health conditions which have confined them to home or a medical facility for extended periods of time”; “children of school age whose parents, for a variety of reasons including a desire to increase familial ties or exert greater control over the educational content received, wish to home-school them”; as well as imprisoned individuals (ibid.). Additionally, in Objective 5 of Goal 3 of its 10-year plan, the Ministry expresses interest in supporting the educational development of children in the Bahamian school system that speak languages other than English, the primary medium of instruction. This objective is articulated in this manner: “Implement English as a Second Language (ESL) program in schools with large populations of non-English speakers.” It is also articulated in the long-term Objective 16 of Goal 3 as: “Design instructional programs such as ESL to address the needs of students from all backgrounds, including those from low socioeconomic, language deficient and other “at risk” groups.” The performance indicator for this objective was set for September 2012. Research is warranted on the implementation phases of both the special needs programs and the ESL programs to look at how the school system navigates these challenges is warranted.

4.2

The Orientation of the Teaching of Sciences, Technology, and Mathematics Subjects in the Bahamian School Curricula

The sets of curricula that inform the teaching of science subjects currently date from 2010. To elaborate these sets of curricula, the Curriculum Development Committee of the Ministry established for this purpose has reviewed previous curricula, particularly those from several anglophone settings such as Victoria in Australia, Connecticut in the USA, South Africa, Jamaica, Guyana, Canada, and the United Kingdom as well as the Caribbean Examinations Council, taking into consideration issues related to focus, format, goals, methodologies and content. Additionally, the team used a questionnaire to obtain input from the general public, including educators and students around The Commonwealth of The Bahamas. The underlying philosophy is in line with the work of John Dewey, for whom, “Knowledge is based on experience caused by the learner being in an active relationship with the environment” and the constructivism of Jean Piaget who maintains that “the learner should be in an environment where they are engaged in questioning, hypothesizing, investigating, debating, analyzing and evaluating” (cited in Ministry of Education 2010, vi). The rationale across the set of curricula the Ministry has drafted for both the STEM courses is thus stated, “To provide opportunities that engage and expose all students in The Bahamas in acquiring scientific knowledge, attitudes and skills which will enhance critical thinking, problem-solving and organizational skills. In

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so doing, students will be prepared to participate in varied scientific and technological careers in the global environment, as well as realize the impact that they make on the natural world and appreciate the need for conservation (2010, ix).” The overarching goal is thus articulated, “to become critical thinkers, problem-solvers, innovators, visionaries, scientifically and technologically literate citizens who will appreciate, interpret and conserve the natural environment” (2010, 9). The curricula distinguish eight sub-goals along with 17 objectives. Three of these subgoals that are worth mentioning are, “To develop analytical and evaluative skills, thus becoming critical thinkers,” “To engage in scientific inquiry (including use of the scientific method) as a means of becoming problem solvers,” and “To relate scientific knowledge and an awareness of technological advances as a means of functioning effectively in the world” (2010, 10). With regard to technology, the Bahamas proposes to enhance the educational experience of Bahamian students by making access to classroom-based technological equipment readily available to educators. The 2009–2020 10-year plan drafted by the Ministry of National Education indicated that “The majority of students have access to computers in their schools and a growing number of students, along with their teachers, are using interactive white boards in the teaching-learning process” (10).” Objective 10 of Goal 1 of this 10-year plan reads “Provide all students with access to computers and the appropriate training to ensure that they are computer literate.” Objective 11 of Goal 1 is to “Integrate the use of modern technology such as LCD projectors, laptop computers, audio and video broadcasting, and interactive white boards in the teaching/learning process.”

4.3

Emerging Issues in the Bahamian Education System

As in all education systems, Bahamian society is facing its own challenges. Here, we consider two of them: success and failure rates as measured by official exams and the issue of gender in relation to academic success. Regarding success and failure rates, a Coalition for Education Reform published a document titled The Bahamian Youth Project that it describes as resulting from a “three-year effort to define the education crisis in the Bahamas and propose reform” (The Coalition for Education Reform 2007). This coalition is composed of the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce, National Congress of Trade Unions, Bahamas Employers Confederation, Bahamas Hotel Association, Bahamas Hotel Catering & Allied Workers Union, Bahamas Hotel Employers Association, and Nassau Tourism Development Board. These organizations and trade unions examine data from the Bahamas General Certificate of Secondary Education exams for 2004 through 2006 and deplore the failure they found in the school system as assessed by the results of these exams. According to The Bahamian Youth Project document, the coalition published in 2007 following their initial draft in 2005, “For all 93 public and private schools and for all 26 subjects in 2007, 6% of all exam takers got ‘As’ and 36% got ‘Fs’.” Additionally, the document states that “peak grade in the distribution is . . . an

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‘F’, and the average grade for 2007 was a ‘D minus’” (The Coalition for Education Reform 2007, 4). More specifically, they found a total failure rate of 55% and a 45% success rate on the English language exam. Deploring the results for mathematics, the group asserts, “The disturbing factor is that the math data is substantially more discouraging than the English Language results. The number of students failing the exam was 82% versus 61% for English” (The Coalition for Education Reform 2007, 7). As indicated, the coalition published its document in 2007. Until more recently, the situation has remained problematic for Bahamian society. In August 2017, Khrisna Russell, The Tribune’s deputy chief reporter, writes “of 6,692 students who sat the national tests this year, only 521 or 7.8 per cent, scored a C or above in mathematics, English and a science subject. This is about a nine per cent decrease compared to last year” (2017) (http://www.tribune242.com/news/2017/sep/01/results-expose-failingschools/). In another article a year later, in September 2018, Russell writes in the same journal, “Students who took the Bahamas General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) examinations performed marginally worse this year in comparison with those who took the national tests in 2017” (http://www.tribune242.com/ news/2018/sep/04/exam-passes-down-again/). Furthermore, reporting on the two subsequent Academic Years, The Nassau Guardian Journal contends, “Only six percent or 365 of the 6,073 students who sat the Bahamas General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) exams in 2020 received at least a C in five or more subjects (Ward 2021).” The author recalled that “In 2019, 11.7 percent or 760 of the 6,454 students who sat the exams, received at least a C in five or more subjects (2021),” adding that “A total of 598 students obtained a minimum grade of D in at least five subjects last year, representing 9.85 percent of the overall number of students who took the exams (Ward 2021).” In 2009, the Ministry published its 10-Year Education Plan followed by the Vision 2030 document that was drafted in 2015. Research on how these initiatives impact the system is warranted. However, in theory, the desire of the leaders of the Bahamas to enhance the system, as expressed throughout these documents, along with the peaceful momentum of growth that the country has enjoyed seems to offer indication that the academic achievement of students can be enhanced. With regard to the issue of gender, gender (in)equality is such a preponderant topic in the education system that it has attracted the attention of not only school officials, but also scholars that invest interest in Bahamian society and its education system particularly. In their study, Attitudes and Achievements of Males and Females in The Bahamas, Fielding and Gibson (2015) found a gap between the educational achievement of males and females. Drawing on data released by different sectors of the Government of The Bahamas, for example, the authors found that, in 2010, female educational attainment was 8.1 vs. 4.9 for males at the level of the first two years of university and 15.2 for females vs. 10.7 for males for educational attainment beyond three years of university. Based on their comprehensive study on gender, the authors maintain that “Between 1990 and 2010, . . . the education gap between males’ and females’ educational attainment has increased with greater proportions among females than among males being educated beyond high school” (Fielding and

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Gibson 2015, 6). Reasons for this discrepancy include “parental choices and expectations for their sons and daughters” and the fact that “boys are introduced to the workplace early on and so this probably conditions their expectation to leave education (Fielding and Gibson 2015, 46).” The authors also add, “schools seem unable to engage boys in the educational process as effectively as girls, and the behavior of boys at school . . ., combine to reduce [their] school attainment and so reduce their ability to enroll in higher education (Fielding and Gibson 2015, 46).” Even prior to this study published by Fielding and Gibson in 2015, there were a series of societal endeavors addressing the issue of gender in the education system, such as those led by the Coalition for Education Reform. In fact, the coalition has identified the issue of gender as “critical national problems” by deploring “the male disengagement from education.” The group recognizes that “Male and female students start primary school in approximately equal numbers.” But in 2006 while 23,063 exams were taken, only 39% of this total were by male students” (Coalition for Education Reform 2007, 8). It also bemoans “for the BGCSE exams females earned almost twice as many As, Bs and Cs as males” (2007, 8). The group concludes that “One cannot help but conclude that two overwhelming and critical national problems are the scarcity of basic linguistic and mathematical skills and the disengaged male” and it proposes a series of measures to tackle the problem of school success in the country (See the document for more information).

5

Conclusion

As The Bahamas approaches its first 50th year of independence, its education system is poised to match world education systems that are both conscious of the role of education in human development and that engage in measures to counter the challenges that this mission may pose. The Bahamas has been able to maintain the rank of 54 on the human development index and in education and by maintaining continuous progress in the education system to the extent that the system matches preponderantly the ISCED classification of world education. The overall political, social, and economic development of the country that has prevailed for the last 40–60 years are likely account for the progress in the system. Mindful decisions by Bahamian political leaders have doubtlessly contributed and the participation of civil society, in particular the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT), must be acknowledged. The work of the Coalition for Education Reform from 2005 to 2007 is another provocative way that Bahamian society demonstrates commitment to the education sector, particularly when calling on the state to note “societal failure of immense consequences” in regard to the low performance of students on official exams. There is no doubt that the system is facing its challenges. As shown above, the National Task Force of 1994 maintains that “there are many factors influencing the nation’s schools which go beyond the educational arena itself” (1994, 296), citing issues such as teenage pregnancy, violence, drug and alcohol use, and the prevalence of AIDS. The system continues to deal with significant rates of failure at the level of

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official exams, and the academic achievement of boys continues to pose challenges for the country. While these factors are worthy of attention, the level of human development as a result of education that The Bahamas has seen through the second half of the twentieth century into the first quarter of the twenty-first century surpasses by far that of the period from when formal education began in the 1730s through the Second World War. We contend this bare half a century has brought changes to the life conditions of Bahamians that are in no way comparable to the nearly 250 years when Britain took over The Bahamas to when the country became free to develop itself with the mind power of all of its citizens.

References Bernabé, J., Chamoiseau, P., Confiant, R., & Taleb Khyar, M. B. (1990). In Praise of Creoleness. Callaloo, 13(4), 886–909. The Johns Hopkins University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 2931390. Last accessed July 2019. Bethel, K. M. (1998). Educational reform in the Bahamas: Part I. International Journal of Bahamian Studies, 8, 27–35. Dames, T. L. (2010). The historical development of tertiary education in the Bahamas: The college of the Bahamas, past, present, and future. Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Texas. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Eighteenth Amendment – United States Constitution. https:// www.britannica.com/topic/Eighteenth-Amendment. Last accessed August 2019. Encyclopedia of the Nations. (n.d.-a). Caribbean Islands – Country Profile: The Bahamas: http:// www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-3338.html. Last accessed July 2019. Encyclopedia of the Nations. (n.d.-b). Caribbean Islands – World War II. Encyclopedia of the nations. http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-3368.html Fielding W. J. (2014). The Impact of College Graduates on Bahamian Society: With Emphasis on Graduates from The College of The Bahamas. Journal compilation – The International Journal of Bahamian Studies. Nassau, Bahamas. Fielding, W. J., & Gibson, J. (2015). Attitudes and achievements of males and females in The Bahamas. The College of The Bahamas. Fielding, W. J., Ballance, V., Scriven, C., McDonald, T., & Johnson, P. (2008). The Stigma of Being “Haitian” in The Bahamas. The College of The Bahamas Research Journal. Food and Agriculture Organization. Bahamas. http://www.fao.org/countryprofiles/index/en/? iso3¼BHS. Last accessed 30 Sept 2020. Government of The Bahamas. (2001). Statutory System of Education, Chapter 46. Government of The Bahamas. (2006). The Constitution of the Commonwealth. Government of The Bahamas. The Islands of The Bahamas. https://www.bahamas.com/. Last accessed July 2019. Government of The Bahamas – High Commission of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. Culture. http://www.bahamashclondon.net/default/culture/. Last accessed June 2019. Government of The Bahamas – Ministry of Education, Youth, Sports, & Culture. (2008). Historical Highlights of Education in The Commonwealth of The Bahamas 1721-Present. Dr. E. Stubbs – S.E.O. Planning & Research Unit. Government of The Bahamas – Ministry of Education. (2015). Vision 2030 – A Shared Vision for Education in The Commonwealth of The Bahamas. Government of The Bahamas. (1994). Ministry of Education – National Task Force on Education – Final Report. Government of The Bahamas. (2009). Ministry of Education – 10-Year Plan Education Plan. Government of The Bahamas. (2010). Ministry of Education – Curriculum guidelines. Health science – Grades – 7, 8, 9.

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Government of The Bahamas. (2016a). Ministry of National Education, Science and Technology – Profile of Schools in The Bahamas 2015-2016a. Government of The Bahamas. (2016b). Ministry of Education. State of the Nation Report – Vision 2040. Government of The Bahamas. (2012). Ministry of Finance – Department of Statistics. 2010 Census of Population and Housing. Government of The Bahamas. (2018a). Ministry of Finance – Department of Statistics. Commonwealth of The Bahamas Foreign Trade Statistics Quarterly Report – Fourth Quarter 2018. Government of The Bahamas. (2018b). Ministry of Finance – Department of Statistics. Annual Gross Domestic Product. Government of The Bahamas. (2018c). Ministry of Finance – Department of Statistics. Preliminary Results Labour Force Survey November 2018. Press Release. Reference. What Are the Physical Features of the Bahamas? https://www.reference.com/geography/ physical-features-bahamas-91b6e59bed1a1e90. Last accessed 23 Aug 2019. Shavit, Y., & Muller, W. (1998). From school to work. A comparative study of educational qualifications and occupational destinations. Cary, NC: Oxford University Press. The Coalition for Education Reform. (2007). Bahamian Youth the Untapped Resource. https:// www.nassauinstitute.org/files/CoalitionRpt5.16.pdf. Last accessed September 2020. UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2012). International standard classification of education: ISCED 2011. Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. United Nations. (1945). Charter of the United Nations and statute of the international court of justice. San Francisco. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) – Human Development Indicators. Bahamas. http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/BHS. Last accessed 23 Aug 2019. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Human Development Indices and Indicators. (2018). Statistical Update: Briefing note for countries on the 2018 Statistical Update Bahamas. http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/BHS. Last accessed 23 Aug 2019. Ward, J. (2021). Nat’l exams ‘a success’. The Nassau Guardian. https://thenassauguardian.com/ natl-exams-a-success/. Retrieved, March 2021.

6

The Education System of Barbados A Remarkable Evolution Nigel O. M. Brissett

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Education in Colonial Barbados: 1627–1966 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Education in Barbados in the Post–World War II/Post-Independence Period . . . . . . . 2.3 Geography and Physical Features, Political System, and Economic Structure . . . . . . 2.4 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED-Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Personnel Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

120 121 122 124 125 127 127 131 131 132 132 134 135 135 136 137 137 138 139

Abstract

This chapter explores current developments in Barbados’s education system and makes important linkages to the complexities of its colonial past. Beginning with a discussion of the historical and social foundations of Barbados, the chapter discusses the makings of Barbados as a country and society out of which the education system emerged, revealing deep negative colonial impacts on educational development. The chapter also examines the earliest of N. O. M. Brissett (*) International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE), Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_30

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education provision developed through religious foundations and the advent of emancipation, and discusses how European settlement patterns on the island also facilitated the emergence of formal schooling. The chapter then discusses the institutional and organizational principles of Barbados’s modern education system developed in its independence periods during which a strong belief in the virtues and potential of education lead to educational policy-planning, financing, governance, and administrative structures at all educational levels. Finally, in Sect. 3 we find out how these developments, along with increasing economic stability, have led Barbados to be one of the most literate societies in the world. Sect. 4 examines Barbados’s educational trends and other aspects of the educational system and how they shape current efforts at developing a technologically educated society that will drive national development and compete in the global economy. Keywords

Barbados · Caribbean · Education system · Colonialism, Globalization

1

Introduction

Barbados is a small island developing state (SIDS) located in the Caribbean. Originally inhabited by Amerindian tribes, the island was first visited by Europeans when Portuguese sailors and then formally colonized by the British in 1627 and remained under this empire until independence in 1966. With a history of colonialism, enslavement, and indentured servitude, about 80% of Barbadians are of Africans descent, with rest of the population comprised of Whites, East Indians, and mixed races. Barbados has a land area of 430 sq. km (166 sq. mi). Barbados’s population is 285,744 with annual growth rate of 0.22% (World Bank 2018a) and one of the most densely countries in the world. Life expectancy is estimated at 75 (World Bank 2018b). Barbados’s official language is English, used as the language of instruction in school. There is also a local creole language called “Bajan.” Barbados has a representative Democratic Government, and is part of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a regional political economic cooperative framework. The country has achieved a very high human development status based on the UNDP’s Human Development Index and has been ranked among the top 50 countries in the World. With a favorable record of economic performance and social development (Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs 2013), Barbados has a GDP per capita of US$16,800. Unemployment is estimated at about 10%. Educationally, Barbados has achieved near universal education, with almost 97% of children attending primary education and 91% attending secondary education in 2019 (UNESCO Institute of Statistics 2020). The literacy rate as of 2014 for age group 15–24 was 99.9% (males 99.92%, females 99.99%); for the age group 15 years and older it was 99.6% (male 99.6%, female 99.6); for the age group 65 years and older it was 98% (male 98.6%, female 98.5%).

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This chapter has three main sections: Historical and social foundations, institutional principles, and educational trends and highlighted aspects. The historical and social foundations section discusses the makings of Barbados as a country and society out which the education system emerged. As such, it explores the colonial expansion of Europeans into the Caribbean region, and discusses how plantation slavery limited formal educational provision for long periods of Barbados’s early history. The chapter also examines the earliest of education provision developed through religious foundations and the advent of emancipation, and discusses how European settlement patterns on the island also facilitated the emergence of formal schooling. The chapter then discusses the institutional and organizational principles of Barbados’s modern education system. Here, the focus is on the post–World War II and independence periods during which a strong belief in the virtues and potential of education lead to strategic educational policy planning and investment. Educational policies, legislation, financing, governance, and administrative structures at all educational levels are examined. Ultimately, in Sect. 3 we find out how these developments, along with increasing economic stability, have led Barbados to be one of the most literate societies in the world. Sect. 4 examines the educational trends and other aspects of the educational system and how they shape current efforts at enriching the country’s human capital, for example, by developing a technologically educated society that will drive national development and compete in the global economy.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

Barbados’s current education system reflects historical colonial complexities with links to colonial expansion of Europeans into the Caribbean region. Thus, the formation of the island’s formal education system can be traced and understood, initially, in the context of how plantation slavery limited educational provision for long periods of Barbados’s colonial history. The complexities of the colonial agenda meant that rather than coming from local plantation class, education provision developed through religious foundations. Emancipation provided more deliberate and concerted commitments to educational expansion and, later, the post-World War II and independence periods lead to educational policy planning and investment on a more universal scale. These developments, along with increasing economic stability, have led Barbados to be one of the most literate societies in the world. Contemporary efforts have been more geared toward enriching Barbados’s human capital by developing a technologically educated society to drive national development and compete in the global economy. This section focuses on the historical background to education in Barbados in the colonial period, including the restrictive availability of education in the context of plantation slavery and its mixed provision through religious foundations as well in the immediate post-emancipation era. The second part of this section also examines the post–World War II and independence periods during which a strong belief in the virtues and potential of education lead to educational policy planning and

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investment. More specifically, this section examines political economic and cultural conditions, as well as the social conditions, including educational coverage. The section ends with a discussion of the systems of transition from education to the labor market.

2.1

Education in Colonial Barbados: 1627–1966

Barbados’s current education system, policy, and practices can best be understood through the lens of history reaching back to its colonial encounters. Without such a deep historical understanding, post–World War II and current achievements, challenges, and aspirations can never be fully appreciated. Barbados was named by Portuguese sailors as “os Barbudos” (“the bearded ones”) based on the appearance of the island’s fig trees that have long hanging aerial roots. Formally colonized in 1627 by the English, Barbados was previously inhabited by Amerindian tribes who largely disappeared through a combination of death through enslavement and migration after colonial encounters. The island remained a British colony until its independence in November 1966. Like other countries in Anglophone Caribbean, education eventually came to Barbados as an attempt to transfer cultural values from England (Blouet 1981; Bacchus 1990). Education of the enslaved was considered dangerous as it was believed that literacy would allow them to read about the antislavery discourse and emancipation efforts in Britain, which would trigger rebellions (Petley 2005). Educating slaves for Christianity was not encouraged by planters who preferred to consider slaves as chattel, as viewing them as humans and Christians challenged the notion of slavery, since it was generally held that Christians should not enslave other Christians. In fact, the only institution that provided instruction to slaves in Barbados was Codrington estate, run by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (Bennett 1958). During this period it was customary for the white wealthy plantation owners and merchants to send their children, especially boys, to England to be educated. The poorer whites would go to private schools operated by the clergy (Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Culture 2000). There was also the gendered component, as white girls were educated largely to be housewives, focusing on domestic subjects such as needlecraft. Attempts at mass education for the Black majority only emerged in response to emancipation in the early to mid nineteenth century and therefore came to play a central role in the transition from slavery to freedom. Once it became clear that slavery was coming to an end, it was widely feared that the emancipation of Blacks would simply withdraw their labor from the estates and “revert to barbarism, leaving the economies of the islands in ruins” (Blouet 1981, 223). It was hoped that the introduction of education would help the ex-slaves to accept the new ideas of living and working in a free society. Thus, even after emancipation, education served as a control mechanism. As Blouet (1981) points out, education “was not merely associated with the teaching of literacy and numeracy skills, but was very closely identified with imparting religious and moral values” (222).

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In 1823 the British government started what can be viewed as a transition from slavery, which explicitly involved Christianizing and “civilizing” the slaves; this movement toward emancipation was formally adopted by the Barbadian legislature as the Consolidated Slave Act beginning in 1825. This Act placed restrictions on slave labor especially as it related to allowing slaves time off on designated worship days and other Christian-related privileges and permitting the establishment of Sunday schools for Christianization and educational purposes. The first piece of major education expansion and commitment occurred in 1833 (accompanying the emancipation act) when the British parliament, during emancipation debate, agreed to financial assistance for the soon to be emancipated slaves through the Negro Education Grant of 20,000 pounds for the West Indies (Annual Register 1833; Blouet 1981). The first Education Act was passed and provided for the establishment of an Education Committee, with a part-time Inspector as its Executive Officer. Education was increasingly seen as a way to further exert mental control in ways that would allow social control and stability of the plantation economic system. As Blouet (1981) points out, “the major aim of education. . .was to provide a moral foundation, upon which the social and economic patterns of Barbadian life could continue to operate, in much the same way as in the slavery era” (Blouet 1981, 227). The Negro Education Grant contributed a further 120,000 pounds to the West Indies between 1838 and 1841. However, a change of government in England led to the end of the Grant by 1846, like the rest of the West Indies, limiting further expansion of education (Blouet 1981; Bacchus 1990). Thus, the 1830s to the 1840s represented the first period of major expansion of educational provision in Barbados in the transition from slavery to the emancipation era. As it relates to educational pedagogy and content during this time of expansion, elementary education in Barbados was very similar in format, books used, and types of instruction to that provided to working-class children in Britain by religious groups, with no adjustments for difference in context and experiences of Barbados. Yet the newly freed population were eager to learn, and linked education to the acquisition of rights and property ownership (Blouet 1990). From early, education became an important tool and commodity to the enslaved and formerly enslaved. Education brought a certain amount of freedom in and of itself and the capacity to take part in society, for example, by providing the literate the eligibility to give evidence in court. The increasing value placed on education became a feature of Barbados in the coming centuries. Starting in 1845 the colonial government in the country gradually increased funding of education, and mass schooling was available at the beginning of the twentieth century (Tsang et al. 2002). Up to the first half of the twentieth century, mass primary education, along with limited access to post-primary school, marked educational provision in Barbados (Tsang et al. 2002). Like in other countries across the region, the Common Entrance Exam (also known as the Barbados Secondary School Entrance Examination, BSSEE, or the 11+ examination), a primary school high-stakes exam to enter high schools, was introduced. It became the gatekeeper of entrance to post-primary educational opportunities. The Common Entrance

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Examination was run by the central government and represented a seemingly more equitable mechanism compared to the previous system of each secondary school using its own selection mechanisms. In 1948 the Erdiston Teachers’ Training College was opened to facilitate training of educators for the expanding education system. Demand for formal schooling only grew during the 1950s, leading to the establishment of more secondary schools but also the widening of differences in quality that by the time of its independence in 1966, Barbados’s education systems, like across the Caribbean, had significant disparities in quality and reach.

2.2

Education in Barbados in the Post–World War II/PostIndependence Period

In the late pre-independence and early post-independence periods, education continued to serve as a mechanism to facilitate national transition, this time “from a colony to an independent state, and from an elitist society toward a more egalitarian society” (Tsang et al. 2002, 53; see also Layne 1999). Ensuing policies focused on building greater educational access marked by vastly improving secondary provision supported by increased government spending. School fees at public secondary schools were abolished in 1962 with government aid being extended to independent schools by 1965, and in 1963 the “School Meals Program” was piloted. In 1969 the Barbados Community College was opened to provide more diversified opportunities. However, there was a shift to “cost effectiveness” under a new administration in 1976, resulting in reduced educational expenditure by the mid-1980s. Yet this period also brought about expansion of the secondary education system and the postsecondary system, as well as the expansion and restructuring of teacher training opportunities. The recently established University of the West Indies also underwent reforms to make each campus more relevant to each campus-resident country and the broader region (Layne 1999). The University of the West Indies (UWI) was founded in 1948 as the University College of the West Indies (UCWI), an affiliate of the University of London, and eventually gained its own charter in 1962, thus becoming The University of the West Indies (UWI). The first campus of UCWI was situated at Mona, Jamaica, and in 1963 a campus was established in Barbados, initially housed in a site near the Bridgetown Harbor and eventually moved to its current location at Cave Hill in 1967. Layne (1999) notes that “the achievements in the area of educational reform over the decade 1976–1986 is impressive” (125). This period also witnessed the official opening of the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic. However, Layne (1999) cites some missteps, such as the over centralization of education management in the Ministry of Education and the continued support for academic-oriented programs over vocational and technical programs through the administration of the students’ loan system that was established in 1977. In the latter half of the last century, Barbados economy shifted from an agrarian and manufacturing economy to one reliant on tourism, light manufacturing, offshore finance, information technology, and insurance services (Pirog and Kioko 2010). During this transition the

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government realized that its education system should be restructured to better prepare students for a competitive technologically driven global economy. This resulted in the White Paper on Education Reform: Preparing for the Twenty-First Century in 1995, which became known as the EduTech program (Pirog and Kioko 2010). This document is significant because in it one can identify the government’s attempt to foment a knowledge revolution in the Barbados education system through the use of computer technology in the educational process, which involved: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Physical rehabilitation of schools Integrating learning technologies Curriculum reform Human resource development including teacher training Other educational reform initiatives include:

• 1990 National Advisory Commission on Education (NACE) to undertake the advancement of EFA goals. • Education Sector Strategic Plan 2002–2012 to sustain EFA goals. • Human Resource Development Strategy, 2011–2016. • Adoption of the CARICOM’s Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), which creates a single economic space for member countries. The principles of Movement of skilled professionals under CSME have important implications for education and qualifications framework for Barbados like other member countries. The post–World War II/post-independence period was defined by a distinct shift from colonial type education characterized by significant limitations to a period where Barbados focused on expanding educational provision. Thus, the emerging policies focused on improving access at all educational levels. Specific strategies focused on abolishing school fees, introducing school feeding programs, establishing of educational institutions at all levels, and expanding teacher training. With the shifting from an agrarian and manufacturing economy to service and technology-based economy in the late twentieth century, educational policies started focusing on developing a more technologically skilled society.

2.3

Geography and Physical Features, Political System, and Economic Structure

Barbados is the most easterly of the Anglophone Caribbean islands, with a land area of 34 km long north to south and 23 km wide east to west making a total of 430 sq. km (166 sq. mi). Annual rainfall ranges from about 100 cm (40 in) in some coastal districts to 230 cm (90 in) in the central ridge area. There is a wet season from June to December, but rain falls periodically throughout the year. With a tropical climate, temperatures range from 21 to 30°C (70–86°F).

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Barbados’s population at 2017 is listed as 285,744 with annual growth rate of 0.22% (World Bank 2018a). Barbados is one of the world’s most densely populated countries (fourth most densely populated country in the Americas, and 15th globally) (World Population Review 2019). About 80% of Barbadians, or Bajans, are descendants of enslaved Africans brought to the island during the period of slavery. The rest of the population is comprised of Whites (4%), East Indians, and people of mixed descent and mixed races. Life expectancy is estimated at 75 (World Bank 2018b). Barbados’s official language is English and used as the language of instruction in school. There is also a local creole language called “Bajan.” Barbados has a representative Democratic Government, and the island is divided into 30 constituencies. Its Parliament, the third oldest in the world with 358 years of uninterrupted governance, holds legislative power and is composed of a 30-member elected House of Assembly, a 21-member appointed Senate (Upper House), and the Governor General. The Cabinet directs and controls the government. The British monarch is the official head of state represented by a governor general with limited, ceremonial power. Barbados is also part of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a regional political economic cooperative framework. Barbados has achieved a very high human development status based on the UNDP’s Human Development Index which combines indicators of health and educational status and livelihood. Since 1990, Barbados has been ranked among the top 50 countries in the World, and has a favorable record of economic performance and social development (Ministry of Finance 2013). Barbados is classified as a Small Island Developing State (SIDS) with a GDP per capita of US$16,800. Unemployment is estimated at about 10%. Barbados’s earliest colonial and post-colonial economies were based on sugar cultivation; however, through successive government efforts in the post-independence era, the island moved from an agrarian based economy to a more diversified one characterized by light to semi-heavy manufacturing and services. Over the years, tourism and financial services have grown to become major contributors to the economy (Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs 2005). Barbados experienced general prosperity and sustained growth in the 1950s and 1960s but this slowed in the early 1970s. The economy began to stagnate, largely due to a drop in private investment manufacturing and tourism, its most dynamic sectors. Additionally, sugar output showed a rapid decline, further problematizing its narrow resource base and open economy (World Bank 1975). Like many other countries in the region, and globally in the1980s, Barbados experienced a downturn in its economy. Since then its economy has done well as evidenced by its comparably high GDP in the Caribbean region; however, as a small, open developing country, Barbados is vulnerable to external shocks such as those which occurred in 2001 and 2008–9, leading to a restriction in output, increase in unemployment and, as a consequence, an increase in transient poverty during those periods (Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs 2013). More recently, the government has emphasized the importance of developing competence in science and technology to tap into the global “knowledge based” economy. This new focus on the knowledge capital production has important implications for education. Barbados has a history rooted slavery and colonialism, which impacted the development of formal education overtime, including the restrictive availability of

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education during this period. The limited provision of education expanded in the immediate post-emancipation era and took on even more deliberate development in post–World War II and independence periods to extensive educational policy planning and investment. As a small middle-income country, Barbados, with a parliamentary democracy, has enjoyed political stability and relatively steady economic growth. This country has also invested heavily in educational development since its independence.

2.4

Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population

The literacy rate as of 2014 for age group 15–24 was 99.9% (males 99.92%, females 99.99%); for the age group 15 years and older it was 99.6% (male 99.6%, female 99.6); and for the age group 65 years and older it was 98% (male 98.6%, female 98.5%). Currently, the education system in Barbados caters to almost 60,000 students annually, and across the system there are 136 institutions designed to cater to the diverse needs of the population. Education is largely provided by public institutions, but there are also privately run schools as well as some by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training (2017) indicates that there are 68 public primary schools and 26 private primary/mixed schools. At the secondary/high level, there are 22 public schools and 9 private secondary/mixed schools. It is estimated that private schools account for only about 9% of the primary and secondary school population (Rudder 2014). Barbados’s social support system for education covers essential educational needs to ensure that children from birth to age 16 have access to education. There is a free textbooks program at the primary level, subsidized textbook loan scheme for students at the secondary level, free travel on publicowned buses, a subsidized textbook school feeding program, school uniform grant, free health care as well as subventions and bursaries to government-assisted private schools (Rudder 2014). Participation at all educational levels is high (see Tables 1 and 2), with primary education net enrollment participation as high as 96.7 percent, and secondary education net enrollment 91.4 percent in 2019 (UNESCO Institute of Statistics 2020). There is gender parity of enrollment at the primary level over the past few years, but slightly higher enrollment of girls at the secondary level (UNESCO 2020). While tertiary data (see Table 3) for the most recent years is limited, the data that do exist suggests gross enrollment rates of over 65 percent with markedly higher rates for female (UNESCO Institute of Statistics 2020).

2.5

Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support

As mentioned previously, in the latter half of the last century, Barbados’s economy shifted from an agrarian and manufacturing economy to one reliant on tourism, light manufacturing, offshore finance, information technology, and insurance services (Pirog and Kioko 2010). During this transition the government realized that its

2011

98.28 98.32 98.25

93.4 93.9 93

2010

99.6 100.4 98.83

95 95.7 94.3

Source: UNESCO Institute of Statistics (2020)

Primary Education Gross enrollment ratio Total Female Male Net enrollment ratio Total Female Male

Table 1 Primary education participation rate 2013 – – – – – –

2012 – – – – – – 92.5 93.2 91.9

95.19 95.41 94.99

2014

93.8 94.1 93.5

95.92 95.57 96.25

2015

95.4 95.9 95

97.28 97.17 97.39

2016

95 94.2 95.8

97.77 96 99.48

2017

96.7 95.7 97.6

99.35 97.47 101.18

2018

96.7 – –

100.34 98.16 102.46

2019

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2011

103.64 105.56 101.76

88.8 91.6 86.2

2010

101.91 102.14 101.69

85.2 85.1 85.2

Source: UNESCO Institute of Statistics (2020)

Secondary Education Gross enrollment ratio Total Female Male Net enrollment ratio Total Female Male

Table 2 Secondary education participation rate 2013 – – – – – –

2012 – – – – – – 99.3 100 98.6

108.12 109.67 105.65

2014

98.1 – –

107.53 109.46 105.69

2015

96 – –

106.51 109.11 104.05

2016

95.9 – –

106.33 108.57 104.21

2017

93.6 96.8 90.6

103.7 105.75 101.76

2018

91.4 94 88.8

102.71 104.93 100.6

2019

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Table 3 Tertiary education participation rate Tertiary Education 2010 2011 Gross enrollment ratio Total 69.4 65.4 Female 95.8 90.6 Male 43.9 40.3

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

– – –

– – –

– – –

– – –

– – –

– – –

– – –

– – –

Source: UNESCO Institute of Statistics (2020)

education system should be restructured to better prepare students for a competitive technologically driven global economy. The government also acknowledged “the traditional heavy emphasis on elementary, low skilled occupations that has traditionally characterized its employment service” (Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development 2014, 44). Barbados now seeks to “ensure that the proportion of professional and technical array of jobs on offer are substantially increased.” And since around 2014, the government has been structuring the education system for more deliberate linkages to the labor market. The government noted that “information on the current and future skills needs and occupational requirements of industry is one of the most critical challenges confronting the further development of the labor force” in Barbados (Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development 2014, 44). This is particularly important in aligning educational system and the labor market to create an “occupational labor market” where education and vocational training are tightly coupled with the labor market (Muller and Gangl 2003; Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development 2014, 44). This entails a shift from a system that seemed to be more like an “organizational labor market,” where the school to work transition is less structured and loosely coupled (Muller and Gangl 2003; Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development 2014). As the government has pointed out, stakeholders such as graduates of tertiary institutions may invest their time, efforts, and other resources pursuing studies in a specific area, only to find that upon graduation, they encounter extreme difficulty in finding employment within the area they have studied (Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development 2014). The end result of this issue tends to be long-term unemployment, fruitless job searches, underemployment, and frustration from being in a job that is not fully utilizing the skills that have been acquired. Employers too encounter challenges with the quality of skills sets acquired by employees that graduate from Barbados’ tertiary institutions, as employers may be demanding a specific set of competencies from their employees that training institutions may not be supplying (Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development 2014). To ameliorate this problem and to support better transition from education to the labor market, the government, particularly since 2014, has been implementing plans that (1) enhance Career Guidance and Counseling for the Adult Population, including “increased collaboration with relevant stakeholders to improve career and guidance counseling of students”; (2) promote Technical and Vocational Education and Training in Barbados; and (3) improve the Certification of the

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Barbados Labor Force, including development of a National Qualification Framework (Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development 2014, 20). Additionally, designed to improve the employability of labor are in place, the National Employment Bureau (NEB) offers free labor market information services for job seekers, and undertakes career counseling and job application services (Kandil et al. 2014).

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

Barbados has a strong democratic system which is reflected in its education policy making framework that has various checks and balances as well as systems of accountability. Educational policy is mostly centralized and is generally made based on expressed vision of the role of education in national development. Education policies are developed within the Ministry of Education in collaboration with other ministries of government and stakeholders regarding financing, curriculum and pedagogy, entry and exit requirements, equity, personnel, among other education areas. This section details these broader educational institutional and organizational principles by discussing issues around educational financing, administration and governance, education system structure and classification, and personnel issues related to teacher training and qualifications.

3.1

General Principles

The Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training (METI) oversees the education system. The Ministry is headed at the administrative level by a Permanent Secretary and at the technical level by the Chief Education Officer. These officers are assisted by a Deputy Permanent Secretary, two Deputy Chief Education Officers, and a cadre of staff at Ministry Headquarters (METI website 2019). The Ministry’s stated mission and goals are “to ensure equitable access to quality education for all our citizens so that their potential is fully realized” and “to assist in the development of responsible citizens who are disciplined, industrious, creative and confident and who can function effectively in a modern society” (METI website 2019, 1). These principles translate into a number of specific goals, namely to provide quality education for all at all levels of the education, technical and vocational training system in order to build careers and contribute to the development of the Barbadian economy and society. The principles outlined by the Ministry of Education also emphasize the importance of educational policies for youth development “to produce citizens who are well-balanced, disciplined, industrious, creative, self-reliant persons who can think critically and function effectively in a modern society” (METI website 2019, 1). These broader goals are further delineated by several objectives that make specific references to particular social groups, institutions, and development targets such as students with disabilities and special needs, preventative measures for HIV/AIDS, to expand access to all levels of

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education, to improve the integration of technology in the educational processes, and to improve monitoring and evaluation of educational policy and practice. The METI overseas the educational systems and is guided by the mission to provide equitable access to quality education and to cater to diverse needs of the society and local and global market economy and facilitate partnership between institutional stakeholders of the education system. As such, the METI has outlined guiding goals and objects for various stakeholders within the educational system.

3.2

Education Administration and Governance

Having primary responsibility for the formulation of education policy and the administration and regulation of education programs, the METI has undergone a number of changes in recent years. For example, in 2013, the METI was also given responsibility for national policy and program development for science, technology, and innovation, an indication of the growing importance of science and technology as part of the country’s education and development planning (METI website 2019). In response to twenty-first-century challenges and opportunities, the Ministry has increased its focus on building an education system for the “knowledge-based economy” and has been emphasizing continued changes in information and communication technologies in order to use these areas to shift to a national philosophy that promotes “education as a tool for national development” (METI website 2019, 1). As such, education is being promoted “as a lifelong learning process, which seeks to produce outcomes that are culturally-based, technologically-driven, diverse and dynamic” (METI website 2019, 1). The Ministry also emphasizes continued focus on long held values, such as education to build tools “to continue growing as an allembracing, cohesive society” in addition to its increasing emphasis on science and technology. The government has shown a commitment to educational spending since its independence. In 2015/2016, Barbados spent about 5% of its GDP on education, representing 11% of total government expenditure (Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training 2017). In 2015/2016, pre-primary, primary, and special needs education was allocated 36.65% of the total education budget, secondary education 25.89%, and tertiary education 25.78% (Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training 2017). Public current expenditure on education as a percentage of public spending on education was 94%, while public capital expenditure on education as a percentage of public spending on education was 6%.

3.3

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCEDClassification

The education system has four main levels: pre-primary/early childhood, primary, secondary, and post-secondary/tertiary. With compulsory education starting at age 5, the pre-primary level caters to children 3 to 5 years old, primary serves the 5 to

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11 years old, secondary education levels generally support children aged 11 to 16 years. Tertiary education generally starts at age 16+ (see Table 4). Education is largely provided by public institutions, but there are also privately run schools as well as some by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training (2017) indicates that there are 68 public primary schools and 26 private primary/mixed schools. At the secondary/high level, there are 22 public schools and 9 private secondary/mixed schools. It is estimated that private schools account for only about 9% of the primary and secondary school population (Rudder 2014). Student enrollment at the preprimary, primary, special, and secondary education levels stood at 46,812 with 23,738 boys and 23,074 girls. Gender parity index (GPI) is 1.01. Recently, the government has been placing more of its efforts into improving quality as represented in achievement on the Barbados Secondary School Entrance Examinations (BSSEE) external examinations results. The Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) is used to assess the performance of students completing secondary education Table 4 Structure of the education system Program Level Pre-primary

Duration 2

Primary

6

Secondary

5

Special Needs

–

Post-Secondary Non-Tertiary

2

Age at Start 3

Year Level Nursery

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Reception Infants A Infants B Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 Class 4 Form 1 Form 2 Form 3 Form 4 Form 5 Special Needs

2

16 17 16

Lower 6 Form Upper 6 Form –

Tertiary

Undergraduate

3

18

–

Tertiary

PostGraduate

1 2 3–5

21 21 23

– – –

Institution Type Nursery School; Primary School Primary School Primary School

Secondary School

Primary School; Special Needs School Secondary School Technical Institute Community College University Community College Teachers College Teacher’s College University University

Source: Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training (2017)

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and to select students for sixth form/Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE). At the post-secondary/tertiary level, 13 institutions provide education: 9 public secondary schools that offer two years of post-secondary non-tertiary/sixth form; 1 public institution, Samuel Prescod Polytechnic, that solely provides post-secondary non-tertiary education; tertiary education is provided by public institutions, Erdiston Teachers’ Training College (ETTC), the Barbados Community College (BCC), and the University of the West indies (UWI) Cave Hill Campus. Enrollment at the postsecondary non-tertiary education/sixth form (females 1682 and males 2219), and tertiary level (females 6275 and males 3244) stood at 13,420 during the 2015–2016 academic year. There is significant tertiary institutional collaboration, which aids tertiary enrollment level to be one of the highest in the Caribbean at 65% (2011) of qualified cohort (UNESCO Institute of Statistics 2020). The Higher Education Development Unit (HEDU) within the Ministry of Education was established in 2008 to facilitate institutional strengthening initiatives across the Barbados Community College (BCC), Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic (SJPP), and Erdiston Teachers’ Training College (ETTC). There are also close collaborations, such as articulations arrangements, between the UWI and these institutions. In addition, there are several overseas domiciled tertiary institutions that provide education in Barbados. The Barbados Accreditation Council (BAC) is charged with accreditation and quality control of post-secondary/tertiary education and training programs. More specifically, at the institutional level, this body assures the quality and accreditation of all local, regional, and foreign post-secondary institutions operating in Barbados, as well as informs the public of the quality and validity of these institutions and their programs of study. At the programmatic level, BAC validates courses assesses and validates courses offered in Barbados.

3.4

Personnel Supply

Founded in 1948, Erdiston College is charged with providing teacher training in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean. Erdiston College became a constituent college of the School of Education of the University of the West Indies in 1964. The close relationship between the University of the West Indies and Erdiston College still continues especially in areas such as assessment and accreditation. The UWI Cave Hill offers a Diploma in Education as an in-service program for secondary teachers who possess a first degree but have not been exposed to any professional training in teaching. UWI also delivers a BA in education. While in 2015/2016 most of the almost 3500 teachers at the pre-primary, primary, special, and secondary education levels are trained (63%: [66% females and 56% males]), there is a large percent of untrained teachers (37% [34% females and 44% males]) (see Table 5). As part of the broader strategy to enhance education quality in Barbados, the government, through the support of Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), launched the School Teacher Effectiveness Plans (STEPs) project in 2017. As the CDB (2017) notes, STEPs was “framed within the context of identifying models and tools to

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Table 5 Teacher supply and training: pre-primary, primary, special, and secondary Education Total Percent trained Percent untrained

Males 940 56 44

Females 2511 66 34

Total Trained/Untrained (%) 63 37

Source: Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training (2017)

guide teachers towards being more effective” (Caribbean Development Bank 2017, 1). The project seeks to enhance the physical learning environment, build capacity among classroom practitioners and teacher trainers, and identify and implement more scientific methods of education planning. Barbados’s educational policy framework is largely centralized in the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (METI). Education policies are developed by METI in collaboration with other ministries of government and stakeholders regarding financing, curriculum and pedagogy, entry and exit requirements, equity, personnel, among other education areas. With a stated mission to ensure equitable access and to develop responsible citizens through education, the government has shown its commitment to education by spending about 5% of its GDP on education, which represents 11% of its total government expenditure. Recent governance changes have focused on education for the “knowledge-based economy” for a country that has a near universal literacy rate.

4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

Among the most visible trends in Barbados’s education are: the integration of STEM education as a core strategy toward national development; implementation of ICT as part of pedagogy and the improvement of teacher capacity; and the reduction of inequality that is especially visible at the secondary level through the disparities in educational achievement which are tied to the school selection mechanism that are themselves functions of class and economic privilege. The government has been developing and implementing various policy initiatives and strategies to address the related challenges and meet their aspirations. This section discusses issues of inequality in the education system, the role of ICT, and the STEM fields. This section also examines Barbados’s current efforts at enhancing its human capital by focusing on technological as a currency in the global economy.

4.1

Inequality

Barbados provides equal access to education at all levels. The country has achieved gender parity in the participation of boys and girls in education (1:01), a reflection of long-term efforts through funding commitment and legislation for equal access to education. There are broad social support services for education to ensure that

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children from birth to age 16 have access to education. For instance, there is a free textbooks program at the primary level, subsidized textbook loan scheme at the secondary level, free travel on public-owned buses, a subsidized textbook, school feeding program, school uniform grant, free health care as well as subventions and bursaries to government-assisted private schools (Rudder 2014). Barbados has placed much emphasis on programs that focus on students’ learning outcomes, the training and preparation of teachers and the implementation of pedagogy, relevance of curricula, effective school leadership, and the provision of adequate resources. These efforts have borne some fruit as Barbados’s secondary education completion rate is one of the highest in the region at 94% (Inter-American Development Bank 2017). Yet while education in Barbados is public funded and, in theory, widely accessible, there are still concerns around quality and achievement, especially on regional secondary external examinations. For instance, though Barbados outperforms other Caribbean countries on the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC), in 2015, 31% of students who took the examinations failed to pass math, 29% failed English, and 37% failed sciences (Inter-American Development Bank 2017). Further, not all secondary school leavers take the CSEC; for instance, 23% of the cohort who took the Barbados Secondary Schools’ Entrance Examination (BSSEE), and should have taken CSEC in 2015, did not subsequently take the CSEC. There are also concerns about equity, as the top performing public schools have the lowest proportion of low achievers on the CSEC secondary education examinations. Similarly, the bottom-performing public schools have a relatively high concentration of low performing students on the CSEC. Additionally, only 33% of students who took CSEC achieved four or more passes, the minimum requirement to work in the public sector or be admitted to universities, which means that up 67% of students who completed high school in 2015 were not qualified to either work at certain levels in the labor market or go on to tertiary education (Inter-American Development Bank 2017). And only 6.1% of the students who took CSEC get the four passes in the first sitting (Barbados Today 2016).

4.2

ICT and Digitalization

The Barbados government has been committed, through policy, to ICT and STEM education particularly since the “White Paper on Education Reform: Preparing for the Twenty-First Century” in 1995 which resulted in the blueprint for the reform program, Education Secondary Enhancement Program (EduTech) (Pirog and Kioko 2010; Tsang et al. 2002). EduTech 2000 was approved in 1998 at a cost of US$213.1 million, and one of its four components, “Integrating learning technologies (IT),” was intended to include provision of 8000–10,000 computers and associated hardware and software in primary and secondary schools. Related to ICT, EduTech was meant to gradually computerize all schools, train education professionals to integrate technology into the teaching and learning process, and develop teaching strategies to maximize information technology (Tsang et al. 2002). However, early assessment found that in piloted-tested schools, technology was not necessarily being used as

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originally intended as an instructional medium, though it was being used as preparation and management tool, with limited positive results on examination performance (Best et al. 2004). Later results, between 2005 and 2009, suggest some slight positive trend at the secondary level (Hinostroza 2011).

4.3

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Subjects

As it relates to STEM, the government’s discourse is that it will develop a reform process for STEM Education. It thus commissioned a review to examine the “current status of STEM education and STEM-related employment and to establish a comprehensive blueprint for a STEM education, innovation and employment program in Barbados” (Caribbean Science Foundation 2016, 2). The proposed reforms resulting from this review form part of Barbados’s Human Resource Development Strategy 2011–2016, in particular, pillar 5: “Enhancement of research to improve innovation, entrepreneurship, and development capacity” (Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training 2010, 2). An expansion of STEM education is expected to help drive an increase in the number of students pursuing STEM-related careers to further diversify the domestic economy in line with global trends. In other words, increased focus on STEM education is being linked to a broader set of national economic development aspirations and global trends. Among the recommendations of the commissioned review are: • Adopt computer programming and robotics within primary, secondary and tertiary institutions immediately • Adding science questions to the common entrance (11+) exams • Intensive and mandatory teacher training on inquiry-based science education teaching methods • Tertiary educational institutions to develop centers of excellence in key areas of science and engineering While this author did not locate any document outlining the specific strategies the government will pursue with regard to the recommendations above, it is expected that they will form the basis for STEM education going forward.

4.4

Emerging Issues

Barbados has clearly made significant strides in evolving and developing its education, to the point where it has one of the highest rates of access to education in the world. The expansion of primary and secondary education and its comparatively high post-secondary/tertiary enrollment rates are clear examples of the level of transformation since its earliest colonial periods. Yet there remain areas where the country is trying to improve its education, including its quality, teacher effectiveness, and greater integration of STEM education for increased

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participation in the global knowledge economy. As it relates to the improvement of educational quality, the government has placed a lot of effort on enhancing the physical infrastructure of schools, as well as the retooling of teachers to improve their pedagogical skills through more recent initiatives such as the STEPs project. Such efforts also involve greater efforts to integrate technology in education, both as pedagogical tool and as STEM subjects – this will have consequences for the country’s human resources capacity. In fact, the increasing of STEM in education seems to be one of the single most important goals among educational and development policy makers in Barbados. Tied to the goal of quality improvement is the concern around performance at the secondary level, especially as it relates to external examinations results and the low performance of students who, overall, do not take these examinations in sufficiently high numbers, and those who do, do not pass at the rates that suggest they are either ready for the workforce or further studies at the higher education level. Therefore, achieving higher quality and creating more equitable access to quality education are central themes of Barbados education policy discourse, and this seems to capture the continued link between Barbados’s colonial origins and the currently limiting aspects of its education system. As several scholars have observed (Rudder 2014; Pilgrim et al. 2018), the education system has not sufficiently shed its colonial past, evidenced, for example at the transition between primary and secondary levels, where high stakes examinations, the common entrance, still determine the fate of students in inequitable ways. This exam structure is said to have resulted in many negative byproducts, including reproduction of class privilege, limited tolerance and social cohesion, physical burden of students traveling long distances to school, and a teach-to-the-test approach that limits development of analytical and critical thinking skills. As such, there are increasing calls to rethink and reform this system, which may have implications on how the rest of educational framework is reimagined.

5

Conclusion

Barbados’s education system is one of the best in the CARICOM Caribbean based on its literacy levels, secondary completion rates, and tertiary educational enrollment levels. This has been achieved through planning and heavy public investment in education as indicated by the percentage of its GDP that the country invests in the education sector. These are achievements of which the country can be proud, especially given that its education was founded under colonialism with deep seated inequalities along race, gender, ethnicity, and other forms of difference. Plantation slavery limited formal educational provision to the Black majority for long periods of Barbados’s colonial history. The earliest of education provision developed through religious foundations and served as a mechanism for social control and transformation from slavery to emancipation. This social transformative role of education continued, as education also served the latter function in the transition from a colonial society to an independent one

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in the mid to late twentieth century. Again, education is being asked to help the societal transition into the twenty-first century’s knowledge-based economy. However, Barbados’s education system, for all its achievements, still reflects some of the tendencies of the past, including access to quality education based on class, and practices that seem to have lost their relevance in the new era increasingly characterized by more complex pedagogical practices and the increasing importance of science and technology. However, policy makers and educational practitioners appear increasingly aware of these limitations and have been implementing initiatives and policies aimed at transforming the system to be defined by higher quality, more equitable access and content and pedagogy more suited to the economy of the twenty-first century.

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Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training. (2010). Barbados’s Human Resource Development Strategy 2011–2016. St. Michael: Government of Barbados. https:// mes.gov.bb/Download.ashx?file¼Attachments%2FBabados+Human+Resource+Development +Strategy+2011-2016.pdf&name¼Babados+Human+Resource+Development+Strategy +2011-2016. Accessed 24 Mar 2019. Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training. (2017). 2015–2016 statistics on education in Barbados, at a glance. St. Michael: Government of Barbados. https://mes.gov.bb/ Resources/Publications/. Accessed 2 May 2019. Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training. (2019). Website. https://mes.gov.bb/ About/Mission-Goals/. Accessed 22 Feb 2019. Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Culture. (2000). Education in Barbados information handbook. St. Michael: Government of Barbados. https://mes.gov.bb/Resources/Publications/. Accessed 9 Mar 2019. Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs. (2005). The national strategic plan of Barbados 2005– 2025. St. Michael: Government of Barbados. http://www.sice.oas.org/ctyindex/BRB/Plan20052025.pdf. Accessed 14 May 2019. Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs. (2013). Barbados growth and development strategy 2013–2020. St. Michael: Government of Barbados, The Economic Affairs Division. https:// observatorioplanificacion.cepal.org/sites/default/files/plan/files/BarbadosSBGDS20132020. pdf. Accessed 17 May 2019. Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development. (2014). The national employment policy of Barbados. Government of Barbados. https://labour.gov.bb/pdf/national %20employment%20policy%20OF%20barbados%20(november%202014).pdf Muller, W., & Gangl, M. (2003). Transitions from education to work in Europe: The integration of youth into EU labour markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Petley, C. (2005). Slavery, emancipation and the creole world view of Jamaican colonists, 1800– 1834. Slavery & Abolition, 26(1), 93–114. Pilgrim, M., Hornby, G., & Inniss, T. (2018). Selective secondary school education in Barbados: The need for change. Journal of International and Comparative Education, 7(2), 111–126. Pirog, M. A., & Kioko, S. N. (2010). Evaluation of the education sector enhancement program in Barbados. International Public Management Journal, 13(1), 72–99. Rudder, R. (2014). Barbados education for all 2015 national review. Barbados: Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation. St. Michael, Barbados: Government of Barbados. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000230018. Accessed 20 May 2019. Accessed 1 Mar 2019. Tsang, M. C., Fryer, M., & Arevalo, G. (2002). Access, equity and performance: Education in Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank. https://publications.iadb.org/en/access-equity-and-performance-educationbarbados-guyana-jamaica-and-trinidad-and-tobago. Accessed 3 Mar 2019. UNESCO Institute of Statistics. (2020). Barbados: Education and Literacy. http://uis.unesco.org/en/ country/bb. Accessed 18 Nov 2020. World Bank. (1975). Barbados – Current economic position and prospects. Washington, DC: World Bank. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/262621468013819842/Barbados-Cur rent-economic-position-and-prospects. Accessed 19 Mar 2019. World Bank. (2018a). World development indicators. https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore? ds¼d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y¼sp_pop_totl&idim¼country:BRB:BHS:LCA&hl¼en&dl¼en. Accessed 19 Mar 2019. World Bank. (2018b). World development indicators. https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore? ds¼d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y¼sp_dyn_le00_in&idim¼country:BRB:BHS:LCA&hl¼en& dl¼en#!ctype¼l&strail¼false&bcs¼d&nselm¼h&met_y¼sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_y¼lin& ind_y¼false&rdim¼region&idim¼country:BRB&ifdim¼region&hl¼en_US&dl¼en& ind¼false. Accessed 19 Mar 2019. World Population Review. (2019). Barbados population. http://worldpopulationreview.com/ countries/barbados-population/. Accessed 11 Mar 2019.

7

The Education System of Bermuda A Story of Two Bermudas Phyllis Curtis-Tweed

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Social Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Transitions to the Labor Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Academic Achievement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Education for Children with Exceptionalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Structure of the Education System According to ISCED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Cultural Contexts: The Meaning of Secondary Schools in the Black Community . . . 3.7 Private and Denominational Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 Adult and Continuing Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.9 Tertiary Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.10 Personnel Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Inequality: Segregation and Unequal Educational Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Critique and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

142 143 143 146 150 151 152 152 153 155 155 156 157 160 162 163 163 165 165 167 168 169 171

Abstract

The chapter describes the history of education in Bermuda, post-World War II until 2021. This is a story of segregation in a colonial context in which the white government perpetrated racist policies that sustained inequity in education for P. Curtis-Tweed (*) Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs, Bermuda College, Paget, Bermuda e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_46

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black people and channeled them toward domestic and menial labor. There was no government system of education: all schools were private. Postdesegregation, stakeholders have spent decades on a quest to find or develop a public system that will educate and empowerall children. This process has taken place in the context of a largely UK-based system with successful private schools, formerly white, but now integrated. There have been some successful public schools but they have failed to meet the needs of all children. Therefore, many attempts at transformation have occurred including the development of a Bermuda-based senior school certificate to denote graduation, and the transformation of the education system to include middle schools. So far, reviews and reports on the system have indicated that the quest should continue. At this time, the system is once again embarking on a system transformation to develop signature schools. The chapter follows the story of the Bermuda education system until this point. Keywords

Bermuda · Public school · Education · Racism · Segregation

1

Introduction

Bermuda is an archipelago of about seven main islands with additional islets for a total of 181 islands which form approximately 21 square miles of land surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. The closest land mass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in the United States of America, which lies approximately 650 miles to the west of the island. Bermuda was first discovered in 1503 by Spanish navigator, Juan de Bermudez. It was the site of many shipwrecks due to the surrounding coral reefs and hurricane activity and there were no indigenous inhabitants. Bermuda was settled in 1609 by the English, becoming a colony in 1684. It became a British Overseas Territory as a result of the British Overseas Territory Act in 2002. It is the oldest British territory (United Kingdom Overseas Territories Association 2021. https://ukota.org/memberterritories/bermuda/). Bermuda, known for its beautiful beaches and friendly citizens, became an increasingly popular tourist destination, particularly for the wealthy, from the 1930s. It has been known for the export of lilies and onions, for tourism, and for international business, specifically, the insurance/reinsurance industry. Bermuda remains a popular vacation site for travellers around the world. Bermuda’s economy has at various times been sustained by agricultural export, tourism, and international business. At times it has thrived economically, reporting periods of no unemployment (Bermuda Board of Education 1957, 21) and therefore no appreciable poverty. However, such reports excluded the economic disenfranchisement of black Bermudians as descibed by Swan (2007, 22). As times and the economy have changed, unemployment and poverty have undeniably emerged and risen substantially, particularly in the wake of the coronavirus

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pandemic (Government of Bermuda, Department of Statistics, Labour Force Survey Report November 2020, 10). Bermuda has generally relied on imported goods, including food, and income generated by tourists, exempt companies, and international business. The island has lacked intentionality in promoting its sustainability by developing human capital through education. Education, according to historical accounts, was not proactively and systematically developed, but rather evolved over time in a “free-wheeling” process (Houghton 1963, 1). An examination of the history reveals issues of repeated concern without resolution over the years. Not least of the issues faced in Bermuda has been a struggle for racial and economic equity in the provision of education, first, in a colonial and, today, in a neo-colonial context.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

2.1

General Historical Background

From the historical accounts provided in annual education reports, provisions for education existed since the seventeenth century, when there were three schools and a free school on island (Bermuda Board of Education 1960, 1–8). In the 18th century, little provision was made for education but by the 19th century there were eight private schools. Additionally, after emancipation in 1834, efforts were made, by religious societies, to provide education to “colored” children. (The term ‘colored’ was used in reports dating 1940–1960s to refer to non-whites, and the term ‘black’ is used in later and current documents to refer to people of African descent. These terms used in this chapter are consistent with the language of the time in the various reports.) In particular, the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC), concerned that the British neglected the education of blacks in Bermuda, had advocated for the development of a public school system for the equal benefit of all regardless of race (Dickerson 2020, 287–288). Still, education was somewhat unstructured until the legislation of the Schools Act of 1922. This Act, which would remain in effect until the Schools Act of 1949, was the first of many that would legislate the roles and rights of key stakeholders and the structure of education in Bermuda (Bermuda Board of Education 1949, 4–5).

2.1.1

The Structure of School: Vested Versus Nonvested, Aided Versus Nonaided, Aided Versus Maintained Schools in Bermuda were initially considered to be private; there were no government schools (Christopher 2009, 4–8; Hill 1983, 520). There were two main types of schools: vested and nonvested. In the vested schools, school management was vested in local committees or governing boards to which the Board of Education made annual grants. (The term governing boards does not refer to the government of the country but to a committee of individuals associated with the school who were selected or appointed to provide oversight to the school’s operations and management.) Additionally, vested schools typically owned all or a part of the land on which

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they stood. Nonvested schools were directly administered by the Board of Education and there was no governing board standing between the school and the Board of Education (Bermuda Board of Education 1950, 6). Further, schools were segregated, with vested schools for white children and nonvested schools for black children. The only exception was The Berkeley Institute, a vested school founded in 1879, which although conceived as a school for all children regardless of race (Robinson 1962, 13), became, de facto, a school for colored children (Christopher 2009, 23). Whether vested or nonvested, all schools received financial support from the government. Financial tables in the Education Reports show that schools for white children routinely received larger allocations per capita than schools for colored children. For example, in 1947 the expenditure for vested schools was £40,096 compared with £47,307 for nonvested schools, which served almost twice as many students as the vested schools (Bermuda Board of Education 1947, 11–13). (The use of the symbol £ refers to British pounds throughout this chapter). Vested schools also had access to additional funds depending on their benefactors which meant that the vested schools had more financial resources than the nonvested schools. In 1949, the schools were further differentiated as vested-free, vested-not free, and nonvested-free in accordance with the Schools Act of 1949, to provide free primary education; not all vested schools complied with this Act. There were also two denominational schools that were classified as “private”: Mount St Agnes Academy, a Catholic school founded in 1898 (https://www.msa.bm/ about-us/history, accessed July 2, 2021), and the Bermuda Institute of the Seventh Day Adventists founded in 1943 (Holder 1999, 1). These schools were regulated by their denominations and did not receive government aid. Some early reports refer to the denominational schools as “unaided,” meaning that they were independent of the government, but later reports refer to them as private schools (Christopher 2009, 4). According to the Director of Education’s report for 1965 (Bermuda Board of Education 1965, 1–2) with desegregation, the language used to categorize the schools changed to private, aided, and maintained. Private schools were run by their relevant Governing Boards, independent of government aid and involvement. Aided schools, like vested schools, had governing boards but received monies, now called a “grant-in-aid” from public funds. Maintained schools were the same as nonvested schools. No reason for the change in language is given in the 1965 annual report. However, Houghton (1963, 2–3) reported that “vested,” with the exception of the Berkeley Institute, was synonymous with white and superior and “nonvested” with colored and inferior. Perhaps the new language was intended to create distance from these connotations and acknowledge the increased involvement of the government and the increased privatization of formerly vested schools for which the government was no longer accountable. The Education Act 1996 further clarifies the categories of schools and the level of government involvement. While both aided and maintained secondary schools may have a board of governors, aided schools select their own governors and have some autonomy in hiring teachers and other management. The members of the governing

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board for maintained schools are appointed by the Ministry of Education. Neither maintained nor aided schools may implement school programming that has not been directed by the Minister. All schools work collaboratively with the Ministry and the Department of Education to ensure that curricula are standardized across schools (Government of Bermuda, Bermuda Education Act 1996, 17–18). All government-aided schools receive an operational grant, which is used primarily to pay salaries, but are governed independently by a Board of Governors. Additionally, the aided schools own some of the property on which they are housed and may also manage other assets, such as additional properties, and have additional income due to these assets and benefactors (Bermuda Board of Education 1965, 6–7). Government aided schools, in 2021, include The Berkeley Institute, Sandys Middle School, Whitney Institute, and St George’s Preparatory School. Over the years, the government has consistently challenged the autonomy of the aided schools. In an attempt to make them more accountable to the government, Ministers of Education have tried to persuade the governing boards to use, what the government perceives to be, the aided schools’ assets to supplement reduced government funding or the threat thereof.

2.1.2 Free and Nonfree Schools The Schools Act 1949, which was later embodied in the Education Act 1954, established that all children between the ages of 7 and 13 would have free primary education. In actual practice, children were attending school under age 7, as young as age 5 and over age 13. Consequently, students under and over the compulsory age were receiving free education if they attended a free school. Reports indicate that some families could not consistently afford the fees or required their children to work periodically so that some children ended up attending primary school over a longer timeframe, were therefore older in primary school, and did not necessarily attend secondary school. In 1949, the free schools included five vested and fifteen nonvested schools (Bermuda Board of Education 1949, 6–7). The nonfree schools excluding the private schools consisted of eight schools that provided secondary education with five of these also providing primary education, three vested secondary schools, and one vested primary school. There were also two vested schools that provided free primary education and nonfree education in the secondary schools. The highest fee at this time for the top form of secondary school was £30 per year (Bermuda Board of Education 1949, 8), exclusive of books and stationery. The age at which children could attend school changed over the years with attempts made to extend the compulsory age to 16 or older and to differentiate between the ages at which students should attend primary school and secondary school. In 1965, the general division of schools into separate primary and secondary schools or departments was completed (Bermuda Board of Education 1965, 4–5). Secondary schools would provide 4 years of instruction with an additional 2 years for General Certificate of Education (GCE) “A” level study (https:// www.cambridgeinternational.org/programmes-and-qualifications/cambridge-

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advanced/cambridge-international-as-and-a-levels/). It was also legislated in the Education Act 1954 and the Amendment Act 1965 that the compulsory age for education was 5–14 with an agreement that the school-leaving age should be raised to 16 years old by 1969 (Bermuda Board of Education 1965, 6). Children on average could receive scholarships to attend secondary school between the ages of 11 and 12, which was fixed as the age of transfer into secondary school. The law also established the right of children within the statutory age to a free education although some aided schools continued to charge a fee. The school leaving age was raised to 18 in the Education Act, 1996. This new legislation was commensurate with changes in the structure of the school system from 10 to 12 years of instruction which occurred in 1996. In 2021, all government aided and maintained schools are free but private schools charge tuition which ranges from USD$11,844 to USD$18,995 for denominational schools and USD$20,754 to USD$24,060 for independent private school (This information is provided on the private school websites: https://www.warwick.bm/ admissions/fees; https://www.bhs.bm/admissions/fee-schedule; https://www. mysomersfield.com/tuition-fees; https://www.saltus.bm/admissions/tuition-andfinancial-aid; https://www.msa.bm/admissions/tution; https://www. bermudainstitute.bm/tuition-fees). Scholarships are provided to selected high achieving children at the end of primary school for some of the private schools.

2.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

Changes in the political, economic, and cultural landscape have impacted education directly and indirectly. For example, under the Land-Lease Act of 1941, Great Britain made an agreement with the United States for a 99-year lease of land in St David’s. This agreement enabled the United States to develop a military base at Kindley Field in St David’s parish, Bermuda. This base was operated by the US Army between 1943 and 1948, then by the Air Force as Kindley Air Force Base between 1948 and 1970, and finally by the US Navy as the US Naval Air Station between 1970 and 1995. The establishment of the base in Bermuda resulted in an influx of US-American service personnel and their families and contributed to the island’s economy. Evans (2016, 28) notes that Bermuda was accustomed to receiving tourists, typically wealthy Americans, but adjusting to the working US-servicemen from a diversity of backgrounds was a different experience. The US-personnel lived on the base and in locations around the island. Their children attended local schools, particularly St George’s Preparatory School, due to its proximity to the base, until schools were built on the base in the early 1960s (Davies 1988). The agreement with the USA also resulted in the lifting of the ban on automobiles because the US military needed cars and trucks on island. (Bermuda did not allow automobiles on island but lifted the ban to accommodate the needs of the US military). The first private cars were not allowed on island until 1946.

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Economic Changes: Agriculture, Tourism, International Business, and Future Endeavors Bermuda’s economy was initially dependent on agricultural exports including onions and lilies. Agricultural trade to the USA, which was on a very small scale, was halted by the (US) Tariff Act of 1930 which made importing goods from Bermuda cost-prohibitive (Evans 2016, 8). Bermuda had been renowned as a popular tourist destination since the 1930s (Evans 2016, 8). Vocational training to provide services in the hotel industry and the trades to build and provide accompanying services became a staple of education programming in the 1940s. Black children were overwhelmingly streamed towards vocational training to provide services for white people (Bermuda Board of Education 1958, 5). However, starting with the 1960s, the interest of Bermudians in tourism and the trades had started to wane, due to many reasons, including increased opportunities to earn qualifications and work in higher paying and/or white collar jobs; societal changes in the perception of work in these industries; and changes in the industries themselves (Bermuda Board of Education 1967, 8). However, tourism is a fragile industry. At one of the highest points, in 2017, the government reported just under 700,000 tourists arriving on island by air, or sea, spending about USD 320 million. In 2019, tourists spent USD 562 million on island and tourism contributed USD 379 million to Bermuda’s gross domestic product (Government of Bermuda, Department of Statistics, Tourism 2019, 1). By 2021, in the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic, tourism, which directly impacts the hotel/accommodation industry, transportation, and retail trade, had fallen dramatically resulting in the loss of jobs and the closure of some businesses including the temporary and permanent closure of some hotels and restaurants. The government is optimistic for a resurgence in tourism as the pandemic becomes more controlled globally with the availability of vaccinations (Neil, Scott. Economy Shrank 5.9% in third quarter, Royal Gazette, Wednesday, June 30. https://www. royalgazette.com/economy/business/article/20210228/gdp-falls-5-9-in-third-quar ter/ Comment by Minister of the Cabinet Office, Wayne Furbert.; Government of Bermuda, Ministry of Finance 2020, 15–17). International business, first established in Bermuda in 1947, burgeoned in the late 1960s–1970s, particularly for the insurance and reinsurance industry. Bermuda is one of three top insurance/reinsurance centers globally. The insurance industry continued to thrive despite the pandemic with some Bermuda companies raising approximately USD 7.7 billion of capital in 2020/2021 (Fitch Ratings 2021). This continues to be an area of employment opportunities. In 2021, The Bermuda Government released an Economic Recovery Plan that details 31 initiatives designed to improve the island’s fiscal health including greater collaboration with private businesses and the implementation of planned education reform. These changes will impact the island’s workforce requirements and consequently, the government’s determination of school programming (Government of Bermuda Economic Recovery Plan 2021, 18).

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2.2.2 The Formation of Unions Education in Bermuda was impacted by the formation of teachers’ unions, particularly for teachers in nonvested schools (Robinson 1984, 10–19). The Bermuda Union of Teachers (BUT) had existed since 1919, founded by four teachers including Adele Tucker, Edith Crawford, Matilda Crawford, and the Reverend Rufus Stovell, but had little success improving the extremely low social and economic status of the teaching profession (Robinson 1984, 10–19). Kawaley (1984, 5) remarked that teachers were expected to work for a meager salary for which they often waited months to receive. Robinson (1984, 15) stated “Teachers both trained and untrained were paid so poorly that they were partly supported by members of their own families, who in many cases, had never set a foot in a secondary school.” The “colored schools” tended to be overcrowded in comparison to the white schools. By 1932, one primary school called the Central School had an enrolment of over 1300 students due to the amalgamation of four smaller schools into one. Robinson (1984, 10) notes that, “the teachers of the Aided White Schools were paid for children that they did not teach while teachers of the Aided Colouredschools were not paid for children they did teach.” Salaries were higher in white vested schools because those schools could supplement their government grants with large grants and donations received from private benefactors. However, according to Robinson (1984, 14), 1935–1940s marked the entrance into the system of dedicated and educated Bermudians who were able to initiate progress including Kenneth E. Robinson, Frederick S. Furbert, and Victor Scott. The first step was to fight to equalize and raise salaries. On February 13, 1947, the Bermuda Union of Teachers (BUT) became the first registered trade union in Bermuda. The main focus of the union at this time was to improve teacher’s salaries. Robinson (1984, 15) observes that their initial efforts were thwarted by the fact that the positions of the Chairman of the Board of Education, the Chair of the Financial Committee, and the Speaker of the House of Assembly were held by the same person. However, by 1947, the union had effected increases in salaries. In 1963, the union negotiated a 37% increase in teachers’ salaries. There was a 1 day strike on March 18th in 1963 with 57 teachers absenting themselves from schools because there was a delay by the legislature in accepting the new scale. The legislation was accepted in the House on March 25th with the salary increases made retroactive to the previous year (Bermuda Board of Education 1963, 15). There was also a Teachers Association of Bermuda (TAB) for white teachers, formed in 1943 (Benbow 1984, 21). With integration pending and many members of the TAB already employed at “black” schools, the unions agreed to become one body in 1964. The name of the union changed to Amalgamated Bermuda Union of Teachers (ABUT) to reflect the feelings of white teachers and the inclusion of the TAB (Robinson 1984, 17) but reverted to the Bermuda Union of Teachers (BUT) in 1997. The emergence of the union improved pay and service conditions for teachers, and to this day, the BUT continues to advocate for the rights and fair treatment of teachers.

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2.2.3 The Political Context Bermuda was initially governed by a Colonial Parliament system with a governor. Until 1960, voting was restricted to male landowners who could vote in each parish in which their property value was at least £60, giving wealthy whites an advantage and control of election outcomes. The first two party system was formed in Bermuda by 1965 with the Progressive Labour Party (PLP), founded in 1963, and the United Bermuda Party (UBP), founded in 1964. The former comprised largely black and working class Bermudians, while the UBP was mainly a party of whites, with a few blacks, and the wealthy. Bermuda received the Constitution Order 1968 that delineated the governance system and rights of individuals in Bermuda. The 1968 election resulted in a win by the United Bermuda Party which remained in power until 1998 when the PLP won its first election (Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda 2020, 36–41). The PLP won consecutive terms until 2012 when it lost to the newly formed One Bermuda Alliance (OBA) which was a combination of the Bermuda Democratic Alliance and the United Bermuda Party (Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda 2020, 56). A major deleterious governmental effect, regardless of governing party, has been the politicization of education. Because the government controls school programming, education is at the mercy of whomever is at the political helm. Consequently, the government has promoted leadership instability in education because of constant changes in the assignment of Ministers of Education, as well as the appointment of Ministers, who often have little to no knowledge and/or experience, or academic credentials in the area of education. In a Bermuda Sun Online news article on September 30, 2009, Burchall reported that Bermuda had 17 Ministers of Education between 1998 and 2009 with two different political parties responsible for education policies; the UBP had nine Ministers between 1970 and 1998, and the PLP had eight Ministers between 1998 and 2009. Ministers of Education 2014–2021 included three OBA Ministers David Gibbons, Wayne Scott, Cole Simons and one PLP Minister, Diallo Rabain. Rabain, appointed in 2017, has been the longest serving minister in recent years. There has also been instability in the appointment of a Commissioner of Education. In 2014–2018, Bermuda had no less than five Education Commissioners, four acting, and two, Heatley and Richards, as permanent appointments. Richards has been in place since 2017 (acting in 2017 and permanent in 2018). (The author worked with the Ministers and Commissioners listed as Principal of The Berkeley Institute, 2014–2017). One review of Bermuda’s education system indicated that the system was hurt by the competition between political parties (Clark et al. 1978, 6). An education agenda, without bipartisan agreement or consultation, as part of a political platform, may be forced forward or cut relative to political agenda without focus on the direct impact of actions on education. This predicament persists relative to legislation. The work of the Ministry of Education is still legislated by the Education Act 1996 with the Education Amendment Act 2021 passed by the House of Assembly in March 2021. This Amendment specifies the implementation of signature schools and reduces the age at which children may enter the government system. All programming is still at the direction of the Minister of Education.

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Social Conditions

Bermuda was a segregated country governed by a white oligarchy. There were two Bermudas: one for whites and the other for blacks. Black Bermudians in the 1950s planned for change and launched a Theatre Boycott in 1959 which benchmarked an era of social change that coincided with events of the civil rights movement in the USA and other incidents globally (Clark et al. 1978, 5). The Theatre Boycott was propelled by the work of a group of educated blacks known as the Progressive Group, whose identity remained hidden for 40 years for fear of reprisal, and activists, including the Reverend Kingsley Tweed, Richard “Doc” Lynch, and members of the Black Brotherhood (Swan 2009, 14–15). This boycott was the catalyst for ending segregation and integrating cinemas, hotels, and restaurants. Schools were desegregated in 1965 but the path to integration was slow and met with resistance. Initially, some white schools became private rather than integrate and when they did integrate admitted only a couple of black students or added a couple of black staff members. Integration at white primary schools was further prompted by legislation in 1970. This was in the context a deep racial divide characterized by discrimination and social injustice against black people in housing, employment, banking, and all areas of life (Clark et al. 1978, 1–17). Black empowerment groups emerged, such as the Black Beret Cadre, 1969–1972, to demand social change. There was an impactful Black Power Conference in 1969 which, in part, stimulated advocacy among black youth (Swan 2009, 77–94). In 1970, students at The Berkeley Institute started an afterschool Black Studies program in which they read the works of Frantz Fanon, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. When they attempted to invite students from other schools to participate, the administration banned outside visitors which led to sit-in at the school to demand change (Swan 2009, 123). The formation of an island-wide Black Union of Students with branches at the Academic Sixth Form Centre, Bermuda Technical Institute, Sandys Secondary, and Churchill Schools resulted in regular meetings of hundreds of students to discuss Black Power and the introduction of Black Studies into the schools. Conservative leadership was threatened by these activities which were condemned in the press. Black power groups and activists became the subject of government-sanctioned surveillance and covert operations to suppress their influence and activties (Swam 2009, 120–124, 139). However, the perception of social injustice and inequity, perpetuated by the government, was the catalyst for the 1977 riots in the black community in protest of the hangings of Erskine Durrant “Buck” Burrows and Larry Tacklyn convicted of murder. The Pitt Commission report indicated that the riots were a response to systemic racism and discrimination (Clark et al. 1978, 1; Pitt Commission Report 1978, 7–11) These events provided the stimulus for changes in the education system to encourage integration and promote equity in employment and other areas in which blacks routinely experienced discrimination.

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151

Transitions to the Labor Market

Education in Bermuda has been historically designed to meet the employment needs of the island. In the 1940s, the main economic industry was tourism and schools provided avenues to children to work in the hotel industry and areas of related needs such as the trades. Annual reports noted the need for tradesmen which led to the development of training opportunities for black children. The Nicholl Institute for education in the trades had been founded in 1941 for white boys and the Bermuda Technical Institute, which admitted black boys, was opened in the 1950s. However, by 1967, the annual report indicated that Bermudian interest in hotel and catering training was waning (Bermuda Board of Education 1967 Annual report, 8). With the establishment of Bermuda College in 1974, the trades amalgamated with the Academic Sixth form center and the Hotel College to form a tertiary institution. Although trades and hotel industry programming currently exist in 2021 at Bermuda College, the interest of Bermudians in entering these areas has diminished over time (Christopher 2009, 77–78). Tourism has fluctuated over the years and there are increased opportunities for people to enter other careers. Nevertheless, government employment and the employment needs of the island are considered in the structuring of educational opportunities. An examination of the number of Bermudians and guest workers needed and employed in various positions informs the development of education programs to train/develop Bermudians in selected careers. Such information has resulted in the development of a Nursing and Allied Health program at Bermuda College and the ongoing development of healthcare programming to train Bermudians, including a Nursing Assistants program for senior school students (This progamming was expanded under the purview of the Author as Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs at Bermuda College). Senior school students have also been encouraged to earn insurance certifications and the College is partnering with the insurance/reinsurance industry to provide internships and scholarship for Bermudians to enter that field (This partnership was celebrated and advertised by the re/insurance industry and the general press: ABIR, Bermuda College, St. John’s University form strategic partnership to build Bermudian re/insurance talent pipeline – Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers | ABIR, https://business.abir.bm/news/Details/abir-ber muda-college-st-john-suniversity-form-strategic-partnership-to-build-Bermuudianre-insuance-talent-pipeline-46438). The government also partners with the Department of Workforce Development and Bermuda College to encourage entrance into the hospitality industry by financing study for short-term certificates. Prior to the pandemic which impacted Bermuda in 2020, the public secondary schools, on average, reported approximately 80% of students going overseas for tertiary education with the remainder either attending Bermuda College or entering the workforce. (This figure is based on 2020 graduation presentations by The Berkeley Institute and CedarBridge Academy.)

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3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

3.1

General Principles

In the 1940s–1950s, the curriculum, particularly in primary school, was set by the school principal (Bermuda Board of Education 1950, 9). Schools were initially organized around teaching the basics of reading, writing, and mathematics. Annual education reports, provided in formats required by UNESCO and the United Kingdom government, give a sense of the priorities of the time and allude to general principles (Bermuda Board of Education 1967). (This document was a special report called Learning Together for a Future Together The Board of Education’s 1967 Report. It did not replace the annual report for this year.) The Education Reports, 1940–1960, typically recounted the history of education in Bermuda and the events of the year, including significant changes, scholarships awarded to students and teachers,legislative changes, public health initiatives and clinics in the schools, and annual expenditures as exemplified in the Education Report of 1960 (Bermuda Board of Education 1960). The condition of school facilities, including playing fields, was a recurring subject. The annual report also summarized needs and concerns in the system. These early annual Education Reports until the mid-1960s also typically included a section on religious, social, and moral welfare under which the Director of Education would describe school worship assemblies, youth sports, clubs, and organizations, like girl guides and boy scouts, as essential for shaping moral character (Bermuda Board of Education 1963, 28–30). Morning prayer is still legislated per section 28 of the Education Act 1996 (Government of Bermuda, Bermuda Education Act 1996, 23). The Bermuda Education Rules (1963) pamphlet, published in 1963, which revoked the Education Rules published in 1942, was based on the Education Act 1954. This document delineated the governance of schools and covered such topics as administration, teachers, pay, and pension information. At this time, no child under the age of five could be enrolled. Religious instruction was also featured in this pamphlet which noted, “the school day shall commence with a suitable ceremony which shall finish not later than 9:10am on any morning. . . .” (The Government of Bermuda, Education Rules 1963, 7–8). While religious instruction was required, according to this document, parents had the right to withdraw their children from attending religious worship or formal religious instruction (The Government of Bermuda, Education Rules 1963, 8–9). In 1967, Director of Education, DJ Williams, in addition to the annual report, issued a booklet entitled “Learning together for a future together” as an effort to inform and increase parental and public involvement in education (Bermuda Board of Education 1967). The annual report, which could be traced back to the 1920s, stopped in 1967 with the establishment of the ministerial government, which no longer required annual reports from government departments. However, annual

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reports reappeared in 1974 when, the Minister of Education, Gloria McPhee, decided to revive the practice to promote accountability for the work of the department (Bermuda Ministry of Education 1974, i). The format of the annual reports changed at this time to include all areas within the Minister of Education’s portfolio, which changed periodically (Bermuda Ministry of Education 1974 i/Foreword). In 1974, the Minister’s portfolio included Bermuda College, The Bermuda Library, and Bermuda Archives and other organizations and societies receiving government support. In the 1980s, the ministerial portfolio included the Department of Culture. In August 1978, the Minister of Education, E.W.P. Vesey, circulated a document to the teachers’ union, the Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Education, and other stakeholders called Educational Philosophy and General Objectives, which was developed by the Ministry and the Department of Education. According to this document, it was the responsibility of the government to create a systematic education with an emphasis on written and communication skills with an individualized curriculum to accommodate all learners and to meet Bermuda’s needs by developing a population that would not only be functionally literate but also capable of making decisions (Vesey 1978, 7–8). Additionally, the schools should be intentional about the values communicated to the child by the school organization and climate. To this end, it called for systematic assessment of teachers and schools to measure student achievement in order to locate and remedy any inadequacies. This document expressed the perspective that one’s achievement possibilities were set and delimited by heredity (Vesey 1978, 6). This document also noted problems in attainment in primary school and the need to raise standards to ensure readiness for secondary school (Vesey 1978, 11–12). At the same time, it advocated the abolishment of the Secondary School Entrance Exam which was used to place students and assess their readiness for secondary school (Vesey 1978, 12). In the 1980s, the annual report format changed again. Reports for 1981 and 1982 were not published and the report for 1980 was published in 1983, indicating some changes in organization. Annual reports, 1988–1990, recounted the year’s achievements relative to goals and objectives established at the beginning of the academic year (Government of Bermuda, Ministry of Education and Culture, Goals and Objectives 1989, 1–11).

3.2

Academic Achievement

Concerns about academic standards and achievement have remained extant. For example, in 1960, the annual education report indicated that some students stayed in primary school well beyond the compulsory school age and still lacked functional literacy (Bermuda Board of Education 1960, 13–15). At that time, the Inspector of schools indicated that only 49 out of 812 11-year-olds were found to be academically ready for grammar school and that a large number of students scored below 90 on

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intelligence tests. Although the intelligence tests were questioned, there were concerns about low levels of reading comprehension in the context of instruction by numerous untrained teachers in the nonvested schools. Therefore, an intensive remedial reading course was provided over the holidays for teachers (Bermuda Board of Education 1960, 13–14). Secondary schools, whether private, aided, or maintained, followed the Cambridge curriculum which involved taking GCE exams in order to earn certificates. GCEs could be used for acceptance into some tertiary institutions in the USA or Canada s. Students would have to complete GCE A level exams for entry into UK universities. In the 1970s, there was concern that only a very small percentage of students actually succeeded in attaining at least five GCEs and there was no school leaving certificate. Until 1974, if students did not pass exams, they left secondary school empty-handed. To fill this void, the Ministry of Education developed a Bermudabased school leaving certificate, the Bermuda Secondary School Certificate (BSSC), that all students could earn upon completing secondary school. This certificate was developed in conjunction with the Educational Testing Service in the United States and subject tests were developed locally (Bermuda Government 1987). By 1985, the BSSC had been accepted for matriculation into universities in the UK, including the University of Manchester; and 75% of Year 5 Secondary students were BSSC graduates. Students with at least a B average on the BSSC also tended to attain five or more “O” levels (Government of Bermuda, Minister’s End of Year Report 1986, 7). However, secondary school entrance exams were not predictive of GCE results. The percentage of public school students earning five or more “O” levels was only 18.5% compared with 27% in the UK (Government of Bermuda, Minister’s End of Year Report 1986, 5). This report noted that private school students outperformed public school students in this area. The government determined that this achievement level was unacceptable, questioned the efficacy of the schools in preparing students to enter further education or the workforce and required schools to develop strategies for improvement (Government of Bermuda, Minister’s End of Year Report 1986, 11). Again there was concern about reading achievement. Year four secondary students scored below their US counterparts on the California Achievement test. On the basis of this information, instruction in the critical and interpretive reading skills was increased at the primary level, to better prepare students the secondary program, and then continued at the secondary level. Underachievement in reading and mathematics was still a concern in 2007 and has been the subject of ongoing government improvement interventions (Hopkins et al. 2007, 6–10). For example, in the Author’s experience, math and reading initiatives were implemented in collaboration with the Ministry between 2014 and 2017 at The Berkeley Institute. BSSC ultimately proved to be problematic; it was expensive to create and administer, lacked broad local and international recognition, elicited quality control concerns, and was of questionable quality (Page et al. 1985). It was changed to the Bermuda School Certificate (BSC) and then to the Bermuda School Diploma (BSD), which are based on the accumulation of high school course credits, similiar to school

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systems in the USA, and could be attained by students who completed the high school program with a minimum of a 2.0 or C grade point average. The change to the BSD, which occurred around 2016, included the development of a certificate for students who completed a Learning Support curriculum and a school leavning certificate for BSD candidates who failed to meet the requisite grade point average for the BSD. By 1987/1988, an Educational Planning Team (EPT) had been established, in a strategic planning process, to develop a first class education system for the next 20 years. The major recommendations of the EPT were the elimination of the secondary school entrance exam, the establishment of middle schools, and the mainstreaming of special needs children. The 1988/–1989 Annual Education Report addressed these recommendations and resulted in a feasibility study for middle schools, the establishment of a committee to plan staff development activities, and the requirement that all schools submit improvement plans (Ministry of Education and Culture 1989). Technical staff members were also asked to review their areas in order to advise the minister. By 1993, the plan had been developed to reorganize the system’s secondary school structure from 7 secondary schools to 5 middle schools, to be phased in 1996–2002 and 2 senior schools, to be completed 1999–2002 (Ministry of Education Restructuring Plan 1993 section 120.1, 1). By 2007, a review of public education found middle school to be ineffective with low achievement standards by the end of the third year (Hopkins et al. 2007, 9). The government is now working on a plan to transform public education.

3.3

Education for Children with Exceptionalities

Initially, the school system comprised primary and secondary schools without provisions for students with learning support needs. Over the years, starting with the hiring of a teacher for 6 deaf children in 1947 (Bermuda Board of Education 1947, 9), Bermuda has attempted to provide appropriate instruction for those with exceptionalities. Separate special education schools were opened in the 1950s and then closed in the 1990s in favor of mainstreaming. During the middle school transformation period, the plan was to mainstream to the degree possible (Government of Bermuda, Ministry of Education Restructuring Plan 1993 section 510.1 p1.). The system further adopted inclusive education practices in 2014 and beyond (Government of Bermuda, Inclusive and Special Education 2013). Challenges in this area include the provision of adequate testing to identify learning needs, the provision of services for the range of neurodivergencies and continuity in the delivery of services across school levels.

3.4

Education Administration and Governance

In the 1940–1942, Education was administered by a Board of Education, headed by a Chairman with 8–12 members and a Director of Education. Under the Education

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Act, 1954, the general administration of education was vested in the Board of Education which acted as advisors to the Governor in matters relating to education. The Board still consisted of 7–11 persons appointed by the governor, including a Chairman, Deputy Chair, and eight other members. (The names of personnel and their positions are listed at the beginning of each annual report of which the cited reports in the chapter provide an example.) The Director of Education was assisted by a clerk and attendance officer. Additional personnel included two education supervisors added in 1945: a Physical Education (PE) Organizer as of 1946 and an Inspector of Schools as of 1950. Personnel serving in these positions tended to move up in the ranks as positions became available. For example, DJ Williams started as an Organizer of PE and moved up to become Inspector of School in 1950, the Director of Education in 1956, a position that he held until 1967. Similarly, Dr Kenneth E. Robinson became a Supervisor in 1956 and moved to Inspector in 1960. Around 1965, the titles changed so that Robinson was titled Senior Education Officer and became Chief Education Officer as opposed to Director of Education in 1970. In 1968, ministerial departments were created as were the additional posts, like Member for Education, Parliamentary Secretary for Education, and Permanent Secretary for Education and Libraries (Bermuda Board of Education 1940–1967, 1). In the 1970s, with the appointment of a new Permanent Secretary of Education, the duties and responsibilities of the officers changed (Bermuda Ministry of Education 1974, 11), primarily, the role of education officer changed from being supervisory to inspectoral (Bermuda Ministry of Education 1974, 1). The structure and number of personnel had been changed over time on the basis of reviews of the system such as the curriculum management audit by English and Piston (1997).

3.5

Structure of the Education System According to ISCED

Bermuda has complied with UNESCO guidelines since 1946; annual reports from that time have followed the recommended UNESCO format. (This information is derived from Bermuda’s ISCED 2011 mappings located at ISCED Mappings | UNESCO UIS.) The description of the system in this article is based on the ISCED 2011 update and pertains to public education. Bermuda provides preschool at ISCED 2011 level 0: Early Childhood Education. Attendance is not mandatory but children may enter at age 4 and attend for 1 year. Preschool is not required for entrance into primary school. Primary school is provided at ISCED 2011 level 1: Primary Education. Children are required to enter primary school at age 5 and attend for 6 years, at the end of which they receive a primary school diploma. Completion of primary school is required for entrance into middle school. Middle school is classified by ISCED 2011 as lower secondary, level 2. Students are required to attend middle school at age 11 (theoretical age) and attend for 3 years. They receive a middle school diploma or equivalent upon completion in order to enter senior school.

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Senior school is classified by ISCED 2011 as upper secondary, level 3. Students are required to attend and enter at age 14 (theoretical age). They attend for 4 years and upon completion, earn a diploma or equivalent, which is required for entrance into tertiary institutions. At Bermuda College, students may earn diplomas, certificates which are classified as ISCED 2011 postsecondary nontertiary vocational, levels 4 or 5. Associate degrees from Bermuda College provide access to tertiary education at ISCED levels 5, 6, and 7.

3.6

Cultural Contexts: The Meaning of Secondary Schools in the Black Community

In the 1940s, those in charge of the Board of Education thought that black children were best suited for domestic or manual training in the trades or to provide service in the hotel and tourism industry. At most, blacks might become civil servants. It is in this context that primary and trades education were the main education pathways for black people. The establishment of quality education equal to that for white children became a quest and a challenge. The only secondary school that blacks could attend was The Berkeley Institute which opened in 1897. Although established in 1879, The Berkeley Institute was opened in 1897 as a vested school under the auspices of the Berkeley Educational Society, which was incorporated in 1882 (Robinson 1962, 9). Although it was intended by the founders to be an integrated school and there was one white child in the inaugural class, many decades would pass before other white parents enrolled their children. The AMEC established a secondary school in St George’s, 1911 to 1930, and attempted to establish a normal school for teacher training in the 1880s but these efforts were either not sustained or thwarted (Dickerson 2020, 287–288; Robinson 1962, 56–58). Little is recorded about the St George’s School but it appears to have closed around 1930 with the departure of the headmaster, the Rev. Richard Hilton Tobitt, an Antiguan known to be a supporter of Marcus Garvey who taught about African history and black leaders and heroes to promote self-pride in his students (Hill 1983, 520–521). Blacks could attend Sandys Secondary School, which started in 1927 by the Foley family in their home, became a government school in 1963, and was made into a middle school in 1997 (Sandys Secondary Celebrates 89th Anniversary, Bernews October 28, 2016. https://bernews.com/2016/10/sandys-secondary-89th-anniver sary/). Students of color could also attend Howard Academy. Schools in the black community not only provided academic instruction but also worked to imbue students with a sense of pride, confidence and self-worth and to contribute positively and meaningfully to their community. Academic standards were high at the Berkeley Institute; it was known for academic excellence (Christopher 2009, 62). Berkeleyites were frequent recipients of the few government scholarships given to blacks. One such recipient was locally

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renowned educator Dr. Kenneth E. Robinson who earned his baccalaureate degree from the University College, London, in 1936 and his Master of Education in 1949 and Doctorate in Education from Harvard University in 1952 (Kawaley 1984, 7). Berkeleyites have a distinctive identity characterized by a positive sense of self. Pride in one’s Berkeley identity was encouraged with traditions and artefacts including a memorable school song, school colors of green and gold, an intensely competitive house system named for the school colors, as well as the Latin motto “respice finem” which means “keep the end in view.” Even the name of the school is often preceded by a capitalized definite article to emphasize its importance and uniqueness. Teachers at The Berkeley Institute tended to be highly credentialed in contrast to other schools where teachers were untrained. Frederick Shirley Furbert, who became the first Bermudian principal of The Berkeley Institute in 1943–1971, held a diploma from Oxford University and was known as a great orator (Robinson 1984, 14). Berkeley alumni have excelled in all professions everywhere. It is notable that Berkeleyites comprise 5 out of 13 Premiers in the island’s history including Alex Scott, Dame Jennifer Smith, Paula Cox, Pamela Gordon, and Ewart Brown (Lagan 2017). Howard Academy, also known as Skinner’s School, was founded by Mr Edwin T. Skinner, a retired white educator in 1944. This school provided an alternative for students who might not have been admitted to The Berkeley Institute or to Sandys Secondary school. (Other secondary schools for black children, like St. George’s Secondary school did not open until the 1950s). When Mr. Skinner died in 1951, a Canadian, Edward DeJean became the new headmaster. DeJean was also known for his encouragement of children especially in sports and for being the founding force behind the Devonshire Colts soccer club that still exists in 2021. Alumni of this school note that the school climate and the methods of instruction motivated students to achieve and inspired a positive sense of self (Smith 2021). However, the government considered Howard Academy to be a private school and gave minimal support at £1,000 per year. The school was in constant economic distress and had to raise money to survive. It was also not supported in the recommendations of the Houghton report. Houghton (1963, 23) described it as struggling against insurmountable difficulties and did not think the school should continue to receive any government funds. By 1965, the government withdrew its financial support and forced the school to close, stating that its existence was no longer necessary because there were other secondary schools. Although it only existed for 21 years, Howard Academy made a tremendous contribution and difference in the education of black Bermudians. Notable alumni of Howard Academy included Sir John Swan, Premier of Bermuda (1982–1995), Kenneth Richardson, the island’s first Black Cabinet Secretary, 1984–1993, and Dr. Pauulu Kamarakafego, political activist, civil rights leader, parliamentarian, and world recognized expert in ecological/environmental engineering (Smith 2021). Secondary schools that were established later continued the tradition of instilling a sense of pride in self and community in the midst of academic and/or trades

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programming. In 1959, a new school was opened for boys called Prospect Secondary School for Boys, renamed in 1966 the Churchill School in honor of the late Winston Churchill, and renamed again in 1971, the Robert Crawford School, after a prominent black educator and politician. This school offered academic, trade programming, and general subjects. Trade subjects included building, electrical, hotel training, motor mechanics. The school had a day-release apprenticeship program for some of the trades. Academic subjects included English, mathematics, technical drawing, art, geography, general science, commerce, and music with GCE ordinary level exams possible in several subjects. In 1974, an individualized reading program was introduced to enhance student achievement. Graduates found success as teachers, in civil service, the tourist industry, and in business (Raine and Wilson 1979). The programming at the Robert Crawford school emphasized developing a sense of pride in self and community. Their house system was named for prominent black people in Bermuda and the school was renowned for its prowess in sports. The Robert Crawford School won 15 champion titles in 1967–1972 and 14 second place titles in other years. Soccer and cricket were very popular sports with former student Clyde Best becoming a world renowned soccer player. Alumni are particularly proud that Muhammed Ali visited the school in 1974. A junior police cadet corps was created at the school in 1974 and the school was known for its band. The cadets and the band participated in the annual Easter parade and the school was acclaimed for its float entries. (The Easter parade was an annual tradition from the 1930s to the 1960s and was reimagined as the Bermuda Day parade in 1979). The Prospect Secondary School for Girls (PSSG) was opened at the former police barracks in Prospect in January 1958. It subsumed the Girls Institute of Arts and Crafts which had been opened by Miss May Francis in 1948 in Alaska Hall, Court St Hamilton, now the headquarters of the Progressive Labour Party (Hall 2013, 6). PSSG offered courses in dress making, upholstery, fine arts, PE, speech and drama, as well as academic subjects. (Hall 2013, 6) The development of a sense of pride and community was an integral part of the school’s philosophy (Hall 2013, 17). Religious knowledge was an important part of the curriculum and teachers were nurturing. Teachers at PSSG, under the leadership of Principal Dr. Dorothy Thompson and educator Carol Hill, used drama performances to unify the departments and create pride in the school (Hall 2013, 17). They also focused on community service on a global scale, providing support to Honduras in 1959, to Pakistan during the food crisis and to Wales during the 1966 coal mine disaster (Hall 2013, 19). Graduates became accountants, artists, nurses, teachers, members of a parliament, hoteliers, designers, and seamstresses in Bermuda and abroad (Hall 2013, 20). The only one of these schools that continues to operate is The Berkeley Institute. According to Burchall (2009), by 1971, there were seven other public secondary schools, which were either closed (Bermuda Technical Instiute), privatized (Warwick Academy) or became middle schools (St. George’s/Clearwater Middle School, Warwick/T N Tatem Middle School, Sandys, Whitney Institute, or became a primary school (Northlands). The new senior school, added during the middle school restructuring, is CedarBridge Academy. Both schools are accredited by the Middle

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States Association of Colleges and Schools, a regional accrediting agency in the USA. The senior schools offer the BSD and certificates, US Advanced Placement courses, and liaise with Bermuda College for the Dual Enrollment Program which affords students the opportunity to earn college credit and qualifications while in senior school.

3.7

Private and Denominational Schools

The private schools in Bermuda include Warwick Academy, the Bermuda High School for Girls, Saltus Grammar School, Somersfield Academy, and two denominational schools: Mt St Agnes Catholic School and Bermuda Institute of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. In 2014, the private schools developed the Bermuda Independent Schools Association (BISA), a forum for the heads of these schools to share mutual concerns and interests and to formally represent the views of the private/independent schools to the larger community. A private Islamic school, the Clara Muhammed Elementary School, was also established in 1990 but was not a part of the formation of BISA as announced in 2014. Warwick Academy, (WA) established in 1662, is one of the oldest schools in the western hemisphere, and sits on land set aside in the 1600s by the Somers Isle Company (Kennedy and Dobson 2012, 15–17). In 1949, WA did not participate in offering free primary education, becoming vested not-free (Kennedy and Dobson 2012, 23). Warwick Academy chose to integrate the secondary school in 1962 with acceptance based on exams. The first black student enrolled in 1963 (Kennedy and Dobson 2012, 23–24). WA initiated withdrawal from the government system in 1990 when it was threatened with becoming a middle school (Kennedy and Dobson 2012, 25). By 1995, Warwick Academy became a fully private school (Kennedy and Dobson 2012, 26). The Bermuda High School for Girls (BHS) was founded in 1894. The BHS Association constitution developed in 1926 specifies that it was to be a school for white girls (Zuill 1995, 58–59). BHS was a vested school for more than 40 years and privatized in 1963 when it decided not to support the island’s reorganization of the school system to improve students’ academic outcomes, which would have required reducing the primary program, making changes to the secondary program and integrating the school. BHS did not integrate until 1968, a year after legislation prohibited segregation. At this time, BHS admitted one black student in kindergarten and another black student in the first year of the senior school (Zuill 1995, 129). One of these students notes that this was not a smooth experience and that some parents withdrew their children from the school rather than have them in school black children (Zuill 1995, 130). Saltus Grammar school, founded in 1888, was a boy’s school until it became coeducational in 1991. Saltus Grammar School became one of the first private schools in Bermuda to integrate, admitting two black students in its enrolment of approximately 170 students in 1966. Saltus Grammar school hired their first black teacher in 1968. Saltus Grammar left the government system in 1971 to become

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private and independent. This school is unique on island in having two campuses: one campus for lower primary and another that houses upper primary, middle school, and senior school. This school offered 12 years of instruction until 1974–1975 when a 13th year was added. It serves children aged 4–18. All private schools provide both primary and secondary education. At WA and BHS, the primary and secondary schools follow the UK national curriculum and students take IGCSE exams followed by the International Baccalaureate Programme (IB). Since 2015, WA students may also earn Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) qualifications in sport, hospitality, and travel and tourism. At Saltus, students take ICGSE/GCE exams and may also take the US advanced placement courses in upper year levels. Private schools, opened since the twentieth century, include Somersfield Academy which was founded as The Montessori School in 1991 and was renamed Somersfiled Academy when it became an IB school in 2001 and Chatmore British International School, established in 2017, which follows UK National curriculum. All of the private schools are accredited by various agencies including the Canadian Association of Independent Schools (CAIS) or the Council of International Schools (CIS). These schools publish excellent results, with students going to top schools worldwide. However, they are selective in their enrolment which is smaller than the government schools. For example, the graduating classes for the various private schools range from 12 to approximately 40 students compared with 100–160 graduating seniors in the public high schools. Unlike the public schools, most of the private schools do not provide extensive resources for learning support with the exception of some reading assistance. Children who are deemed unlikely to succeed in the IB program by the end of their second year of secondary school may be encouraged to find other avenues for secondary completion. These students often transfer to government high schools and, if eligible, may enroll in the dual enrollment program at Bermuda College to take college courses. All schools are integrated although statistics on racial composition are nebulous. At The Berkeley Institute, data was simply not collected by race but one could account for Bermudians vs non-Bermudian status. Most Bermudians are black, white, or mixed race. Warwick Academy claims that its racial composition reflects the racial composition of the island, Saltus states that 60% of the students are Bermudian, while Somerfield asserts that 65% of its student have Bermudian connections. BHS remains majority white although its boasts a high level of multiculturalism. Guest workers on the island, who may hail from a variety of countries, usually enroll their children in private school.

3.7.1 Private Denominational Schools Bermuda Institute of Seventh Day Adventists was founded in 1943 to ensure religious-based education on island. At that time, the Adventists proposed an integrated school but the proposal was rejected by the Board of Education. Out of concern and commitment to providing a religion-based education on island, the Adventists agreed to the parameters set by the Board. Bermuda Institute of Seventh Day Adventists started with 17 students as a school for black children. The Bermuda

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Institute offers K-12 instruction, patterned after the US model and consistent with practices in the Seventh Day Adventist church, with an emphasis on religious and spiritual development. Students who attend college frequently go to Seventh day Adventist institutions primarily in the United States. Mt St Agnes (MSA) was founded in 1890 by the Archdiocese of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to be run by the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul (Halifax). Since 1975, MSA has been owned and operated by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hamilton, Bermuda, assisted by a Board of Governors. MSA offers the Canadian Alberta Curriculum Programs of Study at all grade levels and is an Alberta Accredited International school.

3.8

Adult and Continuing Education

Economic difficulties impeded some Bermudians from accessing education abroad and therefore they turned to nontraditional education opportunities in Bermuda (Lewis 1992). Evening classes for adults were originally offered by some churches from the late 1950s until 1992. In 1957, the Bermuda Technical Institute (Tech) offered both academic and recreational subjects beginning with an enrolment of 12 and building to approximately 700 adults by 1967. Course offerings at Tech included bookkeeping typing, shorthand, and trade subjects (Lewis 1992, 6). During the 1960s and 1970s, some private business schools offered evening courses for adults, including the Skinner Secretarial School (shorthand, typing, and business English), the Smith’s Commercial School (shorthand, typing, bookkeeping), and Kessell’s School of Bookkeeping (book keeping and accounts) (Lewis 1992, 6). The Adult Education School, as described in the Yearbook, 1958–1999, began in 1958 as an alternative for young people, initially offering courses such as typing shorthand, bookkeeping, music, French, English for foreign workers, and Spanish. This program developed under the leadership of educator Merle Brock Swan Williams. By 1992, Adult Education offered General Educational Development (GED) programming and individualized reading instruction. Bermuda College also offered an extension evening program including courses in business, hotel management, arts and sciences, personal development, and distance education courses such as teleconferences. Community education and development centers were also located at St George’s, Warwick, and Sandys Secondary School. These popular programs offered 8–10 week courses and by 1990 had approximately 4,638 participants. People often attended these courses for job-related reasons and many employers helped to upgrade their employees’ skills by paying their tuition in part or in total. Numerous adults were allowed to attend classes during the day if they were not offered during the evening. However, enrollment declined as other opportunities became available. In Bermuda, the Ministry of Community and Cultural Affairs was responsible for oversight of a program of community education and development which was discontinued in 2018 due to low enrolment.

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163

Tertiary Education

The University College of the University of Maryland, established a program at the Naval Air Station from 1957 to the 1990s. This college program replaced the American International College, which had been offering courses to servicemen since the early 1950s. In 1958, the program was opened to locals who could take courses leading to a degree in general studies, military science, or military affairs. The University College also hired some local educators as lecturers. Such lecturers included Colin Benbow who was a local educator, unionist, and politician (Benbow 1975) (This publication is a bicentennial publication that celebrated the university College in Bermuda. It is published by the Bermuda Historical Society: Occasional Publication No. 9). Bermuda College (BC) is an open-admissions community college that was created by Parliament through the passage of the Bermuda College Act in 1974 with the amalgamation of three institutions: the Bermuda Technical Institute, established in 1956; the Bermuda Hotel and Catering College, established in 1965; and the Academic Sixth Form Centre, established in 1967. BC continues to offer programming in Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management, Technical Education, and numerous academic disciplines. The college enacts its mission to transform the lives of students through innovative educational programming that leads to local and global success by offering 17 associate degree, seven certificate, and nine diploma programs through three divisions: Arts and Science, Business, Hospitality and Technical Education, and Nursing and Allied Health. BC is a commuter college that runs on a semester basis and offers selected courses during one summer session. As the only higher education facility on the island, BC strives to meet the needs of the community by providing a foundation for further study or qualifications for graduates to join the workforce. Bermuda College has historically partnered with overseas universities to offer degree opportunities to Bermudian students and has articulation agreements with more than 30 institutions in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom whereby one can typically complete their baccalaureate degree in 2 years after completing their BC associate degree. Students may also earn degrees on island with selected partner institutions, including the University of Miami in Ohio, Framingham State University, and Mt St Vincent University. The College offers continuing education courses through the Professional and Continuing Education Programme (PACE).

3.10

Personnel Supply

The lack of trained teachers and the acquisition of teacher training was a problem in Bermuda. Most teachers in nonvested schools were untrained. They were called assistant teachers and paid less than trained teachers. Also, in the 1960s, teachers were paid on an agricultural schedule, for only 9 months of the year. Various sources

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comment that the low pay and lack of status made teaching unattractive to Bermudians, particularly males (Kawaley 1984, 5). In 1960, in nonvested primary schools, there were 48 untrained teachers and 5 trained teachers (Bermuda Board of Education 1960, Table 2 Teachers and Teacher Training A. Teachers in schools and Colleges classified by Qualifications and B. Teacher Training). At this time, there was no teacher training available on island but scholarships were awarded annually for study overseas. In 1960, four awards were given, tenable in the UK and Canada. In the 1960s, summer courses were also provided in cooperation with Queen’s University (Canada) for teachers and prospective teachers who wanted to qualify for a degree By the end of 1961, 80% of teachers in the aided or maintained schools including the specialist teacher had university degrees or had taken teacher training courses (Bermuda Board of Education 1960, 13). In this year, the Department of Education terminated untrained teachers who failed a course required for untrained teachers with 10 years of experience (Bermuda Board of Education 1960, 13). By 1966, 87.5% teachers were qualified in aided and maintained schools. Over the years, qualified teachers, particularly white teachers between the 1960s and 1970s, were recruited largely from the UK and Canada. A few teachers also came from the Caribbean. By 1989, teacher recruitment actively took place in Canada and the UK. It was difficult to find teachers of mathematics, science, and industrial arts. To encourage Bermudians to return home to teach, the government started to recruit Bermudians the semester before they would complete their training. As a result, in 1989, there were 35 new teachers of which 14 were Bermudian. In 1989, there was also a reallocation of resources, due to a decline in projected enrollment, which were used to fund a special education teacher for the visually impaired and other positions as needed, primarily in preschool where enrollment had actually increased. Scholarships and loans in the amount of USD 1.2 million were awarded, including 8 Bermuda government scholarships; 8 new teacher training awards for those planning to return to Bermuda; 238 further education awards given to students in need; and 61 interest-free loans. The government also paid 50% of the fee differential for students attending school in the UK and sent teachers to various programs overseas including conferences, seminars, and workshops for staff development. A mathematics symposium and a health promotion program were also held on island. The 2019 employment survey found that the percentage of non-Bermudians employed in secondary school, primary school, and special education are 46%, 8%, and 23%, respectively (Government of Bermuda, Department of Statistics, 2019, 15, Table 20. Bermudians and Other non-Bermudians in selected occupations and percentages of jobs filled by other non-Bermudians, 2019). Today, all teachers are trained and must be eligible for a license, which issued by the Bermuda Educator’s Council based on a review of an applicant’s credentials including transcripts and practicum experiences.

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Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

4.1

Inequality: Segregation and Unequal Educational Opportunities

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Bermuda of the 1940s and 1950s was governed by white men, whether English or Bermudian, many of whom held the perception that Black people were happy and appropriately placed being subservient to whites (Evans 2016, 11–14) and that they were largely uneducable above domestic and trade positions. Schools were segregated and schools for “colored” children were under-resourced and overcrowded. Teachers were underpaid and blacks were paid less than whites (Robinson 1984, 10). Houghton noted that education was not valued, by blacks or whites, because one could get a job and earn a decent wage without an education (Houghton 1963, 1). While this attitude may have generally delayed the establishment of formalized curricula, the curricula for black children lagged behind that for whites. Moreover, many teachers for the “colored” children were untrained or had teacher training certificates as opposed to a degree. Opportunities for training required going abroad to school and scholarship availability were limited until after desegregation. In 1960s, when the Academic Sixth Form Centre was being established and commercial courses were being offered in the high schools, recommendations were made to delay the option of commercial training until sixth form to ensure that students were not making such choices too early in their academic training and thereby preempting or limiting their possibilities (Houghton 1963, 21). While all kinds of training and educational opportunities are of value, the curriculum should be designed to develop the skills needed for academic success, not limit students before they are fully cognizant of their skills,talents, and interests. Inequity existed in the structure of the school, in teaching, and in curricula. It also existed in the meaning of education ascribed by whites to education for blacks. The notion that a curriculum might be too academic was not ascribed to the curricula of Saltus, BHS, or Warwick Academy. On the contrary, high levels of academic achievement were perceived as normative at predominantly white schools, but not at schools attended predominantly by black children. In fact, the notion that an academic curriculum caters to a too small percentage of the population is only stated in reference to the schools with predominantly black populations. The call for increased opportunities for vocational training is once again occurring in regards to the redesign of the school system in Plan 2022 by the Ministry of Education.

4.1.1 Responses to Inequity The integration of schools came to Bermuda in 1965. The Education Act of 1954 specified that no school should “bar entry on grounds of race, origin or religion.” To spearhead the process, the government introduced white teachers into black schools but the white schools determined their own integration schedule. In 1963, the Houghton report was commissioned by the government of Bermuda in response to challenges in reorganizing schools and encouraging integration.

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Houghton (1963, 8–9) found segregation impacted every aspect of education and needed to be dealt with. He also stated that any attempts at reform would have to develop buy-in from public to deal with such detriments as the fear of the loss of autonomy of vested schools and the lack of cooperation between teachers and administrators (Houghton 1963, 4–5). He advised that the Board of Education should employ an external consultative body on whose wisdom and experience they could draw and made several specific recommendations to facilitate integration and to improve the school system. By 1965, a joint Select Committee was developed to provide a report to the legislation to revise and reshape the education system based on Houghton’s recommendations. By 1973, many of these issues had only partly been resolved. David J Saul, a politician and businessman who became Premier of the island 1995–1997, completed a survey of the Bermuda education system in 1973. He noted that the 1960s saw an end to segregation, the implementation of zoning for primary schools, the establishment of the sixth form center, the implementation of a compulsory school age 5–16, the establishment of pupil teacher ratios 1:25 for primary school and 1:15 for secondary school, an increase in government scholarships, the introduction of a loan system for education, and the formation of the further education complex. However, segregation had legislatively but not actually ended. In 1977, in the wake of riots in protest of the Burrows and Tacklyn hangings, the Bermuda government commissioned distinguished psychologist Dr Kenneth Clark to review the Bermuda school system and develop a proposal for integration and economic equity (Clark was the first African American to earn a PhD in psychology from Colombia University and famous in the US for the landmark doll studies in the 40s). The result was an interim report entitled, “A Comprehensive Programme Toward Racial Integration and Economic Equity,” published in 1978. In this report, Clark et al. (1978) stated, “Bermuda is required to seek acceptable economic changes and progress toward unqualified racial justice through the realistic and pragmatic cooperation of both races at all levels of the social and economic system” (Clark et al p. 5). He also warned against political competition and stated that the challenge would be to create forms of “racial justice and economic equity by rational and humane methods which will not threaten the social stability essential for the maintenance of a strong tourist-based economy (Clark et al p. 6).” He made recommendations for change across a broad spectrum of areas. Clark specifically found that black Bermudians were not employed in managerial or supervisory positions, particularly in banks, insurance, or the hotels despite their education attainment. At this time, black Bermudians were 56% of the working population of whom 71% were blue collar workers and 29% white collar workers with only 9% in professional technical or administrative jobs. In sales and service, all managers were white. The island saw an influx of 8,000 guest workers, or expatriate workers between 1967 and 1977 for professional and technical employment in economic expansion but black Bermudians were not included in this kind of expansion. Black Bermudians were having problems receiving financing from banks due to discriminatory practices among lending officers who were mainly white. Clark

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(1978, 8–9) recommended that Bermuda develop an economic development bank, encourage joint ventures between large businesses and small business firms, and work to increase the number of black Bermudians in policy making positions either by having conversation with firms and by legislation if necessary. He also encouraged Bermuda to increase the number of black Bermudians in the police force. Regarding education, Clark found that working class Bermudians believed that middle/upper class white and black Bermudians had more educational opportunities for their children than they did and did not perceive the education system in Bermuda “as an instrument of upward mobility for them or their children” (Clark 1978, 11). He further observed that while the school leaving age had been raised to 16 between 1965 and 1969, the 1970 census indicated that a large percentage of children over age 15 had not passed any secondary school exams and only a few had attained postsecondary credentials (Clark 1978, 11). Similarly, to Houghton (1963), Clark suggested that the government commit resources to raise standards, support teacher training, and develop and raise curriculum standards and academic performance. He also recommended an objective external evaluation of the present quality of education. He also mentioned that Bermuda College should improve the facility, increase links with overseas colleges, expand financial aid, and upgrade faculty (Clark 1978, 7–17). Clark stressed that all of elements of his recommendations must be addressed as they were interdependent, “experience has demonstrated that major observable social, economic and racial changes cannot be obtained piece meal or by equivocal, defensive, and apologetic action on the part of the responsible leaders” (Clark 1978, 17). However, the government has commissioned many reports on the system over the years which have had similar findings but the recommendations have not been fully implemented. The issues of instability in leadership and the impact of a political agenda are certainly counterproductive to addressing the needs of Bermuda’s children. However, the current effort within Plan 2022 is hopeful. Advances here include a consultative body (externally hired) as well as the use of redesign groups within the island that include education personnel and community members.

4.2

ICT and Digitalization

Technological advancement has always been of keen interest in the Bermuda school system. Even in 1963, the government attempted to keep pace with technological advances by acquiring modern language lab equipment. Computer education programming was continuing to develop with the introduction of a writing to read program for 5 and 6 year olds having been introduced which used computers as one of the learning tools; a computer-assisted instruction program had also been introduced at one secondary school with student performance in math and English improving. The program would be introduced into another secondary school in September 1986. By 1989, the use of computers was commonplace in

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primary and secondary school, used in the writing to read program, and of course in all schools for administrative work. A computer studies curriculum had also been developed by teachers under the supervision of the Coordinator of Computer Education and had been forwarded to the Standing Committee of secondary principals for review and approval. Computers are commonly used in the secondary schools with one of the secondary schools, The Berkeley Institute, described as a Technology School with computer labs, and computer studies courses including an Advanced Placement Computer Science course. Students were also required to have their own laptops with them in school for classwork However, the Covid-19-pandemic and lockdown in 2020/2021 gave light to inequities across households in access to computers and other devices. Young children did not necessarily have access to computers and they needed adult support to complete their work. In addition, many households were challenged with multiple computer users needing to go to class or work online and possibly sharing devices. The Ministry of Education had to develop a plan to deliver instruction and to ensure that accessibility to remote learning. In response to these issues, as reported in the House of Assembly, the Ministry of Education provided laptops to 310 preschool students and 36 teachers and/or administrators to access Creative Curriculum software; developed a plan to purchase iHatch for iPads, and to supply 3100 primary and middle school students and 1100 senior school students with Chromebooks; and to supply primary and middle school teachers, paraeducators, and educational therapists with laptops. At the senior school level, the Governing Boards would provide laptops for teachers. As of November 2020, to enact this plan, the government had received donations from Athene Bermuda, One Communications, Price Waterhouse Copoper, the Bank of Bermuda Foundation, Lighthouse Connect, The Hasso Plattner Foundation, Sandys Parish Council, and Northlands Parent Teachers Association. Professional development was also scheduled for teachers in the use of various remote learning technologies and software (March 26 2021 Ministerial statement: Covid 19 Impact on Public Schools (Presentation to the House of Assembly) https://www.gov.bm/articles/ ministerial-statement-covid-19-impact-public-schools).

4.3 4.3.1

Emerging Issues

Responses to a Decline in Public Education Enrollment and Attainment The government has downsized the public system periodically in response to declining birth rates and decreases in public school enrollment (Bermuda Government Ministry of Education 1987). The public system has also expereienced enrollment decreases due to stakeholder preferences for private school enrollment during major public system changes like the implementation of middle schools (Hopkins et al. 2007). Since 2017, the government is once again lamenting a downturn in the birth rate, which has been declining since 2007. This has resulted in a decrease

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in the student population so that government and private school enrolment have decreased. However, the decline in government school enrolment is exacerbated by parents choosing to send their children to private school for primary school and marked by an exodus from primary to private school at middle school entrance. As a result, primary schools are undersubscribed and eight out of eighteen primary schools have been selected for closure. Additionally the government has recognized that middle schools have been ineffective and they will be eliminated and replaced with signature schools.

4.3.2 (Plan 2022) and the School Redesign Since 2017, the Ministry of Education issued a document, called Plan 2022: Bermuda’s Strategic Plan for Public Education, in which the government lays out a 5-year redesign plan that will impact the structure and school curricula. At this time, the Ministry of Education is engaged in the process of transforming the Bermuda Public School System (BPSS). The reform process has included the development of teams of educators and community and industry members to research and develop plans for various components of the education system; a consultative process to provide parents and the community at large with opportunities to provide feedback; the development of a Learning First program to focus on curriculum, teaching and learning, assessment, and professional development; and the implementation of an education authority that will oversee the running of the BPSS. The government also hired Innovation Unit, a consultative firm in Australia, to assist in the development of the transformation plan. The major changes include the discontinuation of middle schools; the addition of a year to primary school which will provide seven years of instruction; and the conversion of senior schools to signature schools which will provide 5 years of instruction. Signatures schools, in addition to core academic subjects, will have areas of concentration relative to the employment needs of the island. The first signature schools, to open in 2022, will be the currently existing senior schools, The Berkeley Institute with signature programs in health, social care, finance, and insurance and Cedarbridge Academy with signature programs in construction and maintenance, and STEM- Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Additional signature schools will be established subsequently.

5

Critique and Conclusion

Education in Bermuda was not a cohesive system administered by the government but a private enterprise, left to the largess and expertise of community members with some financial support from the government. Due to racism and social injustice, there was segregation and two unequal paths; one for blacks and the other for whites. The system for whites was advantaged with trained teachers and resources, while the one for blacks was characterized by a lack of resources, poor facilities, and untrained teachers. Not surprisingly, there were discrepancies in student outcomes in these two “systems.” Also, due to racism, there was every effort by the white-controlled

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government to create a trajectory for blacks toward domestic and menial jobs that requied less education and would ensure that blacks remained undereducated and economically disadvantaged. The message to blacks, which was reinforced politically, socially, and economically, was that their place was subservient to whites. In the 1960s, with global movements to seek social justice and equal opportunities, integration was legislated on the island. However, establishing laws does not eliminate the social meanings and manifestations of racism and discrimination. Schools that wanted to remain white or control the degree to which they integrated became private schools. These schools still struggle with integration or, now called, diversity issues. In public education, there has been a struggle to develop an education system that would provide equal opportunities to all students regardless of race and enable all students to realize their potential. This translated into creating opportunities for blacks that did not previously exist and building a positive sense of pride, confidence, and the sense of agency to aspire for the highest levels of achievement and to enter professions previously unopened to them. This sense of agency had to be commensurate with the breaking down of social barriers so that black people could not only enter the professions, but also be viewed as equal to white counterparts. Developing the perspective that blacks and whites are equal is an ongoing challenge and perhaps one of the strongest bastions of inequity. In attempting to equalize education, the new system tracked black people in two streams: one for those who excelled in the traditional classroom and another for those who did not learn as quickly. The former group was perceived to be academically inclined and channeled towards careers requiring high levels of academic achievement and the latter group was tracked towards vocational training. In an effort to create the same opportunities from which blacks had been excluded during segregation, a new school system was developed that still excluded some members of the community from realizing their potential. When it became clear that this system left many people without credentials, there was an effort to provide credentials to all. The quest from the 1970s to the 2020s has been to develop a Bermuda-based credential that meets everyone’s needs whether one is going to pursue tertiary education or enter the workforce. However, the current system guarantees neither path and still only a small percentage of students are academically prepared to enter college after high school or have the necessary skills to enter the workforce. As in the past, there are still challenges in the teaching and learning of basic skills. For political reasons, the government, regardless of which party is in power, has preferred not to publicize test results that highlight the problems because such publicity tends to result in unfavorable comparisons with stellar achievements in the private school and raise questions about the efficacy of the government. This political sensitivity has hindered addressing the problems and promoting academic success for the children of Bermuda. In contrast with the 1940s, government control of education has increased. However, education has been passed between the political parties as an essential component of political platforms for election but not thoroughly understood and

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addressed with an agenda to effect changes in the interest of the community. Progressive grassroots and community-based ideas for changing the system have been routinely suppressed by conservative leadership as too radical. The current effort to transform education, Plan 2022, attempts to link public education more clearly with the employment needs of the island by providing apprenticeships in various industries such as tourism and insurance. However, this plan, like the commercial education plan that Houghton warned against in the1960s, will stream children toward a career or training choice from primary school with an increased focus on vocational training in the trades and tourism. Even with consultation from the community, the choices reflect government control of the system and perceived employment needs. They do not at this time incorporate individual differences in talents and interests. The identified employment needs are very prescient and temporal but also narrow and do not appear to dream or envision where Bermuda or the world might be in the next decade. The signature school concept Plan 2022, at this juncture, is hopeful in the enthusiasm it seems to have engendered, but it neglects the issues of agency and mindset that earlier developers of the education system understood to be essential. Looking back at history is instructive because the problems encountered now are not new. It would also be useful to understand possible pitfalls in implementing change in order to avoid missteps. Finally, in regards to racism, the divide still exists, but most insidiously it has become institutionalized, it is systemic. People may say that the private system is better than the public system and believe that they are talking about differences in programming. On the surface, this may be true but the differences in programming belie a history of oppression that has intentionally sustained a gap in quality between public and private schools and limited accessiblity to quality education relative to race. There are still two Bermudas.

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Government of Bermuda, Bermuda Education Act 1996. http://www.bermudalaws.bm/laws/ Consolidated%20Laws/Education%20Act%201996.pdf Government of Bermuda, Economic Recovery Plan 2021 (summary). https://www.gov.bm/sites/ default/files/20210319-ERP-public-DOC-KS_Final_2_Print_Version.pdf Government of Bermuda, Department of Statistics. (2019). Tourism satellite account report for the year ended 2019. https://www.gov.bm/sites/default/files/Tourism-Satellite-Account-report2019_1.pdf Government of Bermuda, Department of Statistics. (2020, November). Labour force survey report (p. 10). https://www.gov.bm/sites/default/files/November%202020%20Labour%20Force% 20Survey%20%20Report.pdf Government of Bermuda, Department of Statistics. (2019). Employment Survey Tabulation Set. Accessed July 02, 2021, https://www.gov.bm/sites/default/files/2019_Employment_Survey_ Detailed_Tabulations.pdf Government of Bermuda, Ministry of Education. (1993). Ministry of Education Restructuring Plan Striving toward Excellence: Every Child a Winner, No. 30. Printed by the Government Printer Government of Bermuda, Ministry of Education. (2017). Plan 2022 Bermuda’s Strategic Plan for Public School Education. https://www.gov.bm/articles/plan-2022-bermuda%E2%80%99sstrategic-plan-public-school-education Government of Bermuda, Ministry of Finance. National Economic Report of Bemruda 2020. https://www.gov.bm/sites/default/files/NATIONAL-ECONOMIC-REPORT-2020_Web.pdf Hall, P. (2013). Fond recollections of Prospect secondary School for Girls. Omaz Graphics. Hill, R. A. (1983). The Marcus Garvey and universal negro improvement association papers (Vol. II). Berkeley: University of California Press. Holder, L. C. E. (1999). Bermuda Institute of Seventh Day Adventists: Origin, philosophy, growth. Hamilton: LCE Holder. Hopkins, D., Matthews, P., Matthews, L., Wood-Smith, R., & Smith, P. (2007). Review of public education in Bermuda. Institute of Education, University of London. Houghton, H. (1963). Report on the educational system in Bermuda. Hamilton: Bermuda Press. Kawaley, E. (1984). Dr. Kenneth E. Robinson (a Profile). The Bermuda Educational Journal, 1(1), 4–7. Kennedy, C., & Dobson, A. (2012). Warwick academy: Our first 350 years. Essex: Times Group. Lagan, S. (2017). Berkeley Doing its best for 120 years. The Royal Gazette, September 08, 2017. Available at https://www.royalgazette.com/education/news/article/20170907/berkeley-doingits-best-for-120-years/. Accessed 02 July 2021. Lewis, J. E. (1992). Community-based adult and continuing education in Bermuda: A resource guide for teacher of adults. Hamilton: Globe Press. Minister’s End of Year report. (1986, July). Striving toward excellence. Printed by the Government Printer Ministerial Statement: Covid-19 Impact on Public Schools, Friday, March 26th, 2021, https://www. gov.bm/articles/ministerialstatement-covid-19-impact-public-schools Ministry of Education and Culture. (1989). Report on the School Year 1988/1989. Striving for Excellence Every Child A Winner. Printed by the Government Printer MSA, History. Accessed July 02, 2021, https://www.msa/about/us/history/ Neill, Scott, Economy Shrank 5.9% in Third Quarter, Royal Gazette, Wednesday, June 30, 2021, https://www.royalgazette/economy/business/202110228/gdp-falls-5-9-in-third-quarter/ Page, E. B., Stanley, J. C., & Boodoo, G. (1985). Ministerial commission for education. Final Report to the Government. Pitt Commission. (1978). Report of the Royal Commission into the 1977 disturbances. London: Her Majesty’s Stationary. Raine, D. F., & Wilson, D. (1979). Robert Crawford School 20th anniversary, 1959–1979. Island Press.

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Robinson, K. E. (1962). The Berkeley educational Society’s origins and early history. Pembroke: Berkeley Educational Society. Robinson, R. T. (1984). Recollection on the Bermuda Union of teachers. The Bermuda Educational Journal, 1(1), 10–19. Saltus, Tuition. Accessed July 02,2021, https://saltus.bm/tuition-and-financial-aid Sandys Secondary Celebrates 89th Anniversary, Bernews, October 28, 2021, https://www.bernews. com/2016/sandys-secondary-89th-anniversary/ Saul, D. J. (1973). A survey of the Bermuda educational system. Hamilton: Government of Bermuda. Smith, L. (2021). Howard academy remembered. The Bermudian, April 16. https://www. thebermudian.com/heritage/heritage-heritage/howard-academy-remembered/ Somersfield Academy, Tuition & Fees. Accessed July 02, 2021, https://mysomersfield.com/ tuitiuon-fees Swan, Quito. (2009). Black Power in Bermuda: The struggle for decolonization. New York: Palgrave McMillan The Government of Bermuda. (1963). Bermuda Education rules. Printed in Bermuda by the Island Press Limited. UNESCO, ISCED Mappings. Accessed July 02, 2021, https://www.uis.unesco.org/en/iscedmappings United Kingdom Overseas Territory Association. (2021). Bermuda. Accessed July 02,2021. https:// ukota.org/member-territories/bermuda/ Warwick Acamdemy, Admissions. Accessed July 02,2021, https://warwick.bm/admissions/fees Zuill, R. (1995). In pursuit of excellence the Bermuda high school for girls 1894–1994. University of Toronto Press.

8

The Educational System of the Plurinational State of Bolivia Luis Fernando Carrio´n Justiniano

Contents 1 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Contexts and Political, Economic, and Cultural Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Social Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Transition to the Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Administration and Governance of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 The Structure of the Education System According to ISCED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Human Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Educational Trends and Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The first two decades of the twenty-first century brought with them a substantial transformation for Bolivia in all areas of social life. A widely participatory process of restructuring its Political Constitution has resulted in a transition stage from a Bolivia as a Republic – with all the semantic and practical implications of such a political form – to a Bolivia as a Plurinational State. This collective decision has implied profound transformations, as is logical, in the educational system and in the very conception of the role of education in Bolivian society. The speed of the changes in the ideals of a society deeply connected with its identities and needs has conditioned the finding of original and creative solutions, L. F. Carrión Justiniano (*) Centro Pedagógico y de Investigación en Educación Superior (CEPIES), Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), La Paz, Bolivia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_41

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and also a confrontation with new obstacles and difficulties, not only those of a practical nature, but also challenges stemming from institutional structures and in deeply rooted colonial collective history. In this framework, the decade between 2008 and 2018 has been the “education decade,” due to the profound conceptual and regulatory changes and the unprecedented investment in the education sector. Just over three billion bolivianos were earmarked by the Bolivian government for education in 2005; by 2017, this number grew to more than 21 billion bolivianos. A decade of Bolivian education has created the conditions for a reconception of education (“Productive Socio-Community Educational Model”), of curricular organization, regulations, institutions, teaching staff, infrastructure, equipment and financing, as the basis for a next decade of improvement and evaluation of educational processes. Keywords

Education · Bolivia · Education of native peoples · Decolonizing education · Productive Socio-Community Educational Model

1

Historical and Social Foundations

1.1

General Historical Background

To understand Bolivian history and the characteristics of its educational system from the second half of the twentieth century to the present, it is necessary to differentiate three fundamental periods that, as in any attempt to a linear demarcation of history, only serve an analytical purpose and not necessarily an objective delimitation: the 1952 revolution, the military government’s period, and the restoration of democracy. Before outlining the periods introduced above, it is necessary to discuss periodization in general. The equivalent of the Second World War for Bolivia was the Chaco War (1932–1935). This war marked the apparent end of a republican period, but in fact the colonial period continued, followed by an identity crisis as Bolivia becomes aware of its cultural, linguistic, social, economic, and political diversity; beginning a time of reflection and a search for identity, of questioning the establishment and of a denial of the factual. Following the Chaco War and its impact on the questioning of national identity, the largest Creole minorities led processes of reflection and political engagement to improve the visibility of indigenous and peasant majorities and to combat exclusion and exploitation and promote the value of their cultures, histories, worldviews, forms of organization, and languages. The Escuela Ayllu Warisata [Ayllu (Ayllu is the traditional form of a community in the Andes, especially among the Quechuas and Aymaras peoples) School of Warisata] is one example of the aforementioned which includes not only an educational model, that today is the foundation of the Bolivian educational system, but also a form of government; a social and educational organization based on the idea of

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production and relationship with Pachamama (Pachamama is a goddess revered by the indigenous people of the Andes) (the cosmos, the world, the land) that have concentrated coincident values of the indigenous peoples not only from the territory of Bolivia but also from all of Latin America. The Chaco War is the starting point for understanding the three periods of the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century.

1.1.1 The Revolution of 1952 (1945–1964) In the wake of the reflection process on a distinct Bolivian identity invoked by the Chaco War, Bolivia started a series of political-social reflection processes beginning with the First National Indigenous Congress (1945) and the consequent politicalsocial action. These awakenings of indigenous and peasant majorities were accompanied by dissent among the masses of the working classes, which in the case of Bolivia predominantly refers to miners. The “Pulacayo Thesis” (Fourth National Congress of Miners 1946) actions gave rise to workers’ uprisings and incited indigenous-peasant-worker rebellions until they concluded, in 1952, with the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) (Revolutionary Nationalist Movement) seizing power as a channeling instrument of political, social, and economic changes that matured during this period. After coming to power in the “revolution of '52,” the mining workers and indigenous-peasant mobilization (the term “peasant” also includes the indigenous peoples, the use of “indigenous” term was banned), the new President Victor Paz Estenssoro began enacting a series of public policies, such as a universal right to vote, nationalization of mines, foundation and alliance with the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) (Bolivian Workers’ Union). In 1953, the agrarian reform was developed, and the National Confederation of Bolivia Peasants was created. In the educational field, the revolution resulted in the 1955 Bolivian Education Code, which stipulated the universalization of primary schooling – differentiating between “peasant education” and “urban education” – the teachers’ massification, language and nationality homogenization through school. These changes were introduced in three periods of the MNR government (1952–1956, 1956–1960, and 1960–1964). 1.1.2 Military Governments (1964–1982) Coinciding with regional trends in the 1960s, 1970s, and the early 1980s, these decades were characterized by the collapse of democracy in Bolivia and removal of all leftist governments through successive military coups (16 different governments in the period, 13 of which were due to de facto governments), many of them supported by foreign governments. If the previous period was characterized by the incremental participation of worker-peasant social organizations, this period had as its main objective the dismantling of these organizations and the seizure of power by military commanders. Along with the instability and social, political, and economic vulnerability of this period, the use of power through violence, violations for human rights, and criminal methods were the characteristics of this historical stage that gradually left deep scars

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in Bolivian society and people across different generations, which explain many trends and features of the later period. In the field of education, this period is irrelevant since the main actions were oriented towards gaining and asserting control over educational institutions, from primary to higher education. Without any vision of extending the right to education, education was conceived as a risk to governments’ stability.

1.1.3

Restoration and Consolidation of Democracy (1982–2003, 2003–2019) This stage of Bolivia’s history marks the reinstitution of democracy in which two qualitatively different moments can be distinguished: the restoration of democracy conceived and practiced in formal settings with a representative essence and a later point in time with a consolidation of democracy in terms of participatory and inclusive democracy. This differentiation focuses on a constituent process that divides Bolivia’s history into two parts: republican Bolivia and Bolivia as a plurinational state. The first stage, the re-establishment of representative democracy (1982–2003), began with Hernán Siles Suazo’s government (1982–1985) which created an economic destabilization of the country that persisted through the following governments’ terms in office and created the conditions in which neoliberalist global guidelines were installed in Bolivia, initially with little awareness and social resistance. These conditions guaranteed the entry of capital and foreign interests based on two fundamental principles. These principles postulate that public administration generates inefficiency, and the accumulation of wealth in private hands will generate an overflow that will trickle down to the poor classes – which promises to stabilize the economy and generate growth. This global dictum failed to materialize in Bolivia much in the same way as in other countries in the region. For the educational field, this “representative democracy” and neoliberalism resulted in an educational reform approved in 1994 by Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s government. This reform was heavily reliant on guidelines from international financing organizations, mainly implemented by technocrats far removed from the educational reality and its actors, financed through conditional loans and poorly understood but highly questioned by social organizations (Educational Forum) and by teachers and their unions, the Confederación de Maestros Rurales de Bolivia, (CONMERB) (Confederation of Rural Teachers of Bolivia) and the Confederación de Trabajadores de Educación Urbana de Bolivia, (CTEUB) (Confederation of Urban Education Workers of Bolivia). Opposition to the educational reform only allowed for the achievement of superficial levels of change in educational practices, but generated a series of deficit situations in the education system. An example was the liberalization of the teaching profession through passing the control over teacher training institutions (“normales” or “normal schools”) to public and private universities, a situation that went against the conception of the teaching profession as public and dependent on the state, both academically and as a form of employment This created a total lack of control over the selection of future teachers, the shaping

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of curricula for their training, over appointment, which consolidated the condition of teachers’ semi-professionalism and conditioned the consequent devaluation of their social perception. The country then plunged into another period of unrest in which the neoliberal principles were taken to their extremes, ending first in the “Water War” (2000) and then in the “Gas War” (2003), two emblematic moments that represent the culmination of a series of grievances against the government, different trends, and actions that were channelled into two processes: (a) The consolidation of the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement to Socialism) (Spanish abbreviation: MAS-IPSP) not as a traditional political party but as a political instrument for sovereignty for the people brought together the main social organizations of the major sectors (indigenous peoples, peasants, workers) around a widely popular leader, Evo Morales Ayma, also supported by intellectuals and left-wing professionals. (b) Political and social agenda consolidation that takes account of the reclaiming of natural resources (gas, minerals, lithium) “for the people” and a constituent process that “refounded Bolivia” with the participation of the hitherto excluded sectors in the republic. This agenda and its implementation were developed in three democratic periods (2006–2009; 2010–2014; 2015–2019) in which Evo Morales Ayma managed to run the Constituent Assembly that approves a new Political Constitution of the State CPE (2009) – turning Bolivia into a plurinational state and implementing the new society vision in the various government programs, deepening in participatory democracy. In the educational field, this social transformation translated into the Education Law 070 Avelino Siñani – Elizardo Pérez (LASEP), approved in December 2010, which redefines the role of education, not only as a service but also as a right of each Bolivian citizen and as the main financial responsibility of the state. This vision served as the basis to create the Modelo Educativo Sociocomunitario Productivo, (MESCP) (Productive Socio-Communitarian Educational Model). The MESCP is the result of a review of educational experiences of a social and inclusive nature from throughout the country’s history (the name of the education law, Avelino Siñani – Elizardo Pérez, represents the inspiration of Escuela Ayllu Warista, one of the most important experiences of indigenous education in Latin America not only for providing access to education to the indigenous population but for combining the worldviews of these peoples and the practical life of the communities: “study, culture, and work”). Teachers, indigenous peoples, peasants, and workers participated in the passing of this law. The consistent implementation – the continuity of the government of Evo Morales Ayma (2006–2019) with Roberto Aguilar Gómez as the Minister of Education (2008–2019) and former Vice President of the Constituent Assembly – have been vital determinants to achieving structural changes in the Bolivian educational system, guaranteeing the continuity of educational policies as state policies, an unprecedented situation in the history of Bolivia.

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Contexts and Political, Economic, and Cultural Conditions

1.2.1 Geographical and Physical Characteristics Bolivia is located in the central part of South America, between 57° 26´ and 69° 38´ longitude west of Greenwich and the parallels 9° 38´ and 22° 53´ of south latitude. The country has an area of 1,098,581 square kilometers, bordering Brazil to the north and east, Argentina to the south, Peru to the west, Paraguay to the southeast, and Chile to the southwest southwest (INE 2018). Its main geographical zones include the Andean region (highlands), which comprise 28% of the country’s territory, with heights above 3,000 m above sea level, with mountains and lakes of the highest in the region between the Western and Eastern or Royal mountain ranges. The main industries in the region are agricultural, livestock, and mining. The sub-Andean region (valleys) comprises 13% of the territory, with an average height of 2,500 m above sea level. The main industries of this region are agricultural and mining production. Finally, the plains region (lowlands), comprises 59% of the territory with plains, low plateaus, and forests. The main industries are agricultural, livestock, and hydrocarbon production. 1.2.2 Political System The Plurinational State of Bolivia, with its capital Sucre, is “constituted as a Unitary Social State of Communitarian Plurinational Law, free, independent, sovereign, democratic, intercultural, decentralized, and with autonomies. Bolivia is founded on plurality and political, economic, legal, cultural, and linguistic pluralism within the country’s integrative process” (Political Constitution of the State – CPE; Art. 1), with its governmental system being democratic, participatory, representative, and communitarian, with equality for men and women (CPE, Art. 11 and 12). Bolivia is organized in departments, provinces, municipalities, and indigenous peasant territories. The nine departments alongside the government headquarter of La Paz are Oruro, Potosí (highlands, predominantly), Cochabamba, Chuquisaca, and Tarija (valleys, predominantly); Santa Cruz, Pando, and Beni (lowlands, predominantly). Bolivia has a variety of official languages, 37 in total, including Spanish and indigenous languages. 1.2.3 Economic Structure The last decade saw Bolivia experience a period of economic stability and sustained growth, with several indicators showing the country’s economic performance to be the best in Latin America (ECLAC 2018; World Bank 2019). In 2018, Bolivia’s economy recorded 4.4% growth, with the main investment sector being public investment and the main source of income being the export of hydrocarbons. The fiscal deficit in 2018, on the other hand, was around 7.4% of GDP and growing for 5 years. Bolivia’s financial regulatory body is the Central Bank of Bolivia (BCB), and the exchange rate of the Bolivian currency Boliviano at the time of writing is 6.96/1 (Bs/USD). Inflation rate in 2018 was at 3.5% while, as of October 2018, the

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unemployment rate in the country was around 4.1% with the minimum wage having seen an increase of 130% The economic model in Bolivia seeks to balance public, private, and communitarian (cooperative enterprises with state support) interests. The nationalization of the main production and service companies has helped achieve historical outcomes and enabled profits to be redistributed to the population through better conditions in infrastructure and road networks, as well as benefits for the elderly, better funding for schools, and paid maternity leave. This mixed model or “plural economy” (Gutiérrez 2014) has, among its main results, the highest rates of inequality reduction in Latin America (ECLAC 2019).

1.2.4

Cultural Contexts: Colonial Legacy, Official Languages, Religion – Assimilationism vs. Multiculturalism Bolivia shares the precolonial and colonial history of its Latin American neighbors with the millenary presence of native cultures in the continent. Among the most important cultures, we can mention the Tiahuanaco, Aymaras, and Urus native to the highlands, the Quechuas in the valleys, and the Guarani and more than 20 other cultures who made the lowlands their home. The colonial period in Bolivia, as in other countries of the region, started with the subjugation of the indigenous peoples, and their enslavement for agricultural and mining. The genocidal practices of Spanish colonialism were accompanied by the arrival, also to be sold and exploited as slaves, of an African population. The republican period in Bolivia (1825–2008) distinguishes the country from the rest of its South American neighbors by persistent stages of native peoples’ resistance to the continuity of the colonial and neo-colonial regime, highlighting the permanence of cultures in qualitative terms (identity, language, knowledge). In qualitative and quantitative terms, the composition of Bolivia’s population explains one of the main results of the constituent process (2000–2009) that defined Bolivia as a “plurinational” state (CPE, Art. 1); consequently, it recognizes the dominion over their territories, their right to free self-determination, autonomy, and self-government to all native indigenous peoples and nations that constitute the Plurinational State of Bolivia (CPE, Art. 2). This normative recognition has invoked a stage of application and translation of the norm, not without difficulties and contradictions, which constitutes a historical recognition that can only continue to look for forms of application in any future projection. Awareness of cultural heritage and diversity as the essence of Bolivian identity has been translated into the education law LASEP still in effect. One of its main principles states that: “It [Bolivian education] is decolonizing, liberating, revolutionary, anti-imperialist, de-patriarchalizing, and transforming of economic and social structures; oriented to the cultural reaffirmation of the native indigenous peasants peoples and nations, the intercultural, and Afro-Bolivian communities in the construction of the Plurinational State and the concept of a Good Life [Vivir Bien] “(LASEP. Art. 3, 1).

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1.3

Social Conditions

1.3.1 Demographic Characteristics According to the data collected in the population census in 2012, Bolivia had a population of 10,027,254 inhabitants, with a projection of reaching 11,307,000 inhabitants by 2018, according to data from the National Statistics Institute – INE (INE 2019). This population is comprised, according to the data of the INE and the Unidad de Análisis de Políticas Sociales y Económicas – UDAPE (Unit of Social and Economic Policies Analysis) (UDAPE 2016), as follows: • By age groups (2012): 0–14 years: 31.4%; 15–59 years: 59.9%; older than 60 years: 8.7%. Although the Bolivian population is mostly young, the percentage of older people tends to increase. • By area of residence (2012): Population in urban areas: 67.5%; in rural areas: 32.5%, with a trend towards more growth in urban areas. Internal migration is salient, especially towards the eastern part of Bolivia. • By department: The most populated departments, according to 2018 projections, are Santa Cruz with 3,225,000 inhabitants, La Paz with 2,883,000, and Cochabamba with 1,972,000. The population among the rest of the departments is distributed as follows: Potosí with 887,000, Chuquisaca with 626,000, Tarija with 563,000, Oruro with 538,000, Beni with 468,000, and Pando with 144,000 inhabitants. • By poverty rates: The population suffering from moderate to lower levels of poverty has decreased from 66.4% in 2000 to 30.3% in 2014. In the same way, the population living in extreme poverty has decreased from 45.2% in 2000 to 17.3% in 2014. Life expectancy in Bolivia has increased considerably from an estimated 63 years in 2000 to 70.6 years in 2014, with women enjoying a longer expected life span, from 65.1 years to 73.8 years, respectively. In the population census of 2001, 62% of the population aged over 15 years selfidentified as belonging to native or indigenous peoples: “30.7% Quechua, 25.2% Aymara, and the census registered 6.1% of other 31 ethnic groups, all in the eastern lowlands, except for the Uru. The most numerous are the Chiquitanos (2.2%), Guaranís (1.6%), and Mojeños (0.9%)” (Albó and Barrios 2006).

1.3.2 Demographic Development The Bolivian population exhibits varying growth rates which, in recent years, have begun to decline. According to data from INE and UDAPE, the growth rate between 1976 and 1992 was 2.11%, which rose between 1992 and 2001 to 2.74%, and then declined to 1.74% between 2001 and 2012. For the future, the trend suggests that the growth rate will continue to decrease consistently, with 1.46% between 2012 and 2020, 1.32% between 2020 and 2030, and 1.17% between 2030 and 2040, until

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reaching 1.0% between 2040 and 2050, when Bolivia is expected to reach a population of 16,511,798 inhabitants. This deceleration finds some of its causes in the improvement of economic family conditions, in globalizing cultural elements and the rapid urbanization of the population, among others.

1.4

Transition to the Labor Market: Organization and Support

1.4.1 Type of Labor Market Organization According to Ernesto Yáñez (Yáñez 2018), the country’s labor market in the past decade is characterized by the so-called demographic bonus which first became effective in 2017 and will continue in the immediate future. Based on information from the 2006–2015 Household Survey conducted by the INE, it is evident that until 2012 the main labor indicators in Bolivia (global participation rate, employment rate, and unemployment rate) showed a better employment situation, which began to decline as of 2013. The growth rate of the real average salary in the public sector increased from 2009 to 2015, in an irregular but sustained manner, by around 4.8% per year on average while the private sector shows an increase of only 1.87. Yáñez highlights the difference between the real labor income of informal workers and formal workers, which in the period 2006–2014 saw an increase of 141% versus 17%, respectively. This is all the more significant considering that in 2015 formal employment in Bolivia was at around 32%, while informal employment represented 67% of the country’s working population. The gender variable in the main employment indicators in 2015 shows that while the unemployment rate at the national level was 3.8%, the unemployment rate among women was 4.7% and 3.2% among men. In the same year, the national occupation rate was 66.7%, 54.2% for women, and 79.7% for men; the global participation rate at the national level was 69.3%, 56.8% for women, and 82.4% for men. Regarding the variable of age in the employment statistics, the following data can be found for the same indicators and identical management 2015: With the unemployment rate at the national level at 3.8%, it was 9.0% for young people aged 15–19, 7.4% for people aged 20–24 years, and 2.8% for people between 25 and 64. While the national occupation rate was 66.7%, from the population aged 15–19 years, 30.6% were employed, among the ages from 20 to 24, 53.7% reported employment and finally, out of 25-to 64-year-olds, 77.8% were employed. Regarding the global participation rate, being 69.3% at the national level, 33.6% among 15- to 19-year-olds, 58.0% among 20- to 24-year-olds, and 80.0% among those aged 25–64 were active participant in the Bolivian labor market. In all cases, participation in the labor market is clearly lower for the youngest population, which can be interpreted, according to Yañez, as a sign of greater access and dedication to secondary education and higher education level studies.

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1.4.2

Guidance and Support for the Transition Within the Education System One of the main focal points of the MESCP, which seeks to implement the current LASEP, is the link between education and the social reality, and the productive projection of the context (LASEP. Art. 3, 9); that is an orientation of the curricula towards the transition from the educational sector to the labor market. This educational policy transformed into two operational areas: The first area within the educational system has two main missions: on the one hand, improving access, coverage, and pupil retention at all educational levels, with the understanding that higher levels and quality of education in the population create better conditions for access to the labor market and for productive participation and renewal; and on the other hand, shaping the curriculum and guidelines for curricular development that link the educational processes with the context in which they developed to understand and transform them. This orientation leads to school education in a progressive universalization of the so-called Humanistic-Technical Baccalaureate that complements the 6 years of secondary education towards the development of practical skills and abilities in general and with a technical specialty at the level of Intermediate Post-Baccalaureate Technician (LASEP. Art. 14), specifically at the end of school attendance. In the same way, young people and adults who discontinued school can obtain certificate, are oriented to technical training, including the recognition of skills and abilities, including those skills acquired in the workplace (LASEP. Arts. 17–20). The guidelines for higher education emphasize the need of linking professional training in universities, technical-technological institutes, and teacher training centers, connecting theoretical training processes with practice in real work contexts (LASEP. Art. 29). The second area of operations concerns the intersectoral articulation based on the vision of the country and the state policies that prioritize actions and investment for the achievement of a Bolivia with political, economic, food, and scientific sovereignty, as well as the transformation of the extractivist productive apparatus to a vision of industrialization in harmony with nature (Ministry of Development Planning 2006).

2

Institutional and Organizational Principles

2.1

General Principles

2.1.1 Legislation and Mandate for the Education System The focus, structure, and operational guidelines of the plurinational educational system of Bolivia – abbreviated as SEP – can only be understood from the perspective of the new political constitution CPE, its background, and its process of broad citizen participation and deep discussions in all areas of the Constituent Assembly that led to the approval of a new Political Constitution in 2009. The role assigned to education in Bolivia is intimately articulated, first of all, by the new understanding of

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Bolivian society, refounded in the recognition of the native indigenous nations and the diversity of its peoples, in the valorization and strengthening of their cultures, languages, knowledge, and tradition, and its link to universal knowledge and the development of science; second, the vision and purpose of education is articulated to the future vision of the plurinational state, which surpasses the colonial and neocolonial vision of the first two centuries of Bolivia as a republic (CPE, Preamble). Assigning this role to education has meant going beyond the view of education as a service and assuming education as a fundamental right for all Bolivians (CPE, Art. 17), a vision through which the state is committed to guaranteeing education, creating the right conditions for fulfillment, assuming full tuition and recognizing private initiatives (CPE, Art. 77). In addition to the aspects indicated in the CPE regarding education, the new constitutional text provides new fundamental guidelines that aided in the later development of the regulations and their application in the education system; these include: • Linking education to productive and labor contexts (CPE, Art. 78, IV; 80, I; 90, II). • Scientific, technical, and technological character (CPE, Art. 78, III). • Inclusion as a basic principle of education (CPE, Art. 82; 84; 85). • Establishment of measurement, evaluation, and accreditation processes for educational quality (CPE, Art. 89). • The compulsory nature of education until secondary school and its gratuitousness until higher education (CPE, Art. 81). The aforementioned principles form the fundamental legal framework that guides education in Bolivia, together with the development of the Constituent Assembly and in a broad and unprecedented participation process of all actors related to the education sector, a unique form of education law was developed between 2006 and 2010 (Chavez 2019). This law covers the constitutional mandates and educational system in the country, organizing the guidelines of the general curriculum translated in the MESCP, and structuring a plurinational educational system comprised by three subsystems: regular education, alternative and special education, and higher education for professional training.

2.1.2 General Education Policy The principles described in the CPE and mentioned in the previous section have been incorporated into educational policies, highly debated in the participatory process of formulating the LASEP, and summarized in it as objectives for the SEP (LASEP, Art. 5). The guiding principles for educational action are: • The holistic and integral view of the people and their respective communities and, therefore, the complexity of the educational reality

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• The promotion of the scientific, technical-technological, and productive skills “harmonized” with the revaluation of the original knowledge and wisdom of each culture and respect to Mother Earth • The promotion of intraculturality (strengthening of each culture), interculturality (the harmonious relationship between cultures), and multilingualism (equal value of native, Spanish, and foreign languages) • Democratic participation on equal footing in educational processes • An inclusive view with equity for access, right to remain in school, and graduation of the entire population at each of the educational levels, prioritizing attention and financing of sectors in vulnerable conditions.

2.1.3 Educational Policy, Curricular Orientations The educational policies translate into an educational model called the Productive Socio-Communitarian Educative Model, or MESCP (Ministry of Education 2017b), which is based on the preservation of the values, knowledge, and traditions of indigenous peoples and nations that make up the plurinational state, as well as the experience of Escuela Ayllu de Warisata and the indigenous nuclei, on Vigotsky’s critical pedagogical proposals, and on Freire’s Latin American liberating popular education guidelines. Based on these principles, education, according to the MESCP, is a decolonizing, liberating, revolutionary, anti-imperialist, and transformative education. It is communitarian, democratic, participatory, and consensual; it promotes intraculturality and multilingualism, and it is a productive, territorial, scientific, technical-technological, and artistic education. The above-mentioned bases and guidelines are the result of a search for an honest and coherent education which also reflects the reality of the country, which does not restrict itself to the imposition or acquisition of foreign educational models and different purposes and approaches teaching from those perspectives that Bolivia needs with respect to its history, its present situation, and its projected future. In this sense, the MESCP seeks to be the answer to three problematic realities that Bolivian education faced in the past: • The colonial and neocolonial views that marked the republican era focused on the imitation of foreign social and educational models – Spain in the colonial period and the United States and Europe in in the postcolonial period – and remained deeply embedded in the mentality of Bolivian society and its institutions even after the “independence” of 1825. This conditioned a fictional, submissive reality of resignation to an “underdevelopment discourse” and ignored the identities and status of the native indigenous peoples as the demographic base of the country. • The connection between educational policies and practices to the country’s economic dependence model that, in conjunction with the above-mentioned mentality as a colonized people, emphasized cognitive humanistic education while neglecting training for material production. This type of education responded to the view of a country exclusively in terms of an extractor of raw materials, subordinated to the global division of labor. It sought an elite linked to traditional professions for a bureaucracy subordinated to global interests and the

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generation of skilled labor that responds to the structure of the international market and the role to which Bolivia was relegated. • The rejection of the values, knowledge, and traditions of the native indigenous peoples and the overvaluation of the values, knowledge, and customs traditionally known as “western” or, worse, as “universal.” In the educational field, this was translated into curricula, plans, and programs that are standardizing, homogenizing, and decontextualized. In answer to this, the MESCP emphasizes the integral formation of the person in all dimensions (knowing, doing, being, and deciding), to achieve a critical and transformative view for new generations, with a strong emphasis on the reassessment of identities. The basic curriculum is enriched and harmonized with the regionalized curricula designed by each indigenous group and nation. At the same time, it is oriented towards those practical skills considered suitable for complementing the more theoretical curricula to make it more appropriate for the perceived reality. In general, this educational vision is linked to the productive transformation of the country; it defines an educational practice with regard to the material realities in which it is developed through the incorporation of qualified people scientifically, technically, and technologically.

2.1.4 Financing The transformation of the education system has been complemented with a sustained increase in investment in the education sector, in addition to the constitutional mandate that establishes that education is not only a fundamental right but also the first financial responsibility of the state (CPE, Art. 17). From 2006 to date, investment in education has increased by over 300%, as Fig. 1 shows. This substantial increase of funding unprecedented in the history of education in Bolivia shows the following correlations in development in relation to the country’s gross domestic product (Fig. 2). The distribution of resources for education has prioritized investment in the subsystem of regular education (school education at the initial, primary, and secondary levels) and in the subsystem of alternative and special education (education for young people and adults outside the school system and people with disabilities) (Fig. 3). It is important to highlight the emphasis placed in this period on the conception of education as a universal right since the investment has focused exclusively on the promotion of public education at all levels. Among the results of these policies, we can observe a decrease in some cases, and in others, the stagnation of private educational offers, contrary to the regional tendency and a greater confidence of the population in public education (Fig. 4). Until 2014, one important factor in the financing investment in education was the gradual increase of the General Treasury of the Nation (TGN) resources combined with international cooperation resources added in what was called basket funds, an original financing model fully aligned and focused on the state policies that

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Fig. 1 Bolivia: Investment in education, in millions of bolivianos (Official exchange rate, as of November 2019: 6.96 Bolivians for 1 US Dollar) (Source: Ministry of Education, General Directorate of Planning 2018) 10.0% 9.0%

8.9%

9.0%

2015

2016

7.8%

8.0% 7.1%

7.0% 6.0% 4.9%

5.0% 4.0%

4.5%

3.4%

3.0% 2.0% 1.0% 0.0%

1990

1996

2005

2006

2010

Fig. 2 Bolivia: Investment in education in relation to gross domestic product (Source: Ministry of Education, General Directorate of Planning 2018)

leveraged the start of the strengthening of the SEP (AECID et al. 2017). As of 2015 and without cooperation resources, the TGN assumed all the educational investment which has guaranteed the sustainability of the processes but also absolute

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Fig. 3 Bolivia: Investment in education by subsystem (Source: Ministry of Education, General Directorate of Planning 2016)

Fig. 4 Bolivia: Educational units (schools) by dependence (in thousands) (Source: Ministry of Education, General Directorate of Planning 2018) (1) As of the 2011 management, the structure defined in Law No. 070 is adopted (primary from 1st to 6th and secondary from 1st to 6th). For comparative purposes, the data for the period 2000–2010 were adjusted according to the new structure of the Regular Education Subsystem, (2) In 2012, an operation of purification of educational units was carried out, which is why the number of educational units falls in relation to the 2011 management.

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independence in defining educational policies without any impositions or conditions linked to external financing.

2.1.5 Access, Compulsory Education, Zoning/School Choice In 2009, primary education ceased to be the only mandatory level guaranteed by the state, and since 2010, initial and secondary education have shown a growth in enrolment. Due to the declining birth rates and the vegetative growth slowdown, enrolment at the primary education level is also showing a downwards trend, but not in terms of net coverage rate (see Fig. 5). Regarding the level of dependence (public/private) shown in Table 1, a clear and sustained growth in the enrolment of public education can be seen, while the private sector shows lower growth rates. The clearest example of this is the number of secondary education students that in public education went from 665,218 to 1,011,338 between 2000 and 2015, respectively; while, in the same years, the number of students in private education went from 134,889 to 142,041 (Ministry of Education 2016). As mentioned in reference to the demographic characteristics of Bolivia, data on school enrolment in urban areas (70.10%, in 2015) shows greater growth compared to data in rural areas (29.90%, in 2015), which can be explained by migration from the countryside to the city (Ministry of Education 2016a). This is irrelevant in terms of educational policy priorities to take account of financial and urban school population conditions. State investment and attention have been equitable, the same, or even greater level of care has been paid to educational conditions

Fig. 5 Bolivia: School enrollment (in millions of students) (Source: Ministry of Education, General Directorate of Planning 2018). (As of the 2011 management, the structure defined in Law No. 070 is adopted (primary from 1st to 6th and secondary from 1st to 6th). For comparative purposes, the data for the period 2000–2010 were adjusted according to the new structure of the Regular Education Subsystem)

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Table 1 Bolivia: Registration by subsystem (managements 2005–2008–2018) Subsystem Regular education

Alternative y especial education

Level Initial Primary Secondary Primary (young and adults) Secondary (young and adults) Technical (young and adults) Especial (people with disabilities)

2005 241.293 1.512.676 1.038.195 29.009 37.665 37.852 3.739

2008 229.878 1.508.389 1.059.641 30.801 38.597 45.269 6.511

2018 353.898 1.370.726 1.146.170 8.376 87.416 95.087 16.004

Source: Prepared by the author based on data from the Ministry of Education, General Directorate of Planning (2019)

(infrastructure, equipment, and education staff) in rural areas, especially in inaccessible areas, as will be discussed later. The Ministry of Education provided updated information in a 2018 report showing the following data regarding enrolment (Table 1): The data reveals that the trends observed in the education sector are regular but also includes information concerning education for young people and adults outside the school system. This form of education has been experiencing a surge due to the literacy and post-literacy program, thanks to which Bolivia was declared free from illiteracy in 2008 and highly successful in the continuity of educating formerly illiterate populations.

2.1.6 Graduation, Exam, Certification Parallel to educational policies aimed at expanding access to education at all levels, the last decade saw efforts to improve the indicators of pupil retention, graduation, and certification, which have been strengthened in a sustainable manner (Figs. 6 and 7). To achieve these results, in addition to the measures to improve educational conditions, a series of programs have been developed with the aforementioned orientation; these include (Ministry of Education 2009–2014, 2015, 2016, 2017. Institutional Memories): • Incentives for staying in school through the Juancito Pinto grants for all primary and secondary school pupils, consisting of an annual grant of 200 Bs (equivalent to USD 28.7 at the time of writing) per pupil; this grant is given to pupils who remained in schools until 1 month before the end of the school year. • Secondary school excellence award, granted for secondary school completion to graduates who have obtained the best grades. This 1,000 Bs award (equivalent to USD 143.7) is given to one male and one female graduate from every school. • Issue of a free secondary school diploma during the graduation ceremony, including certified photocopies for immediate processing in higher education institutions admission processes. • There are various scholarship options and expediated application systems for admission into higher education institutes, among others: admission of the best

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Fig. 6 Bolivia: Promotion rate, according to level (Source: Ministry of Education, General Directorate of Planning 2018). (As of the 2011 management, the structure defined in Law No. 070 is adopted (primary from 1st to 6th and secondary from 1st to 6th). For comparative purposes, the data for the period 2000–2010 were adjusted according to the new structure of the Regular Education Subsystem)

Fig. 7 Bolivia: Dropout rate, according to level (Source: Ministry of Education, General Directorate of Planning 2018) (As of the 2011 management, the structure defined in Law No. 070 is adopted (primary from 1st to 6th and secondary from 1st to 6th). For comparative purposes, the data for the period 2000–2010 were adjusted according to the new structure of the Regular Education Subsystem)

graduates belonging to native indigenous peasant nations and peoples, and for students from places where training centers are difficult to access (Escuelas Superiores de Formación de Maestras y Maestros - ESFM -Higher Teacher

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Training Schools); admission of secondary school graduates with similar characteristics to public and private technical-technological institutes, as well as to private universities. In teacher training, in technical-technological institutes, and private universities, there is a regulation which allows joint and immediate certification, that is, an academic diploma combined with a professional degree. • A program called “100 Postgraduate Scholarships” for postgraduate training aimed at professionals seeking to begin a specialization in the best universities worldwide, linked to companies and strategic sectors framed in industrialization policies, scientific sovereignty, and specialized services defined by the plurinational state.

2.2

Administration and Governance of Education

2.2.1 Administration Levels The administration of education on Bolivia is structured in a centralized system, where the Ministry of Education with a separate department, or sub-ministry, for each of the mentioned subsystems is responsible for the design, regulation, and monitoring of all educational policies. 2.2.2 Governance Structure As can be seen in the figure above, the SEP includes public, private, and a system known as “agreement education” (Spanish: “educación de convenio”), a mix between public and private, organized into three subsystems at all educational levels: • Subsystem of regular education, in charge of school education at the initial, primary, and secondary levels. • Subsystem of alternative and special education, which includes the education of young people and adults (primary, secondary, technical, and lifelong education), people with disabilities, gifted people, and the recognition and certification of practical skills. • Subsystem of higher education for professional training, in charge of teachers’ training (for the two subsystems above), of private and special regime university training (indigenous universities, higher training centers of military and police institutions), of technological and artistic training. Each of these subsystems has its own ministerial department, and there is a fourth Department of Science and Technology that coordinates with other ministries linked to the production industry segment of the country and with the ministerial departments of the education sector, according to their fields of competence. Although educational policies are decided at the central level, there are also intragovernmental entities which have power vested in them (LASEP, Art. 80), such as departmental governments and municipal governments.

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The evaluation of education is entrusted to the Observatorio Plurinacional de la Calidad Educativa (OPCE) (Plurinational Observatory of Educational Quality) (CPE, Art. 89; LASEP, Art. 83), which is, by regulation, a decentralized and independent unit of the Ministry of Education. Despite being in operation for several years, the OPCE has not developed as expected, prompting Bolivia to sign an agreement with the Latin American Laboratory for the Assessment of the Quality of Education (LLECE) in 2016. The LLECE is a UNESCO-supported body coordinated by the Regional Bureau for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC-Santiago), and the agreement signed between the organization and Bolivia was for the country’s participation in the Fourth Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (ERCE), scheduled for the end of 2019, which assesses learning achievements and factors associated with them at the primary education level. An ad hoc team was formed for the study which included the OPCE in its technical preparation and training actions. The aforementioned study is planned until 2020.

2.3

The Structure of the Education System According to ISCED

2.3.1 Preschool The preschool level in Bolivia is referred to as “Educación Inicial en Familia Comunitaria,” roughly translating to “initial education in communitarian family” in English (Ministry of Education 2014a, 2019b) and is structured in two stages (LASEP, Art. 12): • Not schooled, from 0 to 3 years of age, with shared responsibility between the family, the community, and the state. • Schooled, 4–5 years old, this stage is free and compulsory as of 2010; it seeks to foster comprehensive skills and abilities that allow children equal access to primary education (Table 2).

2.3.2 Primary Education The primary education level in Bolivia is called “Educación Primaria Comunitaria Vocacional,” or “Vocational Communitarian Primary Education” in English, and includes 6 years of schooling (LASEP, Art. 13), which are free and compulsory (Table 3). Enrolment in this stage of education has decreased, and with it the primary education teaching staff, due to social factors and demographic changes in terms of declining birth rates. On the other hand, the timely enrolment rate shows sustained growth, which can be attributed to an improvement of educational conditions, also in rural areas. In the same way, the pupil retention and graduation indicators also show sustained improvement, which is also due to better educational conditions along with various mechanisms intended to incentivize pupils to stay in school, such as Juancito Pinto program mentioned above (Fig. 8).

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Table 2 Bolivia: Timely enrollment rate at the initial educational level (preschool), according to sex, area, and dependence Desegregation Total Sexo Women Men Area Urban Rural Dependency Fiscal Private

2010–2011a 62,75%

2011–2012 71,79%

2012–2013 77,29%

2013–2014 82,23%

62,94% 62,58%

73,15% 70,52%

77,26% 77,33%

82,25% 82,20%

71,14% 47,35%

77,70% 60,67%

82,69% 66,97%

87,33% 71,95%

61,11% 78,00%

70,20% 85,70%

76,00% 88,14%

80,89% 92,79%

Source: Ministry of Education (2015) As of the 2011 management, the structure defined in Law No. 070 is adopted (primary from 1st to 6th and secondary from 1st to 6th). For comparative purposes, the data for the period 2000–2010 were adjusted according to the new structure of the Regular Education Subsystem a

Table 3 Bolivia: Timely enrollment rate in first year of primary education, according to sex, area, and dependency Desegregation Total Sexo Women Men Area Urban Rural Dependency Fiscal Private

2010–2011a 77,90%

2011–2012 83,12%

2012–2013 87,55%

2013–2014 90,83%

78,26% 77,55%

83,74% 82,54%

88,01% 87,13%

91,14% 90,55%

80,21% 73,65%

84,54% 80,43%

89,01% 84,74%

92,31% 87,86%

77,66% 80,15%

82,81% 85,82%

87,36% 89,15%

90,64% 92,34%

Source: Ministry of Education (2015) As of the 2011 management, the structure defined in Law No. 070 is adopted (primary from 1st to 6th and secondary from 1st to 6th). For comparative purposes, the data for the period 2000–2010 were adjusted according to the new structure of the Regular Education Subsystem a

The primary education curriculum in Bolivia is characterized by the integration of subjects and their organization into “fields of knowledge and wisdom,” as well as the harmonization of the base curriculum with the regionalized curricula, typical of each original indigenous nation and peoples, according to the territorial location of each school (Ministry of Education 2014a, 2019c).

2.3.3 Secondary Education Secondary education in Bolivia is called “Educación Secundaria Comunitaria Productiva,” or “Communitarian Productive Secondary Education” in English (Ministry

Fig. 8 Bolivia: Primary level dropout rate (Source: Ministry of Education 2015). (As of the 2011 management, the structure defined in Law No. 070 is adopted)

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of Education 2014), which comprises 6 years of schooling and is designed as a humanistic and technical-technological education (LASEP, Art. 14) (Table 4). In line with the principles of the MESCP, secondary education in Bolivia is characterized by an approach that attempts to combine humanistic training with a technical-technological orientation and access to employment. It is divided into general technical-technological education and training (capacity development in the understanding of reality, reflection, and analysis of reality, as well as economic and social planning capabilities) during the first 4 years of secondary school, followed by specialized technical-technological training (development in specialized workshops) during the last 2 years of secondary schooling. This type of training leads to a joint secondary education diploma that includes both the Humanistic Baccalaureate and the granting of an Intermediate PostBaccalaureate Technician’s title in the specialty chosen by the student. A respective policy has gradually been developing without ever becoming the mainstream choice of secondary school attendees. At the time of preparation of this document, the percentage of people who finished their secondary school with the Intermediate PostBaccalaureate Technician title is still very low, but between 2018 and 2019 the Ministry of Education made a historic investment in technological-technical modules, centers, and workshops to ensure exponential growth as of 2021. Although the indicators of admission, progress, and graduation in school education have generally shown substantial progress in recent years, there is still much to do in order to reach a satisfactory level of the aforementioned indicators, especially in the transition to secondary school and in the universalization of this level, as Fig. 9 shows.

2.3.4 Higher Education According to LASEP, higher education must be substantially oriented towards the “recovery, generation, and recreation of knowledge and skills; expressed in the development of science, technology, research, and innovation, which responds to social, economic, productive, and cultural needs and demands of society and the Plurinational State” (LASEP, Art. 28). By constitutional mandate (CPE, Art. 81, II), it is the task of the state to finance the higher education system, which is structured as follows (LASEP, Art. 30): • • • •

Teacher training Technical and technological training Artistic training University education

2.3.5 Education and Vocational Training Higher education in Bolivia is a subsystem of the plurinational educational system, which subsumes all vocational education, that is universities, technical and technological education, teacher training, artistic training, special government universities (military and police training), and it is regulated by the Ministry of Education through the Department of Higher Education for Vocational Training.

97,59% 88,54%

94,26% 98,51%

97,24% 87,04%

93,81% 96,17%

92,15% 96,89%

96,07% 85,76%

97,68% 85,59%

93,05% 93,90% 97,94% 85,16%

93,67% 93,54%

2008 93,60%

98,12% 83,51%

92,97% 93,35%

2009 93,17%

97,38% 85,93%

93,75% 93,40%

2010 93,57%

96,88% 84,83%

93,49% 92,30%

2011a 92,87%

98,84% 84,43%

94,11% 93,93%

2012 94,02%

99,88% 86,60%

95,50% 95,21%

2013 95,35%

100,15% 85,58%

95,36% 95,00%

2014 95,17%

91,25% 92,87% 92,50% 92,88% 91,99% 92,94% 94,15% 93,96% 102,99% 101,05% 100,07% 100,81% 102,10% 105,54% 108,14% 107,95%

97,48% 82,57%

92,01% 92,47%

2006 2007 93,49% 92,25%

92,21% 91,61% 92,98% 102,82% 103,85% 98,72%

99,46% 81,34%

97,74% 83,04%

92,76% 92,54%

93,22% 93,00%

95,03% 94,33%

94,17% 93,97%

92,65% 92,49%

2005 92,64%

2001 2002 2003 2004 94,06% 94,66% 92,56% 93,10%

Source: Ministry of Education (2015) a As of the 2011 management, the structure defined in Law No. 070 is adopted (primary from 1st to 6th and secondary from 1st to 6th). For comparative purposes, the data for the period 2000–2010 were adjusted according to the new structure of the Regular Education Subsystem

Desegregation total Sexo Women Men Area Urban Rural Dependency Fiscal Private

Table 4 Bolivia: Timely enrollment rate in first year of secondary education, by sex, area, and dependency

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Fig. 9 Bolivia: Annual lag rate by year of schooling (2014) (Source: Ministry of Education 2015)

As of 2009, teacher training changed from a 3-year undergraduate program granting an academic “technical” teaching degree to a 5-year undergraduate program granting a bachelor’s degree, and a professional development offer until the postgraduate level. This area of higher education for professional training is perhaps the one that has received the most attention in the last decade, in the form of clear policies, financing, and results. It will thus be given special attention in the future. Technical and technological training is the remit of both public and private technical and technological institutes (LASEP, Arts. 41–46). The data on the rise in the number of public technical and technological institutes, from 60 in 2005 to 150 in 2018 (Ministry of Education 2019e) is a clear sign of the importance they had regarding public policies linked to changes and developments in the production sector. The goal in this regard is to ensure that each municipality will have at least one technical-technological institute with an offer suitable to the local context and the vocations and productive potential. One particular novelty of the restructured and revitalized higher education system is the recognition of artistic education as an academic discipline. In the past, art was taught at specialized art institutions without authorization to grant official academic degrees. Today, this area of higher education has specific regulations (LASEP, Arts. 47–51), both institutional and academical, and includes artistic training centers, artistic training institutes, and intercultural Bolivian schools. University education (LASEP, Arts. 52–67) is perhaps the most complex area of the higher education system, since it is composed of three areas: public/autonomous universities, private universities, indigenous universities, and special government universities (LASEP, Art. 55). The public and autonomous universities in all nine departments of the country are financed by the state and have regulatory, administrative, and academic autonomy

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(CPE, Art. 92). There are 11 such universities: Universidad Mayor Real y Pontificia de San Francisco Xavier (Chuquisaca), Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (La Paz), Universidad Mayor de San Simón (Cochabamba), Universidad Autónoma Tomás Frías (Potosí), Universidad Técnica de Oruro (Oruro), Universidad Autónoma Gabriel René Moreno (Santa Cruz), Universidad Autónoma Juan Misael Saracho (Tarija), Universidad Autónoma Del Beni “José Ballivián” (Beni), Universidad Nacional “Siglo XX,” Universidad Amazónica de Pando (Pando) y la Universidad Pública de El Alto. Together, they are referred to as the “Universidad Boliviana” (Bolivian University) and are represented by the Comité Ejecutivo de la Universidad Boliviana – CEUB (Executive Committee of the Bolivian University). The second tier is comprised of 40 private universities (Ministry of Education 2016), all operating under the supervision and authorization of the Department of Higher Education for Vocational Training (Ministry of Education 2014a). Some of these private universities are also members of the CEUB, such as the Universidad Católica Boliviana “San Pablo,” Escuela Militar de Ingeniería “Mariscal Antonio José de Sucre,” and Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. Together, they have the highest university enrolment figures. Indigenous universities are decentralized institutes operating under the Ministry of Education that provide vocational training with academic, scientific, cultural, and academic relevance, “aligned to the territoriality and organization of the native indigenous peoples and nations of the Plurinational State” (LASEP, Art. 60). There are currently three indigenous universities active in Bolivia: the Tupak Katari University in the highlands; the Casimiro Huanca University in the valleys; and the Apiaguaiqui Tüpa University in the lowlands. Finally, there are special government universities (LASEP, Arts. 61–63); these are public military and police universities and training centers under the responsibility of the Ministry of Education as regards academic aspects.

2.3.6 Adult Education The SEP has the alternative and special education subsystem dedicated to adult education. Alternative education (LASEP, Arts. 21–24) in Bolivia is divided into two main areas: (1) the education of young people and adults in the form of technical and humanistic education, which offers primary and secondary education to people aged over 15 who did not attend school or who discontinued their schooling and (2) lifelong education offers training and certifies people, organizations, groups, and communities, according to their needs and interests (Table 5). Table 5 Bolivia: Adult Education Enrolment (managements 2005–2008– 2018)

Nivel Primary Secundary Teechnical

2005 29.009 37.665 37.852

2008 30.801 38.597 45.269

2018 8.376 87.416 95.087

Source: Prepared by the author based on data from the Ministry of Education, General Directorate of Planning (2019)

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This subsystem has developed certification processes for labor competencies which recognize and certify the existing knowledge of people; these processes are specialized in production activities or services, prior diagnosis, and complementary training. Likewise, the subsystem has a literacy and post-literacy program that, since 2008, has enabled Bolivia to be declared free from illiteracy, sustain this status to date, and develop programs aimed at helping young people and adults alike to complete the primary education level.

2.4

Human Resources

2.4.1 Teacher Training The more comprehensive and contextualized approach to shaping the curriculum, translated into the MESCP, and the attention to teachers are one of the most distinctive features of today’s Bolivian educational system (Ministry of Education 2017c). This attention to teachers has been characterized by basing changes and transformations on education for teachers, contrary to regional trends that see teachers as the greatest obstacle to changes in education. Bolivia understood that without future teachers and teachers in practice, progress in transformations is inconceivable or it may remain superficial, or temporary. The policy of teacher training is intimately connected to a broader policy of strengthening the teaching profession. In Bolivia, educators are referred to as “maestro/maestro” (teacher), “professor” or “normalista,” regardless of whether they teach in preschool, primary, or secondary school. The guidelines for the policies of strengthening the teaching profession and the policies for teacher training are set out in the Political Constitution of the State (CPE, Art. 96) which recognizes the particularities of the teaching profession and defines it as an exclusive state function. Bolivia is the only country in the region that has demarcated itself from the tendency to delegate initial teacher training to public and private universities, in some cases with public “normales” (higher teacher training schools). In Bolivia, both initial and postgraduate training are in the hands of public institutions directly subordinated to the Ministry of Education. The constitutional guidelines are fundamental to the specific regulations for the teaching profession and for teacher training in the LASEP (LASEP, Arts. 2, VI-VII; 31–40) which enshrine the recognition of the teaching career in law, taking account of its uniqueness and recognizing the responsibility of the state for teacher training, labor, and the union rights of teachers. The policies for strengthening the teaching profession assume the complexity and multidimensionality of educational processes improvement and results achieved through the teacher as a nonexclusive but determining factor. This complexity has led to work on several issues in parallel to improve teacher training as well as working conditions and teaching as a career. Within this framework, various processes have been developed to sustainably increase salaries, for a continuous increase of new hires (increase in teaching staff in public schools) each year (permanent contracts with fiscal resources), and to improve the available infrastructure and provision of equipment not only in schools but also for the

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teachers themselves, providing each teacher with a laptop as a work tool. In recent years, historical debts with large sectors of the teaching profession have been settled, such as unpaid hours, incentives to stay in places of difficult access, as well as other bonuses and the democratization of training opportunities for the universe of teachers. The comparative data show substantial growth in the number of teachers, all with permanent state contracts, which has been reflected in the increase of investment in education, as well as the teachers’ qualification; this has been accompanied by ongoing wage increases over the last decade (Fig. 10). Parallel to the strengthening of the career prospects of teachers and the improvement of working conditions, a teacher training policy has been implemented which is characterized by integral, comprehensive undergraduate training or initial training in the “Escuela Superior de Formación de Maestros” (teacher training colleges) (ESFMs) and academic units; continuous training through the Unidad Especializada de Formación Continua – UNEFCO (Specialized Unit for Continuing Training) and postgraduate training offered by the Pedagogical University (UP). These are intended to guarantee hierarchy, institutionality, and universalize training opportunities for all teachers. Likewise, transitory and complementary training programs have been developed to resolve the lack of permanent training offers from the State for all teachers in the country. All this abundant training offer is under direct supervision of the Ministry of Education through the General Directorate of Teacher Training; public and private universities do not develop training programs for teachers. In initial or undergraduate teacher training, the once prevalent difficulty of having thousands of qualified teachers and not enough jobs, or having jobs for them, but without academic relevance has been overcome thanks to a rigorous planning of selection and training processes, curricula improvement – which includes training in 12 native indigenous languages in addition to Spanish – improvement of training institutions in regulations, infrastructure, and equipment as well as recruitment of new teachers.

Fig. 10 Bolivia: Porcentaje de Incremento Salarial al Profesorado (Fuente: Ministerio de Educación 2015, con base a Decretos Supremos anuales de incremento salarial)

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In addition, participation in short-term courses offered by UNEFCO has grown exponentially both in terms of the diversity of the offered courses and the number of participants (Fig. 11): Postgraduate training for teachers was developed since 2013, with training offered through the Pedagogical University and the Complementary Training Program for Teachers (PROFOCOM-SEP) with as well as other actors working in the plurinational educational system resulting in a sustained increase of the number of teachers with graduate, specialties, and master’s degrees. The preliminary data for 2019 indicates that 26,546 teachers have participated in the various postgraduate training programs. With the mechanisms discussed above, the SEP has developed a robust and sustainable structure for teacher training aligned to the realities of the country with programs that seek to address and rectify, immediately and to the greatest extent possible, deficits in teacher training such as lack of practical experience, academic hierarchy, and academic relevance, with institutions oriented to democratize training opportunities, answering to the needs of the education system, local specificities, and professional and personal projections of teachers. Before 2009, teacher training was a 3-year program granting graduates an academic “technical” teaching degree. Since 2010, the undergraduate course requires 5 years of training for a bachelor’s degree. In this context, it is also necessary to mention PROFOCOM and PROFOCOMSEP, because of their objectives, characteristics, methodologies, and results that have academically massively accredited teachers and as a strategy for the implementation of a new educational model in a short time. More than 90% of teachers have participated and benefited from this program. A short review of this program will be made later.

2.4.2 Other Staff The policies for strengthening the teaching profession and teacher training also touch upon training processes for adult education, lifelong education, and special education, using the same teacher training structure and the same academic principles and levels.

Fig. 11 Bolivia: Participants in UNEFCO continuing training courses (Source: Ministry of Education 2015)

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School management staff, in a new way of thinking and “doing” educational management according to the MESCP, receive training through various qualification offers by the PROFOCOM-SEP and the UP (Ministry of Education 2018c). Similarly, the administrative staff of schools and centers of alternative and special education, such as secretaries, doorkeepers, and regents/trustees, have the option to participate in courses developed and accredited by PROFOCOM-SEP (Ministry of Education 2016b). ESFM teachers, who are in charge of initial teacher training, for their part can obtain further qualifications in the form of a diploma in “Educational Research and Knowledge Production for Initial Teacher Training” (Ministry of Education 2019a). There are even offers aimed at parents and social leaders on educational issues which are developed and certified by the PROFOCOM-SEP (Ministry of Education 2014a). Finally, teaching, managerial, and administrative staff of the educational system are encouraged to participate in short and practice-oriented courses offered by UNEFCO on topics related to the use of ICTs, the development of native indigenous languages, didactic strategies, and aspects of the de-bureaucratization of educational administration.

3

Educational Trends and Highlights

As established by the CPE (Art. 82) and LASEP (Arts. 3 (4, 7 and 8); 4 (6); 7; 16; 17-27; 73), the state provides equitable care and aid to vulnerable populations; in this context, the SEP has invested resources, organizational and operational efforts to ensure that the right to education reaches the entire population. An example of this is having a special department dedicated to young people and adults who did not have access to or who were unable to continue attending school and vocational training, as well as people with disabilities. In the same way, there is a social policy unit whose purpose is to provide assistance to members of the population who are in unusual situations, such as children and adolescents in hospitals, in prisons, in exploitative contexts, working children and adolescents, persons living at riverbanks, or geographically unreachable locations belonging to native indigenous nations and peoples whose languages and cultures are in danger of becoming extinct.

3.1

Inequality

3.1.1 Policies and Programs to Address Inequality The base curriculum – and the corresponding plans and programs – for all subsystems, but especially for regular school education and teacher training includes the constitutional principles of education as a right, with special emphasis on eliminating inequalities of opportunities due to cultural and linguistic differences and the difficulties brought about by socioeconomic differences (access, opportunity to stay in school, graduation, quality of education offers), gender differences, and those of special situations.

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As seen in educational indicators data, access, pupil retention, and graduation rates have all substantially benefitted from programs to improve educational opportunities and conditions. Thanks to the establishment of institutes of languages and cultures, the cultural identities, knowledge, and traditions of indigenous nations and peoples could be better incorporated in the curriculum, and the development and vitality of languages in educational contexts has been gradually and participatorily strengthened. Populations in specific situations of vulnerability were given aid, like communities living on the riverbanks, or in remote areas, or in exploitation conditions (as at 2015, there were 29 communities and 22 municipalities with these characteristics). Persons undergoing treatment in hospitals or incarcerated in prisons are reached through the Centers of Comprehensive Pedagogical Support working in penitentiaries and hospitals, guaranteeing better infrastructure, equipment, and educational staff, with their own specialization, differentiated salaries and special bonuses (Ministry of Education 2015). For a better understanding of the equality policies on the right to education in Bolivia, two highly relevant issues need to be kept in mind: - In previous decades, inequality was a matter left to churches, nongovernmental organizations, and international partnerships. The state has gradually assumed responsibility and began rectifying these issues during the last decade, with its own resources and approaches aligned with the country’s social policies. All cooperation agents coordinate their methods, actions, and financing to the country’s definitions through the Ministry of Education. - Initiatives to promote access, pupil retention, and promotion of regular education levels have been developed with programs to encourage and support the participation of those segments of the population living in situations of socioeconomic, cultural, or linguistic inequality or vulnerability in higher vocational training: teacher training, or technical-technological and university education.

3.1.2 Inclusion/Integration Policies and Programs Inclusive education policies (LASEP, Art. 3, 7) in Bolivia are a part of a broader vision of an inclusive society pursued by the country (CPE, Arts. 8, 14, 70–72) (Table 6). The data show a rise in number of people suffering from a disability who choose to make use of public centers and, in correspondence, an improvement of conditions for providing them with support. Special education centers, as defined by the LASEP Table 6 Bolivia: Special Education: Enrollment, Teaching Personnel, and Educational Centers (managements 2005–2008–2018) Aspects Enrollment Staff Special education centers

2005 3.739 598 78

2008 6.511 671 99

2018 16.004 1.436 181

Source: Prepared by the author based on data from the Ministry of Education, General Directorate of Planning (2019)

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(Art. 27), place direct attention on population segments which require specialized and comprehensive services; but at the same time, staff at these centers also take indirect action to serve people with disabilities in regular schools, raising awareness, and supporting teachers. In addition to specialist staff training for inclusive education for people with disabilities, undergraduate teacher training includes in the curricula of all specialties and levels awareness training and development of skills and abilities to provide assistance to affected students in regular schools.

3.1.3 Challenges and Open Issues The incentivization of highly talented students, although enshrined in the CPE (Art. 82, III) and the LASEP (Arts. 25, I; 26), found no actual implementation in the country’s educational practices, and there are no signs of this field receiving more attention in the future.

3.2

ICT and Digitalization

3.2.1 Policies, Programs, Initiatives, Developments ICT in Bolivia is linked to the linking of education with science and technology policy, the provision of better equipment for educational processes, and less bureaucratic and more transparent management and information systems implementation. The main programs in this area are: • One computer per teacher: From 2011 until 2014, the state provided a laptop to each teacher to improve their work performance as well as the generation and reporting of educational information. In the course of 4 years, 126,723 computers were delivered and smaller proportional amounts are continuously being delivered, according to new teachers’ incorporation into the system (Ministry of Education 2015, 2017). • One computer per student: Once it was ensured that teachers had sufficient laptops, secondary school students were also provided with laptops produced by the state-owned company QUIPUS; these laptops include free software for various areas of knowledge and digital libraries. • Basic training in office applications, teachers’ network, and ICTs for educational practice by level and specialty: These training offers developed by UNEFCO are aimed at helping teachers acquire the skills necessary to properly use laptops provided to them and to aid students to use their laptops (Ministry of Education 2017). • An annual teacher conference called EducaInnova intended to give teachers an opportunity to share experiences in the use of ICTs in educational processes. Since 2014, six workshops were held in which the thousands of

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participating teachers came together to produce a plethora of innovative educational material.

3.2.2 Challenges and Open Issues Even though the physical conditions and motivation for the use of ICT in educational processes can be said to now exist, generational differences in both the willingness and ability to use computers remain a difficulty that has not allowed a more widespread use of these educational tools, regardless of the many training opportunities offered to teachers. The provision of equipment to schools, as well as generalized access to the Internet in educational centers, are other factors that, although they have been addressed by the state to some extent, still need more clearly defined processes and financing mechanisms and programs. Finally, technological dependence, mainly on specific software, produces difficulties for ICT incorporation into each individual context and for a sustainable design of these processes.

3.3

STEM Subjects

3.3.1 Policies, Programs, Initiatives, Developments As mentioned, one of the chief principles guiding Bolivia’s education policy is an orientation to the development of science and technology, and it is on these bases that the conditions for its development have been established in this decade, creating synergies between school and higher education and the Vice Ministry of Science and Technology. This was achieved thanks to several initiatives and programs for the promotion, especially in secondary education, of skills and abilities in areas such as chemistry, physics, biology, and mathematics with a practical orientation (Ministry of Education 2014), as well as the introduction of the annual Scientific Olympics, which has taken place eight times since 2011, and is showing an exponential growth of schools’ and students’ participation rates; this competitive event has encouraged better learning in the areas of astronomy and astrophysics, biology, physics, computer science, mathematics, chemistry, and robotics. 3.3.2 Challenges and Open Issues The articulation of areas as a principle of the curriculum to link educational processes with reality and daily life have generated actions such as the fusion of hours dedicated to the exact sciences, a situation that has recently been corrected with the increase in hours of these areas in the high school plans and programs as well as the massive provision of equipment for updated laboratories, accompanied by training actions for teachers to use these laboratories; this situation created difficulties for teachers due to frequent changes, poor curricular orientation, and lack of support materials in these subjects.

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3.4

Emerging Issues

3.4.1 Key Issues and Actions A series of various interventions have been developed in all educational fields. Some of these interventions are already in the process of completion, once their objectives have been met, while others are still in development. The main interventions or initiatives include: • The Proyecto Socioproductivo (Socio-Productive Project) (PSP) is one of the methodological manifestations of the MESCP, which serves to guide and organize the creation of curricula, especially in school education. Each school defines a specific focus for its PSP according to its environment – neighborhood or community – and the most prevalent problems for that area, for example, garbage, violence, production, health, social networks, etc. This chosen problem area is not only tackled by common actions to be taken by the whole school, each level and teacher carries out their curricular planning around the PSP defined as a starting point for the development of programs and as an arrival point to contribute, in their discipline, to understanding the identified problem and actions for intervening in reality and transforming it. In this way, the integration of different areas and the overcoming of a purely content-focused atomized learning process are achieved. Furthermore, this also allows the students’ environment to enter the school, which contributes to the community (Ministry of Education 2014a, 2016d). • The four dimensions that guide the planning, development, and evaluation of the curricula: the “being,” referring to the values and identity of each student; the “knowledge,” referring to the assimilation of the developed contents; the “doing,” referring to skills and abilities; “deciding,” referring to the personal contribution to the groups and communities to which a student belongs, that is, a student’s place in society. Although the incorporation of these four dimensions in educational practice was met with initial difficulties in its application, the methodology of this application has been optimized, and bureaucratized visions in teaching practice are gradually being done away with, nurturing an understanding and practice of an education apparatus that develops more complex skills than just cognitive and practical skills (Ministry of Education 2014b). • The multigrade modular baccalaureate program launched in 2015 is aimed at remote, isolated communities, mainly in the Amazon area of the country, which only had primary level schools until that point. Due to their remoteness and inaccessibility to larger populations that have secondary schools, students were forced to leave their community to continue secondary education or not be able to access this educational level. Some difficulties in serving this population were the small number of teenagers of secondary school age and the poor living conditions in the communities that meant that the number of teachers required cannot even be partially met. In order to address this situation, a special curriculum and a training program for secondary school teachers already graduated were designed, guiding their specialty and complementing it in four fields of knowledge: “Life, Land, and Territory,” which includes biology, geography, physics, chemistry,

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physical education; “Cosmos and Thought,” which includes spiritual values and religion, cosmovision, philosophy and psychology, as well as musical education; “Community and Society,” which includes social sciences, communication and languages, foreign languages (English), visual and plastic arts; “Science, Technology, and Production,” which includes mathematics, technical education, and general technology. For the implementation of this curricular structure, two teams of four teachers are organized in the beginning of each school year, one team is responsible for the 1st to 3rd grades of secondary school, and the other team for the 4th to 6th grades. The teachers are trained in this modality and are assigned to four relatively close communities. Each teacher remains in the assigned community for 2 months, developing intensively the contents of their field of knowledge and then move on to the next community until completing their work at all four communities. Because of this kind of work and the mobility between communities, these teachers are known as “backpacking teachers.” They receive a set of equipment consisting of digital libraries, laptop, projector, camping equipment (backpack, sleeping bag, tent), first aid kit, and other elements necessary for their work. Within a few years, this modality has reached 120 communities that previously did not have opportunities to take part in secondary education (Ministry of Education 2018b). The importance placed on teacher training as a means for achieving lasting change in the educational system in the last decade has already been discussed above, and although many programs have been launched under this aegis, the Programa de Formación Complementaria para Maestras y Maestros (PROFOCOM) (Complimentary Training Program for Teachers), which is currently in the closing stage, deserves special mention. This program was conceived in the course of the creation of the LASEP (Temporary Provision 5) and implemented since 2012 with two clear objectives: the first, to develop a long-term training process – four semesters – aimed at teachers of regular, alternative, and special education levels for the acquisition of the theoretical and methodological principles behind the new MESCP; the second, to hierarchize the teaching profession and harmonize the teacher training mechanism with the standards of a bachelor’s degree, based on the required 3 years of training in a teacher training institute (referred to as a “normal school” in Bolivia) with the an academic “technical” teaching degree. The program was widely accepted by teachers who participated in great numbers in its four implementation stages, for which an unprecedented academic and operational structure was created, given the number of participants – in 2013 and 2014, PROFOCOM simultaneously served more than 100,000 teachers – as well as a strategy to produce support material oriented to each of the subsystems, levels, and specialties according to the new curriculum. Thus, PROFOCOM alone produced more training texts than the total production of the Ministry of Education throughout its history (Ministry of Education 2014c, 2016d, 2017c). Despite the difficulties of operating a program of these dimensions, PROFOCOM has mostly achieved its objectives and has laid the foundations for a robust and effective teacher training structure (Table 7).

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Table 7 Bolivia: Participating teachers of PROFOCOM by departments and phases Department Chuquisaca La Paz Cochabamba Oruro Potosi Tarija Santa Cruz Beni Pando Total

1st Phase 2.616 12.958 7.362 1.903 4.930 2.864 8.583 1.814 330 43.360

2nd Phase 4.152 18.072 10.284 3.268 6.814 3.097 13.282 3.774 798 63.541

3rd Phase 1.509 7.442 4.944 2.524 2.776 1.058 4.433 817 374 25.877

4th Phase 509 1.094 728 403 470 128 758 139 25 4.254

Special Segment 92 455 134 114 129 96 202 37 33 1.292

Total 8.878 40.021 23.452 8.212 15.119 7.243 27.258 6.581 1.560 138.324

Source: PROFOCOM, Ministry of Education (2019e)

3.4.2 Conclusion An educational system and its development processes must be the coherent answer to the characteristics, needs, and projections of the society reflected in the new political constitution. It must be the “systemic” interlinking within its own internal components and among other societal sectors. To achieve this, and in a very schematic way, there are two paths: the first, the ascription to formulas already implemented in other contexts of structuring the educational system, of curricular development with preestablished models and of evaluation of their quality; this path is faster and is generally tied to conditioning financing that temporarily manages to position an educational system within globalizing parameters relatively quickly. A second path is that of the own construction of both the structuring and generation of conditions for the educational system and the development of the construction of an own educational model and its corresponding curricular orientation. This path is slower and longer since it requires a reading of reality itself, an articulation to the vision of society that is not compatible with the mercantilist and globalizing visions available and offered by various multilateral financial organizations. Parallel to creating educational conditions, the Bolivian state has also created the conditions for educability, such as economic stability, gradual and sustained reduction of poverty rates, political and social stability, standardization of educational offers emphasizing participation, inclusion, and respect for diversity, as well as other aspects. These efforts have resulted in an efficient and effective system which is both equitable and relevant. The arrival at this condition can be seen as a first stage already surpassed and reflected in the general educational indicators. The progress of these indicators is also presented in this chapter, which seeks to position Bolivia in the regional educational context. Today, Bolivia’s educational system is progressing into a second stage. Its focus has shifted to educational processes and their results, characterized by the improvement of the way in which the elements already established in CPE and LASEP are

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implemented, overcoming the initial internal criticisms raised against the MESCP. Such criticism was especially voiced by so-called developmentalist and radical actors that described the curricular orientations as “pachamamist” (based on respect for Mother Earth [“Pachamama”] and so on the values, knowledge, and traditions of native peoples) and “anti-science” because of the emphasis on a return to the knowledge and traditions of original nations and peoples and their inclusion with the “universal knowledge” and as “ideologizing” because of linking the curriculum to reality as a starting point in the educational process and as a goal for its transformation. The operational changes introduced in recent years have better calibrated the emphasis and adaptation of education to the country’s productive vision, beginning a strengthening of the STEM subjects in curricula and programs and the technical productive labor component in the humanistic baccalaureate development. Nevertheless, the Bolivian education system still faces a number of challenges. These mainly pertain to: • Achieving a more complete and efficient linking of education with the labor market based on the productive projection of the country. • Developing systems for evaluating educational achievements consistent with the country’s vision and in congruence with international standards. • Maintaining state educational policies sustainability consistent with the realities of the country and independent of international pressures. While these challenges are anything but minor for the Bolivian education system, the advances made in the generation of educational and educability conditions in Bolivia are undeniable, emphasizing that the period 2008–2019 is truly the “decade of education” in Bolivia. Now that the fundamental elements have been consolidated and the main obstacles have been overcome, attention may change to focus on educational processes and results without first needing to establish the generation of basic viabilities.

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Ministerio de Educación. (2014b). Medios de Enseñanza en el Aprendizaje Comunitario. In Planificación Curricular. La Paz: PROFOCOM, Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio de Educación. (2014c). Revolución Docente para la Revolución Educativa. La Paz: PROFOCOM, Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio de Educación. (2015). Memorias Institucionales. Tomo II 2009 – 2011; Tomo III 2012 – 2014. La Paz: Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio de Educación. (2016a). Memorias Institucionales 2015. La Paz: Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio de Educación. (2016b). Curso Taller de Formación para la Administración en el Modelo Educativo Sociocomunitario Productivo. La Paz: PROFOCOM, Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio de Educación. (2016c). Guía de Universidades del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, 2016. La Paz: Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio de Educación. (2016d). Memoria PROFOCOM-SEP Gestión 2016. La Paz: PROFOCOM, Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio de Educación. (2017a). Memorias Institucionales 2016. La Paz: Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio de Educación. (2017b). Compendio Unidades de Formación – PROFOCOM. Modelo Educativo Sociocomunitario Productivo. Subsistema de Educación Regular. La Paz: Equipo PROFOCOM. Ministerio de Educación. (2017c). Revolución Educativa con Revolución Docente (2nd ed.). La Paz: Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio de Educación. (2018a). Memorias Institucionales 2017. La Paz: Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio de Educación. (2018b). Diplomado en Formación Modular Multigrado en Educación Secundaria Comunitaria Productiva. In Compendio Formativo. La Paz: PROFOCOM, Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio de Educación. (2018c). Especialidad en Gestión Educativa en el Modelo Educativo Sociocomunitario Productivo. In Compendio Formativo. La Paz: PROFOCOM, Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio de Educación. (2019a). Diplomado en Investigación Educativa y Producción de Conocimientos para las Escuelas Superiores de Formación de Maestras y Maestros. PROFOCOM, Ministerio de Educación: La Paz. Ministerio de Educación. (2019b). Educación Inicial en Familia Comunitaria. Programas de Estudio, Etapa Escolarizada. Edición para ESFM. La Paz: Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio de Educación. (2019c). Educación Primaria Comunitaria Vocacional. Programas de Estudio Primero a Sexto Año de Escolaridad. La Paz: Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio de Educación. (2019d). http://olimpiadas.educabolivia.bo/. Last accessed 2 Dec 2019. Ministerio de Educación. (2019e). https://www.minedu.gob.bo/index.php?option¼com_k2& view¼itemlist&layout¼category&task¼category&id¼49&Itemid¼1014. Last accessed 22 Nov 2019. Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo. (2006). Plan Nacional de Desarrollo “Bolivia Digna, Soberana, Productiva y Democrática para Vivir Bien” 2006–2011. La Paz. Unidad de Análisis de Políticas Sociales y Económicas – UDAPE. (2016). La política social en Bolivia. La Paz: Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo. Yáñez, E. (2018). Aproximación a la calidad del empleo en Bolivia (2006–2015). In P. Rodney (Ed.), En Análisis del empleo en Bolivia. Calidad, sector gremial y actores (pp. 25–97). La Paz: Vicepresidencia del Estado Plurinacional.

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The Education System of Brazil: An Overview of History and Politics Wivian Weller and Joa˜o Luiz Horta Neto

Contents 1 Introduction: Historical and Social Foundations of the Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Context and Historical Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Education Reforms During the Military Dictatorship: 1964–1985 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Political Opening and Education Reforms in Recent Decades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The Structure of the Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Preschool Sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Elementary Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Upper Secondary Education (High School) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Vocational Education at the Secondary Education Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Adult Education as Second Chance Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7 Distance Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.8 Education Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.9 Evaluation of Brazilian Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Recent Improvements and Challenges in the Current Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 The National Education Plan: 2014–2024 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Preservice and In-service Teacher Training and Efforts to Establish a Minimum National Salary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Dealing with Inequality in the Education System in Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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W. Weller (*) Faculdade de Educação, Universidade de Brasilia, Brasília, DF, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] J. L. Horta Neto Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira – INEP, Brasília, DF, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_3

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Abstract

Throughout the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, several reforms sought to structure the levels of education aiming to adjust the systems to the different political moments of Brazil. This chapter presents an overview of the development of the Brazilian education system, followed by an analysis of the organization of Brazilian education in the federal, state, and municipal spheres. Specificities of each level of basic and higher education are also discussed based on recent statistical data and on the assessments performed above all by the National Institute for Educational Studies and Research (INEP), a Brazilian government agency. Recent developments are then analyzed such as the implementation of a monitoring system for the goals prescribed in the National Education Plan (2014–2024). One of the remaining challenges is the need to expand the right to education, regarding not only the access and continuation in the education system but also the reduction of inequality in the education system and the right of students not only to learn contents but also to be educated in a human, cultural, and scientific sense. Keywords

Education system · Education reforms · Educational organization · Inequality in education · Brazil

1

Introduction: Historical and Social Foundations of the Education System

A brief overview of the development of the Brazilian system of education is not easy, because it requires the analysis of different historical periods with specific emphases. This analysis involves choosing documents, aspects of legislation, and views of authors about a given period. In this sense, here in this section, we decided to present a general overview based on normative documents that have regulated Brazilian education since colonial times. Considering the need to establish a temporal frame, initially the main developments after the Ministry of Education was established in the 1930s until the 1960s are discussed. The reforms that occurred during the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985 are then analyzed. The last section discusses recent developments since the 1988 Constitution and the reforms implemented in recent decades. (In general, this chapter offers an overview of the Brazilian system of education and its structure. For further details on specific aspects, such as the political-administrative overlap between the federative entities and the sources of funding education, we recommend the article by Célio da Cunha, Denise Damasco and Nelson Vasconcelos and also the article by José Marcelino de Rezende Pinto about published in this work.)

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1.1

215

Context and Historical Development

During the colonial period (1500 to 1822), the Brazilian education system developed by the Jesuits consisted basically of setting up schools, monastery schools, and institutions of higher education that were essentially designed to provide services to the Portuguese Crown and to the leaders of the colonial administration. No significant changes occurred in the education system during the Empire (1822 to 1889), i. e., after Brazilian independence from Portugal. The first Constitution, in 1824, still during the imperial period, only dealt with the payment of education, determining that it should be free for all citizens. However, black people and former slaves who managed to buy their freedom were not considered citizens. Moreover, although education was free, it was not accessible to the poorer strata of the population. Formal education continued to be under the strong influence of the Church and aimed at a minority, specifically at training the leading classes (Freitag 2005; Gondra and Schueler 2008). During the transition period from the Empire to the First Republic (1889 to 1930), the first outlines of a state education policy began to appear, when non-confessional education institutions – especially military higher education schools – were created to train cadres after political independence. Despite the advocacy of free, gratuitous, and lay education to be offered at public schools, the policies to broaden access to basic education did not advance much during this period. The constitution enacted in 1891 made few references to the topic of education and may even be seen as a step backward compared to the previous constitutional text, for instance, when it determined that only literate people were allowed to vote (Niskier 1989). Major changes were to occur only in the 1930s, when the Ministry of Matters of Education and Public Health was created and a new constitution was approved in 1934, which, among other measures, ordered the elaboration of a National Plan of Education that could coordinate and supervise formal education at all levels and in all its branches everywhere in the country. Primary education was introduced as mandatory and free. It was then considered everybody’s right and a duty of the union, the states, and the municipalities with respect to its offer and funding. The 1934 Constitution also prescribed the trend to free education after primary school so that it would be accessible to the less privileged classes who were not able to send their children to private schools. In order to ensure this exemption from payment and that of the subsequent levels, the constitution for the first time stipulated resources to fund primary education equivalent to 10% of the union budget and 20% of that of the states and municipalities. As to secondary education, the reform carried out in 1931 increased the number of years of study from five to seven and divided secondary education into two cycles: a “fundamental” cycle lasting 5 years for general education common to all students and a “complementary” 2-year cycle that was propaedeutic and preparatory to enter higher education (Schwartzman et al. 2000; Dallabrida 2009). The beginning of the 1930s also demarcates the rise of the first universities, which originated from the fusion of already existing faculties and institutes of higher education (until that point there was only one, the University of Rio de Janeiro, founded in 1920). One can see that in Brazil, the universities

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appeared later compared to other countries in Latin America where the Spaniards had settled, such as Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Peru, and Mexico, where there had been universities since the sixteenth century (Wanderley 2003). Attempts by the Jesuits at creating universities already during the colonial period were inhibited both by Portugal, due to its colonization policy, and by the Brazilian elite of the time that chose to send their children to universities in Europe (Fávero 2006). In 1937, a coup d‘état to prevent a new presidential election in the following year and ensure that Getúlio Vargas would continue to be President of the Republic was responsible for instituting an authoritarian period in Brazilian history that lasted until 1945 and became known as the “Estado Novo.” A new constitution was enacted in 1937. It was a counterpoint to the liberal text and to the democratic precepts of the previous Constitution. Education was no longer everyone’s right and a duty of the state. Rather, the duty of educating was assigned to the family, and the duty of contributing directly or indirectly to the education process was assigned to the state. However, as before, mandatory primary education was ensured. This level of education should be free for those who could not pay for it, while families who could afford it were to pay fees for school maintenance. The previously defined source of funding no longer existed. This conception of free public education for the less favored classes also reinforced the idea that prevocational education and vocational training in the phases after elementary school should be offered to these groups. In this sense, new laws were enacted to regulate and broaden the offer of vocational training, also committing industry and commerce to take on responsibilities for the technical training of their workers’ children. However, those schools did not enable students to continue their studies in higher education, thus limiting the possibility of working-class children to rise socially (Freitag 2005). Only from 1942, with the approval of the Organic Act of Industrial Education no. 4.073, holders of vocational diplomas at high school level were granted the possibility of entering a higher education institution, in undergraduate courses directly related to the former professional training. As to the propaedeutic character of secondary education, the reform conceived in 1942 maintained the organization in two cycles instituted in 1931, but the first cycle (called gymnasium) began to be 4 years, and the second cycle, of 3 years, was divided into “classical” and “scientific” options. This reform of the secondary schools strongly emphasized a humanistic education of the classical type (including teaching Latin and Greek), to the detriment of a more technical education, which was delegated to vocational courses for agriculture, industry, and commerce, as well as the teacher training courses to train elementary school teachers (Schwartzman et al. 1984). When the democratic regime returned in 1946, a new constitution was enacted and liberal principles of the 1934 Constitution were reintroduced. The new text took up again the achievements of the former constitution, providing for education as a right for all and determining that it should be given at home and at school. It also reactivated funding at the same level as the 1934 Constitution, 10% of the union and municipal budgets and 20% of those of the states and the federal district. In this democratic liberal spirit, a committee of educators was formed to propose a project

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for the general reform of national education. This draft bill was sent to Congress in November 1948 and debated for 13 years. It was finally approved and transformed into the Act of Guidelines and Foundations of National Education (LDB) after several amendments and substitutions to the original text. Due to the long period of discussion in Congress and the disputes among different interest groups, the LDB did not promote a broad reform of the education system as initially expected. Some important achievements were included in it, such as the unification of the school system, a greater decentralization of the organization of the education systems, and a greater flexibility regarding the organization of the curriculum, allowing the states and municipalities to introduce optional disciplines as a complement to the minimum curriculum required (Romanelli 1978). However, a large part of the Brazilian population was kept out of the formal education process, so that, in practice, education did not become a right for all ensured by the state, nor even for primary education, which had been mandatory since 1934. Data from the 1964 school census, 3 years after the enactment of the LDB, informed that 33.7% of the children and adolescents between 7 and 14 years of age were not at school, i.e., five million did not have schooling, of whom 3.3 million had never entered a school (Romanelli 1978, 181; Freitag 2005, 106).

1.2

Education Reforms During the Military Dictatorship: 1964– 1985

On March 31, 1964, a military coup deposed then President João Goulart, who had been sworn into office in 1961. Regarding education, the military government began to adopt measures to control and discipline the students and workers. During the same period, it instituted the so-called education salary, a tax designed to fund the first 5 years of elementary school. It was collected from businesses, and the amount charged was calculated based on the respective number of employees (Available at https://higher.fnde.gov.br/financiamento/salario-educacao/sobre-o-plano-ou-pro grama/entendendo-o-salario-educacao). The new constitution enacted in 1967 increased the mandatory years of schooling from 4 to 8 years, from the age of 7 to 14, without, however, ensuring budgetary goals that would make this extension feasible in the short term. Only 16 years later, through constitutional amendment, the federal government again earmarked 13% of the union budget and 25% of the municipal, state, and federal district ones for education. The 1967 Constitution also determined that the commercial, industrial, and agricultural enterprises should offer free primary schooling to their employees and respective children, as well as provide, in a regime of cooperation, vocational training to their workers who were minors. During the military dictatorship, free education was limited to the primary school level, but it assured those who showed that they were learning and proved lack of funds that they also would receive free secondary and upper secondary education and higher education, providing for funding through scholarships with later restitution in the case of scholarships for

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higher education. With the possibility of public funding for private institutions by the granting of scholarships at the higher education level, the private sector, which had until then invested mainly in secondary schools, began a strong expansion of its activity in the field of higher education (Freitag 2005). The first years of the military dictatorship were marked by reforms carried out under the influence of international expertise, by means of agreements between the Ministry of Education and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and extended until 1971. The support concerned financial assistance and technical consultancy to the educational agencies, authorities, and institutions, with repercussions at all levels of education, i.e., from elementary schools to universities (Romanelli 1978). In this context, the university reform of 1968, among other aspects, abolished the tenured chair positions, instituted the organization of professors into departments, and introduced the so-called basic cycle for the first year of university education. The reform also created the conditions for the development of less rigorous higher education institutions maintained by the private sector, aiming at the transfer of knowledge rather than at research. The expansion of the private sector sought to expand the meeting of the growing demand for higher education at a lower financial cost (Martins 2009). Although the 1967 Constitution expanded mandatory schooling to 8 years, the restructuring of the education system occurred only with the approval of a new LDB in 1971, which replaced the one sanctioned in 1961. Mandatory elementary schooling with a duration of 8 years was now instituted, by means of joining together the old primary school and junior high. According to Germano (1993), increasing schooling to 8 years meant an expansion of enrollments, but this was not accompanied by sufficient investment in teacher training and school infrastructures. The percentage of lay teachers who only had the same level of schooling equivalent to that which they were teaching increased 5.4% between 1973 and 1983. The situation was worse above all in the Northeastern region of Brazil, where 36% of the teachers only had elementary education in 1981 (Germano 1993, 169). Thus, schooling provided for the great majority of Brazilian students was of a questionable quality, especially in rural areas and in the lower-income urban areas. Among the reforms carried out in the education system during the military dictatorship, the most drastic effects certainly pertained to the reform of high school or upper secondary education. Lasting 3 or 4 years, the curricula were to include a part defined as general studies and another one relating to vocational training, which became mandatory for all students except those who presented specific aptitudes as indicated by teachers and advisors. While, on the one hand, the new LDB eliminated the character of terminality which partially existed in the technical-professional courses until the 1960s and made it difficult for those who finished these courses to continue their studies at a higher education level, it also, theoretically, began to require vocational training for those who traditionally attended preparatory schools to enter universities. The offer of technical education during high school was conceived to meet demands of the work market, but compulsory vocational training did not meet the expected proportions and the necessary quality, which contributed to a devaluation of the vocational training at high school level (Kunzer 2009). In

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1982, Act no. 7,044 made it possible for schools to return to offering only general education. However, the upper secondary education offer with technical training remained until the mid-1990s and was available above all in evening classes and at public schools, since at many schools the morning and afternoon classes were reserved for elementary school education.

1.3

Political Opening and Education Reforms in Recent Decades

The political opening after the end of the military dictatorship in 1985 brought significant changes to all sectors of society. The Federal Constitution approved in 1988, known as the “Citizen Constitution” (Vieira 2007), expanded the rights and resources in the field of education. Education was maintained as everyone’s right and the duty of the state, but also introduced the citizens right to appeal to court if this right was not met. The legal text determines that education is mandatory in the 8 first years of schooling. In 2009, a new constitutional amendment established that school education is mandatory and free from the age of 4 to 17, thus expanding the time taught at school to 14 years. Free education is offered at public establishments at all levels. This includes those children and young people who did not have access to school at the appropriate age. Another important advance achieved with the new constitution is the requirement of a public competitive examination of proof and degrees for teachers to be able to work in the public education systems and the establishment of career plans for professionals in the field of education. Beginning in the 1990s, besides national interests, the reforms also began to respond to international political and economic agendas. In 1996, a new LDB was passed, which consolidated a new structure with orientation for the levels and modalities of school education. It imposed only two levels: basic education and higher education. The concept of basic education was supposed to ensure a common education essential to exercise citizenship and supply means to advance at work and in later studies. This terminology represented “a new, original and broad concept in our law on education, which was the result of many struggles and a great effort by educators who did their best to formalize certain aspirations in law” (Cury 2002, 170). Starting from the etymology of the term “base,” which comes from the Greek, basic education comprises a view of the whole as essential for each stage and was also affirmed as a right (Cury 2002). Over the 1990s and the 2000s, different national parameters and guidelines for the different levels of basic education were elaborated, including General National Curricular Guidelines for Basic Education, National Curricular Guidelines for Pre-school Education, National Curricular Guidelines for Elementary Education, National Curricular Guidelines for Upper Secondary Education, and National Curricular Guidelines for Technical Vocational Education. Regarding the policies of higher education since the 1990s, there are two outstanding moments involving the administrations of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) (1995–2003) and President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (2004–2010). Both were responsible for a great expansion of enrollments, partly correcting the low

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rates of access of the young population to higher education. During the FHC Administration, the enrollments in undergraduate courses, above all because of the increased number of private institutions, were more than three million, a growth of about 67% compared to the 1.8 million enrollments in 1995 (Cunha 2003). Some proposals to reform public higher education during the FHC Administration were rejected by the academic community, since they related the assignment of greater autonomy to the institutions to the responsibility of raising funds on the market to complete their budgets, which were steadily diminishing (Cunha 2003). There was no broad university reform either during the Lula Administration. During this period, the University for All Program (ProUni) became important. It began to grant scholarships to poor students, and incentives and fiscal exemptions were given to private institutions that joined the project. Another program, the Program to Support Plans of Restructuring and Expansion of Federal Universities (Reuni) aiming to expand public higher education was created. Through this program, more than 100 new campuses were created for the already existing federal public universities, and the number of public universities rose from 45 in 2003 to 59 in 2010. During the period from 2011 to 2014 (under the administration of President Dilma Rousseff), another four federal universities were created. In general, Reuni not only expanded enrollments and the creation of new university programs but also drove scientific production in Brazil (de Souza et al. 2015).

2

The Structure of the Education System

Currently, Brazilian education is organized, as determined by the LDB of 1996, at two levels: basic education and higher education. Basic education is subdivided into three regular levels of education: preschool education, elementary education, and upper secondary education. Higher education includes the undergraduate and graduate courses (Table 1). The legislation provided for the existence of modalities of teaching, forms of education that pervade the two levels and serve specific people with their own particular needs. They are the education of young people and adults, special education, and technical and technological vocational education. As to establishing responsibilities, the legislation determined that they are shared among the municipalities, states, and union, and the municipalities must prioritize working with preschool education and elementary education, the states with elementary education and upper secondary education, and the union with higher education. According to 2018 data from the National Institute for Educational Studies and Research (INEP), there are in Brazil almost 184,000 schools for basic education with about 48 million students and more than two million teachers. These data reveal that although about 93% of the children and young people in the mandatory schooling range, between 4 and 17 years of age, are attending school, almost three million are still not attending school. The public sector is responsible for maintaining about 70% of the schools and 81% of the enrollments (INEP 2018). The school calendar comprises 200 schooldays, and the mean daily time at school is 4 h. The progressive expansion to up to 7 h a day by creating full-time schools had been encouraged by

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Table 1 Organization of Brazilian education according to the age of students and stage of education

Doctorate programmes

ISCED 5

Master programmes

education

ISCED 6

Special education

ISCED 5

Tertiary education

Higher

6th grade 5th grade 4th grade Variable duration

3rd grade 2nd grade

Professional education programmes at the technological level

1st grade

17 YO ISCED 3

16 YO

Basic education

15 YO

ISCED 2

Upper secondary education

1st grade

14 YO

9th grade

13 YO

8th grade

12 YO

7th grade

11 YO 10 YO 9 YO ISCED 1

3rd grade 2nd grade

Professional education at the technical level

6th grade Elementary education

5th grade

Youth and adult education

Special education

4th grade

8 YO

3rd grade

7 YO

2nd grade

6 YO

1st grade

4 to 5 YO

Pre-school

0 to 3 YO

Nursery schools

ISCED 0

Source: Elaborated by authors based on UNESCO (2016)

the Ministry of Education since 2010, especially by transferring financial resources to the states and municipalities.

2.1

Preschool Sector

Preschool education is offered at 115,000 schools, where about 590,000 teachers work (INEP 2018). In 2018, about nine million enrollments were recorded. Of this total, the nursery schools or day care centers had 3.6 million enrollments, 93% of

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them offered in the urban area of municipalities, covering 30.3% of the population aged between 0 and 3 years. As to children aged between 4 and 5 years, the first mandatory phase of basic education, preschool covers 5.2 million children, equivalent to 88.3% of the population in this age range, and 87% of the places are located in the urban area. In all, about 700,000 children do not yet attend the first phase of mandatory education, especially due to the lack of places (Fig. 1). In 2009, the range of children aged between 4 and 5 years was included into mandatory education, but the preschool enrollments expand very slowly in the following years as we can see in Fig. 1. This is due to the municipalities being responsible for this phase, and they are in many cases overwhelmed with their obligations, with few resources to invest in increasing the offer of preschools. Beginning in 2007, and more emphatically since 2009, the federal government instituted a specific funding program, called Pro-childhood [Proinfância], for the construction of preschool buildings. But this program has faced two problems: the lack of technical capacity of the municipalities – especially the poorer ones and, thus, those who need the program most – to meet all the legal requirements and the progressive decrease of the amount of resources available for the program.

2.2

Elementary Education

Elementary education is usually divided into two phases: elementary I (from the first to the fifth grade) and elementary II (from the sixth to the ninth grade). The

6.8

6.8

7

4.9

4.7

4.7

7.3

7.6

7.9

8

8.3

8.5

8.7

4.8

4.9

5

5

5

5.1

5.2

3.2

3.6

3

3.4

2.9

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2.1

2.5

1.9

2.3

2.7

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Child education (ISCED 0)

Nursery Schools

Pre-school

Source: INEP (2018). Fig. 1 2009 to 2018: Evolution of enrollments in preschool education, in nursery schools and preschool (in millions of enrollment)

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students are enrolled in the first phase at the age of 6 years. In all, there are 27 million students, enrolled in 128,000 schools, and taught by 513,000 teachers. Elementary I is offered at 62,000 schools, 50% of them belonging to municipal systems and 37% private. As to the 15.2 million enrollments that occurred in 2018, 85% are offered in the urban area, and out of the total enrollments, 68% are in the municipal systems. Thus, although the municipal systems run half the schools in the initial years, they account for almost 70% of the enrollments. The population in the age range between 6 and 10 years is 14.5 million people, less than the total number of enrollments at this phase of education. Therefore, a part of the total enrollments are people older than the ones this phase of education actually targets. This part comprises 1.4 million enrollments, 9% of the total. According to data from the INEP, 20% of the fifth grade students lag at least 2 years behind the age expected for this school year. This lag is exacerbated by the fact that 7% of the total of students fail or drop out at some point in their school life (INEP 2018). Elementary II is offered at 62,000 schools, equally distributed among the municipal, state, and private systems. Regarding the 12 million enrollments in 2018, 88% were offered in the urban area, and of the total registrations, 84% are in the public systems, half at municipal schools and the other half at state schools. Thus, although the private schools represent a third of the total number of schools, they account for only 16% of the total enrollments. The population in the age range between 11 and 14 years is 11.2 million people, less than the total number of enrollments in this phase of education. Therefore, part of the total enrollments pertains to people who do not belong in that age range. This, also in 2018, comprises 800,000 enrollments, 7% of the total. According to data from the INEP (2018), 24% of the ninth grade students are at least 2 years behind in relation to the age expected for this school year. A major contribution to this lag is that 13% of the total of students fail or drop out at some point in their school life.

2.3

Upper Secondary Education (High School)

Accessible to those who finished elementary education, in 2018, approximately 7.7 million students were enrolled in upper secondary schools, 1.5 million of whom are students above the age range considered appropriate, viz., from 15 to 17 years (INEP 2018). Since the population in this age range is 9.6 million people, more than three million students are out of school, which means that only 64% of this age group attend high school, which is the lowest percentage of the three levels of basic education. Upper secondary education is offered at 29,000 schools, 84% of them belonging to the state systems, where 513, 000 teachers work. Out of the total number of enrollments, almost 100% are in the urban area. 28% of the students enrolled are 2 or more years older than the usual age range, and the rate of those who repeated the school year or dropped out in 2018 is 19%, also the highest ratio among the three levels of basic education.

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Recently, the passing of Act No. 13,415 on February 16, 2017, led to intense debates regarding the draft bill, which began to be called new upper secondary education (Cunha 2017; Motta and Frigotto 2017). In general, the Act proposes the expansion of the annual workload to 1,400 h over 200 school days, to be implemented progressively by the states and federal district, the adoption of a Basic National Common Curriculum (Base Nacional Comum Curricular) with at most 1,800 h of the total workload of secondary education (approved in December 2018), and the student’s choice of an educational path in the following fields: (I) languages and their technologies, (II) Mathematics and its technologies, (III) Sciences of Nature and their technologies, (IV) Humanities and Applied Social Sciences, and (V) technical and vocational education. The Act also leaves the organization and offer of these paths to the discretion of the state education systems. This flexibilization may lead some schools to offer a single educational path that could be taught in modules and through agreements with institutions of distant education. This reform bears the risk of increasing the inequalities that exist between private schools located in the central regions and public schools located in urban low-income areas and in the rural areas.

2.4

Vocational Education at the Secondary Education Level

Vocational education at the secondary education level can take place at the same time as regular education or after finishing it. The certificates offered by the schools that provide both regular secondary education and technical education allow people to apply for places in higher education. Due to the initial conception developed at the beginning of the last century, according to which these schools aim at less favored students (Kuenzer 2009), the certificates of this modality, even today, are usually less valued by Brazilian society, so that vocational education is less sought-after by young people. Currently vocational education at the secondary education level comprises 1.9 million students enrolled at 7,000 schools where 129,000 teachers work (INEP 2018). Out of the total enrollments, one million involve schools that offer secondary education integrated with vocational education, and 900,000 involve education after the end of regular secondary school. Almost 100% of the schools are in urban areas and 58% of them are public. Of these, 70% belong to the state systems and 30% to the federal system. This significant number of schools connected to the federal system, when compared to the nonparticipation of this system in regular education, is related to the effort undertaken by the federal government since 2003 to expand the offer of vocational education (Manfredi 2016). Because the schools in the federal system have more funds and pay their teachers much better, compared to other systems of education, many middle-class families ultimately choose to enroll their children in these schools. Since the number of candidates is greater than the number of places, there is a selection process. These factors together, more resources, better paid and trained teachers, and selection of students, mean that the young people enrolled in these schools do better than

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the students of the public state schools and of the vast majority of private schools, so that there is a growing demand for places. Thus, almost all of these students from the federal schools ultimately do not work as technicians but seek places at the best universities in order to continue their studies.

2.5

Adult Education as Second Chance Education

Education of young people and adults is considered a second chance, ensuring access to schooling for those who were not able to attend school at the right age. In this sense, starting from given ages (minimum 15 years for elementary school and 18 years for upper secondary school), students are given an opportunity to obtain a certificate of conclusion of basic education in a shorter time but with the same value as the regular certificate, thus allowing them to continue studying. According to data from the INEP (2018), this level serves about 3.6 million young people and adults at 31,000 schools where 245,000 teachers work. 93% of these schools are public and 66% are located in urban areas. Despite the large number of schools in the rural area – one third of the total number of schools – they account for only 5% of the total number of enrollments. This shows that the Brazilian rural area is marked by long distances and low population density. As to continued education as conceived above all in European countries, the LDB highlights the guarantee of the right to education and to lifelong learning. However, this only reflects levels of basic education. In this sense, there are no schools for adults offering continuing education. The few opportunities for continued education are limited to several short-duration courses offered by private institutions or organizations of civil society.

2.6

Higher Education

As already mentioned, while in other Latin American countries the first universities were established in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in Brazil, the first institutions of higher education were only created in 1808 and the first universities in the 1920s and 1930s. Neves and Martins (2016) point out nine characteristics of the current system of higher education. Among other aspects, the authors mention that the academic quality differs between public and private institutions and even within them, and that the funding model compromises the expansion of enrollment, since the poorer have difficulty in rising to this level of education. In tertiary education, there are almost 2,500 institutions that offer slightly over 35,000 undergraduate courses and have eight million enrollments and 392,000 lectures or professors working in them. Contrary to basic education, in higher education, the private sector accounts for 75% of the enrollments, which are distributed throughout 88% of the institutions. Women occupy 59% of the places (INEP 2018).

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At most public institutions, the degree courses are scheduled at daytime, while at the private ones, they are offered in the evening to serve mainly the lower-income people who need to work to support themselves. 4.2 million students aged between 18 and 24 years are enrolled, compared with the population in this same age group, 24.1 million people, e.g., the net rate of enrollment is 17.4%. For comparative purposes, in Argentina, Mexico, and Chile, these same rates are, respectively, equal to 18%, 23%, and 30% (OECD 2018a). Concerning the technological vocational courses at the tertiary level, most of them have a duration of 3 years. In all, 7000 degree courses are offered, 83% of them at private institutions. The total number of enrollments is one million, 83.5% of them also at private institutions.

2.7

Distance Education

As the use of information and communication technologies has been growing in recent times, distance education received a great impulse beginning in the 1990s. An important milestone was the creation of the Open University of Brazil (UAB), in 2005, which instituted the offer of distance undergraduate courses at public universities (Zuin 2006). These policies significantly raised the number of enrollments in distance undergraduate courses, especially at private higher education institutions. Just to give an idea of size, in 2007, there were 30,000 enrollments, and in 10 years, that number had grown to 1.7 million, 91% of which at private institutions. Although 2,108 distance undergraduate degrees are offered throughout the country, which represents 6% of the total, distance education currently accounts for 22% of the enrollments in higher education (INEP 2018). In 2018, the offer of distance master’s and doctorate programs was also regulated. Despite the fact that online undergraduate courses are responsible for the highest numbers in terms of enrollments, the offer of distance studies in the sphere of vocational training and education of young people and adults has also grown. Whereas the school census of 2007 did not count the number of students enrolled in these modalities, in 2018, about 425,000 enrollments were recorded, among which 294,000 in vocational courses and 131,000 in adult education as a second chance modality. The offer of blended courses – i.e., courses offered partly in the distance modality – has also increased considerably. At the higher education institutions, up to 40% of the workload of face-to-face courses could be offered in the distance modality. Higher education courses in the semi-face-to-face modality have been offered mainly at private institutions, which can in this way reduce costs of hiring professors and charge lower monthly fees from students. The new Curriculum Guidelines for Upper Secondary Education, approved by the National Council of Education in 2018, determine that upper secondary schools can offer up to 20% of the workload in the distance modality, and this can be expanded to 30% in schools that have evening courses. According to the guidelines, up to 80% of the workload in adult education as a second chance can be taught from a distance.

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227

Education Funding

Two mechanisms are used for the funding of public basic education, i.e., firstly the compulsory allocation of a minimum percentage of the budgets of the entities of the federation (18% for the union and 25% for the states, federal districts, and municipalities) to maintain and develop education. At the level of each state of the country, funds are allocated on the basis of an accountancy fund that gathers the amounts that the municipal and state governments must invest in education and redistributes them within each state according to the number of students enrolled in the education system. Thus, the wealthier municipalities help fund the education of the poorer ones. In addition, to reduce the regional inequalities, annually the union establishes a minimum expenditure per student that must be reached. When, within each state, the resources of the state and municipal governments that should be invested in education are not sufficient, the union provides funds up to the limit of the minimum expenditure per student, and this resource is passed on to each system according to the number of students enrolled. To fund public higher education, the Ministry of Education uses 65% of the total of the 18% share of the union budget that must be applied to education. Therefore, there is a mismatch in terms of funds: while the union, which is more powerful in terms of funds collected, invests more in higher education, the municipalities, which are the weakest link in the tax collection chain, invest in elementary education, which covers a far greater number of students. The states have a slightly greater fundraising power than the municipalities but inferior to the union’s capacity. The social movements in Brazil have struggled for many years for laws to urge the union to increase its participation in funding basic education. In 2018, Brazil spent 5.5% of the GDP on education (INEP 2018). Of this total, the shares of the federal government, state governments, and federal district and municipal governments were, respectively, 28.6%, 31.7%, and 37.2%. (For more information on this topic, see Marcelino’s ▶ Chap. 11, “The Education System of Brazil: Financing of Education in Brazil,” in this book.)

2.9

Evaluation of Brazilian Education

The federal government has a set of tools to evaluate Brazilian education, almost all of which were developed in the 1990s and later. It also participates in international evaluations. The first of these tools is the National Basic Education Assessment System (SAEB), instituted in 1988 based on a pilot project, which has administered cognitive ability tests to students as well as questionnaires to students, teachers, and school principals every 2 years since 1990. Initially intended to assess various dimensions of the quality of education, where the students’ performance in the tests was only one among various measures that produced different indicators, gradually SAEB focused on cognitive tests of Mathematics and Reading in Portuguese Language applied to the fifth and ninth

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grade students of elementary education and to the third grade students of upper secondary education and on the questionnaires that explore the learning contexts. In 2005, the previously sampling-based administration was transferred to all schools that had at least 20 students enrolled in the school grade that was to be evaluated, which also increased the complexity of implementation. Results could thus be presented by school, enabling the comparison – according to the official discourse – of the performance of schools and allowing parents and society to pressurize schools for better results (Fernandes 2017), which is questioned by various specialists (de Freitas 2013; Horta Neto 2018). In fact, from 2005 onward, the accountability policies en vogue especially in the USA were given great importance in Brazil. With this new set of data, the INEP developed the Basic Education Development Index (IDEB), grouping in a single indicator the rate of approval of the students and their performance in the SAEB tests. The results are expressed in values that vary between zero and ten, an easy way to communicate with society (Fernandes 2007). Once the indicator had been elaborated, the Ministry of Education established as national goals IDEB values equal to 6.0 for the fifth grade of elementary school, 5.5 for the ninth grade of elementary school, and 5.2 for the third grade of secondary school. In order to implement this indicator, the INEP – based only on in-house studies, without consulting any entity of the federation – instituted individual goals that each school should achieve every 2 years from 2007 to 2021. Despite its strict definition of quality in education, this indicator rather became the only indicator to measure the quality of Brazilian education (Horta Neto 2013). To contribute even further to its rootedness, IDEB was then used by the Ministry of Education as a criterion for transfers of funds to schools and municipalities and for the analysis of the efficacy of the federal government programs. At the same time, as the federal assessment began to be census-based and IDEB began to be acknowledged as the indicator of educational quality in Brazil, the number of assessments produced by the subnational entities increased. Thus, 80% of the states and more than 30% of the municipalities developed their own assessment systems, basically reproducing the federal model. Studies have indicated that one of the reasons for this increase in the number of assessments is a greater concern about how the students are prepared for SAEB and, consequently, improving the IDEB grades (Horta Neto 2018). The second tool is the National Exam of Upper Secondary Education (ENEM), created in 1998 to be a self-assessment of students who finished secondary school, and therefore their participation was voluntary. The exam was set annually, and its results were expressed based on the quantity of correct answers in the items of Mathematics, Portuguese Language (including composition), Nature Sciences, and Human Sciences. In 2009, the Ministry of Education decided to transform it into an exam to enter higher education institutions, and the test took 10.5 h over 2 days. The ENEM was then also used as a criterion to select students interested in receiving funding from the federal government to pay the monthly fee at private institutions of higher education and also as a certificate of secondary school completion. From 2009 onward, student participation in ENEM grew, reaching 8.7 million in 2014.

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When the use of the ENEM as certification for finishing secondary education was withdrawn, the number of candidates enrolled in 2018 fell to 5.5 million. But even so, the ENEM is considered the second largest exam in the world after the Gaokao in China. Another aspect that should be underscored concerns the possibility of people with a disability to take the ENEM according to their needs. The following resources are offered: help of a reader and transcriber or test in braille for the blind, video test for the deaf, and magnified or super-magnified test for those with visual problems. In order to have access to these resources, the candidates only need to indicate their need at the time they register for the exam. Other important social actions were the possibility of using the social name to meet the needs of transvestites and transsexuals and of applying the test to people who are deprived of freedom, i.e., those who are in prison. Besides these tools, Brazil has often participated in two international assessments. The first of them is the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), organized by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCDE). According to the federal government, the two main objectives of this participation are to have an international reference regarding the students’ performance, besides local measures, and to have appropriate methodologies and technology for educational assessment that will help develop the national assessments (INEP 2009). Compared to other countries that participate in PISA, Brazil is outstanding because it has a high rate of repeated school years, and that is one of the factors that influence the low performance of Brazilian students. However, results obtained in 2012 led the OECD to underscore that between 2003 and 2012, the country was the one that advanced most in proficiency in Mathematics. In the light of this, the Brazilian government proposed that the country should be considered a “model to be followed for countries with high school backwardness rates and that still face the challenge of the inclusion of students in the school system” (INEP 2012, 14). However, in the 2015 cycle, the results in this area regressed to the level of 9 years ago, and there was no comment that explained this step backward (Ministério da Educação 2016). This episode shows to what extent the discussions about performance in the tests have been marked by superficial analyses that do not reflect the true situation of education. The other program in which Brazil has participated regularly are assessments produced by the Latin American Laboratory for Assessment of the Quality of Education (LLECE), coordinated by the UNESCO through the Regional Workshop of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC), which has its headquarters in Santiago do Chile. So far, three studies have been conducted in 1997, 2006, and 2013 in the fields of Mathematics, Reading, and Sciences. In this test, Brazilian performance equated the average of other countries (UNESCO 2001, 2008, 2016). Higher education is also evaluated in Brazil. This assessment began in 1976 and was gradually modified. Since 2004, when the National Higher Education Assessment System (SINAES) was created, the same format has been used (INEP

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2003). Students’ performance is measured in a cognitive test developed according to the knowledge required for each undergraduate course. Besides, each institution makes a self-assessment, and an assessment is conducted by an external committee designated by the Ministry of Education. This committee is to take into account the self-assessment; the assessments of the courses produced by specialists; the results of the cognitive test; the assessment of graduate study programs – if they exist within the sphere of the institution; as well as the analysis of a set of performance indicators that are produced by the Ministry. Based on these tools, a series of quality indicators are produced that are used both for assessment and for the regulation of institutions, with the problems inherent to these two functions. If these indicators point at an insufficient grade, the course and the institution can suffer sanctions that may go all the way to removing its accreditation. Even so, a recent study conducted by the OECD showed a series of limitations in the indicators produced (OECD 2018b).

3

Recent Improvements and Challenges in the Current Education System

As regards the guarantee of the right to education for all, Brazil has advanced significantly since the enactment of the 1988 Constitution (da Cunha 2016). One of the main challenges currently faced by Brazilian education is precisely the difficulty to maintain these rights, involving the execution of guidelines and norms with the respective educational goals to be achieved. We list the main aspects for a more detailed presentation and discussion in this section.

3.1

The National Education Plan: 2014–2024

For a long time, Brazilian society and especially teachers have insisted on the need to institute a national plan for education involving clear objectives as well as goals to be met by the entities of the federation and determining the origin of the resources needed to fulfill them. The first attempt to implant a plan occurred in the Constitutional Assembly of 1823, 1 year after the independence of Brazil from Portugal was proclaimed. This initiative did not succeed and was reduced a few years later to a very simplified law that determined the decentralization of elementary education for the provinces, as the states were known at that time, and obliged schools to be created in all localities of the country, at elementary, secondary, and teacher training levels (Cury 2011). The topic was discussed again in the 1930s when a group of thinkers concerned about education in Brazil disseminated a text that became known as the Manifesto of the Pioneers of New Education (Cury and da Cunha 2015). Soon after this, the Brazilian Constitution of 1934 established that it would be the competency of the union to work out a national plan of education and that it should coordinate and supervise its execution throughout the national territory and determined the

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elaboration of specific legislation. This legislation provided in the constitutional text was not elaborated. When the first LDB was published in 1961, a plan for education was projected. This task was implemented the next year by the Federal Council of Education, a normative body linked to the Ministry of Education (Saviani 2010). With the military coup of 1964, this plan was abandoned. Following redemocratization, a new constitution was enacted in 1988. Here again, there is mention of a plan of education, indicating that its purpose would be to articulate a national system of education in a collaborative regime with the three entities of the federation (national, state, and municipal), in order to, among others, eradicate illiteracy, universalize school attendance, improve the quality of teaching, and establish aims to apply public funds as a proportion of the GDP. The constitutional determination was only fulfilled in 2001, when the first National Education Plan (PNE) was approved for the period of 2001–2010. The plan approved by Congress defined 295 objectives and goals (Dourado 2010) (The PNE for 2001– 2010, Act No. 10,172 of January 9, 2001, is available at http://higher.planalto.gov. br/ccivil_03/LEIS/LEIS_2001/L10172.htm). The second plan was submitted in late 2010, almost at the end of the life of the first one. It was very slowly discussed in Congress and was only approved in 2014, for the period of 2014 to 2024. In all, 20 goals – a considerable reduction compared to the previous plan – and 254 strategies were stipulated that determine the paths that should be taken to achieve the goals (The PNE in force until 2014, Act No. 11,005 of January 25, 2014, can be consulted at http://higher. planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2011-2014/2014/Lei/L13005.htm). As to funding education, which is one of the bottlenecks pointed out in the previous plan, the current one established that the investment of the GDP in education should amount to 7% of the GDP up to the 5th year of its existence and 10% of the GDP in the 10th year. By legal determination, the INEP is responsible for following up the implementation of the goals and has already published the report regarding the fifth year of implementation of this PNE. Based on this report, Table 2 was designed to show some of the goals for 2024 established in the plan and the situation as of 2017. Only the third goal, which determines that 100% of the population aged 6 to 14 years be enrolled at school, is very close to being achieved. All the others are at high risk of not being achieved until the end of 2024. Since Brazil is a very unequal country, it is the lowest stratum of the population that finds it most difficult to achieve the stipulated goals. Among the main reasons for the likelihood that the goals will not be met is the serious economic crisis that has ravaged the country since 2015, affecting mainly the poorest strata of the population, and the difficulty to coordinate efforts involving the various entities of the federation. It should also be underscored that achieving the Plan goals depends on the availability of funds. As showed in Table 2, the value of 5.5% of the GDP applied to education in 2017 is less than the goal determined for 2015, equivalent to 7% of the GDP, and far from the planned goal of 10% of the GDP in 2020 will be achieved.

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Table 2 Some of the goals determined in the National Plan of Education and the situation of their implementation in 2017 and among the poorest and wealthiest quintiles of the population

Goal for 2024 50% of the population aged up to 3 years in school 100% of the population aged between 4 and 5 years in school 100% of the population aged between 6 and14 years in school 95% of the population aged 16 years with completed elementary education 100% of the population aged 15 to 17 years in school 85% of the population aged between 15 and 17 years are enrolled in secondary school or have finished this stage of education 25% of the enrollments in basic education offered at full-time public schools 12 years of average schooling for the population between the ages of 18 and 29 years 100% of the population aged over 15 years literate 50% of the population aged 18 to 24 years in higher education 50% of the teachers of basic education with graduate studies Investment of 7% of the GDP up to 2015 and reaching 10% in 2020

Current situation (2017) 20% 20% Total poorest wealthiest 32% 22% 48% 92% 89% 96% 98% 97% 99% 76% 63% 93% 91% 70%

81% 53%

95% 88%

17%

–

–

10.2 years 93% 35% 36% 5,5%

8.4 years 88% – – –

12.2 years 98% – – –

Source: INEP 2018

3.2

Preservice and In-service Teacher Training and Efforts to Establish a Minimum National Salary

The preservice training of teachers for preschool education and primary school occurred over the twentieth century mainly at high school-level teacher training schools. In other words, no higher education was required from the professionals responsible for beginning the children’s schooling. When the National Curriculum Guidelines for the Undergraduate Degree in Pedagogy were approved in 2006, the preservice training of teachers was integrated to the teacher certification degree in Pedagogy and the old normal schools ceased to exist. For higher education training, the workload of the degree was increased to 3,200 h, usually distributed throughout 4 years of study. But besides being trained to teach, students of the Pedagogy degrees must be prepared to work in other fields, both within school and nonschool education. This expanded, and excessively theoretical training, according to some specialists, has been criticized in recent years, and the poor results in the assessments of the learning of Portuguese, Sciences, and Mathematics are usually attributed to the preservice training of the teachers (Gatti and Nunes 2009; Barbosa 2011). However, the challenges regarding preservice training are not only related to the curriculum of the Pedagogy degree, but above all to the disparities between the institutions that offer this training. In recent decades, there has been a remarkable expansion of the Pedagogy degrees at private institutions, both in the face-to-face

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modality and distance education, whose quality in terms of training and preparation for the teaching career is questionable (Schwartzman 2004). As to the preservice training of teachers for secondary school, the pedagogical certification as teachers usually occurs concomitantly with the bachelor’s degree in the respective discipline, so that the students can choose a double degree, for instance, bachelor and certified teacher in Mathematics. The most recurrent criticism regarding the preservice training of teachers who will teach from the 6th grade onward involves the fact that greater weight is attributed to the bachelor’s degree, emphasizing the specific contents of the field of knowledge, and little investment is made in the didacticpedagogical training that should be part of the teacher certification courses (Gatti and Nunes 2009; Gatti et al. 2019). A specific preparation aimed at the students and social milieus for which these teachers are going to work is also not offered. In 2015, new national curriculum guidelines were approved for the preservice training and in-service training of professionals for basic education which were meant to consolidate a national policy of teacher training and to provide greater organicity and institutionalization of the teacher certification courses (Dourado 2015). The new guidelines determined, among other aspects, that the preservice training should be offered preferably in face-to-face form, with high academic, scientific, technological, and cultural standards. Also, a minimum of 3,200 h was established for degrees with a minimum duration of eight semesters or 4 years. It was also determined that the training should offer 400 h of practical activities, 400 h dedicated to supervised internship, at least 2,200 h dedicated to core activities, and 200 h of activities designed to acquire a deeper knowledge in the students’ specific fields of interest. Seeking to respond to the most recurrent criticism regarding the Pedagogy degrees, the Resolution provides that in these courses, the time dedicated to the constitution of knowledge regarding the teaching subjects should preponderate. As to the other teacher certification courses for the secondary education, which are criticized because they offer insufficient didactic-pedagogical training, the Resolution stipulates that the time dedicated to the pedagogical dimensions should not be less than one fifth of the total workload, thus establishing at least 640 h of activities aimed specifically at training the teacher. In order to supply the need for teachers, especially in the disciplines of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, the Resolution also establishes guidelines for those who already have a bachelor’s degree and wish to complement this education by means of a teacher certification course and also for those who already have a certificate in one discipline and wish to acquire training in another field of knowledge. Guidance is also offered regarding inservice training, which should cover core activities such as update courses, extension, further training, specialization, master’s degrees, and doctorates that add new knowledge and practices, articulated to the policies and management of education, to the field of action of the professionals and to the institutions of basic education. As regards the enhancement of the value and professionalization of the teachers’ work, the LDB of 1996 ensures career plans, entry exclusively by public competitive exams, leaves of absence for continued professional improvement, minimum wage, functional advancement based on degrees or qualification and on the assessment of performance, time for teaching-related activities outside of the classroom, and

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adequate working conditions. Although provided in the LDB, the guarantee of a minimum wage at a national level only began to be implemented in 2008 when it was instituted by law the National Professional Minimum Wage (PSPN) for teachers of basic education in public schools. The Act also limited the workload to perform direct activities with the students to a maximum of 2/3 (two thirds), ensuring that the teachers have at least 33% of their time for study and preparation of their teaching activities and other attributions of everyday school life. Considering the economic limitations of some states and municipalities, it was also established that the union would be responsible for complementing the salaries in the cases where a federal entity does not have funds to comply with the established amount. The minimum salary is updated annually in January. (In January 2020, the minimum monthly wage was readjusted to R$ 2,886.15, ca. 680.00 USD, according to the exchange rate on the respective date.) Despite the improvements in the wages, the efforts were not sufficient to enhance the value of the profession at a national level. The career plans and salaries are determined by the states and municipalities, so that there are significant differences that generate inequalities within the system of education as a whole (Masson 2016). The 2018 report, Education at a Glance, in which the remuneration of the teachers of basic education was evaluated, pointed out that Brazil was in the last position among the 40 countries (OECD 2018a). The low social prestige given to teachers in basic education, the lack of career incentives, the working conditions, and also the lower wage compared to other professionals who have a higher education have rendered the profession less attractive for young people who enjoy better opportunities at the time they choose their higher education majors. Many people who enter the teacher certification degrees had a below average performance during secondary school and in the exams to enter higher education. In this sense, they also present gaps that will not always be filled during their undergraduate studies. One of the goals established in the National Education Plan prescribes rendering the teachers’ wages equal to those of other professionals with a higher education by 2020.

3.3

Dealing with Inequality in the Education System in Brazil

Although the country has not achieved many of the goals established in the National Education Plans, as discussed previously, it is important to acknowledge the advances and improvements achieved with the expansion of access to basic and higher education in the last few decades, according to indicators produced since the beginning of the 2000s. As reported by Paixão (2008), aspects resulting from profound racial and social inequalities that interfered in the appropriation of knowledge were significantly altered when access to basic education was provided for the entire population. At the same time, as Brazil universalized access to basic education, a set of policies to fight poverty and reduce social inequalities became part of the agenda of the federal, state, and municipal administrations in a more organic and systematic manner. These programs sought to attach the benefits they granted to school attendance and participation in vocational training programs. Among the

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programs with the greatest outreach and visibility is the Family Grant [Bolsa Família], currently considered the largest conditional cash transfer in the world (Morais de Sa e Silva 2015). The turn of the century also meant an increase of actions and debates regarding the need for educational policies to promote gender equality, overcome ethnic-racial and regional inequalities, and fight racism and prejudice against blacks, homosexuals, and other identity groups, as well as the need for public policies for adolescents and young people in a situation of vulnerability. The path chosen by the political representatives to insert demands of civil society in the guidelines of education was to create forums and councils constituted by representatives of government and social movements, as well as organizing municipal, state, and national conferences which led to elaborating proposals for the fields of education, health, culture, security, and others. Specific agencies created during this period, such as the Offices of Policies for Women, of Promotion of Racial Equality, and of Human Rights in the federal, state, and municipal spheres, were a major effort to develop policies and programs that could effectively contribute to reducing gender, ethnic-racial, and class inequalities that have an impact on the education system (Weller 2010). However, currently there is no clarity regarding the continuity of these policies and respective programs. Besides difficulties in the implementation of these policies inherent to a large country like Brazil, the constraints regarding budgets and trained and available personnel, these inclusive programs supported by past administrations also produced tensions, resistance, and movements against them which began to interfere in the public sphere aiming to inhibit the rights achieved (Bassalo et al. 2018). Among the measures implemented to reduce inequalities related to the educational opportunities offered to the Brazilian children and young people and also to adjust distortions produced within the system of education itself, the implementation of affirmative actions at public universities is the most advanced and audacious program ever carried out in Brazil. As a result of intense debates and the acknowledgment that it was necessary to create conditions for those who had been historically excluded from the higher levels of education and professional training, racial and social quotas were implemented from 2000 onwards (Piovesan 2008; Schwartzman and da Silva 2012). The State of Rio de Janeiro stipulated by law that 50% of the places, known as social quotas, at state universities would be reserved for students from public schools. In 2003, the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) was the pioneer in the country to adopt a system of quotas. The first university to adopt racial quotas, specifically for students who self-declared as black or pardo, was the University of Brasília (UnB), which began to reserve 20% of the places for this population group, regardless of whether they had attended public or private schools, in 2004. In subsequent years, various public federal and state universities began to implement racial or social quotas or both. The percentage of places made available by means of affirmative actions differed from university to university, since they were free to manage their own selection systems to enter higher education. By the Act No. 12,711, passed in 2012, the reservation of places at the 59 federal universities and at the 38 federal institutes of education for students from

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public secondary schools was raised to 50%, and the other 50% of the places were subject to general competition. The Act also determined that the universities could implement the quotas gradually, beginning with 25% in 2013 and reaching 50% after 4 years. Each educational institution should also establish a percentage of places for students who self-declare black, pardo, and indigenous in a proportion that is at least equal to the percentage of blacks, pardos, and indigenous people in the population of the unit of the federation where the institution is located. This percentage is calculated according to the latest census of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). In 2016, a new draft introduced by Act No. 13,409 changed paragraph 5 of the previous Act and extended the reservation of places also to people with disabilities. The Act published in 2012 also determined that the Executive Power should review the program of affirmative actions within 10 years from the date of publication. Thus, the current government, sworn in on January 1, 2019, will be responsible for deliberating on the decision to continue affirmative actions at the Brazilian universities.

4

Conclusions

This chapter provides an overview of the development of the Brazilian education system, especially after the foundation of the Ministry of Education in 1930 and the elaboration of a National Plan of Education. Primary education was then introduced as mandatory and considered everybody’s right and compulsory responsibility of the federal government, the states, and the municipalities. The 1930s also demarcate the rise of the first universities that appeared late compared to other countries in Latin America. In the following decades, some efforts were made to regulate and broaden the offer of vocational training, also driving industry and commerce to take on responsibilities for the technical training. During the military dictatorship, in 1967, mandatory schooling was expanded to 8 years, but this was not accompanied by sufficient investment in teacher training and the structure of the schools. However, until the 1980s, a large part of the Brazilian population was kept out of the formal education process, so that, in practice, education did not become a right for all ensured by the state. The political opening after the end of the military dictatorship in 1985 brought significant changes to all sectors of society. In 1996, a new law was passed, which consolidated a new structure with only two levels of education: basic education and higher education. In 2009, a new constitutional amendment established that school education is mandatory and free from the age of 4 to 17, thus expanding the time students spend in school to 14 years. Besides national interests, the education reforms from the 1990s also began to respond to international political and economic agendas. In this regard, we described the implementation of a rigorous evaluation system in basic and higher education. Based on accountability policies, measures in cognitive tests have been much more privileged by this system than other forms of evaluation focused on the educational process as a whole. Improvements achieved through measurement are still far from

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living up to the challenges that Brazilian education has to face to guarantee its quality. For instance, there remains a need to expand the right to education, regarding not only the access and continuation in the education system but also the reduction of inequality in the education system. To reduce disparities in the municipal, state, and federal levels, as well as between public and private schools, investments are necessary to provide similar conditions concerning the daily time spent in school as well as in access to infrastructure and information technologies. Investments are also needed to ensure the expansion of full-time schools and policies to address age/ grade distortion, that is, the high number of students older than 15 who have not completed elementary school. In addition to these challenges, it is also necessary to improve preservice and in-service training of teachers and ensure the continuity and improvement of affirmative policies to face social inequalities.

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The Education System of Brazil: Historical Context and Challenges to Federative Equity

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Ce´lio da Cunha, Denise Gisele de Britto Damasco, and Nelson Adriano Ferreira de Vasconcelos

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations: Federalism in Brazilian Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles: New Actors and Arenas in the Brazilian Educational Scenario from the Redemocratization Period Onward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects: Fiscal Federalism, a Pathway to the Creation of a national education system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The present chapter presents the historical evolution around the organization of education and Brazilian federalism, since the 1824 Imperial Constitution up to the present day. It introduces new actors and arenas that are part of debates on education policies, particularly from the 1988 Constitution, and discusses the idea of the national education system implementation – proposed by the Manifesto of the Pioneers of Educação Nova of 1932 and endorsed by the 2014 National Education Plan, which would allow the overcoming of competence disputes and overlapping of policies that are particular to the Brazilian federated entities. The authors propose considerations around tax issues aiming at a fiscal federalism that promotes more equity among more and less developed states in order to ensure full compliance with the right to socially referenced and highquality education for all.

C. da Cunha (*) · N. A. F. de Vasconcelos Postgraduate Program of Education, Catholic University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Brazil D. G. de Britto Damasco Programa de Estudos Pós-Graduados em Educação, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_25

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Keywords

Brazil · Federalism · Fiscal federalism · National education system · Public education policies

1

Introduction

Effectiveness of the right to education depends on institutional and political agreements, as far as it deals with objective educational conditions, as well as budget, funding, and infrastructure conditions that are part of federal, state, and municipal agendas. As a result of the particular characteristics of the historical process in which it unfolded, federalism in Brazil allows for fluctuation in education policies, giving rise to coordinated actions (or lack thereof), among the federated entities (Union – Federal Government, states, municipalities, and the Federal District), which can lead to deadlocks and conflicts of jurisdiction, among other consequences. It is known that there are different actors acting in parallel with the State and federative structure, and according to the interests and relations they forge among themselves and they also influence the organization of Brazilian education. Occasionally, such configuration leads to problems and conflicts arising from the dilution of responsibilities, greater or lesser publicity of public actions, and political challenges to the fulfilment of the right to education in the country. Such issues also result from parallel actions taken by actors who play a part in educational administration. This chapter analyzes the political-administrative arrangement in the organization of education within the Brazilian Federative Republic. Initially, we seek to present federalism in Brazil, its origins, and historical conflicts, since the 1824 Imperial Constitution up to the present day, underscoring the idea of the national education system, proposed by the 1932 Manifesto dos pioneiros da Educação Nova and endorsed by the 2014 National Education Conference (CONAE) – a forum concerted by the public authority in consonance with society. Then, new political actors who notably emerged after the enactment of the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, are presented, through the mapping of the debate around their powers, the federative cooperation, as well as around the spheres of guarantee and defense of the right to education, and through discussing the work of the State and other organizations, as well as the representativeness of civil society in this political-administrative organization in view of the challenges concerning the access to socially referenced and quality education for all. Subsequently, we discuss some funding issues, which result from the unbalance and tax competition among the federated entities. Finally, we point out pathways and possibilities for the implementation of a national education system in the country.

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Historical and Social Foundations: Federalism in Brazilian Education

A more encompassing understanding of the current organization of Brazilian education, above all when it comes to competence conflicts involving federated entities, requires the examination of some of its historical hallmarks, since a national education system is the outcome of forgotten hurdles, struggles, and battles of long ago, as observed by Michael Sadler almost a century ago. “It has in it some of the secrets workings of national life” (Sadler 1900 as cited in Hans 1972, 5–6), whose characteristics can only be better understood through history. One of the peculiarities in the country’s history was duly highlighted by one of the most renowned federalism historians: “The Empire was not founded on the capital, but on the province” (Torres 1961, 88). There is no doubt that the fact that Independence was declared in the province of São Paulo should not be overlooked. According to Torres (1961), considering the national flag, the stars represent the provinces, and on the edge of the Imperial coat of arms and on the National Order of the Southern Cross, emperor D. Pedro I paid tribute to the three provinces that were part of his axis of action: Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Minas Gerais. In 1827, right after the emperor bestowed the centralizing Constitution of 1824 (Brazil 1824), a law that provided for the opening of schools in all towns and most densely populated villages in the country was passed by the National Assembly and enacted by emperor D. Pedro I (Brazil 1827). If implemented, it would undoubtedly have been a true achievement for national education. One of its articles determined that presidents of the provinces ought to inform the General Assembly about any provisions undertaken, which demonstrated that the Brazilian State decided to lead its education policy upon independence. However, in 1831, when D. Pedro I abdicated the throne in favor of his son, D. Pedro II, who was only 5 years old, a new era started in the political and economic arena, with the enactment of a profound constitutional reform, through an Additional Act, passed on August 12, 1834, (Brazil 1834): Based on a series of commitments, regulating those relations between Provinces and the Nation almost in the dark, a broadly decentralizing decision was made during the regency period, stating that: every administration headquartered in provinces was to be considered as a provincial administration, except otherwise explicitly prohibited. According to many, it had become the “code of anarchy” to which Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcelos referred. (Torres 1961, 96)

The Central power formalized its distance from the fate of basic education with this decision, being responsible solely for the Royal court’s higher and secondary education. Besides, it formalized the existence of parallel powers. On the one hand, provincial assemblies had a surplus of competencies, but they could not do much in view of their financial deficiencies, a reflection of the general poverty in that environment (Torres 1961). On the other hand, presidents of the provinces acted on behalf of the emperor, even though their actions were limited. At that point, many

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politicians already felt the need for a central power to set a more dynamic pace in the field of education, as was the case in other countries, like Argentina and Chile. In fact, as highlighted by Haidar (1972), the instability of provincial presidents, who could easily be replaced two or three times a year, plus the inability and unpreparedness that characterized many of them, amounted to considerable obstacles to the advance of provincial public schooling. It should be observed that federalism in Brazil has never favored a cooperative system. In this sense, it is worthwhile to mention some of the foundations of US federalism, which was already concerned with the harmony that should exist among the federated entities back when the Philadelphia Convention was under discussion, in 1787. After so many debates during the Convention, Isaac Kramnick’s observation prevailed: In the unique configuration of the US federalism, huge powers were concentrated in many areas of public policy, such as education, social services, and safety. By occasion of the bicentenary of its Constitution, the USA celebrated both federalists and anti-federalists, once the life of the US Constitution, it is today a blend of positions taken by both sides during the “great national discussion”, as inconvenient as it may seem to constitutional purists. (Kramnick 1993, 83)

In the Brazilian case, Carvalho (2012) draws attention to the 1834 decentralization, which, by expanding the power of provincial governments, turned it into the object of clashes between local factions. Martins (2011) regrets that the central power had stopped acting in basic education, leaving it under the competence of the provinces. Several uprisings that emerged at the time had federalist characteristics, and some of them had a separatist character, such as Guerra dos Cabanos (indigenous people, caboclos, and slaves) in Pará, and Guerra dos Farrapos (Farroupilha Revolt or Ragamuffin War) in Rio Grande do Sul, both from 1835 onward (Carvalho 2012). These conflicts and their political and economic implications affected the domestic environment of the provinces in all sectors, including education. From the constitutional reform onward, which decentralized the State, and later with the dissemination of positivist and liberal ideas in Brazil from the second half of the nineteenth century onward, the country already showed signs of a growing awareness regarding the need to break with colonial ties. In this context, Costa (1967) argued that this set of ideas shook up Brazil and provided it with new guidelines. In the economic arena, this effervescence corresponded to the advance of coffee plantations, industry, and railroads, among others. In the political arena, the foundation of the Republican Party and the Republican Manifest, in 1870, called for greater decentralization and even demanded the institution of a Constituent Assembly. This Manifest, endorsed in 1870 in what became known as the Itu Convention (Convenção de Itu) leaves no doubt as for the grounds of the federative system, with great autonomy intended by liberal thinkers: Thus, we believe the autonomy of provinces is more than an interest imposed by solidarity of rights and provincial relations, it is a cardinal and solemn principle that we inscribe in our

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flag. The federation system based, thus, on the reciprocal independence of provinces, uplifting them to the category of particular States, solely linked by shared nationality and solidarity regarding the major interests of representativeness and external defense, is the one we adapt to our program, as the only capable of maintaining the Brazilian family communion. In the absence of a formula to pinpoint the effects of one or another system before the national consciousness, we could sum it up as: Centralization-Severance, DecentralizationUnity. (Manifesto Republicano 2009)

It should be noted that the signatories of this Manifest, who were all connected to the coffee plantation industry, held views that were far from corresponding to the interests of most provinces. Such views even ignored the issue of slavery, as underscored by Mattos (2012). This position would become triumphant with the 1891 Republican Constitution (Brazil 1891). Around that time, the declining Imperial power proved to be increasingly powerless to contain the republican ideal, an ideal that had captivated: a good part of intellectuality, particularly students in higher education institutions. With the help of positivism, two Schools of Law, one in São Paulo, another in Recife, and two Medical Schools, in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, became the focus of monarchy opposition. (Carvalho 2012, 111)

Disruptive events related to the monarchy led to the liberation of slaves in 1888, and the Proclamation of the Republic, through a military coup, in 1889. In 1891, the organization of educational administration through the Federal Government, the States, and Municipalities was made official by the Constitution. The 1891, the Constitution turned the Empire of Brazil into the Republic of the United States of Brazil, no longer with provinces, but with states, granted with great autonomy, their own Constitutions, armed forces, and capacity of signing international loan agreements, as well as local executive, legislative, and judicial powers, and their own municipalities. In practice, such autonomy was limited by the distribution of the main sources of public revenues such as the exports tax that only benefited the exporting states (Mattos 2012, 92). Thus, the adopted rule would end up delivering to a few states the right to make decisions on behalf of other federation units (Torres 1961, 163). In the First Republic (1889–1930), some efforts that could indicate more auspicious times, with the creation of the Ministry of Public Instruction, Mail and Telegraph, in 1890, handed over to Benjamin Constant, a wholehearted positivist, would have a fleeting duration, and later education issues were relegated once again to a peripheral position in the Ministry of Justice. This type of policy, also referred to as “Café com leite (coffee with milk) politics,” as it was led by coffee growers and dairy farmers, was strengthened by the Taubaté Agreement (Acordo de Taubaté), which was signed in 1906 and provided that the largest coffee producing states, respectively São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro, had access to Federal Government funding to buy surplus coffee for a minimum value (Mattos 2012). Thus, hegemonic federalism went on, as well as the privilege of stronger states. Therefore, the very concept of federation, which entails balance among federated entities, was denied (Cunha 1978).

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Despite the relegation of the republic ideal, some events started to change this scenario of indifference and exclusion. By the end of the nineteenth century, the migratory process set in with hundreds of thousands of immigrants coming mainly from Europe. These new inhabitants not only had a different view on citizenship but also raised the awareness of the generation for more critical social scenarios. It is shown by the first strikes held by blue-collar workers, which, according to Cunha, “haven’t been able to undermine the grounds of power, but at least represented a new component in disturbing the hegemony of state oligarchies” (Cunha 1981, 38). Furthermore, the effects of World War I were not negligible. According to Sodré (1978), they helped outline an industrial park that started exerting influence on the country’s economy as a whole. In this direction, there were plenty of proposals that at first seemed to be encouraging, above all considering that president Getúlio Vargas, chief of the provisional government, created the Ministry of Education and Public Health in 1930. In 1932, the so-called Manifesto dos pioneiros da Educação Nova was set up as a proposal by educators to meet the Vargas government’s request made in late 1931. Simultaneously published in the main media outlets of the time with the title “Educational Reconstruction in Brazil: To the people and the government,” this document was one of the most important in the history of national education. Still timely in many aspects, it attempted to readdress issues that were relevant for the construction of a new federalism in the field of education, overcoming distortions that had amassed since the 1834 Additional Act, without the conflicts of responsibility among the federated entities. Carefully written by Fernando de Azevedo and based on dialogues with the main educators of the time, such as Anísio Teixeira, Lourenço Filho, and Frota Pessoa, among other 26 signatories, the Manifesto begins by stating that in the hierarchy of national issues none should be more important than that of education, not even economic issues. It points out that education is an essentially public function that should have a unitary organization on the grounds and principles of the State. It was their view that unity should not equal uniformity. On the contrary, it entails multiplicity. According to the document, it would not be in centralization, but in the application of a federative doctrine that throughout the Republic, Brazilians would search for a way to undertake a coordinated and methodical work based on a joint plan. It is the Federal Government, in the capital city, along with the States, in their respective territories, which should be responsible for education at all levels. It calls attention to a central issue of educational federalism, namely the role of the State. Through the Ministry of Education, it would be up to the central government to oversee compliance with education principles and guidelines, and to enforce general pathways and directions proposed by the educational policies. Educational unity constitutes, according to the document, a tremendous work to be done by the Federal Government, under penalty of perishing as a nationality (Azevedo et al. 1984). By the time the Manifesto was released, there were still signs that Getúlio Vargas would follow the democratic directions to which he pledged compliance. The approval of a new Constitution, in 1934, renewed some good expectations. For the

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first time in the history of the Brazilian Constitution, there was a chapter dedicated to the education sector, partially contemplating some theories proposed by the manifest. It postulated that education was a right of all under the responsibility of public authority; it determined that the Federal Government should design a national education plan and supervise its enforcement (the Brazilian National Council of Education should be in charge of drawing it up); the Federal Government should perform supplementary action in technical and financial terms wherever needed throughout the national territory; it should also provide free primary full-time education with progressive extension and provision of free secondary education; the Constitution granted competence to the States and the Federal District to organize and maintain its education systems, as well as to create councils of education with similar functions to those of the National Council of Education; it made investments in education mandatory, stipulating that the Federal Government must apply at least 10% of tax revenues, while states and municipalities must apply at least 20% of tax revenues to education; it determined that the Federal Government, states, and the Federal District must set aside a part of their assets to raise special funds in order to support education development (Brazil 1934). These advancements represented the possibility to organize the Brazilian national education system with shared responsibility on the part of all federative entities, coordinated by the Federal Government. Such system would be materialized by the Brazilian National Education Plan, followed by the approval of the Legislative Power and coordinated by the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Education. Mandatory resource allocation should be emphasized and should comply with the percentages previously mentioned. Given the context of the time, it was thought that such mandatory allocation would be enough to lift national education from stagnation and exclusion, overcoming deficits accumulated by centuries of omission. Besides, as already done in other countries, such as the United States, it was determined that part of federated entities’ wealth should be destined to fund education. In spite of federative doctrine advances in the field of education, political events that ensued, such as an attempted Coup d’Etat in 1935, which has become known as the Communist uprising (Intentona Comunista), served as an excuse for the Vargas administration to reveal at once its authoritarian inclinations, promoting political persecutions and officially implementing a dictatorship in 1937, with a new Constitution, authoritarian guidelines, and orientations, thus shaping the so-called Estado Novo. The new enacted Constitution (Brazil 1937) formalized the dictatorial regime and imposed restrictions to liberties (the New State dictatorship). Advances promoted by the previous Constitution, namely the mandatory allocation of resources, organization of state education systems, national education plan, and state federal councils, among others, were suppressed. As Brazilianist author Skidmore (1975) highlighted, the federal government increased its powers. Many duties that were previously under the competence of the States, which used to have great autonomy, were transferred to the federal government. In key areas, such as education and labor, centralization took on radical forms with the New State. The power of state and municipal governments was progressively worn out by restrictions on traditional sources of tax revenue.

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If during the so-called Old Republic (República Velha, 1891–1930) hegemonic federalism prevailed, during the New State this situation was inverted. It was accomplished by concentrating powers in the hands of Vargas, in the federal sphere. With the end of World War II and the ousting of President Getúlio Vargas, by means of a Coup d’Etat in 1945, and subsequent democratic normalization, Brazil enacted a new Constitution in 1946, which paved the way for a new stage in national life. The new Charter resumed some achievements of the 1934 Constitution, mainly with regard to the mandatory allocation of resources, maintaining percentages and defining that the States and the Federal District should have competence to organize their teaching systems. It further defined it a duty of the Federal Government to legislate about guidelines and bases of national education (Campanhole and Campanhole 1976). In view of this duty given to the Federal Government to devise guidelines and bases for education, a committee of experts in charge of designing a bill was appointed by the Ministry of Education. Many of its members belonged to the generation of pioneers who signed the Manifest of 1932. A bill was sent to the Brazilian National Congress in 1948, and after a long trajectory permeated by debates, conflicts, and tensions between liberal educators and champions of confessional education, it was passed in 1961. According to educator Anísio Teixeira, it meant “half a victory, but still a victory” (Teixeira 1962). The first Act of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (LDB), Law no. 4024/1961 (Brazil 1961), was characterized by advances that were possible in view of the political and economic contexts back then, and this law provided the allocation of responsibilities. It expanded the duties of the Federal Council of Education and considered a national education plan, which was present in the 1934 Constitution and then suppressed by the 1937 Constitution; LDB chose to remove the expression “national,” as to avoid conflicts with theories on decentralization and teaching freedom (Villalobos 1969). Strictly speaking, the hurdles that would surface time and again regarding the need for reconciling a national education plan with the federative principle and requirements resulting thereof, i.e., autonomy of the state education systems, competed to find a possible reconciliation in the 1961 LDB (Villalobos 1969). That is why the Law provides education plans corresponding to each of the funds set for primary, secondary, and higher education. From the establishment of these funds, Anísio Teixeira, then member of the Federal Council of Education, coordinated in 1962 the creation of a plan that became known as the First National Education Plan. Under the influence of Anísio Teixeira’s ideas, as described by Villalobos (1969), this plan came to understand that a decentralizing policy was the most convenient one to solve Brazilian education issues. Once it was supplementary to the central government action, these plans should take into account state and municipal services in the field of education, provided there could be no doubt about the spirit of this law, i.e., setting up funds and providing financial help for the development and improvement of education in states and municipalities. As one may infer, Anísio embraced a conciliatory stand regarding the design of the first National Education Plan, which unfortunately did not move forward due to the

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1964 Coup d’Etat and enactment of another Constitution, in 1967. By the end of 1964, an “educational allowance” was approved adding significant resources aiming at the development of primary education. Soon later, during the review of the 1962 National Education Plan, under a full-fledged dictatorial regime, the decentralizing doctrine became even stronger, federal plans regarding each fund should be restricted to a simple redistribution, as to preserve the autonomy of federative units. As expected, the 1967 Constitution suppressed the mandatory allocation of resources and extended compulsory education for those aged 7–14 (Brazil 1967). Besides, it assigned to the Federal Government competence to design national education plans, as well as to provide technical and financial assistance to education policies of the states and the Federal District (Villalobos 1969). In view of the political conditions in force, a Constitutional Amendment, so broad that it was considered by many to be a new constitution altogether, was passed in 1969 by the military junta that ruled over the country. It defined the strengthening of the Executive Power in a much clearer fashion. The absence of integrated state education plans at the level of states and municipalities, properly planned with the supplementary function of Federal Government resources, as provided by the 1934 Constitution, for example, led to loss of resources, wastage, and investment distortions. Separation of responsibilities was promoted by the 1961 LDB. According to Martins, during the Military Regime (1964–1985), “at first, educators struggled for the restoration of the constitutional mandatory allocation of resources destined to education and, from Calmon Amendment on [a compulsory requirement stating that the Federal Government should never invest less than 13%, and that States, Federal District and Municipalities should invest at least 25% of taxes on the maintenance and development of education], they struggled for the effective enforcement of the letter and spirit of the law” (Martins 2011, 16). By standing up for the mandatory allocation of resources to education and its management through funds, it was already understood, according to Martins, that such “funds, which should originally manage mandatory allocation of resources, started being composed of budget surplus, thereby losing their relevance as a funding mechanism due to their low capacity of accumulating the necessary amount of resources to fund education” (Martins 2011, 16). He understands that the federative issue “is a theme that has not been tackled in the debate on the funding of education” (ibidem, 6), highlighting that the Federal Government fails to fulfil its “redistributive supplementary functions” (Martins 2011, 6). According to Martins, such redistribution results from the lack of action by the political power. Redistribution “does not mean centralization, but autonomy combined with democracy, the operation of the Federation’s cooperative institutions” (Martins 2011, 8). The following years were characterized by intense social pressure for democratic restoration in the country, a time when the issue of federalism was the object of countless considerations. This led to the implementation of a Constituent Assembly that discussed and passed the 1988 Constitution, which introduced structuring changes with regard to the design of federalism in relation to the field of education. Articles 211–214 deal with the organization of Brazilian education, defining the states, Federal District, and municipalities as the federated entities in charge of

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developing and maintaining primary education with a high degree of autonomy. The Constitution also provided that the Federal Government, states, Federal District, and municipalities shall collaboratively organize their education systems; it determined that municipalities should act primarily in primary education and preschool, while the states and Federal District should act primarily in primary and secondary education; it further set forth that states and municipalities were to organize their education systems based on forms of collaboration to secure the universalization of mandatory education. Regarding funding, the Constitution established that the Federal Government should never invest less than 18% a year, while the states, Federal District, and municipalities should never invest less than 25% a year of tax revenue, stemming from transfers for the maintenance and development of education (Brazil 1988). It is worth mentioning that article 23 of the Constitution provides that the Federal Government, states, Federal District, and municipalities share competence in order to “provide the means of access to culture, education, science, technology, research, and innovation” (Brazil 1988). The sole paragraph of this article set forth that a complementary law shall set rules for the cooperation among federated entities, bearing in mind the balance between development and well-being nationwide. This article has not been regulated yet, which leads to successive conflicts relating to powers and duties, besides competition among the federated entities. The 2014 National Education Plan requests, in its Goal no. 20, the regulation of this paragraph, reinforcing the need for the establishment of cooperation rules among federated entities and the coordination of the national education system, as seen in Sect. 4 of this chapter. The effects of power overlapping, as well as conflicts and tensions resulting from the need to secure the right to education within the country’s federative system can be felt in various ways, with emphasis on the consequences of discontinuing education policies and the consequent negative impact on education quality. Martins (2011) analyzes the decade of 1990 – when the State reform was implemented with a strong neoliberal character – and its decentralizing policy. He highlights the collaboration system according to the notion of cooperative federalism adopted by the new Charter. The vulnerability of this coordination was resized by the 1988 Constitution, which provided autonomy to the states and municipalities with competing responsibilities. However, most of 5569 Brazilian municipalities lack institutional capacity to devise and implement public policies. Therefore, both the Federal Government and the states play an important role in the sense of creating conditions so that municipalities can exercise the autonomy granted to them (Abrucio 2017). In any case, this goal depends on the formalization of a collaborative method that is crucial for the proposal of a national education system. In effect, LDB (Law 9394/1996) contributed with significant advances concerning the delimitation of powers among the federated entities, stating that it is up to the Federal Government to coordinate the national education policy, connecting different levels and systems, as well as performing normative, redistributive, and supplementary functions regarding the other educational instances (Brazil

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1996). According to this Law, the Federal Government is also in charge of designing a National Education Plan, in collaboration with the federated entities; providing technical and financial assistance to federated entities for the development of their educational systems, with priority given to mandatory schooling, exercising its redistributive supplementary functions; and establishing along with other entities competences and guidelines for childhood education, primary, and secondary education, which shall guide minimum contents and curricula, as to secure basic common education. States and the Federal District, pursuant to the law, should define along with municipalities’ ways to collaborate in terms of primary education offers, securing the proportional distribution of responsibilities according to the population to be covered, and financial resources available in each of these spheres of public authority, besides offering primary education, setting priority to the offering of secondary education. Finally, LDB reserved to the municipalities the competence to offer childhood education in nurseries and preschools, with priority given to primary education, as well as other incumbencies. However, it is important to underscore the creation of a national education system, arranged by the 2014 National Education Plan, in order to organize and define specificities surrounding the collaboration of Federal Government, states, federal districts, and municipalities, so as to overcome absences and conflicts of competences among the federated entities, as will be discussed ahead. The New Republic, arising from the grass-root struggles of the 1980s, imprinted a new at once liberal and social ethics to the 1988 Constitution, accepted the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, securing fundamental social protection through the 1990 Statute of the Child and the Adolescent, and delivered to the nation new Act of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (Brazil 1990). Among others, such legal instruments made it possible to strengthen and develop new actors and arenas standing up for the right to social and quality education for all.

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Institutional and Organizational Principles: New Actors and Arenas in the Brazilian Educational Scenario from the Redemocratization Period Onward

In Brazil, the current 1988 Constitution has become known as the “Citizen Constitution,” because it gave priority to individual, collective, social, and political rights, lifting them up to the category of fundamental rights and guarantees by emphasizing the boosting of democracy. Among such rights, total freedom of assembly and representation should be highlighted, for it promoted the expansion of civil society participation in debates around the creation and management of education public policies in the country. With the country’s redemocratization since the end of the military regime in 1985, as associations in society multiplied, the State also expanded the fields of discussion with the strengthening of internal membership bodies and the creation of new instances of debates.

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In the field of education, the role of collegiate bodies should be highlighted. In the federal arena, there is the National Education Council (CNE), established in 1995 as an autonomous collegiate of national education delegates, whose most members were appointed by civil society entities and connected to the Ministry of Education. The Council holds a normative deliberative role and aims at collaborating with the creation of the National Education Policy, besides advising the Minister of Education. In the states, the State Education Councils (CEEs) are linked to the respective state departments of education and are composed of local delegates. Both the CNE and the CEEs have competence to regulate educational policies in their respective levels of action. Besides them, some municipalities also created Municipal Education Councils, linked to municipal departments of education and counting on members linked to the municipalities. In 1989, the National Forum of the Education State Councils (FNCE) was created for the exchange of experiences and information among state collegiate bodies and representation of regional demands of councils in national debates. In the same way, in 1992 municipal education councils united to create the National Union of Municipal Education Councils (UNCME). On the other hand, there are two national associations that represent state municipal education officers. The National Council of Education Officers (CONSED, created in 1986) represents education officers in the 26 states and the Federal District, and the National Union of the Municipal Education Officers (UNDIME, created in 1986) represents education officers in the Brazilian municipalities. These two collegiate bodies meet frequently with Ministry of Education officers and set relations with the spheres of the public authority (executive, legislative, and judiciary) to analyze both education policies and funding, drafting, and follow-up of national education policies. Sano and Abrucio (2013) point to the relations these actors established among themselves and with the Ministry of Education (MEC): Formally constituted as a non-profitable civil society organization, [. . .] CONSED does not make part of the formal structure of decision-making arena in the field of education, although it has always struggled to take its place in the national debate. Conflicts involving MEC, CONSED, and also UNDIME are constant in public education policies on compulsory education and in the search for a collaboration system involving the three spheres, such as provided by the Constitution, and the Union [Federal Government] should coordinate this process. (Sano and Abrucio 2013, loc. 4452 of 7893)

In the sphere of class representation entities, important actors are the National Union of Professors of Higher Education Institutions (Andes-SN, created in 1981), and the National Confederation of Education Workers (CNTE, created in 1990), which assembles state unions of compulsory education teachers. These actors give voice to education workers in national debates about education policies and try to stand up for these professionals’ rights. The National Association of Managers of Higher Education Institutions (ANDIFES), created in 1989) represents federal universities and technology federal institutes and plays a relevant communication role with the Federal Government.

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The Brazilian Association of Presidents of Municipal and State Universities (ABRUEM, established in 1991) is also relevant at state level. As far as private higher education is concerned, it is important to draw attention to some of its main actors, gathered in the organization named Forum of the Private Higher Education Representative Entities (FÓRUM), which has represented five entities since 2008 concerned with the corporate sector interests, namely the Brazilian Association of Higher Education Sponsors, the Brazilian Association of Colleges, the National Association of University Centers, the National Association of Private Universities, and the Union of Sponsoring Entities of Higher Education Institutions in the State of São Paulo. There are also nonprofitable institutions, such as the Brazilian Association of Higher Education Community Institutions (ABRUC), established to represent confessional higher education institutions, such as the several catholic universities in the country. Founded on July 26, 1995, with headquarters in Brasilia, it annually gathers 68 Higher Education Community Institutions (ICES). These are non-profitable institutions that essentially develop educational actions, such as tuition, research, and extension [. . .]. ABRUC stands up for and champions the non-state public function as a feature of higher education community institutions. Such function entails a non-profitable public service of collective interest, whose property belongs to a community, with full investment of operating profits and grants in the maintenance and development of institutional goals, with no sharing of dividends or bonuses in their statements, publications, and official relationships with the government. (ABRUC 2020)

Together, FÓRUM and ABRUC encompass almost 80% of Brazilian students enrolled in private higher education institutions. All these entities are present in the debate on education policies and have the power to influence the Ministry of Education and the National Congress. On the legislative side on national level, it is also important to stress the growing momentum of two main arenas for debate and resolution of educational issues: the House of Representatives and Senate Education Committees, which through open hearings, draft bills’ debate, and the preparation of technical statements and reports created relevant niches for the analysis of education issues. It must be mentioned that the House of Representatives and Senate permanent committees operate in specific spheres. Thus, they can generate and publicize quality information and address an intense and constant flux of demands by issuing ordinary bills’ drafts and other utterances and actions that shape the legislative routine. With the establishment of this systems of committees, parliaments became far more complex bodies, with accurate and specialized divisions of parliamentary activities. (Araújo 2017, 5)

One result of this process was the creation of the fund for the maintenance and development of primary education and promotion of teaching staff (FUNDEF) in 1996, which in 2007 was renamed as Fund for the maintenance and development of compulsory education and promotion of educational personnel (FUNDEB). Both

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regulated education funding at state and municipal levels, as well as the federal government supplementation, actioned when a minimum amount per schoolchild, defined by the federal government, is not achieved. The fund became one of the most important coordinating policies involving the federated entities. Another important actor is the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which enjoys large autonomy – despite being part of the state structure as well – and growing relevance since the 1988 Constitution. Among other roles, the Public Prosecutor’s Office plays the fundamental role of ensuring enforcement of the rights of children and adolescents. Some years after the Constitution of 1988 enactment, the Statute of the Child and Adolescent (Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente – ECA) established that the tripod state, family, and society is responsible for ensuring with absolute priority the enforcement of rights concerning education; the Public Prosecutor’s Office was then in charge of inspecting public and private entities that provide services and programs related to children and adolescents. (Damasco 2008, 34)

The responsibilities of the Public Prosecutor’s Office are defined by the Constitution’s Article 127, which provides that “The Public Prosecutor’s Office is a permanent and essential institution to the State’s jurisdictional function, in charge of standing up for legal order, the democratic system and inaccessible social and individual interests” (Brazil 1988). The Public Defender’s Office is also important to guarantee the enforcement of policies aimed at ensuring basic human rights. The Constitution defines its role as follows: Article 134. The Public Defender’s Office is a permanent and essential institution to the State jurisdictional function, responsible – as expression and instrument of the democratic system – first and foremost for legal guidance, promotion of human rights, and the defense in all degrees, legal and out-of-court, of individual and collective rights in full extension and free of charge for those in need [. . .] (Brazil 1988).

At municipal level, Guardianship Councils (Conselhos Tutelares) oversee and control policies that promote the rights of children and adolescents. They were created by Law 8069, passed in 1990, which provides the Statute of the Child and Adolescent. According to its Article 131, “Guardianship Councils are permanent, autonomous, and non-jurisdictional bodies responsible for upholding all provisions on the rights of children and adolescents as set forth by this law.” One of the Guardianship Councils’ duties is to demand public services related to education and engage the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Public Defender’s Office, and the Judiciary Branch in case of noncompliance with the rights of children and adolescents. Guardianship Councils also play a role in school dropout cases. Before the enactment of the Statute of the Child and Adolescent, school dropout rates were a problem to be addressed exclusively by schools. Currently, the record of excessive school absences, as well as.

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[. . .] cases involving school dropout cases and high levels of grade retention must be reported to the local Guardianship Council and, in the absence of a solution, these situations must be reported to the Judiciary Branch. This rule is outlined on Article 56 of the Statute of the Child and Adolescent. This judicial intervention entails a quest for effectiveness on ensuring the right to education. (Cury and Ferreira 2010, 94)

Likewise, there are international mechanisms that offer technical and scientific advisory services or fund education projects in Brazil, such as UN agencies UNESCO and UNICEF, as well as the World Bank, with a high number of ongoing projects carried out by many states and a strong influence on the creation and implementation of educational politics in the country. Regarding this influence, Silva states that “there is a systematic, direct intervention of the World Bank in redefining public education policies, and it finds support on the consent given by the Federal Government and by some of state governments alike” (da Silva 2002, 4). Finally, it is appropriate to mention two organized civil society actors who strongly influence the formulation of Brazilian public policies and actively take part in the discussion about national education policies and destinies. One of them, organized around the private sector, is the national movement All for Education (Todos Pela Educação). Upon its creation in 2006, the movement had the following goals: 1. All children and adolescents, aged 4 to 17, must attend school; 2. All students must complete primary and secondary education; 3. By the age of 8, all children must be able to read and write; 4. All students must learn at least the minimum suitable to each grade (according to SAEB); and 5. Education must be provided with the necessary funds to comply with the goals of school access, continuity, and success. (UNDIME 2006)

According to Martins and Krawczyk (2018), the entrepreneurial movement is extremely well organized and seeks to influence all spheres connected with the formulation of public education policies, in an attempt to make public education follow precepts that are in tune with entrepreneurial demands. However, it is a fact that all actors who directly or indirectly participate in the formulation of public education policies try to intervene in order to achieve their corporative interests, as indicated by Vasconcelos (2013) in his review on the interest groups involved in Brazilian education. Nonetheless, it must be stressed that the democratic principle of participation and voice for all social actors ensures that public education policies are effectively the summary and result of the different sectors of civil society, regardless of conflicts and concerted efforts, under a democratic rule of law. Another actor that deserves attention was constituted in 1999 by a great number of NGOs: National Campaign for the Right to Education (Campanha Nacional pelo Direito à Educação). Its mission is to “strive for the realization and amplification of education policies so that all people have a secured right to a free, inclusive, secular, and quality public education in Brazil” (Campanha 2020). Both Todos pela Educação and Campanha Nacional pelo Direito à Educação “were actors in the discussions related to the National Plan for Education (PNE) and

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the National Education Conference (CONAE) (Vasconcelos 2013, 63), with growing participation at each new edition of these events. CONAE gathered education professionals and entities in municipal, state, and national rounds in three editions (2010, 2014, and 2018) and was also attended by all the previously mentioned actors, who played a major role in the formulation of PNE (National Plan for Education) for the 2014–2024 period. The 2014 CONAE was attended by nearly 3500 delegates from different regions of the country and generated a PNE proposition that was eventually transformed by the Congress into national law 13,005/2014. Among other measures, PNE establishes – in a specific national education system law – a body in charge of coordinating teaching systems, in a collaborative fashion, in order to enforce PNE guidelines, goals, and strategies. It also provides for the approval of an Educational Accountability Law, “ensuring quality standards in compulsory education at each teaching system and network, controlled by a quality goals process to be verified by official institutes for education evaluation” (Brazil 2014). PNE is an advancement toward the realization of the federative doctrine defended by the 1932 Manifesto of the Pioneers of the Educação Nova, as it allows a gradual consolidation of a state policy with equality and quality. Among the highlights of this proposition to build an agenda toward a national education system, is the urgent need to define a statute of interdependency among federated entities, followed by a division of responsibilities taking into account the social, economic, and cultural context of each entity. Such consideration is valid since one of the greatest challenges faced by development policies in the country has to do with overcoming its striking regional differences. Among the most important PNE goals, is the constitution of a national education system (SNE). Article 13 of the PNE establishes that. two years after this law is passed, the public authority should establish, through a specific law, the creation of the national education system, in charge of coordinating different teaching systems – in a collaborative framework – so as to enforce the National Education Plan’s guidelines, goals, and strategies. (Brazil 2014)

The creation of the National Education Forum is planned as part of SNE. Historically demanded by educators, it should be composed by civil society representatives with the purpose of establishing a minimum standard of learning. Responsibility must be based on the circumstances of each federal entity, having as reference the concept of interdependency in order to accomplish an effective method of federative cooperation (Cunha et al. 2014). This debate has been carried out by the National Congress, through open hearings and the creation of parliamentary fronts gathering congressmen of different parties in conferences and forums organized by the civil society and higher education institutions. Although the issue of federalism is broadly debated on such occasions, production around a critical and urgent matter aiming at the establishment of a federal pact on education, with a tax reform that ensures equality among federated entities, remains insufficient.

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Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects: Fiscal Federalism, a Pathway to the Creation of a national education system

Despite consistent efforts to effectively enforce human right to education, undertaken by the actors described in the previous section, many challenges for strengthening federalism and its developments related to education public policies, as well as for the reaffirmation of an education national system, lie ahead. One of these challenges is the issue of financing education. The need for a tax reform, whose political obstacles should not be underestimated, is evident. Some experts indicate ways that may be promising for the achievement of a balance in the Brazilian federalism. Based on studies on the sharing of resources and inequalities among different federative countries, Sérgio Prado argues that most of the existing democratic federations assign a high value to the preservation of some degree of equality among the federative units, also in order to maintain the stability of the social and political pact that underpins these federations. This usually leads to the constitution of normative systems and tax provisions that facilitate the redistribution of resources among federated entities inasmuch as the economic strength of each one of them changes over time and the demographic movements shift in terms of their growing rates. Prado (2003) stresses the fact that reallocated resources should not correspond to the economic strength of the federated entities. From this point on, it is a federal government task to organize systems for redistributing the capability of public spending, given the diversity of tax capacities among the country regions. Besides, the existence of significant parts of the Brazilian population close or below the poverty line intensifies the problem of providing goods and services at minimum levels – something that amplifies the scope of national policies (Prado 2003). Therefore, as Rezende (1995) indicates, reconciling the maximum of decentralization with an appropriate reduction of regional inequalities stands out as a great challenge for the implementation of a fiscal federalism policy. According to Rezende, this challenge has not been faced by the Constitution of 1988, when congress members preferred to satisfy the pressure for decentralization by means of increasing federal transfers instead of promoting deep structural changes in the Brazilian tax system. It generated an increase in costs without the corresponding increase in revenues to finance it. Despite the ICMS tax rate (Brazilian state valueadded tax), which is the main source of revenues for state governments, it benefited the most industrialized states, while the revenue of other states kept depending on the increase of national transfers. Consequently, there was a relaxation of the bond of shared responsibility between taxpayers and the state and municipal public authority, generating conducive conditions for irresponsibility and wastage (Rezende 1995). On this policy of maximal decentralization, Fiori (1995) observes that: the central challenge, however, is still the construction of local efficient and legitimate powers, and the establishment of bonds among them, and a central State capable to claim

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responsibility for fundamental systemic functions for the preservation of the federative union. (Fiori 1995, 35)

The author adds some more essential components, stating that “the best way to keep a federate unit loyal and efficient is loosening its rules and institutions, formalizing mechanisms of permanent discussion on resource and function sharing, and multiplying regional methods of coordination.” (Fiori 1995, 26). This line of argument stresses that the construction of harmonizing scenarios around an education policy requires the establishment of a fiscal federalism able to offer more justice in terms of distribution, and permanent mechanisms of coordination and discussion. Along these lines, conflicts of competence and power overlapping may certainly be diminished in order to open spaces for federative cooperation, with positive impacts on the improvement of teaching. It is worth remembering that the idea of distributive justice among US federate states was present in the discussions before the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. On this event, a milestone in the history of US federalism, James Madison, perhaps the main actor of the US Constitution and a two-term president, stated that “equality ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small States” (Madison 1993, 400). In the same direction, an expert on Federalist Articles stressed that in the Constitution elaboration process “all that was done was insisting that the interest of the small States were preserved in a recomposed government, whether having a nationalist or a centrist profile” (Kramnick 1993, 26). Although considering different historic circumstances, this sort of concern was not present in the Brazilian Imperial Constitution, whose constitutional assembly was dissolved, and the constitution itself ended up being imposed. Some few statesmen present then, such as José Bonifácio, were not heard. Consequently, inequality was naturalized and later formalized with the Additional Act of 1834, with the Constitution of 1891 and its later developments. More recent efforts, such as the Constitution of 1988, the Act of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (LDB) of 1996, the Fund for Development of the Primary School (1996–2006), and the Fund for maintenance and development of compulsory education and promotion of educational personnel (FUNDEB, 2007–2020), proved insufficient to reduce educational inequalities among the states and their municipalities. Besides, federate entities are kept in a state of permanent uncertainty, which is generated by the possibility of change or even extinction of FUNDEB, since the Constitutional Amendment No. 53/2006, which created the fund, established it should be valid from 2007 to 2020. If FUNDEB is not reissued, it will be extinguished in December 2020. Strictly speaking, competing competences together with economic difficulties faced by poor federated entities are worsened by a tax war between states and municipalities, hindering the establishment of integrated and harmonizing education policies, which are essential to a broader perspective of development. Tax competition:

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[. . .] ends up benefiting exactly those states with higher development and production factors more adequate to the enterprise in question, therefore there is no direct relation between the concession of tax benefits and the country’s industrial decentralization. (Camargo 2004, 211)

The advancements obtained through FUNDEB also proved to be insufficient in view of existing challenges that demand more equitable financing policies. Therefore, there is a compelling need for a fiscal federalism able to provide more equality among federated entities for the formulation and execution of education policies. According to the National Confederation of Municipalities (CNM 2019), FUNDEB presents shortcomings that jeopardize the quality and equality of compulsory education because: although the Union’s [Federal Government] supplementation has effectively increased when FUNDEF became FUNDEB, it is still insufficient to promote in more consequent and rapid terms the elimination of education inequalities between the North and Northeast and the rest of the country. (CNM 2019, 41)

Inequality gets broader as the growing dependency of states and municipalities on automatic transfers – through the funds of state, federal district, and municipalities participation (a federal transfer of 21.5% of income tax and added-value tax to states and 22.5% to municipalities), moreover in the Northern and Northeastern states, as well as in most of medium and small-sized municipalities – is impacted by moments of strong gross domestic product slowdown. Additionally, larger municipalities depending on the Brazilian state value-added tax (ICMS) are also affected during periods of recession (Rezende 2006). As the Brazilian economy went through prolonged recessive moments in the past few decades, including the most recent one, social policies in general are prone to periods of discontinuity with historically known damages. Therefore, reviewing the current fiscal federalism design is important, once tax harmonization lies at the core of cooperative federalism. Periods of recession generally damage the most fragile federal states, which do not always enjoy alternative means. What still prevails in Brazil is a hegemonic and asymmetric federalism, characterized by strong differences in terms of education quality among the different regions, and within the states themselves, with significant differences between students enrolled in municipal, state, and federal schools. Certainly, the idea of a national education system – a historical aspiration of a good number of the country’s teachers – could advance toward ensuring minimum standards of tax justice. In this sense, one of the PNE goals is the creation of a national education system, as a strategy for fiscal equality. The strategy envisages: regulate the Federal Constitution single paragraph of Art. 23 and Art. 211 within 2 (two) years through complementary law in order to establish the norms of cooperation between the Union, the states, the federal district, and the municipalities in matters of education and the coordination of the national education system in the form of collaboration, with balanced share of responsibilities and resources, and effective compliance with the Union’s distributive and supplementary functions on fighting regional education inequalities, with special attention to the regions North and Northeast. (Brazil 2014)

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The example set by the German federalism is interesting, having in mind that, according to Camargo (2001), there is no strict separation between the federated entities, so that an entity situated on a superior level can supplement actions in a lower level. Besides, the German federalism presents mechanisms of compensation, where revenue transfers between regions through federal actions are immensely powerful in terms of equalization of life standards. Also, the mechanisms of horizontal cooperation between municipalities are efficient (Camargo 2001). It is observable that the central government action is of great relevance in this model of federalism. In the case of countries with high regional inequality, such as Brazil, the equalizing action of the central government is paramount to ensure a federalism of cooperation and not one of competition. A comparison with other nations’ federalist experience, such as that of Germany, reveals asymmetry between federated units and within them, and corrections demand political reforms that depend on the restoration of a lucid vision of state on the part of the legislative, executive, and judicial powers.

5

Conclusions

Throughout this chapter, a historical perspective on the Brazilian federalism is presented, revealing how the strength of local oligarchies ended up building a hegemonic federalism in the country, with the political and economic prevalence of some states over the others. Then, new actors and arenas in the scene of Brazilian education policy were presented, with the establishment of relations that could be either conflictive or consensual, which nevertheless led to the creation of policies such as LDB, PNE, and FUNDEB in the recent history of Brazil. It also stressed the absence of integrated state education plans at the level of states and municipalities, properly planned in tune with the supplementary function provided by the Federal Government resources, as provided by the Constitution of 1934. Such situation generates loss of resources, wastage, and distortions of investment in the country’s priorities, which along with the framework of regional inequalities emphasize a significant deadlock for the establishment of federative cooperation. Finally, the chapter discusses the need for a fiscal federalism, which, together with the debate on the right to education, lies at the core of various organizations that make part of the Brazilian education landscape, particularly after the Constitution of 1988. In general terms, one can realize that from a joint action to an overlapping of powers, conflicts, and tensions lies a discontinuity of education policies and, therefore, stagnation and standstill regarding the improvement of the quality of education. It is also important to stress that the fight for a cooperative federalism on education significantly depends on the advancement of political debate, since the gradual evolution from a hegemonic federalism toward a federalism that can help reduce regional inequalities necessarily demands political decisions that only a true federative pact will be able to facilitate. Therefore, the national education system should

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establish not only a government policy, but also a policy of State, as expressed on the 1932 Manifesto of the Pioneers of the Educação Nova. It is necessary to mention that the political crisis that affected Brazil in 2009, triggered by the international crisis, which led to, among other things, the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and the excessive political polarization in the country since then, resulted in a deadlock as far as the advancement of social policies is concerned. Since then, efforts to achieve the National Education Plan goals have been brought to a halt. In addition, the current administration’s failure to promote national concertation leads to unnecessary conflicts and deadlocks, thereby hindering efforts to solve national issues. Finally, it is worth mentioning that this chapter was reviewed at the moment the world faces a critical health crisis imposed by the Covid-19 pandemics, with its inevitable albeit unpredictable social, economic, and political consequences, which will probably delay the tackling of imperative issues. History once again indicates the need for a broad, frank, and permanent dialog in favor of a concertation among nations, to promote the overcoming of current difficulties faced by humanity. Solidarity has once again become an imperative factor.

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Camargo, A. (2001). Federalismo cooperativo e o princípio da subsidiariedade: notas sobre a experiência recente do Brasil e da Alemanha. In W. Hofmeister & J. M. B. Carneiro (Eds.), Federalismo na Alemanha e no Brasil (pp. 69–94). São Paulo: Fundação Konrad Adenauer. Camargo, G. B. (2004). A guerra fiscal e seus efeitos: autonomia x centralização. In J. M. Conti (Ed.), Federalismo fiscal (p. 211). Barueri: Manole. Campanha Nacional Pelo Direito à Educação. (2020). A Campanha. Available at: https://campanha. org.br/quem-somos/a-campanha/. Last accessed 1 June 2020. Campanhole, A., & Campanhole, H. L. (Eds.). (1976). Todas as constituições do Brasil. São Paulo: Atlas. Carvalho, J. M. (2012). A vida política. In J. Murilo Carvalho, A. Bosi, S. Chalhoub, L. Bethell, & J. A. de Paula (Eds.), A construção nacional 1830–1889 (p. 111). Objetiva: Rio de Janeiro. Confederação Nacional de Municípios – CNM. (2019). Fundeb: o que os municípios precisam saber. Brasília: CNM. Costa, C. (1967). Contribuição à história das ideias no Brasil (2nd ed.). Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira. Cunha, F. W. (1978). Direito político brasileiro. Rio de Janeiro: Forense. Cunha, C. (1981). Educação e autoritarismo no Estado Novo. São Paulo: Cortez Editora. Cunha, C., Gadotti, M., Bordignon, G., & Nogueira, F. (Eds.). (2014). O Sistema Nacional de Educação: diversos olhares 80 anos após o Manifesto. Brasília: MEC/SASE. Cury, C. R. J., & Ferreira, L. A. M. (2010). Justiciabilidade no campo da educação. Revista Brasileira de Política e Administração da Educação – RBPAE, 26(1), 75–103. da Silva, M. A. (2002). Intervenção e consentimento: a política educacional do Banco Mundial. Campinas: Autores Associados. São Paulo: Fapesp. Damasco, D. G. d. B. (2008). O direito à educação: atuação das Promotorias de Justiça e de Defesa do Ministério Público do Distrito Federal e Territórios, entre 2001 e 2007 (Dissertação). Brasília: UnB. Fiori, J. L. (1995). O federalismo diante do desafio da globalização. In R. de Britto Alvares Affonso & P. L. B. Silva (Eds.), A federação em perspectiva: ensaios selecionados (pp. 26–35). São Paulo: Fundap. Haidar, M. L. M. (1972). O ensino secundário no Império brasileiro. São Paulo: EDUSP. Hans, N. (1972). Educação comparada. São Paulo: Cia. Editora Nacional. Kramnick, I. (1993). Apresentação. In J. Madison, A. Hamilton, & J. Jay (Eds.), Os artigos federalistas: 1787–1788. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira. Madison, J. (1993). Sobre a organização do Senado no tocante à qualificação dos membros, à sua forma de escolha, à igualdade de representação, ao número dos senadores e à duração de seus mandatos. In J. Madison, A. Hamilton, & J. Jay (Eds.), Os artigos federalistas: 1787–1788 (p. 400). Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira. Manifesto Republicano. (2009). Cadernos Aslegis, 37. Martins, P. d. S. (2011). Fundeb, federalismo e regime de colaboração. In C. Cunha, J. Vierira Sousa, & M. A. da Silva (Eds.), Coleção Políticas Públicas de Educação (pp. 6–16). Campinas: Autores Associados, FE-UnB. Martins, E. M., & Krawczyk, N. R. (2018). Estratégias e incidência empresarial na atual política educacional brasileira: O caso do movimento ‘Todos Pela Educação’. Revista Portuguesa De Educação, 31(1), 4–20. https://doi.org/10.21814/rpe.12674. Last accessed 11 July 2020. Mattos, H. (2012). A vida política. In L. M. Schwarcz (Ed.), A abertura para o mundo (pp. 85–131). Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva. Prado, S. (2003). Partilha de recursos e desigualdades nas federações: um enfoque metodológico. In F. A. Rezende & F. A. de Oliveira (Eds.), Descentralização e federalismo fiscal no Brasil (pp. 273–331). Rio de Janeiro: FGV, Konrad Adenauer. Rezende, F. (1995). O financiamento das políticas públicas: problemas atuais. In R. d. B. A. Affonso & P. L. B. Silva (Eds.), A federação em perspectiva (pp. 241–259). Fundap: São Paulo. Rezende, F. (2006). Conflitos federativos e reforma tributária. Cadernos Adenauer VII, 3, 71–84.

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The Education System of Brazil: Financing of Education in Brazil

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Jose´ Marcelino de Rezende Pinto

Contents 1 Historical Foundations and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Financing of Education: Brazil in the International Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Expenditure Per Student in Basic Education and the Funding Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 FUNDEB and the Cost of Initial Quality Education Per Student (CAQi) . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Teachers’ Remuneration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The chapter presents the main characteristics of education financing in Brazil, analyzing the sources, and destination of resources. The data show a broad educational system, with 40 million of students; 700 schools managed by the central government; 31 thousand by the states; 113 thousand by the municipalities; and 40 thousand by the private sector. Expenditure per student in public schools corresponds to one third of the average for OECD countries and at least one fifth of the tuition fees for elite private schools. In order to face the challenges of attainment deficits, the low quality associated with the low value of spending per student and the inequalities between regions and types of school; the country adopted, in 1998, a policy of funds for financing education (FUNDEB) and, in 2014, approved a National Education Plan (PNE), which determines a progressive increase in public spending on education in order to reach 10% of GDP by 2024 with the aim of redress the historic educational debt with the most vulnerable sectors of the population. However, with the change of government,

J. M. d. R. Pinto (*) Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_21

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in 2019, and with new guidelines for social spending and with recessive economic policies, there is little chance of meeting the goals of the PNE. Keywords

Brazilian education · Education finance · Expenditures per student · FUNDEB

1

Historical Foundations and Organizational Principles

Brazil is among the eight largest economies in the world and has a population of 210 million inhabitants, the sixth in the world and a territory of 8.5 million km2, and the fifth on the planet. Its educational system has 40 million students in 185,000 schools. Can it be said that the educational spending and quality indicators of the schools where these children and youth study are proportional to the country’s gigantism? This will be discussed in this chapter. It was only from the 1930s that the country happened to have nationally articulated educational legislation and policies, based on the strengthening of the federal government role. In any way, centuries of decentralization in the educational provision left marks that affect until the present the effort of construction of a national education system. As it was already evidenced in the same paper, the guarantee of the destination of a minimum percentage of the taxes revenue from the federal government (Union) and of state and municipal governments for education, established for the first time in the 1934 Federal Constitution, was crucial to assure the necessary resources to start an effort in a sustainable way to face the country’s huge educational delay. Suffice to say that, at the end of the nineteenth century, Brazil presented the worst educational indicators when compared to its Latin American neighbors (Almeida 1989). As it was also already mentioned, this constitutional mechanism of destination of part of the collected taxes for use in education, the so-called constitutional earmarking, was interrupted in the Estado Novo dictatorship (1937–1945) and in most of the military dictatorship (1964–1985). This interruption had more serious effects during the military dictatorship, as it coincided with a period of intense urbanization of the country, due to the macroeconomic changes implemented, generating great expansion of educational provision due to the bigger demand and the increase of mandatory schooling (from 4 to 8 years), in a context of educational expenditure reduction. Without financial resources, the state and municipal governments, the one ultimately responsible for addressing basic education (daycare school to secondary education), responded to the pressure of the demand by increasing the number of school shifts with the reduction of hours in the classroom. In the 1970s, it was not unusual to find schools working four shifts in São Paulo’s state network, the biggest in the country (Paro 1981). With the country’s redemocratization process, consolidated with the 1988 Federal Constitution (Brasil 1988), the earmarking of resources for education was established. The part of the taxes revenue to be aimed to “maintenance and development of education” (art. 212 of the Federal Constitution) was set as a minimum of

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18% for the Union (federal government) and 25% for states and municipalities. The National Educational Bases and Guidelines Law (LDB) (Brasil 1996), which regulated the organization of the Brazilian education in accordance with the principles defined in the Constitution, established that the set percentages should be exclusively aimed to public education (art. 69 of LDB) and allowed the states and municipalities to establish higher minimum percentages for education within the scope of their normative competence. When setting a minimum percentage of resources that must be aimed to education in a mandatory way, a question is posed: what are the expenditures with “Maintenance and Development of Education”(MDE)? This is regulated in LDB’s articles 70 and 71. The former defines what are MDE expenses and the latter what cannot be characterized as MDE. In particular, the legislation does not consider the following as MDE programs for students’ assistance: school meals, dental-medical care, pharmaceutical and psychological assistance, and other forms of social care (as purchase of school uniforms, for instance). Although seeming exaggerated, the definition made by the legislation is crucial, as, in view of the penalties foreseen for the public agents (president, governors, and mayors) who do not fulfill the earmarking, it is common to use artifices in the sense of expanding artificially the expenditures with MDE to reach the percentages foreseen in the Federal Constitution (Davies 2013). Also, regarding MDE, a central issue omitted in articles 70 and 71 of the LDB refers to the payment of retired education professionals. In the face of the legislator’s omission, several states and municipalities count these expenditures as MDE, taking precious resources from the schools. The judiciary has already pronounced against this practice, and, just now (2020), a change in the Federal Constitution forbids this counting. The policy of earmarking part of the taxes revenue for expenditure with education brought some consequences that will be discussed here. The first positive aspect was to assure a minimum amount of resources for the sector without depending on the instabilities that have marked the definition of priorities by the governments throughout the Brazilian history. The second positive aspect is that, given the strongly regressive Brazilian tax structure that carries over mainly on the consumption of goods and services whenever the economy grows, the taxes revenue also increases and, consequently, the resources aimed to education. As it will be seen, this factor is what better explains the great growth of the expenditure in the period corresponding to the second mandate of president Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva and the first of Dilma Rousseff (2007–2014). As counterpart, in the periods of economic recession that the country has lived since 2015, the resources for education also decrease proportionally. This situation was aggravated with the approval of a Constitutional Amendment in 2016 (EC 95/2016), which freezes for 20 years all the federal expenditure, except the expenses with the public debt interests and charges. That is, even whether economy and taxes revenue grow from 2017 on, the social policies, among them education, will have their expenditure frozen in the lowest values of the last decade. The policy of taxes earmarking had another side effect. The federal government began the creation of a series of social and economic contributions, tributes that are legally distinct from the taxes and, therefore, do not suffer the effect from the

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constitutional earmarking for education. Thus, from 1995 to 2015, the tax burden of the country grew about 8 percentile points of the GDP, but education did not benefit with this increase due to the nature of the tributes created or increased. One last aspect of this financing model linked with taxes revenue is that the richest states and municipalities, usually the most industrialized ones, tend to have more resources for the financing of their education networks. This causes great inequalities between the different states of the federation and in the interior of one same state, among its municipalities. It must be remembered that the states’ priority is the work with secondary education; the municipalities are responsible for early childhood education (nursery and preschool); and states and municipalities shared the responsibility for grade school and middle school. Moreover, several states also provide higher education. On its turn, the federal government is responsible for most of the public higher education, for part of the vocational technical education and for exerting a redistribution and supplementary function to guarantee equalization of educational opportunities and minimum standard of quality of education by means of technical and financial assistance to the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities (art. 211, § 1° of the Federal Constitution). Another extremely important source for the financing of basic education is the Education Allowance (Salário-Educação). (Basic education includes nursery, preschool, 1st to 9th grade and secondary education.) Originally created in 1964, it is set out in the Federal Constitution in its current structure (art. 212, § 5° and 6°). Its source is a taxing on the companies’ pay roll. In its destination, 40% of the resources remain with the federal government, which applies them in programs and projects aimed to the reduction of the socioeducational unevenness between the municipalities, states, and Brazilian regions. The remaining 60% belong to the states, Federal District (FD), and municipalities, being distributed according to the revenue collected and the participation in the basic school enrollment. Its most usual destination is for students’ assistance programs, such as school meals and transportation, students’ uniforms, and transfer of resources directly to the schools for small expenses for costing and capital, among others. The amount of resources of the Education Allowance will be analyzed later. One last conceptual element to be approached in this introduction refers to the destination of public resources for the private education sector. The subject is addressed in art. 213 of the Constitution, establishing as a rule the destination of public resources to public schools. However, it opens the possibility of public resources being aimed to nonprofit education institutions, such as community (parents’ or teachers’ cooperatives, for instance), confessional, or philanthropic schools. It also allows the destination of public resources in the form of scholarships for 1st to 9th grade and secondary education students for those families that demonstrate insufficiency of resources, when there is a lack of places in the public network, having the Public Power the duty to prioritize the investment in the expansion of its network in the locality (art. 213, § 1°). As it will be seen ahead, the destination of public resources to the private sector has expanded a lot in the recent years, especially in early childhood and in higher education.

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Considering these points, in the following topics, it will be discussed the general data of the financing of Brazilian education in comparison with other countries. Next, data related to educational expenditure will be detailed; in the following topic, it will be discussed the aspects related to equity and quality of the educational provision, followed by a discussion on the destination of public resources to the private sector. It will be concluded with an analysis of the challenges to financing, considering the National Education Plan (Brasil 2014) and the budgetary constraints lived by the country, especially those from recessive economic policies and the Constitutional Amendment n° 95/2016 (BRAZIL 2016), that freezes the primary expenditure of the Union for 20 years.

2

Financing of Education: Brazil in the International Scenario

Since this is a work that searches to provide a comparative view of the educational systems of the Americas, it is intended, in this topic, to introduce the major indicators related to the financing of education, having the OECD database as reference. As a parameter for comparison, it has chosen some countries of the continent with available data for the 2013–2015 period, with stronger emphasis on those belonging to South America, besides Portugal and Spain, as the most important colonizers of Latin America, and Korea and Finland for being the countries always presented as reference in quality of education. Table 1 presents the total expenditure in relation to the GDP for all educational levels, as well as the expenditure per student for stages selected in US$ PPP (Purchasing Power Parity), which standardizes the values in accordance with the power of purchase of the currencies and that is distinct from the official exchange. Table 1 Total expenditure (% GDP) and expenditures by level per student: 2015

Country Mexico Colombia Brazil Argentina Chile Spain Portugal OCDE average Finland Korea United States

Total (% GDP) 5.3 6.2 5.0 5.6 6.1 4.4 5.2 5.0 5.7 5.8 6.1

Source: OECD (2018, 254, 266)

Expenditure per student (US$ PPP) Primary All secondary 2.874 3.129 3.178 2.817 3.762 3.872 3.799 4.790 5.064 4.930 7.320 9.020 7.380 9.518 8.631 10.010 9.305 10.482 11.047 12.202 11.727 13.084

Tertiary 8.170 6.369 14.261 5.085 8.406 12.605 11.766 15.656 17.591 10.109 30.003

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The first comment to make in relation to the data in Table 1 refers to the limitations of using only the percentage of the GDP as an appropriate indicator of a country’s educational expenditure. Thus, for instance, although Colombia aims to education a percentage of the GDP higher than the United States (6.2%
6.1%), its expenditure per student in primary education corresponds only to 27% of the value applied in the United States, as the value of the per capita GDP of the United States is quite higher than the Colombian. This finding is valid for all Latin American countries in contrast with rich countries. Considering primary and secondary education, even though Brazil applies in education a percentage of the GDP equivalent to the average of the OECD countries, the value spent per student is lower than half of what is done by these countries. In relation to the Latin American countries listed in the table, Brazil is in an intermediary situation, a little better than Mexico and Colombia in the expenditure per student in primary and secondary education, close to Argentina in primary education, and way below Chile in primary education (26%) and secondary (21%). The country only is highlighted in the expenditure per higher education student, whose values are close to the average of OECD and are higher than Portugal and Spain, even though far from the United States. This situation can be explained by the small participation of public provision in higher education (25% of the school enrollment in relation to the total) what allows an education of better quality, however, for few students. Another major information is that a significant part of the resources aimed to higher education is destined, in fact, to research and development. The public universities respond for about 95% of the scientific production of the country. The low investment per student in primary and secondary education, which also implies in the low amount of budgetary resources aimed to education, tends to be reflected in teachers’ remuneration. This is shown in Table 2. Table 2 Annual teachers’ salaries, in public institutions, in US$ PPP (2017) Country Brazil Colombia Mexico Chile Costa Rica Korea OCDE average Portugal Finland Spain United States

Starting salary 13.971 17.476 19.893 23.429 23.888

Salary after 10 years of experience – 31.871 25.261 29.004 28.165

Salary after 15 years of experience – 31.871 31.686 34.231 30.304

Salary at top of scale – 35.581 39.996 43.760 36.720

30.395 32.258

45.746 41.884

53.405 45.004

84.842 54.156

32.887 33.408 38.987 39.183

40.041 38.671 42.217 53.826

42.489 40.991 45.069 61.028

65.417 43.451 55.384 67.197

Source: OCDE (2018, 375)

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Data in Table 2 clearly indicate the distance of teachers’ remuneration between Latin American and more developed countries, with good educational indicators. In the case of Brazil, where there is only the beginning of career wage, the amount paid is lower to half of what is paid in the rich nations. For the other countries, the ratio is of about two thirds, decreasing a little in the wages in the end of the career. Latin American countries, except for Brazil, which did not present data, seem, in contrast to the rich countries, to opt for a lower initial wage and to signal with a remuneration of practically twice as much the initial value at the end of the career. The problem of this model is that it does not attract the best secondary education students to enter the teachers training courses, as well as it does not stimulate the best professionals graduated in the field to enter public teaching. Another aspect is that, at least in Brazil, a percentage of public network teachers (50% in the state network of São Paulo, for instance) is admitted through temporary contracts and, therefore, they do not receive the benefits contained in the career plans, particularly tenure, that only benefit the hired teachers. One last element to be discussed in this first part refers to the factors that impact the students’ performance in standardized tests. Table 3 presents, for a group of countries, the performance in PISA, associated with expenditure per student indicators, GDP per capita, and inequality measured through the Gini coefficient. The data set presented in Table 3 helps to understand why the Latin American countries have such a poor performance in PISA: they are very underprivileged, unequal, and spend little in education. In the opposing end, it is observed that the two best positioned countries in PISA in the table, Finland and Korea, present a lower Gini value and an accumulated expenditure above US$ PPP 95,000. Portugal and Spain are in close positions in terms of PISA performance, accumulated expenditure, and inequality, while the United States represent the rich countries indicated in the table, the worst performance in relation to the accumulated expenditure, what can be explained, in part, for the bigger inequality. In Latin American countries, Chile presents the best performance but also the biggest accumulated expenditure, followed by Uruguay, that has a close performance in PISA, with a lower accumulated expenditure, what can be explained by its lower inequality. Brazil, in turn, presents the worst relation between expenditure and performance, a fact that can be associated with the enormous income inequality and the effect of years of low investment in education.

3

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

Table 4 presents the amount spent in public education in accordance with the methodology developed by the National Institute of Studies and Educational Research Anísio Teixeira – INEP (2018a). The major aspect to be commented in relation to the data in Table 4 refers to the low participation of the federal government in the financing of education, considering that it keeps more than half of the net revenue collected and contributes with

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Table 3 Relationship between cumulative expenditure per student between the age of 6 and 15, average reading performance in PISA, GDP per capita, and Gini coefficient

Country Dominican Republic Peru Brazil Mexico Colombia Costa Rica Uruguay Chile Spain United States Portugal Korea Finland

Average reading performance in PISAb 358

Cumulative expenditure per student in the age group 6–15 (
US$ PPP 1.000)c 24

GDP per capita (US$ PPP 1.000)d 6.1

Ginie 47

34 32 19 17

398 407 423 425 431 437 459 496 497

20 38 29 24 47 32 44 76 118

6.5 11.4 10.3 7.9 10.4 16.8 14.5 29.9 54.3

48 55 48 56 51 40 52 35 41

16 4 2

498 517 526

74 96 107

22.1 28.2 49.7

39 32 27

Ranking PISAa 46 45 43 41 40

Source OECD (2016, 150–151) b OECD (2016, 150–151) c OECD (2018, 253) d World Bank (2019, 1) e World Bank (2020, 1) Note: Cumulative expenditure per student refers to the year 2015, while average reading performance in PISA refers to the year 2015; GDP per capita and Gini (2010–2014) a

Table 4 Public expenditure in public education: 2015

Federal States and FD Municipalities Total

2019 R$ (billion)a 93.2 124.4 143.9 361.5

% of the total 25.8 34.4 39.8 100.0

Source: INEP (2018a, 1) Updated according to the official inflation index

a

about one fourth of the resources aimed to public education. In the case of basic education, its participation is shortly above 10% of the total expenditure. Concerning the states, the FD and the municipalities have a more equitable distribution of the expenditure, what results from the current funding policy (FUNDEB), which will be discussed below. The federal resources are aimed essentially to its higher education and vocational education network. A smaller part is aimed to reduce the inequalities in the provision of basic education between the

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273

distinct regions of the country. States and municipalities share the provision of 1st to 9th grade, being the state governments responsible for secondary school and the municipal ones for the early childhood education (nursery and preschool). Tables 5 and 6 present the distribution profile of the educational service in the distinct spheres of the Public Power, as well as of profit and nonprofit private sector. Table 5 indicates that the public provision predominates in basic education, except for vocational education. Considering the total number of school enrollments, the public sphere responds for 82% of them. A relevant data in the Brazilian educational provision, even when compared with OECD countries, is the attendance in the 0- to 3-years-old age group (nursery), with 3.2 million school enrollments, 64% in the public sphere. The total of school enrollment corresponds to 30% of coverage in the corresponding age group. Table 5 also shows the already observed division of responsibility in public provision. Thus, the municipalities share with the states the 1st to 9th grade education, also responding for the early childhood education (0 to 5 years old), while the states respond for secondary education and vocational education. Education of youth and adults (EJA) is also shared. The federal government has an insignificant paper in the provision of basic education (0.8% of the total), working especially in vocational education. However, its schools have an excellent quality, and its selection processes are highly disputed. Table 6 presents the profile of higher education provision. The absolute predominance of the private sector is remarkable, with 75% of the school enrollments. The public provision is taken care mainly by the federal network of education. It responds for 16% of the total school enrollments and 64% of the public provision. The state network also presents important provision in higher education, with 8% of the total and 32% of public provision. The municipal provision is residual and closer to the standard of service of the private network, and a great part of these institutions charge tuitions from their students, in contrast to its state and federal counterparts. It is important to observe that the Constitution establishes the gratuity of education in official institutions in all levels (BASIC and higher education). Places in public higher education institutions are highly disputed, due to its quality and low provision, resulting in a socioeconomic and ethnic selectivity. Due to this fact, in the recent years, it was approved a wide legislation of affirmative policies aiming to democratize the access to these institutions. Regarding also to higher education, 21% of the total of school enrollments, in 2017, were provided in the distance modality (EAD), and 91% of this provision happened in the private sector. A positive data is that 38% of the school enrollments (660 thousand students) in teachers training courses happen in public institutions. A relevant fact in recent years was the expansion of the federal expenditure, especially between 2005 and 2012, both in Brazilian currency and regarding the GDP, as Graphs 1 and 2 indicate. The analysis of Graph 1 evidences that the federal expenditure, corrected by the inflation, increased 3.6 times between 2005 and 2012. After this period, it begins such a process of decrease that the amount aimed at education, in 2018, is close to the value of 2011, with a 23% decrease.

Preschool 1 51 3,760 1,227 5,040 76%

1st–5th grade 7 2,150 10,463 2,822 15,442 82%

6th–9th grade 15 5,279 5,136 1,820 12,249 85%

Secondary 1st–3th 172 6,897 50 1,015 8,133 88% EJAa 12 1,917 1,344 209 3,482 94%

Vocational education 183 297 16 735 1,232 40%

a

Source: Prepared by the Educational Data Laboratory, based on microdata from the basic Education Census (INEP 2016, 1) Education of Youth and Adults

Federal State Municipal Private Total % public

Nursery 2 4 2,077 1,156 3,239 64%

Table 5 School enrollments in basic education by management dependence: 2016 (
1,000) Total 393 16,596 22,846 8,983 48,817 82%

274 J. M. d. R. Pinto

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The Education System of Brazil: Financing of Education in Brazil

Table 6 School enrollments in in-person and distance higher education per management dependence: 2017 (
1,000)

275 Total 1,306 642 84 3,597 2,645 8,273 25%

Federal State Municipal For-profit private Nonprofit private Total % Public

Source: Prepared by the Educational Data Laboratory, based on microdata from the Basic Education Census (INEP 2016, 1)

83 75

75 66

62

68

72 64

52 43 34 19

21

22

19

23

34

35

23

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Graph 1 Evolution of the federal expenditure with maintenance and development of education 2000–2018 (2019 R$ billion). (Source: STN (2019, 1))

1,2 1,0 0,9

1,0 0,9

1,0

1,1 0,9

0,8 0,7 0,6 0,4

0,5

0,5

0,4

0,4

0,6

0,6

0,4

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Graph 2 Evolution of the federal expenditure with maintenance and development of education 2000–2018 (% of GDP). (Source: STN (2019, 1))

Part of this growth resulted from the advance of the economy (2000 to 2014), but it is more relevant to observe in Graph 2 that there was a change in the minimum level of the federal expenditure in relation to the GDP, which is left from the minimum level of 0.4% of the GDP in 2005 to reach 1.2% in 2011, decreasing to

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0.9% in 2018. This increase made possible the great expansion of the higher and vocational education network. Between 2006 and 2016, the federal school enrollments in undergraduate courses doubled (Censo da Educação Superior 2016). The expenditure of states and municipalities did not expand that much in the period, staying in the range of 4% of the GDP and will be analyzed ahead, in view of its specificities. An additional source of resources besides those indicated in Table 4 is the social contribution of the Education Allowance. Its collection throughout the years has represented 0.3% of the GDP. From this revenue, the federal government keeps 40%, aimed to school transportation, meals, didactic books programs, and direct transference of resources for basic education schools of the country. States and municipalities split the remaining 60% among themselves, in the ratio of the respective school enrollments in basic education, using the resources with relative freedom. However, priority is given to the programs of student assistance, among them the acquisition of school uniforms and additional resources for school meals, since the values per capita transferred by the federal government are insufficient. Table 7 analyzes the expenditure in education in the different stages of education. Data in Table 7 undo a myth spread by the Brazilian media from some World Bank reports (Banco Mundial 2017) that the country spends a lot with higher education, what hinders the improvement of basic education. It is also claimed that the public higher education basically takes care of students from wealthier families. As it can be observed, the expenditure in this stage represents one fifth of the total. The OECD Brazil Report shows that the percentage of expenditure aimed to higher education is below, also, of the average of the OECD countries (OECD 2017). Also regarding this aspect, it should be highlighted the strategical role represented by public higher education in the teachers training for basic education (50% of the in-person school enrollments), in the training of MSc and PhD students (around 85% of the total school enrollments), and in the scientific and technological development, as the public universities respond for about 90% of the scientific production of the country. Regarding the argument of the elitism of public higher education, there is presently a robust set of studies that question this thesis, considering, also, the affirmative policies implemented in recent years (Amaral 2017). Table 7 Public expenditure with public education by level: 2015 Stages Early childhood education 1st to 9th grade Secondary Vocational education Higher education

2019 R$ billiona 42.4 165.0 46.7 16.7 66.8

Source: INEP (2018a, 1) Updated according to the official inflation index

a

% of total 12.5 48.9 13.8 4.9 19.8

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3.1

The Education System of Brazil: Financing of Education in Brazil

277

Expenditure Per Student in Basic Education and the Funding Policy

When the expenditure per student is analyzed, the Brazilian statistics are a little trustworthy in the detailing between the different subdivisions of BASIC education. Therefore, it is more appropriate to analyze the average expenditure, R$ 7.800,00 per student-year, in values of 2019, for 2016. It was already commented in the previous item how the expenditure per student in BASIC education is way below what is done by OECD countries. Here it should be commented how it is also way below the value practiced by private schools with better quality. As an example, the tuition of the private school with the best performance in the National Secondary Education Test (ENEM) in 2009 represented four times the average value of expenditure per student-year in the public network. On average, the private schools attended by middle class students have monthly fees that vary from two to three times the expenditure per student in the public network. And it is always good to remember that it is easier and cheaper to teach children of these families, as they have higher cultural capital (Pinto 2018). It should also be highlighted that, notwithstanding low, this value of expenditure per student in public schools may be over dimensioned, in view of the artifices used by the governments to artificially expand the expenditures with maintenance and development of education (MDE) already commented. Another crucial aspect in the financing of basic education in Brazil refers to inequalities in the value spent per student between the different states of the federation or within a state. This happens because, as the state and municipal governments have the power to charge tributes, it is natural that the richer ones collect more and, this way, spend more per student in contrast with less affluent states and municipalities. With this, as the provision of 1st to 9th grade education is shared by state and municipal governments, it is not unusual that in the same city there are schools with distinct standards of quality of provision, in case the student attends a state or a municipal establishment. To face these problems, the country introduced in 1997 a policy of accounting funds, in which part of the state and municipal resources already constitutionally aimed to education is added in one single mechanism of financing and later divided between state and municipal networks of basic education (nursery, preschool, 1st to 5th grade, 6th to 9th grade, and secondary education) in the proportion of the respective school enrollments. The federal government has the role of complementing the resources in those states and respective municipalities with lesser value of expenditure per student. This policy started with FUNDEF (Fund for Maintenance and Development of the Fundamental Education and Valorization of Teaching), comprising only 1st to 9th grade education. This fund was implemented compulsorily in the whole country from 1998 on, being in force until the end of 2006, when it was replaced by FUNDEB (Fund for the Development of basic education and valorization of education professionals), which comprises the whole basic education and its modalities (education of youth and adults, rural education, special needs education, among others) and whose extinguishing is foreseen for the end of 2020. Presently, the National Congress discusses several projects in the sense of making the funding policy permanent.

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Origin:

Desnaon:

States 60.6% 2.0 % of GDP

FUNDEB

Municipalities 30.3%

Federal government 9.1%

States 42.4%

Municipalities 57.6% 0.2 % of GDP

Source: Author

Fig. 1 Origin and Destination of Fundeb Resources (2016). (Source: FNDE (FUNDEB consolidated report))

Picture 1 presents the current format of the funding policy, indicating the origin and the destination of the resources managed in the scope of FUNDEB for 2016 (Fig. 1). Some important clarifications must be made on the funding policy in its current format. First, the funds function in the scope of each state, that is, there is no sharing of resources between different fund states. Therefore, there are 26 state funds and 1 from the Federal District (FD). The complementation from the federal government is, at least, 10% of the values aimed to FUNDEB by states and municipalities, considering the country’s total sum. In fact, these 10% of complement configure the limit of the federal contribution. The mechanism of destination of complementary resources from the federal government assumes as a base the value per student provided by FUNDEB in the scope of each state. Thus, the resources are initially aimed to the state (state and municipal networks) with lesser value of expenditurestudent, until reaching the value of expenditure-student of the second state with lesser value and so on, until the resources of the complementation are depleted. For 2019 it is expected that only 9 of the 26 states and the Federal District receive complementation from the Union. Another aspect that still lacks adjustments in the fund refers to the accounting of the school enrollments, considering the distinct levels of education. As it is known, there are differences of costs per student between the different stages of the basic education. To take in account this effect, in FUNDEB the school enrollments are weighed by the level or modality of education. Thus, for instance, when counting the students, 10 children who attend a full-time nursery (a minimum of 7 h per day) are counted as the equivalent to 13 children (differential of 30%) who study part-time (4 h per day) in a 1st to 5th grade school. Currently, there are 28 weighting factors, but whose variation may happen between 0.7 and 1.3, considering 1st to 5th grade education as factor “1.0.” The great criticism to this specter of variation is that it does not correspond to the actual cost of the different levels and modalities of education. A full-time nursery, for instance, costs at least

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279

2,27 2,25 2,24

% do PIB

2,21 2,19

2,18

2013

2014

2,15

2010

2011

2012

2015

2016

Graph 3 Evolution of the resources provided by FUNDEB 2010–2016 (% of the GDP). (Source: FNDE (2018, 1))

twice as much as the expenditure per student of a 1st to 5th grade school, due to longer school hours and smaller number of students per group. Graph 3 shows to the evolution of the amount provided by Fundeb in comparison with the GDP between 2010 and 2016. It should be clarified that from 2007 to 2010 there was a period of transition between the two funds, hence the option for 2010 as baseline reference. Data presented in Graph 3 indicate a great stability of FUNDEB resources in relation to the GDP. At times of economic growth, the fund reacts quickly, as its main source, a tax that carries over the circulation of goods and services, is directly associated with the families’ consumption, and the reciprocal is also true. Thus, in view of the decrease of the GDP from 2014, even considering the growth of the fund’s resources in % of the GDP indicated in Graph 3, in values brought up to date in Brazilian currency (R$), the resources of FUNDEB had entered in a decreasing process from 2015 on. Graph 4 presents the average value available per student from FUNDEB for 2016, indicating the effect of the complementation from the Union. Data clearly show the positive impact of the complement from the federal government (in gray), especially for Maranhão (MA), where the value per student doubles, and Pará (Pará) with 78% of addition. In its turn, in Bahia (BA) the addition is of 39%; 37% for Ceará (CE); 35% for Amazon (AM); 29% for Piauí (PI); 25% for Alagoas (AL); 16% for Pernambuco (PE); and 12% for Paraíba (PB). It is also evident that, despite the reduction in the difference of the available value per student between the states, the variation between the lower (states that receive the complementation) and the higher value (Roraima) still is higher than 60%, what indicates the insufficiency of the federal complement to FUNDEB to guarantee the equalization of educational opportunities, as it is established in the Constitution (art. 211). Another consequence of the funding policy, and that was evident from FUNDEB, is that it discourages the expansion of the service. Graph 5 shows the evolution of school enrollments served with resources from FUNDEF

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6.000

R$ per student

5.000 4.000 3.000 2.000 1.000 0 MA PA AM BA

CE

PI

AL

PE

PB MG RN

ES

RJ

R$/student without complement

RO AC MT PR

SE

MS GO

SC

SP

AP

DF

TO

RS

RR

Federal complement

Graph 4 Average value available by Fundeb per student with indication of the federal complement (2016). (Source: FNDE (2018, 1)) 50 45

Enrollments (millions)

40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5

1.

1.

99 8 99 9 2. 00 0 2. 00 1 2. 00 2 2. 00 3 2. 00 4 2. 00 5 2. 00 6 2. 00 7 2. 00 8 2. 00 9 2. 01 0 2. 01 1 2. 01 2 2. 01 3 2. 01 4 2. 01 5 2. 01 6

0

Graph 5 Evolution in school enrollments served with resources from Fundef. (Source: FNDE (2018, 1))

and FUNDEB. It should be highlighted that between 2007 and 2009 there was a transition process between FUNDEF (1st to 9th grade education only) and FUNDEB (basic education), when school enrollments and resources were gradually expanded. When the country established the funding policy in 1998, there was a great expectation for expanding the educational attendance, as the financial resource was earmarked for the enrollment. The data, however, show that this did not happen. The main explanation lies in the fact that the total amount of resources in each state depends only on the tax’s revenue, and, thus, an increase in the enrollment can mean a decrease in the available resource per student.

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Table 8 Brazil: Evolution of public enrollments in basic education – 2006–2015 (
1,000) Stage Nursery Preschool 1st to 9th grade Secondary Education of Youth and Adults (EJA) Total

2006 917 4,148 29,815 7,838 4,682 47,400

2010 1,354 3,574 27,064 7,370 4,150 43,512

2015 1,937 3,688 23,362 7,026 3,237 39,250

2015/2006 2.1 0.89 0.78 0.90 0.69 0.83

Source: INEP (2016, 1)

Table 8 details the evolution of enrollment for the different levels of education between 2006 and 2015. Data in Table 8 indicate that, except for nursery, there was a trend of reduction of enrollments, so that, in the period, there was a decrease higher than eight million enrollments in the basic education. In the case of 1st to 9th grade education, the decrease is associated with the improvement of the school flow and the demographic dynamics. Regarding the preschool, the decrease is related with the change in the organization of early childhood education, as 6-year-old children who previously attended preschool from 2010 on were enrolled in 1st to 9th grade education, which had its length extended from 8 to 9 years. In any way, this decrease happened when it was expected an increase in the enrollments, considering the approval of EC 59/ 2009, which made mandatory, from 2016 on, education from 4 to 17 years of age, as well as of the National Education Plan (PNE 2014–2024), that also established several goals of expansion in the attendance in the basic education, particularly in the age group corresponding to nursery and EJA. In summary, what the data collected until the moment seems to indicate is that the funding policy has not stimulated the expansion of the attendance in the basic education in accordance with the goals established by the National Education Plan.

3.2

FUNDEB and the Cost of Initial Quality Education Per Student (CAQi)

Besides setting the strategic role of the federal government in equalizing educational opportunities in the different regions of the country, the same art. 211 of the Constitution sets as its task the guarantee of a minimum standard of quality of education. That is, it is not enough to equalize; it is also crucial to assure to all the students, in the distinct regions, a school that has the adequate supplies for learning to happen. To make possible the guarantee of this constitutional precept, the National Campaign for the Right to Education (www.campanhaeducacao.org.br), an entity that congregates several institutions and movements in defense of the public education of quality, developed the concept of Cost of Initial Quality Education per Student (CAQi). The studies began in 2002, and the first version was concluded in 2007 (Carreira and Pinto 2007). CAQi is a relatively simple concept: it implies the

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J. M. d. R. Pinto

definition of which supplies are necessary to guarantee a minimum standard of quality of education and to survey the cost of these supplies. The definition of the minimum supplies involved a wide participation of researchers, teachers, principals, and school staff, besides parents and students. CAQi considers the following as central elements for the quality of education: school’s infrastructure (classrooms, computer, sciences, and arts laboratories, library, canteen, sports court, students body room, among others), appropriate equipment, attractive remuneration and career for all professionals working in the school, and a number of students per group that make education and learning processes effective. The different stages (nursery, preschool, 1st to 9th grade education, secondary) and modalities of education (EJA, Special Needs Education, Countryside Education, Quilombola Education, Aboriginal Education, Vocational Education) are considered. Later, in 2010, CAQi was incorporated by the National Council of Education, through Normative Act N. 8/2010 of the basic education Chamber. This norm, however, was never implemented by the Ministry of Education, and, in 2019, it was revoked, with no replacement. Table 9 shows the distance between the minimum value of FUNDEB and the values of CAQi. Data presented in Table 9 indicate the huge effort that still must be made to guarantee a minimum standard of quality of education in relation to the resources per student provided by FUNDEB. There is a distance between CAQi and the minimum value propitiated by FUNDEB in all stages and modalities indicated, but the difference is more expressive in the stages of nursery (three times the value of 1st to 5th grade partial time) and in the rural 1st to 5th grade (twice as much). Graph 6 points which would the available amount per student in FUNDEB be if CAQi were being implemented, assuming 2016 as a reference Graph 6 indicates that, in case CAQi had already been implemented in 2016, as set by PNE 2014–2024, the available average value per student in the scope of FUNDEB would be the same for the whole country, with exception only of the state of Roraima, which has only 0.3% of the Brazilian population. With this, the constitutional determination related with the role of the federal government to guarantee the equalization of the educational opportunities and minimum standard

Table 9 Ratio of CAQi values and the minimum value per student available by FUNDEB for some education levels and modalities Nursery (full-time – FT) Preschool (part-time – PT) 1st to 5th grade – PT (urban) 1st to 5th grade – PT (rural) 6th to 9th grade – PT (urban) High school – PT (urban) Education of Youth and Adults Source: Fineduca (2016, 1)

CAQi  Minimum of FUNDEB 3.07 1.55 1.47 2.12 1.31 1.19 1.84

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The Education System of Brazil: Financing of Education in Brazil

283

6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 MA PA AM BA CE

PI

AL PE PB MG RN ES Comp. CAQi

RJ RO AC MT PR SE MS GO SC SP AP TO RS RR

Comp. Atual

Sem compl.

Graph 6 Estimated value of amount per student from FUNDEB with the current federal complement and with CAQi: 2016. (Source: Author’s estimates)

of quality of education would be fulfilled. For CAQi to be effective, however, it is necessary that the federal complementation to FUNDEB raises from the current 0.2% of the GDP to about 1.1%. When it is evidenced (see Graph 1) that this index corresponds to the total value spent by the federal government with education, the challenge is quite big in front of the current investment. On the other hand, considering that the tax burden of Brazil is 32% of the GDP and that the federal government keeps about 56% of this total, it can be concluded that it is feasible to implement CAQi in Brazil In conclusion, FUNDEB represented to Brazil a significant advance in the perspective of the equalization of financing and strengthened the role of the federal government in the financing of the basic education. However, considering that over 93% of its revenues come from resources that already were aimed to the financing of education, it can do little in the sense of representing an advance in the quality of basic education. This is how, considering the forecast of resources per student in 1st to 5th grade education, for 2019, only one state (Roraima) reaches a monthly value above R$ 400,00 an amount equivalent to half of the monthly fee of a private school considered as having an average quality and attended by middle class. So that FUNDEB can actually contribute for a jump in quality, it is crucial to have input of more and new resources. This is only possible with a change in the role of the federal government in the financing of education. Considering all education levels, it responds for little more than one fifth of the total. Finally, FUNDEB presents a structural instability, as it is constitutionally set to be extinguished in December 31, 2020. If this happens, it will be chaos, as nowadays there is an imbalance between the capacity of revenue of the federal entities and their educational responsibilities. This imbalance is only compensated by FUNDEB’s system of communicating vessels, in which the resources follow the school enrollments in the scope of each federal entity. With the end of the fund, a good part of the municipalities would have to deal with about half of the resources per student that they have currently. Fortunately, there is a consensus in the country and the National Congress on

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the need to transform FUNDEB in a permanent fund. There are some projects under discussion in the Chamber and in the Senate, with different outlines of sources of revenue and formulas of resources distribution, also existing, in good part of the parliament and the civil society, a consensus on the need to expand the federal supply of financial resources to the fund. This proposal, however, faces a strong resistance on the part of the economic area of the government and some economists linked to the market, who claim the lack of need of more resources for public education.

3.3

Teachers’ Remuneration

One straight consequence of the low value spent per student is an equally insufficient teachers’ remuneration. According to a study from INEP (2018a), in 2016 the remuneration of teachers with higher education corresponded to 71.4% of what the other professionals with equivalent training received. In 2012, this index was lower, 65%. The reduction of this difference between 2012 and 2017 was not given, however, in function of a significant increase in the teachers’ income, which increased only 1% in the period, but due to a decrease of 8% in the remuneration of the other professionals. Table 10 presents the monthly gross income as well as the ratio between the incomes of teachers in contrast with other professionals with higher education training. Data presented in Table 10 indicate that, from the 27 units of the federation, in 2016 only seven remunerated above R$ 4.000,00 (about US$ 1,000 by the commercial exchange of 2019), only two above R$ 5,000, and only one, the capital of the country that receives a generous federal supply of resources, offers a remuneration close to R$ 7.000,00. Considering, however, the other professionals with equivalent level of training (higher education), the income of teachers of the FD represents only 73%. Under this aspect (column 3 of Table 10), in 2016 those teachers with higher education training received the same or above the professionals with equivalent training (2014–2024 PNE, goal 17) only in two states, Mato Grosso do Sul, with 108%, and Amapá, with 100%. And in five of them (Piauí, Amazonas, Ceará, Pernambuco, and São Paulo), this ratio was below 70%. According to goal 17 of PNE, the equivalence must be reached until the end of 2020. The depreciation of the profession is more evident when the monthly average income of teachers is compared with some professions with higher prestige. Thus, secondary education teachers received, in 2009, the equivalent to 31% of the remuneration of a physician; 43% in relation to an engineer; and 53% referring to a lawyer (Alves and Pinto 2011). According to the same study, a teacher who worked in 6th to 9th grade education, which demands higher education training, received less than a bank cashier or a soldier, occupations that do not demand this level of education. Finally, teachers who work in early childhood education (with minimum training demanded in technical secondary education) received incomes lower than salesmen or workers in hygiene and beauty, occupations that do not demand any school education. This depreciation explains why the careers that train professionals for basic education are those that present the lesser ratio of candidates per place in the universities’ selection processes.

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The Education System of Brazil: Financing of Education in Brazil

Table 10 Monthly average gross income of teachers from Brazilian basic education public networks: 2016

2016 Ceará Piauí Pernambuco Rondônia Amazonas Paraíba Tocantins Minas Gerais Espírito Santo Alagoas Santa Catarina Goiás Bahia São Paulo Acre Rio Grande do Norte Rio Grande do Sul Pará Maranhão Mato Grosso Sergipe Paraná Rio de Janeiro Mato Grosso do Sul Roraima Amapá Federal District

285

Teacher’ monthly income (R$ 1,000 of 2019) 2.8 2.9 3.0 3.1 3.1 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.3 3.4 3.4 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.7 3.7 3.8 3.8 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.6

Teachers/other higher education professionals (%) 62 51 65 79 58 71 74 73 71 77 83 85 80 67 80 84 70 87 96 97 71 93 76 108

5.1 5.1 6.7

93 100 73

Source: INEP (2018b, 287–292)

To aggravate this situation, it should be commented that in recent years there was a huge expansion of teachers training courses in distance higher education (EAD), with the provision of millions of places. The bigger the provision of teachers in the market, the greater the probability of wage reduction and consequent professional depreciation.

3.3.1 Additional Public Resources In this work, it was analyzed in more depth the federal expenditure, which had in recent years been around 1% of the GDP, the expenditure from FUNDEB (about 2.2% of the GDP), besides Education Allowance, with a revenue of 0.3% of the GDP and aimed to the students assistance programs (school meals and transportation,

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didactic books, etc.). Undeniably, these are the effectively available resources for good part of the Brazilian students. In any way, it needs to be counted as expenditure in basic education 0.4% of the GDP relative to the resources coming from the earmarking of 25% of the tax revenue collected by the municipalities, which must be aimed to education, but that are not part of FUNDEB. Although significant, more than 85% of these resources stay in the hands of only 300 municipalities, representing only 5.2% of the total of municipalities. To give an idea of this concentration, only the municipalities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro accounted for 31% of these resources in 2017. It is also important to count the existence of 0.3% of the GDP that corresponds to the expenditure made by state governments with higher education (Carvalho 2014). In general, these resources come from the part of its taxes revenue that is not appropriated by FUNDEB.

3.3.2 Destination of Public Resources for the Private Sector A topic that acquires increasing importance in Brazil and the world is the destination of public resources to private education networks (Adrião and Pinto 2016; Adrião et al. 2012; Peroni et al. 2009). The strategies are varied and increasingly aggressive. They involve from covenants with private institutions in early childhood education and special education, passing by the sales of didactic material “education systems,” until reaching the proposals of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) that involve the transference of the management of the public schools to private entities (the Social Organizations) by means of public notices, whose most radical example until the moment happens in the state of Goiás (Souza and Flores 2017). Besides these, there are also the so-called tax expenditure involving tax relief for private education institutions (nonprofit or those that adhere to Prouni, a system of tax exemption for private schools in exchange for the provision of free-of-cost or semi free-of-cost places in higher education) or those families who can deduct part of the expenditure with education in the private network from their income tax. Besides these mechanisms, a significant part of public resources (0.3% of the GDP) is collected in the form of social contributions by the federal government, aimed to the so-called “S” System. This involves vocational training by the private sector, besides social assistance, culture, and leisure to workers’ children. These resources are public but totally controlled by the employing private sector, with almost no transparency of data, with the aggravating that most of the courses offered are paid (Pinto 2016). A significant volume of public resources is aimed to higher education private institutions by means of the Student Loan Fund (FIES), a system of student credit for the private institutions of higher education, with resources supplied by the federal government. According to a survey by the Ministry of Finances (Ministério da Fazenda 2017), in 2016 the cost of FIES for the public purse was R$ 32.3 billion (0.5% of the GDP), 16 times more than the value spent in 2011. Although recent, the level of insolvency in contracts already is higher than 50%, and everything indicates that a good part of the resources will not be recovered by the Brazilian State. It is also criticized the lack of quality control of the institutions that benefit from this program.

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They received more public resources than all the federal expenditure with its higher education network, R$ 27.1 billion, in 2016. There are several ways to measure the public resources aimed to the private education sector. INEP (2018a), using the criterion defined by the PNE, calculated it as 0.5% of the GDP for 2015. The author of this work, using a little different methodology, reached 0.58% of the GDP (Pinto 2016). Although it is not such a high minimum level, it is, perhaps, the area under stronger pressure from the financial capital. In this sense, it should be highlighted the importance, even with some ambiguities, of art. 213 of the Federal Constitution. It establishes the destination of public resources for public schools as the rule of the system, allowing the transfer for private schools as long as they prove nonprofit purposes, apply their financial surplus in education, and assure the destination of their patrimony to another school of the same nature,or to the Public Power, in case of closing their activities. The Constitution also allows the destination of the resources earmarked for scholarships for 1st to 9th grade education and secondary education to the private sector but only when there is lack of places in the public network, being the Public Power obliged to invest with priority in the expansion of its network (§ 1° of art. 213).

4

Conclusion

The data and analyses presented in this chapter sought to show the complexity of educational financing in Brazil. It is a country with less than two centuries as an independent nation and organized as a federative republic, where the three entities (federal, state, and municipal governments) have competence to legislate, to charge tributes, and to provide education in different levels of education. In view of this diversity of education networks and the differences of collection between states and municipalities, throughout the years it has been accenting imbalances in the values of expenditure per student between the regions of the country and even between education networks of the same state, as the students can attend state or municipal schools, besides the small basic education federal network. As one of the ways to face these issues, besides the policy of earmarking part of the taxes revenue for education, which dates to 1934, in 1997 it was established a funding policy for basic education. It aggregates state, municipal, and federal resources, making the resource proportional to the school enrollment. This financing strategy, still institutionally unstable, was able to reduce, although not eliminating, the mismatches in the expenditure per student, but it was not capable to assure a minimum standard of quality of educational provision, in view of, mainly, the small role of the federal government (less than 10%) in the composition of the current fund (FUNDEB). In higher education, the great challenge is to expand the attendance, mainly through the growth of public provision, which accounts only for one fourth of the total. One last challenge that is placed is the guarantee that the limited resources aimed to education in Brazil are not appropriated by the mercantile private sector. All the challenges here stated, even with limitations, are dimensioned in the National Education Plan, a federal law approved in 2014 and valid until 2024. It establishes as the goal of public

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investment in education 10% of the GDP to fulfill the demands of expansion of provision and improvement of the quality in the different stages of education modalities (goals 1 to 19). The expansion of the role of the federal government in the area is crucial for the effective fulfillment of these goals. However, with the approval of the freezing of primary expenditure of the federal government for 20 years, the viability of the new plan is clearly compromised.

References Adrião, T., & Pinto, J. M. R. (2016). Privatização da educação na América Latina: Estratégias recentes em destaque. Educação e Sociedade, 37(134), 11–15. Adrião, T., et al. (2012). As parcerias entre prefeituras paulistas e o setor privado na política educacional: expressão de simbiose? Educação e Sociedade, 33(119), 533–549. Almeida, J. R. P. (1989). História da instrução pública no Brasil (1500 a 1889). Brasília/São Paulo: EDUC/INEP. Alves, T., & Pinto, J. M. R. (2011). Remuneração e características do trabalho docente no Brasil: um aporte dos dados do Censo Escolar e da PNAD. Cadernos de Pesquisa (Fundação Carlos Chagas. Impresso), 41(143), 606–639. Amaral, N.C. (2017). Uma análise do documento Um Ajuste Justo: análise da eficiência e equidade do gasto público no Brasil. Disponível em: https://avaliacaoeducacional.files.wordpress.com/ 2017/11/analise-critica-bm-2017.pdf2017 BANCO Mundial. (2017) Um Ajuste Justo: análise da eficiência e equidade dos gastos públicos no Brasil. Disponível em: https://www.worldbank.org/pt/country/brazil/publication/brazil-expendi ture-review-report BRASIL. (1988). Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil. Brasília: Senado Federal. (atualizada até 2019). BRASIL. (1996). Lei n° 9.394 de 20 de dezembro de 1996. Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional. Brasília: Senado Federal. BRASIL. (2014). Lei n° 13.005, de junho de 2014. Aprova o Plano Nacional de Educação – PNE e dá outras providências. Brasília: Senado Federal. BRASIL. (2016). Emenda Constitucional n° 95, de 15 de dezembro de 2016. Altera vários artigos do ADCT. Brasília: Senado Federal. Carreira, D., & Pinto, J. M. R. (2007). Custo Aluno-Qualidade inicial: ruma à educação pública de qualidade no Brasil. São Paulo: Global: Campanha Nacional pelo Direito à Educação. Carvalho, C. H. A. (2014). Mapeamento do financiamento à educação superior estadual no Brasil: da vinculação de recursos e da evolução dos gastos com pessoal, custeio e investimento. In: XXII Seminário Nacional Universitas/Br. Anais. Censo da Educação Superior. (2016). Brasília: INEP. Davies, N. (2013). A fiscalização das receitas e despesas do ensino em Minas Gerais. Cadernos de Pesquisa, 43(149), 518–541. FINEDUCA. (2016). Nota conjunta Fineduca-CNDE n° 1/2016. Available at: http://www.fineduca. org.br/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Nota-conjunta-FINEDUCA-CNDE_01_2016.pdf FNDE. (2018). Relatórios Consolidados do Fundeb. Brasília: Fundo Nacional de Desenvolvimento da Educação-FNDE. https://www.fnde.gov.br/index.php/financiamento/fundeb/area-paragestores/dados-estatisticos/item/10710-repasse-consolidado-anos-anteriores. INEP. (2016). Censo Escolar (microdados). Brasília: INEP. http://inep.gov.br/web/guest/ microdados INEP. (2018a). Estimativa do Investimento Público Direto em Educação por Estudante. Brasília: INEP. Available at: http://inep.gov.br/indicadores-financeiros-educacionais INEP. (2018b). Relatório do 2° ciclo de monitoramento das metas do Plano Nacional de Educação. Brasília: INEP. Available at: http://portal.inep.gov.br/documents/186968/485745/RELAT%

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C3%93RIO+DO+SEGUNDO+CICLO+DE+MONITORAMENTO+DAS+METAS+DO+PNE +2018/9a039877-34a5-4e6a-bcfd-ce93936d7e60?version¼1.17 MINISTÉRIO DA FAZENDA. (2017). Diagnóstico FIES. Fundo de Financiamento Estudantil: ausência de sustentabilidade fiscal e suas causas. Brasília. OECD. (2016). PISA 2015 results (vol. I): Excellence and equity in education. Paris: PISA, OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264266490-en. OECD. (2017). Education at a glance. Country note: Brazil. disponível em: http://download.inep. gov.br/acoes_internacionais/estatisticas_educacionais/ocde/education_at_a_glance/CN_Brazil_ OECD_2017.pdf OECD. (2018). Education at a glance 2018: OECD indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/eag-2018-en. Paro, V. H. (1981). Estudo comparativo de custo-aluno nos diversos graus e modalidades de ensino. São Paulo: Fundação Carlos Chagas; Secretaria de Estado de Educação. Peroni, V. M. V., Oliveira, R. T. C., & Fernandes, M. D. E. (2009). Estado e terceiro setor: as novas regulações entre o público e o privado na gestão da educação básica brasileira. Educação & Sociedade, 30(108), 761–778, Out. Pinto, J. M. R. (2016). Uma análise da destinação de recursos públicos, direta ou indiretamente ao setor privado de ensino no Brasil. Educação & Sociedade, 37(134), 133–152. Pinto, J. M. R. (2018). O financiamento da educação no Constituição Federal de 1988: 30 anos de mobilização social. Educação & Sociedade, 39(145), 846–869. RECEITA FEDERAL. Carga tributária no Brasil. Brasília: Ministério da Fazenda, vários anos. Souza, F. A., & Flores, M. M. L. (2017). Uma análise sobre a implementação das Organizações Sociais nas escolas de Goiás: Os recursos públicos em questão. Revista Eletrônica de Educação, 11(1), 217–229. STN. (2019). Demonstrativo dos gastos da União com manuntenção e desenvolvimento do ensino. Brasília: Secretaria do Tesouro Nacional. World Bank. (2019). Gini index. World Development Indicators, World Bank. https://data. worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?order¼wbapi_data_value_2014+wbapi_data_ value+wbapi_data_value-last&sort¼desc World Bank. (2020). Gini index. World Development Indicators, World Bank. https://databank. worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source¼2&series¼SI.POV.GINI&country¼

The Education System of Canada: Foundations of the Canadian Education System

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED-Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Personnel Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The contemporary system of education in Canada is intertwined in the conflicts and compromises made in the formation of the country. A diversity of approaches to education exists based on provincial and territorial political mandates, policies, and priorities. With multiple jurisdictional authorities having exclusive control of education, the education system can be best thought of as a system of systems. Federal policies of multiculturalism and bilingualism, English and French, are present in the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education systems. There are over 70 Indigenous languages spoken in Canada. Indigenous language revitalization, along with minority language revitalization, has become a national S. Friesen (*) · M. Jacobsen Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_37

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priority in education. People whose first language is neither English nor French make up just over a tenth of the population. Canada has one of the highest rates of immigration in the world. The most recent waves of immigration have added to the racial, linguistic, and cultural diversity of Canadian society, and thus influence programs and priorities in the education system. Currently, many provinces and territories are undergoing full system reviews and initiating educational reforms from kindergarten to secondary school. The cultural, historic, linguistic diversity along with the political landscape ensures that the education system in Canada will remain a system of systems. Keywords

Education · Indigenous · Multicultural · Diversity · Canada · Provinces

1

Introduction

It is important to understand that in many ways there is no such thing as one Canadian education system. Education in Canada resists a defining grand narrative tending instead to identify with sensibilities more resonant with postmodern thought as multiple jurisdictional authorities having exclusive control of education – a system of systems. In Canada, formal education falls under the jurisdiction of the federal, provincial, and territorial governments with each assuming different jurisdictional authority. The jurisdictional authority for education in Canada is a historical artifact of British North America Act of 1867 section 93 (now the Constitution Act, 1982) that stipulates “[I]n and for each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Education . . ...” The educational provisions of the British North America Act were the outcome of more than a century of conflict and compromise (Woods 1936, 378). To succeed as a new nation, Canada needed to develop a system of governance, which included a system of education, that was not and is not “unified or seamless, but shifts according to the particularity of language, geographical affiliations, and historical circumstances” (Sumara et al. 2001, 154–155). As such, there are diverse approaches to education across Canada that are based on provincial and territorial political mandates, policies, and priorities. Unlike some other countries, i.e., the United States with the Department of Education, Mexico with a Ministry of Education, or South American countries where some or all aspects of governance are held by the state, the Canadian federal government has no jurisdiction over education in the provinces and territories. That said, the federal government maintains responsibility for elementary and secondary education of registered First Nations people and the Inuit. The federal government is also responsible for education and training of Canadian Armed Forces members and the Correctional Service of Canada (penitentiary) inmates. Aside from two defined areas of federal authority, the provinces and territories in Canada have control over education. Each province and territory has set up educational structures and institutions that are unique to it within a country separated by considerable geographical distances

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and diverse historical and cultural heritages. Each province and territory has authority over curriculum and assessment which means that curriculum and assessment varies across the provinces and territories, and tends to reflect provincial and territorial priorities and interests. Every province and territory in Canada provides elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education. While there are many differences in educational systems across Canada, there are also a number of similarities. For example, across provinces and territories, most children start in nursery school or kindergarten before the age of 6 while compulsory schooling usually begins in grade 1 Elementary and secondary education take place over 12 or 13 years and involve education from the ages of 5–18, in yearly increments called grades (kindergarten and grades 1–12). Education is compulsory up to the age of 16 in every province and territory in Canada, except for in Manitoba, Ontario, and New Brunswick, where the compulsory age for completion of schooling is 18, or as soon as the high school diploma has been achieved.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

Formal education has a complicated history in Canada. In order to understand education in Canada, it is necessary to reveal several historical antecedents. In discussing the historical and social foundations of education within Canada, it is first and foremost important to acknowledge that First Nations and Inuit people have always occupied the land known as Canada; however, both groups, as well as the Métis, have been typically excluded from discussions pertaining to education until perhaps as recently as the past 10 years. Emerging from the culture, language, and values of early British and French immigrants, education played a significant role in shaping the national character of Canada. A principle in the founding of Canada as a nation was that experiences of individuality were inescapably social experiences. To succeed as a nation, Canada needed to develop a system of governance that embraced the notion that identities, individual and collective, were not given or discovered but were continually invented, including the invention of a national character. (Sumara et al. 2001, 154)

The historical legacy of this principle has meant that a sense of a single Canadian identity is a myth. “As part of Canada’s nation-building project, universal schooling was to ensure that all Canadians adopted common knowledge and values to fulfill their responsibilities as citizens of a unified polity” (Raptis 2018, 9). A review of government readers (school texts) authorized for use by elementary students communicated the kinds of British and French ideals that early policy makers viewed as critical to developing the type of character, dispositions, and skills deemed necessary for citizenship (Van Brummelen 1983; von Heyking 2006; Christou 2018; Raptis 2018). The shaping and reshaping of Canada’s national character via the education

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system continues to evolve in response to the ongoing arrival of large numbers of immigrants from non-British or French backgrounds, and more recently, in response to calls for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples of Canada. Ongoing immigration from around the world, and efforts at reconciliation, has meant that the people of Canada have had to continually find ways to live respectfully with each other within a culture and context that evolves and adapts. The evolution of education within Canada provides compelling evidence that educational institutions across the country can respond to, and frequently initiate, social change (Sumara et al. 2001; von Heyking 2006; Christou 2018; Raptis 2018).

2.1

General Historical Background

Both France and England established colonies in Canada; however, in 1763, France ceded Canada to England through the Treaty of Paris. Prior to 1763, formal education was under the direction of the Roman Catholic Church and the French in Upper Canada (Quebec) and Acadia (New Brunswick). Lower Canada (Ontario) and Nova Scotia fell under the direction of Anglican and Calvinistic missionaries from England and Scotland. “A century before Canada achieved nationhood, American commentators such as Benjamin Franklin took no pause in their criticisms of the liberal British attitudes that allowed French to be spoken and Roman Catholicism to be practiced in an English colony” (Sumara et al. 2001, 152). Franklin, along with others of the day, saw Canada as a country soon to be incorporated into American culture. However, the Quebec Act of 1774 granting rights of language and religion for Canada’s French population put an end to notions of assimilation into American culture. The educational provisions of the British North America Act of 1867 and the Constitution Act, 1982 granting sole responsibility for education to the provinces and territories was the result of more than a century of conflict and compromise, particularly in areas pertaining to language and religion. The British North America Act of 1867 was an act of Parliament of the United Kingdom by which three British colonies – Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Province of Canada (Quebec and Ontario) – were joined together to form the Dominion of Canada. This process is referred to as Canadian Confederation (Confederation). Looking back more than 150 years at the historical underpinnings of education in Canada is important to understand why and how matters of language and religion present in the founding of Canada between English and French, and Catholic and Protestant or non-sectarian, continue to surface in contemporary Canadian education. It seems impossible to understand education in Canada without retracing the historical antecedents to define the current governance structure. Along with language and religion, one of the historical legacies important to understanding the contemporary education system is the education of Indigenous people in Canada. For 165 years, from 1831 to 1996, attempts to assimilate Indigenous children through the residential school system by forcibly removing and separating children from their families and communities, has destroyed many lives and families across Canada. Every province and territory, with the exception of

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Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and New Brunswick, had established residential schools for Indigenous people. The federal government operated the residential schools in partnership with a number of churches, including the Anglican, Methodist, and Catholic. Residential schools were built as a means to solve the “Indian question” in Canada — the perceived threat and barrier posed by Indigenous Peoples to the ongoing construction of the newly forming nation of Canada. Canada adopted this model in order to enforce the adoption of European traditions, languages and lifestyles by First Nations, Métis and Inuit children (History of Residential Schools 2018).

In tracing the historical and social foundations of education within Canada, it becomes evident that since pre-Confederation, matters of education have been integrated within the story of the nation’s emergence with tensions, conflicts, and exclusions playing themselves out within Canada’s contemporary education system. The Quebec Act of 1774 granting rights of language and religion for Canada’s French population was passed to gain loyalty of the French-speaking majority of Lower Canada (Quebec) in the forming of Canada as one nation. The Quebec Act allowed for the consolidation of two regions, Lower Canada (Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario), that were two of the founding provinces known as Canada at the time of Confederation in 1867. The British North America Act of 1867, Section 93, gave authority and exclusive rights for education to the provinces, while at the same time honoring the Quebec Act. The education of Indigenous children in residential schools began prior to Confederation in the Mohawk Institute in 1831. Residential schools for Indigenous children became part of Canadian government and church policy from the 1830s. By 1930, there were 80 residential schools across Canada. According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015), at least 3200 Indigenous children died in the overcrowded residential schools; however, more than double that number of children are estimated to have died. The legacy of residential schools continues to feature strongly in Canadian education to this day and is one of the most urgent and pressing social issues facing Canadians.

2.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

A diversity of languages and cultures create the multilingual and multicultural fabric of Canadian society. Inhabitants of Canada reflect many cultures, ethnicities, and languages. According to the 2011 Canadian census, 200 languages were reported as a home language or mother tongue (Statistics Canada 2012). Census data on ethnic and cultural origins reported over 250 origins (Statistics Canada 2016a). Two official languages are recognized in Canada, English and French. In October 1971, the declaration of an official Canadian policy of “multiculturalism within a bilingual framework” gave recognition to a cultural reality. The policy recognizes: (i) Canada’s multicultural heritage, and that this heritage must be protected, (ii) Aboriginal rights, (iii) English and French as the only official languages, but that

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other languages may be used, (iv) equality rights regardless of race, religion, and (v) minority peoples’ rights to their culture. Immigration has always been a key to Canada’s growth strategy. According to the Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook (2020), Canada has one of the highest rates of immigration in the world. In 1869, Canada announced its first immigration policy, the Immigration Act of 1869. It “contained few restrictions on immigration, rather it focused primarily on ensuring the safety of immigrants during their passage to Canada and protecting them from exploitation upon their arrival” (Van Dyk 2020). The Immigration Act was used to encourage immigration into the newly opened Canadian West (Gagnon 2020). In the years 1891 to 1902 inclusive, the number of immigrants arriving in Canada was 437,830 (Statistics Canada 2016b). The number of immigrants to Canada continued to increase in the next decade. From 1903 to 1914, 2,677,319 people immigrated to Canada (Statistics Canada 2016b). Immigrants to Canada during this time were primarily from Eastern and Southern Europe and Scandinavia. An immigration boom that followed World War II favored immigration from British Isles, Western Europe, and Southern Europe. “At the time of the 1971 Census, 28.3% of immigrants were born in the United Kingdom and 51.4% were born in another European country. From 1960 onwards major amendments were made to Canada’s immigration legislation and regulations which made it possible for an increasing number of immigrants from Asia and other regions of the world” (Statistics Canada 2016b; Duffin 2020). The 2016 census reports that Canada had 1,212,075 new immigrants who had settled in the country between 2011 and 2016 (Hussen 2018). During this time, the vast majority of immigrants were from Asia and the Middle East, although immigration from Africa, Caribbean, Central America, and South America increased slightly (Hussen 2018). The most recent waves of immigration have added to the racial, linguistic, and cultural diversity of Canadian society which has also highlighted some of the racial, linguistic, and cultural inequalities within Canada, such as employment and economic disparity, incarceration rates, discrimination, and access to postsecondary schooling. Duffin (2020) reported that Canada admitted 313,580 immigrants in 2019 and is projected to admit 340,000 more in 2020. Currently, organizations such as the Conference Board of Canada and the Economic Council of Canada have identified the need to continue to attract immigrants to Canada. In the decades following Confederation, immigration was seen as a way to populate a vast land. Today, there are three official reasons given for increasing the level of immigration: (i) a social component, facilitating family reunification, (ii) a humanitarian component, relating to refugees, and (iii) an economic component, attracting immigrants who will contribute economically and meet workforce needs (Friedman 2019; Conference Board of Canada 2020). As the Conference Board of Canada (2020) highlights, Canada is facing the dual challenges of an ageing population and a declining birth rate. Immigration is viewed as a strategy for addressing a continued strong labor force within the country (Friedman 2019). While cultural and linguistic diversity has been a feature of Canadian schools since post Confederation, 2011–present has seen increased diversity within Canada as more people from non-European countries have moved to Canada. This current

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wave of immigration has necessitated a growth in English or French language programs in the schools. It has also increased the cultural and linguistic diversity within many Canadian classrooms, which changes the contexts for teaching and learning across the country. Adapting and responding to an increasingly diverse Canadian society has impacted all levels of education within Canada. Provinces and territories hold sole jurisdiction for developing systems of education for its people (in K-12 and postsecondary sectors, the latter of which includes colleges, universities, polytechnical institutions, specialized arts and cultural institutions, and independent academic institutions), except for the schools and colleges that are operated by First Nations communities that are funded by the Government of Canada under Indigenous and Northern Affairs. Legislation in individual provinces consists of provincial statutes, along with bylaws and regulations of local school boards or commissions that set out the division of responsibilities in the area of public instruction. “Despite slight differences, education systems across Canada have experienced significant similarities in development due to political, social, and economic influences both within and outside of Canada” (Raptis 2018, 7). Each of the three territories, the Northwest Territory, Nunavut Territory, and Yukon Territory, has their own department or ministry of education that manages the delivery of education services, including curriculum and assessment. Provinces and territories may delegate power to local school boards or commissions, or to other agencies established or recognized by the provinces or territories. Members of school boards or commissions in the provinces and territories (or, in the case of New Brunswick, district education councils) are directly elected. The rights and duties of these agencies are set out in provincial or territorial legislation governing that area and are generally uniform across Canada. First Nations operated schools and colleges, unlike the historical residential schools, are administered by locally elected school boards in the case of K-12 schools, whereas the colleges are administered by the college and controlled entirely by people of the First Nation. Most First Nations operated K-12 schools adopt the curriculum and assessment of the province or territory in which they are located. First Nations colleges are frequently members of one or more higher education Indigenous consortia. The federal government shares responsibility with First Nations for educating the children ordinarily resident within First Nations’ communities and attending schools whether those schools are provincial or First Nations operated. First Nations operated schools are normally located on First Nations’ land, within their communities. The federal government also provides funding for postsecondary assistance and programs for Status or Registered First Nations people. However, a discrepancy exists between the amount of funding the federal government provides for children living in First Nations’ communities and the funding the provincial governments provide for the education of children; this discrepancy also varies across each province and territory. As many First Nations’ schools incur increased expenses (Cahill 2016) due to their remote locations and small size, the gap between provincially funded and First Nations federally funded schools is significant. To address this gap in funding, the Canadian government undertook an analysis of federal

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spending on elementary and secondary education for students living on First Nations reserves. The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) who provided an independent analysis to Parliament on spending for primary and secondary education on First Nations reserves found evidence that the federal government do not adequately fund First Nations operated schools (Cahill 2016). Based on the evidence in the report brought forward from the PBO, the Canadian government, through the office of Indigenous Services Canada, updated its calculation approach for K-12 First Nations schools’ operating expenditures to make it more comparable to provincial funding (see https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1349140116208/1531315346681).

2.3

Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population

The two official languages in Canada are English and French. According to the 2011 census, English and French are the first languages of 56.9% and 21.3% of Canadians respectively. There are over 70 Indigenous languages spoken in Canada. The Indigenous languages can be divided into 12 distinct language families: Algonquian languages, Inuit languages, Athabaskan languages, Siouan languages, Salish languages, Tsimshian languages, Wakashan languages, Iroquoian languages, Michif, Tlingit, Kutenai, and Haida. According to the 2011 census data, “almost 213,400 people reported speaking an Aboriginal language at home. While 82.2% of them reported that same Aboriginal language as their mother tongue, the other 17.8% reported a different language, such as English or French, as mother tongue” (Statistics Canada 2011). People whose first language is neither English nor French make up 14.2% or 4.7 million persons (Statistics Canada 2011). Education institutions across Canada are making progress in offering Indigenous language teaching. Indigenous language revitalization efforts are underway in many universities across Canada. Course offerings in an Indigenous language can be found in undergraduate and graduate education. While there is no federal department of education and no integrated national system of education, the federal government provides financial support for postsecondary education and the teaching of the two official languages. Canada is a highly urbanized country with approximately 80% of the population living in an urban area that is in fairly close proximity to the border with the United States. Fewer than one in five people in Canada live in a rural or remote region of the country. Given the vastness of the country, comprised of 9.985 million square miles, it means that large parts of Canada are sparsely populated with approximately 6.3 million people living in rural and remote areas. According to the ElementarySecondary Education Survey for Canada, the Provinces and Territories, 2016/ 2017, there are over 5.5 million students enrolled in public, private or independent schools, and in home-schooling in Canada (Statistics Canada 2018a). Providing equitable, high quality access to education is a challenge in many of these rural and remote areas. It is difficult to attract and retain teachers in rural and remote areas, and educational outcomes are decreasing compared to urban areas. In many cases, it takes a long time for teachers and students to travel to the nearest school, many schools are being closed due to declining enrollment, and access to postsecondary

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education is difficult (Canadian Council on Learning 2006). Proximity and agglomeration have been long recognized as important factors in shaping the socioeconomic opportunities of the various rural and remote regions across Canada. At a time in which transportation and communication technologies have altered the meaning and perception of distance in many ways, geographic proximity remains important regarding socioeconomic outcomes at the local level (Alasia et al. 2017). Indigenous students, living in rural and urban regions of Canada, continue to lag behind non-Indigenous students in academic achievement, secondary school graduation rates, and access to postsecondary education (Anderson and Richards 2016; Chiefs Assembly on Education 2012). The National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health (2017) identified education as a social determinant impacting health of Indigenous people. A wide range of factors affecting learning for Indigenous people have been associated with the gap between Indigenous and nonIndigenous populations primarily associated with historic and contemporary impacts of colonialism, socioeconomic marginalization, inappropriate education systems, and inequitable funding for education (Cahill 2016). There has been considerable policy work across Canada to address predominantly socioeconomically disadvantaged students and Indigenous children and youth. The Summary Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015) forwarded 94 calls to action which pertain to federal, provincial, and territorial governments to address the inequity that exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD 2017) published a volume Promising Practices in Supporting Success for Indigenous Students that includes the ongoing work in four Canadian provinces (Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia) and two territories (Northwest Territory and Yukon) to address inequality. This volume highlights a number of initiatives that are underway at the elementary and secondary levels in Canada. While not recorded in this volume, there are also a number of initiatives at the postsecondary level. A number of postsecondary institutions have implemented innovative education delivery models to engage Indigenous postsecondary learners and help them overcome geographic barriers to education (National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health 2017). For example, at the University of Calgary, in the Werklund School of Education, a Community-based Bachelor of Education degree pathway has been created to address issues of access and equity. This degree pathway is designed for learners interested in obtaining a Bachelor of Education, but unable to commit to a residencybased teacher education program. The program aims to mitigate the high turnover of teachers in rural and remote areas by educating community members as teachers.

2.4

Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support

Federal and provincial governments provide funding to assist people in the transition from educational institutions to the labor market. Across Canada, there are a number of “initiatives to help learners make the transition from their studies to the job market [which] include changes in vocational and technical education, apprenticeship

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programs, vocational guidance, and cooperative education” (Council of Ministers of Education 2001, 3). While many programs exist and are being expanded, “persistently high levels of youth unemployment since the downturn of 2008, reveal that for a large number of Canadian youth, the impacts of recession have been deeply felt” (Public Policy Forum 2013, 4). However, combined efforts of federal, provincial, and educational institutions seem to be effective. According to Statistics Canada (2019a), “youth unemployment rate was 10.3%, the lowest rate since comparable data became available in 1976.” A variety of approaches to support the transition from education to employment are underway within educational institutions across Canada (Public Policy Forum 2013). Some of these approaches to assisting young people transition to the labor market are co-ops, apprenticeships, work integrated learning, and internships; multiple pathways including flexible learning environments; collaborative approaches; career development services and mentorship; and connecting over new tools (Public Policy Forum 2013; May 2018). There is an increasing emphasis on programs that promote partnerships between the postsecondary education system and industry (Public Policy Forum 2013; May 2018). One example of an initiative that works to design and deliver research and training programs across Canada is Mitacs. Mitacs has an internship program “designed to increase deployment of highly educated graduates into the private sector” (Mitacs n.d.). In their 2017–2018 annual report, MITACS reported almost 8,000 internships towards its goal of 10,000 work-integrated placements by 2020–2021. MITACS, which receives a combination of federal and industry funding, supported 6,740 research internships with industry in Canada and 1,159 international research collaborations, representing $123.5 million in funding for building research innovation networks for the country’s businesses and not-for-profit organizations (Mitacs n.d.).

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

There are 13 jurisdictions – 10 provinces and 3 territories – departments or ministries of education that are responsible for the organization, delivery, and assessment of education in Canada at the elementary and secondary levels, for technical and vocational education, and for postsecondary education. Provinces and territories have full responsibility for all levels and aspects of education, and institutional and organizational principles vary across the country. Some provinces and territories have two separate ministries, one for elementary-secondary education and another for postsecondary education and skills training. However, some provinces and territories choose to organize under one ministry that serves all levels of education. A number of jurisdictions have placed early childhood learning and development under the umbrella of education. Two separate school systems, a Public School system and a Catholic School system, are still maintained by the provinces of Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The existence of these separate school systems is a legacy of the Constitution Acts of 1867 and 1982. Some jurisdictions have merged these two separate systems into one

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school system. In jurisdictions with two systems, both Public and Catholic systems are required to adhere to the same legislation, policy, curriculum, and assessments and both are funded by the provincial or territorial government. In addition to public and catholic school systems, which are English first language school boards, every province and territory has French-language school boards to manage the network of French first-language schools. In the province of Quebec, the same board system applies to English first-language schools. In addition to the provision of French first and English first language schools, the two official languages are offered as additional languages in schools across the country, but to varying degrees depending on the region. Across the country, it is fairly common for English-language school boards to have designated select schools that provide French as a subject and French as the language of instruction in a number of subjects. A number of organizations have been created to provide a forum for Canadians to come together to discuss educational matters. Several national organizations that are involved in pan-Canadian conversations and initiatives are described below.

3.1

General Principles

Public education, which includes both public schools, catholic schools, and Frenchfirst language schools, is funded through local and provincial taxes and some federal transfer payments, and is provided free of charge to all Canadians who meet various age and residence requirements. Each province or territory has one or two departments/ministries responsible for education. This department/ministry is almost always led by a minister who is an elected official. The Minister delegates responsibility for policy development and day-to-day management of the department/ ministry to a senior civil servant, the deputy minister. The deputy minister provides advice to the minister and oversees the activities of the department/ministry, enforces regulations, and provides continuity in educational policy. Although jurisdictional structures vary across the provinces and territories, in most jurisdictions, the processes for collaboration have been established regarding matters of education. These collaborations involve the ministry responsible for education, provincial teachers’ organizations, local school boards and districts, university-based faculties of education responsible for initial, ongoing, and post-graduate education programs. The ministries of education meet to discuss educational issues of mutual interest to all provinces and territories at the national level through the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC). The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC) was founded by the ministers of education to serve as: (i) a forum to discuss policy issues; ii) a mechanism through which to undertake activities, projects, and initiatives of mutual interest; iii) a means by which to consult and cooperate with national education organizations and the federal government; and iv) an instrument to present the education interests of the provinces and territories internationally. CMEC provides leadership in education at the pan-Canadian and international levels and contributes to the exercise of the exclusive jurisdiction of provinces and territories over education. (CMEC n.d.)

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Another organization, the Canadian Education Association, now known as EdCan, was officially set up by teacher organizations in 1891. It was initially created “as the result of strong efforts of teachers’ organizations to unite for the advancement of education” (Malcolm MacLeod and Blair 1992, 1). Over the years, EdCan has promoted the exchange of ideas and served as a unifying influence in conversations about education in Canada. Another pan-Canadian education organization is the Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CSSE), a bilingual organization of scholars and practitioners, launched in 1972. The CSSE is a large organization of postsecondary researchers and scholars, postsecondary students, and K-12 practitioners in education in Canada. Within, between, and across 11 specialized scholarly associations, the CSSE generates and shares knowledge about Canadian education, and provides a major national voice for those who create educational knowledge, study curriculum and assessment, prepare teachers and educational leaders, and apply research in the schools, classrooms, and institutions of Canada.

3.2

Education Administration and Governance

As the provinces and territories have full responsibility for education, the officials in charge of education have the right to make changes in the internal organization of ministries/departments of education, accountability structures, and administrative structures at all levels of the education system. The provincial and territorial authority over education is strongly influenced by the policies and mandates of elected governments, which are in turn influenced by the 4-year election cycle. The provincial and territorial governments can delegate power to local authorities. This delegation is optional in nature and granted at the discretion of the provincial or territorial government. The delegation of power by the province or territory does not mean that the latter waives its authority in educational matters, given that it is the provincial legislature that determines the extent of local powers. The power exercised by school boards or commissions or councils generally consists in applying curriculum, overseeing the operation and administration of school systems, obtaining the necessary financial resources, proposing new construction or other major capital projects, and assuming responsibility for personnel. During the 1990s and early in 2000, certain provinces centralized again in the ministry or department a number of functions that had previously been delegated to school boards or commissions, such as programming, funding, certification of teaching staff, and evaluation of teaching staff (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada 2001). In each of the ten provinces and three territories in Canada, educational direction for K-12 students is mandated by statute (also referred to as Acts) and implemented by the assigned ministry or department. Although the statute in each province or territory is titled differently, some calling it an Education Act, School Act or Public Schools Act, the legislation refers to education in relation to schooling, be it public, separate, private, charter, or home schooling. The acts all contain themes related to values and belief, the learning environment, and learner development but they differ

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in the weight they afford each of these themes (Baron 2016). In analyzing the various Acts across the provinces and territories, Baron (2016) found that all Acts addressed matters of student emotional development, integrating into society, and the provision of safe and/or inclusive environments. All jurisdictions in Canada provide for some form of pre-elementary education. The age for compulsory schooling varies across the jurisdictions, but most require children to attend from the age of 6–16 years. At the postsecondary level, degree programs, diploma programs, certificate programs, and trades certificates/apprenticeship programs are available from one of various postsecondary institutions. All provinces and territories provide apprenticeship, vocational, and technical training; however, the province of Quebec differs somewhat from the other provinces and territories in the ways postsecondary education is structured and administered. As presented in Fig. 1, elementary and secondary education varies across provinces and territories.

Fig. 1 Canada’s education systems

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In Canada, post-secondary education is the constitutional responsibility of the provinces and territories. While the federal government does influence PSE through various funding arrangements, it has no direct role in the PSE system. Indeed, Canada is the only industrialized country without a federal department of education. The provinces and territories have direct control of the development and implementation of the PLRs [policy, laws, and regulations] that govern PSE. The Canadian PSE system is best conceptualized as a patchwork of regional or provincial/territorial systems. The delivery in each province/territory has been shaped by historical circumstances, regional demographics, and the political priorities of their respective governments. (Howard and Edge 2014, 10)

Similar to the K-12 education sector, the postsecondary sector is governed by Acts in most provinces and territories. “Legislation generally gives Canadian universities considerable autonomy over their day-to-day operations, including financial affairs, hiring, admission standards, and degree requirements” (Howard and Edge 2014, 11). As universities have a fair amount of autonomy in setting their academic and strategic priorities, provincial and territorial governments tend to use funding as a policy lever to encourage and achieve particular priorities. Universities focus on higher education and in many cases also on research. Universities have the power to confer degrees. The governance structure of the university is bicameral and often consists of a board of governors and a senate. There is a large college sector in Canada consisting of colleges, institutes, and polytechnics, and in Quebec, CÉGEPs (collèges d’enseignement général et professionnel). Colleges, institutes, and polytechnics typically have less autonomy than universities with many more closely tied to the goals of the provincial or territorial government and labor market needs. While the various institutions in the college sector offer similar credentials, programs at polytechnics tend to be more intensive in nature. The majority of colleges, institutes, and polytechnics focus on teaching and some also have a focus on undertaking applied research.

3.3

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCEDClassification

As illustrated in Fig. 1, the education systems in Canada can be classified according to ISCED-classification. Nine provinces and the three territories have the same primary, secondary, and postsecondary structure in their provincial or territorial education system (i.e., Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick [French], Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Ontario, Yukon), with three provinces demonstrating the same structure but with a variation for lower secondary and secondary (i.e., New Brunswick [English], Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan). Quebec and Nova Scotia both stand out with unique educational system designs especially in the area of vocational, technical, and college programs.

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Personnel Supply

Statistics Canada (2019b) reported just over 400,000 full-time public and secondary teachers across Canada. However, it is difficult to obtain a pan-Canadian dataset to put together a picture of personnel supply and demand across the country. At the beginning of 2018, Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, and Nunavut Territory were all reporting a teacher shortage; however, at the beginning of 2019, Ontario was reporting teacher layoffs due to budget cuts. Other provinces are reporting teacher shortages in particular subject areas such as French, math, and sciences. While most provincial and territorial governments are responsible for establishing the regulations for teaching certification, which is normally a bachelor’s degree in education, a provincial teaching certificate is also required to be qualified to teach in Canadian K-12 classrooms. Personnel supply in the K-12 sector is more a distribution problem than a supply issue. Attracting and retaining qualified personnel in rural, remote, and First Nations schools is a perennial problem. While many teachers and principals new to the profession are attracted to these areas, few remain in the community longer than 2 years (Canadian Council on Learning 2006; Kitchenham and Chasteauneuf 2010). In the postsecondary education sector, 46,025 full-time academic staff were teaching in Canadian public universities in 2017/2018. This represents a slight increase over the previous year by 0.8% (Statistics Canada 2018b). Data on staff in Canadian Post-secondary Education skews heavily towards universities. Statistics Canada does not survey colleges with respect to academic staff numbers, and it asks no questions at all in either sector about non-academic staff. Peak bodies, such as Universities Canada or Colleges and Institutes Canada, do not collect this data either, and for the most part individual institutions do not provide this information on their own (though there are some notable and honourable exceptions). (Usher 2018, 20)

Each province is responsible for funding postsecondary education, with some support provided via federal transfers. Federal spending on postsecondary education remained stagnant at 0.2% of GDP in 2018, which tends to impact tuition fees and expenditure patterns in each province. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT n.d.) tracks provincial variation on postsecondary education finances and notes that all provinces are increasingly reliant on private sources of funds, particularly international student tuition fees, to compensate for funding gaps. Graduate and undergraduate student enrolment in Canada increased between 2005 and 2015, with full-time university enrolment growing from 780,000 to more than one million students (CAUT n.d.). Regardless of the wide range across provinces, undergraduate tuition fees have increased from a national average of $1,700 in 2008 to over $7,000 per year in 2018. At $10,028, Ontario has the highest average tuition fee in the country and Newfoundland and Labrador the lowest with $2,776 (CAUT n.d.). According to Education at a Glance OECD Indicators 2018, Canada ranks first in tertiary educational attainment (56.7%), ages 25–64, of the selected OECD countries.

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Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

Six trends currently dominate education in Canada: First, the provinces and territories are currently conducting full system reviews and reforms to their education systems. Saskatchewan is carrying out consultations that will form the basis of a provincial education plan. Manitoba has commissioned a review of K-12 education. Ontario completed a consultation in 2018 to modernize the education system. In the fall of 2018, Nunavut conducted consultations to establish a bilingual education system in which students are fluent in Inuktut and either French or English. Nova Scotia recently conducted a review of its education system. Second, minority language revitalization in education has become a national priority. Responding to the concerns of many Canadians, the Government of Canada released an Action Plan for Official Languages 2018–2023, which provides $5 million to enable Francophone minority communities to partner with local schools to lead community school projects. Nunavut’s new legislation requiring primary instruction in Inuktut means there is a shortage of qualified Inuktut speaking teachers. Third, provinces are reviewing and revising standardized assessment. Ontario and Prince Edward Island have issued external reviews of their student assessment programs. British Columbia released a new graduation policy in 2018 requiring students to write three new mandatory assessments. A new provincial literacy and numeracy assessment was introduced in the Yukon in 2019–20 school year. Fourth, provinces have revised curricula in the areas of health, mathematics, Indigenous, and digital education. British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec have made changes to their mandated curriculum in the areas of sexual and reproductive health. Alberta mandated all schools to create gay-straight alliances. Ontario and Alberta increased the focus on a “basics” approach to mathematics teaching and learning. British Columbia and Alberta have created policies to support the education system in closing the achievement gap for Indigenous students. In Ontario, New Brunswick, and Quebec, new policies, processes, and standards have been created to modernize their curriculum. Fifth, inclusive education models to meet the needs of students with special needs are receiving greater investment, although implementation remains a challenge. The Yukon Territory announced a new early learning plan to make funds available for children with special needs. Nova Scotia commissioned a report to address challenges faced by educators in implementing inclusive education; a new model of inclusion emerged comprised of a three-tier approach. Sixth, interest and enrolment in French immersion programs is expanding, while recruitment of Francophone and French-proficient teachers remains a challenge. Across Canada, school authorities report a shortage of teachers to meet the demand for French Immersion programs. (summarized from EdCan 2019)

The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC) has focused consultation efforts on Indigenous Education, early years education, assessment, and access to postsecondary education, and has defined a number of priorities in each of these areas. Faculties and departments of education within universities have also identified areas of focus. Many have expanded course offerings in initial teacher education “addressing ethical concerns for the social, cultural, and linguistic well-being of marginalized populations” (Raptis 2018, 17). The Canadian Society for Studies in Education (CSSE) has published the Canadian Journal of Education, a bilingual, peer reviewed academic journal, since

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1976. In a recent anniversary issue, Westheimer (2017) argued that within the idea of deliberative democracy as frame, there are three priorities for educational research in Canada: (1) focused, and sustained attention to strengthening democratic institutions in Canada and the world, (2) to focus school reform policies and goals of public schooling on improving the lives of students and society, and (3) the use of educational research to engage the public in discourse on school reform and the common good.

4.1

Inequality

Canada is recognized by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as having “fair and inclusive policies that contribute to an equitable education system” (OECD 2019, 6). While considerable attention has been paid to matters of diversity and equity in education by policy makers, district and school leaders, universities and colleges, inequities continue to exist. As discussed earlier in this chapter, attending to inequities in performance and funding in First Nations communities is a priority. The performance gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children and youth requires immediate attention from all jurisdictions. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action (2015) outlines the actions that are needed to “redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation” (1). While progress is being made at the national, provincial, and territorial levels, as well as the local levels, the OECD (2017) has identified the need to work with individual Indigenous students, their families, and their communities as well. In addition to the pressing issue concerning Indigenous education, the other inequity in Canadian education relates to matters of distance – particularly urban and rural. The distance issue is manifest in a rural-urban performance gap and access to postsecondary education. Canada also faces the dual challenge of having the appropriate number of well-trained teachers where they are most needed, and of providing support and guidance to schools. It will be important to continue efforts to set priorities that build on and are aligned to the decentralised system approach and to continue improving access and efficiency of funding in tertiary education. (OECD 2019, 4)

Rural students in K-12 schools tend to be falling behind in achievement when compared with their urban counterparts (Canadian Council on Learning 2006, 2). Two factors appear to account for this difference in educational outcomes: school conditions and economic conditions. Schools in rural and remote regions have difficulties attracting and retaining a qualified teaching staff. Moreover, access to postsecondary institutions is unequally available to rural and urban populations. Many rural young people have very high educational aspirations and maintain high academic standards, but they often have to relocate to an urban setting to obtain a postsecondary education. Unemployment rates are higher in rural areas, periods of unemployment last longer, and the labor force participation rate is

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lower – primarily because there are fewer job opportunities in rural areas. Many postsecondary institutions are finding ways to provide online and distributed access to courses, degrees, and certificate programs. However, the vastness of the country continues to present a challenge to providing equitable educational opportunities to all people in Canada.

4.2

Emerging Issues

There are several emerging issues within Canadian education, the most pressing of which is Indigenous education. While recognized at all levels of the system, across all jurisdictions, the implementation of effective actions to address systemic performance gaps and funding inequities is still in its infancy and therefore an emerging issue. Policy makers at all levels of government need to address the achievement gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. Equitable funding for First Nations K-12 schools and equitable access to postsecondary education for First Nations students remain priorities. While Canada is consistently ranked as one of the top education systems in the world, a focus on international testing, particularly the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), has many provincial politicians, local leaders, and some members of the public quick to declare a crisis in the education system. This manufactured crisis persists despite Canada scoring within the top 10 countries in the 2018 PISA rankings (O’Grady et al. 2019). As many provinces and territories across Canada are currently undergoing full system reviews and initiating reforms within the K-12 education sector, it is clear that stakeholders in the education system are committed to continual improvement. However, education is highly politicized across Canada, and subject to the ideologies and whims of current government officials. While it is important to acknowledge that those who have invested in education in Canada want young people to be well educated and achieve to the highest of standards, it is also the case that young people in Canada are growing up in a world where the issues and challenges are not only of a local or national nature, but are also of a global nature. To sustain innovation and change in the Canadian education system, there is a pressing need for political leaders across jurisdictions to make research informed decisions in response to local, national, and global issues and challenges, instead of toeing political party lines. The need to work productively with diverse ideas, individuals, cultures, and languages is essential for every learner in Canada.

5

Conclusions

This chapter offers a high-level overview of Canada’s education systems. The provincial and territorial authority in educational policy, legislation, and funding is one of the primary differences between Canadian education systems and those found in other industrialized countries. While the federal government has invested billions

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of dollars in various aspects of education since confederation, it has not followed a coherent, strategic, or national purpose in attempting to set national educational policy frameworks (Manley-Casimir 1993). In this chapter, we have summarized historical and social foundations, institutional, and organizational principles, and educational trends and emerging issues in Canadian education at a general level. Much more can be written about similarities and differences in policy, curriculum, assessment, and standards in each province and territory. For example, curriculum is one means by which a society aims to pass on valued aspects of knowledge and culture to its young. As a knowledge system, curriculum reflects the ontological, metaphysical, and ideological perspectives that a society, or its elected representatives in government, have agreed to recognize as valued and truthful. Given the cultural, historical, and linguistic diversity represented across Canada, and the political landscape that often pits regional priorities and needs against national issues and concerns, most attempts to develop and approve a common curriculum and achieve a shared purpose for education in each province and territory are highly politicized with many diverse cultural, linguistic, religious, and racial groups battling for representation. The idea that a common purpose for education might be established via a common national curriculum in Canada seems to be out of reach, to say the least, and complicated at best. A common purpose for education in Canada would need to be based on an understanding of Canada “as a democratic, pluralistic ‘community of communities’ and focus on elements of our commonality instead of our differences” (Manley-Casimir 1993, 79), that likely extends beyond the current systems of systems arrangement of jurisdictional, constitutional, and political tensions, checks and balances, and sometimes fragile regional compromises and commitments to cooperation.

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Public Policy Forum. (2013). Employment challenges for youth in a changing economy. Ottawa: Public Policy Forum. https://ppforum.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Report_ENG-Final_0.pdf. Raptis, H. (2018). The Canadian landscape: Provinces, territories, nations, and identities. In T. Christou (Ed.), The curriculum history of Canadian teacher education (pp. 7–22). New York: Routledge. Statistics Canada. (2011). Aboriginal languages in Canada, statistics Canada: Language, 2011 census of population. https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-314-x/ 98-314-x2011003_3-eng.pdf. Last accessed 30 Sept 2019. Statistics Canada. (2012). Linguistic characteristics of Canadians: Language, 2011 census of population. Statistics Canada. https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98314-x/98-314-x2011001-eng.pdf. Last accessed 30 Sept 2019. Statistics Canada. (2016a). Ethnic and cultural origins of Canadians: Portrait of a rich heritage. https:// www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/as-sa/98-200-x/2016016/98-200-x2016016-eng. pdf. Last accessed February 12, 2020. Statistics Canada. (2016b). 150 years of immigration in Canada. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/ pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2016006-eng.htm. Last accessed 12 Feb 2020. Statistics Canada. (2018a). Elementary-secondary education survey for Canada, the provinces and territories, 2016/2017. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/daily-quotidien/181102/dq181102ceng.pdf?st¼8w81lCqx. Last accessed 14 Feb 2020. Statistics Canada. (2018b). Changing composition of full-time academic teaching staff in Canadian universities. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/181115/dq181115b-eng.htm. Last accessed 30 Sept 2019. Statistics Canada. (2019a, May 10). Labour force survey, April 2019. Statistics Canada. https:// www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190510/dq190510a-eng.pdf. Last accessed 30 Sept 2019. Statistics Canada. (2019b). Number of full-time and part-time educators, public elementary and secondary schools, by age group and sex. https://doi.org/10.25318/3710001001-eng. Sumara, D., Davis, B., & Laidlaw, L. (2001). Canadian identity and curriculum theory: An ecological, postmodern perspective. Canadian Journal of Education, 26(2), 144–163. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Honouring the truth, reconciling for the future: Summary of the final report of the truth and reconciliation commission of Canada. Ottawa: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Usher, A. (2018). The state of post-secondary education in Canada. Toronto: Higher Education Strategy Associates. https://higheredstrategy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/HESA_SPEC_ 2018_final.pdf. Van Brummelen, H. (1983). Shifting perspectives: Early British Columbia textbooks from 1872 to 1925. BC Studies, 60, 15–28. Van Dyk, L. (n.d.). Canadian immigration acts and legislation. https://pier21.ca/research/immigra tion-history/canadian-immigration-acts-and-legislation. Last accessed 12 Feb 2020. Von Heyking, A. (2006). Creating citizens: History and identity in Alberta’s schools, 1905 to 1980. Calgary: University of Calgary Press. Westheimer, J. (2017). Education that matters. The Canadian Journal of Education, 40(2), 1–15. Woods, D. S. (1936). History of education in Canada. Review of Educational Research, 6(4), 377–382. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1167457.

The Education System of Canada: Multiculturalism, Multicultural Education, and Racialized Students in Canada

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Carl E. James and Philip S. S. Howard

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 The Social and Historical Context of Multiculturalism in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Multicultural Education and Canada’s Multiculturalism Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Multicultural Education, Schooling Practices, and Students’ Performance . . . . . . . . . 2 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

This chapter reflects on multicultural education as framed by a Canadian multiculturalism ethos and the settler-colonial reality of Canada, noting what each is intended to accomplish. Through a discussion of Canada’s model of multiculturalism and its framing of multicultural education, we examine Canada’s nationalist agenda of acculturating racialized students into the settler-colonial state as well as the values and norms of whiteness, rather than ensuring equitable schooling and social outcomes for them – Black and Indigenous students in particular. The chapter will show that multicultural education serves to uphold a racial hierarchy that aligns with Canada’s national settler-colonial project. As such, the poor educational outcomes of students are largely a consequence of Canadian educational systems, albeit that many people in Canada and elsewhere continue to believe they are models to be emulated given the framework of multiculturalism. We conclude by proposing that an educational project that centers a vision of decolonization, social justice, and racial equity rather than multiculturalism C. E. James (*) Faculty of Education, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] P. S. S. Howard Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_44

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would better serve the diverse student populations in Canada, and contribute to their educational advancement. Keywords

Canada · Multicultural education · Multiculturalism · Settler-colonialism · Racism

1

Introduction

Canada is globally considered a friendly, warm, tolerant, democratic, and of course, multicultural country. These positive descriptors are also connected to international views on Canadian education and schooling as is exemplified in the responses of some 7,000 Canadian studies teachers and researchers around the world who share their own and their students’ perception of Canada and its place in the world (Schwartz 2015): Canada as a model for a multi-faceted immigrant society with many different voices and multiple forms of cultural expression — including those of her native peoples — is still an important subject in the classrooms of many German universities (Wolfgang Klooß, Centre for Canadian Studies, Trier University, Germany). Still, first and foremost, my students envision Canada as a country of immigrants cherishing its multiethnic, multicultural and multi-religious heritage (Ewa UrbaniakRybicka, teaches Canadian, American and English literature, State University of Applied Sciences, Konin, Poland. [Venezuelan] students are taught that Canada is the country of active multiculturalism with excellent inter-culturalism (Emperatriz Arreaza, teaches at the University of Zulia, Venezuela & is president of the Venezuelan Association of Canadian Studies. The curriculum about Canada focuses on Chinese immigrants, bilingualism and multiculturalism, which is perceived as the best, if not perfect, choice to solve problems of ethnic conflicts and social harmony. Canadian multiculturalism will be very significant for the increasingly diverse world today, which witnesses more and more cultural contact, conflict and exchange (Wang Bing teaches at the Liaoning Normal University in Dalian, China, and is a past president of the Association for Canadian Studies of China).

Accompanying such positive perceptions of Canada as a democratic, multicultural country that welcomes immigrants, cherishes its diverse population, fosters equality, and values cultural differences, are expectations that Canada would have a schooling system that appropriately serves its Indigenous, immigrant, and racialized young people. By this reasoning, it is presumed that the multicultural ethos and practices of Canada would serve the social and cultural interests of racialized students. The fact is, given its colonial existence, Canada’s revered multiculturalism program and practices are unable to sustain a schooling and education program that will effectively serve the needs, interests, and aspirations of Indigenous, immigrant, and racialized students and their parents. The master narrative of Canada as a multicultural (or, in Quebec, intercultural) society which is paradigmatically committed to principles of multiculturalism (or

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interculturalism) is actively taught to students. For example, one of the curriculum expectations of the Grade 6 Social Studies curriculum in Ontario is for students to be able to: identify and describe fundamental elements of Canadian identities (e.g., inclusiveness; respect for human rights; respect for diversity; multiculturalism; parliamentary democracy; constitutional monarchy; bilingualism; the recognition of three founding nations; universal health care; recognition of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit as Indigenous peoples and original inhabitants of what is now Canada; the importance of treaties and treaty rights) (Ministry of Education-Ontario 2018, 131, emphases added)

Accordingly, Canadian students – particularly non-white students – are expected to understand themselves primarily as cultural beings and develop the knowledge necessary to behave, live, work, and play in a multicultural society. This view that in Canada people live together in relative harmony without open racial conflict works circularly to prop up the idea that Canada and its multicultural education are resounding successes – a national mythology that Canada exports. It is therefore somewhat understandable that this is what is understood of Canada beyond its borders. Nevertheless, a brief look at multiculturalism and its relationship to the educational opportunities and outcomes of immigrant, religious minorities, Indigenous, Black, and other racialized students in Canada tells a different story. This chapter examines how multicultural education emerged within the context of an “Official Multiculturalism” and argues that because colonialism, racial oppression, and anti-blackness operate through multiculturalism, multicultural education is working precisely to produce inequitable educational and social outcomes – particularly for Black and Indigenous students. In part, this has to do with the fact that multicultural education serves to uphold a racial hierarchy that aligns with Canada’s national settler-colonial project. We argue that multicultural education, as framed by the Canadian multiculturalism project, in fact, has been successfully aligned with Canada’s settler-colonial project, the function of which is to uphold a particular configuration of colonial and racialized social relations. As such, the lower educational achievements of some students are a consequence of this system of education – a concept that is challenging to articulate because many people in Canada and elsewhere continue to believe that our current model of multicultural education is one to be emulated. However, the presumed social justice aims of multicultural education are presently rooted in, but incommensurable with, the ethos of multiculturalism that Canadian society presumes under a façade of congeniality. We conclude by suggesting that an educational project that truly affirms the experiences of Indigenous, Black, and racialized students and serves their interests would be one that challenges the settler-colonial injustices inherent in multiculturalism and multicultural education. Such a project conceives of justice beyond the ways that it is currently understood within multicultural frameworks. In proceeding, we discuss Canada’s model of multiculturalism and its framing of multicultural education.

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The Social and Historical Context of Multiculturalism in Canada

According to the 2016 Canadian census, 32.5% of the Canadian population of nearly 38 million reported being of British origins, 13.6% of French origins, and 6.2% of Indigenous (Aboriginal) ancestry (Statistics Canada 2017a). Of the 15.6% “visible minority” population, 3.5% were Black Canadians (Statistics Canada 2019). South Asians were 5.6% of the Canadian population and 25.1% (the largest group) of the “visible minority” population (Statistics Canada 2017b). It is the case that immigrants significantly contributed to the growth of the Canadian population. In fact, the 2016 census indicated that 21.9% of the population (7,540,830 Canadians) was born outside of Canada, while 17.7% were “second generation” – that is, Canadians born to immigrant parents (Statistics Canada 2017a). Between 2011 and 2016, the largest population (61.8%) of recent immigrants to Canada was from Asia; the second largest (13.4%) was from Africa. The Black population more than doubled between the years 1996 and 2016. Early estimates indicate that by 2036, the proportion of people in Canada born outside its borders will increase to 24.5–30% of the population, with the population of Black, Indigenous, and racialized people comprising 31.2–35.9% (Statistics Canada 2017a). Much of this racial diversity of the Canadian population is to be found in large metropolitan areas – so much so, that Toronto, Canada’s largest city, is dubbed the most multicultural city not only in Canada, but in the world, with residents from more than 200 ethnic groups speaking more than 140 languages (Pardo 2019). In this regard, Toronto boasts a motto which says: “Diversity our strength.” However, the Canadian nation state has been and continues to be a settler-colonial project. Settler-colonialism differs in important ways from classic colonialism (or metropole colonialism) – that which is most frequently understood when the term colonialism is used. In classical colonialism, colonizers exploit a colony for its resources to enrich a metropole located elsewhere that is considered the primary “home” of the colonizer (Glenn 2015, 55; Veracini 2011b, 205). The Indigenous people of the colonized territories are related to as inferior, exotic, as cheap labor to support the extraction of resources, and as consumers in a market for goods produced by the colonial power (Glenn 2015, 55; Sexton 2016, 585; Veracini 2011a, 1). In settler-colonialism, by contrast, colonizers appropriate the territories of the colony as their permanent home, and therefore seek to displace the Indigenous people both conceptually and materially as the “rightful,” original inhabitants. This relationship is intensified when these colonies declare independence from the metropole with which they were formerly associated. The settler-colonial setting is characterized by antagonistic structural relationships with Indigenous people, and also with Black, and other racialized groups. By definition, the settler-colonial structure begins with, and continues to require, the progressive elimination and dispossession of Indigenous people, the guardians of the lands that the colonizing nation state now claims. Canada’s national project is a settler-colonial one. As British and French colonizers settled the lands now known as Canada and became less dependent upon

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Indigenous people for survival, a project of erasure gained ascendancy through which Indigenous presence and ways of being were erased through cultural assimilation, where not by overt violence. Historically, a significant part of this project happened through institutions of education. Indigenous children were torn en masse from their homes by the state and sent to residential schools in an effort to “get rid of the Indian problem . . . until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question.” The development of the colonies that became Canada, and later the Canadian nation state, required sources of cheap labor and it is largely here that the history of Black and racialized people in what is now Canada begins, though there is evidence that Black people first arrived as explorers (Austin 2010, 27). When the enslavement of Indigenous people and indentureships from Europe no longer seemed sufficient or reliable sources of labor, some of the colonies that formed Canada, such as New France (present-day Quebec), began to participate in the trade in Africans as property and slave labor (Cooper 2006, 70). This history set the foundations for the ways in which Black people are treated in Canada today as out-of-place, suspect, and criminal (Maynard 2017). However, this violent history and the long presence of Black people in Canada since the 1620s are routinely erased and denied. Canada prefers to construct its relationship to Blackness through the story of the Underground Railroad to Canada covering a short 15-year period of Canadian history during which time several enslaved Black people fled to Canada to escape enslavement in the United States because of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act south of the border (Cooper 2006, 8; Bakan 2008; Howard 2018, 95–96). In this manner, the story of a tolerant multicultural Canada welcoming Black people seeking refuge from intolerance elsewhere is bolstered at the expense of a more honest account of the ongoing difficult Black experiences in Canada (Walker 2010). As Cooper asserts, “If Black history narratives [in Canada] make whites feel good, [they are] allowed to surface; if not [they are] suppressed or buried” (Cooper 2006, 8). Similarly, racialized people from the Asian continent have also been exploited for cheap labor while being simultaneously excluded from the nation. For example, while Chinese migrants constituted much of the labor force for building the Canadian Pacific Railway in the late 1800s, once the railway was finished, Canada instituted a Head Tax in 1885 upon Chinese migrants to the country, and later prohibited Chinese immigration altogether through the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 (Li 2008). Thus, while Indigenous erasure is reified, immigration policy in Canada was consistently marked by overt antiblackness and racism until the mid1960s (Bashi 2004; Goutor 2007), seeking to construct Canada as a White nation with a strong British heritage and character (Joshee 2004, 131) despite the original Indigenous presence, and the long presence of Black and racialized peoples. Immigration policy changed in 1967, not from an epiphany, but in order to address post World War II labor shortages that could not be filled by the existing Canadian population. However, immigration policies remained implicitly racist and exclusionary (Arat-Koc 1999; Davis 2017; James 2010; Razack 1999) to the extent of welcoming immigrants under multiculturalism but only based on their capital utility and not on genuine hospitality (Dei 2017, 90; Thobani 2007, 72). In this way,

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immigrants are perpetually constructed as properly belonging beyond the borders of the nation (Li 1982; Calliste 1994; Langevin 2007; Lawson 2013). Canada’s 1971 national policy – which later became the Multicultural Act of 1988 – has been promoted by the nation state as evidence that it has transcended this history (Thobani 2007, 25), but does not, in fact, represent a radical break with this past. Rather, it arose in a very specific context. When national unity was threatened by the mounting nationalist sentiments in Quebec pushing back against Anglophone domination, the governing federal Liberal party at the time struck the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. The 1969 Official Languages Act, in response to the Commission’s findings, enshrined an official policy of bilingualism making English and French Canada’s “official” languages, and positioning those of English and French heritage as the (only) founding “races” of Canada (Walcott 2014, 127). Stated otherwise, those of French heritage in Canada were granted, alongside the British, a full “founder” status that is racially informed, but reframed in terms of language and culture. As Haque notes, “the founding races . . . are now ‘official linguistic communities’ or ‘Francophones and Anglophones’” (Haque 2012, 196) diverting attention away from the racial foundations of the national project. This strategic policy moves in the interest of the racial-colonial nation state, made the existence of Indigenous people irrelevant, erasing their unique relationships to the land, and folding them into the “diverse others” who would be addressed by the multiculturalism policy. It also erased the longstanding, integral contributions of Black and other racialized people, as well as non-English, non-French Europeans in the nation, and placed members of these groups outside of the groups that could be thought of as “Canadians” or “founders.” As noted by critical observers, the Multiculturalism Act promotes a discourse of difference via hyphenization (AfricanCanadian, Japanese-Canadian, etc.) and perceived notions of foreignness, whereby “other cultures become ‘multicultural’ in relation to that unmarked, yet dominant, Anglo-Canadian [and now also Francophone-Canadian] core culture” (Mackey 2002, 2). These racialized communities and non-British, non-French Europeans, unlike the new Francophones and Anglophones, became, inherently, bearers of “culture” – statically understood – who were to be governed under the Multiculturalism Act. Placed outside the nation and its history, these “Others” are now invited to bring, maintain, and practice their cultural heritage within the context of a preestablished bilingual-bicultural framework from which they have been excluded. While those of European heritage might cash their “culturedness” for white (therefore, honorary settler) status, those who are racialized remain at the inescapable site of “othered culture.” Clearly, then, Canadian multiculturalism, as instantiated in the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, is a means of managing racial difference in such a way as to entrench the primacy and supremacy of British and French Europeanness/whiteness. Consequently, it has long been noted that the multicultural mosaic that Canada appears to be because of the mixing of people, is a “vertical mosaic” (Porter 1965), and has led to a state of “economic apartheid” (Galabuzi 2006). The conditions of life for racialized people in Canada, and particularly for Black and Indigenous people, are dismal, as indicated by a host of negative indicators such as: mass

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criminalization and incarceration, repeated death at the hands of law enforcement, un/underemployment, disproportionate poverty, income inequality, housing discrimination, disproportionately poor physical and mental health, school push-outs and drop-outs (which serve as pipelines to incarceration), and overrepresentation of Indigenous and Black children as wards of the state (Cole 2020; Cote-Meek 2014; Dhillon 2018; James 2021; Maynard 2017). Yet, paradoxically, Canadian multicultural policies and programs have fueled the image of Canada as a welcoming nation, or what Scott See (2018) refers to as the “peaceful kingdom.” Scott See (2018) notes that “for scholars, journalists, and politicians, the peaceable kingdom ideal is an historical certainty that provides a ready reference for touting Canadian nationalism, buttressing an argument, or even selling a product” (511) – that is, a national discourse of multiculturalism that inoculates against the analysis of, and teaching about, settler-colonialism within Canadian education institutions in which “diversity” becomes the catchphrase. But as Varun Uberoi (2016) suggests, the Canadian Multiculturalism Act sought to establish an understanding of nationhood, or what we might call “Canada’s identity” as one that is built on harmony and the neoliberal values of freedom, tolerance, respect, and individualism.

1.2

Multicultural Education and Canada’s Multiculturalism Framework

While multicultural education is idealized for ostensibly attending to the diverse cultural and racial backgrounds of students in a multiracial nation-state, several studies (St. Denis and Schick 2003; James 2011) have critiqued multicultural education for the way it is informed by the troubling discourses of Canadian multiculturalism. Since Canada’s Multicultural Policy is rooted in a settler-colonial project of colonialism, antiblackness, and racism, there is presently nothing about multicultural education that could uphold the ideals of social justice. Contemporary multicultural education in Canada carries forward the settler-colonial education project in the ways that it resists Indigenous resurgence and autonomy, instead promoting an understanding of Indigenous people as a racialized group seeking recognition within the nation state, the legitimacy of which is never questioned (Coulthard 2014; Simpson 2016). Further, a social justice approach to multicultural education is only one of at least three possible directions that educators have taken in Canada (Joshee 2004, 134) – directions that are not necessarily aligned. As an educational strategy to address diversity among students and in the population, multicultural education has a long, checkered history, and has had very different aims over time. For example, at around the time of the Second World War, multicultural education and the related citizenship education focused on inculcating “patriotism and a common national identity” which was accomplished by fostering “a sense of Canadianism among members of the so-called ‘foreignborn’ population” while teaching tolerance to “old stock” (read white) Canadians (Joshee 2004, 138). Scholars have long argued that any such nationalist education is

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an inherently racial project that is unequal and exploitative of nondominant racialized groups (Anderson 1983; Goldberg 2002). Furthermore, much like Canadian immigration policy, education relating to diverse racial and heritage groups in Canada has historically had an explicitly assimilative purpose, seeking to shore up the idea of a Canada that is properly white and British (Joshee 2004, 135). In the decade following the establishment of the Multiculturalism Policy (1971), and leading to the establishment of the Multiculturalism Act (1988), to varying degrees, numerous teacher associations, schooling jurisdictions, and provincial governments sought to bring a structural approach to multicultural education. Essentially, during the decades of the 1980s and 1990s, multicultural education took on its most noticeable iteration – albeit largely with a liberal approach that did not interrupt the colonial foundations of the nation state, but instead focused on celebratory multicultural events with the expectation that these would serve to change individual ideas and attitudes. Throughout this time, scholars of education in Canada have repeatedly criticized color-neutral multiculturalist approaches to education as based on simplistic notions of culture and thus an inappropriate entry point for equitable education. Instead, they proposed other more critical paradigms such as anti-racist education, Afrocentric or African-centered education, culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy, and inclusive education broadly conceived (Cote-Meek and MoekePickering 2020; Dei 1996; Dei and Calliste 2000; James 2011; Joshee 2004; Razack 1995; Solomon 1995). In cases where schools were pushed to provide more equitable and inclusive education, it was because of the determined advocacy of Black and other racialized communities (Allen 1996; Black Learners Advisory Committee (BLAC) 1994; Dei and Kempf 2013; James 2021; Jean-Pierre and Nunes 2011). Nevertheless, even these forms of schooling regularly presumed the legitimacy and futurity of the Canadian state, and came up short of critiquing its ongoing settlercolonial status. However, as neoliberalist beliefs and practices increased in Canada and throughout the world, even the multicultural programs of the late twentieth century in Canada lost popularity, and were sometimes blamed for the failure of Canadian education to be “competitive” (Joshee 2004, 146). Except in isolated instances, whatever critical aspects of Canadian multicultural education there might have been, were undermined; and multicultural education programs and policy were either reversed, ignored, returned to more celebratory approaches, or recreated on the terms and in the service of neoliberalism (Joshee 2004, 147). In his essay, “Multicultural education in a color-blind society,” James (2011) writes that: Multicultural Education programs that were established in the 1970s . . . seem to be giving way [again] to a national cultural identity project that calls for assimilation of minoritized students into the academic culture of schools, informed predominantly by, in English Canada, White middle-class Anglo-European values (197).

In its 2019 report, A long way to go: Educator perspectives on multiculturalism and racism in Alberta K-12 classrooms, based on a study of kindergarten to Grade 12 teachers in the province of Alberta, Canada, the Canadian Cultural Mosaic

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Foundation, noted that when asked, “How does your school engage in and educate about multiculturalism,”: 76 per cent of participants said “art projects” as the number one activity used to teach about multiculturalism with students. Having guest speakers was at 59 per cent, while 58 per cent participants cited specific policies and protocols in place to address racism and teach multiculturalism. Going on field trips was at 50 per cent and 10 per cent, included diversity lunches, cultural events, immersive language programs and student groups. As well, five per cent, indicated they have no formal or informal initiatives in place to engage or educate students about multiculturalism (11).

This information illustrates how multiculturalism education is conceived and taken up in contemporary times in Canada, having moved in a direction opposite to that enjoined by the education scholars who have critiqued it. Notwithstanding that multicultural education is interpreted and taken up differently in the different provinces and territories in Canada (given the ethno-racial and religious diversity of their populations), there are inherent contradictions in the programs and practices that claim to be advancing the goals of equity. These educational efforts have therefore had little to no positive effect since the institutional culture of schools remains based on the ideals of multiculturalism.

1.3

Multicultural Education, Schooling Practices, and Students’ Performance

Overall, then, Canadian multicultural education which has been in schools for the last 40 years, despite piecemeal attempts to introduce changes that would make it more just, has remained consistent with the settler-colonial framework of the nation state on which official multiculturalism is constructed (Bickmore 2014, 261; Segeren and Kutsyuruba 2012, 1). As such, it continues to promote a view of Canada that places racism and colonialism in the past, and as something the multicultural nation has already overcome. It does not involve an honest engagement with the ongoing Canadian settler-colonial project, and its consequences for Indigenous, Black, and other racialized groups (Bickmore 2014, 261). Some teachers (often Black, Indigenous, and other racialized teachers) take the risk to teach against the grain in their individual practice, and there is evidence in some provincial curricula (which are always negotiated documents) of efforts to insert more critical content (e.g., the mention of three rather than two founding nations of Canada in the excerpt from the Ontario curriculum above). However, overall, provincial curricula across Canada still present versions of history that posit the nation as post-racial, that elide or misrepresent the stories of Black, Indigenous, and other racialized groups, and that do not disrupt the sanitized story of an egalitarian, multicultural Canada. Further, as Indigenous scholar Verna St. Denis (2011, 306) asserts, while concerned educators –specifically Indigenous educators in this instance – increasingly seek to establish corrective pedagogical measures that allow for competing cultural discourses and that foster redress, their efforts are

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routinely curtailed and resisted through appeals to school as a “neutral multicultural space.” In this way, St. Denis demonstrates how multicultural education aligns with the intentions of Canadian multiculturalism to contain and manage Indigenous, Black, and racialized people. The realities of multicultural education and how it is approached in Canada have disturbing consequences for students in terms of misrepresenting the relationship of their existence in Canada. For instance, many Black, Indigenous, and racialized students learn to bury their personal experiences of racism and to resist engaging in anti-racist, anticolonial activism in order to conform to the narrative of an egalitarian multicultural society and to maintain relationships with white friends formed on this basis (Howard in press). When students do decide to speak and act from their experience, they are often met with pushback from other students who have also learned to see Canada as egalitarian, meritocratic, and inclusive of all cultural groups (Howard in press). At the institutional level, disparities of educational outcome are both produced and sustained. In a recent investigation of anti-Black racism in one school board in the Greater Toronto Area, it was found that students felt disparaged and underrated by teachers, and misled by guidance counsellors about the education program that they should enter in high school because of perceptions about their ability based on their race (Chadha et al. 2020). Indigenous, Black, and racialized students are disproportionately represented in special education placements, nonuniversity-bound streams, and subject to exclusionary disciplinary practices (Wishart 2009; James et al. 2017). These mechanisms perpetuate the dynamics of longstanding settler-colonial and racialized social relations in Canada, yet occur in the very same contexts in which multicultural education is practiced. Given its focus on individual cultural practices and interpersonal relations among students, multicultural education does not address the ways that schools, within the ongoing settler-colonial context, create racializing experiences. Indeed, the low educational outcomes for Black and Indigenous students, as well as for students from some other racialized groups, prevail amid discourses of neoliberal multiculturalism (which is supposed to have opened doors to success for all), and as such contribute to the ways in which Black, Indigenous, and other racialized students are pathologized – made to seem deficient, and unable or unwilling to grasp the educational opportunities offered to them (Dumas and Ross 2016, 430). In such contexts, therefore, multicultural education serves to conceal the actual circumstances of Black, Indigenous, and racialized students’ lives, pointing them away from taking action to improve their situations, and expecting them to accept and live comfortably with the stark realities of educational inequity. Understanding and implementing a program of education that does not explicitly articulate the goal of addressing racism, and anti-Black and anti-Indigenous structures in particular, ignore the consequences of racism and foster a climate that is highly problematic for students. Basically, Canadian multicultural education has shown that it is unable to achieve the goals of social justice and equity for its diverse student population.

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Conclusion

Why does Canada continue to be understood as a model of multicultural education, given the foundations, practices, and outcomes we have discussed? How does Canadian multicultural education maintain this reputation abroad despite the forceful objections by racialized communities to its current forms? The answer requires us to examine the version of multicultural education to which those who look to it are committed. Canadian studies teachers across the world referred to earlier in the chapter appear to be unaware of the existing connections between Canadian multiculturalism and the settler-colonial project at the root of the nation-state. These perspectives are not unique to international educators. They are shared among the many Canadian educators who are themselves socialized by a liberal-multicultural education that ensures the continued preeminence of a white population and tells a questionable story of an egalitarian Western nation-state that has transcended racism. However, if what these educators desire is meaningful forms of education for Black, Indigenous, and racialized students, then multicultural education as it is currently conceived and practiced in Canada is found wanting. As Tuck and Yang (2018) write, an educational vision that opposes colonization, antiblackness, and racism, and struggles toward decolonization, Black freedom, and racial justice is crucial (8). The fact is, education in Canada, or more accurately, its constituent provinces, must be premised on a critical understanding of the limits to the neoliberal, settler-colonial nation state apparatus. What is truly needed is a critical education that has radical forms of social justice at its core, and that will not emulate Canadian versions of multiculturalism.

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The Education System of Canada: ICT and STEM Balancing Economics with Social Justice

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED-Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Personnel Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses, programs, and degrees have gained more prominence in education globally. There are many factors that have contributed to the heightened urgency for focusing on STEM M. Koole (*) Educational Technology and Design, Department of Curriculum Studies, College of Education, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada e-mail: [email protected] V. Squires Department of Educational Administration, College of Education, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_39

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and incorporating ICT in educational systems including in the Canadian context. In this chapter, the authors describe the historic foundations, institutional and organizational principles, and educational trends underlying the intensification of efforts to promote STEM and ICT, where the focus appears to be on graduating more students in these fields to fill a purported need in the economy. A significant contextual influence underpinning Canadian education is the lack of a federal body that provides oversight; rather, education falls under provincial and territorial jurisdictions, which adds to the complexity of trying to examine the Canadian educational context. The authors note that the increased influence of industry, the need for digital literacy and ICT skills in careers, and the overarching strengthening of neoliberal agendas are all contributing to this perceived need to graduate more and better skilled professionals with training in STEM and ICT. The authors close by offering a critique of these dialogues and identifying ongoing challenges to improving outcomes in STEM and ICT. Keywords

STEM · STEAM · Canadian education system · Industry · Neoliberalism

1

Introduction

The use of information communications technologies (ICTs) and the teaching of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects in the Canadian education system can only be understood when described within the historic, geographic, political, economic, and cultural context of the country. Influences from other countries and world developments such as the strengthening of neoliberal tendencies figure prominently in the Canadian educational technology agenda. Industry and economic think tanks have been so successful in lobbying the Canadian government to invest in science and technology education that “in 2013, the federal government announced the investment of 19 million dollars over two years to promote education in fields such as skilled trades, science, technology, engineering and mathematics” (Statistics Canada 2013, 14). The question is whether or not this level of expenditure is truly merited when Canadian students already score highly on the world Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in reading literacy, maths, and science (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2020b). Or, does the current status of the Canadian economy and perceived lack of talented workers (English 2017) merit more funding and greater attention? Is the acronym, STEM, simply another overhyped buzzword (Ossola 2014) or a valuable educational aspiration? To explore the Canadian situation more deeply, this chapter has three main sections: historic foundations, institutional and organizational principles, and educational trends and highlighted aspects. The final section offers critiques of the rationales used to lobby for greater expenditures on ICT and STEM in the schools.

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Historical Foundations

Arguments in favor of or against the need for increased technological capacity across the population are integrally grounded in the characteristics of the people and the nation. This section outlines Canada’s geographic location, establishment as a country, cultural makeup, political orientation, and socioeconomic conditions. These characteristics have informed and contributed to discourses on STEM and ICT in education.

2.1

General Historical Background

Having gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1867 with the signing of the British North America Act (Government of Canada 1867), Canada remains a member of the British Commonwealth. As such, Britain has had much influence upon Canadian culture and the political system. The United States has also had much influence upon Canadian culture and economics — indeed, geographically, Canada shares the longest, undefended border in the world with the United States. Yet, the Canadian education system is distinct from both the British and American systems. Although the Canadian education system shares similar terminology to that of its American neighbor, the Canadian system is distinctive with regard to its decentralized administration of education in which provinces and territories have responsibility and control (VanNuland 2011). In fact, the lack of a centralized, federal control over primary and secondary education is rare from a worldwide perspective. The most significant external influence upon the Canadian education system occurred during the 1960s and 1970s when the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) began to reform their science curricula in response to the Soviet Union’s successful launch of (1) an intercontinental ballistic missile, (2) an artificial satellite, and (3) the Sputnik spacecraft in 1957 (Tippett et al. 2019; Krug and Shaw 2016; Shafer and Fisher 2020). Within this Cold War mentality, both the UK and the USA began to emphasize science, engineering, and mathematics. In response, several Canadian provinces imported “American inquiry-oriented science modules and programs that did not always align well with Canadian goals and context” (Tippett et al. 2019, 313). It was not until 1997 that the Council of Ministers of Education published a pan-Canadian science curriculum: The Common Framework of Science Learning Outcomes, K to 12. Like the US-American system, the framework is inquiry based, but the Common Framework “articulated a vision of scientific literacy; emphasized the inter-relationships amongst science, technology, society, and the environment (STSE); and detailed K-12 learning outcomes” (Tippett et al. 2019, 314). Furthermore, it was shaped by and for the needs of the Canadian context. Most provincial science curricula still draw upon the Common Framework. Geographically, linguistically, culturally, and demographically, the Canadian context required an approach for its science curriculum different from that of the United States. As the second largest country in the world, Canada covers almost ten million square kilometers (just under four million square miles). In relation to its

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land mass, Canada has a comparatively small population of approximately 38 million people (Statistics Canada 2020b) of whom 66% live within 100 to 200 kilometers of the Canada-US border (Statistics Canada 2017c; Tippett et al. 2019). At present, 60% to 64% of the population lives in Ontario and Quebec while only 1% lives in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. As Tippett et al. (2019) write, the costs of traveling across the country may affect educational opportunities by limiting “face to face collaborations, and [contributing] to differences in education policies and practices” (312). Furthermore, the distances and diversity of language, culture, and lifestyles have led to locally developed courses and curricula that are intended to be more meaningful and relevant to the learners and their communities. The decentralized nature of the Canadian education system allows flexibility for locally inspired curricula. Between 2011 and 2016, the population had increased by 1.7 million people attributed mostly to immigration. In fact, Canada is sometimes referred to as a cultural mosaic (Tippett et al. 2019 2019) due to the large mixture of cultures through successive waves of immigration, first between 1901 and 1911 and later during the 1950s following the Second World War (Statistics Canada 2017c). More recently, just within a span of 5 years between 2011 and 2016, 66% of the growth in population has been attributed to immigration (Statistics Canada 2017c; Tippett et al. 2019). Long before the arrival of Europeans, Canada was populated by Indigenous groups, now making up First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples. As of the 2016 census, there were 1.67 million people of Indigenous descent (Statistics Canada 2017a). The Indigenous population is growing at a high rate; between 2006 and 2016, the population grew by 42.5% (Statistics Canada 2017a). While there were more than 70 Indigenous languages noted in the 2016 census, many such languages are in danger of disappearing (Herman et al. 2020). Indigenous ways of knowing, science, cultural knowledge, protocols, and language are slowly easing their way into provincial curricula although the main view of science remains Eurocentric (Tippett et al. 2019). There are ten provinces and three territories — each of which is in charge of its own education system and curriculum with the exception of Indigenous education (Tippett et al. 2019). Historically, the Canadian federal government has managed the education of the Indigenous peoples (Herman et al. 2020). It was not until 1972 when Indigenous peoples gained control over their own education through the introduction of the First Nations Control of First Nations Education policy (National Indian Brotherhood 1972). Although Canada’s First Nations now control their curricula, they often refer to and use some of the provincial curricula. Nevertheless, funding for Indigenous education still comes from the federal level.

2.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

Briefly, the Canadian political system is based on the British parliamentary system and still has a Governor General who reports — albeit ceremonially — to the British

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monarchy. Like the British system, there are legislative, judicial, and executive branches. The seat of government in each province is called a legislature. In each province, the legislature hosts a ministry or department of education whose duties typically include “providing curricula guidelines to school boards to develop courses of study, setting diploma requirements, distributing funds allocated by the legislature, and making regulations governing organisation of schools and duties of teachers and school board officials” (VanNuland 2011, 409). Canada’s economy may be best described as a dual economy in which there is a mixture of market and command economic structures. The government takes strong control over education, health care, and postal services, while other sectors such as the service industry, manufacturing, agriculture, and oil and gas (and related equipment and services) are privately controlled. All industry must operate within Canadian law. What is interesting and highly relevant to the emergence and emphasis on STEM and ICT in the Canadian education system at all levels (primary, secondary, and post-secondary) is the influence of private and economic interests (Krug and Shaw 2016). As elsewhere in the world, the neoliberal agenda has become increasingly influential in education-related decisions. In their examination of business and government documents pertaining to STEM education, Krug and Shaw (2016) noted three main economic concepts were prevalent: “progress, innovation, and global competitiveness” (184). Economically, Canada enjoys a high standard of living and life satisfaction. Statistics Canada (2020a) reported that in 2016 Canadians 15 years and older rated their satisfaction across 10 categories at 7.6/10 (life as a whole, standard of living, health, achievement in life, personal relationships, personal appearance, feelings of safety, feeling part of the community, free time, quality of local environment). Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Better Life Index (2020b) indicates that “Canada ranks above the average in housing, subjective well-being, personal security, health status, social connections, environmental quality, jobs and earnings, work-life balance, education and skills, civic engagement, income and wealth” (para. 1). There is, however, a substantial gap between the richest and poorest Canadians with “the top 20% of the population [earning] about six times as much as the bottom 20%” (para. 2). Similar to the findings of Statistics Canada, the OECD found Canadians rated their general satisfaction at 7.4/10, also higher than the OECD average of 6.5 (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2020b).

2.3

Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population

The OECD Better Life Index indicates that of adults aged 25 to 64, 91% had completed upper secondary education while the average for all countries measured was 78% (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2020b). Scores for Canadian students on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in reading literacy, maths, and science were 523 while the average for all countries was 486. The National Household Survey of 2011 indicated that 61.4%

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of Canadian adults had obtained a post-secondary credential (Statistics Canada 2013). The most common credential was in business, marketing, or management. STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) represented only 18.6% of all fields of study with half of such degrees awarded to immigrants (Statistics Canada 2013). These statistics suggest that the quality of education is not only good, but that most Canadians have access to education. The OECD has tried to understand why Canada performs so highly on PISA compared to other countries and has suggested that it may be in part due to Canada’s emphasis on equity; others suggest that it may be Canadian educators’ strong emphasis on literacy (Coughlan 2017). Like elsewhere in the world, ICT has become a significant factor for supporting education and other societal functions. Access to the Internet is good generally but can be unreliable in rural and remote parts of the country creating a source of inequity. Approximately 83% of households have Internet access and a similar percentage have mobile access (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2020a). More specifically, “mobile services via LTE (long term evolution) were available to 99.0% of Canadians at the end of 2017. In rural communities . . . and Indigenous reserve areas, LTE was available to 95.9% . . . and 72.8% of the population, respectively” (Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission 2019, 32).

2.4

Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support

Employment rates in Canada sit at approximately 73%, above the OECD average of 68% (pre-COVID-19 percentages). Approximately 70% of those who obtained a bachelor’s degree in a STEM subject (particularly engineering and computing and information sciences) were able to locate employment in science and technology (Statistics Canada 2017b). In fact, one study found that graduates of bachelor’s programs in “‘nursing,’ ‘engineering,’ ‘education and teaching’ and ‘computer and information science’ are more likely than other graduates to find work closely related to their studies” (Zhao et al. 2017, 1). High school subjects in the Canadian system are usually general rather than vocational in nature. Statistics for 2018–2019 suggest that young people (20– 24 years of age) without a high school diploma are more likely to be unemployed (Brunet 2019). Within this age group, “45% were no longer in school and were working, while 43% were still in school” (Brunet 2019, 3). Generally, in a comparative study between Australia and Canada, “the Canadian results show a positive relationship between a college/other post-school education qualification and fulltime employment chances at around 24 to 26 years of age” (Austen and MacPhail 2010, 8). The authors also noted that there was a clear path from high school to university; that is, in the Canadian system, there are “programs of academic education leading to university entrance” (Austen and MacPhail 2010, 8). Some provinces such as British Columbia offer an intermediate step between secondary and postsecondary, and some colleges and universities offer transfer programs (Austen and MacPhail 2010).

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Institutional and Organizational Principles

In order to better understand how ICT and STEM can be integrated into the Canadian education system or why it has been a struggle to do so, it is helpful to examine the general principles, structure, governance, and teacher education systems. The distribution of control over education to the provinces and territories is a key factor that has shaped all of these characteristics.

3.1

General Principles

The majority of schools in Canada are public with only about 7.7% of Canadian children attending private schools at the elementary level (Statistics Canada 2019) for particular religious affiliations, disabilities, or giftedness. The principle of inclusion, supported by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms 1982), guides placement of children with special needs; since the 1980s, these students generally receive their education in mainstream schools, and are integrated in classroom settings with additional specific supports provided to meet their unique learning needs (Burgess et al. 2014). While the language of instruction in the schools is usually either English or French (the two official languages of Canada), there are several mixed types of models (Burgess et al. 2014). For example, there may be dual stream schools (with an English stream, and a French stream), or an English school with an immersion program focused on a different language, whether it is French immersion or a traditional language such as Cree immersion. Some schools are models of full immersion and may be part of their own school board or a stand-alone school board recognized by the provincial government (Burgess et al. 2014). All public and private schools within a given province must follow the provincial curriculum. While the curriculum can vary among provinces, provincial school systems generally have the same organizational structure: primary, secondary, and post-secondary levels. Primary and secondary schools are publicly funded (unless private) (Tippett et al. 2019). Depending on the province, primary school starts at Kindergarten (age 6) or Grade 1 (age 7) until Grade 8. Subsequently, children begin secondary education until Grade 12 (or Grade 12+ in Ontario). Across the country, education is compulsory from ages 6 to 16 except in Manitoba, Northwest Territories, and Ontario where education is compulsory until age 18 (Cohen 2020). In Quebec, students will also often attend a publicly funded, 2-year college called Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel (CEGEP). Once beginning post-secondary education, usually a university (degree granting) or college (diploma granting), students must pay tuition fees. Students may take a variety of STEM courses in both university and college. Colleges usually prepare learners for entry into the workforce (i.e., more vocational in nature). Although some universities offer professional degrees such as nursing, pharmacy, medicine, dentistry, and education, university-level STEM course offerings may lead to academic careers (i.e., as university lecturers or professors).

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Education Administration and Governance

The influence of provincial jurisdiction over education also is demonstrated in the lack of a singular model of governance across Canada; moreover, the terminology for the governing structures also varies. All provinces have legislation (often termed the Education Act) that outlines the legal structures and the policies that inform the work of the schools. The Education Act outlines the legal responsibilities and accountabilities for each constituent group, including students, teachers, in-school and central administration, parents, school boards, and education ministries (Burgess et al. 2014). The Act can be amended by the legislature (Burgess et al. 2014) in response to ministry policies, government priorities, or legal cases. Federal legislation such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Government of Canada 1982) can also impact school divisions and Education Acts across the nation. Each province or territory has a Ministry of Education that works with local school divisions and teacher associations to establish and approve curricula (Robson 2012). Generally, ministries work collaboratively and engage in consultation with these constituents and parent groups when significant changes are being considered, although this cooperative approach may not always be the case (Young et al. 2014). Recent trends and emergent needs may result in revisions to curricula, or new curricula and programs added. For example, there is a movement across Canada to incorporate skills that address twenty-first century learning including critical and creative thinking, and digital literacy (Boyer and Crippen 2014). These priorities require revisions or additions to the provincial curricula. As already mentioned, many provincial curricula allow for a small percentage of locally developed options; these options can reflect the community priorities such as a specific language or immersion program or an additional secondary elective (Burgess et al. 2014). Provinces and territories are divided into several school boards, school districts, or school divisions (Robson 2012); the size of each school board (geographically and population wise) varies across each province and across Canada. Recently, there has been a movement to amalgamate smaller school divisions to create larger divisions, in attempts to reduce administrative costs and increase efficiency. A few provincial governments have even eliminated local school boards (Kives 2019). Within each division, a number of elected officials form the school board or the board of trustees. These boards provide guidance and oversight for the division and work with the Ministry of Education to ensure that the division is managing the expectations of the Ministry while also meeting the needs of their constituents (Young et al. 2014). Generally, board members are elected from among the community with elections being held every 4 years; for some districts, voters choose from among the full slate of nominees, while in other districts, voters choose from among the nominees running in particular wards (Young et al. 2014). The total number of board members is dependent upon locally developed school board policy or as specified by the Ministry of Education (Burgess et al. 2014). School board policies and operational principles are established and implemented by these bodies. These policies must follow the guidelines, legislated directions and the expectations of the provincial government (Young et al. 2014). Parents and other

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local constituents can attend the school board meetings if part of the agenda is open to the public. However, the influence of parents comes primarily through individual school community councils. All provinces have moved towards institutionalization of school committees comprised of parents and potentially other community members (Young et al. 2014). The name for the parent group and the mandate that it has varies widely across Canada. Generally, the Parent Teacher Association or School Community Council can provide input into school strategic plans, represent parent concerns to the school administration, and support the school’s fundraising efforts, but their influence on policy and school operations is usually quite minimal (Young et al. 2014). In terms of operations and decision-making, each school division has an administrative hierarchy (Robson 2012). The terminology for the personnel at each level may change from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The school level administration usually consists of a principal and vice principal and the school parent council. At the division level, the work of the teachers is supported by a team of academic and cultural consultants, as well as school counsellors, social workers, and psychologists. These teams are under the supervision of coordinators, who in turn are supervised by superintendents (also called directors in some jurisdictions). The division is headed by an assistant director and a director; in some divisions, the terminology is flipped with the chief executive officer of the division being called a superintendent (Robson 2012). In many jurisdictions, coordinators, principals, superintendents, and directors are supported by a leadership organization that provides critical information, networking opportunities, and professional development to the provincial education leaders. Similarly, the work of teachers is supported through local teachers’ unions and provincial teacher associations; many of the provincial and local unions also belong to the national organization, the Canadian Teachers’ Federation. Interestingly, in some provinces, in school administrators (principals and vice-principals) belong to the teachers’ union whereas in other provinces, principals and vice-principals are out of scope (Zwaagstra 2008). Provincial ministries have the power to change school division boundaries, determine budgets, and set accountability measures (Young et al. 2014). As Young et al. (2014) noted, the governing provincial party in the legislature has significant influence on the programming and operation of the schools at the local level via legislation, issuing regulations and revising educational policy; compliance from school divisions can be achieved through budgetary decisions such as providing funds for government priorities or cutting funding for particular programs. In almost all provinces, finances are controlled centrally, further diminishing the powers of the local school boards and limiting their abilities to generate their own revenue to support their priorities (Young et al. 2014). This inflexible central funding model can be problematic as the differing contexts of each school division can lead to particular challenges and opportunities. For example, urban school divisions have different issues compared to large, sparsely populated rural divisions. Addressing the educational needs of Indigenous students, immigrant students, and different religious groups also requires consideration at the local and provincial level. The ability of school divisions to meet those

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needs or engage in the professional development and support the required infrastructure for programs such as ICT and digital literacy can either be helped or hindered by the funding mechanisms in place at the provincial level.

3.3

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCEDClassification

The vast majority of students are educated in formal education settings, whether they are public or private schools; however, parents who choose a non-formal setting such as home schooling are still accountable to the Ministry of Education. Home schoolers are registered with the Ministry and are required to achieve the curricular objectives identified in the provincial curricula. Progress of students in non-formal education settings is monitored and reported by the local divisions or a Ministry representative. As noted, though, most students are educated within traditional, formal settings or systems. Because education is under provincial jurisdiction, the levels of these educational systems can differ among provinces. For example, ISCED level 0 or early childhood education is not mandatory except for three provinces (British Columbia, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia), even though many divisions emphasize that attending kindergarten is beneficial for most children (Gregory 2018). Level 0 programs can be offered within level 1 schools or may be offered by private educational companies such as Montessori schools. Most elementary schools include levels 1 (Grade One to Grade 6) and lower secondary level 2 (Grades 7 and 8). The transition from Level 0 to Level 1 is marked by a systematic approach to basic skills, guided by provincial level curricula with a predetermined scope and sequence. Level 1 coincides with the beginning of compulsory education, where the carefully designed and sequentially planned outcomes of instruction are focused on fundamental knowledge, skills, and competencies. Typically, students are taught by one main classroom teacher although there may be a few specialists such as physical education teachers. The transition to level 2 is marked by a focus on subject-oriented instruction and subject specific curricula, and the hiring of teachers who have pedagogical training in those subject areas. There is an assumption that students are entering level 2 education with well-developed basic skills that are critical to being successful in the subject-oriented courses. For students with special needs, further modifications may be required in inclusive programs to meet their specific needs; the modified program and objectives are included in a Personal Program Plan, constructed collaboratively by teachers, special needs teachers, administrators, consultants, and the parents (Burgess et al. 2014). Students then move to ISCED-level 3 schools or upper secondary schools, most often with the intent to go on to level 4 (college) and level 5 (university) educational systems. In upper secondary schools, there is a larger array of electives so students intending on level 5 education take mandatory courses and electives that would best prepare them for that level. Students are not streamed into educational pathways based on testing or academic achievement, but their choices of electives may be

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more aligned with preparation for university or a vocational or college routes. For students with special needs, further accommodations may be needed; additionally, there are some programs (either particular classes or whole programs) focused on meeting their needs. These students may obtain a modified high school diploma upon completing these programs. Generally, most students complete level 3 education, although there are some students who leave school without the credentials for level 3. According to Statistics Canada (Statistics Canada 2009), in 2007, 9.3% of students aged 20–24 did not receive all of their required credentials for completion of level 3 and did not return to finish their upper secondary requirements within the next 6 years.

3.4

Personnel Supply

Most provinces have their own teacher training programs established at higher education institutions throughout the province; “all initial teacher education in Canada is currently university-based and takes place in faculties of education” (Gambhir et al. 2008, 9). The provincial government determines the credentials required for licensing of teachers and the provincial universities design their teacher preparation programs accordingly. The structure of these programs varies among institutions and among provinces and can be characterized as four different categories of programming: consecutive, concurrent, graduate, and sole degree models (Gambhir et al. 2008). Consecutive models are defined as teacher candidates holding an undergraduate degree and earning a Bachelor of Education (BEd) degree as a second degree. The duration of a consecutive program ranges between 8 months to 2 years. In the concurrent model, candidates earn a BEd while also completing another undergraduate degree at the same time. In the graduate models, teacher candidates earn an undergraduate degree while also earning a graduate degree in Education; the graduate program usually is focused on a specific area (such as Early Education, Fine Arts, Curriculum Studies). These dual degree models often produce teachers who have developed more of a specialization. Moreover, dual degrees usually have an impact on the earning potential of teachers. The fourth model is the sole degree model when teacher candidates begin a direct entry program that lasts 3–4 years where they will earn a BEd degree (Gambhir et al. 2008). All programs have practical requirements, although there are wide variations in the nature and duration of the practical placements. Extended placements can range in length from 8 to 22 weeks in Canada (Gambhir et al. 2008. Within their program, teacher candidates need to determine a level of specialization; most often the choice is determining whether they would like to teach at Level 1, 2, or 3, but increasingly there are more specific teaching programs for level 0 or early childhood education. Level 1 to 2 teachers are trained more as generalists, whereas level 3 teachers are required to choose a disciplinary area such as Mathematics or Biology (Gambhir et al. 2008. Specialist teachers may also require a combination of a degree and a diploma (such as a French immersion teacher, or a practical/industrial arts teacher), or else a degree and a post degree certificate or

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second degree (such as a special education teacher or school counsellor). While urban school divisions often have the luxury of being able to hire specialist teachers, rural school divisions have challenges in attracting and retaining teachers with special training (Kitchenham and Chasteauneuf 2010). Furthermore, in rural school divisions, most teachers are required to be generalists who can be called upon to teach in a curriculum or grade-level area for which they have had no training. Currently, there are not enough qualified teachers, especially in certain provinces in the country where the numbers of immigrants are increasing, and there is an even greater need in rural and remote areas (MacDonald 2019). Additionally, there is a shortage of specialists, including STEM and ICT specialists, even in some urban areas (Kitchenham and Chasteauneuf 2010). Regardless of teachers’ initial training, school divisions invest in ongoing professional development for their teachers to build upon their knowledge and skills and support new programs, initiatives, or priorities (Gambhir et al. 2008) According to Gambhir et al. (2008), many school divisions are also investing in induction programs to mentor new teachers and ease their transition into their profession. Because teacher accreditation and licensing boards are under provincial jurisdiction and governed by a “complex network of regulatory bodies” (Gambhir et al. 2008, 8), a teacher needs to apply for a license specific to that province in order to teach there. Frequently, the accreditation standards are not completely transferable, so a teacher who is trying to move from one province to another may have to take additional classes before they can be licensed to teach in their new home province or territory.

4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

Having covered the historic, sociopolitical, cultural, and labor characteristics as well as having explored the institutional and organizational aspects of the Canadian education system, it is now possible to examine some significant trends in ICT and STEM practices as well as the need for examining social justice issues such as equitable access to education and technology.

4.1

Inequality

Couched within the pro-STEM and pro-ICT movement is an underlying discourse regarding the need for increasing equitable access to education and jobs for all Canadians. The rhetoric of STEM advocates is strongly aimed at increasing the number of women who participate in the science and technology sectors. There is, indeed, a gender divide in education and the workforce. Statistics Canada (2017b) indicated that “men were more likely to study engineering or computer and information sciences than women: over 5 in 20 young men with a bachelor’s degree graduated from these fields of study, compared with under 1 in 20 young women with a bachelor’s degree” (6). Furthermore, when women study STEM subjects, the

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nature of the STEM courses they take may be different and can affect their job opportunities. Zhao et al. (2017) noted that while men were more likely to take engineering and computer science at the undergraduate level, women were more likely to take biology. This trend is corroborated by Statistics Canada (2013) which shows that women gravitate towards not only the biological sciences, but also biomedical sciences. This same report by Statistics Canada also indicates that women aged 25 to 64 represented just 32.6% of Canadians with a STEM degree. Furthermore, “men were almost twice as likely as women to be working in science (other than biology) and technology occupations” (Zhao et al. 2017, 2). Statistics Canada (2013) reported that in 2011, immigrants to Canada accounted for 50.9% of all STEM degree holders even though they represent only 24.6% of the Canadian adult population. Approximately a third of immigrant degree holders completed their degrees outside Canada (2013). More impressively, of Canadian STEM degree holders, 59.3% of engineering degrees, 55.7% of mathematics and computer science degrees, and 39% of science and technology degrees were held by immigrants. Some research indicates that “40% of Canada’s ICT workers are immigrants, a share that is much higher than the share of immigrants in any other profession” (Hadziristic 2018, 10). These statistics suggest that immigration is fueling much of the STEM and ICT knowledge in the Canadian economy. Also embedded in the pro-technology rhetoric is a social justice imperative to engage more Indigenous peoples in STEM. As with French language instruction, there is a dearth of science resources in Indigenous languages and/or demonstrating Indigenous ways of knowing. Studies have shown that only 3% of Indigenous people graduate with a credential in ICT and 3.7% in STEM (Hadziristic 2018). Besides issues of structural racism, the lack of interest in and access to the Internet and digital technology may also be exacerbated by the need for better technological infrastructure to cover the vast geographic distances in order to reach remote communities. In such communities, there is need for both “affordable public access to internet as well as the skills needed to use it effectively” (Hadziristic 2018, 43).

4.2

ICT and Digitization

In 2016, Bennett indicated that there were 5.3 million K-12 students and 15,000 schools in Canada. He also estimated that from the 2008–2009 to the 2013–2014 school year, the number of distance learners rose from around 140,000 to 332,000 (Bennett 2016). Within the K-12 context, distance learning is primarily supplemental to the traditional face-to-face options. In this way, individual learners can gain access to courses that might be unavailable at their schools. Furthermore, remote, distancelearning opportunities have been moving from static websites with text-based, asynchronous discussions, links to websites, and downloadable documents towards synchronous, virtual conferencing modes (Bennett 2016). With the recent school closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is likely that use of technology and distance education has increased and may continue to increase. However, because of the decentralized control over education, policies and day-to-day

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practices — including the response to the pandemic — vary greatly. Table 1 provides some indicators of the types of technologies in use and levels of enrolments in distance, online, and blended education across Canada. To be sure, most schools across Canada are equipped with Internet access, some kind of computing devices in the form of personal computers or tablets, and portals accessible to parents and students. The use of mobile devices in schools is still Table 1 Distance education enrolments in Canada during the 2013–2014 academic year Province/ Territory Newfoundland and Labrador Nova Scotia Prince Edward Island New Brunswick Quebec Ontario

Manitoba

Saskatchewan Alberta British Columbia Yukon

Northwest Territories Nunavut

Distance Education in K-12 tools Synchronous: Elluminate Live conferencing Asynchronous: Desire2learn learning management system (LMS) 970 in virtual high school and 1750 taking correspondence courses Provincial video conferencing system (little used); no other information Blended learning Blended learning asynchronous services; Knowledge Forum and various synchronous tools Various modalities

Options include: Print-based (Grades 9–12) Audio conferencing with teachers Web-based in collaboration with schools Online learning Print, online, and blended options 60 public distributed learning schools and 16 private Territory-wide video conferencing; agreements with 8 distance education institutions in other provinces; online and blended models Online with video conferencing (Elluminate Live) and whiteboard technology Online learning via Moodle (LMS) learning resources produced locally

Enrolmentsa a (student number) 1576

2720 108 English: 943 French: 1511 English: 36,500 French: 56,608 52,095 (e-learning) 237,930 (blended learning) 6000 (private online schools) 20,000 (correspondence) 2960 (print) 379 (audio) 8600 (Web) 10,000 75,000 77,912 5122

228 a

9728(?)

Data from Barbour and LaBonte 2014 in Bennett (2016) It is unclear if this number represents the total K-12 student population or the distance learner enrolments

a

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disputed and remains prohibited in some schools (Bennett 2016). Learning managements systems (LMS) are common in most schools with many schools hosting these systems on Canadian-based servers. Concerns about the privacy of Canadian students using the services of the American-based services are still problematic for many parents (Desson 2018); however, cloud-based services such as Google for education are becoming increasingly prevalent (Bennett 2016). ICT use is highly related to the notion of digital literacy for which Canada lacks an articulated strategy (Hadziristic 2018). Definitions of digital literacy abound, but there is little consensus. An examination by the Brookfield Institute indicates that there is general agreement that digital literacy includes the “capacity to navigate and adapt to a changing digital environment” and that such capacity is constantly evolving (Hadziristic 2018, 13). The Brookfield Institute noted that digital literacy is frequently associated to twenty-first century skill terminology. In Canada, K-12 educators are struggling with how to teach digital literacy with many advocating the teaching of computer science or “infusing” the curriculum with digital skill development such as conducting Internet searches and creating digital artifacts (Hadziristic 2018) using, for example, video, audio, images, and websites. Currently, the integration of computer science courses and coding is haphazard and depends upon the skills and interests of teachers.

4.3

STEM Subjects

The emergence of the STEM movement can be traced back to the 1990s with the promotion of science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET) by the US National Science Foundation (Li et al. 2020). However, the acronym “STEM” is attributed to Judith Ramaley, formerly the director at the National Science Foundation (Carter 2017). Legend has it that, in 2001, Ramaley famously rearranged the letters from “SMET” to “STEM.” Armed with a more palatable sounding acronym, the movement was still limited in uptake until after the economic collapse of 2008 when economic recovery became imperative around the world (Ritz and Fan 2015). A systematic review by Li et al. (2020) documents a large increase in publications from 2008 to 2018 which corroborates the increase in interest around the world. Definitions of and approaches to STEM remain shrouded in debate. In 2015, Ritz and Fan conducted a literature review of STEM activities around the world. They found that 19 countries had established benchmarks for technology education and/or engineering education, and that South Africa was the only country that had formalized educational outcomes for STEM education. Ritz and Fan also found that various countries had model programs and sample curriculum materials for STEM. Canada, however, has “no common operational definition or national strategy” (Tippett et al. 2019, 329). Proponents of STEM education claim that it is intended to increase students’ ability to solve problems through scientific processes and procedures using engineering and design approaches. English (2017) proposes “STEM-based modelling as a cyclic, generative learning activity where the processes of modelling and

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engineering share common features and facilitate the solving of authentic problems involving STEM content, processes and contexts” (s15). While there is agreement on the need for problem solving in realistic scenarios, in practice STEM teaching fits on a continuum: the teaching of STEM subjects as separate disciplines on one end and full integration of STEM subjects on the other (Li et al. 2020). Increasingly, many STEM education initiatives are being criticized for the lack of disciplinary integration. Pushing back against the discrete-subject approach, some educators argue that there is a need to adopt an interdisciplinary approach which better reflects current socio-economic and environmental complexities. “The challenge for STEM educators lies in how the disciplines can be effectively integrated while at the same time ensuring the integrity of each” (English 2017). Additional challenges involve the balance and sequencing of STEM subjects; some subjects such as mathematics may be viewed as foundational to the other sciences, while the other disciplines such as engineering might appear to be sub-sets of the broader areas of technology (English 2017). Carter (2017) recommends a refocusing of the definition of STEM so as to reduce the economic emphasis. Krug and Shaw (2016) advocate for an even broader re-conceptualization of STEM in which ecological sustainability, experiential learning theory, critical inquiry, and intersubjective understanding figure prominently. They suggest that STEM initiatives must move beyond disciplinary, multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary approaches towards better integration not only among STEM subjects but also with the arts and humanities. Some educators advocate for STEAM education in which art is added to the subjects. Krug and Shaw (2016) suggest a STREAMS approach be taken which incorporates knowledge integRation (R), arts and humanities (A), and sustainability education (S) alongside the STEM subjects. In addition to ongoing disputes regarding definitions for STEM and lacking a coherent national strategy, DeCoito (2016) noted a lack of literature available on STEM in Canada, particularly from provinces and territories. In his systematic review of STEM education in Canada, DeCoito (2016) examined empirical and descriptive studies published in peer-reviewed education and policy journals as well as studies published in non-peer reviewed sources. He also examined articles containing expert knowledge, opinions, and advice. Lastly, he made site visits of initiatives led by communities, universities, outreach programs, and school boards. DeCoito’s study showed evidence that private sector companies such as Google, Samsung, Cisco, and Microsoft are becoming increasingly active in STEM education in Canada. Some private companies are partnering with non-profit organizations to deliver STEM programs. These initiatives ranged from engineering, science, robotics, to environmental science. He also noted that issues of inclusion were being addressed through initiatives to engage females, immigrants, Indigenous, and marginalized communities. While STEM is diffusing into the K-12 sector — albeit slowly — he concluded that Canada needs a “framework for conceptualizing STEM initiatives and outcomes in terms of teaching and learning in K-12 education” (124).

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Emerging Issues

There is a tension between the imperative for the integration of ICT literacy and STEM subjects as an economic necessity and the imperative for STEM as essential for day-to-day living (Krug and Shaw 2016; Tippett et al. 2019). While the neoliberal agenda sees STEM learning as a mode towards global competitiveness and economic strength, others suggest that science and technology are important more generally for increased capacity of problem solving in day-to-day life. Some posit that Canada and the United States are among the most innovative and competitive economies in the world; indeed, they are referred to as leaders in the creation of knowledge and inventions (Krug and Shaw 2016). Yet, there are perceptions that Canada lags in the domestic production of STEM graduates at the post-secondary level (Hadziristic 2018). The hypothesis that Canada lacks sufficient STEM graduates and is falling behind the rest of the world in technological innovation needs to be examined more closely. Many pro-STEM reports posit that economic health and innovativeness is at risk due to the lack of graduates. For example, the State of the Nation report in 2015 by the Science, Technology, and Innovation Council (STIC) of Canada indicated not only that Canada had fallen behind in global competitiveness, but also suggested that there was an abundance of STEM positions without enough qualified STEM professionals to fill the positions (DeCoito 2016). As mentioned, the United States has a significant influence upon Canada economically and, as such, may inform a critical examination of STIC’s assertions. In the 1960s, the United States began shifting from a manufacturing economy to a service economy necessitating a new kind of technical workforce (Ossola 2014). Companies such as IBM and later Facebook, Linked-In, and Apple are prime examples of this new kind of service industry. Indeed, many researchers along with popular media warned of a looming crisis wherein countries around the world would be competing for STEM workers. Researchers, however, have found that these claims were exaggerated (Teitelbaum 2003; Charette 2013). Instead, Charette (2013) found that there is a surplus of STEM workers. For example, he estimated 70,000 STEM graduates in the United States at the bachelor’s level in 2009 could not find work. Furthermore, increased wages are often a sign of workforce shortage. Yet, at the highest levels of academic attainment (doctorate), wages for STEM jobs were not competitive (Charette 2013). Charette also noted several other studies that contradicted the prevailing narratives of STEM worker shortages. For example, the Council of Canadian Academies (2015) found no significant evidence of a shortage of STEM-skilled graduates nationally. The ongoing anxiety, Charette suggests, may be a residual from the 1950s when the Russians were making significant advances in space exploration. Infusing anxiety into the population, indeed, can help generate sympathy for the plight of industries claiming to need a better educated workforce; however, some suggest that such discourse may help corporations with easy “access to plenty of qualified STEM workforce at lower wages . . . while possible financial prosperity remains a tempting ‘mirage’ for those interested in pursuing careers in STEM fields” (Zouda 2018, 1120).

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There is also a need for a healthy skepticism surrounding the STEM rhetoric in popular media and government policy. The imperative for a stronger economy through “progress, innovation, and global competitiveness” (Krug and Shaw 2016, 184) has crept into social justice consciousness by suggesting that inclusivity and diversity will improve the lot of women and marginalized groups (Zouda 2018). Furthermore, there are calls for increased STEM education in order to equip students with twenty-first century skillsets. These arguments need to be critically examined so that educators avoid inadvertently endorsing current hegemonic control by the already rich and powerful, thereby reinforcing social and economic inequalities. As DeCoito writes: A major goal of the STEM agenda should be to improve the proficiency of all students [emphasis added] in STEM, irrespective of whether they choose to pursue STEM careers or post-secondary studies, while fostering 21st-century skills identified as being crucial for success, including critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, collaboration, self-directed learning, and scientific, environmental, and technological literacy, to name a few. (2016, 2)

As elsewhere in the world, Canada is increasingly adopting the neoliberal agenda which prioritizes economic prosperity and global competitiveness. With adherence to this socio-economic mindset, schools may become no more than factories producing human capital for markets. A serious side-effect may be the loss of socioemotional and personal development once an essential aspect of the school system (Savage 2017). Furthermore, STEM approaches that take a “discrete-subject” approach alongside competency-based curricula may lead to a “very fragmented, atomistic and instrumental view of knowledge” (Wheeland 2007, 647). While the movement towards STEAM and STREAMS is promising in terms of providing more holistic education; many STEM initiatives appear to be regressing “toward a scientific rationalist curriculum” and “[fail] to support ethical citizenships” (Zouda 2018, 1111). Such rationalist education can lead to competitive rather than collaborative attitudes, passive citizenship rather than active, and human-centered rather than human-environment interconnectedness thus eroding opportunities for education aimed to develop a population capable of envisioning sustainable solutions to current, global problems. In fact, many of the current global problems such as climate change may be caused in part by beliefs that humans are both separate from and dominant over nature (Krug and Shaw 2016) rather than an integral actor in and reliant upon a healthy environment.

5

Conclusions

With British colonial origins and geographic proximity to the United States, the Canadian education system is neither British nor US-American. In response to the adoption of American science curricula in the 1950s, the Common Framework of Science Learning Outcomes (K-12) emerged with a uniquely Canadian signature. Unlike most other systems in the world, the responsibility for education rests with

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the provincial and territorial legislatures. While the decentralized nature of Canadian education affords some flexibility to respond to local needs, it suffers from inconsistent terminology and variations in teacher training across the nation, thus making it difficult to develop and implement standardized reforms or innovation in curricula. As argued, Canadian educators are gaining ground towards better inclusivity with regards to learners’ access to ICT and STEM education. However, inequities are still evident in rural and remote contexts. These inequities are exacerbated by the need for a better communications infrastructure: one that can connect 37 million people across ten million square kilometers. Interestingly, Immigrants contribute strongly to STEM innovation and employment in Canada. However, women and Indigenous learners remain underrepresented. While there is a gender divide, evidence suggests that women gravitate towards biological and medical sciences, and as such, have strong employment prospects. Overall, percentages of STEM graduates are lower relative to business and management graduates, but it is inconclusive that Canada is experiencing a dire shortage of STEM graduates. The main challenge for STEM and ICT advocates is in better defining as well as establishing the significance of key concepts such as “digital literacy.” The need to strengthen science curricula with Indigenous perspectives is also apparent (Tippett et al. 2019). Finally, educators must carefully consider pedagogical issues. In particular, they need to consider how to transition from a “discrete-subject” approach towards a more integrated approach in balance with other subjects such as art and sustainability. In other words, ICT and STEM are valuable — not in isolation from — but in relation to the entire curriculum while respecting the needs of local communities and with sensitivity to issues of global concern. In this way, the acronym, STEM, may morph or fade away, but the relevance and social justice imperatives important for global citizenry and personal development will reach beyond a purely economic, neoliberal approach. In a post-pandemic world facing significant issues of climate change, our youth can look forward to meaningful work in a healthy world. So that we can best prepare our youth to respond to these challenges, Canadian educators and educators globally must consider the goal of a productive and healthy citizenry rather than focus solely on meeting demands from industry and neoliberal governments’ agendas.

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Successes, Present Challenges, and Prospects for the Future Oneil Hall

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of the Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Personnel Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusions/Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

350 350 350 351 355 356 357 357 359 361 362 362 363 364 365 366 366

Abstract

The chapter focuses on the education system in the Cayman Islands. It argues that the development of the education system in the Cayman Islands needs to be viewed within the context of Cayman’s historical and administrative connections with colonial Jamaica and Britain. Both primary and secondary data are used. Data are drawn from legislations, government reports, United Nations reports, and statistics provided by the Economics and Statistics Office in Cayman. The chapter reveals that the education system in Cayman mirrors the Jamaican and the British systems in its organization, assessment, and curriculum. It also discusses O. Hall (*) Department of History and Philosophy, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Bridgetown, St. Michael, Barbados © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_47

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key events and issues in the development of the education system, the overall administration and organization of the sector, the supply of teachers from overseas, and the structure within the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED). Keywords

Cayman Islands · Education Council · Ministry of Education · STEM · ISCED

1

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to discuss the education system in the Cayman Islands. The Cayman Islands, like other English-speaking Caribbean countries, has a complex history linked to colonialism and slavery. Thus, the British colonial legacies of these societies have been a prominent feature within their education systems. On that note, it is difficult to discuss the development of the education system of the Cayman Islands without linking it to these important events. The chapter argues that the development of the education system in the Cayman Islands is associated with Cayman’s historical and administrative connections to colonial Jamaica and Britain. The focus lies on the period from the 1800s to the present. In exploring the development of Cayman’s education system, the chapter begins by describing the historical, social, economic, and cultural contexts of the territory. Next, key events are examined and will be explained how the education system helps to transition citizens in the labor market in areas such as tourism, offshore banking, technical, and vocational sectors. Then, the chapter gives an overview of the institutional and organizational structures. Within this section, it outlines the role and functions of the Ministry of Education, the Department of Educational Services, and the Education Council. These institutions play a significant role in the administration of the education sector. Also within this section, the International Standard Classification of Education (ISECD) is used to compare the education system of the Cayman Islands with that of the international system. Finally, the chapter looks at the supply of teachers from overseas and the various challenges/trends in the education system such as segregation in schools, ICT/digitalization progress, the policies implemented to improve the teaching of STEM subjects, funding deficit at the early childhood level, need for teacher training programs, and the expansion of technical and vocational training to fulfill job market demands.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

2.1

General Historical Background

The Cayman Islands are located 180 miles northwest of Jamaica and 272 miles south of Cuba. This territory comprises three islands – Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman which collectively measure 102 square miles. Geographically, these

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islands differ from each other. Grand Cayman is the largest of the three and measures 76 square miles in its total area. Little Cayman is the smallest and relatively flat while Cayman Brac has a bluff that rises to 140 ft. above sea level. Unlike neighboring islands of Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, and Hispaniola which were first settled by Taino Indians, there was no such settlement on these islands. In 1503, Christopher Columbus recorded that these islands had many turtles and thus referred to them as “Las Tortugas” (Craton 2003, 13). Importantly, it should also be noted that the Spanish did not establish any settlement on these islands either. However, these islands were frequented by Europeans who stopped there for turtle meat. In 1586 an English sea captain, Sir Francis Drake, noted similarly to Columbus that these islands had no human life but were dominated by turtles, alligators, crocodiles, and iguanas (Craton 2003, 2–3).

2.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

The settlement and history of the Cayman Islands were largely linked to Jamaica. In 1655, the English captured Jamaica from the Spanish. As a result, English colonists from Jamaica frequently visited Cayman for turtle meat. In 1670, the Spanish and the English signed the Treaty of Madrid which recognized English control of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. English Royal Commissions were originally used to administer English colonies. In 1662, English Royal Commissions listed the Cayman Islands as dependencies within Jamaica’s political jurisdiction. In 1863, the British Parliament decided to formalize the administrative connections between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica through an Imperial Act (Craton 2003, 145). As a result of this Act, the governor of Jamaica was largely responsible for the administration of the islands. The governor of Jamaica ensured that English naval ships visited the islands, provided loans, reported to the colonial and foreign offices regarding them, and appointed individuals to various political offices. It was within this political context that the Cayman Islands’ formal education system emerged. Between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, Cayman’s main economic activities included the production of cotton, turtle meat, turtle shells, mahogany, thatch rope, and coconut. The territory was also involved in a fishery where fishes were salted. Cayman’s main target territories for export were Jamaica and the UK. The shipping registry has a plethora of examples of the strong trading relationship between Jamaica and the UK (Craton 2003, 150). From the late nineteenth century to the present, Cayman has also developed a strong trading connection with the USA. Transactions with the USA has accounted for most of the islands’ imports. Historian and literary scholar Kamau Braithwaite (2006, 32) created the concept of creolization which was used to explain the cultural mixture between European and enslaved Africans on slave plantations in the Caribbean. Although it was not mentioned in his study, it is important to point out that this creolized culture was transferred from Jamaica to the Cayman Islands by early inhabitants. Thus resulting, due to Cayman’s strong historical link with Jamaica, these territories share cultural traits in linguistics, cuisine, and folklore. Cayman has also developed unique cultural

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traits such as a distinct accent, kraal soup, conch meals, turtle meat, thatch hats, and Easter camping on the beaches. The shared link between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica was also evident in their education systems. In discussing the education systems in the British West Indies, it is very difficult to understand the intricacies of the systems without examining the legacies of slavery and British Colonialism within the region. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Cayman was a slave society. The English did not make much provision to educate the enslaved Africans. Historian Carl Campbell (1996, 262) in discussing Jamaica’s education system posited that “slavery and formal education of the enslaved Africans were considered incompatible by slave owners in Jamaica.” This assertation by Campbell was similar for Cayman and the wider British West Indies. It was not only the slave owners who neglected to educate the enslaved Africans but also local legislative assemblies in the British West Indies and the British government. In the case of Jamaica, slave owners established schools for educating poor Whites. These schools included Wolmers’ Trust School established in 1729, Mannings’ School in 1738, and Jamaica College in 1795. Meanwhile, in Cayman, no such school was established for Whites or coloreds. Thus, wealthy White Caymanians sent their children to Jamaica and England for schooling. After slavery was abolished in 1834, an attempt was made by the British government to educate formerly enslaved people through the Negro Education Grant. This fund was administered through the church for the moral and religious education of formerly enslaved people. In this grant, no special provision was made for the Cayman Islands because of their dependency status with Jamaica. However, in 1843 the Wesleyan Church used proceeds from the Negro Education Grant to establish the first private school in West Bay, Grand Cayman. By 1845, this school was closed due to a lack of funding. Within the same year, the Presbyterian Church established an elementary school in Bodden Town and George Town, Grand Cayman. The initial set of teachers for these schools came from the Presbyterian mission in Jamaica. In 1887, the local government in Cayman recognized the need to partner with the church and offered funding to these schools. This was the first public fund to be made available for education in Cayman. Also within that year, a member from the Jamaica Civil Service, Laurence Fyfe was instructed to review and assess the education condition in Cayman. In this review, he recommended a closer association between the education systems in Cayman and Jamaica. Another significant year in the Cayman Islands’ education system was 1902 which saw the passage of the Education Act. This Act was the government’s first attempt to tackle the educational neglect of these islands in a very determined way. The Act established a board of education to monitor, regulate, and administer schools in Cayman. It also outlined the guidelines of how the boards should operate, the curriculum, the admission requirement for students, and the inspection of schools. Through this Act, teachers were paid directly from government revenues. This was in contrast to neighboring Jamaica where teachers were paid by the trusts and churches. In 1920, the Act was amended and established compulsory elementary education for residents through assisted funding by the local authorities. In 1921,

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two schools were opened in Cayman Brac, the second largest island, for the first time. Prior to World War II (1939–1945), there was a deepening and widening of the relationship between the Jamaica Department of Education (Ministry of Education in 1953) and the Cayman Islands Board of Education. In the early 1930s, Jamaica started a biannual program to inspect schools in Cayman. After the inspections, detailed reports were submitted with recommendations. The curriculum closely mirrored the Jamaican system with Caymanian students learning Jamaican and British history and geography. The governor of Jamaica also made several decisions relating to teachers’ salaries, vacation leave, and misconduct. In fact, so close was the administration between the two countries that a teacher had to be registered in Jamaica to work in Cayman. This continued until the early 1960s. In 1941, the Church of God Chapel in George Town, Grand Cayman, opened the first secondary school in Cayman. This school followed the US education system. By 1949, Cayman High School was built by the Presbyterians which had a British curriculum. In 1954, the Cayman Islands’ government provided funding for this school. Although these secondary schools were established in Cayman, wealthy Caymanians continued to send their children to Jamaica for secondary education. These children attended Camperdown High School, St Hughes High School for Girls, Knox College, Clarendon College, Kingston College, and Cornwall College. These schools were frequently mentioned in the oral testimonies by Caymanians who studied in Jamaican secondary schools. In 1945, the West India Royal Commission reported on the conditions of the British West Indies with special mention being made of the education system. The West India Royal Commission (1945, 93) noted that “the educational system in the British West Indies reveals serious inadequacies in almost every respect.” The reports bemoaned the lack of training for teachers, overcrowded classrooms, poor infrastructure of schools, and the lack of policy to govern the partnership between the state and church schools. The report also criticized the curricula adopted by the British West Indian islands. It stated, “the curricula were blindly copied from British practice” (1945, 92). This was the condition of the Cayman Islands education system post-World War II. Considering the West India Royal Commission Report, the Cayman Islands government provided scholarships for the training of Caymanian teachers in Jamaica. Also, trained teachers were imported from Jamaica and other parts of the British West Indies. Increasing the number of trained teachers in Cayman had a positive effect on the education system. In addition, the Jamaica Department of Education provided specialized training in mathematics and other subjects areas for local teachers. Another major policy adoption was the implementation of the Jamaica Standardized Examinations at the primary and secondary level. Several examinations centers were established to facilitate these assessments. The government of the Cayman Islands also provided scholarships to students to study medicine and nursing in Jamaica. These policies and the overall closeness in education systems between the two territories continued until the 1960s.

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In 1962, Jamaica opted for political independence from the UK. Stemming from that Cayman decided to remain a British colony. Roy Bodden (2010, 99–101) called this decision “voluntary colonialism.” Since 1962, the Cayman Islands have been a British Overseas Territory administered by a locally elected legislature and an appointed British governor. After political separation, the Cayman Islands government replaced the Jamaican local exams with the British G.C.E. By 1968, new education legislation was passed which extended compulsory education to age 15. In 1979, attempts were made to reform the secondary system by implementing a middle school for students age 11–12. By 1983, a fee was attached for non-Caymanian students attending public schools.

2.2.1 Preprimary There are 41 early childhood centers in Cayman which include nurseries and preschools which are privately owned. The age range is from infancy to 5 years old. Government reports did not indicate if subsidies were offered to these institutions. Nonetheless, the Cayman Islands government provided oversight and regulated these institutions. There are also regular inspections of these schools. In 2015, the Early Childhood Care and Education Unit in the Department of Education designed and developed a curriculum for institutions at this level. This was an important juncture in Cayman’s early childhood education system. For years, there was no standard curriculum to guide stakeholders offering early childhood care. For the academic year 2018–2019, 1966 students were enrolled across the territory. 2.2.2 Primary and Secondary Primary and secondary education options are offered by both private and public schools. There are 27 primary and secondary schools combined, with a school population of 8,241 students: 49% female and 51% male. George Town, the capital city, accounts for 15 of these schools with a population of 5,175 students. In 2019, private schools enrolled 44% while public schools accounted for 56% of the overall student population. The student to teacher ratio for public primary schools was 13:1; the ratio for public schools at the secondary level was 9:1 and for private schools in the same category it was 11:1. The ratio for Lighthouse School, which is a special education school from the primary to secondary level, was 6:1. The average attendance rate for the period 2017–2019 was 94% with 6% absent (Cayman Islands Ministry of Education 2020). Statistics were retrieved from this source. The main standardized internal assessment for students in years 4 and 6 at the primary level as well as year 9 at the secondary level is the cognitive abilities test (CAT4). CAT4 assesses students’ reasoning abilities. The Cayman Islands Education Data Report (2020, 13) explains the structure of the CAT4 assessment which includes “Reasoning Battery – thinking with words; Quantitative (or Numerical) Reasoning Battery – thinking with numbers; Non-verbal Reasoning Battery – thinking with shapes; Spatial Ability Battery – thinking with shape and space.” It further states that “CAT4 is also used as a valuable screening tool to identify a pupil’s strengths, weaknesses and learning preferences and to help set challenging but realistic targets (Cayman Islands Ministry of Education 2020).” In grades 10 and

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11, students are assessed using a combination of external examinations. These include the Caribbean Secondary Certificate of Education (CSEC), General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE), Business and Technical Education Council (BTEC) awards, Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI) awards, and Award Scheme Accreditation and Development Network (ASDAN) awards. These external assessments are a mix of British, US, and regional Caribbean examinations.

2.2.3 Tertiary The University of the West Indies (UWI) was established in Mona, Jamaica, in 1948. Several Caymanian students attend this institution. In fact, the first Caymanian medical doctor and lawyer were educated at UWI. The UWI still provides university education for students in the Cayman Islands – which continues to contribute monetarily to the operation of the University. Caymanians also access tertiary education through the College of Agriculture Science and Technology (CAST) and the many teachers’ colleges such as Mico Teachers’ College and Shortwood Teachers’ College. After political separation from Jamaica, Caymanians continue to attend UWI. However, many opt to study in the USA and the UK. Cayman’s first tertiary institution was the International College of the Cayman Islands which was established as a private community college in 1970 and offered certificate, associate, undergraduate, and graduate degrees. In 1975, the University College of the Cayman Islands was formed to provide another option for tertiary education. This started as a public community college in which the government subsidised the operation and programs thereof for Caymanian students. Up to May 2021, the institution has 70 full-time staff and over 2,000 students from 30 nationalities. The school offers a precollege program, Year 12 (Sixth form) program as well as technical, vocational, associate, undergraduate, and graduate degrees – along with certificate programs. In 1982, the Truman Bodden Law School (formally the Cayman Islands Law School) was formed with affiliations from the University of Liverpool. This institution offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in law. In 1997, St Matthew’s University was established as a private medical school in Cayman.

2.3

Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of the Population

During the 1960s, with the expansion of the offshore financial sector, many North Americans, British, and Jamaicans migrated to Cayman for employment. In 2019, Cayman had over 150 nationalities living and working there. Thus creating a multicultural space. With this, the Cayman Islands government restricted nonnational students from attending public schools. Thus, not all residents were covered by the government. The Cayman Islands have a high standard of living with a poverty rate of 1.9% of the population. Despite this low poverty rate, some Caymanians complain about being replaced by foreign nationals who accept lower salaries. This has caused them

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to be unemployed and living in poverty. Expatistan (2021) tabulates information on the cost of living around the world. It is reported that Cayman has one of the world’s highest costs of living with its residents paying some of the premier amounts for utilities, rent, Internet access, and clothing. Thus, the poor and low-income residents are burdened by this issue. With this high standard of living and the gains from the offshore financial sector, schools are well funded. The Caymanian government consistently increased the education budget over the years. In 2018, the budget was $86 million Cayman Islands dollars and in 2019 it was increased by approximately 8.5% to $96 million Cayman Islands dollars. The average annual cost per student in public primary and secondary schools is $13,312.27 Cayman Islands dollars (Cayman Islands Office of the Auditor General 2017, 24). Private schools share a grant of $120,000 Cayman Islands dollars. In addition, the private school infrastructure benefits from highquality resources and sophistication through the use of Internet access, library, sports facilities, air-conditioned classrooms due to the tropical climate, and a school bus system. In public schools, students do not pay tuition. Cayman is noted to be a relatively peaceful society with a very low crime rate. In 2019, 4,146 crimes were reported with one murder. Most of the crimes committed were burglaries and drug-related offences. Government officials have expressed concern about the high consumption of cocaine and marijuana among its younger population. Parents who are substance abusers are often not active in their child’s school life. Thus, their poor involvement and lack of assistance with homework influence students’ overall performance. Students are noted to have access to basic health care. There are three modern hospitals in the Cayman Islands, of which two are privately owned, and the other is a government-operated institution. There are also several public clinics across the Islands. The government provides also primary health care to its residents. However, specialized health care is often expensive and outside the reach of the poorest members of society. Many residents travel to the USA and Jamaica for specialized services. The overall ratio between doctors and residents is 5 per 1,000 population. The birth rate is 10 per 1,000 population and the death rate is 4 per 1,000 population (Cayman Islands Economics and Statistic Office 2020).

2.4

Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support

The education system provides skills for the labor force. However, more programs need to be created at the secondary and tertiary levels to meet the demand in the labor market. During the 1940s, Cayman established the tourism sector as a revenue earner. The Cayman Islands Economic Development Plan (1990, 8) stated that “Not only does tourism provide the largest source of foreign exchange to the economy, but it also, directly and indirectly, provides one of the largest sources of employment.” In 2018, the tourism sector remained a major source of economic activity for the islands through revenues and employment. In 2019, Cayman

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welcomed to its shores 2.3 million visitors with over 79% of these visitors coming from the USA. In the 1960s, Cayman established the offshore financial services. This financial industry made the Cayman Islands very prosperous economically. In fact, for several years, the Cayman Islands are ranked one of the world’s largest financial sectors. Several companies, banks, and international law firms have established businesses in the Cayman Islands. After secondary level education, most residents are employed in the financial and tourism sectors. There, however, is a need for more scholarships and a focus on encouraging Caymanians to engage in the teaching, legal, and medical professions. Although a few Caymanians have studied to be teachers, medical doctors, and lawyers, most of these professionals in the society are immigrants. Similarly, there are complaints that managerial positions in the legal, tourism, and banking sectors are filled by immigrants due to the lack of qualification in society. Thus, companies face difficulties in finding Caymanians to meet these demands. Other areas within the education system that need an increased focus as well as training include the construction, computing, and automobile sectors. These sectors often bemoan the lack of these skills within graduates from secondary and tertiary institutions.

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

3.1

Education Administration and Governance

The Ministry of Education, Cayman Islands, is directly responsible for policy decisions within the education sector. Within the Ministry of Education, the chief officer works directly with the Minister of Education and is responsible for monitoring and assessing the education system. Julianna O’Connor-Connolly, Cayman Islands’ Minister of Education explained that “the Education Ministry’s main role is to investigate areas of improvement with a view to raising educational standards through a number of institutions and policies” (2019, 4). Between 1999 and 2017, several policies were developed for the education sector. Disraeli Hutton (2015), Caribbean education scholar, discusses a few policy documents created by the Ministry, such as Vision 2008, created in 1999 specifically. Hutton (2015) comments that the Vision 2008 strategy would guide the development of the education system from 1999–2008. In 2005, another policy document was developed entitled “National Consensus for the Future.” For Hutton (2015), “one of the goals was the establishment of a new model of governance for the educational services.” In 2011, the National Stabilization Plan was formulated to improve school leadership in the Cayman education sector. The Ministry also developed the Strategic Plan for Education 2012–2017 and the Education Plan of Action 2015–2016 and 2016– 2017. These policy initiatives covered issues dealing with school administration and management, curriculum, assessments, students’ achievement, and aimed for the overall improvement of the education system.

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The Ministry of Education is also responsible for lobbying to Cabinet and consulting with the public regarding proposed legislative changes. Several amendments were made to the Education Act, 1970. In 2007, the Ministry conducted a review of the Education Law and a series of public consultations were carried out. In 2016, a new Education Law was passed. James Whittaker (2016a) reported in the Cayman Compass that “the education Law supports radically revising outdated legislations.” In 2016, Premier Alden McLaughlin described this legislation as modernizing the education system (Whittaker 2016a). This law established an education council, outlined the process of registration of teachers and educational institutions, as well as the administration of students’ records for admission, attendance, and transfers. The law also discussed the curriculum and assessment of students, funding, the use of school facilitates, special education, protection of a child, postcompulsory education, and the regulations of early childhood facilities. The legislation also created the Office of Education Standards to inspect, assess, and evaluate the overall operations of public and private schools. It also reinforced that educational institutions ought to be inspected a minimum of one inspection every four years. This office falls under the portfolio of the civil service. Previously, it is known as the Cayman Islands Schools’ Inspectorate and the Education Quality Assurance Unit. Another responsibility for the Ministry of Education is the publication of and access to information. Several publications are made available to the public in both electronic and nonelectronic formats. These include the annual National Education Data Reports, inspection reports, Auditor General’s Report, school calendar, and national curriculum. Within the Ministry of Education, there exists the Department of Education Services which is headed by a director. This department is responsible for the administration of public schools and ensuring that national policies developed by the Ministry of Education are implemented, monitored, and assessed. The department also oversees students’ data and records, registration, school infrastructure maintenance, teachers’ performance, curriculum development, and also liaises with the Minister of Education and the chief officer. As previously mentioned, the Education Act, 2016, established the Education Council. This Council comprises 15 members appointed by Cabinet. The Council includes the chief officer in the Ministry of Education, the director of education services, three members recommended by the Minister of Education, and representatives from private schools, the early childhood system, the business community, postsecondary institutions, the special needs school as well as private residents from Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. The functions of the Council include the registration of teachers, investigation of teacher misconduct, hearings, and the dismissal of teachers. The Council also regulates and registers both public and private educational institutions. They also investigate complaints against educational institutions, as well as process the suspension and cancellation of their registration. Additionally, the Council is responsible for establishing mean testing for government scholarship programs, formulating dress code policy for students and staff, and setting the compensation rate for teachers and other staff members within the education sector.

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Independent/private schools are governed by school boards that are established by their individual schools’ regulations. In most cases, the schools are administered through the church and a minister of religion chairs the school board, for example, Triple C School, St Ignatius Catholic School, Cayman Prep, and High School and Cayman Academy. Although private schools operate independently of the general administration and funding of the Ministry of Education, they still have to be registered with the Education Council and inspected by the Office of Education Standards.

3.2

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED Classification

3.2.1 ISCED Level 0 International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) level 0 programs are classified as education preceding the primary level and referred to as Early Childhood Education (United Nations 2012b). In Cayman, three schools fall within ISCED level 0, namely Early Childhood Preschool, Early Childhood Care and Education, and Reception Program. These programs are also referred to as preprimary school. In the Early Childhood Preschool strata, entrance starts from the newborn stage. Entrants are expected to spend 3 years in this program. After completion of Early Childhood Preschool, they advance to the Early Childhood Care and Education level where the entrance age is between 3 and 5. There is no formal qualification at this level. Within ISCED level 0 there is also the Reception Program, for which the minimum enrolment age is 4. There is also no formal qualification at this level and the duration within the program was one year (United Nations 2012b). 3.2.2 ISCED Level 1 ISCED level 1 is primary education and the age range for entrance is between 5 and 7. Students are expected to spend 4–6 years at the primary level (United Nations 2012b). In Cayman, there are two levels of primary education – Primary School and Special Needs Primary. For Primary School, entrance starts at age 5. The duration of this level is 6 years. At the end of primary education, students receive a Certificate of Primary. The other primary system, which is developed for students with special needs, is the Special Needs Primary. There is no minimum age requirement; however, students often enrolled in this level between the ages of 5 and 11. These students are usually diagnosed with special needs and based on their level of development, they are enrolled in the system accordingly. This marks the beginning of compulsory education which is from age 5 until 17. 3.2.3 ISCED Level 2 ISCED level 2 or lower secondary education programs are intended to build on the learning outcomes from level 1. The ISCED level 2 age range is between 10 and 13 years and the expected duration is 4–7 years (United Nations 2012b). Enrolled

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students must enter with a Certificate of Primary. In the Caymanian case, the lower secondary program is divided into two groups – Middle School and Special Needs Lower Secondary. In Middle School, the entrance age is 11 and students are expected to spend 3 years at this level. At the end of this level, students receive a Certificate of Lower Secondary. The next program offers at the lower secondary level is Special Needs Lower Secondary. There is no certification requirement to enrol in this system like Middle School. The entrance age is 11 and students usually spend 3 years within the program. At the end of the study, students receive a Certificate of Lower Secondary and advance to ISCED level 3 or upper secondary education.

3.2.4 ISCED Level 3 ISCED level 3 or upper secondary education refers to the final stage of secondary education. Students usually enter this level between ages 14 and 16 years (United Nations 2012b). This is similar to the Cayman system. The entrance age for upper secondary school is 14 and students usually spend 3 years within the program. The minimum entrance requirement is a Certificate of Lower Secondary. During this level, students are assessed using several external examinations which are based on the UK, the Caribbean, and North American systems. Different schools at this level utilize different assessments. These exams include GCSE, CXC, BTECS, and prevocational certificates. Once students are certified, they matriculate to ISCED levels 4, 5, 6, and 7. In Cayman, ISCED level 3 also includes Special Educational Needs – Upper Secondary. There is no minimum requirement for entrance. The age for enrolment is 14 and the program is 3 years in duration. At the end of this level, students are awarded a Secondary Diploma. Students could then matriculate to ISCED levels 4, 5, 6, and 7. 3.2.5 ISCED Level 4 For ISCED level 4, which is also referred to as Postsecondary Nontertiary Education, ISCED notes that students enter this level after level 3 (United Nations 2012b). This level is designed for vocational training and employment training (United Nations 2012b). In Cayman, the equivalent program is called Special Needs – Adult Training. The entrance age is 17 and students are awarded a diploma. To matriculate, students have to have a Secondary Diploma. The program is usually 3 years in duration. This is the final age of compulsory education for students who fall within the special needs category. 3.2.6 ISCED Level 5 ISCED level 5 is also referred to as short-cycle tertiary education, which is designed to provide professional knowledge, skills, and preparation for employment (United Nations 2012b). In Cayman, the equivalent to this level is the Advanced Level Program. The minimum requirement for the advanced level is the achievement of five subjects at level 2 passes from GCSE and CXC external exams. Level 2 passes range from A–C for GCSE subjects and 1–3 for CXC subjects. Students also have to pass mathematics and english for matriculation. The entrance age is 17, and the

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duration of the program is 2 years. At the end of the program, students are assessed using external exams based on varying systems; the UK, the Caribbean-based A levels, International Baccalaureate (IB), and US Advanced Placement (AP). In some private schools, US AP such as SAT and ACT are the only external assessments used. Students could then matriculate to ISCED levels 6 and 7. This is the final age of compulsory education for students. Another ISCED level 5 course is the Associates Level Program. The requirement is the same as the advanced level. However, at the end of the program, students receive an associate degree which could also be used to matriculate to ISCED levels 6 and 7.

3.2.7 ISCED Level 6 ISCED level 6 or the bachelors level is usually a 3- to 4-year tertiary degree program (United Nations 2012b). For Cayman, the minimum requirement differs based on various institutions. However, a standard requirement is five subjects including mathematics and english at level 2 passes from GCSE and CXC external exams, A levels, International Baccalaureate (IB), and Advanced Placement or an associate degree. The entrance age is 17 and after completion students could matriculate to ISCED level 7. In Cayman level 6 is offered through local tertiary institutions, as well as the University of the West Indies, North American and European colleges and universities. Most students travel overseas for this program. 3.2.8 ISCED Level 7 ISCED level 7 or the master’s or postgraduate level is offered for students who have completed ISCED level 6 (United Nations 2012b). The minimum requirement for schools at this level in Cayman is a bachelor’s degree. The general entrance age is 22 and the program duration is usually between 1 and 2 years. There are no institutions for ISCED levels 8 and 9 in the Cayman Islands. Students often travel overseas for such programs which include doctoral degrees.

3.3

Personnel Supply

In the Cayman Islands, most of the teaching staff are sourced from overseas. James Whittaker (2014) noted that, historically, Jamaicans are one of the largest groups of nonnational teachers in the Cayman Islands. For example, in 1993, 66 Jamaican teachers were employed in Cayman. By 1997, this group had increased to 98. After 1962, Cayman started to recruit teachers from other countries such as Canada, the USA, the UK, and Barbados. Today, the Cayman Islands employ teachers from 18 different countries including the Bahamas, Belgium, Grenada, Hungary, Norway, Philippines, Saint Vincent, South Africa, and Trinidad and Tobago. In 2019, the Ministry of Education, Cayman Islands, revealed that there were 80 vacant teaching positions in which 35% were filled by Caymanians, 43% by Caribbean nationals, and 16% by residents of the USA, Canada, South Africa, and Ireland.

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Cayman Islands Baseline Inspection of Schools Report (2015) agreed that “teachers are drawn from diverse backgrounds from different parts of the world.” It also noted that Cayman must improve its recruitment, retention, and deployment of high-quality teaching staffs. Cayman’s immigration policy gives immigrant workers 7–9 years to work in the territory. This policy has often caused a loss of high-quality teachers who, because of immigration policy, must leave Cayman after their term limit has expired. As a result, the report concluded that the high reliance on teachers from overseas is a staffing challenge facing Cayman’s schools. The Report (2015) also highlights that that there is a shortage of teaching assistants. The government often sourced teaching assistants locally which is not sufficient to meet the demand.

4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

4.1

Inequality

In Cayman, children of immigrant workers are not allowed in public schools. This government policy is often referred to as “the segregation of the school system.” As mentioned earlier, public schools are fully funded by the government and students are not charged tuition. Thus, the government considered it a financial burden to allow nonnationals to attend public schools. As a result, immigrant workers often face high tuition costs for their wards. Another reason the government cited for the noninclusion of nonnationals is the lack of space in public school (Morales 2021). After continuous agitation from the public and the press for a more inclusive school policy for both nationals and nonnationals, government data reveal that more non-Caymanian students are admitted to public schools in 2021. Dan Scott, chair of the Cayman Islands Education Council, stated that “enabling children of different nationalities and backgrounds to mix would benefit the society” (Morales 2021). Roy Bodden, former education minister and Caymanian author, argues that “Cayman made a fundamentally flawed error in the immigration policy by creating an exclusionary school system” (Morales 2021). He points out that private schools, which have mostly nonnational students, have a higher standard of achievement than public schools (Morales 2021). Private schools often yield better external examination results than public schools. He further contrasts that public schools are better funded than private schools (Morales 2021). As a result of the higher performance in private schools, wealthier Caymanians have opted to educate their wards in the private schools. Thus, children in public schools are often viewed as students from lower strata of society. Hence, an elitist education system has been ascribed between private versus public schools. In 2016, Peter Carpenter, chief school inspector, further argued that “there is a link between economic disadvantage and academic output” (Whittaker 2016b). He observed that students from higher-income homes had a greater level of parental involvement in school activity which contributed to higher academic performance. In addition, there is a correlation between students’ literacy and parental income, wherein it is noted

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that there are more issues with students from lower-income households. Carpenter concludes that good teaching and higher parental involvement are key factors in fixing the educational inequality in public schools.

4.2

ICT and Digitalization

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2012a) provides a detailed study on information and communication technology (ICT) in the Latin America and Caribbean education sectors. This study discusses the Cayman Islands in detail. In Cayman, there exists a policy, plan, and regulatory body for the ICT sector (United Nations 2012a, 8). Electricity is seen as a prerequisite for ICT in education. In Cayman, all educational institutions have access to electricity. UNESCO Institute for Statistics (United Nations 2012a, 10) noted, “the vast majority of Caribbean countries can, therefore, fully support ICT integration, which means that where ICT is lacking, this cannot be attributed to the absence of an electricity supply.” Radio-assisted instruction (RAI) is one of the earliest forms of ICT in education. This includes radio broadcast, cassettes, and compact discs (CD). In 2012, 4% of primary and 27% of secondary schools used radio-assisted instructions in Cayman. Another ICT form is televisionassisted instruction (TAI) which includes video cassettes and digital versatile/video discs (DVDs). Within the same year, it was noted that 69% primary and 100% secondary schools incorporated TAI in their educational instructions. UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2012a) also indicates the learners to computer ratio as another key factor in determining the level of ICT access in Cayman. The study notes that “computers include personal computers (PCs), laptops, tablets, notebooks, e-readers, terminals connected to mainframes and mini-computers” (United Nations 2012a, 14). The learner to computer ratio was observed to be 3:1 in primary schools and 2:1 in secondary schools. Thus, there are enough devices in the school system for students. For the same period, 73% of primary schools have a computer laboratory compared to 100% in secondary schools. Another indicator of the use of ICT within the education sector in Cayman is Internet connectivity through broadband and narrowband connections. In Cayman, all secondary schools have Internet connectivity. For the primary level, only 77% of the schools are connected. Almost 90% of teachers are trained to teach using ICT facilities and 93% of teachers are using ICT facilities in their instructions. Thus, at the school level, the Cayman Islands have arguably done well in the employment of ICT within its education sector. However, more needs to be done at the primary level for full Internet connectivity and computer labs (United Nations 2012a). Also, more recent statistics are not available for the ICT area. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic forced the closure of face-to-face schools and thus remote learning via the Internet was implemented (Young 2020). This remote learning highlighted another challenge within the education sector. Although the above statistics revealed that schools were well equipped with ICT, there are a few students who had challenges with accessing devices and the Internet. These students are from lower-income households. The Cayman Islands Compendium of Statistics

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(2019) pointed out that 86% of households had access to the Internet and 68.4% had a computer in their homes. The challenge with this data is that it does not reveal the continuousness of the Internet connectivity. Hence, a home could have Internet access one day but due to cost and higher standards of living, the access might not be present the following day. Connectivity also depends on the Internet packages that a family can afford based on their budget. These challenges were also articulated by Patrick Brendel (2020) who reported that “the pandemic highlighted a digital divide in Cayman, sparking new concerns particularly in education; of a gap between the haves and the haves not.” He additionally affirmed that students from lower-income households had challenges with accessing devices, and affordable and reliable Internet connection (Brendel 2020). In response to this divide, the government has embarked upon a program to assist these needy students. In 2008, the Ministry of Education digitalized students’ record through School Management Information System (SIMS). This system has been used in the UK. It allows educators to access pertinent information on students’ achievement, attendance, and behavior. SIMS also allows parents to monitor their child’s performance throughout the term.

4.3

STEM Subjects

Over the years, students in Cayman have performed poorly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. For the secondary level external exams, a low percentage of the cohort opted to undertake STEM subjects. Since 2017 several science-related subjects were offered at the secondary level external exams. In 2017, integrated science (CSEC) had the highest number of entries which was 63% of the total secondary level cohort. Students performed satisfactorily with a 62% overall pass rate. Biology (CSEC) registered 21% of the total cohort with a pass rate of 82%. Chemistry (CSEC) and physics (CSEC) had a total of 16% of the cohort with a pass rate of 48% and 55%, respectively. In 2020, the number of entries for integrated science declined to 55% with an overall 97% pass rate. Biology and physics had an increased number of entries at 24% and 26% of the cohort respectively and an overall pass rate at 100%. Chemistry continued to have lower entries at 13% but the pass rate improved to 100%. For mathematics (CSEC), in 2020 there was a total of 99% pass rate for the overall secondary cohort with 92% entries for the exam (Cayman Islands Ministry of Education 2020). At the primary level, 42% of the students performed below expected level in mathematics while 46% performed at the expected level and 12% exceeded the level. No data was available for science-related subjects at the primary level. Minister of Education, Tara Rivers, reported to the Cayman Islands House of Assembly (Parliament) that several STEM-related initiatives were implemented in 2016/2017 by all schools as part of their education plan of action. This plan also included completing professional development for teachers and producing a scope and sequence of documents to complement the national curriculum. In addition, the government reviewed science resources across the public education system to create

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school-based resource centers in each school to promote practical science, engineering, technology, and mathematics teaching. Also, worth noting is the LEGO Robotics and Coding program, which is being reintroduced in schools and will hopefully lead to better outcomes. In accomplishing these initiatives, the Ministry of Education also introduced the National Science Education Strategy 2018–2023 which focuses on STEM subjects. The main objective of the strategy is “to develop a passion for science by raising the level of scientific curiosity, skills, knowledge and confidence for all students (Cayman Islands Ministry of Education 2017).” There was also the establishment of the Cayman Islands Association of Science Educators for teachers in this discipline to share information and teaching strategies in the instruction and assessment of the subject. A partnership with the University College of the Cayman Islands (UCCI) and other regional tertiary institutions was also developed to train and provide information in the STEM area. One such initiative is the UCCI STEM Conference which helps to expose students and citizens to the latest trends and developments in STEM subjects. Also, it helps to dispel and counteract the myths and fears relating to STEM subjects and provides training for teachers. The STEM Conference is an annual event, and it has a strong partnership with the private sector, which helps to offset the cost. Another event by UCCI is the STEM CAMP which caters to students in Grades 7–9. This conference also has sponsorship from the private sector, and it is geared toward encouraging students to develop their passion and skills in STEM subjects. Another program of the Ministry of Education is the Rotary Science Fair, SeaPerch, and First Robotics Competition.

4.4

Emerging Issues

There are several concerns expressed by constituents in the Cayman Islands regarding the education system. Juliet Austin, an educator and literary director, pointed out that Cayman must change its approach to standardized assessment. She recommends that Cayman should develop local examinations to replace the external examinations (Morales 2021). Michael Myles, another key person in the vocational sector, advocates that there needs to be an improvement in the early childhood sector (Morales 2021). Although the Ministry has developed an early childhood curriculum and there is a robust inspection program, more funding is needed in this area. Another area of concern is technical and vocational training (TVET). TVET programs include construction engineers, automotive, carpentry, plumbing, and home economics. Roy Bodden, an educator, notes that “there is a need for more technical and vocational training.” It is also posited that the demand for labor is within the TVET area (Morales 2021). However, students are not being prepared for these jobs in the school system and thus there is a demand which has to be filled by immigrants. Cayman also needs to improve the overall literacy rate at the primary level. In 2020, a significant number of students performed below the expected level in reading and writing at 40% and 45%, respectively.

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In the 1930s to 1950s, Cayman had an excellent program with Jamaica teachers’ colleges to train teachers. These included then Mico Teachers’ College, Shortwood Teachers’ College, and Moneague Teachers’ College. Today, the government needs to implement a program to encourage nationals in the teaching profession by offering scholarships. The government also needs to reengage the Jamaica teachers’ colleges along with the University of the West Indies to provide training in the profession. There must also be an expansion of the postgraduate teaching diploma at the University College of the Cayman Islands which provides teacher training in specific subjects. Finally, the government must embark on a national program to encourage parents to get involved in their child’s education.

5

Conclusions/Summary

Cayman Islands education system evolved during the early 1800s as a dependency of Jamaica under British rule. As a result, Cayman and Jamaica shared several connections in the field of education. In the post-World War II era, there was a deeper connection between these territories in assessments. The main economic activities were offshore banking, tourism, and vocational areas. Although the education system provides the basic readiness to meet the labor market, more needs to be done in supplying the demand in the technical and vocational areas. The Ministry of Education, Cayman Islands, has the legislative responsibility to create policies for the sector. The Department of Education Services executes policies created by the Ministry and the Education Council assesses the teaching staffs, provides criteria for government scholarships, and supports the Ministry’s policy within the sector. The data revealed that Cayman has continuously relied on overseas workers for teaching staffs. Thus, there is a need to establish or reengage old partners to provide national teacher training. Cayman has done well over the years in establishing computer labs, providing Internet access in schools, and ensuring that schools are fully equipped for engagement through technology. Despite this, more needs to be done to ensure that students have access to devices and the Internet at home. An analysis of the STEM subjects reveals two important data: a low percentage of the secondary level cohort registered for the external examinations and the overall pass rate is not impressive. As a result, the Ministry has embarked on several projects, strategies, and partnerships to improve STEM teaching in schools. Another important issue in the education sector is the need for increased funding to the early childhood sector. Cayman schools are structured as early childhood (preschool), primary and primary special needs, middle school (lower secondary), high school (upper secondary), as well as pretertiary, short-term tertiary, and tertiary level institutions.

References Bodden, R. (2010). Patronage, personalities and parties: Caymanian politics from 1950–2000. Kingston: Ian Randle Publisher.

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Braithwaite, K. (2006). The development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770–1820. Kingston: Ian Randle. Brendel, P. (2020). Cayman current. October 23, 2020. https://www.caymancurrent.org/2020/10/ 23/closing-caymans-digital-divide-partnership-provides-students-with-computers-internet/. Campbell, C. (1996). Social and economic obstacles to the development of popular education in post-emancipation Jamaica. In H. Beckles & V. Shepherd (Eds.), Caribbean freedom economy and society from emancipation to present (pp. 262–268). Kingston: Ian Randle Publisher. Cayman Islands Economics and Statistic Office. (2020). https://www.eso.ky/#2. Cayman Islands Government. (1990). The Cayman Islands economic development plan 1986– 1990. George Town: Cayman Islands Government. Cayman Islands Ministry of Education. (2015). Cayman Islands baseline inspection of schools report. George Town: Cayman Islands Ministry of Education. Cayman Islands Ministry of Education. (2017). National science education strategy 2018–2023. George Town: Cayman Islands Ministry of Education. Cayman Islands Ministry of Education. (2020). Education data report. George Town: Cayman Islands Ministry of Education. Cayman Islands Office of Education Standards. (2019). Annual report. George Town: Cayman Islands Office of Education Standards. Cayman Islands Office of the Auditor General. (2017). School education. George Town: Cayman Islands Office of the Auditor General. Craton, M. (2003). Founded upon the seas: a history of the Cayman Islands and their people. Kingston: I. Randle Publishers. Expatistan, cost of living comparisons. Cost of Living comparisons, 2021 data. Accessed 25 May 2021. https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living. Hutton, D. M. (2015). Governance, management and accountability: the experience of the school system in the English-speaking Caribbean countries. Policy Futures in Education, 13(4), 500– 517. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478210315572652. Morales, K. (2021). Debate review forum talks education. Cayman Compass. https://www. caymancompass.com/2021/04/06/debate-review-forum-talks-education/. United Kingdom. (1945). West India Royal Commission report. London: H.M.S.O. United Nations. (2012a). Institute for statistics. ICT in education in Latin America and the Caribbean: a regional analysis of ICT integration and e-readiness. New York: UN Headquarters. United Nations. (2012b). Institute for Statistics. International Standard Classification of Education ISCED 2011. New York: UN Headquarters. Whittaker, J. (2014). https:www.journal.ky%2F2013%2F09%2F04%2Fhigh-teacher-turnovertakes-its-toll%2F&usg¼AOvVaw1MHBfiXOh5gblZECVPj0hl Whittaker, J. (2016a). https://www.caymancompass.com/2016/10/19/education-law-approvedradically-revising-outdated-legislation/ Whittaker, J. (2016b). https://www.caymancompass.com/2020/11/16/schools-inspector-good-teach ing-key-to-fixing-education-inequality/ Young, K. (2020). Cayman Compass. June 11, 2020. https://www.caymancompass.com/2020/06/ 11/technological-and-social-challenges-complicate-remote-learning/

The Education System of Chile Between Expansion and Inequality

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historic and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background: Guiding Principles, Path Dependencies, and Main Reforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Transition to Employment Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Educational Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of the Education System According to ISCED-Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Provision of Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Performance Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Emerging Issues Since 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusions: Achievements, Challenges, and Winds of Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The chapter aims to provide an up-to-date and fundamental description of the Chilean education system, with respect to its historical and social foundations, and taking into consideration its political, economic, and cultural determinants. It C. Alarcón López (*) Institut für Bildungswissenschaft, Universität Wien, Wien, Österreich e-mail: [email protected] A. Falabella Facultad de Educación, Departamento de Política Educativa y Desarrollo Escolar Erasmo Escala 1825, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, Chile e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_4

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will also provide an overview of the institutional, structural, and organizational principles of the system, the condition of its personnel, and an analysis of its most recent political trends and developments. This overview highlights the centralist, marketized, and privatized nature of the current education system. From a long perspective, the analysis also shows that despite the achievement of a successful educational expansion on all levels of the system, marked educational inequality, segregation, and inequity persists until today. Another important feature, discussed in the chapter, is that Chile and its education system has been constructed as a “model,” a “pioneer,” and a “laboratory” both in continental and global terms since the twenty-first century. Keywords

Chile · Education system · Expansion · Inequality · Country model

1

Introduction

The main objective in this chapter is to provide a succinct and up-to-date overview of the Chilean education system, specifically in terms of its structure, organization, institutions, actors, processes, and practices. Our analysis is focused on the historic, social, and cultural foundations of the system, by examining its historic development, path dependencies and traditions, and considering its specific national features as well its communalities with other Latin American education systems. Although we concentrate on primary and secondary education, some references will also be made to pre-primary and tertiary education. Additionally, we discuss recent educational policies and trends, as well as the problems and challenges the education system faces until today as the still existing marked educational inequality, segregation, and inequity, despite the achievement of a successful educational expansion. Analyzing the Chilean education system also implies knowing a country, which despite its small size and peripheral geographical location, has become a “model country.” From the end of the nineteenth century to the last quarter of the twentieth century, Chile was first built as a continental model of institutional stability, and then as a model of liberal democracy (Couso 2008). And not only that, Chile has also been celebrated as a pioneer or world laboratory: First in reference to the project of democratic socialism during the government of Salvador Allende (1970–1973), then with respect to the “neoliberal” or radical pro-market reforms during the brutal military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990), which served as a prelude to the governments of Margaret Thatcher (United Kingdom) and Ronald Reagan (USA) and the Washington Consensus, and finally in the 1990s, as a paradigm of a successful and peaceful transition to democracy (Couso 2008). It is not the aim of this study to explore the motives and effects of Chile’s status as a model, pioneer, and laboratory country, but as possible factors we could mention a certain openness to the world and alignment with the central countries (ibid.), or, from a critical viewpoint, a problematic cultural and economic dependence from these countries.

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Overall, the reading of this chapter will not only allow to know the education system of a specific Latin American country with its converging and diverging features, but also how the construction and consolidation of that system was a faithful reflection of global political processes of critical nature.

2

Historic and Social Foundations

In this part we analyze the historical and social determinants of the education system up until the present by referring to crucial educational reform processes. Afterward we discuss the political, economic, and cultural determinants of the education system and outline the social conditions of the population. Finally, we analyze the transition process from the education system to the employment market.

2.1

General Historical Background: Guiding Principles, Path Dependencies, and Main Reforms

Chile truly is a country “on the edge of the world,” located on the south-western side of Latin America, limited to the north by the Atacama desert, to the east by the Andes mountains, and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. During the period of Spanish colonial rule, the process of educational institutionalization was, as in the case of most Latin American countries, controlled exclusively by the Catholic Church and marked by hierarchy and restriction: while secondary education was given preferential attention to be provided in distinguished seminaries and secondary schools, primary education was reduced to a very small number of primary schools, or the socalled “schools of first letters” (escuelas de primeras letras). In the period of cultural dynamism resulting from the influence of the Enlightenment, Universidad de San Felipe was founded in the late eighteenth century. The process of Chilean independence in the early nineteenth century and the subsequent formation of the Republic set in motion a series of crucial developments in education. After the abolition of colonial educational institutions, modern institutions were founded, such as the National Institute (Instituto Nacional) (1813) for the secondary education of the new political elites and the Universidad de Chile (1843), under the leadership of the famous Venezuelan scholar Andrés Bello (1781–1865). The latter institution was created on the basis of the previous Universidad de San Felipe (Caruso 2015). During that period, the first state primary teacher training college (Escuela Normal) was also founded to train primary school teachers. Due to both the colonial and French influence, the national education system was built with a centralist structure, which could be defined as the first path dependency of the Chilean education system. During this period, the school institutions thus emerged more due to the initiative by the state or the Church and less because of direct efforts of civil society or local communities or provinces. In addition, the fledgling republican educational institutions had an elitist, hierarchical, and

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segmented nature (Labarca 1939). The state’s efforts were focused on the development of the education of the elites, the university, and the so-called liceos or secondary schools. These schools, with a humanistic bent, prepared students to enter university. In contrast, primary education (educación popular), mainly devoted to teaching basic literacy, was characterized by low territorial penetration and a precarious nature. Therefore, and as in most Latin American and southern European countries, the structure of the Chilean education system resembled a two-column model. Each column served a specific social clientele: one column composed by secondary schools with their preparatory primary schools and university for the upper classes, while the other column was comprised of primary schools and primary teacher training colleges for the general public. There were no connections or official transitions between the two columns. It should be noted that the building process of the education system also involved the forced cultural assimilation of various indigenous peoples (CHM 2015). After these peoples had first been educated by Catholic missionaries, the state sought to include them into the new national system (Serrano et al. 2012). During the nineteenth century, the process of modernization and the formation of the nation state were marked by an economy oriented toward the exportation of raw materials. During this period an ideological struggle emerged, which could be considered as the second path dependency of the Chilean education system: the conflict between the principle of the teaching state (Estado Docente) versus the principle of liberty of instruction (libertad de enseñanza). This battle has been waged between liberal-positivist and conservative forces, the latter in alliance with the Catholic Church. The principle of the “teaching state” refers to the application of state sovereignty over private educational institutions, which were mainly under the authority of the Catholic Church. Specifically, it referred to the idea of a statecontrolled and universal public education system, which should act as the founder of a national education (Alarcón 2014, 72–80). It was specifically this objective that was challenged by the Catholic-conservative forces, which defended the principle of “liberty of instruction,” that is, the right to establish and run private (usually Catholic) schools, as well as the right to non-state supervision of these schools by defining their own curriculum (Toro Cáceres 2015, 44–49). The expression of the principle of the teaching state was, for example, the first attempt to organize a system of free and public primary schools under the law of primary instruction, passed in 1860. During the nineteenth century, the schooling of the population was still limited despite the efforts of the state. In 1852, only 10.27% of the primary school-aged population was in school (Braun et al. 2000, 238). Thirty years later in 1882, almost 80% of the population was still entirely excluded from primary education (Braun et al. 2000, 238). The low level of schooling was also reflected in a literacy rate of just 13.5% in 1854 and still only 28.9% in 1885 (Braun et al. 2000, 244). In the late nineteenth century, within the context of the so-called German educational reform, there was a hitherto unprecedented expansion of the material, staff, and technological resources of the education system (Alarcón 2014). The name of this reform is not only based on the reception of German models, but also on an

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unprecedented recruitment of more than 140 German teachers and professors organized by the state. These teachers and professors would assume teaching and directing functions at the various public primary teacher training colleges founded throughout the country during this period, and also at the new Pedagogical Institute (Instituto Pedagógico), an institution depended from the University de Chile aimed at academic training of secondary school teachers. The reform also produced a significant renewal of curricular material and methodologies, in accordance with German models. Another important milestone was the expansion of the infrastructure of primary and secondary schools and technical institutes, including institutions designed especially for the female population. It is worth noting that women’s access to higher education was materialized in 1877 through a law promoted by the liberal Minister of instruction Miguel Luís Amunátegui – strikingly much earlier than most European countries. The “German reform” culminated in the enactment of the compulsory primary education law, which made primary education obligatory for both sexes, as well as free of charge. From a long-term perspective, this reform also illustrates the third path dependency of the Chilean education system: the tendency to orientate it toward the world (France in the first three quarter of the nineteenth century, then Germany during the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, and later the United States in the twentieth century, among others) to legitimize and/or achieve educational reforms. The process of structuring, modernizing, and expanding the education system of Chile continued in the second decade of the twentieth century with the creation of the Ministry of Education (Ministerio de Educación), which, among other factors, fortified the centralized features of the system, establishing both its administrative and pedagogical regulation (Núñez 1993). During that same period, the reception of progressive curricular and teaching models, mainly of US-American origin, resulted in the educational experimentation movement for primary and secondary education (Núñez 1993). Beginning in the 1940s, and within the framework of a nascent development-oriented economic project aimed at the training of human resources required by industrialization and urbanization, technical education was strongly promoted after the creation of a second public university in 1947, the Technical University of the State (Universidad Técnica del Estado) (Núñez 1993).

2.1.1

Post-World War II Period Until Today

“Revolution in freedom”: Eduardo Frei Montalva Reform (1963–1970) Starting in the 1960s, the educational strategies in Latin America were marked by the tension between left-oriented political movements, who followed the mode of Cuba’s 1959 revolution and technocratic educational reformers with a US-American influence (Caruso 2015). During this period one important exponent of the developmentalism project in Chile was the Christian Democrat government of Eduardo Frei Montalva (1963–1970), known by its slogan of “revolution in freedom.” Following the principle of educational planning promoted by the United

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Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and financed by the Alliance for Progress (Alianza para el Progreso), a program of economic, political, and social aid from the United States for Latin America, the reform combined developmental theories with American pedagogical and curricular theories (Bellei and Pérez 2016). The first major measure involved changing the structure of the education system by extending common primary education (Bellei and Pérez 2016). The former scheme of 12 years of education was thus redistributed across two cycles: General Primary Education, which lasted 8 years, and Secondary Education, with a duration of 4 years with a scientific-humanist and technical-vocational format. Meanwhile, within the structure of secondary education, the certificates of secondary education granted by the scientific-humanist schools (preuniversity schools) and the technicalvocational schools were officially equated. The second basic measure was the reform of the curriculum. Inspired by the teaching principles of the US-American pedagogues Benjamin Bloom and Ralph Tyler, new objectives and contents were introduced, as well as planning methods and teaching assessment methods (Bellei and Pérez 2016). The reform also consolidated the prominent testing culture in the Chilean education system; it thus introduced tests both as a diagnostic tool for the learning process and as a selection tool by the creation of the National Assessment Service (Servicio Nacional de Evaluación) in 1967. The main task of this Service was to administer a national standardized test at the end of the general education period, intended to measure language and mathematical skills. In addition, the traditional baccalaureate was replaced as a university admission test by the Academic Aptitude Test (Prueba de Aptitud Académica, PAA), which followed the model of the Scholastic Aptitude Test in the United States (Alarcón 2015). A third important measure was the expansion of adult education. Literacy plans and programs were designed; educational institutions were extended to the primary and secondary levels, while National Literacy and Educational Recovery Campaigns (Campañas Nacionales de Alfabetización y Recuperación Educacional) were also carried out. Therefore, toward the end of the period, the proportion of illiterate people in the population aged over 14 had decreased by almost a third, falling to 11.7% in 1970 (Bellei and Pérez 2016). Another crucial measure regarding technical education was the creation of the government-controlled training corporation National Institute for Professional Training (Instituto Nacional de Capacitación, INACAP) in 1966. The Frei reform resulted in an inordinate expansion of education. In fact, the rate of growth of school and university enrollment during this period was higher than that seen under all previous governments since 1938 and was more marked at the secondary level. This rate of growth continued under the socialist government of Salvador Allende (1970–1973). Indeed, from a broad perspective, the governments of Frei and Allende were the last governments in the twentieth century that following the principle of the so-called teaching state, sought to expand and democratize education through the decisive fortification of public education institutions. From the cultural point of view, public education was seen not only as the meeting place

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for all social classes, including the political, cultural, and scientific elite, but also as the main disseminator of a common national and civic culture. Authoritarian and Neoliberal Restructuring (1973–1990) In international research, the Chilean education system is considered a model of the implementation of the so-called neoliberal reforms in education (see, for example, Verger and Bonal 2016). The reason is obvious: it is the country where marketoriented, liberalization and privatization mechanisms have been introduced most radically and for the longest time in the world, not only affecting the education system, but also the health and pension systems, among others. Remarkably, this “neoliberal” restructuring was carried out in the context of a brutal military dictatorship that stifled civil society resistance and thus created the “ideal” laboratory conditions for its implementation. In fact, the repressive measures would particularly affect the education system: through military intervention in public schools and universities; dissolution of educational institutions; censorship and control of curricular content; the closure of social science and performing art-oriented study programs (carreras) and research centers, in addition to the systematic persecution, expulsion, kidnapping, torturing, and/or murder of thousands of students, teachers, professors, and administrative personnel (Garretón 2007). The dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990) began with a military coup against the aforementioned socialist government of Salvador Allende, putting a definitive end to his main educational project, i.e., the unified national school (Escuela Nacional Unificada). This project, which was opposed by conservative sectors of the population, parts of the media, and the Catholic Church, proposed a permanent and unified system of education that combined elements of general and polytechnic education, integrated intellectual and productive work, and planned platforms for community participation through administrative decentralization (Núñez 2003). During the dictatorship, specifically during the late 1970s, the so-called Chicago Boys took leading positions in certain Chilean ministries, such as in the Planning Ministry (Ministerio de Planificación). This group of economists, trained at the University of Chicago, had acquired neoclassical economic theories, such as those of Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, and Friedrich von Hayek (Valdés 1995). The extensive market-oriented restructuring reforms launched by this group were based on a political program called “Chilean model,” which was sealed in 1980 by a constitution that remains in force to the present, despite a reform carried out in 2005. On the one hand, this model is based on a “radical economic market order” in which almost all areas of public welfare are organized by the private sector, and on the other, on a concept of democracy in which citizens’ political participation is limited to formal electoral processes and the legislative power is reduced to its “minimum legitimizing function” (Radermacher 2015, 2). In legislative terms, the restructuring reforms of the education system broke away from the traditional principle of the teaching state and replaced it with that of the subsidiary state. According to this principle, in addition to its financial function, the state is given a purely regulatory function. In legal terms, the weight of the principle

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of liberty of instruction was also increased by declaring it a constitutional right and explicitly defining it as the right to “open, organize and maintain educational institutions” (Ministerio del Interior 1980). The mentioned restructuring reforms were based on five elements. The first key element was the decentralization (municipalization) of state power regarding the management of the education system, in addition to a drastic reduction in state spending on education. With this measure, responsibility for the state’s public schools was transferred to municipalities and private foundations. This process of decentralization of public-school management increased inequalities between public schools situated in the poorest and richest municipalities (Verger et al. 2016). It should be noted that, from its very beginnings and until the present, the Chilean school system has been composed of three types of schools: elite private schools, which operate without any state support and charge fees (called “paid private” schools); private subsidized schools, that is, free or low-cost private schools that receive state subsidies; and public schools. Under the aforementioned municipalization law, the latter became municipal schools. A second significant element was the deregulation of teachers’ labor conditions and the reduction of power of teachers’ unions. Therefore, teachers did not only lose their status as public-sector workers, which meant that their labor conditions were equated to those of other workers in the private sector, but also suffered a drastic reduction in their salaries. Additionally, the municipalization directly affected the teachers’ collective bargaining capacity (Verger et al. 2016). In conjunction with repressive measures, the Sindicato Único de Trabajadores de la Educación (SUTE), the Chilean union body that brought together all the trade unions and associations of teachers and education personnel between 1970 and 1973, was dissolved in 1973 and replaced by the Chilean Teachers’ Association (Colegio de profesores) in 1974. All in all, the political objective of this measure was to reduce the influence of both teachers and teachers’ unions in education policy and society (Verger et al. 2016). The third major element affected education financing by the establishment of a voucher system to finance primary and secondary education. In the framework of this voucher system, subsidized public and private schools were granted a per capita subsidy (voucher) for the same amount, depending on the monthly attendance of the students (Ministerio de Hacienda 1980). Based on Milton Friedman’s voucher model, the aim was to establish an educational quasi-market in which public and private subsidized schools competed for parents’ “free choice” of school (Friedman 1962/2005). According to the reformers, the resulting competition between schools would not only promote cost efficiency, but also improve long-term general educational quality (Ministerio de Hacienda 1980). A fourth element of the restructuring reforms was the promotion of the private sector in education, grounded on the belief that the private sector is intrinsically more efficient and receptive to social demands than the state sector (Verger et al. 2016). Using measures of liberalization, such as the elimination of bureaucratic obstacles and the introduction of tax exemptions, the government promoted the creation of private subsidized schools (Almonacid 2008, 160). In addition, private subsidized schools could work for profit and were not accountable for the use of

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public funds (Bellei 2016, 233–234). Moreover, in 1988, with the introduction of the so-called financiamiento compartido, private subsidized schools, which were previously fee-free, could charge school fees, but only with parental consent (Saavedra Facusse 2013). In legal terms, “equal treatment” (igualdad de trato) was established between public and private subsidized schools, in the sense that both types of schools would receive a state subsidy for the same amount for each student (Ministerio de Hacienda 1980; Ministerio de Educación 1990). The fifth element was the introduction of assessment as a governance tool to promote choice and competition. For this purpose, a national standardized test called the System of Measurement of the Quality of Education (Sistema de Medición de la Calidad de la Educación, SIMCE) was created in 1988, under the direction of the Ministry of Education (Benveniste 2002; Falabella 2015). The objective of this test was to provide parents with sufficient information about the quality of the different schools to make an informed choice (Guzmán 1989). Connected to this measure, a curriculum reform was introduced, according to which the state would solely define the “Fundamental Objectives” and “Mandatory Minimum Content,” controlling compliance through assessment instruments like the SIMCE (Magendzo and Egaña 1985). These measures toward privatization and marketization also affected the tertiary education system. In 1981, state spending on state universities was drastically reduced. From then on, the universities had to finance themselves mainly through student fees. Additionally, market-opening measures facilitated the creation of private universities, creating a lucrative university market, in which not only the state, but also numerous foundations, corporations, and/or companies acted as administrators. Further, technical-vocational tertiary education was fully privatized through the dissolution of the Technical University of the State and the privatization of the National Institute for Professional Training, creating two types of private institutions: the Technical Training Centers (Centros de Formación Técnica, CFT) and the Professional Institutes (Institutos Profesionales, IP).(cf. Mönckeberg 2007). Continuity and Change: Post-Dictatorship Education Policy

The transition to democracy took place in 1990 on the basis of a negotiated agreement between the center-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy (Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia) and the civic-military representatives of the dictatorship, who were closely linked to the right-wing parties. This agreement established the retention of the institutional and constitutional framework of the socalled Chilean model. The period of the Concertación’s governments, which lasted 20 years, was marked by a gradualist reformism that sought to combine free market policies with social policy. During this period, Chile was referred to internationally as a “model country,” in particular by praising its economy and its process of transition to democracy. In line with the principles of equity and quality, the education policy of the governments of the Concertación was based on two lines of action (Donoso Díaz 2005). On the one hand, targeted compensatory programs were implemented in primary and secondary schools with fewer resources and low

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learning outcomes on the SIMCE test. On the other hand, curricular programs with universal coverage were launched to improve the quality of learning. Within the compensatory programs we should highlight the “900 Schools Program” (Programa de las 900 escuelas, P-900), whose aim was to improve teaching in the primary schools that performed worst on the SIMCE test. This program was later extended to secondary education through the “Schools for All” (Liceo para todos) scheme (Donoso Díaz 2005). Within the programs of universal coverage, it is worth mentioning the Program for the Improvement of the Quality of Education (Programa de Mejoramiento de la Calidad de la Educación, (MECE)), which first targeted primary education and then extended to secondary education in 1994. This World Bank-funded program sought to improve the infrastructure and equipment of schools, provide school materials such as texts and introduce new teaching methods. During this period also the “Projects for the Improvement of Education” (Proyectos de Mejoramiento Educativo, PME) were implemented to support innovative classroom initiatives. Additionally, the Enlaces project (Proyecto Enlaces) was launched, which aimed to integrate educational information technologies into schools (Donoso Díaz 2005). In 1996, the so-called “Chilean Educational Reform” (Reforma educativa chilena) was launched, which, inspired by a constructivist approach, was aimed at renewing the curricula in the education system at all levels (Cox 2003; Donoso Díaz 2005). Moreover, a major impulse to educational expansion and democratization represented the establishment of all-day schools ( jornada escolar complete) in 1997 and, the introduction of the compulsory secondary education law in 2003. Regarding the teaching profession, in 1997 the teachers’ statute (estatuto docente) was established to improve the precarious conditions the military dictatorship had forced the teachers into. Within the framework of this statute, remunerations were increased, as well incentives, internships abroad, continuous improvement, changes in initial training and awards of excellence were introduced. The Effects of Chile’s Educational Quasi-Market

When reviewing the educational policy initiated in 1981 during the military dictatorship and continued by the governments of the Concertación after the return to democracy (1990–2010), different effects should be underlined. First of all, the mass flight of middle class families from public (municipal) schools to private subsidized schools. While in 1980 some 78% of the student population attended public schools, in 2016 that percentage had fallen to 38% (Corvalán et al. 2009, 12; MINEDUC 2018a, 46). So, in 2016 more than 62% of children were enrolled in private schools, with 53.5% of them studying at private subsidized schools and 8.3% at private schools (MINEDUC 2018a, 46). As a result of this development, a process of social segregation has accelerated in the sense that each type of school (elite public schools, public subsidized schools, and public schools) is attended by children from almost similar social and cultural backgrounds. In fact, in 2004 the OECD described the Chilean education system as being “consciously structured in classes” (OECD 2004, 277). In 2011, the same organization defined it as having the highest rate of social segregation between public and private schools (OECD 2011). Within this social

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segregation process, the public (municipal) school has become the school of the most impoverished and marginalized children. Therefore, one of the most significant social and cultural effects of the establishment of the quasi-market was the erosion of the public school as a place of social and cultural encounter between children of different social classes and as a mediator of public citizenship education. The other effect refers to the unequal financial and regulation conditions of the schools within the educational quasi-market. First, unequal financial conditions exist between municipal schools, since, due to the divergence in public revenues, wealthier municipalities have more funds at their disposal than poorer municipalities. Secondly, there are also unequal conditions between municipal and private subsidized schools, among other factors, because the latter could charge fees starting in 1988 and were not accountable for the use of public funds. Indeed, most of these schools were for-profit schools (Sepúlveda 2014). Unequal regulatory conditions referred also to the fact that private subsidized schools (and few municipal secondary schools) could select students depending on their academic, social, and/or religious characteristics. As will be discussed later, as of 2015, laws were introduced that invoked significant changes in these unequal conditions of the Chilean quasi-market. Similar effects are observed regarding the regulatory and financial conditions of the higher education market. Privatization resulted in the multiplication of private universities and technical institutes. In fact, in 2012, 88% of higher education institutions in Chile were private and 78% of students attended private universities (Siavelis 2012). Though all private universities are officially nonprofit, different strategies permit university owners to profit through charging for construction services, building rents, or “consulting” fees (Siavelis 2012). Since the drastic reduction of direct state funding, both public and private universities have been actively marketing to recruit the best students to get indirect public funding (Aporte Fiscal Indirecto). This process of commercialization has also produced an uncontrolled growth/deficit of specific careers that are more/less profitable (Brunner and Uribe 2007), uneven quality across institutions and study programs, but especially regarding private universities, connected to unequal and/or insufficient stimuli to research activities in both public and private universities. In fact, although a few public and private universities have a prominent research performance compared to other Latin American countries, Chilean universities in general show a modest presence in the higher levels of global rankings (OECD 2017). There are also inequity effects in the higher education market in terms of restrictive access to studies and/or mass drop-out of studies. These effects are a direct result of the introduction of tuition fees in both public and private universities, which led many students to take out expensive student loans, facing decades of debt. Indeed, Chile’s public universities charge the second highest tuition fees in the world (OECD 2018). Precisely these problems were at the center of the agenda of massive student protest movements, which will be referred to later. The Testing Culture and Its Results

One important feature of the Chilean education system is its prominent testing culture. In fact, Chile could be considered a continental pioneer regarding the

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introduction and use of standardized testing since the 1960s. An expression of this culture is the SIMCE test. Since the School Discretionary Grant Act (Ley de Subvención Escolar Diferencial) of 2004 (MINEDUC 2008), the logic of this test is based on the principle of market accountability, in which the test results are used, on the one hand, in terms of information to differentiate between schools and guide parents’ choice of school, and on the other, as a mechanism for the control and distribution of funds by the state considering a dispersed network of administrators (Falabella 2014, 2018). The SIMCE is, therefore, an accountability mechanism that classifies schools according to four performance categories, which have awarding (e.g., employment bonuses) and penalties consequences (e.g., the closure of schools) (Falabella 2014). One of the problematic side effects of the annual publication of the SIMCE results in “rankings of schools” in the media has been the construction of a negative image of municipal schools because these schools tend to get lower results than the private subsidized schools and elite private schools. However, these rankings hide the fact that public schools have lower resources than private schools and the latter used strategies such as select or expulse students based on academic criteria. Additionally, the negative image of public schools favored the exit of privileged students from these schools. The testing culture is also manifested in the admission process for higher education through the application of a national test, the University Selection Test (Prueba de Selección Universitaria, PSU), which replaced the PAA in 2003. However, tests, including psychological tests, are also used as a tool for admission to private schools from nursery to secondary level. Another expression of the existing testing culture is the fact that Chile was one of the first countries to have taken part in various International Large-Scale Assessments (ILSA) conducted since the late 1960s. These include the OECD “Progress in International Reading Literacy Study” (PIRLS), “Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study” (TIMSS), “International Computer and Information Literacy Study” (ICILS), “International Civic and Citizenship Study” (ICCS) of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), “Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study” (ERCE), conducted by UNESCO’s Latin American Laboratory for Assessment of the Quality of Education (Laboratorio Latinoamericano de Evaluación de la Calidad de la Educación, LLECE), and the “Program for International Student Assessment” (PISA), carried out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Although Chile was the best-performing Latin American country in PISA 2012, 2015, and 2018, the results have been far below the OECD average (Agencia de Calidad de la Educación ACE 2016a, 2017a; OECD 2019). Thus, on PISA 2015, students obtained an average of 443 points in all tests, compared to an OECD average of 492 points (ACE 2016a). In PISA 2018, students obtained an average of 452 points compared to the OECD average of 482 points (OECD 2019). Chile’s reading performance has improved since the country’s first participation in PISA (in 2001). However, between 2009 and 2018 no significant trends were observed in performance in any of the subjects, and results in natural sciences and mathematics remained stable (ACE 2016a; OECD 2019). Moreover, in all tests since 2001, there

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is an extremely low percentage of high-achieving students in Chile. For example, in PISA 2018 it was found that only 3% of students showed a relatively high level of competence (level 5 or higher) in reading (OECD average: 9%) (OECD 2019). In turn, almost 68% of students in Chile showed relatively low proficiency (at least level 2) in reading (OECD average: 77%, respectively) (OECD 2019). The 2015 TIMSS test, applied to fourth and eighth grade students, came to similar conclusions. Students in Chile obtained an average of 478 points on this test, which was lower than the international average (500 points) on all tests (ACE 2017b). In addition, only 1% of students reached the “advanced” level (compared to about 7% internationally), and between 15% and 37%, depending on the subject and area evaluated, did not reach the minimum learning threshold associated with a low level of learning, compared to between 5% and 16% internationally (ACE 2017b). As regards the Chilean educational quasi-market and its underlying assumption that the market would increase the quality of the whole education system, the performance results of the Chilean students in the various tests, particularly PISA and TIMSS, tend to confirm that this market has not produced a significant improvement in education quality over time. Hsieh and Urquiola studied the results obtained by Chilean students on TIMSS from 1970 to 1999 and found that, within the free school choice system, the performance of the average Chilean student has not improved compared to that of the average student in other countries (Hsieh and Urquiola 2006, 1479). The lack of a generalized improvement in the results of the education system has been attributed, among other factors, to the deregulated standards of the educational quasi-market. Thus, for example, the authorities at private subsidized schools would tend to recruit better students and therefore invest more in school marketing than in educational innovation (Verger and Bonal 2016, 20).

2.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

In political terms, since 1990 Chile is again a democratic republic. The republic is managed through a presidential system in which the President of the Republic directs the government and the administration of the state (executive branch) and performs the functions of Head of State. The President is elected by direct vote and an absolute majority of validly cast votes for a period of 4 years without immediate reelection. Chile is a centralist and unitary state, that is, it has a sole center of political power exercised by bodies located in the capital. With the purpose of governability and internal administration of the state, Chilean territory is divided into regions and these are divided into provinces. For local administration, the provinces are divided into communes or districts. There are currently 16 regions, 54 provinces, and 346 districts. According to the 2017 census, Chile has a population of almost 18 million people (INE 2018). Freedom of religion is a constitutional right in Chile. As a result of Spanish colonization, the majority (70%) of the population identify themselves as Catholic, but 15% identify as evangelical Christian, and 8% as atheist, agnostic, or with no religion (INE 2018).

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Chile’s population is multiethnic, dominating its mestizo character, that is, the mixture between European immigrants and native Amerindian peoples (Berríos del Solar 2016). In addition, about 12.8% of the population identify as belonging to different indigenous or native peoples (including Mapuche, Aymara, Rapa Nui, Lican Antai, Quecha, Colla, Kawésquar, Diaguita, and Yámana), with the predominant group (about 80%) being Mapuche (INE 2018). Despite the ethnic diversity of the population, the de facto official language is Spanish. Recently, migration has added a dynamic factor to the composition of the population. Thus, the percentage of immigrants (born abroad and who state that they reside in Chile) has increased over time, rising from 0.81% in 1992 to 4.35% in 2017 (INE 2018). Around 66.7% of these immigrants arrived in the country between 2010 and 2017 (INE 2018). The majority of immigrants comes from Latin America (predominantly from Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela) (INE 2018). As part of the process of demographic transition, Chile has evolved from high to low birth rates. Thus, the average number of children that women have throughout their fertile life (15–49 years) has declined over time, from 1.6 children per woman in 2002 to 1.3 children in 2017 (INE 2018). This demographic process will have consequences for the education system because the size of the population eligible to receive formal education will decrease. In addition, the Chilean population has undergone a process of progressive urbanization since the 1960s, reaching 87.3% in 2017 (INE 2018). Integrated into the global market, the Chilean economy is defined by its neoextractivist nature, depending to a large extent on the extraction of natural resources, such as copper and lithium, and the export of timber, fishing, and agricultural resources. The economy thus has low added-value, shows reduced use of technology, and has low levels of innovation (French-Davis 2002). Chile stands out in Latin America for its economic stability. Thus, the transition to democracy since the beginning of the 1990s was marked by sustained economic growth at an average of 4.6% in the period between 2000 and 2014, maintaining low levels of inflation and of public debt. Additionally, according to the size of its GDP (US$ 386.6 billion PPP), in 2013 Chile’s economy ranked 44th among the 179 world economies (MINEDUC 2016b). That year, its GDP per capita reached US$ 21,942 (PPP) (MINEDUC 2016b). These indicators were influential in Chile becoming the first South American country to be a member of the OECD in 2010. In addition, according to the World Bank, poverty was reduced from 29.1% to 14.4% between 2006 and 2013 (OECD 2017). However, one of the crucial structural problems affecting Chile is social inequality. In fact, Chile is the most unequal country among the OECD nations (MINEDUC 2016b). This inequality is explained largely by the concentration of the population’s wealth among the richest 10% of the country (MINEDUC 2016b). This group earns 26.5 times more than the average income of those that belong to the poorest 10% of the population (MINEDUC 2016b). Actually, different studies based on the calculation of the labor income and contributory pensions show that in 2017 poverty rate was 29.4% (Durán and Kremerman 2018). In fact, in 2017 half of all workers earned less than US$ 552 per month and 50% of those receiving contributory pensions earn

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less than US$ 268 (ibid.). Moreover, taking in account more strict poverty lines, the poverty rate could reach to 42.8% – considering the price of the quality food basket and income from work and pensions contributions (ibid.). Other studies have pointed out that Chilean citizens not only are the most indebted in Latin America, but also that the country leads the per capita debt, even though Chile holds one of the highest annual per capita wealth index of the region (Consultora BíoBíoSur 2015). Social inequality is reflected in the education system in terms of access inequity, high expenditure on education, and high levels of debt. These debts are connected to the fact that, at tertiary level, Chile is the country with one of the highest family expenditures on higher education in the world (OECD 2013). For example, middleclass families spend 40% of their income per child on student fees while children are in university or professional institutes – these expenses are higher than in any other OECD country, including the United States (Siavelis 2012). In fact, there has been a dramatic growth and extension of family indebtedness to the university and banking system. For example, at the beginning of 2016, the total debt of the University Credit Solidarity Fund (Fondo Solidario de Crédito Universitario-FSCU), was US$ 533 billion (Espinoza 2017, 193).

2.3

Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population

One of Chile’s remarkable achievements of the post-dictatorship era has been a significant growth in educational coverage, which is mainly due to the extension of compulsory education to the secondary level in 2003 and greater access to higher education since 2006 (Carrillo et al. 2018). Thus, the average schooling of the 25year-old population increased from 8.23 years in 1992 to 11.05 years in 2017 (INE 2018). Similarly, between 1992 and 2017, the proportion of people aged 25 and over who had passed at least one higher education course increased from 11.7% to 29.8% (INE 2018). Meanwhile, first-year higher education enrollment grew by 56% between 2006 and 2016 (Carrillo et al. 2018). The net enrollment rates for primary education, that is, for children between 6 and 13 years of age, remained close to 100% between 2010 and 2015, without any large variations by sex. Net enrollment rates for secondary education between 2009 and 2015 were approximately 88%. The enrollment rate in the first year of undergraduate degrees in 2016 was 57%, similar to the level in the OECD nations (Carrillo et al. 2018). However, with respect to higher education, this exorbitant expansion of access is largely due to students of vulnerable or socially disfavored origin contracting credit to finance university fees. For example, the State Guarantee Credit (Crédito con Aval del Estado), created in 2005, is a credit where the Chilean State acts as guarantor of credits given by the bank to all students studying in public and private institutions (Kremerman et al. 2020). Therefore, the expansion of higher education has had as problematic side effects the exorbitant growth of family indebtedness and the increased enrollment in private higher education institutions, what clearly reflects an increasing trend toward privatization of the whole system (ibid.).

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Another of the problems facing the education system is coverage in early childhood. Although access to education has increased in the last decade, there are still low coverage rates for children under 3 years of age (20%) and at 3 years of age (56%) (OECD 2018). In contrast, enrollment rates for children between the age of 4 and 5 are close to the OECD average and participation is almost universal at the age of 5 (OECD 2018). As regards the proportion of young people aged 16 and 17 who have enrolled in an educational establishment, Chile presents rates similar to those of the OECD average, that is, close to 95% of enrollment among 16-year-olds and 90% among 17year- olds (MINEDUC 2018a, 92). With regard to the educational level reached by the population in 2014, in Chile 35% of the adult population between 25 and 64 had not completed secondary education, but 42% had completed secondary education, close to the OECD average (41%) (OECD 2018). In contrast, only 22% of the adult population in Chile had completed higher education, some 14% points below the OECD average, although similar to the rates in other Latin American countries such as Colombia and Costa Rica (22% and 23%, respectively) (OECD 2018). When these indicators are examined from a generational perspective, we can see significant progress. The levels of achievement are thus much higher for the younger generations: the proportion of people between 25 and 34 years who did not complete their secondary education was only 17%, compared to 15% for OECD countries (OECD 2018). In addition, higher education coverage rates for the total number of people in the 18–24 age group increased consistently from 2010 to 2016, rising from 33.8% to 40.6% (MINEDUC 2018a, 138). In terms of gender and in contrast to the trend among the OECD countries, in Chile men and women have similar levels of educational achievement. Thus, for the age group between 25 and 64 years, some 22% of both men and women have graduated from higher education (OECD 2018). Despite the low proportion of illiterates (approximately 4.3%) among the population older than 15 years, the competence levels of the population are low (Carrillo et al. 2018). According to the results of the 2015 OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), approximately 53% of the adult population (15–65) do not have adequate literacy skills (level 1 and under level 1), which is associated with functional illiteracy, that is, the lack of ability to apply reading and comprehension of reading to their daily activities (Carrillo et al. 2018).

2.4

Transition to Employment Market: Organization and Support

Regarding the transition of the population from school to the employment market, the average schooling of the Working-Age Population (WAP), (i.e., between 15 and 64 years) rose from 8.9 years in 1990 to 11.2 years in 2015 (Carrillo et al. 2018). However, there is a strikingly high proportion of people (21% between 18 and 24 years) that can be considered as NEET (neither in education nor in employment or training) (OECD 2018). Considering the gender variable, the proportion of women (26%) among the NEET population is higher than that of men (16%)

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(OECD 2018). This gap doubles when comparing inactivity rates: 79% of NEET women between 18 and 24 years of age are inactive, while in the case of men this percentage is 59% (OECD 2018). In terms of employability according to age, sex, and education level, Chile exceeds the OECD average for employment at almost all educational levels obtained (OECD 2017, 13). However, there are important gender inequalities because despite having similar rates of educational attainment, women are less likely to find employment (OECD 2018). Thus, on average, 79% of women between 25 and 64 years who have completed higher education are in paid work, compared to 91% of men in that age bracket (OECD 2018). Another fundamental problem lies in income inequality according to educational level and gender. In fact, Chile has one of the highest wage differences among the OECD countries after Brazil (OECD 2018). Thus, adults with higher education earn 137% more than those who completed secondary education (OECD 2018). On average, almost 72% of workers with tertiary education earn 1.5 times more than the average (OECD 2015). Moreover, those with a master’s degree, doctorate, or equivalent earn five times more than those with higher secondary education (OECD 2015). Considering the gender variable, in 2015 women with a higher education degree earned 65% of the average salary received by a man with the same education, which contrasts with the average 74% among the OECD nations (OECD 2018).

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

In this part we give an overview of the general principles of the education system, discuss recent reform processes, and analyze its educational administration and governance structure. Additionally, we describe the general structure of the education system and the situation of its personnel.

3.1

General Principles

As already mentioned, the present Chilean education system is characterized by a governance regime where principles of privatization, marketization, and liberalization coexist with state regulations and guidelines for assessment, monitoring, and accountability (Bellei 2015; Corvalán et al. 2016; Falabella 2015; Orellana 2018). In fact, the market-oriented governance regime of the Chilean education system introduced during the restructuring reforms of the military dictatorship was continued, based on the presumption that competition between institutions drives and guarantees processes of educational quality. This involves free choice of educational institutions, competitive financing for students, and the decentralization and privatization of educational management. Under this governance regime and following accountability measures, the educational establishments receive additional incentives (and possible penalties) according to test performance. Therefore, within the market-oriented governance regime, the production of performance results and the dissemination of comparative results broken down by institution generate

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information that should guide individual decisions. Another principle is that these decisions are assumed to be “rational” in the sense that the actors make their choices in an informed and rational manner, which would lead to a “performance market” rather than a “free market” (Falabella 2015). Additionally, it is understood that all educational institutions should be evaluated and accredited by centralized bodies. This market-oriented governance regime is based legally on the principles of diversity and liberty of instruction, on the understanding that there is significant participation on the part of both the private sector and the public sector, which has been called a “mixed system.” The principle of “equality of treatment” is essential here, according to which the state offers and favors the public and private sectors equally, unlike the principle of the teaching state which was predominant during most of the twentieth century, when the state played a centralizing role giving preference to the public sector. In addition, and as a result of the Concertación coalition’s education reforms since the 1990s, the principle of positive discrimination has guided a number of policies and programs aimed at providing greater support to schools – both public and private – that serve people in disadvantaged areas.

3.1.1 Student Mobilization Driving for Reforms Since 2006, a massive student movement called the Penguins’ Revolution (Revolución de los Pingüinos named for students’ black and white uniforms) has been questioning the neoliberal basis of the education system branded as a social “apartheid system” (Alarcón 2017). The students criticized the social inequality, inequity, and segregation effects of that system, as well the high levels of indebtedness of the students and their families. In 2011, the student movement reached its zenith resulting in a paralysis of the education system that lasted more than 8 months and had a crucial impact on the political agenda of the next government of Michelle Bachelet (2014–2018). The agenda of the center-left governing coalition New Majority (Nueva Mayoría) sought to achieve for the first time since the end of the military dictatorship in 1990 a structural change in the market-oriented educational governance regime. The aim of this agenda was to mitigate the deregulated nature of the regime, reduce segregation and inequality effects, democratize access, and improve the quality of educational institutions. This agenda included the so-called “inclusion law” (ley de inclusión), “higher education law” (ley de educación superior), and “public education system law” (ley del sistema de educación pública), which along with the law of the “Professional Teacher Development System” (Sistema de Desarrollo Profesional Docente) were approved during this government (MINEDUC 2015). The target of the “inclusion law” was the voucher-based quasi-market, which then had existed for more than 35 years, specifically the private subsidized schools. Firstly, this law established that private subsidized schools should no longer be allowed to charge fees, stating that the state itself will compensate for the lacking parents’ contributions with higher subsidies (BCN 2015). The basic argument was that fees contributed to increasing segregation without significantly improving the quality of education (BCN 2015). Secondly, the law established the prohibition of

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both academic and social selection of students to prevent any form of social “discrimination” and promote a more cohesive and democratic society (BCN 2015). Although in 2006, as a result of the student movement, the General Education Law (Ley General de Educación) had prohibited selection based on socioeconomic factors, the regulation did not set out any mechanism of control or penalties (MINEDUC 2009). The law therefore stipulated that schools should not impose requisites either on academic performance or on family, religious, or socioeconomic conditions. Registration of school applicants should be organized through a central system by the Ministry of Education. In the case of increased demand, selection should be done at random (Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile (BCN) 2015, 7). The other major pillar of the law is the “end of profit-making,” considering that most private subsidized schools were run for profit (Sepúlveda 2014). The law stated that private subsidized institutions would be transformed into nonprofit institutions (BCN 2015). Those that did not want to follow this strategy would have to transform their institutions into private schools (BCN 2015). The Public Education System Law or De-Municipalization Act approved in 2017 established the transfer of municipal educational establishments from 345 units to 70 new state depended “Local Education Services” (Servicios Locales de Educación). The law states that the transition between the municipal administration and the new created National Public Education System (Sistema Nacional de Educación Pública) will be a gradual process and will be underway until 2025. One of the most prominent demands of the student movement was their demand for a free university (educación gratuita). As a result, the Free Education Law, which was part of the Higher Education Law, was passed in 2018. This law established universal free higher education, although in a first phase it only benefits students from families within the 60% of the lowest income earners (MINEDUC 2018a). Basically, the system is based on a voucher scheme or demand-side subsidy, in which the state provides institutions affiliated to the program (public and private universities, technical institutes, and technical training centers) a subsidy for each registered student. To join this program, private educational institutions must have at least 4 years of accreditation and be nonprofit making (MINEDUC 2018a). The higher education law also created a Sub-Secretariat of Higher Education (Subsecretaría de Educación Superior), which will oversee the coordination of the system, and a Superintendency of Higher Education (Superintendencia de Educación Superior), which will monitor compliance with the regulations and establish the mandatory institutional accreditation (MINEDUC 2018a).

3.2

Educational Administration and Governance

3.2.1 Financing In recent decades investment in education has increased substantially, on the understanding that education fulfills a key role in the training of human capital and the development of the country (Bellei 2015; Falabella 2015). As of 2016, education

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spending as a proportion of GDP was 7.2% (OECD 2018b). Although it is important to consider that financing of education is mixed, since both state and private funds are injected into the sector simultaneously, of total education spending as a proportion of GDP, 2.49% is from the private sector and 4.71% is of public origin (OECD 2018b).

3.2.2 Organization of Governance The education system consists of a complex matrix of institutions. Each institution is briefly described below (MINEDUC 2017b; OECD 2017). • Ministry of Education (Ministerio de Educación, MINEDUC): This is the governmental institution responsible for the education system. Its legal responsibilities include proposing and assessing education policies, programs, and plans; creating curricular instruments; developing learning standards; supervising the development of the education system; and managing financial resources to achieve coverage, quality, and equity objectives. • National Education Council (Consejo Nacional de Educación, CNED): An autonomous state body. Its objective is to promote and defend the quality of education at the various levels. It is responsible for revising proposals of curricular instruments, study programs, and standardized assessments designed by MINEDUC. It also grants licenses to new higher education institutions, appeals accreditation decisions taken by the National Accreditation Council (CNA), and implements the closure of tertiary technical-vocational education institutions. It also disseminates information regarding the education system and promotes research into it. • Education Quality Assurance Agency (Agencia de Calidad de la Educación, ACE): This agency’s aim is to assess the quality and equality of the school system, disseminate information on it, classify the educational institutions based on their results, guide their improvement, and determine possible penalties. It is responsible for the SIMCE assessment, the Other Indicators of Education Quality (OIC), assessment visits to institutions with unsatisfactory results, and international assessments. • National Accreditation Council (Consejo Nacional de Acreditación, CNA): This is the body that is responsible for regulating the processes of accreditation for higher education. Although accreditation for institutions and programs is voluntary, the allocation of state resources (scholarships, subsidies, and credits) depends upon it. • Superintendency of School Education and Higher Education (Superintendencia de Educación Escolar y Educación Superior): These are superintendencies for both school level (which includes preschool level) and for higher education. Their function is to inform, monitor, and supervise compliance with educational regulations. They also have to resolve inquiries and address grievances and complaints regarding the use of resources and the violation of the rights of the educational community.

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Governance of Early Education Various institutions are responsible for the administration of early education establishments. Firstly, the National Nursery Schools Board (Junta Nacional de Jardines Infantiles, JUNJI) and Fundación Integra, both of which are funded by the state and have their own nursery schools. There are also children’s centers subsidized by the state, managed by municipalities or private nonprofit entities, the system of which is called “Fund Transfers” (Vía Transferencia de Fondos, VTF). These arrangements are mainly focused on serving disadvantaged sectors of the country. In addition, there are private preschools families pay for, but they do not exceed 7% of the total of such establishments in the country. On the other hand, the pre-nursery and nursery levels are mostly integrated into schools. As of 2015, JUNJI attended 28.10% of total enrollment by direct administration, Fundación Integra 11.4%, the municipal sector 20.5%, the private subsidized sector 33%, and the paid private sector 6.9% (OECD 2017). Governance and Financing of Schools At school level there are three types of administration: public, private subsidized, and paid private schools. In recent decades there has been a drastic decline in enrollment in public education. As mentioned above, in 2016 a total of 38.2% of coverage was provided by public education, while private subsidized education accounted for 53.5%, and paid private education for 8.3% (MINEDUC 2017a). Public schools were managed by municipalities (345 in the country) after the reform in the 1980s. However, in light of the inequalities between the local bodies, since 2017 management of these schools (and municipal nursery schools) has started being gradually transferred to new entities called “Local Education Services” (Servicios Locales Educativos) (70 in the country). These are autonomous institutions, with bigger support teams than the municipalities. They are directly financed by the state and are accountable to the Ministry of Education. Private subsidized schools receive a subsidy depending on the number of children enrolled, just as public schools do, in addition to the Preferential School Subsidy (Elacqua et al. 2016; Joiko 2011; Valenzuela et al. 2013). However, private subsidized schools can carry out student selection, make profits, receive donations, and charge fees to families (Before the introduction of the Inclusion Law, there were also municipal secondary schools that selected students and charged fees to families, but it was a very limited number); although since 2015, with the enactment of the mentioned Inclusion Law, these activities have all been banned and compliance is being implemented gradually (Carrasco 2018; Treviño 2018). On the other hand, paid private schools, funded by the families of students, have full autonomy regarding these regulations and their form of governance. Curriculum and Assessment Model The principles that govern the National Education Curriculum are defined in the General Education Law (MINEDUC 2017b, 2018c). Adherence to these principles is compulsory in all national territories. This curriculum considers a range of vocational and career choices by students, so in the final years of secondary education, they choose one of three study plans: Technical-Professional (TP),

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Humanistic-Scientific (HC), or Artistic. These modalities continue with a common general plan and specific subjects are added for each specialty. There have also been already mentioned SIMCE tests since 1988 (Falabella 2018). This standardized test is applied annually in all national schools regardless of their financing system and it assesses compulsory content in the national curriculum. Assessments are run for the fourth, sixth, and eighth grade, in addition to the second year of secondary school (tenth grade). The test-results are published on the internet, broken down for each school. In addition, a University Selection Test (Prueba Nacional de Selección Universitaria, PSU) is also applied. Governance at the Tertiary Level Generally speaking, there are three types of tertiary study institutions: Technical Training Centers (Centros de Formación Técnica, CFT), Professional Institutes (Institutos Profesionales, IP), and universities. The CFTs offer educational programs leading to mid-level technical degrees. The IPs provide courses that, upon completion, grant technical degrees without a bachelor’s degree, and higher-level technical degrees, while universities offer undergraduate courses with technical degrees (with or without a bachelor’s degree), higher-level technical degrees, and post-graduate degrees (diploma, postgraduate programs, master’s degrees, and doctorates). Both CFTs and the IPs are solely private institutions that can be nonprofit or for-profit, while the universities must be nonprofit. The CFTs represent 11.36% of enrollment at the tertiary level, IPs 30.8%, and universities 57.8%. This educational level includes the involvement of the National Accreditation Council (CNA), the function of which is to accredit educational institutions. Accreditation is voluntary, but the allocation of public funds is directly related to the operation of programs and institutions, because applying for scholarships and student loans is impossible without accreditation. Higher education institutions have heterogeneous forms of governance, as the Constitutional Education Law (Ley Orgánica Constitucional de Enseñanza, LOCE) favors the autonomy of the institutions in terms of academic, economic, and administrative aspects. The most important organization is the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (Consejo de Rectores de las Universidades de Chile, CRUCH), comprising 27 universities, of which 18 are public universities belonging to the Consortium of State Universities of Chile (Consorcio de las Universidades Estatales de Chile, CUECH) and nine are private nonprofit universities that form the Network of Non-State Public Universities (Red de Universidades Públicas no Estatales, Red G9).

3.3

Structure of the Education System According to ISCEDClassification

The education system comprises the following levels: early education 0–6 years (educación parvularia); primary school 6–14 years (educación básica); secondary school 14–18 years (educación media), and higher education (see Fig. 1).

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EARLY EDUCTION • Nursery • Middle Level • Transition (Pre-Nursery and Nusery)

PRIMARY SCHOOL EDUCATION

391 SECONDARY SCHOOL EDUCATION • Technical-Professional • Scientific-Humanist

HIGHER EDUCATION • CFT • IP • University

Fig. 1 Compulsory and voluntary education levels. (Source: OECD 2017)

Early education (ISCED 0): The structure of the early education system consists of three internal levels: Nursery (0–2 years), Middle Level (2–4 years), and Transition Level (Pre-Nursery and Nursery, 4–6 years). The national Constitution obliges the state to promote early education and it is considered a right that is guaranteed by the state. Primary School Education (ISCED 1 and 2A): This level covers 8 years of schooling, from 6 to 14 years. Secondary School Education (ISCED 3A): Covers 4 years, from 15 to 18 years. In the last 2 school years, secondary education is separated into Humanistic-Scientific (55.3%) and Vocational Education (44.7%) (MINEDUC 2018c). Compulsory school education is addressed by a reform defined in the General Education Law. The proposal is that the current division of primary and secondary education into eight and four grades, respectively, be reorganized as from 2027 into six primary education grades and six secondary education grades. Special education: There is special education at all levels of preschool and primary education and it involves material and human resources, technical-pedagogical strategies, and assistance services that enable the incorporation of previously adapted curricular guidelines, which are not stipulated for secondary education. Admission to this program does not have specific age requirements for the different grades, but the maximum age of students is 26 years. In addition, in mainstream schools there is the School Integration Program (Programa de Integración Escolar, PIE), which implies additional resources for specialized professional support for students with learning difficulties. Adult education: The educational modality for adults, or Education of Young People and Adults (Educación de Personas Jóvenes y Adultas, EPJA), is intended to promote education as a right and alleviate levels of abandonment from the formal compulsory education system. To access this modality, a student must be 15 years old or more to enter primary education and 17 years or more to enter the first three grades of secondary education.

3.4

Provision of Staff

In schools there are various agents with different functions, which, generally speaking, are the following: school governor (sostenedor), principal, deputy

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principal, inspector general, counselor, curriculum leader (head of the technicalteaching unit), classroom teacher, and traditional educator. A majority of classroom teachers are women (72.8%) and holders of teaching degrees (94.3%) (MINEDUC 2017a). In 2016, Law 20,903 created the System for Teacher Professional Development (Sistema de Desarrollo Profesional Docente), which regulates aspects of teacher training and professional practice. Training of teachers is provided solely in universities and there are national standards for initial teacher training. There are also minimum admission requirements for students based on their scores on the University Selection Test (PSU) and all training programs must be accredited by the CNA (Fernández 2018; Ruffinelli 2016). A progressive teaching career defines stages of progression for teachers, which is linked to their salaries. This involves a test of specific and pedagogical knowledge and a portfolio of teaching skills. A system of teacher evaluation for the public sector also exists, which has been applied since 2004 (Cornejo et al. 2015; Fardella and Sisto 2015). Most teachers work in only one educational establishment (MINEDUC 2017a), with a limit of 45 students per classroom, and, according to the OECD, Chile is the country where teachers spend the third-highest proportion of their time in front of the classroom, with little time to prepare and assess their teaching work (OECD 2018). The salaries of teachers have increased progressively and, with the enactment of the Teacher Development Law (Ley de Desarrollo Docente), theoretical teacher salaries represent between 82% and 84% of the average salary of a worker with a professional degree (OECD 2017, 2018). It is important to consider that there are various bonuses that contribute to teachers’ salaries, such as the bonus for performance in difficult conditions, “academic excellence” (National System of Performance Evaluation, Sistema Nacional de Evaluación del Desempeño), and the Teaching Excellence Allowance (Asignación Excelencia Pedagógica, AEP) (MINEDUC 2016c, 2018). The union of primary and secondary school teachers in Chile is the Colegio de Profesores de Chile. This body primarily comprises public sector teachers and it plays an important role in union negotiations with the legislative and executive branches of government.

4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

In this final part, we discuss some of the current issues of Chilean education, such as the socioeconomic and gender-related performance gap, the educational activities of digitization and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) as well as the policies and programs related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Finally, we refer to emerging issues of the education system, related to recent reforms, prevailing challenges and emerging movements like the feminist student and an “Opt Out” testing movement.

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Performance Gap

As already mentioned, one of the main political problems faced by the Chilean education system for decades is that of social inequality, inequity, and segregation. Indeed, the results of the PISA test over time have reflected how the socioeconomic background of families are determining factors in their children’s learning performance, that is, young people of a higher socioeconomic background perform better (ACE 2016a; OECD 2019). When looking at Chile’s results in terms of socioeconomic level, regardless of some progress since 2000, significant performance gaps still exist (ACE 2016a; OECD 2019). For example, as regards PISA 2015, when comparing the scores of the lowest socioeconomic levels with those of the highest, there are between 95 and 104 points of difference depending on the test; a gap similar to that between the results of Chile and Finland (ACE 2016a). However, in PISA 2018 the performance gap in reading was slightly reduced to 87 points (OECD 2019). TIMSS 2015 also showed that there is a performance gap between students from families of low socioeconomic status and those of a high status. This difference is 78 points, also similar to the difference between the results of Chile and Finland (ACE 2016b). On the other hand, the percentage of students from the poorest quintile that achieve the high level of results is lower than 7%, while in the higher income quintile, this figure exceeds 20% (ACE 2016b). This performance gap is also observed when comparing educational institutions according to their administrative model. Thus, the PISA and TIMSS studies have shown that in Chile, in general, private schools obtain better results than private subsidized schools, and the latter perform better than municipal schools (IEA and ACE 2011, 17; ACE 2014). Here we should highlight two particularly crucial factors. On the one hand, there is a marked gap between the learning outcomes of private schools and municipal schools, which is estimated to be around 3 school years (ACE 2014), while on the other we have the mediocre results obtained by students at private schools in international achievement tests. Thus, 10% of socially disadvantaged children in Shanghai (which has a gross domestic product equivalent to that of Chile) achieve better results than the richest 10% of Chilean children (Schleicher 2014). The gap achieved by municipal and private schools is explained by a number of factors, such as selecting and expulsion practices of students carried out by private subsidized schools and the flight of academically successful middle class students from municipal schools to private schools (Carrasco et al. 2013; Bellei 2005; Hsieh and Urquiola 2006, 1479; OECD 2010, 119). It should be noted that, with respect to both PISA 2015 and TIMSS 2015, no differences were found between municipal and private subsidized establishments in any of the three areas assessed when comparing the students of similar socioeconomic level of each type of school (ACE 2016a, 2017b). As in other national and international studies, PISA 2015, PISA 2018, and TIMSS 2015 confirm significant gender-related gaps (ACE 2016a, b;

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OECD 2019). In fact, in PISA 2015 and 2018, the only test on which the female students obtained better results was in reading (ACE 2016a; OECD 2019, see Sect. 4.3).

4.2

ICT and Digitalization

The government program Enlaces network (Red Enlaces) was the cornerstone of the policy to expand the use of ICT and digitization as a teaching and curricular medium in the classroom (Sánchez et al. 2011, 139). This came about as a pilot program in 1992 within the framework of the Ministry of Education and as part of the MECE Program, the objective being to establish a national educational network among all the subsidized schools and lyceums in the country, including urban and rural multigrade schools (Toro 2010). From that year, the program was expanded in order to enhance the study programs, provide teachers with new digital teaching tools, and offer all students the same opportunities to access digital learning resources, regardless of their geographic location or the socioeconomic level of their schools (MINEDUC, https://www.innovacion.mineduc.cl/historia). One of the milestones of this program was the inclusion of educational computer resources as a cross-curricular objective of secondary education (Sánchez et al. 2011). The Enlaces network Program is organized as a network, with the main actors being the Ministry of Education, through the Education and Technology Centre (Centro de Educación y Tecnología), universities, and other institutions that perform the role of zonal centers executing units throughout the country (Sánchez et al. 2011). These zonal centers and executing units in universities and other institutions provide training, consulting, and technical support services, and carry out projects for the innovative use and research of ICT (Sánchez et al. 2011). At the Latin American level, the Enlaces network is considered to be one of the most systematic, successful, and sustainable educational program in terms of expanding ICT infrastructure throughout the school system, including rural, urban, and indigenous areas, as well as in terms of community education (United Nations 2005). According to the Second Information Technology in Education Study (SITES-M2) 2002, conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), Chile also ranked first in terms of coverage of secondary education teachers who have received training in the use of new information and communication technologies (MINEDUC, https://www.innovacion. mineduc.cl/historia).

4.3

STEM Subjects

Teaching of STEM subjects, specifically natural sciences, has received a significant boost since the beginning of 2000. As a result of joint action between the Chilean Academy of Sciences (Academia Chilena de Ciencias) and the Faculty of Medicine at Universidad de Chile, the Program of Inquiry-Based Science Education

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(Programa de Educación en Ciencias Basada en la Indagación, ECBI) has been implemented since 2003, being carried out in six primary schools in the Metropolitan Region and obtaining a positive reception in the educational community and favorably affecting the motivation of science teachers and students (UAH-ICEC 2017). Scientific inquiry as a teaching approach brings schoolchildren and students closer together in terms of the ways of working, thinking, and reasoning specific to scientific activities. The aim of this innovation in science classes is to give students the possibility of obtaining knowledge and proactively participating (UAH-ICEC 2017). The ECBI program was extended in 2009, being applied in 281 schools in all 15 regions of the country. Until 2014 the Ministry also received support from various institutions to prepare educational material with a focus on scientific inquiry. Based on this experience, in 2014 the Ministry of Education, with the cooperation of several universities with experience in implementing inquiry as a teaching strategy, jointly created the technical basis to implement the Program of Scientific Inquiry for Science Education (Indagación Científica para lo Educación en Ciencias, ICEC), which comprises three systemic pillars: professional teacher development, curricular management, and assessment and monitoring (UAH-ICEC 2017). As regards the performance of students in ILSA, it should be noted that, in PISA 2015 and 2018, the results of Chilean students in both mathematics and natural sciences were below the OECD average, but were higher than the Latin American average (ACE 2017a; OECD 2019). In all tests since 2001, there is an extremely low percentage of high-achieving students in Chile. For example, in PISA 2018 it was found that only 1% of students showed a relatively high level of competence (level 5 or higher) in mathematics and science (OECD average: 11% and 7%, respectively). In turn, almost 48% of students in Chile showed relatively low proficiency (at least level 2) in mathematics and 65% in science (OECD average: 76% and 78%, respectively) (OECD 2019). In the 2015 TIMSS performance/achievement test, the country also obtained results that were below the international average on all tests (ACE 2016b). However, TIMSS 2015 confirms that, in the last 16 years, eighth grade primary students have shown significant improvements in mathematics and science that exceeded 30 points in the period (ACE 2016b). In spite of this, in the different subjects and levels, between 15% and 37% of the students fail to reach 400 points, that is, their performance is lower than that required to reach the low performance level, and only 1% of students reach the advanced level, compared to the countries with the best results, where almost 50% reach the advanced level (ACE 2016b). Likewise, the results of PISA 2015, PISA 2018, and TIMSS 2015 confirm a large gender gap among students regarding their competencies in Mathematics (ACE 2016a, 2017b; OECD 2018), which is also observable regarding science in PISA 2015, and TIMSS 2015. However, in PISA 2018, girls and boys performed similarly in science. The gender gap is also evident in the University Selection Test (PSU) scores and the results of the SIMCE tests in terms of mathematics (ComunidadMujer 2017). Similarly, unfavorable results were observed for the students in the TIMSS 2015 test. In fact, regarding eighth grade primary students, Chile shows the largest gender

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gap in mathematics and the second largest gap in sciences among all the participating countries (ACE 2017b). However, in TIMSS 2015 Chile did not show gender differences in mathematics among fourth grade primary students (ACE 2016b). With respect to higher education, the gender gap can be observed in Chile in the process of students choosing STEM careers, but not in access to higher education institutions. Thus, when putting Chile into context with the other OECD countries, it is below the average and ranks seventh in terms of the low participation of women in careers such as engineering, while in basic sciences it ranks eighth (ComunidadMujer 2017). Various studies have confirmed that the STEM gender gap in Chile translated into low student outcomes in the STEM subjects of the school curriculum and in the high degree of male domination of STEM university careers, is associated with cultural aspects, such as the reproduction of stereotypes and the existence of differential expectations on the part of parents and teachers regarding students (ACE 2016b; ComunidadMujer 2017).

4.4

Emerging Issues Since 2010

Regarding the last decade we will discuss in this part the emergence of possible side effects and features of recent educational reforms, denote persisting challenges and refer to the rise of new social movements directly connected to education. Regarding the recent inclusion law and free education law of the government of Bachelet (2014–2018), that were intended to transform or at least change the rules of the Chilean market-oriented governance model, it should be noted that although they did result in progress in terms of democratizing access to education and addressing the deregulated nature of the system, they maintain the market and competition logic of the Chilean educational governance regime. Critical scrutiny of both makes it possible to anticipate that, paradoxically, they could even end up strengthening this market and competition logic. In other words, the abolition of school and university fees could increase enrollment in private subsidized schools and private universities, leaving the public schools and universities with even fewer students. In addition, the fundamental question is whether the two laws can effectively reduce inequality and segregation effects in the Chilean education system. Additionally, recently proposed bills introduced by the right-wing government of Sebastián Piñera, in power since 2017, confirm the resistance of some sectors of society to the democratization of access to education or its universalization. In fact, opposition has been generated by the measure to abolish the practice of student selection in the inclusion law. This has resulted in the “Fair Admission” (Admisión Justa) bill proposed by Piñera, which has sparked a generalized debate seeking to reestablish “selection by merit” for schools with high academic demand from seventh grade, in addition to allowing preferential admission of students of a socioeconomically vulnerable origin. A relatively new challenge to the Chilean education system is that of migration. As already stated, one of the main characteristics of this migratory movement is its

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rapid growth. The immigrants are predominantly of Latin American origin, mostly female, and usually settle in the Metropolitan Region and the northern regions of the country (Joiko and Vásquez 2016). As regards the education system, in 2016, enrollment of migrant students reached 1.7% of the total, double that in 2015 and six times greater than in 2005 (Joiko and Vásquez 2016). Some 59% of the migrant students are enrolled in primary education and 23% in secondary education, and, unlike Chilean students, the majority (56%) of them are registered in municipal schools and 36% in private subsidized establishments (Joiko and Vásquez 2016). Migration and the resulting cultural and linguistic diversification – particularly in terms of immigrants from French-speaking Haiti – in Chilean educational institutions brings new challenges in terms of promoting the intercultural nature of the school and particularly the curriculum. The urgency of this challenge is due not only to the growing population of migrants, but also to an essential and historic characteristic of the Chilean population: its enormous ethnic and cultural variety, produced by the indigenous population and the geographic physiognomy of the country. Therefore, the challenge that has emerged is the national discussion of the “monocultural” and “homogenizing” character of the school curriculum, in addition to its centralized nature, that is, solely national (CHM 2015). This challenge also gains importance in the context of the new “feminist” leitmotif of the Chilean student movement that emerged in 2018, in addition to new measures to ensure respect for the social identity of trans students (Rojas et al. 2019). Thus, the sexist character of education should also be discussed, with the promotion of a curriculum that includes the notion of gender equality, among other factors. Worth mention is also the Chilean Opt-out-movement that emerged in 2013. This movement, like others in the world, questions the marked standardized testing culture of the Chilean education system. This movement, called “No to SIMCE” (No al SIMCE), which groups teachers and professors, educational scholars, as well university and secondary students, seeks to raise awareness among teachers, students, and parents about the adverse effects of the SIMCE test, like for instance the stigmatization of municipal schools, in order to create a new assessment system (Inzunza and Campos-Martínez 2016). Another action of the Chilean Opt-outmovement took place in January 2020, when the secondary student unions called for an unprecedented boycott against the university admission (PSU), claiming that the test favors the socially privileged. In fact, the application of the test was suspended and disrupted in several schools and cities.

5

Conclusions: Achievements, Challenges, and Winds of Transformation

The main objective of this chapter was to provide an updated overview of the fundamental, historical, social, economic, and cultural aspects of the Chilean education system. Drawing on the study of its historical development, we can conclude that the national education system was constructed by the independent republic in a centralized manner, underlining its socially segmented and elitist nature. Thus,

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during the nineteenth century despite the expansive efforts by the state, the situation of primary education was still precarious, in addition to the existence of low levels of schooling and literacy. From the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the process of consolidation and modernization accelerated, being characterized by the conflict between the teaching state and liberty education system of instruction. Development after World War II was marked by the developmentalist project, culminating in the governments of Frei Montalva and Salvador Allende, whose main aim was to democratize access to education by fortifying the teaching state. We subsequently discussed the process of restructuring the education system within the framework of the military dictatorship, which resulted in privatization, marketization, and liberalization, introducing the notion of a subsidiary state and legislatively strengthening the principles of liberty of instruction and parents’ free choice of school. As a result of the neoliberal restructuring process, the teaching state principle has lost its influence. Thus, school and university are viewed primarily as a preparatory stage for the employment market, and not as a sociocultural and public space for integration. Another long-term feature of the system has been its openness to the world and its dependence from the central countries; a feature that had favored its attributed regional and global “model-country” and “laboratory” status since the nineteenth century. A review of the post-dictatorship period (1990 until today) demonstrated that the market-oriented governance regime of education introduced during the dictatorship was continued, and accountability measures were strengthened. However, this period has also been characterized by universal curricular reforms and compensatory educational reforms that have been aimed at alleviating the effects of social discrimination in the system. Outstanding achievements in the education system since 1990 include the generalized expansion of schooling across the population, particularly at the secondary and tertiary level, equal access to education for female and male students, and low rates of illiteracy. The pending problems and challenges include overcoming the structural problem of social inequality, which is displayed in social gaps in learning performance (measured in ILSA, for example) and differential access to education and high levels of student’s indebtedness. Although the objectives of the inclusion and free education laws were specifically to mitigate such effects, so far only the latter benefits the most vulnerable student population. Another pending challenge is that of overcoming gender inequality, expressed in a learning performance gap that favors boys; male-dominated STEM careers at the university level; lower levels of female employability as well as an income gap to the detriment of women. Another remaining challenge is the low expansion rate of early childhood education for children aged below 3 years. The problem of the low level of complex (or twentyfirst century) competences in the adult population must also be addressed. In fact, this problem relates directly to the low development of scientific and technological innovation of the country within the existing neo-extractivist economic model. While we were writing this chapter, one of the most massive social uprising of Chile’s history occurred in October 2019 during the government of right-wing president Sebastián Piñera. This rebellion, although led by high school students, for the first time had a cross-generational, cross-social, and nationwide character,

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resulting in millions of people protesting in the streets against social inequality, precarious working conditions, corporate abuse, low salaries and pensions, and the privatization of natural resources like water. Also, the quality and high costs of the privatized public services, including education, were criticized. Therefore, the socalled Chilean model itself has been the target of the protests. Interestingly, the protests involved not only demands from the student movements, but also from the feminist, indigenous, and environmental movements of the last decades. The general demand, however, of the movement was for the dignification of living conditions through the establishment of a new constitution; an issue that was resolved in a referendum in October 2020, whith 78.27% of the Chileans voting to replace the military dictatorship-era constitution. It is important to stress that, according to the UN human rights agency, during several months lasting protests and strikes, security forces committed serious human rights abuses against the protesters including students (Deutsche Welle 2019). Although it is still too early to draw conclusions, the upheaval, not only opens the way to overcoming the authoritarian traces of Pinochet’s constitution by establishing a genuinely democratic and inclusive one, but also the possibility of building a new economic, cultural, and social model.

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The Education System of Colombia A Commitment to Civic Education for Prosperity

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Ana Elsy Díaz Monsalve, Ruth Elena Quiroz Posada, and Marco Rieckmann

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Social Conditions: Provision/Population Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Transition to the Labor Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Educational Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Allocation of Human Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 STEM Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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A. E. Díaz Monsalve School of Languages, University of Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia e-mail: [email protected] R. E. Quiroz Posada Faculty of Education, University of Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia e-mail: [email protected] M. Rieckmann (*) Department of Education, Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, University of Vechta, Vechta, Lower Saxony, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_5

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Abstract

This chapter describes the characteristics and features of the Colombian education system and discusses historical and social foundations, institutional and organizational principles, educational trends, and key issues. The discussion of educational trends and key issues focuses in particular on approaches to educational inequality, the role of civic education and competence-based education, and the relevance of environmental and sustainability education. On the one hand, this chapter makes clear the efforts of the Colombian education system to provide quality education for all and contribute to the peaceful and democratic development of the country. On the other, it also highlights the obstacles that remain. Keywords

Education system · Colombia · History · Inequality · Civic education · Competence-based education · Environmental and sustainability education

1

Introduction

The Colombian education system in its present form has its origins in the sixteenth century. Since then, it has undergone many changes, the main aims of which were to decentralize a system that was originally highly centralized and to provide the general population (including marginalized segments of the population) with access to a good quality of education. Against the background of the political instability and the violent conflicts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the peace process of recent years, it is also necessary to consider the role that the Colombian education system is already playing or could play in the future in meeting these challenges. This chapter first presents the historical and social foundations of the education system in Colombia before going on to describe its institutional and organizational principles. Against this background, the third part of this chapter then discusses educational trends and key issues, focusing in particular on approaches to educational inequality, the role of civic education and competence-based education, and the importance of environmental and sustainability education.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

2.1

General Historical Background

The history of education in Colombia dates back to the Colonial Period, when the first colonizers set up facilities to teach religion and thus the Spanish language to the indigenous population. Although these facilities were not considered schools, they were deemed necessary to ensure the indigenous population adopted the culture and

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religion of the Spaniards. Initially, the Catholic Church was in charge of education, and the need to establish schools arose from a desire to educate colonizers’ children in the Catholic religion (Hanratty and Meditz 1988; OEI 1995). The first official schools were set up during the sixteenth century following a royal decree of 1565, when a number of Spanish descendants were already living in the country, and the schools had to be maintained by town councils. The schools focused on teaching children how to read and write, and also provided instruction in the Catholic religion, Latin, and basic social values. Once the students – at least, those of the most solvent class in the Colombian capital – had learned to read and write and, at around 18 years of age, were old enough to study for a profession, they could choose between Law, Education, and Theology. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, key education centers were founded in the city of Bogota, such as the Colegio Seminario de San Bartolomé, the Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario, and the Universidad Javeriana in 1622, which were managed by the Jesuits (OEI 1995). At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Franciscans in particular encouraged the founding of educational establishments. In 1777, the so-called Instrucción General para los Gremios (General Instruction for Guilds) was promulgated, providing for technical and artisanal training. In addition to literacy, the teaching provided by the Jesuits also focused on instruction in other occupations such as silversmithing, forging, weaving, etc., which helped improve the economic prosperity of the population. However, the abolition of community funds from which education had been subsidized meant that it came to a standstill – and instruction consequently came to be restricted to the wealthier class (OEI 1995). During the period prior to the Colombian Declaration of Independence (July 20, 1810), only a few individuals, namely, the descendants of the Spanish colonizers, had the benefit of an education. Depending on their social status, they could become teachers, doctors, lawyers, or theologians. Education was private during this period, but after independence it passed into the hands of the state and ceased to be dominated by the Catholic Church. The church did, however, continue to play an important role (Hanratty and Meditz 1988; OEI 1995). The 1821 Congress of Cucuta enacted a series of bills that led to the establishment of schools in some cities and to the inspection of education. During the 1826–1842 Republic, the Lancasterian system of instruction (promoted by English educator Joseph Lancaster), also known as the Monitorial system, was adopted. This involved advanced students learning their lessons from the teacher and then providing instruction to less advanced students (“mutual instruction”), enabling a teacher to instruct many students in a single location (OEI 1995). During General Santander’s presidency of the Republic of New Granada (1832– 1837), the establishment of primary schools was ordered in all towns and cities with their own budget. (The Republic of New Granada was the name given to the unitary republic created by the central provinces of Greater Colombia after the dissolution of the latter in 1830. It retained that name from 1831 until 1858, when it was renamed the Confederación Granadina. Its territory covered the current countries of Colombia and Panama.) Escuelas Normales (Normal Schools), the first teacher training

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colleges in Colombia, were founded, and a school curriculum was established. Public education was encouraged, and the education system of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was developed. The Dirección Nacional de Instrucción Pública (General Directorate of Public Instruction), whose director had the rank of minister, was created as an administrative body. Primary education was of great importance, and the new measures included not only the syllabus, but the inspection of school facilities (OEI 1995; Mosquera Puin 2005). In 1844, the first private colegios (secondary schools) were opened, and the education system was reformed. Between 1867 and 1885, a large number of educational institutions were founded, prominent amongst was the Universidad Nacional de los Estados Unidos de Colombia in 1867. Around the same time, the Misión Pedagógica Alemana (German Pedagogical Mission) arrived in the country to advise the Dirección Nacional de Instrucción Pública, and the Escuelas Normales were thus established along the same lines as in Germany (OEI 1995). In 1870, the Congress declared primary education to be free, secular, and compulsory, and allocated 4% of the national budget to education in order to achieve this. Subsequently, the Constitution of 1886 decreed that education would be regulated by the Ministry of Education, and from then on the sector was under the control of the Government of Colombia. The same year, education was divided into three stages: primary, secondary, and professional. The state decided education policy and programs, and paid for school supplies. The departments financed and administered teaching staff and carried out inspections, while the municipalities administered education facilities. Law 33 of February 1888 made Catholic religious education mandatory throughout the country for the purpose of consolidating the nation-state (OEI 1995). The twentieth century began with education reform. Primary education was divided into two classes: rural and urban. Secondary education was also divided into two parts: technical and classical. Primary education remained the responsibility of the departments and as the result of an initiative of the conservative political party was free but no longer compulsory, and secondary education was in the hands of the federal state. The distinction was made between administrative and teaching staff; Departmental Secretaries of Education were created and a system of supervision was organized (Ramírez et al. 2006). Nevertheless, education was still not accorded high value at that time. For those living largely in rural areas, agriculture was more important than education, because it was their means of subsistence. Education was considered a distraction that prevented children from undertaking rural labor (Martinez 2017). In 1930, a regulation decreed that every child should receive a minimum level of compulsory education, and in 1941, a number of agricultural vocational schools were founded. In 1947, the Consejo Superior Permanente de la Educación (Permanent Superior Council of Education) was set up, which subsequently acted as the country’s UNESCO Commission (OEI 1995). In the mid-twentieth century, the National Ministry of Education was reorganized, the budget for education was strengthened, the number of years teachers had to train was aligned with the level they were planning to teach at, and secondary school was divided into general and vocational education. In 1950, the

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Instituto Colombiano de Crédito Educativo y Estudios Técnicos en el Exterior Mariano Ospina Pérez – ICETEX (Colombian Institute for Educational Credit and Technical Studies Abroad) was created to provide education loans promoting the education of young people both nationally and abroad (OEI 1995). The secularization of education and the search for a democratic system that involved the participation of the major states continued to dominate the Colombian education system in the 1950s, although it also suffered as a result of the social and economic conflicts that the country experienced at the time. However, greater effort on the part of the state to increase the scope of education led to disputes with the clergy and defenders of the dominance of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, change was consolidated. The state took on the organization, management and direction of education, with main aims of eliminating income discrimination, and unifying education for both genders. Primary education was then nationalized, pay scales were created for teachers, and higher education was diversified through the introduction of technical training (OEI 1995). Amidst the contradictions, violence, and ideological polemics of the 1950s, the education system continued the modernization that had begun two decades earlier, spurred on by analytical studies undertaken in Colombia by a number of foreign advisors. These looked at the social situation in the country, focusing primarily on the education sector, and identifying issues and providing recommendations. Special mention should be made here of the work of Lauchlin Currie, who arrived in Colombia in 1949 as an economic advisor to the World Bank to make recommendations to the Colombian government on development of the agricultural sector (Salazar 2003), and Louis-Joseph Lebret, who visited Colombia in 1954 to carry out a study on the country’s economic development (Torres Martínez 2014). Currie’s and Lebret’s were the first systematic studies of the education sector, and their findings provided the basis for the development of the sector’s first five-year plan in 1957 by the Ministry of Education’s newly established Planning Office. This was the start of educational planning in Colombia, and the country became a pioneer in South America. Since then, great efforts have continually been made to strengthen the planning system, and successive governments have gradually strengthened the requisite structures (OEI 1995). The Colombian government also continued with its efforts to include all children in the education system; in 1957, it increased the 10% of the national budget earmarked for investment in education, allocating part of it to higher education (Martinez 2017). For the next few years, educational planning was characterized by the promotion of infrastructure, particularly for primary education, with the main goal being the elimination of illiteracy in the country. The Colombian state was thus the main provider of primary education, earmarking most of its resources at this level for classroom construction and teacher training. In order to allow the majority of the population to continue their education after finishing primary school, the Ministry of Education created the Institutos Nacionales de Enseñanza Media Diversificada (INEM) (National Institutes of Diversified Secondary Education) in 1969, which provided six years of secondary education, divided into two cycles: a four-year basic cycle and a two-year advanced cycle. However, there were still several factors that prevented children from attending school, and one of these was distance. Only in the

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late 1970s, when the restrictions caused by lack of resources was satisfactorily overcome, did the country begin to move towards improving the efficiency and quality of primary education. In 1977, the government ordered the establishment of larger numbers of rural schools and the development of a new pedagogical system, in order to make primary school more affordable and to enable all children to attend (Martinez 2017). Until the 1980s, educational planning, which was focused on solving the problems of primary schools, viewed secondary education as less important. As a result, state participation was less active at this level, and expanded primarily as a result of private participation. However, discussion about the importance and features of secondary education oscillated between a concept that prioritized a diversified secondary school model, which basically viewed secondary school as preparation for the labor market, and a more humanistic concept that regarded secondary school as a part of a basic education, enabling every individual to participate fully in society (OEI 1995). The state has always been aware of the need to promote higher education, which is after all the level to which the leaders of the country are trained. State support was provided to the National University for this purpose. In fact, the majority of higher education places have generally been provided by the Colombian state. Only after the 1980s the number of private education places began to increase, with the largescale emergence of nonpublic technical and technological institutes of higher education (OEI 1995). The 1980s were characterized by the aim of achieving a national education system that would reach the most remote areas and thus break the country’s predominant centralism. The Cambio con Equidad (Change with Equity) development plan (1982–1986) thus set out the goals of education policy as follows: modernization, decentralization, and participatory planning; intersectoral coordination; qualitative change; expansion of access and attendance; broad community participation; scientific and technological development; cultural development, recreation, and sports; and efficient use of financial resources (OEI 1995). In 1980, changes in higher education emerged. The Ministry of Education decided to divide higher education into four levels, namely, intermediate professional studies, technical studies, undergraduate studies, and postgraduate studies, each with a different duration (Martinez 2017). From 1986, education policy was deliberately readjusted by the governments of the day in order to regain momentum with primary school enrolment, which had declined since the mid-1970s, and to strengthen secondary school enrolment levels. This evolution in policy occurred in the context of the decentralization of the education sector that began formally in 1986, and was strengthened within the framework of the Nueva Constitución Política de Colombia (New Political Constitution of Colombia) in 1991 (MEN 2004). Under the new constitution, Law 60 of 1993 set out the competencies and functions of the state in the education and health sectors, and allocated budgets. After a complex process of negotiation with the teaching staff, Law 115 of 1994, or the General Education Act, was passed. This law established the principles of

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governance, administration, and funding of the education system, assigned a greater role to departments in the allocation of resources, transferred the Fondos Educativos Regionales (regional education funds) to departments, and devised guidelines for evaluating the quality of education. Law 115 was the basis for Decree 1860 of 1994, which regulated educational procedures and school organization, including regulations on the Institutional Educational Project, school governance, and the standards for evaluation and promotion at education institutions. Taking Article 72 of Law 115 of 1994 as its basis, Decree 1719 of 1995 laid down standards for the preparation and formalization of the Ten-Year Education Development Plan 1996–2005, which was presented at the beginning of 1996 (MEN 2004). The year 1995 saw the start of the process of consolidating the decentralization set out in the above-mentioned regulations, and the transition process set out in those regulations. By the end of the century, significant progress had been made with the decentralization of the education system, despite deficiencies in both legislation and implementation (MEN 2004).

2.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a sovereign country located in the north-western region of South America. It is constituted as a unitary, social, and democratic state whose form of government is presidential, and it is organized on the basis of 32 decentralized departments and the Distrito Capital de Bogotá (Capital District of Bogotá), which is the seat of the national government (Hanratty and Meditz 1988). The country covers an area of 1,141,748 km2, including Malpelo Island in the Pacific Ocean, Roncador Cay and Serrana Bank in the Atlantic. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the country experienced significant instability and a large number of civil wars, the last being the conflicto armado interno (internal armed conflict), which began in 1960 (Hanratty and Meditz 1988). In 2012, after a conflict lasting more than 50 years, the government of President Juan Manuel Santos began peace talks with the FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia/Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). In 2016, a final agreement was reached and despite not being approved by the plebiscite that was held on October 2 of the same year, it was implemented with modifications in 2017. Colombia has a diversified economy with a large service component. The country’s output is dominated by domestic demand, and expenditure on household consumption is the largest component of the country’s gross domestic product. Its GDP for 2016 was 720,151 million US dollars. The Colombian human development index is 0.747, and life expectancy at birth is 75.1 years. Colombia is part of the CIVETS group (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, and South Africa), which is made up of the countries considered the six major emerging markets. It is a member of the OAS, the Pacific Alliance, and other international organizations, and has been invited to join the OECD. It is also the only country in Latin America that is a global NATO partner. It is the country with the second-highest index of inequality in Latin America, after Brazil, and equal to Panama, according to the World Bank database.

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In 2013, Colombia spent an average of 6.6% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on educational institutions, from primary to tertiary education. This figure is considerably higher than the OECD average (5.2%) and that of other Latin American countries such as Argentina (5.5%), Chile (5.5%), Brazil (5.2%), and Mexico (5.2%) (OECD 2016).

2.3

Social Conditions: Provision/Population Participation

Colombia has an estimated population of 49 million inhabitants (UNESCO 2019) and is the nation with the second-largest number of Spanish speakers after Mexico. It has a multicultural population, which is mostly the result of interbreeding among European and African immigrants and indigenous people. The Black, Afro-Colombian, Palenquero, and Raizales populations constitute 10.5% of the Colombian population, while indigenous communities make up 3.4% (DANE 2008). There are a significant number of people from the Middle East in the Colombian Caribbean area. According to UNICEF statistics (2013), there are 8,796,900 10 to 19 year-olds in Colombia, representing 18.4% of the total population. According to UNESCO statistics (2019), 11,623,000 people are aged 14 and younger and 8,224,000 are aged between 15 and 24. 23% of the Colombian population lives in rural areas (UNESCO 2019). Table 1 shows the school-age population by educational level. The literacy rate is 97.8% for the young (15–24 year-old) male population, and 98.7% for the young female population. The gross enrolment ratio in preprimary school is 48.9% for boys and 48.8% for girls (UNICEF 2013). Table 2 shows enrolment rates for primary and secondary education.

2.4

Transition to the Labor Market

In 2014, 84% of people between the ages of 25 and 64 who had an undergraduate degree were in employment, compared with 77% of those whose highest level of education was a secondary school or postsecondary (non-tertiary) qualification (OECD 2016). The success rate among those with tertiary education is very high in Colombia, perhaps due to the limited number of workers who have attained it: 84% of all workers with undergraduate degrees are in employment, and those with tertiary education earn 233% more than those who only have a higher secondary qualification (OECD 2016). In line with the OECD average, the gender wage gap in Colombia increases with the level of education. Women without higher secondary education earn 20% less Table 1 School-age population by educational level (UNESCO 2019)

Preprimary education Primary education Secondary education Tertiary education

2,236,651 3,862,007 4,853,295 4,048,168

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Table 2 School enrolment ratios in primary and secondary education (UNICEF 2013) Participation in primary school: Gross enrolment ratio (%) 2008–2012, boys Participation in primary school: Gross enrolment ratio (%) 2008–2012, girls Participation in primary school: Net enrolment rate (%) 2008–2012, boys Participation in primary school: Net enrolment rate (%) 2008–2012, girls Participation in primary school: Net attendance rate (%) 2008–2012, boys Participation in primary school: Net attendance rate (%) 2008–2012, girls Participation in primary school: Completion rate until the last grade of primary school (%) 2008–2012, administrative data Participation in primary school: Completion rate until the last grade of primary school (%) 2008–2012, survey data Participation in secondary school: Net enrolment rate (%) 2008–2012, boys Participation in secondary school: Net enrolment rate (%) 2008–2012, girls Participation in secondary school: Net attendance rate (%) 2008–2012, boys Participation in secondary school: Net attendance rate (%) 2008–2012, girls

113.6 109.6 90.2 90 90.3 92 87.4 94.7 73.3 78.7 72.7 79.2

than their male counterparts; this is a smaller differential than in Brazil (33%), Mexico (26%), Chile (23%), and the OECD average (24%.) Among adults with tertiary education, women earn 25% less than men with the same level of education, somewhat better than the OECD average, which is 27% (OECD 2016). According to a report by the Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL) (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) and the Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT) (International Labour Organization) (CEPAL and OIT 2017), young people in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in Colombia in particular, are affected by the growing lack of opportunities in the labor market, and are an age group that experiences serious difficulties in entering productive work in order to earn a fair wage. The report indicates that the school-to-work transition is becoming more and more complex, with young people engaging in many different activities before establishing themselves in a regular job. Those who are the most competent, well trained, or having previous work experience find stable employment more easily. Approximately half of young people between the ages of 15 and 29 have made the complete transition in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, where “complete transition” is defined as employment in a regular job, a temporary job, and/or satisfactory self-employment.

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

3.1

General Principles

The general principles that underpin the structure and functioning of the Colombian education system are set out in the following political instruments: the Political Constitution of Colombia (1991), primarily Articles 67, 68, and 69; the General Education Act, Law 115 of 1994 (MEN 1994a), which sets out the objectives of

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Colombian education in Article 5; and thirdly, Law 30 of 1992, which regulates and organizes higher education (MEN 1992). These laws encapsulate the general principles of the education system, as well as provide general guidelines for education. They offer clear objectives for the training of Colombian citizens in accordance with the fundamental right to a good quality of education. Article 67 of the Political Constitution of Colombia (1991) establishes that education is the right of all Colombians and a public service that fulfils a social function. The social function of education is to provide people [. . .] with access to knowledge, science, technology, and other cultural goods and values. Education will instil in Colombians a respect for human rights, peace and democracy; and the practice of work and recreation [. . .] (This and all following quotes from the Constitution and the different laws have been translated from Spanish to English by the authors.)

In summary, the aim of education as far as personal development is concerned is to ensure that Colombian citizens are able both to be of service to society and to meet their own needs. The General Education Act (Law 115 of 1994) meets the requirements of the Political Constitution with regard to actions relating to education. Its first article presents education as “[. . .] a process of continuous, personal, cultural and social education based on a holistic concept of a human being, their dignity, rights and duties” (MEN 1994a). The fifth article of this law sets out a total of 13 aims for education in Colombia in the form of general principles for the education system, the first of which is below: Full personal development with no limitations other than those imposed by the rights of others and the law, within a process of comprehensive, physical, mental, intellectual, moral, spiritual, social, affective, ethical, civic education and instruction in other human values (MEN 1994a).

Education thus aims to equip people with the knowledge necessary to develop clear citizenship values and a deep-rooted sense of belonging to society. The intention is that citizens should be able to contribute to the nation’s development and be ready to collaborate on, and support, the planning of alternative solutions to the historical challenges the country is facing. Citizens need to participate in decision-making to improve the social aspects of community life, in a manner that respects the authorities, the law, national culture, the environment, and the country’s ethnic and cultural diversity. They must be mindful of national sovereignty, demonstrate solidarity with pursuit of global integration, defend the nation’s cultural heritage, safeguard the environment, and promote the prudent use of natural resources. Article 1 of Law 30 of 1992 (MEN 1992) defines higher education as [. . .] a continuous process that enables the full development of human potential, it follows secondary or high school education and its fundamental aim is the comprehensive development of students and the provision of academic or professional education.

This applies to the fields of technology, science, the humanities, the arts, and philosophy (MEN 1992, Art. 7). Article 4 of the same law reads as follows:

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Higher education, without regard to the specific aims of each field of knowledge, aims to awaken in the students a reflective spirit, oriented towards the achievement of personal autonomy, in a framework of free thinking and ideological pluralism that takes into account the universality of knowledge and the specifics of the cultural forms within the country. Higher education should therefore be developed within a framework of freedom to teach, learn, research and lecture.

It is also important to note that, according to Law 30 of 1992, higher education is a “public cultural service” (Art. 2) and that the state should recognize and respect universities’ autonomy and ensure the quality of higher education “through the exercise of overall inspection and surveillance,” in accordance with the Political Constitution of Colombia and Law 30 of 1992 (Art. 3). In line with the above stipulations, Article 69 of the Political Constitution states that: “The state will strengthen academic research in public and private universities and provide the conditions that promote its development.” Thus, one of the responsibilities of higher education in relation to the training of citizens in all academic programs is to develop research competencies. The second paragraph of Law 30, Article 6, sets out the objectives of higher education in relation to the training of citizens: a) To improve the comprehensive education of Colombians within the modalities and parameters of higher education, enabling them to fulfil the professional, analytical and social functions required by the country. b) To provide a quality service to the community as regards academic results, mechanisms and processes, institutional infrastructure, the qualitative and quantitative dimensions of this and the context in which each institution works.

Higher education is expected to create and consolidate academic and research communities, generating links with their counterparts in the national and international context and taking account of all levels of society. Higher education should promote superior levels of education and safeguard the country’s cultural heritage, national unity, regional integration, and inter-institutional cooperation.

3.2

Educational Administration and Governance

The administration and governance of the education system in Colombia is the responsibility of the National Ministry of Education. It regulates all aspects of educational services, supported by the Departmental Education Secretariats and the education communities. The objectives, structure, and functions of the National Ministry of Education, supported by national councils and commissions, are laid down in Decree 5012 of 2009, Chap. III (MEN 2009), whose first article specifies that the National Ministry of Education must: “Establish policies and guidelines to provide the education sector with a quality service with equitable access and permanence in the system.” It is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education under this objective to set out standards that make clear the quality of education that is required to achieve educational goals. The Ministry is also tasked with bringing forward public policies that safeguard the right to education at all levels and guarantee access to it; and managing the human resources assigned to the education sector in such a way as to promote the expansion of

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participation, ensure the education on offer is relevant, and improve the quality and efficiency of the sector. Finally, the Ministry is required to undertake inspection, monitoring and evaluation, and promote the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in teaching. Article 69 of the Political Constitution of Colombia recognizes and guarantees the autonomy of universities with regard to administration and governance. It states: [. . .] Universities may issue directives and be governed by their own statutes, in accordance with the law. The law will establish a special regime for state universities. [. . .] The state will provide financial mechanisms to enable access to higher education for all persons who are suitable.

Article 28 of Law 30 of 1992 gives universities [. . .] the right to draw up and modify their own statutes, designate their own academic and administrative authorities, create, organize and develop their own academic programmes, determine and organize their own educational, academic, teaching, scientific and cultural work, grant the corresponding degrees, appoint their own professors, admit their own students, adopt their own regimes as appropriate and establish, arbitrate and use their own resources for the fulfilment of their social mission and their institutional functions.

In summary, it can be seen that there is increasing systematization of educational governance in Colombia. Education, which as a system is assimilated into the social context, is thus better positioned to face any challenges and difficulties that arise, as well as to provide an education for Colombian citizens that is increasingly relevant to, and consistent with, historical and cultural circumstances, both politically and economically. In this process, policies relating to the processes and tasks involved with education are creating a more conducive educational landscape in Colombia, in terms of administration, curricula, pedagogy, and teaching; in terms of the appropriate and equitable use of education funding; in terms of the training and recruitment of teaching and administrative staff; in terms of improvements to school, college and university buildings and in terms of the provision of appropriate teaching materials and technological resources.

3.3

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED Classification

Article 10 of the General Education Act defines formal education as what “[. . .] is taught in approved educational establishments, in a regular sequence of academic years, subject to ongoing curricular guidelines, and leading to degrees and diplomas” (MEN 1994a). Article 11 defines the various levels of formal education as follows: [. . .] a) Early childhood education comprising at least one compulsory grade; b) Basic education with a duration of nine (9) grades delivered in two cycles: primary education comprising five (5) grades and secondary education comprising four (4) grades, and c) intermediate education with a duration of two (2) grades.

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The General Education Act describes each of these levels as follows: • Early childhood education: “Early childhood education is the provision of activities to ensure children’s all-round biological, cognitive, psychomotor, socioaffective and spiritual development [. . .]” (MEN 1994a, Art. 15). • Basic education: “Compulsory basic education [. . .] will be structured around a common curriculum, covering the fundamental areas of knowledge and human activity” (MEN 1994a, Art. 19). • Middle school education: “Its purpose is the understanding of universal ideas and values and the preparation of students to enter higher education and work” (MEN 1994a, Art. 27). • Higher education: This “[. . .] enables the full development of human potential [. . .] its aim is the comprehensive development of students and the provision of academic or professional training” (MEN 1992, Art. 1) in science, technology, the humanities, arts, and philosophy (MEN 1992, Art. 7). It offers undergraduate and graduate academic programs – specializations, masters, doctorates, and postdoctorate qualifications. On the basis of the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) (2011) as adapted for Colombia (prepared by the Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE, National Administrative Department of Statistics) and validated by the National Ministry of Education (MEN), the Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (SENA, National Training Service), and the Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar (ICBF, Colombian Family Welfare Institute) (DANE 2019)), education in Colombia divides formal academic programs into levels 0 to 8, with nonformal education programs (Educación para el Trabajo y Desarrollo Humano, EDTH, Education for Work and Human Development) being classified at level 9. As regards formal education, the ISCED levels 0 to 3 group includes early childhood education, basic primary, basic secondary, and middle school programs. ISCED level 4 includes the Escuelas Normales programs. Higher education comprises ISCED levels 5 to 8 (see Table 3).

3.4

Allocation of Human Resources

The National Development Plan 2010–2014, the Sectoral Education Plan, and the Plan Nacional de Formación Docente (PNFD, National Teacher Training Plan) promote the Programa de Formación Profesional de Docentes y Directivos Docentes (Professional Training Program for Teachers and Teaching Directors), which is responsible for designing, managing, and implementing initiatives and projects to strengthen education processes and improve the quality of early childhood, basic and middle school education. In addition, it promotes complementary undergraduate and graduate teacher training in education faculties and Escuelas Normales Superiores (Higher Normal Schools) (Escuelas Normales Superiores are educational institutions that train educators/teachers for early childhood education

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Table 3 International Standard Classification of Education ISCED (2011) as adapted for Colombia (DANE 2019)

and primary education, Colombia Aprende 2013), and offers postgraduate training, in accordance with Law 30 of 1992, in the form of specializations, masters, doctoral and postdoctoral courses for educators (MEN 2013).

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Teacher training has to be carried out in an organized manner, with increased participation, and coordinated with the various players in the education sectors. Educators are public employees in the service of the state and the community (Political Constitution 1991, Article 123) with a specific remit for the provision of teaching services. They are professionals who, within the framework of educational establishments, provide teaching and facilitate learning for students in line with the needs of society and culture at any given historical point. The linking of teaching staff with the education system is initially outlined in Article 25 of the Colombian Political Constitution, which identifies teaching as a profession and confers upon anyone performing the role of teacher the right to the protection of the state and to fair and decent working conditions. Teachers are required to be qualified, ethical individuals with pedagogical training (Constitution 1991, Article 68). Since 2011, the National Ministry of Education (MEN) has sought to put in place and consolidate an incentive plan for public sector teachers and teaching managers, whose dedication and commitment are reflected in the progress of their students, in order to improve the quality of education in the country. Article 6 of Decree 1055 of 2011 provides that “Deans and rectors whose educational institutions meet quality standards on an ongoing basis will be accorded additional remuneration equivalent to the last basic monthly allowance accrued during the school year” (MEN 2011). The MEN recognizes teacher innovation and success, offering a scholarship program for teachers aged under 45 years “who are from the basic primary or the basic secondary and/or middle school sectors and teach in any of the following subject areas: mathematics, languages, natural sciences, social sciences, or philosophy” (ICETEX 2017). Career development in teaching is viewed as being the purview of state. Within this framework, the Political Constitution (Article 125) establishes that “Appointment to positions and subsequent promotion shall be subject to compliance with the requirements and conditions established by law to determine the merits and qualities of applicants.” Regarding employment contracts with the state educational service, the General Law of Education states that “Teaching staff [. . .] may only be appointed on the basis of a process [. . .]. They may only be appointed to a teaching position [. . .] after having been selected by means of a competitive process, and having met the legal requirements” (MEN 1994a, Art. 105). According to the ISCED classification, teachers at levels 0, 1, 2, and 3 must be education science professionals, normalistas superiores (graduates of the Escuelas Normales Superiores), education science technicians, pedagogy or child development specialists, or teaching staff with basic training or specialized qualifications in specific subjects and in pedagogy. With regard to the appointment of professors for higher education, Article 30 of Law 30 of 1992 states: “The possession of at least a suitable university degree is a prerequisite for appointment as a professor at a state or public university. Teaching posts will be filled on the basis of merit following a public, competitive selection process in accordance with the Consejo Superior Universitario (Superior University Council).” According to Article 71 of this Law, professors may be “full-time, parttime or adjunct professors.” Teachers can rise through the ranks of adjunct professor,

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assistant professor, associate professor, and tenured professor. According to ISCED, university teachers should have a sound background in their subjects or fields of specialization, professional experience, and a level of education equal to or higher than those they instruct.

4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

4.1

Inequality

According to the GINI index – an indicator that measures income inequality – Colombia is one of the most inequitable countries in the world: “Colombian society is the second most unequal society in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most inequitable on the planet: it occupies ninth place out of 140 countries in the world, immediately behind Haiti and seven African countries” (Montenegro 2013, 4). However, it recognizes that the country has made advances in this area. 59% of individuals taking advantage of higher education today come from families with monthly incomes lower than the sum of two legal minimum wages. 47% of young people aged between 17 and 21 are in higher education. Access, defined as the number of students enrolled in higher education by the place of origin of the student, is at an average of 32.4% nationwide. In terms of the equity, competitiveness, and quality of education, significant goals have yet to be achieved. The Political Constitution of 1991 (Article 357) also included a strategy to boost economic resources, improve the quality of education, and introduce the right to education throughout Colombia. This strategy consisted in the decentralization of the Sistema General de Participaciones (General Participation System of the Departments, Districts, and Municipalities). Article 2 of Law 60 of 1993 (MEN 1993) established administrative autonomy for municipalities with respect to educational services at preprimary, basic and middle school level, and financing for a minimum level of infrastructure to ensure its sustainability. In terms of coverage, public education policies have aimed to reduce private enrolment by increasing public enrolment, and to ensure equity for the most vulnerable sectors of the population through the Estrategia de la Gratuidad Escalonada (Strategy of Staggered Freedom from Costs) (Saldarriaga Vélez and Orlando Scoppetta 2009). This started at primary level, continued with the basic secondary and then middle school levels and, in recent years, was extended to include early childhood education for children under the age of five. Decree 1860 of 1994 states that all residents of the country “without discrimination, will receive at least one year of early childhood education and nine years of basic education, in state, private, community, cooperative, solidarity or non-profit educational establishments” (MEN 1994b, Art. 4). Early childhood and basic primary education are important components of education policy and contribute to the quality of education overall. Article 29 of Law 1098 of 2006, the Code of Children and Adolescents, establishes the right of children to integral development. Within this policy framework, the Programa de

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Atención Integral a la Primera Infancia (PAIPI, Comprehensive Early Childhood Care Program) is being implemented as part of a strategic alliance between the National Ministry of Education and the Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar (ICBF, Colombian Family Welfare Institute) (MEN 2012a). This benefits children under five from SISBEN Strata 1, 2, and 3, in family, community, and institutional settings (SISBEN is the Sistema de Identificación de Potenciales Beneficiarios de Programas Sociales (System for Identification of Potential Beneficiaries of Social Programs), which uses a scoring system to classify the population according to their socioeconomic situation. SISBEN is used to quickly and objectively identify vulnerable sectors of the population and those living in poverty in order to focus social investment and ensure that it is allocated to those who need it most (https://www. sisben.gov.co/sisben/Paginas/Que-es.aspx)). The program proposes “comprehensive health care, nutrition, and initial education for children under five years of age” (Delgado 2014). Another program contributing to equality policies is the Programa de Alimentación Escolar (PAE, School Feeding Program), which “consists of the organized supply of nutritional, healthy food to supplement the diet of children and adolescents enrolled in the public education system” (DPS, ICBF 2008). According to Delgado (2014, 11), “it is estimated that close to 60% of students from public institutions (5 million students) currently participate in these programmes.” At the same time, the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities made progress with “the transformation of the system’s policies, practices and culture in relation to rights and inclusive practice concerning the education of persons with disabilities” (Pérez Dávila 2018). Pedagogical guidelines were developed for different types of disability – cognitive, motor, autism, deafness, blindness, visual impairment, and hearing impairment – for educational institutions seeking to promote inclusion (Boyacá Education Secretariat 2010). Law 1346 of 2009 adopts the rights of persons with disabilities established by the General Assembly of the United Nations (Colombian Government 2009). Nevertheless, “overall, only 20% to 30% of teachers say they have the capacity to educate students with disabilities” (Hurtado Lozano and Agudelo Martínez 2014, 51). This accordingly represents a barrier to inclusion within the educational community, and inhibits the achievement of greater equality in education. Educational institutions face difficulties in terms of infrastructure, teaching resources, technology, specialist teachers, and student numbers; this is related to an increase in the numbers taking up education without the corresponding increase in the physical and human resources required to avoid impacting the quality of education on offer. Further reflection is underway on whether individuals with special needs should be integrated into regular schools or whether different educational settings should be created in order to meet their needs. It is recognized that the advances needed to achieve a peaceful Colombia are directly related to the accelerated political, social, and economic inclusion of ethnic minorities (Black, Afro-Colombian, Palenquero, and Raizales populations and indigenous communities) and individuals with disabilities. The educational

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performance of ethnic and cultural minorities is improved by a focus on social diversity through the recognition of individuals’ rights, educational contexts, and the quality of services provided. Accordingly, the Programa Nacional de Etnoeducación (National Ethno-education Program), which was established by MEN to develop an education care policy within the Education Sector Plan 2006–2010, “contains the vision, knowledge, expectations and foundations of work to ensure integrated and comprehensive education for children and young people, thus providing recognition, cultural permanence, territorial respect and environmental management for ethnic groups” (MEN 2010b). Ethnic populations are the most affected by armed groups, displacement, and illegal mining, according to reports and analyses prepared by indigenous and AfroColombian social organizations (including the Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia (ONIC, National Indigenous Organization of Colombia), Procesos de Comunidades Negras (PCN, Black Community Processes), the Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Afrocolombianas (CNOA, National Confederation of Afro-Colombian Organizations), and the Asociación Nacional de Afrocolombianos (AFRODES, National Association of Afro-Colombians)) and findings by the Honorable Corte Constitucional (Honorable Constitutional Court) (DPS 2011). To close the inclusion gap between the general population and ethnic minorities, the International Organization for Migration (IOM 2018), with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), designed the Inclusion for Peace Activity (IPA), aimed at women who are victims of gender violence, people with disabilities, and victims of armed conflict. Proposals to improve the inclusion of minorities in society include the strengthening of institutions, the empowerment of communities, the defense of human rights, attendance to basic needs, the improvement of income, community participation, and respect for ethnic diversity and cultural heritage. The literacy strategy Escuelas de Perdón y Reconciliación (ESPERE, Schools of Forgiveness and Reconciliation) developed by the Foundation for Reconciliation has also been in place since 2005, benefiting around 20,000 people in the Departments of Sucre, Chocó, Guajira, and Cauca (MEN 2010a). The National Ministry of Education has brought forward the Programa Nacional de Alfabetización y Educación Básica y Media de Jóvenes y Adultos (National Program for Literacy and Basic and Secondary Education for Youth and Adults), which introduces flexible models for teaching illiterate adults. It proposes a training program that combines values education with the development of competencies, covering a wide range of socially relevant topics such as preparation for life, free time, and work. These topics provide comprehensive personal, social, sports, and family education and are being developed in line with the culture of individual regions. Suggested programs include handicrafts, literary, artistic and physical activity, and there is a high level of take up of this type of program by the adult population: People who reported having attended a training course for work (2015) were aged between 26 and 40, 52.8% were men and 47.2% women. At the national level, 52% of those who attended these free courses did so in public institutions (DANE 2016).

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Unfortunately, the socioeconomic situation of families, the location of educational institutions, and the inequitable distribution of state funds for education in Colombia are reflected in poor results both in internal and external tests to measure educational quality. In terms of student enrolment and education funding, there are currently inequalities between children and young people residing in urban areas and those in rural areas. Among young people aged 13 to 17, 77% of the poorest income quintile attends secondary school compared with 92% of the richest income quintile (Duarte et al. 2012). The Higher Education Progress Index (MEN 2015) shows that the lowest rates of progress in education are in the Department of Putumayo (14.3%) and the Department of La Guajira (11.4%). There is, therefore, a need to close the gaps in quality and access to education for different individuals, ethnic groups, rural areas, and regions of the country, in order to achieve better results in relation to international standards and skills acquisition.

4.2

ICT and Digitalization

The modernization of education is currently a priority of the Colombian education system, specifically in relation to teaching and learning processes for different subjects. In the last two decades in particular, efforts have been made to provide public sector educational institutions with computers to support children’s learning at different levels. This is in line with educational policies requiring educational processes to be updated through the introduction and appropriate use of information and communications technology (ICT). This should enable the development of more competent and responsible citizens who will help the country to progress. In response to educational policies promulgated at international and national level, efforts have been redoubled to integrate into curricula the development of appropriate skills sets to enable the use of ICT in educational contexts. The objectives of the national educational policy framework and the Vive Digital (Live Digital) ICT Ministry Plan are to “build a culture that prioritizes research and the generation of knowledge; improve the capacity of educational establishments to introduce innovate practices; and strengthen public-private partnerships involving bodies from the education sector” (MEN 2012b). Language teaching is also promoted in universities and companies, along with an innovative virtual literacy program focusing on basic ICT skills and an advanced option looking at digitalization, data mining, and Big Data. These developments are the result of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Schwab 2016) and are impacting the education system, schools, teacher training, and learning.

4.3

STEM Education

STEM education represents a new approach for Colombia, promoting the management of students’ education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

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The first STEM education forum in Colombia (Periódico El Tiempo 2016) highlighted the need to create networks and provide support to the academic community in relation to the highlighting of science and technology, deploying integrated or block teaching of sciences and thus overcoming the separation of science and technology teaching. This approach aims to promote learning, the development of competencies in these disciplines, interdisciplinary teamwork, and the development of practical solutions to real problems in order to support the economic development of the country: [. . .] today we have the information revolution, autonomous systems, robots, neural monitoring, hybrid vehicles and smart cities, among other things. All this emphasizes the need to have an informed citizenship that is capable of making decisions. Technology moves forward very fast and in doing so challenges traditional educational models. Accordingly, STEM education offers great opportunities to train skilled human resources in the interaction with technology and in the resolution of global problems. (Periódico El Tiempo 2016)

The implementation of such an educational approach would motivate students to engage with science and technology; this requires the appropriate educational policies and infrastructure, and sufficient funding, as well as closer links between companies, communities, and schools.

4.4

Emerging Issues

Late twentieth and early twenty-first century trends in education that are having an impact on practices in Colombia include the relationship between the curriculum and local cultures. Curriculum development for basic, middle school, and higher education is being modified in response to analysis of the realities, aspirations, and problems of communities’ culture, seen from a participatory point of view. For this purpose, it is necessary to train teachers and social stakeholders in communities so that they can take part in pedagogical and cultural analysis and research as necessary, and to develop a dynamic methodology for curriculum planning and development that takes account of individual knowledge and power relations (Martínez Bonafé 2010). There is an interest in entrepreneurship and a multidisciplinary emphasis. A plurality of methods is evident in the teaching of science, determined by factors such as multicultural differences, structural problems, and personal characteristics. At the same time, there is an emerging trend in Colombian education towards a competence-based approach, based on the need for students to perform competently in the fields for which they have been trained, once they have completed their studies. Individuals demonstrate strong performance in their chosen field by developing general, transferable, and specific competencies that are useful for the professional field in which they have been trained. Generic competencies for Latin America were revealed in the Tuning Latin America Project (2011–2013) (Tuning América Latina n.d.). This competencebased approach is an educational trend that has led both teachers and students to

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take responsibility for their own self-regulation – physical, cognitive, emotional, ethical, social, disciplinary, etc. – in fields where they consider themselves to be collaborators and participants in a collective socio-educational project with historical and cultural relevance. Communication skills, use of technological tools and foreign languages, knowledge generation, and teamworking skills all play a part in competence-based education, which has been described as a fundamental instrument for revitalizing the broader training of students in the theories and methodologies of citizenship. Citizenship in Colombia requires training in the legal, social, and political dimensions of research, critical approaches to the world, participation, and democratic practice. These competencies enable citizens to help identify the social problems facing their communities and contribute to the search for consensus among different groups and areas in respect of the country’s shared historical project. Democratic practice and citizenship competencies are not innate in human beings, they are built through educational processes; specifically, an education that trains intelligence, sensitivity, will, and the recognition of rights (Jaramillo and Quiroz Posada 2013). It is essential to articulate specific expectations for basic learning at different grades and levels and to develop citizenship competencies that reinforce the contribution made by education to the social and economic development of the community (MEN 1994b). The country’s environmental culture and safeguarding of its cultural heritage mean it also prioritizes the conservation, protection, and improvement of the environment, the rational use of natural resources, and the prevention of disasters. In this sense, in Colombia too, environmental education and education for sustainable development (ESD) are increasingly relevant concepts (MEN 2004). Colombia has had a National Environmental Education Policy since 2002 (Minambiente and MEN 2002). This document defines environmental education as follows: It should be regarded as the process that allows individuals to understand their interdependence with their environment and to develop a critical awareness of their biophysical, social, political, economic and cultural reality, so as to generate appreciation and respect for the environment both in individuals and in their community. These attitudes, of course, must be framed in terms of criteria for the improvement of quality of life and of a concept of sustainable development as the proper relationship between the environment and development. This must meet the needs of present generations and ensure the well-being of future generations. (Minambiente and MEN 2002, 18)

The Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development’s goals include the introduction of environmental education in formal as well as informal and nonformal educational settings; the aim here is to contribute to sustainable development, improve Colombians’ quality of life, conserve the country’s natural resources, and recover ecosystems for the sake of future generations. The Ministry of Environment, Housing and Territorial Development’s Office of Education and Participation, in collaboration with the education sector, autonomous regional corporations,

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sustainable development corporations, and environmental authorities, is thus working on strategies to implement and strengthen the National Policy on Environmental Education throughout the country. These include the Proyectos Ambientales Escolares (PRAE, School Environmental Projects), the Comités Interinstitucionales de Educación Ambiental (CIDEA, Inter-Institutional Environmental Education Committees), the Proyectos Ciudadanos de Educación Ambiental (PROCEDA, Citizen Environmental Education Projects), the Formación de Dinamizadores Ambientales (Training of Environmental Dynamizers) through the Programa Nacional de Promotoría Ambiental Comunitaria, la Educación Ambiental para la Gestión del Riesgo y los Proyectos Ambientales Universitarios (PRAU, National Program for Community Environmental Promotion, Environmental Education for Risk Management, and University Environmental Projects) (Minambiente 2019). School Environmental Projects (PRAE) are pedagogical projects promoting the analysis and understanding of local, regional, and national environmental issues, and generating participative spaces for the implementation of solutions in line with environmental and sociocultural dynamics. The focus of their work is sustainable development-based education, sustainable development being understood as the use of resources in the present without detriment to their use by future generations, within a specific space and time and on the basis of respect for diversity and autonomy. This includes not only economic but also social, cultural, political, ethical, and aesthetic approaches to promoting the sustainable management of the environment. At schools, these projects foster the development of research and intervention strategies. The research strategies involve pedagogical and interdisciplinary processes whose purpose is to reflect critically on ways of seeing, analyzing, and interpreting the world and ways of relating to it; and also on working methods, approaches to knowledge and, consequently, identification of the different components of the environment and how they interact. The second set of strategies is based on intervention and involves practical, participatory, community projects. They thus work in conjunction with the environmental sector, social organizations, and the community. In this way, schools can demonstrate their leading role and inspire citizens to self-regulate their behavior in the interests of environmental sustainability (MEN 2005). The local and national nature of the Colombian education system means that a national curricular framework for basic and middle school education is required to direct the efforts of educational institutions, teachers, and students towards achieving higher standards. There is a need to improve equality between students who enroll and those who graduate from higher education, and institutional accreditation and self-evaluation processes need to be strengthened by improving policies and providing technical and financial resources for education. It is necessary to train teachers to innovate and pursue research in the classroom and beyond, but this needs to be supported by better working conditions and increased numbers of teachers. At the level of higher education, undergraduate programs need to be strengthened in order to ensure economic and social goals are met. Measures are required in some schools and territories to mitigate and prevent violence.

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Colombia faces the challenge of increasing the number of students and sustaining student attendance. This means developing strategies aimed at increasing the numbers completing higher education, as well as reintegrating children and young people from rural areas into the education system, offering them better access to higher education. Likewise, public interest in education needs to be fostered by means of entrepreneurship initiatives, and promotion of critical environmental awareness and service-learning.

5

Conclusion

The Colombian education system determines the nature of educational provision, the aims and principles of education, and the conditions and administrative requirements that are required to ensure each level delivers high-quality education. This chapter describes educational policies that are aimed at integrating educational provision with sound structures and organization. Unfortunately, these are not reflected in the service that is actually provided or in any guaranteed right of access for Colombian citizens to all levels of the education system. Urgent action is required to give education the place it deserves in the country and recognize its key role in ensuring progress at individual and community level. Educational policies must be supported in a decisive and forceful manner through pedagogical, didactic, and curricular processes and by an administrative infrastructure that is able to respond to the challenge of providing education in Colombia and put in place the processes that are essential for the training of honorable and principled citizens.

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OEI – Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura. (1995). Informe Sistema Educativo Nacional de la República de Colombia. Capítulo 2: Evolución histórica del sistema educativo. Madrid: OEI. Available at https://www.oei.es/historico/quipu/ colombia/col02.pdf. Last accessed 8 Feb 2019. Pérez Dávila, F. L. (2018). Políticas educativas en Colombia: en busca de la calidad. Actualidades Pedagógicas, 71, 193–213. Periódico El Tiempo. (2016). STEM Education for the Future (Educación STEM para el futuro). Available at https://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-16540819. Last accessed 8 Feb 2019. Political Constitution of Colombia. (1991). Available at https://www.registraduria.gov.co/IMG/pdf/ constitucio-politica-colombia-1991.pdf. Last accessed 8 Feb 2019. Ramírez, G., Teresa, M., & Téllez, J. P. (2006). La educación primaria y secundaria en Colombia en el siglo XX. Available at http://www.banrep.gov.co/docum/ftp/borra379.pdf. Last accessed 8 Feb 2019. Salazar, B. (2003). Currie y Colombia: el asesor que vino de lejos. Available at https://www.icesi. edu.co/revistas/index.php/estudios_gerenciales/article/view/106/html. Last accessed 8 Feb 2019. Saldarriaga Vélez, J., & Orlando Scoppetta D. G. (2009). La gratuidad de la educación. En los planes de desarrollo de los departamentos y municipios de Colombia, 2008–2011. Available at https://dds.cepal.org/redesoc/publicacion?id¼784. Last accessed 8 Feb 2019. Schwab, K. (2016). The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means, how to respond. Available at https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-what-it-means-andhow-to-respond/. Last accessed 8 Feb 2019. Torres Martínez, F. J. (2014). Las misiones extranjeras y su influencia en la educación agrícola superior en Colombia. Revista Historia De La Educación Colombiana, 17(17), 137–160. https://doi.org/10.22267/rhec.141717.42. Tuning América Latina. (n.d.). Competencias Genéricas de América Latina. Available at http:// tuning.unideusto.org/tuningal/index.php?option¼content&task¼view&id¼217&. Last accessed 8 Feb 2019. UNESCO. (2019). Data for the Sustainable Development Goals. Colombia: Education and Literacy. Available at http://uis.unesco.org/en/country/co?theme¼education-and-literacy. Last accessed 8 Feb 2019. UNICEF. (2013). Colombia Statistics. Available at https://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/ colombia_statistics.html. Last accessed 8 Feb 2019.

The Education System of Costa Rica Humanistic Education for Peace and Democracy

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations for Costa Rican Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 The Pre-Columbian and Colonial Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 The End of the Colonial Period and the Establishment of the Republic . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 The Period of Independence and Education During the Early Republic . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Education in the Twentieth Century and the Second Republic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Education for a New Millennium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of the Educational System (According to ISCED Classification) . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Human Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 An Ambitious Curricular Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Integrating Education of Early Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Education for Sustainable Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Equity and Multiculturalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 The Road Toward Improvement of Technical Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6 Innovation and Technologies to Enrich Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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S. Müller-Using (*) Education Science, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany University of Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica A. Vargas Porras Institute for Research in Education (INIE), University of Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_6

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Abstract

Historically, Costa Rica has put great emphasis on the development and strength of the national education system. Education has been free and compulsory with a humanistic orientation since 1869. The military army was abolished in 1948, and as a result, parts of the released funds were invested in education and health. Today, Costa Rica is investing just under 8% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in public education. The country now has one of the best literacy rates in the world, with nearly 100% of the younger population and 96% of the adult population. Since 2016, the country has undergone a powerful education reform oriented toward educating for a new citizenry and considering the twenty-firstcentury skills. All major programs being offered from preschool to high school are being changed. The chapter deals with the history and legal framework (administration and governance) of Costa Rican education and points out some important areas related to the current curricular transformations, i.e., early childhood education, education for sustainable development, equity and multiculturalism, technical education, and aspects related to technologies applied in education. Keywords

Costa Rica · Education system · Humanistic education · Education reform · Curricular transformation · Educating for a new citizenry

1

Introduction

Education in Costa Rica has been free and compulsory since 1869. The period after 1949 was a turning point for the country with the reorganization of the state and a new political constitution which gave the legal framework for the country. The military army was abolished in 1948, and as a result, parts of the released funds were invested in education and health. Even today, Costa Rica is investing a comparatively high share of its GDP in public education (just under 8%). The country now has one of the best literacy rates in the world, with nearly 100% of the younger population and 96% of the adult population. According to the World Economic Forum report on Global Competitiveness 2017–2018, Costa Rica’s primary school education system is ranked first in Latin America. Since 2016, the country has been undergoing a powerful education transformation with changes in all major programs being offered from preschool to high school. The new curriculum is based on the vision of educating for a new citizenry, which means to promote twenty-first-century skills, abilities, and competencies in the students in order for them to develop new ways of thinking, of living in the world, of relating to others, and of interacting in the world. Emphases on sustainable development, technologies, and global citizenship are part of this ambitious reform. There is still development potential for preschool education, but recent policies promote infants’ early age education so that the rate of preschool attention for 4-year-olds increased from 60.5% in 2013 to 84.5% in 2018. Children

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(5-year-olds) must complete kindergarten in order to start first grade at 6 years of age, and which is why, the enrollment has also increased from 89.5% in 2014 to 102.3% in 2018. In 2016, the net primary schooling rate was 93.1% which is high, but there is concern due to a decline with respect to the 2005–2011 period when it was higher than 97% (Programa Estado de la Nación, PEN 2017). This issue requires attention in order to understand the aspects that explain this data and how to improve the quality of the information that the education system has about its students. Secondary education needs more attention, since coverage is about 80%, with only about 50% of the 25–34year-olds having a degree from a secondary school by 2014 and with 28% of 25–34year-olds being enrolled at a university. Primary and secondary school are free of charge and compulsory. The education system has three major parts arranged in five cycles; these cycles include preschool education and primary school, secondary school, and higher education. During the primary school period of 7 years, the children complete preschool and first and second cycles of the school system. The first cycle comprises grades 1 to 3 and the second includes grades 4 to 6. Secondary education covers cycle 3 (grades 7 to 9), which is diversified including grades 10 to 11 or 12. In cycle 4, from grade 10, students can choose an academic, artistic, or technical focus for their 11th year, and there is an additional 12th year for the technical focus. Costa Rica has more than 5,000 schools from primary to secondary level, of which around 9% are private schools. English is compulsory in all public and private schools, and French is compulsory for the third cycle. Chinese, Portuguese, Italian, and German are also taught at some public and private schools. Some institutions also offer programs with worldwide recognition such as Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate. As for higher education, there are more than 54 private universities in Costa Rica and 5 public ones, which are the Universidad de Costa Rica, UCR (University of Costa Rica), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Costa Rica, UNA (National Autonomous University of Costa Rican), Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica, ITCR (Costa Rican Technological Institute), Universidad Estatal a Distancia, UNED (Distance State University), and Universidad Técnica Nacional, UTN (National Technical University). Public universities are highly respected and their graduates have a good reputation. The oldest university is the UCR founded in 1940, which is highly ranked, being considered among the top 601–800 universities in the world, the best in the Central American region, and one of the best in Latin America (https://www.ucr.ac.cr/noticias/2018/09/26/la-ucr-mejora-su-ubicacion-en-el-rank ing-mundial-de-excelencia-en-universidades.html).

2

Historical and Social Foundations for Costa Rican Education

The historical and social foundations of the educational system in Costa Rica date back to the colonial period and have developed through a series of groundbreaking educational policy milestones into the modern and generally well-recognized

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educational system we find today. Education in Costa Rica has been free and compulsory since 1869. The military army was abolished in 1948, and as a result, parts of the released funds were invested in education and health. The period after 1949 was a turning point for the country with the reorganization of state and a new political constitution which gave the legal framework also for the education system of the country. In the following, the historical development of the education system is described according to the most relevant milestones.

2.1

The Pre-Columbian and Colonial Education

Before the arrival of the Spaniards, the original population consisted of a diversity of indigenous groups with a well-defined chiefdom and social organization where education was an integrated part of their daily experience and living. Little is known about these groups, but according to Martínez Gutiérrez (2016), it is possible to establish some features of the education of the fifth pre-Columbian period (800–1500 A.D.). Education moved between mythical beliefs, religious syncretism, ritual ceremonies, funeral settlements, and human elements typical of their social and communal activity. New forms of cultivation required knowledge of agriculture, and the arts were predominantly in the polychrome pottery of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic forms, as a cultural expression of the people’s identity. Education happened as a transfer of knowledge from the oldest to the younger people and responded to human experience, as an individual in a social group in search of better ways to live in harmony with Mother Earth. Today, the indigenous groups that had survived maintain control of their educational processes which are based on their cultural background and are taught in the indigenous language of the corresponding group. The new educational programs, approved in 2017 and 2018 for first and second cycles of indigenous education, are structured in their own language: Boruca, Ngäbere, and Ngobe. These programs were prepared by the indigenous groups, and some of them were even presented for approval by representatives of those communities to the Costa Rican Higher Education Council. The roots of today’s educational system in Costa Rica go back to the colonial period. Following the landing of Columbus in 1502 on the Caribbean Costa Rican coast, the conquest took its course. It is assumed that the country’s indigenous population was about 400,000 at that time. Probably mainly due to diseases and epidemics introduced from Europe, as well as because of the conquerors’ treatment, the population in this region had already been reduced drastically to about 120,000 by 1569 and to only 10,000 persons in 1611 (Molina and Palmer 2014, 19). The settlements of that time, e.g., Orosi in 1562 and city foundations such as Cartago, meant the establishment of political as well as sociocultural order by the Spanish colonial rulers and Christian missionaries. The year 1574 is considered the end of the conquest and the beginning of the colonial period, due to the three events that happened at that time: (1) the subjugation of the native peoples in most of the territory, (2) the territorial dominion by the conquerors, and (3) the establishment of

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Cartago as the capital of the province. According to Martínez Gutiérrez (2016), from this point on, education would not be just a concern of the church but an urgent matter of the Spanish Crown. The sixteenth century closes with a relevant fact in educational matters, the foundation of the first school, established by Diego de Aguilar, priest and sacristan, who is considered to be the first teacher in Costa Rica. The Communal School of Costa Rica faced many problems of personnel and scarce teaching materials but operated for 30 years until it was closed in 1623 due to lack of resources (Martínez Gutiérrez 2016).

2.2

The End of the Colonial Period and the Establishment of the Republic

During the colonial period, Costa Rica was part of the domain of the Spanish Crown under the Kingdom of Guatemala that brought together the territories that today are the Republics of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, as well as the Mexican state of Chiapas and the current Panamanian provinces of Chiriquí and Bocas del Toro. By the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Spanish Crown provided for the establishment of different schools and universities in the isthmus. Costa Rica did not directly benefit as Guatemala and Nicaragua did with the Centro Superior de Estudios de Centroamérica (Superior Center for Central American Studies), the University of San Carlos Borromeo in 1681, and in Nicaragua the Seminario Conciliar Colegio de San Ramón (Seminarian Conciliar “College of San Ramón”) founded in 1680 in León which was transformed in 1812 by King Ferdinand VII of Spain into the University of León. Both universities (San Carlos and León) still exist. By the end of the colonial period, with the Cádiz Courts of Spain (1812), the first regulations came to the American colonies. Under the initiative of the representative of Costa Rica, Father Florencio del Castillo, the Cadiz Courts established the granting of scholarships to indigenous people who wished to study and ordered the teaching of writing, reading, arithmetic, and canonical doctrine for the children of colonists. In addition, corporal punishment was abolished in the colonial schools, which used to be performed quite often. In Costa Rica, the first institution of higher education (roughly comparable with today’s secondary school) was the Casa de Enseñanza de Santo Tomás (Teaching House of St. Thomas) founded in 1814 as a municipal initiative of the city of San José, financed by donations from wealthy citizens. It included a school of first letters as well as further lessons in grammar, philosophy, moral theology, and Latin. Rafael Francisco Osejo, with a bachelor degree in law from the University of León in Nicaragua, was the first rector and is considered to be one of the most influential personalities for education in Costa Rica at the time. In 1832, he initiated the first law on compulsory schooling and, supported by the ideals of the European Enlightenment, advocated values such as freedom, equality, the rule of law, and civic education (Dengo 2011; Martínez Gutiérrez 2016).

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Education played an important role at the dawn of the American colonies’ independence life, especially of the Central American colonies, as discussions were held with a clear vision in search of the freedom desired by the inhabitants of the region. Independence was proclaimed in the city of Guatemala on September 15, 1821, and the Act of Independence was sent to the different provinces, reaching Cartago (the capital of Costa Rica at that time) on October 13, 1821. As Martínez Gutiérrez (2016) mentions, the different Central American provinces confronted the challenges of emerging sovereign states and began to direct their policies and cultural life with the desire to decide and build their own destinies, detached from imperial authority, which made it necessary to focus education on the interests and needs of the poor and forgotten people of these territories.

2.3

The Period of Independence and Education During the Early Republic

Between 1824 and 1838, Costa Rica was part of the Central American Federal Republic which was dissolved because of the struggles between some member states. In later years, there were several attempts to resume the Federation, but Costa Rica did not accept to continue because it implied paying a loan that the Federation maintained with an English commercial house and that had not been cancelled by the other States. After a period of political instability, in 1848, the new republic of Costa Rica was founded with José María Castro Madriz as the first president. For the first time, education was considered to be a key factor for the cultural and social development of the new nation, and in 1849, the first educational reform was initiated due to the Reglamento Orgánico del Consejo de Instrucción Pública (Organic Regulations of the Council of Public Instruction), which established free school instruction supported by the government and with municipal aid. At this time, the government was likewise transformed from a model of citizen education to one of popular education, which was considered to be the basis for the nation’s progress. The first secondary school, San Luis Gonzaga de Cartago, was founded in 1869, financed by the municipality and with the support of teachers from Spain. Another important aspect was the consolidation of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas (formerly the Casa de Enseñanza de Santo Tomás) in 1853, with some intervention of the Catholic Church through the Holy See. Throughout its existence, this institution faced a series of difficulties, such as lack of teachers and students; constraints derived from the colonial educational scheme within which it was conceived, from limitations on academic freedom and scientific work; and economic difficulties. Finally, the Congress issued the closing decree on August 20, 1888 (Martínez Gutiérrez 2016). As of 1858, education became officially compulsory for all social classes for boys between the ages of 7 and 12, under penalty of severe punishment for parents who failed to comply with the law. But the most relevant fact of the period is the Carta Fundamental (Fundamental Letter) of 1869 which established primary education for both sexes being free, compulsory, and paid for by the state, which

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implies the consolidation of public national education for all children. This means that since then, girls were fully included into primary education. At that time, the Costa Rican economy profited from the coffee business, which accounted for about 90% of Costa Rica’s exports (Molina and Palmer 2014, 77), and propelled the reforms and technical developments (railways and electricity) in the young, modernizing republic. With the founding of the United Fruit Company in 1899, bananas became the second important export commodity. During the last part of the nineteenth century, an important educational reform was implemented in Costa Rica, carried out by Mauro Fernández Acuña (traditionally known as “Don Mauro”) as Secretary of Finance, Commerce, and Public Instruction under the presidency of Bernardo Soto (1885–1889). The reform promoted by Don Mauro is recognized as the most important qualitative leap in Costa Rican education because it paved the way for a democratic, pluralist nation, capable of facing the challenges of modernization of the country. This reform marks an advanced position among the liberals of the time who, for several years, faced the conservatives on the need to implement an educational reform with renewed ideas and that surpassed the Regulation of Public Instruction of 1868, according to which schools were under the supervision of provincial inspectors proposed by municipalities, placing it in a decentralized scheme in the hands of local governments. It was then considered that the State should assume the centralization of public instruction and adopt coherent national policies to promote social progress through education. The reform bill also sought to influence and strengthen secondary education and the integrated reorganization of primary and secondary education. From an enlightened liberal perspective, Don Mauro proposed a reform that touched on the development of education from its foundations (Dengo 2011; Martínez Gutiérrez 2016). The Great Educational Reform promoted by Don Mauro was based on two main laws, the Ley Fundamental de Educación (Fundamental Law of Public Instruction) of 1885, which established the centralization of education in the State under the supervision and inspection of the Ministry of Public Instruction and the restoration of the Council of Public Instruction, and the Ley General de Educación Común (General Law of Common Education) of 1886, which determines aspects related to primary education and the territorial division of the country into school districts. The purpose of the general reform was to strengthen primary and secondary education and to provide the education system with the necessary legal framework for an integrated instruction in the country. One of the main concerns was the development of teachers, for which several measures were considered in order to upgrade the qualification of staff as well as to ensure the adequate initial training of new teachers. The reform also intended to link the different cycles of the education system, a goal that has not yet been achieved as of today. As a result of the laws established to implement the reform, the University of Santo Tomás was closed in 1888 because, according to the analysis, it did not fulfill its purpose. Instead secondary education was strengthened with the foundation of the Liceo de Costa Rica in 1887 (for boys) and the Colegio Superior de Señoritas (for girls) in 1888 (Martínez Gutiérrez 2016).

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The pedagogical orientation at that time is characterized by the humanist ideas of enlightenment and strives for a holistic education of the human being. The aim of education is the democratization of society and active citizenship. The educational reform at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century is thus also an important part of the liberal, enlightened, and democratic state policy. While the number of illiterates in the country was still estimated at 70% in 1892, thanks to free education for all, 100 years later, it is only under 5% (Dengo 2011). The most important achievements for the education system in the nineteenth century were the centralization and modernization of education, the implementation of a democratic and humanist educational philosophy, and the equal integration of girls and women into the public education system. At the turn of the century, Costa Rica, unlike its Central American neighbors, set the political course for the development of the welfare state that still exists today and established the basis for a democracy that actually (2019) is among the top 20 full democracies in the world, a privilege shared by only 4.5% of the world’s population (The Economist Intelligence Unit 2019).

2.4

Education in the Twentieth Century and the Second Republic

The end of the nineteenth century brought a diversity of new conditions for Costa Rica and the world. As Martínez Gutiérrez (2016) mentions, Latin America was worn out by the long-standing wars of independence. The emergence of irreconcilable ideological currents from the second half of the nineteenth century and the appearance of modern science set the course for the events of the new century. In the twentieth century, Costa Rican education inherits two assets: a national education system modernized, structured, and centralized by the state and a democratic philosophy manifest through “educación popular” (popular education) (Dengo 2011, quoted by Martínez Gutiérrez 2016). It was possible to further consolidate and expand the education system as can be seen from the growing number of schools in the early twentieth century. The focus in the development of the education system in the twentieth century remains on progressive democratization, the consolidation of the education of girls and women beyond the teaching profession and their equal access to higher education institutions, as well as the expansion and consolidation of teacher training and didactics in school education. In 1920, a law on the organization of teacher training Ley Orgánica del Personal Docente (the Organic Law of Teaching Personnel) was passed, which also provided for standardized curricula for teacher training. In 1937, teacher training was classified as higher education at the university level. Being highly valued, education in Costa Rica remained closely linked to the political concept of building a modern, democratic state and has been a key factor for the country’s development. Public spending on health and education rose from 24% in 1900 to just under 40% in 1930. Around 1930, the majority of the population in Costa Rica (500,000) was alphabetized and accepted national values and symbols,

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and from 1949, women also participated actively in democratic elections (Molina and Palmer 2014, 87). Undoubtedly, from the 1940s onward, Costa Rican society really began to consolidate as a nation. It was a time of great political and ideological confrontations worldwide, and the gap between the rich and the poor forced people to fight for rights and guarantees in favor of the most impoverished classes. Therefore, Costa Rica’s approach to face confrontation was to seek agreements between different social and political groups that seemed irreconcilable, searching for stability and social justice (Martínez Gutiérrez 2016). In 1943, the Código de Trabajo (Labor Code) was promulgated, establishing the rights and guarantees of workers through a historic agreement between the government (presided by Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia), the church (with Monsignor Victor Manuel Sanabria Martínez), and the Communist Party (led by Manuel Mora Valverde). However, the disputes, contradictions, and inabilities of the governments to resolve the country’s distressing situation were aggravated, in a context marked by World War II, in which Costa Rica took a stand in favor of the allies. A historical milestone happened then, the Revolution of 1948, which was triggered by the annulment, in March 1, of the elections won by the National Union party and its candidate Otilio Ulate. In defense of free voting, under the leadership of José Figueres, Costa Rica faced the first and last civil war that impacted its people until today. The 1948 civil war lasted only 40 days and 40 nights, and nearly 4,000 people died. In spite of its short duration, the war deeply divided the country, but as a result, the Second Republic was founded with the pronouncement of the Political Constitution of 1949, enduring measures such as the abolishment of the army. The country’s political program, which until then had been strictly liberal, was changed on the basis of a new, national social pact. Costa Rica’s Second Republic started in the 1940s with the founding of the autonomous and public University of Costa Rica, a historic event of great significance for the country’s education. In addition, there was a social reform that included not only the Labor Code but also social guarantees and social security that included free health care for the entire population. As stated by Dengo (2011), the Constitution of 1949, which is still in effect today, marked a new organization for the country including the legal basis for education, affirming free and compulsory education for all Costa Ricans, and ensured the university autonomy as well as the obligation of the State to finance public universities and adult education. The National Learning Institute for Technical Education was also established as well as the teachers’ trade union Asociación Nacional de Educadores (ANDE). Public services were nationalized, the national banking system was created, the State was reconfigured, and autonomous institutions were set up to provide basic services of social interest. The abolition of the army in 1948 did not only force the country to establish mechanisms to settle its differences by peaceful means but also released resources for improved education and health care. In contrast to its Central American neighbors and because of its focus on social values such as social equality and peace, Costa Rica has been strongly investing in education, since the second half of the

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twentieth century, and therefore, it is well known for having supported an army of teachers instead of an army of soldiers.

2.5

Education for a New Millennium

In the period from 1950 to 1980, Costa Rica experienced a huge population surge from about 950,000 to about 2 million inhabitants, which is especially noticeable in the region of the Central Valley and around San José. Nevertheless, the social indicators at the end of the 1970s were still much better than in other Latin American countries. Since the 1950s, Costa Rica has been an official member of the UN Educational Organization UNESCO and, thus, has had the opportunity to orient its education and the educational system toward global standards and to further development, emphasizing the modernization of the country’s education system. During this period, for example, the school system was extended to include vocational training at secondary level. In 1957, the Ley Fundamental de Educación (Fundamental Law of Education) was issued, which established the rules for contemporary education (Gobierno de Costa Rica 1957). The Fundamental Law of Education highlights the vocational orientation as well as the modality of special education and clarifies the aims of Costa Rican Education based on the democratic vocation of Costa Rican citizens, within the framework of a remarkably humanist profile. Costa Rica, an example of democracy in the region, received considerable civil support from the United States and debt relief during this time so that it could remain a well-functioning democracy in the region.

2.5.1 Education Diversified at the Turn of the Century While in 1980 only 1% of primary schools were privately run, in 2006, those schools constituted 7.1%, and the percentages rose only up to 7.5% in 2016 (PEN, Programa Estado de la Educación 2017, 137). The number of private universities rose from 1 to 50 during this period (Molina and Palmer 2014, 167). As far as public higher education is concerned, the UCR, founded in 1940, remained the only one in the country until the 1970s when the public university system was further expanded: the ITCR was founded in 1971, and the UNA was created in Heredia in 1973 and the UNED in 1977. After a sharp drop in the coffee and banana market in the 1980s and a necessary reorientation of the labor market in an increasingly technological world, these decisions proved to be important for the country. The most recently founded public university, UTN, was set up in 2008. In terms of content, the regionalization of education and the integration of subjects such as computer science and the use of new technologies are aspects increasingly important in school education during this period, as are the foundations and preparation for the integration of digitization into education. In that respect, the Fundación Omar Dengo, FOD (Omar Dengo Foundation), started in 1986, making Costa Rica a pioneer country in the world, in terms of the incorporation of information and communication technologies in educational processes. Following a State

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policy established by the Superior Council of Education in 2001, the Programa Nacional de Informática Educativa (PRONIE) (Educational Informatics Program), was launched by the Ministry of Education (MEP) in order to develop and strengthen the use of different technologies in education in alliance with FOD. In recognition of the country’s pedagogical innovation regarding the use of information and communication technologies in teaching and learning processes, the UNESCO awarded the King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa Prize to PRONIE-MEP-FOD in 2015. Thereby, the UNESCO approved the sustainability of a country’s effort and the constant increase in coverage of technologies as well as Costa Rica’s vision to understand the use to technologies in education as a way to enhance thinking, selffulfillment, and collaboration. By the end of 2017, a total of 3,219 schools (around 65% of the schools) benefitted from the PRONIE-MEP-FOD alliance, and other efforts were carried out in this respect. The 1990s are of importance for higher education because of the proliferation of private universities that reached a total of 43 in the year 2000 and a total of 54 in 2018, without any guarantee for the quality of the careers. That was one of the main reasons why the Sistema Nacional de Acreditación de la Educación Superior, SINAES (National System of Accreditation of Higher Education), emerged in 2000, protected by law as a way of ensuring the quality of higher education institutions, careers, and programs that voluntarily submit to its rigorous evaluation process and demonstrate compliance with established standards criteria. However, because accreditation is voluntary, until today the quality level of careers and educational institutions (public and private) cannot be guaranteed because very few have undergone the accreditation process. For education, the twenty-first century brings new challenges because of the demands and global complexity. New technologies, the rapid development of knowledge, and cultural changes, among others, demanded a reorientation of education. For this reason, the Ministry of Education established new policies for education and curriculum development for primary and secondary education during the period 2014–2018. In this desire to place Costa Rican education within the framework of international development, it is of special importance to highlight that, as of 2014, Costa Rica began a process of reviewing its situation and education policies before the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and in 2018, this organization decided positively on the integration of the Costa Rican education sector, thus recognizing the country’s effort to strengthen education as the path to better development.

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

3.1

General Principles

There are many laws, regulations, decrees, and conventions that give the legal framework to Costa Rican education, but the general principles can mainly be found in the political constitution of Costa Rica of 1949 and the Fundamental Law

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of Education established in 1957, at the beginning of what is known as the period of the Second Republic. The political constitution clarifies education as an interrelated process of cycles from preschool to higher education. It also establishes that it is compulsory from preschool to the end of high school and constitutes a public system of free education supported by the state. The constitution and its amendments are the legal framework for the educational system and demand the assignment of no less than 8% of the GDP to be dedicated to education. Academic freedom is recognized for public and private schools, but private schools must be accredited by the State and are under its inspection. Academic freedom also applies to higher education and other types of postsecondary education. In the case of universities, they are also autonomous and have their own type of organization and governance. The aims of education according to the Fundamental Law (1957) are mainly to raise citizens who love the country and are conscious of their responsibilities, rights, and fundamental liberties, with profound respect for human dignity. It also aims to contribute to the full development of human personality and to form citizens that may reconcile individual and communal interests. The development of solidarity and human compassion is emphasized as well as the preservation of cultural heritage through historical knowledge of mankind, the greatest literary works, and the fundamental philosophical concepts. The goals of education, previously mentioned, agree with the current educational transformation, based on new curricular and educational policies approved in 2015 and 2017, respectively. Those policies are based on human rights and citizens’ responsibilities, aiming to prepare students for a new citizenry, through the development of competencies and abilities related to sustainable development, innovation, and new technologies as well as seeking global citizenship with local identity.

3.2

Administration and Governance

Educational services are mostly provided by the State, through public institutions from preschool to diverse forms of secondary education. There are around 5,000 primary and secondary schools. The situation is different in higher education, where enrollment figures are practically the same in public and private universities. In 2015, 49% of the students were enrolled in a public university and 50.9% in private ones (PEN 2017, Estado de la Educación).

3.2.1 A Highly Centralized Governance of Education As indicated in the Political Constitution (Art. 81), the general direction of official education is the responsibility of the Consejo Superior de Educación, CSE (Higher Council of Education), presided by the Minister for Public Education. The CSE has direct influence on education development from preschool to secondary education in its various forms. It is made up of seven members: besides the minister of public education, it includes two former ministers of public education as well as representatives of universities, directors of educational centers, and a representative of trade unions. In accordance with the Fundamental Law of Education (Art. 9), the

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CSE is responsible for authorizing curricula and teaching programs for different levels and types of education, and its mission is to guide and direct the different levels, cycles, and forms of schooling of the Costa Rican Educational System. Despite the freedom of education in the country and the consent to provide private education at all levels, private schools are directly supervised by the Ministry of Public Education (MEP). The MEP is the executive body that plans, organizes, supervises, and delivers educational services in the country through three vice ministries: one for academic affairs, another for administration, and the third one for institutional planning and regional coordination. There are 27 Regional Educational Directorates throughout the country, each one under a regional executive director who represents the minister of public education in the region and is in charge of coordinating the work of a set of school supervisors, technical and pedagogical advisers, and administrative staff who ensure the implementation of the national policies. Each regional office establishes an annual improvement plan oriented toward the progress of areas of national priority. However, as stated by OECD (2017), regional capacity for a strong strategic planning and leadership is weak and accountability is oriented directly upward to the MEP authorities rather than to the communities and regions. At the institutional level, each school has its own governing board, which can include school principals and parents’ representatives as well as members of the municipality and the community. Board members are proposed by school supervisors, and the municipality approves them; they manage mainly the national funds that are allocated for the improvement of their school and also deal with funds donated by parents. These boards play a very basic role, mainly in solving problems related to infrastructure and allocation of resources but have little to say regarding teaching and learning, although each school principal must consult the guidelines on school planning with them. Despite the possibilities to enhance communication between school, family, and community members through the school boards, municipalities, and the Ministry’s regional directorates, the impact of education is locally not integrated as it should be in order to enhance and ensure self-improvement in a given region. There is a need to encourage communication and local coordination in order to engage in the improvement of educational issues according to the needs, interest, and culture of a given community. There are some good experiences regarding early childhood education, care of natural resources, and environmental education in some regions, but more should be done in that direction.

3.2.2 Technical Education Governance Technical and vocational education in Costa Rica is developed through programs run mainly by the MEP and the Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje, INA (National Institute of Learning). There are also private academies and community centers that provide short-term vocational training. The development of technical training takes place during the last 3 years of upper secondary education at around 140 technical schools (as of 2018), distributed throughout the country and serving just over 100,000 students. There are three

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types of technical training: (1) commerce and services, (2) industry, and (3) agriculture and farming. The technical schools cooperate directly with the community, enterprises, and organizations related to the specialty area offered. The MEP is responsible for all the study programs, projects, and external cooperations of technical high schools. Funding comes from the general MEP budget, but an additional contribution comes from 4% of the surplus of the INA. Technical high schools can generate additional income from the sale of services or products derived from the technical training being offered. The INA is completely independent from the MEP. It is funded by a tax on employers and was created by Law N. 3506 in 1965 and reformed by its Organic Law N. 6868 in 1983 and other regulations. It is autonomous in carrying out its task of promoting and developing the in-service training and professional development of men and women in all sectors of production, in order to promote economic development and contribute to improving the living and working conditions of the Costa Rican people. The INA carries out training as well as certification and accreditation activities for different sectors of the population, mostly adults who have not completed secondary education. According to the OECD (2017), INA offers around 250 different programs in industry, farming, trade, and services, and after graduation, students are qualified as “skilled worker,” “technician,” or “specialized technician.” The link between the training offered by the MEP and the INA is not mutually recognized because it has been difficult to establish equivalence. However, as of today, this situation has changed due to the approval of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) in 2016 by the Higher Council of Education. The NQF establishes comparable competencies for professional accountability and facilitates the recognition of competencies, certification, and linkage at different educational levels in order for people to achieve comprehensive training and lifelong learning. According to the OECD (2017), the INA provides a valuable link to job-related short-term training, but students cannot reintegrate into formal education. “Only one third of INA students have completed secondary school, and a further 40% have started but not completed secondary school” (142). There is room for improvement since, as stated by Álvarez Galván 2015, “differences in governance, funding, and qualification status between INA and MEP programs will need to be addressed if INA programs are to be harnessed as a re-integrative device or alternative pathway to upper secondary completion” (cited by OECD 2017, 142).

3.2.3 Higher Education Governance Governance in higher education is completely different from the rest of the education system in Costa Rica. A more unrestricted form of management due to its high degree of autonomy is manifest in the institutional governance of higher education, the careers offered, the administration of both financial and human resources, and the development of programs. However, as the OECD (2017) points out, these high levels of autonomy are accompanied by limited accountability mechanisms, although there are councils that regulate them, as it will be seen below. There are also differences between private and public higher education institutions, due to the legal status. While private institutions proceed according to private

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law, which allows what it is not explicitly prohibited, public institutions must proceed according to public law which obliges them to do what is explicitly allowed and regulated. This means that public universities must use more democratic ways to find consensus for decision-making, including the election of their different authorities (rector, deans, and directors) which is done in a participatory manner, as well as seeking for more equitable forms of recruiting students, selecting their staff, or choosing external cooperations when carrying out various projects. Meanwhile, private universities have room to move more like the private educational enterprise they are, despite their self-proclaimed “nonprofit” status. As of 2019, Costa Rica has 54 private institutions of higher education and 5 public ones; the oldest is a public institution, the Universidad de Costa Rica, UCR (University of Costa Rica), founded in 1940 and the only one in the country until 1972 when other public universities were established: Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica, ITCR (Technological Institute of Costa Rica), Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, UNA (National University of Costa Rica), and later on Universidad Estatal a Distancia, UNED (State University at Distance). The last public university, Universidad Técnica Nacional, UTN (Technical National University), was established in 2008 (See the official list of institutions at http://www.conesup.mep. go.cr/lista_universidades). Costa Rica’s public universities are characterized by three pillars in addition to state and church autonomy: research, teaching, and social action. Those three pillars are equally important for the educational mission of the university and highly recognized by the people. Public universities generate the largest amount of research in the country, the UCR being the one that produces 24% of all scientific publications in Central America and 80% in the country (Universidad de Costa Rica 2018a). An important contribution to the community is the University Community Work (TCU) as part of the social action of the UCR. TCU is an interdisciplinary academic process in which students and university teachers are joining dynamically and critically social groups and communities to contribute to their good living, enhancing opportunities and supporting the solution of problems. The TCU is an integral part of any undergraduate study plan at the UCR and a graduation requirement. Accordingly, each student donates 300 h of work in projects that are proposed by the academic units in coordination with the communities. It is estimated that each year, 5,000 students contribute more than one million hours of their time to the improvement of communities through TCUs (Universidad de Costa Rica 2018b). Each project has teachers in charge who guide the community work and seek to meet the proposed objectives through interdisciplinary, participatory, relevant, and planned processes. In comparison, private universities concentrate on teaching. Private universities proliferated in the country in the 1980s in accordance with the new trends of privatization, economic globalization and split in university-state relations. The first private university was the Universidad Autónoma de Centro Américana, UACA (Central American Autonomous University), founded in 1975, and for a period of 10 years, it was the only one until 1985 when the Universidad Internacional de las Américas, UIA (International University of the Americas), was established. Eight years later, there were 18 more, and from 1994 to 1997, another

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26 private institutions opened their doors (Vargas 2001). In early 2000, there were 48 private universities, and today (2018), we have a total of 54. As stated by the OECD (2017), public and private universities have different types of regulation. The public universities are supervised by a self-governing body called the Consejo Nacional de Rectores, CONARE (National Rectors Council) comprised only by the rectors of UCR, TEC, UNA, UTN, and UNED and the executive director of the Planning Office of CONARE. This Council deals with the negotiation of budget plans with MEP, elaborates a 5-year plan in alignment with the National Development Plan, coordinates activities and projects among public universities and other institutions, approves or closes academic programs for public universities, and promotes activities through different commissions. The Contraloría General de la República, CGR (General Controller of the Republic), approves and audits budgets and issues recommendations to public universities to ensure legal and financial compliance with the funds. The Legislative Assembly approves the transfer of public funds to universities. In comparison, the private universities are ruled by the Consejo Nacional de Enseñanza Superior Universitaria Privada, CONESUP (National Council of Private Higher Education), which is an association of private universities (currently 38 of 54 are members). The council comprises the Minister of Education, who presides, representatives from private universities and community colleges, CONARE, professional organizations, and the Ministerio de Planificación Nacional y Política Económica, MIDEPLAN (Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy). CONESUP authorizes the creation of universities, opening of careers and programs, tuition increases, and closure of programs or institutions. In addition, it carries out inspections to ensure that the approved basic conditions are met, but this supervision is rare. Private universities founded the Unión de Rectores de Universidades Privadas de Costa Rica, UNIRE (Union of Private Universities Deans), in 1998 as a collective body similar to CONARE to discuss issues of common interest between the institutions, but only two thirds of the universities have joined this body so far. Costa Rica also established, since 2001, the Sistema Nacional de Acreditación de la Educación Superior, SINAES (National Accreditation System of Higher Education), for the evaluation of careers for both public and private universities, aiming to improve quality in higher education. Accreditation is based on a self-evaluation process combined with an external assessment, taking into consideration 171 criteria established by the SINAES agency. However, accreditation is voluntary, and therefore, according to PEN (2017), the proportion of careers accredited by SINAES in 2016 was ITCR 32%, UNED 15%, UNA 10%, UCR 7%, and private universities 6%.

3.3

Structure of the Educational System (According to ISCED Classification)

The educational system in Costa Rica is organized in levels and cycles. The first level includes education and early childhood care (from 0 to 5 years) through the

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maternal infant cycle (from 0 to 3 years) and preschool with the cycles interactive II (4 years) and transition (5 years). General basic education is the second level and includes primary education with a first cycle from first to third grade for children between 6 and 8 years of age. The second cycle includes grades 4, 5, and 6 for children aged 9 to 11. At the end of the sixth grade, students obtain their primary school completion certificate. From the third cycle onward, lower secondary education begins, comprising the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades for students 12–15 years old. At the end of this stage, students receive a certificate of completion of basic general education, which consists of a general curriculum common to all educational institutions. Upper secondary education begins at tenth grade; it is the last cycle of education and covers ages 15 to 17. It is called diversified education because students have to choose between an academic and a technical track. According to the OECD (2017), in 2015, almost 72% of students were in the academic track and 28% in the technical track. Apart from these, there are a very small number of students enrolled in the artistic program. The academic track lasts 2 years and the technical/vocational track 3 years. At the end of secondary education, students take a comprehensive exam (Bachillerato), and if they are successful, they obtain the upper secondary diploma, the Bachiller en Educación Media (Baccalaureate in Secondary Education), which is required for university entrance as well as an important asset for the labor market. However, in terms of evaluation, in February 2019, the Higher Education Council replaced the Baccalaureate with a new set of evaluation tests called Pruebas para el Fortalecimiento de Aprendizajes para la Renovación de Oportunidades, Pruebas FARO (National Tests for Strengthening Learning and Renewing Opportunities), which substitutes the content measurement model of the Bachillerato (as of 2019) with a skills assessment model. Starting in 2020, the tests will be administered in 5th grade of primary school, 10th grade for academic colleges, and 11th grade for technical and vocational education, i.e., 1 year before the end of primary or secondary school. The FARO tests are aligned with the educational processes of the current programs, approved under the curricular transformation and new educational policy, and provide information on each students learning’ in a classroom. The results of the tests are also intended to provide feedback for the improvement plans developed by the schools and the other levels of the MEP. The FARO tests are taken in science, mathematics, social studies, and Spanish and either English or French as a foreign language. This way of evaluating allows to identify the level of mastery that students achieve in the different skills and competencies that the curricular transformation of the study programs seeks to develop. Education in Costa Rica, as mentioned above, is free and compulsory from the transition stage (5 years) until the end of secondary school (diversified cycle). There is a severe problem of school dropout and repetition, which explains why few students are able to complete all cycles within the established time. Some students who drop out of formal education choose to join the Technical Institute INA in order to attend a short preparation course, learn a trade, or engage in informal work, and there are also adolescents who are neither in employment nor in training or education.

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After secondary education, formal education includes tertiary education where students can enter a college or a university. The certificates offered are undergraduate (diploma or professorship with 60–90 CPs), bachelor (with 120–144 CPs), bachelor (with 30–36 CPs), and postgraduate (Master’s with 60–72 CPs, academic doctorate with 50–70 CPs) and postdoctorates. The figure below explains the organization (Fig. 1).

3.4

Human Resources

Private educational institutions are free to choose their teaching and administrative staff according to their own needs and interests. Both public and private universities have their own mechanisms for selecting their staff and considering the principle of autonomy that governs them. For the public universities, there are specific procedures that are expressed in norms and regulations aimed to ensure transparency, and all institutions, public and private, must respect the legal rights established by the Labor Code of the country and the worker’s rights (social guarantees) that the country recognizes. In the case of offices that are part of the government’s executive branch, such as MEP, the Dirección General de Servicio Civil, DGSC (National Direction of the Civil Service), is in charge of assigning personnel in accordance with the provisions established in the political constitution. For that purpose, the DGSC establishes the measures for the location, selection, and assignment of positions, considering fundamental principles such as equality of opportunity, publication, capacity, and merit, as indicated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which establishes that “Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.” In order to enter the system of public education (with the exception of universities) and to be promoted to the different positions (teachers, deputy principal, principal, supervisors), the candidates must take part in a merit-based competition that is organized by the DGSC. Improvements have been made since 2008 regarding the way competitions are managed, seeking fairness and transparency in order to reduce the risks of politicization and unfair appointments, as the posts for educators used to be assigned mainly as a political favor. The competition now applies not only to tenure appointments but also to temporary positions which are a significant proportion of staff, 25% in primary and 56% in secondary education (Quesada 2014, cited by OECD 2017). It is important to mention that the competition does not consider teaching competencies but is based mainly on general requirements. As stated by the OECD (2017), competing candidates must have completed the university level of a given teaching career in order to apply for a position, but this provision does not guarantee suitable knowledge or skills due to the fact that most initial teachers now graduate from low-quality private institutions of higher education. The careers in private institutions are legally founded if they are properly accredited by CONESUP, but the lack of supervision does not guarantee the quality of the service, and besides, all universities in Costa Rica have full autonomy and define their own entrance,

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26 25 5C

Doctorate 50-70 CPs

Doctorado académico

23

Master’s degree 60-72 CPs

22

Maestría

Licentiate 30-36 CPs

21 5

Higher Education

Postgraduate education | Posgrado

24

(Professionalspecialisation)

Postgraduate education | Grado

20

5A

5B

19

Bachelor’s degree 120-144 CPs

18

Bachillerato

Undergraduate education | Pregrado Teaching profession 98-110 CPs | Profesorado

Education

Diploma 60-90 CPs | Diplomado

17 3

12th

16 11th 11th 11th

Secondary education Academic branch

Technical branch

Artistic branch

15 10th 10th 10th 14 9th 2

13 8th

Lower secondary education

Basic General Education

12 7th 11 6th 10 5th 9

4th

8

3rd

7

2nd

6

1st

1

5 Initial Ediucation

4

Primary education

Pre-primary education

3 0 2 1

Maternal and early childhood education

0 ISCED

Age

Fig. 1 Structure of the educational system in Costa Rica. Information taken from project No. 724-B8-516 “Linking education and labor market. The case of Costa Rica.” Institute of Educational Research (INIE), University of Costa Rica, own display 2018. The ISCED classifications are approximate and do not originate officially from the UNESCO.

curriculum, graduation requirements, and standards. Therefore, an adequate qualification of the teachers is not guaranteed, and there is no concern for national objectives, such as knowledge and skills demanded by the schools new national

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curriculum that has been implemented since 2017. This uncertainty regarding the quality of teaching staff poses the greatest risk for the implementation of an ambitious reform that the country is undergoing in education, and therefore, a new legislation is being discussed at the Costa Rican Legislative Branch, in order to demand new teachers to pass proficiency tests before they are hired by the Ministry of Education. However, by the end of 2019, there has been a promising initiative; in a joint effort, strategic partners involved in initial training of teachers have agreed upon a project to be implemented in 2020 in order to establish a National Qualifications Framework for careers in education. The project aims to define the expected learning outcomes in those careers, in accordance with the new requirements of the educational transformation that is being carried out in the country. Among the partners of the project are the councils of public and private universities (CONARE and CONESUP), the Superior Council of Education (CSE), the Ministry of Education (MEP), the National System of Accreditation of Higher Education (SINAES), the State of Education Program, the College of Teachers (Colypro), and others. It is expected that the first 14 education careers will be redesigned by the end of 2020 under the new requirements of qualification standards (Castro 2020). This initiative is also related to the Central American project coordinated by the Consejo Superior Universitario de Centroamérica, CSUCA (Superior Council of Central American Universities), with the support of several European organizations and regional organizations (The project was supported by the Observatorio de la Relaciones Unión Europea-América Latina [OBREAL], The European Association of University Associationies, the Rectors Conference of Germany [HRK], and by the Universities of Barcelona [UB], Bolonia [UNIBO], Applied Sciences of Brandenburg [TH-Brandenburg], and Cork College of Ireland [UCC]). The project established a Qualification Framework for Superior Education in Central America based on learning results to be obtained by the students in different careers (CSUCA 2018).

4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

This third section seeks to focus on some fundamental areas for Costa Rican education, beginning with the description of the conceptual aspects of the new policies for education and for curriculum development, which serve as the basis for the programs and projects that have been implemented since 2017. It also emphasizes some areas that stand out in the development of Costa Rican education, such as early education, education for sustainable development, equity and multiculturalism, technologies in education, and new trends for technical education.

4.1

An Ambitious Curricular Transformation

From the beginning of the twenty-first century, Costa Rica established a series of measures that began to reform preschool, primary, and secondary education.

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The issue of quality in Costa Rican education was the subject of intense discussions in the country for several years, and key aspects were identified to strengthen educational quality through the policy named “The Quality Education Center as the Axis of Costa Rican Education” and approved by the Consejo Superior de Educación (CSE) in 2008. In addition, the program on “Education in Ethics, Aesthetics and Citizenship” was established in 2008, addressed to the secondary school student population in order to develop among the students the sensitivity, skills, and abilities necessary to know how to live and share in society, as well as the promotion of a citizen coexistence centered on the recognition and respect for the other. Activities and projects were established in education for sustainable development, gender equity, human rights and education for peace, ethical values, and citizenship. During the period from 2008 to 2014, a series of study programs were approved for preschool, primary, and secondary education that sought to integrate knowledge and expressions of art as well as tolerance, respect for diversity, and healthy competition in sports (MEP 2008). In 2014 and 2015, efforts were made by MEP to systematize a profound educational change integrating the necessary elements of previous initiatives and consolidating a curricular proposal in line with the complexity of the current era. Thus, a conceptual frame of reference was established to clarify and sustain changes in study programs and educational projects under the new curricular policy of Educar para una nueva ciudadanía (Educating for a New Citizenry). As the OECD report on the education system of Costa Rica stated in 2017: Costa Rica is implementing an ambitious curricular reform that emphasizes critical thinking instead of rote memorization, as well as giving increased importance to domains such as citizenship and foreign languages. This initiative has great promise as a means of engaging students as more active learners and ensuring they gain skills that are more relevant to society and the labour market. (OECD 2017, 27)

The curricular transformation under the vision of “Educating for a New Citizenry” means a turning point for Costa Rican education since it integrates in the curricula the development of twenty-first-century skills and also incorporates key issues related to education for sustainable development, management of technologies, and global citizenship that starts from the national identity. This transformation is sustained by two new policies approved by the National Council of Education: The Educational Policy for the entire educational system in 2017 and the Curricular Policy in 2016 which specifically sets the conceptual basis for the new curriculum. The Educational Policy. The Person: Center of the Educational Process and Subject of Transformation of Society was coordinated by the Higher Education Council and approved in November 2017. It replaces the previous educational policy “EDU-2005, Towards the 21st Century” of 1994 and complements the one named “The Quality Educational Center as the Axis of Costa Rican Education” of 2008. The new policy establishes guidelines to advance toward the fulfillment of medium- and long-term educational goals, as well as to respond to the international

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commitments freely adopted by Costa Rica. It assumes quality as a principle that targets inclusion and equity, respect for diversity, multiculturalism, pluriculturality, resilience, and solidarity, as well as educational goals that promote human rights, sustainable development, and enhancement of skills, abilities, competencies, attitudes, and values for lifelong learning (Consejo Superior de Educación 2017). The conceptual framework of this policy is built up from powerful thoughts derived from the complexity paradigm (related to the new conceptions in relation to the person and the environment), the socio-constructivist approach that orients the methodologies, and the humanistic focus that is based on the human being, the human rights, and the development of each person’s potential. The new education policy is based on the following transversal axis: • Student-centered education means that all the actions of the educational system are aimed at promoting the integral development of the student. • Education, based on human rights and citizen’s duties, commits and makes effective those same rights and duties through the participation of active citizenship oriented toward the desired changes. • Education for sustainable development, as the way to empower people to take informed decisions, assumes responsibility for their individual actions and their influence on current and future collectivity. It seeks to foster the development of societies with environmental integrity, economic viability, and social justice for present and future generations. • Global citizenship with national identity means strengthening the awareness of the immediate connection and interaction that exists between people and environments and the impact of local actions at the global level, and vice versa. It also seeks to strengthen the Costa Rican’s own identity by reflecting on the historical memory, with the purpose of being aware of who we are, where we come from, and where we want to go. • Digital citizenship with social equity refers to the development of a set of practices aimed at reducing the social and digital gap through the use and advantage of digital technologies. • The transforming evaluation for decision-making implies the continuous revision/evaluation of processes in order to identify the aspects for improvement and recognize and face in a positive way the complexity of the challenges of contemporaneity. The education policy directs the planning and development of all activities, processes, programs, and projects, of the educational system for early childhood, primary, and secondary education in order to gear toward a new educational reality. The policy includes guidelines on: • Curricular transformation and the spaces for participation and convivial coexistence • Professional transformation of teachers: the role of the teacher as a key factor for the successful implementation of new curricular practices and the importance of his/her permanent training

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• Institutional transformation • Transformation for an educational management that redefines its nexus with that of the school (Consejo Superior de Educación 2017) In addition, the Curricular Policy was approved by the Superior Council of Education to establish the basis for preparing students under the vision of a new citizenry (Consejo Superior de Educación 2016). It implements the education policy by considering the axis previously mentioned and seeking to develop skills in four dimensions related to new ways of thinking, of living in the world, of relating to others, and of using tools to integrate the world. Each dimension promotes the development of a set of indicator-based skills. The dimensions and skills are based on the proposed twenty-first-century skills (Fundación Omar Dengo 2012). The following table shows the correspondence between the dimensions and the skills to be developed (Table 1). The curricular model under the vision of educating for a new citizenry contains a series of indicators for each skill to be developed and improved in each cycle (from preschool to diversified and technical education) as a linked, interrelated, and harmonious process. The indicators establish the general student’s exit profile of the educational process for each cycle (from preschool to high school) and are taken as a base to establish specific profile indicators for the design and implementation of each new curricular program and project to be developed under the vision of the new citizenry (see Fig. 2) (Consejo Superior de Educación 2016). Under the new curricular policy, several new programs have been implemented in sciences, Spanish, social studies, psychology, counseling philosophy, chemistry, physics, biology, as well as languages (English, French, Portuguese, Italian, and the ones for indigenous people in Boruca, Ngäbere, and Ngäbere-Buglé). Also, the programs on affectivity and sex education for the third cycle were updated, and the regulations for the evaluation of learning were modified. The new mathematics programs have been implemented since 2012, and a preschool program for ages 4 and 5 was changed in 2014. Both are also in accordance with the new policies. Regarding evaluation, the Superior Council of Education approved and established a new evaluation model (FARO) in 2019, based on assessing the level of abilities and competencies that students may have in fifth grade of primary school and 10th or 11th year of secondary school. Table 1 Targeted dimensions and skills according to the new curriculum under the vision of educating for a new citizenry Dimension New ways of thinking Living in the world Relating to others Tools to integrate into the world

Skills to be developed Critical thinking, systemic thinking, learning to learn, problemsolving, creativity, and innovation Global citizenship, personal and social responsibility, healthy lifestyles, and life and career Collaboration and communication Use of digital technologies and information management

Source: Own design based on the MEP Institutional Memory 2014–2018

Fig. 2 Organization of the curricular development. (Source: Own design adapted from the dimension and abilities indicated in the MEP Institutional Memory 2014–2018)

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Integrating Education of Early Childhood

As recognized by the OECD (2017), the country has recently taken promising steps to strengthen early childhood governance and integrate services for children under 4 years of age. The Red Nacional de Cuido y Desarrollo Infantil, RedCUDI (National Child Care and Child Development Network), was established in 2014 to coordinate public and private support given to early childhood care. This was followed by a public policy for children from 0 to 8 years old and an interinstitutional strategy implemented as a first attempt to seek a comprehensive rights-based approach to attend to early childhood in Costa Rica, integrating areas of health, nutrition, education, special protection, and social assistance. The strategy promotes a new approach that changes the vision from “caring” to that of integral education and care. The educational service was institutionalized in the different centers of the national child care and development network (CEN-CINAI, CECUDIS, CIDAI). Among the network of child care centers, the following can be mentioned: Centros de Educación y Nutrición, CEN (Centers for Education and Nutrition); Centros Infantiles de Nutrición y Atención Integral, CINAI (Centers for Child Nutrition and Full Care; Centro de cuido y desarrollo infantil, CECUDIS (Center for Child Care and Development); Centro infantil de atención integral diurna, CIDAI (Child day care center for Integral attention). As a result of an increase in enrollment of preschool children between 2015 and 2018, 1,022 new teaching positions for preschool education were created, and a broad, unprecedented, and innovative effort was made to institutionalize this educational service in the different centers of the national child care and development network, within the framework of interinstitutional coordination initiatives based on the policies of the government. In relation to formal education, new preschool programs have been established since 2014, updated on the basis of integral development trends and linked to first cycle school programs, which put new demands on active education and better learning environments. Also, a pedagogical guide for early learning, from birth to 4 years of age, was published in 2017 and can be accessed by any person, professional or not, who needs guidance in child care. The guide analyzes the concept of the child as part of the new educational policy and within the framework of the curricular policy oriented toward a new citizenry. It is based on the principles of a comprehensive and inclusive pedagogy for children from birth to 4 years of age and presents the pedagogical organization, which is organized around the development of learning environments for self-knowledge; exploration of the social, cultural, and natural environment; as well as communication and creative expression (Espinoza et al. 2018). The guide can be accessed at https:// www.mep.go.cr/sites/default/files/guia-pedagogica.pdf. Public investment in early childhood is 9.4% of GDP, a very low figure considering that the population under 6 years of age constitutes 10% of the total population and 60% of these children are vulnerable or live in poverty, the majority in families with parents with little schooling. In that respect, there is a need to increase funding

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and distribute it equitably (OECD 2017). Increasing funds will be necessary since preschool is obligatory, as stated by the political constitution (article 12). The CSE established also a new policy by modifying the Regulation on Enrollment and Transition of Students to make preschool education compulsory: the certificate of completion of preschool education is a requirement for admission to first grade and strengthens the relevance of this level of education as an essential part of the formative process of children. By 2017, the final preschool enrollment grew by 0.2% at the end of the year compared to the beginning of the same year, as approved by the CSE recently (MEP Institutional memory 2014–2018). In addition, an amendment to the constitution was made in 2018 with respect to the ages of admission to preschool (Interactive II, 4 years; transition, 5 years) and first grade: 6 years (Article 11).

4.3

Education for Sustainable Development

Costa Rica has a long tradition in environmental education and was pioneer in Latin America in sustainable development. This issue was addressed in the country in 1987 with an international symposium, and later on, an effort was made internally among a group of professionals for the definition of a National Strategy for Sustainable Development in 1990, which integrated various sectors including education. Costa Rica’s progress in education for sustainable development has been relevant in recent years. It is assumed that sustainable development means a paradigm shift in the relationship of human beings with each other and with other forms of life and the environment in general. In this sense, from 2015 onward, the Program for the Integration of Education for Sustainable Development and Institutional Management has been developed, through which awareness and dissemination actions are promoted through three strategic subprograms: 1. The educational approach to the environmental dimension and sustainable development in all study programs and projects generated under the new curricular and educational policies 2. The institutional environmental management that leads to actions of recycling, reutilization, and adequate use of resources in all offices and educational institutions of the MEP 3. External cooperation in the area of environment and sustainable development that enables integrated work with other institutions and agencies inside and outside the country The link and incorporation of the country to the UNESCO’s World Program of Action on Education for Sustainable Development enable the country to develop an exchange of experiences on the subject of sustainability and education, as well as to establish cooperative relations such as the elaboration of a proposal for policies on education for sustainable development supported by the UNESCO.

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Equity and Multiculturalism

The first article of the Constitution establishes that Costa Rica is a republic that is democratic, free, independent, multiethnic, and multicultural. Likewise, the Fundamental Law of Education establishes the obligation of the state to promote through education the appreciation of the exercise of human rights and the linguistic, multiethnic, and multicultural diversity of the country. The rich heritage of the indigenous people is being recognized, and efforts have been strengthened recently to respect and integrate indigenous culture to their educational processes.

4.4.1 Indigenous Heritage and Education Indigenous education is actually considered a specialized type of education, centered on the rights of the indigenous communities and aiming to preserve their identities and languages, based on the respect and understanding of their beliefs, values, and knowledge systems that are part of their social and spiritual life. For that reason, indigenous people take part in the design, elaboration, and implementation of plans that guide their educational process through a specialized indigenous education subsystem. The Costa Rican indigenous education subsystem was created by Executive Decree in 1993 and reformed in 2013 in order to provide it with a structure, procedures, and mechanisms for participation and give effect to the educational rights of indigenous people. As part of the indigenous education subsystem, the 2013 decree established the Consejos Locales de Educación Indígena, CLEI (Local Consultative Councils of Indigenous Education), which act locally to ensure the achievement of education objectives in each indigenous territory in the country. Representatives of every local council form the National Consultative Council and meet with the highest authorities of the Ministry of Public Education in order to promote action plans aimed at achieving the objectives of indigenous education, discuss the annual budget for the fulfillment of the objectives of indigenous education, and consult and monitor international agreements, technical and financial assistance programs, and projects from national entities and international cooperation to be developed in indigenous territories, with a view to ensuring their contribution to the achievement of the objectives of indigenous education (MEP 2017). The First National Indigenous Development Plan covered the period 2014–2018 and included four performance indicators for education: promotion of high school education in indigenous rural high schools, reform of indigenous language programs, expansion of the coverage of language and culture teaching in all territories, and advisory and on-the-job teacher training service. Significant progress has been made in education, under this development plan. A reform of indigenous language programs was established through the coordinated work between MEP and the indigenous education, and the study programs for the teaching of the Boruca language for the first and second cycles of indigenous education (2017) were approved by the Higher Education Council (CSE), as well as the Ngäbere Language Programs (2017) and the Ngäbere-Buglé Culture Program

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(2018). The latter two were presented to the CSE by two teachers from indigenous communities after a process of development with the same community and after being submitted to consultation processes. By the end of 2019, two other programs were being developed: Boruca Culture and Cabécar. In addition, the regulations for the Science and Technology Fair for primary and secondary education were contextualized, considering the cosmovision and cosmogony of the Indian population. To support indigenous education, 182 new positions for teachers of indigenous language and culture were appointed by 2018. Based on an explicit policy for this population, several benefits increased. The food program increased its investment by 711.63%, benefiting 11,324 more students in 2018 compared to 2014. Investment in student transport for indigenous communities also increased 42.8% during the period 2014–2018, which benefitted 402 more students in this period. Scholarships rose by 40% from 2014 to 2017, benefiting 3,680 more students from indigenous communities (MEP 2018, 62).

4.4.2 African Heritage and Education In addition to recognizing the contributions of indigenous legacies, education in Costa Rica incorporates the legacy of populations of African descent. This interest has spread to the rest of the Central American region through the agreement reached at the 38th Ordinary Meeting of the Council of Ministers of Education and Culture of Central America, held in Panama in October 2017. The agreement was made in alliance with the UNESCO in order to raise awareness through education about the wealth of elements of Afrodescendant culture that make up the different identities of the Central American nations. The agreement reaffirmed the UNESCO’s commitment to accompany the member states of the Central American Integration System (SICA) to promote better knowledge and recognition of the culture, history, and heritage of the people of African descent through research, mass media, and education. In the case of education in Costa Rica, the issue of Afro-Costa Rican studies has been strengthened through the promotion of educational centers free of discrimination by applying protocols to prevent, address, and manage situations of discrimination on ethnic grounds. These protocols were developed with the support of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). In addition, seminars and training courses have been held as well as various actions taken to address issues of discrimination, xenophobia, racism, and other forms of intolerance that undermine the country’s cultural diversity. The contribution of the people of African descent to the arts, literature, science, and technology has also been highlighted.

4.5

The Road Toward Improvement of Technical Education

According to the OECD report (2017), the country lacks an institution of vocational secondary education that allows for technical specialization of excellence, with a proper involvement of employer and job-based learning opportunities. By contrast, technical high schools in the country are large academic institutions where students both focus on both technical specialization and are required to take their baccalaureate examination (like academic colleges) along with their specialty examinations.

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It is also necessary to expand opportunities for shorter-term professional postsecondary education programs to strengthen the vocational training of young people. In a joint effort of public and private universities including private sectors, the Government of Costa Rica was able to coordinate an effort to develop a National Qualification Framework, published in 2018, as a way to connect the technical education subsystem and achieve comprehensive training and lifelong learning through recognition of skills, certification, and articulation at different educational levels (Gobierno de Costa Rica 2018). The country now faces the transformation of curricula in technical education, which is a process that is carried out on the basis of education and curriculum policy and the National Qualifications Framework. The aim is to align curricula with new trends in technical education and support assertiveness in entering the world of work through a model based on competencies that promotes the development of skills for solving diverse problems autonomously and responsibly and in accordance with the description of the levels expressed in the National Qualifications Framework already approved by the CSE. A pilot plan on Dual Technical Education in the form of an extended internship was also implemented by an agreement of the CSE between 2017 and 2019. This project proposed a new pedagogical mediation strategy to combine theory and initial training in schools with education and practical training in companies. The pilot plan was developed in collaboration with the INA, UTN, and MEP with the support of the German Ministry of Education and the University of Osnabrück (MEP 2018). However, dual technical education is not yet a reality in the country. Since March 2017, a dialogue process has been carried out, which continued until 2019, for the tripartite and consensual development of the model of education and professional technical training in the dual modality in Costa Rica in which the state, employer, and union sectors participate. The pending issue to be clarified, however, is the students’ working conditions, since the modality of learning by doing implies the development of a working relationship as well as an educational one within the company. However, by the end of 2019, a legislation was approved by the Legislative Chamber that regulates this relationship between student, company, and schools, and there is also a law being discussed to regulate the dual internship. Costa Rica needs to strengthen technical training by improving the effectiveness of technical colleges and their impact on student vocational development, as well as to establish bridges and integrated efforts among the institutions linked to such training in the country like INA, universities, and MEP. According to international standards, it is necessary for Costa Rica to promote and develop short-term professional programs that enhance vocationally oriented alternatives to complement the existing options in technical colleges.

4.6

Innovation and Technologies to Enrich Learning

The incorporation of technologies into learning processes is an effort that the country has been developing for several decades and has strengthened in recent years. As

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indicated in the Memoria Institucional 2014–2018 (of the MEP), from 2015 onward, different models of action were developed to link the use of technological resources with the development of study programs, thus contributing to the generation of twenty-first-century skills. The implementation of mobile technologies through Tecno@prender (a technological program) since 2014 has been a valuable initiative. This program aims to include digital technologies in schools in order to enhance teaching and learning processes and improve access and productive use of technologies for teachers and students. There are specific educational programs for the use of technologies and curricular development, according to different populations (preschool, primary, secondary, rural schools, adults), and also the transformation of school libraries into centers of multiple learning resources where a variety of resources are incorporated (MEP 2018). Through the Movilízate-Project for mobile technologies, an alliance was developed between the MEP’s Dirección de Recursos Tecnológicos en Educación, DRTE (Direction of Technological Resources in Education), the Omar Dengo Foundation (ODF), and the Telefonica Foundation for the equipment of classrooms with work lines and the development of the Movilizate seminars for teachers and guidelines for the use of cell phones in the classroom and educational centers. In addition, with the collaboration of the University of Costa Rica, the first national census of infrastructure and technological projects in the Costa Rican education system was carried out with the purpose of contributing to the improvement of the integration of digital technologies in the Costa Rican education system, based on the analysis of access, use, and appropriation of these technologies by educators, technical teaching staff, administrative teaching staff, and students. This initiative facilitates decision-making, monitoring, and evaluation of the results of digital technology integration programs in public and private education. From 2014 to 2018, 3,420 teachers were trained in the use of mobile technologies to promote learning, through different modalities, where virtual courses are becoming more important than face-to-face courses. In addition, the Department of Electronic Documentation and Information of the MEP is in charge of publishing pedagogical and informative aid, as well as producing and publishing digital documents that serve as support to the educational and administrative work such as the journal Conexiones, bulletins, and didactic material in addition to the digital library of the MEP. There is also a link through the MEP’s Programa Nacional de Informática Educativa, PRONIE (National Educational Informatics Program), with the Omar Dengo Foundation (FOD), which incorporates the use of technologies in educational centers as instruments to expand and strengthen the potential of people and educational processes. At the end of 2017, a total of 3,219 schools were part of PRONIE-MEP-FOD, according to data from the report submitted by the Foundation to the Ministry. With this coverage, the year ends with 652,433 students, which corresponds to 87.6% of the Program’s target population, coming significantly closer to universal coverage. The value of this PRONIE-MEP-FOD partnership was recognized by the UNESCO by awarding Costa Rica the King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa Prize in

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2015, highlighting its contribution to rethinking education for the digital age and adopting information and communication technologies as a pedagogical ally to promote relevant values and attitudes for building sustainable and peaceful societies. According to Memory MEP 2014–2018, one of the most important aspects of improvement has been the Internet and bandwidth connections, as well as the consolidation of information systems. Optical fiber was installed in about 455 educational centers, and subsequently, the country has continued this connectivity process. By 2018, more than 4,468 schools in the country had some type of connectivity. High-speed Internet connectivity has also benefitted schools in vulnerable areas. In total numbers, the bandwidth speed went from 20,188 MB in 2014 for the total number of connections, installed in schools, to 47,459 MB in November 2017, which represents an improvement in connectivity of more than twice (MEP 2018). Efforts continued in 2019 to improve connections through specific letters of agreement with different providers. The ministerial educational networking project has also been strengthened in recent years in order to take advantage of and maximize existing technological resources in all fields related to the educational process. This network created a series of systematic interconnections between the equipment of the same school, as well as between different schools and administrative offices. The main benefits of this project are better communication, greater productivity, remote access to networks, and effective investment.

5

Conclusions

Since its democratic beginnings, Costa Rica has considered education to be the main factor for the development of the country. At the dawn of the Republic in 1849, primary education was declared free and financed by the municipalities, and a few years later, in 1869, in the Fundamental Letter, primary education was established for both sexes, compulsory, free, and paid for by the state. Subsequently, the great educational reform of Don Mauro Fernandez at the end of the nineteenth century outlined the path for the development of a modernized national education system structured and centralized by the state, which assumed its role of developing education under a democratic and humanist philosophy that emphasized popular education. Thus, the educational path for the full development of the country was outlined by an educational model capable of confronting the new and complex concerns that began to emerge in the twentieth century. Subsequently, history shows that education in Costa Rica consolidated important achievements throughout the twentieth century, reaching a literacy rate of nearly 100% by the end of that century as well as important advancements in higher education through universities that stand out in the region because of the contribution to research and knowledge; the accelerated incorporation of technologies in education, early childhood education, and care; the development of programs to address diversity; and the regionalization of education throughout the country, among others. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we find, as at the end

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of the nineteenth century, the need to face the challenges of the world’s complexity. This time, the situation is more difficult and accelerated because Costa Rica faces the challenge of living in an interconnected, globalized world, where knowledge develops at unimagined and diverse speeds. Today, education faces the challenge of educating for a new citizenship, as sustained by the curricular transformation that the country has recently begun to develop. Within the framework of human rights and considering the duties of citizens in general and those for a resource-conserving coexistence with nature, education for the twenty-first century is aimed to ensure equal opportunities, quality education for all, and education for sustainable development, which are seen as requirements and pillars for a peaceful human coexistence in the country. One of the main challenges is to keep the focus on and to enhance democracy in education to ensure the active participation of future generations in society as well as to secure a positive approach to diversity and awareness of no discrimination, especially women’s rights. The goals go hand in hand with an integrated and pedagogically translated Human Rights Education. It can be achieved through awareness-raising learning activities aimed at promoting universal respect and contributing to the prevention of human rights violations and abuses by providing people with knowledge, skills, and understanding and developing their attitudes and behaviors accordingly. This means, inter alia, to provide teachers and students at school and university level with an in-depth knowledge of social values and their practical meanings for safeguarding human dignity and peaceful coexistence. These values are directly related to human rights and human dignity as, for example, recognition and acknowledgment, affection and empathy, equity and justice, freedom and respect, truthfulness, solidarity, and tolerance; they enable people to contribute to the building and promotion of a culture of human rights and peaceful coexistence with others (UN 2011; Müller-Using 2018). The country is currently facing significant challenges, to name a few: • It is necessary to continue strengthening comprehensive early childhood care (from 0 to 6 years old), reinforcing the interinstitutional links, supporting parents so that they can develop better and stronger home environments in order to ensure the transition of children from home to care centers, as well as providing ongoing training for teachers in developing children’s first skills. • With respect to primary and secondary education, there is a need to improve initial training and strengthen the continuous training of teachers and education managers so that they are capable of developing the new educational trends posed by curricular transformation and the new education policy. It is also necessary to open better strategies to increase the quality of schools in terms of infrastructure, equipment, and learning environments, as well as to strengthen the link between schools and communities. • With regard to technical education, it is necessary to develop new pedagogical and technical proposals that allow for better technical training as well as a more fluid transition from short-term technical training to programs that are broader and more complex. This means an integrated development of technical education,

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coordinated interinstitutionally with related organizations and companies. The approval of the National Qualifications Framework makes it possible to visualize the corresponding equivalences between different technical trainings, but there is still a need for more specific qualification frameworks, depending on the area of action for technical and vocational education. • In relation to higher education, there is an urgent need to improve the systems for accrediting and supervising the quality of initial teacher training, especially in private universities. Specifically, in the area of education, it is a proven fact that there are careers that graduate students in very short periods of time and that are integrated into the educational system with very basic knowledge. However, by the end of 2019, there was a promising initiative with the joint effort to establish a National Qualifications Framework for education careers. It is expected that the first 14 careers will be redesigned by the end of 2020, under the new requirements of qualification standards.

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Martínez Gutiérrez, B. (2016). Cronología de la educación costarricense (recurso electrónico). San José: Imprenta Nacional. https://www.imprentanacional.go.cr/editorialdigital/libros/historiay geografia/cronologia_de_la_educacion_costarricense_edincr.pdf. MEP. (2017). Resolución No. 879-MEP-2017 sobre Educación Indígena. San José: Ministerio de Educación Pública. MEP. (2018). Memoria Institucional MEP 2014–2018: Educar para una nueva ciudadanía: Una poderosa transformación del sistema educativo. San José: Gobierno de la República y Ministerio de Educación Pública. Molina, I., & Palmer, S. (2014). The history of Costa Rica (2nd ed.). San José: Editorial Universidad de Costa Rica. Müller-Using, S. (2018). Ethos und Empathie. Interkulturelle Vergleichsstudie zur LehrerInnenbildung an der Universidad de Costa Rica und der Universität Osnabrück. Göttingen: V&R unipress. OECD. (2017). Education in Costa Rica, reviews of National Policies for education. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264277335-en. PEN. (2017). Quinto informe Estado de la Educación. https://www.estadonacion.or.cr/ educacion2017/assets/parte-1-capitulo-5.pdf The Economist Intelligence Unit. (2019). Democracy Index 2018: Me too? Political participation, protest and democracy. https://275rzy1ul4252pt1hv2dqyuf-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-con tent/uploads/2019/01/Democracy_Index_2018.pdf UN. The General Assembly. (2011). United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training. https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N11/467/04/PDF/N1146704. pdf?OpenElement Universidad de Costa Rica. (2018a). La universidad con mayor admisión, investigación y acción social recibe el 53% del FEES. https://www.ucr.ac.cr/noticias/2018/07/28/la-universidad-conmayor-admision-investigacion-y-accion-social-recibe-el-53%2D%2Ddel-fees.html Universidad de Costa Rica. (2018b). Estudiantes de la UCR aportan más de un millón de horas anuales a comunidades de todo el país. https://www.ucr.ac.cr/noticias/2018/10/16/estudiantesde-la-ucr-aportan-mas-de-un-millon-de-horas-anuales-a-comunidades-de-todo-el-pais.html Vargas, A. E. (2001). La cultura evaluativa en la Universidad de Costa Rica. Su construcción desde la evaluación docente – una lectura crítica. Tesis de doctorado. Universidad de Costa Rica: Doctorado Latinoamericano en Educación.

The Education System of Cuba Revolutionary Initiatives for Equality and Emerging Challenges in an Era of Transformation

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts: From the Colonial Period to Post-Independence (1511–1959) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions Following the Cuban Revolution in 1959 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Administration and Governance of Education in Cuba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of the Educational System in Terms of ISCED Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 The Supply of Personnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Notable Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Equality in Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Like many Latin American countries, Cuba has been shaped by a history of colonialism, neo-colonialism, and economic dependence. Notwithstanding, Cuba took a decisive step along the path toward national independence with the Cuban Revolution in 1959, which changed society and the economy and shaped the R. M. Brandhorst (*) Faculty of Sociology, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] A. L. Beltrán Marín Centro de Estudios de Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad de Sancti Spíritus, Sancti Spíritus, Cuba e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_17

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Cuban education system. As education was earmarked to play a key role in Cuban socialism and nation-building, education moved from being a secondary issue in politics to one which took high priority. The government launched education and literacy campaigns, put emphasis on equality in primary and secondary education, and greatly increased its spending on education. The example set by Cuba serves to demonstrate that poorer developing countries are also capable of achieving high-quality education. Despite the economic crisis and the loss of the Soviet Union as a subsidizing partner for education in 1991, Cuba has maintained its universal and free access to primary and secondary education. Furthermore, it is remarkable that Cuba has so far resisted the global trend toward privatization and has managed to maintain an independent education system of relatively high quality. However, the current reforms since the 1990s, together with the partial “opening up” of the country to the market, are changing Cuban society and its labor market and may have an impact on its education system. This chapter outlines the historical and social foundations of the Cuban education system, from a short overview of the colonial era and the pre-revolutionary, postindependence period to the Cuban Revolution and its educational and literacy campaigns. The outline of the historical foundations and of the value of education for the Cuban Revolution provides a deeper understanding of the characteristics of the current education system. It will present the country’s institutional and organizational principles, as well as of the structure of the education system – from elementary to tertiary level. Furthermore, it discusses educational trends and future challenges arising from Cuba’s economic opening up to the world and the introduction of private entrepreneurship and the market economy. Keywords

Cuban education system · Cuban Revolution · Socialist education system · Education for all · Education reforms

1

Introduction

Like many Latin American countries, Cuba has been shaped by a history of colonialism, neo-colonialism, and economic dependence. Notwithstanding, Cuba took a decisive step along the path toward national independence with the Cuban Revolution in 1959, which changed society and the economy and shaped the Cuban education system. As education was earmarked to play a key role in Cuban socialism and nationbuilding through its creation of the “new man” (Guevara 1965), education moved from being a secondary issue in politics to one which took high priority. The government launched education and literacy campaigns, put emphasis on equality in primary and secondary education, and greatly increased its spending on education. Today, Cuba boasts one of the best education systems in Latin America (UIS 2018). In contrast to other developing countries in the region and in the world, it has already reached the millennium development goals for Education for All, as well as many targets of the Education 2030 Framework for Action. Cuba has

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universal school enrolment and attendance, free access to education at all levels, universal adult literacy, and proportional female representation at all levels. This includes higher education and equality of basic educational opportunity across class, as well as across both rural and urban areas (UIS 2018). The example set by Cuba serves to demonstrate that poorer developing countries are also capable of achieving high-quality education. Despite the economic crisis and the loss of the Soviet Union as a subsidizing partner for education in 1991, Cuba has maintained its universal and free access to primary and secondary education. Furthermore, it is remarkable that Cuba has so far resisted the global trend toward privatization – something which is especially dominant in the Latin American context – and has managed to maintain an independent education system of relatively high quality. However, the current social and economic reforms which have been taking place since the 1990s, together with the partial “opening up” of the country to the market, are changing Cuban society and its labor market and may have an impact on its education system. Faced with this more open environment, it is unclear whether Cuba will be able to maintain the consistency of its educational investment and of the centrally planned education system which it has achieved thus far. It remains to be seen whether Cuba can maintain its educational excellence or whether it will follow the path of other transitional post-socialist societies, economies, and education systems. In this chapter, we shall first outline the historical and social foundations of the Cuban education system, from a short overview of the colonial era and the prerevolutionary, post-independence period to the Cuban Revolution and its educational and literacy campaigns. The outline of the historical foundations and of the value of education for the Cuban Revolution provides a deeper understanding of the characteristics of the current education system. The following section provides an overview of the country’s institutional and organizational principles, as well as of the structure of the education system – from elementary to tertiary level. Teacher training and recent educational reforms will also be presented. In the third section, the authors shall discuss educational trends in Cuba, with a focus on equality, ICT and STEM subjects. In addition, the future challenges arising from Cuba’s economic opening up to the world and the introduction of private entrepreneurship and the market economy will be outlined. We will also discuss questions such as “how will the Cuban education system maintain its current standards of access and quality in a more open economic and political system?” and “how will the education system deal with competition in the labor market, other than with its planned economy approach?”

2

Historical and Social Foundations

2.1

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts: From the Colonial Period to Post-Independence (1511–1959)

Prior to the Cuban Revolution, Cuban society and the Cuban education system were influenced by colonialism, neo-colonialism, the predominance of the Catholic Church, political disruption, and rampant social inequality. Historians generally agree that the history of Cuba can be divided into three periods: that of the colony

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(from the arrival of the conquistadors on the island in 1511 until 1902), the neocolony/post-independence period (from the time the Republic was established in 1902 until 1959), and the Cuban revolution (1959 to present day). During Cuba’s colonial rule from 1511 to 1902, the Cuban education system was Catholic Church-based, closely linked to the colonial metropolis, Spain, and only accessible to the elite members of the population. The education system was embedded in a profoundly unequal society shaped by 391 years of colonial rule and 364 years of slavery (Pérez 1992). The first references made to the history of education in Cuba can be found in royal laws dating from the sixteenth century. These enforced the teaching of the Spanish language and the Christian doctrine to the indigenous population and the African slaves – work which was mainly entrusted to the priests. The Spanish colonial influence made itself apparent in that the education system favored the secondary and higher education of the nobility and the clergy, with significantly less priority given to primary education. Systematic education first began in Santiago de Cuba, where the so-called scholatría was founded in 1523. Here, a headmaster was in charge of teaching grammar to the clergy and the servants of the church. Secondary education was introduced in Havana between 1568 and 1574 when the Jesuits began taking care of this task for the ruling classes. Royal commands issued at the beginning of the seventeenth century dictated that the Spanish language be taught as stipulated in Philip IV’s Law V. This tasked archbishops and bishops with ordering priests and doctrineros [missionary priests who taught Catholic doctrine to Native Americans] to teach the indigenous people the Spanish language and Christian doctrine (Pérez de la Riva 1975, 196–198). The Tridentino Seminary was founded, where the clergy taught Latin and “Christian morality.” The first chair in philosophy was founded in the monastery of San Francis in 1647. The Colegio de San Francisco de Sales [Saint Francis de Sales School] was founded in 1688. This was followed by the founding of the Seminario de San Basilio el Magno [Saint Basil the Great Seminary] in Santiago de Cuba in 1722. The Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Jerónimo de La Habana [Royal and Pontifical University of Saint Jerome of Havana] opened its doors in 1728. The Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País [Economic Society of Friends of the Country], founded in 1793, was in charge of organizing teaching until 1842. Important periodical publications from this time had an influence on the education system, for example, the Papel Periódico newspaper, the first official communications medium in Havana, which circulated from 1790 to 1805. By royal decree, the first education law of Cuba was established in the nineteenth century. This stipulated the foundation of primary schools, free instruction for children with a lower socioeconomic status and the secularization of the university. Despite this, the state of education in Cuba was still deplorable following the War of Independence (1868–1898): Educational problems must be included among the social conditions which prevailed at the end of Spanish control. This is because Cuba inherited a high illiteracy rate, with 690,565 people over the age of 10 unable to read or write. The sanitary problems were reflected in the high mortality rate—98.19 per one thousand in 1898—and the lack of employment due to the downturn in economic activities. (López 2007, 8; translated into English)

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In 1919, 38.4% of the population was illiterate. Black Cubans in particular did not have access to education and had high rates of illiteracy (López 2007, 124). After the Spanish-American War (1895–1898), Cuba’s post-independence period – from 1902 to 1959 – was shaped by the political and economic predominance of the United States on the island, political instability due to US-American interventions, and corruption and inequality within the education system. The 1901 Constitution, with its Platt Amendment, marked the beginning of a new period in the history of the country, one which would be characterized by subsequent interventions by the United States. Cuba had five presidents between 1902 and 1925, interrupted by a second intervention by North America. With a population of 5,829,000 inhabitants in 1953, the country maintained the same demographic structure. Immigration became less important while emigration – to the United States in particular – showed an upward trend. In 1953, 23.6% of the population was still illiterate (López 2007, 170). There was a marked tendency toward urban concentration. Havana continued to be the most densely-populated province (187.2 inhabitants/km2) in the country, followed at a considerable distance by Oriente (49.1/km2) a province in the East of Cuba. (Administratively, Cuba is divided into 15 provinces: Pinar del Rio, Artemisa, Havana, Mayabeque, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Villa Clara, Sancti Spíritus, Ciego de Ávila, Camagüey, Las Tunes, Granma, Holguín, Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo, Isla de la Juventud (special municipality).) In the field of education, the period 1940–1959 was characterized by a new Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, which maintained the free nature of primary education at the cost of the state as well as covering tuition fees for pre-university and university education. It recognized private teaching practices, as well as the right to create private universities. Obligatory membership in an official association was introduced for those wishing to practice academic professions. Secondary education institutes and other aspects of a wide educational program were reorganized. Some schools for children with special needs were developed in Havana (1940). Physical education was developed (1941). The teaching of technological subjects was reformed (1945). From 1946, a multitude of higher education institutions were founded: the Universidad Católica de Santo Tomás de Villanueva [St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic University] was founded by Augustinian priests in 1946, the Universidad de Oriente [University of Oriente] in Santiago de Cuba in 1947, and the Universidad Central de Las Villas [Central University of Las Villas] in Santa Clara in 1952. The Universidad Nacional Masónica “José Martí” [“José Martí” National Masonic University] was founded in 1954, and Cuba’s second private university, the Universidad de Occidente “Rafael Morales González” [“Rafael Morales González” Western University], was founded in 1955 in Pinar del Río. In 1957, the Universidad Social Católica “San Juan Bautista” [“Saint John the Baptist” Social Catholic University], the Universidad de Belén [Bethlehem University], and the Universidad de Chandler [Chandler University] were authorized, followed by the Universidad de Maristas [Marist University] in 1958. In spite of the social instability typical of the Republic, marked by one economic and political crisis after the other, some cultural sectors enjoyed remarkable

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prosperity. Important journals and scientific and cultural institutions were founded, and studies were carried out which contributed to the understanding of Cuban society, its culture and its history. In the educational sector, this included the creation of the Asociación de Pedagogos Universitarios [Association of University Pedagogues] in 1912, presided over by Cuban intellectual Alfredo Aguayo and the Sociedad de Estudios Pedagógicos [Society of Pedagogical Studies], founded in 1916. Another influential institution was the Ministry of Education’s Dirección de Cultura [Directorate of Culture]. The work carried out on cultural dissemination by periodical publications should also be highlighted, for example, that of Cuadernos de Cultura, Revista Cubana, and Revista Cubana de Filosofía, as well as magazines specialized in educational subjects, such as Cuba Pedagógica and the magazine Educación, one of the most influential magazines and most representative of Cuban thought in the neocolonial period. Other publications, such as the Revista Bimestre Cubana, also existed, where academics representing university faculties published their works. Despite its advances in higher education, the post-independence period was characterized by a fundamentally unequal distribution of education (López 2007, 170). The corruption of the various regimes in this period, the greed of the elite, the fragility of democracy, the structural discrimination of black Cubans, the neglect of the poor, and the corruption in the education system served as indications of moral decline and helped instigate revolution in 1959. Thus, according to Breidlid (2007, 620), the perceived moral decline of society and of the education system was one of the triggers of the Cuban Revolution.

2.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions Following the Cuban Revolution in 1959

With the Cuban Revolution in 1959, a wide educational program was developed, beginning with the creation of the National System of Education and the Ministry of Education (1959), followed by the Literacy Campaign (1961), the University Reform (1962), the Ministry of Higher Education (1976), the Universalization of Higher Education (2000), and the constant improvement process of the Cuban education system. In 1959, Fidel Castro took power in Cuba with the aim of gaining national independence from the United States and its interventions. He reintroduced the 1940s constitution and launched land, educational, and social reforms (Kapcia 2008). Soon after this, he nationalized most of the economy and became publicly committed to socialism. The Cuban Revolution was one of the most profound revolutions in the history of Latin America, “in many ways more profound than the nineteenth-century wars for independence which (. . .) did not overturn the structures of Latin American society” (Chomsky et al. 2004, 333). It led to a restructuring not only of society as a whole but also of the economic system and the education system.

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From the very beginning, the revolutionary government placed a strong emphasis on equal and universal access to education and health services. (Universal access to education means the ability of all people to have equal access to education, regardless of their social class, gender, ethnicity, or physical or mental abilities.) Even before taking power, Fidel Castro (1961, 42) stressed his commitment to education in his “La Historia Me Absolverá” [History Will Absolve Me] speech, defending himself at a trial for his failed attempt to overthrow Batista. Education was a priority in the nation-building project and in the creation of the “new man” (Guevara 1965). As it did in other socialist countries, Marxist-Leninist ideology inspired the education system to educate a “new man” (Breidlid 2007; Kapcia 2008): Based on Martí’s statement that ‘No social equality is possible without equality of education and culture’, education in Cuba reflects the communist orientation of Fidel Castro’s regime. Moreover, a strong streak of moralism permeates the schools, with Che Guevara’s vision of ‘the new man’ as a focal point. (Breidlid 2007, 626)

The Cuban government launched an education campaign with the aim of abolishing the rampant social inequalities of the colonial and neocolonial periods. In the field of education, the efforts of the new government were helping to steer the country toward a solution to the problems of its neocolonial past through reorganizing, modernizing, and taking immediate measures to eliminate illiteracy, to guarantee the extension of educational services, and to solve the unemployment of thousands of teachers and the poor conditions of schools. The government adopted measures such as the generalization of primary education. This meant that more than 10,000 extra classrooms were opened, increasing school attendance among children aged 6–12 years to 90% (López 2007, 225). This required construction to be carried out on a massive scale for new schools, as well as for adaptations to be made to buildings and large residences. 69 military barracks were converted into schools for 40,000 students. The Instituto de Superación Educacional [Institute for Educational Improvement] (ISE) was created in 1959 to grant titles in different specialties to teachers working at secondary school level. This allowed them to obtain their degree through alternative courses without having to abandon their teaching post. The First National Congress of Rural Teachers was held in Havana in August 1959. This called upon young people to train as teachers. It was in this manner that the Maestros Voluntarios de Vanguardia Frank País [Voluntary Teachers of the Frank País Vanguard] came about at the beginning of 1960, a collective which formed the first core group of rural teachers. This was the same year in which the first Reforma Integral de la Ensen˜ anza [Comprehensive Educational Reform] was proclaimed. This ordered the adoption of a new form of organization and established the primary objective of education in accordance with the interests of the revolution: the complete development of the human being. The Contingente de Maestros Voluntarios [Contingent of Voluntary Teachers] was formed in 1960. This was a group made up of thousands of young people who dedicated themselves to bringing education to the Cuban countryside. This facilitated access to education

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among the rural population of Cuba encouraged the creation of the Brigada de Maestros de Vanguardia “Frank País” [“Frank País” Brigade of Vanguard Teachers], which carried out educational work in the mountains of the Oriente, Las Villas, and Pinar del Río provinces. The year 1961 was declared “The Year of Education” and was aimed at eradicating illiteracy throughout the island. The National Literacy Campaign spread throughout the entire country in 1961, turning into the most important political and cultural event of the initial years of the revolution. It mobilized more than 200,000 “facilitators,” both young and old. The campaign crossed the rural-urban divide in the sense that the countryside was particularly targeted (Breidlid 2007, 621). The literacy campaign was successful and UNESCO declared Cuba a “territory free of illiteracy” in 1964. Another event from this period was the Ley de Nacionalización de la Ensen˜ anza [Education Nationalization Law] (1961). One of the first things this law states is that education is a free and public service. Among other things, the creation of Escuelas Secundarias Básicas en el campo (ESBCs) in 1971 can be considered one of the most significant measures carried out to consolidate the transformations made within the educational system. These “Secondary Schools in the Countryside” are boarding schools which combine agricultural work with study. By participating in agricultural activities, they follow Marxist principles. Students are expected to develop a positive attitude toward agricultural work, as well as solidarity with workers. By establishing schools in the countryside, the government also aimed to reach children in rural areas. As a consequence of the new schools – ranging from primary to secondary level – built by the government in remote areas where there had previously been no schools at all, and as a result of the free education opportunities which had been introduced, Cubans entered schools in record numbers. A scholarship program that started in the 1960s and kept expanding until the economic crisis in 1990s led to an upgrade in education standards – from primary to higher levels of education (CEE 1991, 317). This investment in the Cuban education system, which took place until the end of the 1980s, can be linked to the priority given to education and the high commitment of the government to education and was further reinforced by a great deal of assistance from socialist partner countries, in particular the Soviet Union. In 1961, Cuba became part of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). This included trade agreements, economic assistance from the CMEA, and professional and student exchange programs for Cubans in the Soviet Union and in the former German Democratic Republic (Zeuske 2002, 190). On January 10, 1962, the Consejo Superior de Universidades [High University Council] declared the university reform. In doing so, it set off a cultural movement which, together with the Literacy Campaign, played a key role in the history of Cuba. The issued legislation provided measures in which the national education system entrusted the university with the responsibility of extending higher education to the people, as well as of carrying out scientific research. The revolutionary government built new universities throughout the entire country in order to reach the population and to make free university education accessible for the population

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living outside Havana (Eckstein 1997, 110f.). The Cuban revolution led to a mass exodus of medical professors from the University of Havana, the only university to offer a medicine degree at that time. The university reopened at the end of 1959, allowing 728 pending doctors to graduate (Ruiz Hernández and Santana Pérez 2014). The two years which followed were decisive in terms of extending medical studies to the other two universities in the country. In this manner, the first medical school was founded in the Universidad de Oriente following the Cuban revolution. Prior to 1959, Cuba had six official Escuelas Normales [Teacher Training Schools] – one in each provincial capital – to train teachers. These schools had a limited number of places for students. The three education faculties were in the universities of Havana, Las Villas, and Oriente. According to Conesa and Enebral (2017), the Escuelas Normales carried out an important role when it came to preparing teachers for primary-level education in the post-independence era. These were replaced by the Institutos pedagógicos [teaching institutes] in 1962. A number of universities were inaugurated in 1964, including the Ciudad Universitaria José Antonio Echeverría [José Antonio Echevarría University Complex], which focused on engineering degrees, the Escuela Superior de Educación Física “Comandante Manuel Fajardo” [“Commander Manuel Farjado” College of Physical Education], as well as the pedagogical institutes “Félix Varela” at the Universidad Central Martha Abreu de Las Villas [“Marta Abreu” University of Las Villas], “Frank País” at the Universidad de Oriente, and “Enrique José Varona” at the Universidad de La Habana. The Universidad de Camagüey [University of Camagüey], and the Instituto Superior de Ciencias Agropecuarias de Bayamo [Bayamo Higher Institute of Agricultural Sciences] were founded in 1967. In the 1970s, the Universidad de Oriente (OU) began offering degrees in Civil Engineering and Architecture. At 64, the OU currently offers the greatest number of university degrees in Cuba. It also boasts the largest number of enrolled students in the country: 14,329 students (Prontuario Estadístico 2017). The creation of the Ministry of Higher Education (MES) in 1976, set in motion a process of founding new institutions, including the branch of the UO in Holguín, the Cienfuegos university branch, the Universidad de Matanzas [University of Matanzas], the Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverría [José Antonio Echeverría Higher Polytechnic Institute] (the governing center for technical sciences in the country with the largest number of enrolled students: 8,040 students across 13 degrees (Prontuario Estadístico 2017)), as well as the Instituto Superior de Ciencias Médicas de La Habana [Higher Institute of Medical Sciences of Havana]. Other institutions founded during this time include the Universidad de Granma [University of Granma], the Universidad Agraria de La Habana [Agrarian University of Havana], the Instituto Minero Metalu´rgico de Moa [Higher Mining and Metallurgical Institute of Moa], the Instituto Superior de Arte [Higher Institute for the Arts], the Centro Universitario de Pinar del Río [The University Center of Pinar del Rio], the university branch of Sancti Spíritus, the Instituto Superior Pedagógico Enrique José Varona [Enrique José Varona Higher Teaching Institute], and the Instituto Superior Agrícola de Ciego de Ávila [Higher Agricultural Institute of Ciego de Ávila]. In the 1980s, studies concerning health sciences were expanded.

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Courses for nursing and faculties for medical sciences were opened in every province of the country. The Universidad de La Habana (UH) began offering courses related to nuclear technologies in 1981. Education for all was also realized in the field of special education. Between 1963 and 1970, 50 special schools and “diagnosis and guidance centers” (CDOs) were opened throughout the country. The first school for preparing teachers for special education was founded in 1967. Between 1977 and 1984, study plans were altered and, with them, their methodological orientation. School textbooks were developed and new schools were created. The years 1972–1985 were characterized by a growth in technical and vocational education. In the 1984/1985 academic year, Cuba boasted 291 vocational education training (VET) centers and 230,821 enrolled students (ONE 2017). As part of the improvements carried out on the National System of Education, new institutes were founded which were dedicated to technical and vocational education. The number of students enrolled in these courses grew, and methodological documents for this form of teaching were developed. Support from the Soviet Union allowed for these schools to be fitted out with the equipment and raw materials necessary to develop the vocational skills of the students. The beginning of the 1990s marked a turning point in Cuban society and its economy which, in turn, had a profound impact on the Cuban education system. Cuba found itself in a process of economic and social transformation, triggered by the economic crisis which followed the disintegration of the Soviet Union – Cuba’s most important trade partner and ally – in 1991. Fidel Castro declared a Periodo Especial en Tiempos de Paz [Special Period in Times of Peace] in response to the economic crisis and introduced austerity measures and initial reforms. These were designed to facilitate Cuba’s reintegration into the global market by focusing on the development of the tourism and biotechnology industries, as well as on the levy of economic remittances (Hoffmann 2008, 8). Furthermore, cautious economic reforms were launched, leading to a partial introduction of market economy-inspired elements in the previously centrally planned economy. An initial step toward a market economy was made with the introduction of the mercados agropecuarios [farmers’ markets]. The 1996 reform, which allowed cuentapropismo [private entrepreneurship] in designated areas of the service sector, was another step toward private entrepreneurship alongside the planned economy. These reforms of the 1990s were seen as a “partial transformation” (Burchardt 1996), as they represent a partial transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, all the while maintaining the one-party system. Despite the economic crisis which followed the withdrawal of subsidies (including in the field of education) from the Soviet Union, Castro emphasized his continuing support for the Cuban education system and, in speeches, prided himself on “not closing a single school, day-care center or hospital and for not leaving a single person destitute” (Eckstein 2004, 610). Despite the economic hardships, Cuba did manage to maintain its excellent education system. In the surveys carried out by the UNESCO regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean, Cuba ranked top in the region in 1998 and in 2001 (UNESCO/OREALC 2004, 49). Notwithstanding, the introduction of market

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economy elements into a socialist state, the introduction of tourism and of the dual economy (with the dollar/convertible peso alongside the national Cuban peso), did lead to a gradual reduction in the commitment to the Cuban socialist system (Kapcia 2005). The introduction of tourism and private entrepreneurship resulted in an exodus of teachers from the teaching profession into tourism or private entrepreneurship, where salaries were decisively higher and paid in hard currency. In 1999, the government increased salaries by 30% to entice teachers back (Breidlid 2007, 623). The following transformations took place within the Cuban education system from the second half of the 1980s until the end of the 1990s: • Preference was given to a wider skill set in vocational training which made it easier for the university graduate to adapt to the changes of the labor demand. The structure of degrees was adapted to fit the characteristics of the country’s economic and social development. • Scientific rigor was increased to achieve better quality in teaching and research. Furthermore, a national program was established to develop computer sciences. • The Grupo de Informática Médica [Group of Medical Informatics] (1988) was formed at the Universidad de Oriente. It performs collaborative work with specialists from the Critical Medicine Department from the Hospital Provincial. • A new educational model for the so-called escuelas multigrados [multi-grade schools] came into effect (1990), in accordance with the work of teachers in the rural sector. • Institutos Politécnicos Agropecuarios [Polytechnic Agriculture Institutes] were founded, based on a new concept of sustainable agriculture. • The Centro Universitario de Las Tunas [University Center of Las Tunas] was founded in 1992 and the Centro Universitario de Guantánamo [University Center of Guantánamo] in 1993. • The Centro de Estudios de Equipos e Informática Médica [Center for the Study of Medical Equipment and Informatics] was founded in the UO in 1993. • The Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina [Latin American School of Medicine] (ELAM) was inaugurated in Havana in 1999. • The Junta de Acreditación Nacional de la Repu´blica de Cuba [Republic of Cuba National Accreditation Board] was created in 1999 with the aim of promoting, organizing, executing, and controlling accreditation policy for Higher Education in Cuba. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, substantial changes were introduced to the nursing staff training in Cuba. In response to the lack of nursing staff, plans were introduced in 2001 to train experts in this specialty. In the 2003–2004 academic year, a new educational model was introduced, which enabled nurses to attain their qualification over three stages. In addition, in 2001, a new educational transformation program was created (MINED 2001). This introduced the concept of the professor integral general [general comprehensive teacher] for primary and basic secondary schools. Whereas, prior to the reform, teachers taught the subjects in

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which they had specialized, now, they were expected to cover all subjects (with the exception of information technology, art, and foreign languages). “Subject specialization was replaced by more attention to teaching and teaching methods (including the use of TV, video and computers) and a general knowledge of various subjects” (Breidlid 2007, 624). Furthermore, the class teacher: pupil ratio was reduced (Ministry of Education 2001). The reform implied a change in the teacher training system for primary and secondary schools. Where, previously, teachers had to complete their entire training course at university (4–5 years), the new system only requires that they spend 1 year at university (ibid.). For the rest of their training, students are taught through a system which combines study with work in schools which have been transformed into municipal (micro)universities. After completing their first year at university, students are already expected to teach an ordinary class under the supervision of an experienced teacher. In addition to this, they attend municipal university courses. However, in the upper secondary branch of education (preuniversitario), the teachers maintain their subject specialization. In 2009, the Institutos Superiores Pedagógicos were transformed into Universidades Pedagógicas [Pedagogical Universities] (UCPs) and in 2012 integrated into Higher Education Centers. After this reorganization process, the training of professionals in education took place in the same Centro de Educación Superior [Higher Education Center] (CES) in which other professionals were trained. The process of integrating the Higher Education Institutions began with the 2012–2013 academic year (ONE 2017). The Universidad de Artemisa [University of Artemisa] was founded against this background – as a result of the integration of municipal university centers. As part of the transformations which are taking place in Higher Education, the Short-Cycle Higher Education Level has been introduced in the current academic year, 2018–2019, as an educational subsystem. In this manner, young people aged between 18 and 24 years will attend the Higher Education Centers and, upon completion, will be able to continue their studies in any university degree. The Universidad de Ciencias Informáticas [University of Informatics Sciences] (UCI) was founded in 2002, as part of the so-called Proyecto Futuro [Project Future]. The latter aims to expand the computerization of the country and develop the software industry. This institute is tasked with training professionals in informatics, in producing applications, and in providing computer services. The connection between teaching, research, and production is taken as the basis for a model of education, providing support for the Cuban software industry. It is the only degree course of Computer Engineering in the country and has 2,984 students. At UCI, 60% of students are involved in productive and investigative software projects in the fields of education, health, sports, open source software, websites and portals, multimedia products, and more (Barrios 2017). What is more, they provide technical assistance and training for users and clients through computerization, education, and training projects. This institute is characterized by the high presence of its students and professors at national and international scientific events, as well as at the World Summits on the Information Society in Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005). It boasts international-quality certification for the production process which it uses to create

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software. This recognition amounts to level two, of a total of five levels, as defined by the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), a model for determining and improving the capacity of processes in institutions (Barrios 2017). Education and the transition to the labor market are centrally regulated in Cuba. The technical and vocational education subsystem is responsible for meeting the nation’s needs for a trained labor force. The manner in which graduates across the different levels of education make the transition to the labor market takes different forms. In the case of graduates from the higher education level, this occurs via the following stages: demand for skilled labor; entrance into higher education; training for the labor market; placement in a job; and continuance in the job. In accordance with MES Resolution 141/11, job placement is an institutional process which is the responsibility of a commission in each Higher Education Center. First, places are assigned, corresponding to the priority activities as defined in the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS)’s plan, based on the suitability and the academic achievement. Thus far, the demands for labor required by entities in the non-state sector are not included. A Plan of Distribution is compiled every year. This is a document sent out by the MTSS and which has been approved by the Consejo de Ministros [Council of Ministers]. The priorities are MINFAR, MININT, BIOCUBAFARMA, MINAG, and other institutions linked to food production, the railway program, higher education, and state and governmental organizations. The priorities are the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR), the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), the the Cuban Organisation of the Biotechnological and Pharmaceutical Industries (BIOCUBAFARMA), the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAG) and other institutions linked to food production, the railway program, higher education, and state and governmental organizations. The MTSS is in charge of job placement in national entities in Cuba, as set out in Article 70 of the Código del trabajo de la Repu´blica de Cuba [Republic of Cuba Labor Code] (2014) and its Rules of Procedure (Article 87). This is done for the fulfillment of social service, guaranteeing that the graduates have employment upon graduation, can use their knowledge to contribute to society, and, at the same time, allow them to begin carrying out their specialty. According to Echevarría and Tejuca (2017) in 90% of cases, university graduates work in a field related to their degree; 30% changed or wanted to change their job. In Cuba, MINED organizes the vocational orientation process in close collaboration with the MES. MES Resolution 67/12 defines the general guidelines for carrying out vocational orientation. To summarize, the Cuban revolutionary government’s massive investment in education, with free education for all from primary to tertiary level irrespective of gender, class, or race background, a ban on private schools, and a foundation based on the concept of combining work and study and of reaching the rural population – despite economic hardship – is an outstanding example for the Latin American context. As a result of its emphasis on education, the revolutionary government created one of the best-performing education systems in the region, which, particularly in the early years of the revolution (1960s and 1970s), set an example for other Latin American countries. In surveys comparing test scores achieved in mathematics and foreign languages, Cuban students scored significantly higher than students

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in other Latin American countries (UNESCO/OREALC 1998, 2004). In contrast to most developing countries, the millennium development goals for education (education for all, eradication of illiteracy) have already been reached in Cuba. The literacy rate is 100% (UIS 2018). The gross enrollment rate in primary education is 101.88% and 104.3% in secondary education (UIS 2018). Cuba has a wellorganized system in terms of training, teaching, and administration. Furthermore, Cuba has resisted the global trend toward privatization, managing to maintain an independent, relatively high-quality education system which is based on high levels of equality. This has been achieved due to the country’s centrally planned approach to education and especially due to the “comprehensive commitment to education for all, keeping the education budget at a high level despite the critical situation of the state economy. All the expenditure for education, either current or capital (. . .) are paid for with state funds” (Breidlid 2007, 629). For instance, in 2010, Cuba spent 12.84% of its GDP on education (UIS 2018).

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

3.1

General Principles

The National System of Education in Cuba is the responsibility of the Cuban State, which guarantees its structure and operation along with the participation of the people, political organizations, and mass organizations. Education is entirely public, centrally planned, and free, from preschool to university. All education-related expenditure is paid for with state funds. Educational costs – both ongoing and in terms of investments – are borne by state funds which have been approved in the Presupuesto Estatal por la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular [State Budget for the National Assembly of People’s Power]. With almost 13% (12.9%) of its GDP invested in its education system, the World Bank places Cuba in first place when it comes to investment in this sector for the 2009–2013 period. This is remarkable in a global environment characterized by privatization, a downscaling of the role of the state and general cost reductions. In Cuba, free boarding schools are provided for children from poorer households in order to ensure access to education for all. Education is compulsory from primary to basic secondary school (1st to 9th grade). Access to primary and basic secondary education is universalized. The gross enrollment rate in primary education is 101.88% and 104.3% in secondary education (UIS 2018). According to the World Bank (2014), Cuba boasts one of the best education systems in Latin America and the Caribbean. At 99.8%, UNESCO claims that the country demonstrates the lowest illiteracy rate on the Latin American continent. UNESCO also emphasizes that Cuba has the highest school attendance rate in Latin America at 99.7%. A characteristic unique to the Cuban education system is the consistent policy environment and political support surrounding education for all which has prevailed throughout the six decades of the Cuban Revolution (Gasperini 2000, 10). This consistent policy environment, which has allowed for continuity with regards to

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educational policy and strategy since 1959 – something quite unusual for most countries in the region – has contributed to the achievement of those goals set by the government: In many Latin American countries, frequent political changes may impede the development and consolidation of educational strategies and achievements. The Cuban experience suggests that measures are needed to protect the education system from the disruptive effects of continuous changes in strategies and plans. Education is a long-term investment requiring consistent polices and political stability to grow. This stability, however, was achieved at the cost of one-party rule. (Gasperini 2000, 12)

Another characteristic of the Cuban education system is the significant level of community participation in school management, through both political and mass organizations. Examples of participatory mechanisms include students’ assemblies, parent councils, and school councils. Lifelong training is another important aspect of the Cuban education system. This also refers to teacher training, which is considered an ongoing process and includes training on the job and formal training. According to the National System of Education in Cuba the Improvement and Development Plan (from 1976), the Methodological and Organizational Principles of education are a system-based approach; educational planning; economic rationalization of the system; a connection between education and economic development; a unique organization of the school as expressed in the different types and levels offered by the system; the combination of study and work; mobility or change of jobs; vocational training and career counseling; progressive teaching loads; the best return on investment without extending the system further than necessary; the unity between school-based education and extra-curricular education; lifelong learning; identification of the social function of the school within each subsystem; identification of the contents of the education system, with a focus on the minimum level required by the entire population (compulsory nature of education) in accordance with the demands of their economic and social development; new structures and teaching content; being mindful of the contradiction between stability and changes in the system; determination of the degree to which falling behind at school is permissible, with the corresponding age limits for each type and level of system; and extension of the system in accordance with the contents required for entrance into higher education.

3.2

Administration and Governance of Education in Cuba

Education in Cuba is entirely public and centrally planned. The administrative system is determined in the Constitution of the Republic with regard to the principles of organization and operation of the national and local bodies of Poder Popular [People’s Power], as well as by other laws of the Cuban state. The Provincial and Municipal Directorates of Education are subject to the principle of dual subordination. This means that they are subject to the local body of People’s Power in

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operative and administrative matters and to the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education in normative and methodological matters. Continuous evaluation is considered part of the ongoing professional development of teachers, which aims to improve teaching practices through evaluation and lifelong learning. The Junta de Acreditación Nacional de la Repu´blica de Cuba is a specialist unit belonging to the MES. Its aim is to organize, execute, and control the accreditation policy for higher education in Cuba; to coordinate the different processes of institutional evaluation; and to evaluate and accredit all educational programs implemented by Higher Education Institutes. It presents the MES with the different systems of Evaluation and Accreditation, Quality Standards, and Evaluation Guides (Dopico Mateo 2010). For its part, MINED has designed a Cuban System for Evaluating the Quality of Education (Torres Fernández et al. 2009). The Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información [National Office for Statistics and Information] (ONE) presents the key indicators of education: day-care centers, schools, the total number of teaching staff physically present in classrooms, enrolled students, graduates and centers of higher education, as well as key indicators of the different levels of education. The structure of the Cuban education system is called the National System of Education and links the different levels of education and types of teaching. The elementary level comprises preschool and primary education. The secondary level includes basic secondary education, pre-university education, and technical and vocational education. The tertiary level consists of Higher Education Centers and universities (ONE 2017). The academic year is designed for all educational institutions within the country. It begins from the first Monday of September, with teaching activities taking a break in the last week of December until January 3. There is another week of recess in the month of April. Teachers and professors have the right to 1 month of paid annual leave. The school curriculum includes extra-curricular education, such as artistic/ cultural activities, sports, recreational activities, civic activities, vocational training and career-oriented activities, as well as tests of knowledge, skills expertise, and the classroom monitor movement. Adult education is a subsystem which provides for educación obrero campesina [primary education for rural farmers] (EOC) courses up until the sixth grade, secundaria obrero campesina [basic secondary-level education for rural farmers] (SOC) courses up until the ninth grade, and facultad obrero campesina [rural farmers’ college] (FOC) courses up until the twelfth grade as well as languagelearning centers. The main function of adult education is to ensure the lifelong learning of workers, rural farmers, housewives, and adults who do not meet minimum educational requirements. What’s more, other courses are being developed for workers. These offer general technical and cultural courses, such as night and evening classes, in technical and vocational education at schools and polytechnic institutes, as well as training courses organized by other bodies and businesses, hybrid learning courses and distance learning courses at Higher Education Institutes, as well as the certification and constant improvement of their current teaching staff, and postgraduate courses for the country’s professionals.

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Structure of the Educational System in Terms of ISCED Classification

In this section, we will describe the structure of the Cuban education system according to UNESCO’s International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED). The ISCED is a classification standard aimed at organizing information on national education systems, thus ensuring the international compatibility of educational statistics and indicators. Early Childhood Education 0 (01 and 02) Cuba’s elementary system of preschool, from 6 months to 5 years, is not compulsory. It consists of day care centers (about 1156 in 1994) for children between 6 months and 4/5 years of age and preparatory grades for 5- to 6-year-olds (UIS 2018). At the age of 5, children can stay at day-care and complete preschool education or move on to a primary school. The Social Program for Educational Access “Educa a tu hijo” [Educate your child] has been implemented across the country since 1992. Its aim is to promote educational initiatives for children under the age of 5 who are not integrated in other educational institutions. This is an opportunity for children who do not attend day-care centers to gain access to institutions, to familiarize themselves with the school system, and to socialize with other children. Primary Education (1) Primary education is compulsory and universalized in Cuba. The gross enrollment rate in elementary education is 101.88% (UIS 2018). It is aimed at children aged between 5/6 and 11 years of age. Primary school consists of six grades and is divided into a first cycle (from 1st to 4th grade) and a second cycle (from 5th to 6th grade). Students learn how to write, read, and calculate. The first cycle includes the subjects: Spanish and Mathematics. Furthermore, the children are introduced to basic concepts related to nature and society and attend physical education, agricultural work, and art classes, which contribute toward their multilateral education. The second cycle continues with skills development and children begin learning History of Cuba, Geography of Cuba, Natural Sciences, and Civic Education. Given the different categories of students, the diversity of forms into which this stage is organized stipulates a distinct methodological approach. The primary school curriculum includes 480 h of “labor education” over 6 years (Gasperini 2000, 22). The idea is to combine study and work, e.g., in gardens belonging to the school. Lower Secondary Education or Intermediate Education (2) Basic secondary education, which comprises grades 7–9 and is thus aimed at 12- to 15-year-olds, completes basic education and, with it, the part of education which is compulsory (Gasperini 2000, 31). Lower secondary education is taught in Secundarias Básicas Urbanas [Urban Secondary Schools] (ESBUs) and Escuelas Secundarias Basicas en el Campo [Secondary Schools in the Countryside] (ESBECs). The latter are boarding schools in the countryside which combine

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practical agricultural work with study. The teaching of different subjects is standardized, which guarantees that students receive the basic standard level knowledge that they will need to continue with general secondary education (pre-university), to carry out technical/vocational studies, or to learn a trade. Upper Secondary Education (3) Pre-university education in Cuba is aimed at 15- to 18-year-olds (from the 10th to 12th grades). This is where adolescents hone their knowledge and enhance their abilities and general skills in order to be able to continue their education in the form of university studies, to enter into technical and vocational education centers, or to enter the workforce. Pre-university education takes place in Institutos Preuniversitarios [Urban Pre-University Institutes] (IPUs) and “Pre-university Institutes in the Countryside” (IPUECs), which combine agricultural work with study. As the teachers at these institutes have also completed the 5-year university course, they are highly qualified in their different disciplines. There are different preuniversity institutes in each province of the country, all with different specializations. For instance, there are the Institutos Preuniversitarios Vocacionales de Ciencias Exactas [Vocational Pre-university Institutes in Exact Sciences] (IPVCEs) for highperforming students. These are attended by those young people who wish to study science and technology in more depth, and a selection process determines entry. The IPVCEs are centers specialized in science and technology. They depart from the application of the principle of polytechnical education and of combining studies with work. An example of such a school is the Centro Vocacional Lenin en Ciencias Exactas [Lenin Vocational Center in Exact Sciences] in Havana. The Escuelas de Iniciación Deportiva Escolar [Academic Sports Initiation Schools] (EIDEs) and the Escuelas de Superación y Perfeccionamiento Atlético [Schools for Athletic Development and Achievement] (ESPAs) specialize in sports. The Escuelas de Instructores de Arte [Schools for Art Instructors] accept young people with skills in music, visual arts, theatre, and dance (ONE 2017, 6). In these institutions, the general studies plan is complemented by a practical cycle of sport or art. Other types of institution include the “Vocational Pre-university Institutes in Pedagogics/Education.” Post-Secondary Non-tertiary Education (4) The Technical and Vocational Education system is responsible for meeting the nation’s needs for a trained and skilled labor force. It is aimed toward those young people who prefer to enter the labor market more quickly and who need to acquire skills and practical knowledge in order to find employment. Technical and Vocational Education begins after 9 years of basic secondary education and anticipates 2 years of training for qualified workers, or 4 years for technicians. They acquire a high school-level certificate or a skilled worker certificate. Upon entry, they may enroll in a university course in the Curso Encuentro [hybrid learning] category. The Technical and Vocational Education subsystem is tasked with educating workers who are suited to a labor market which is in constant change, where specific

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skills may need to be retrained or updated from time to time. To comply with this objective, it coordinates, supervises, and evaluates activities related to specialized secondary education in the industrial, agricultural, economic, and service industries. 194,665 students throughout the country are involved in Ensen˜ anza Técnico Profesional [Technical and Vocational Education] (ETP), the majority of which stem from secondary education (ONE 2017). Here, students prepare to become general technicians and skilled workers in different specialties. The structure of ETP specialties is made up of branches which include 17 specialties at skilled worker level and 55 at general technician level. Fundamentally, this is dedicated to allowing students to acquire skills, practical knowledge, and the understanding necessary for them to be able to be employed in a particular occupation or trade. Through courses carried out at polytechnical centers, ETP prepares the skilled labor force which is needed by the country in the form of intermediate education-level or skilled workers. These workers leave their courses with a wide range of specializations after 2 or 4 years, depending on whether they began in the ninth or twelfth grade. In addition to joining the labor market, general technicians can enter into higher education and study degrees related to their specialty. When it comes to trade, qualification is defined regionally, in accordance with the demands of the planned economy. This structure responds to the demands for qualified, secondary education-level work in the fields of geology, mining and metallurgy, power, machine construction, the sugar industry, chemistry and food processing, transport, construction, economics and services, agriculture, and trades. In response to the demands of economic and social development within the country, priority is currently given to those with specializations in informatics, accounting, nursing and health technicians, and those with specialties related to the development of tourism. Accordingly, the number of places for such courses has been increased considerably. Higher Education/University Education (6, 7, 8) Tertiary or university education in Cuba is free, something which is remarkable in the context of the global trend toward privatization in the education sector and high tuition fees for students – not only in Latin American countries but also in many OECD countries. Higher education is realized by those adults and young people, who, upon having obtained a twelfth grade leaving certificate, enroll in a university degree within the country’s network of universities with the aim of receiving a university degree. The 50 CESs are distributed as follows: 22 institutions (universities, institutes, high schools, schools) belong to the MES. The Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) is in charge of 15 Universities of Medical Sciences and the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina. Other organizations are in charge of ten institutes (universities, institutes of higher education, schools, academies, colleges). The Ministry of Culture is responsible for the Universidad de las Artes [University of Arts]. For its part, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is in charge of the Instituto Superior de Relaciones Internacionales [Higher Institute of International Relations] (Prontuario Estadístico 2017).

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The first stage of tertiary education, graduate education (6), usually lasts for 4 or 5 years, with a course in medicine lasting 6 years. At the end of their graduate studies, students are awarded a Licenciatura. There are three different types of graduate studies: the Full-time Course, Hybrid Learning, and Distance Learning. The objective of graduate studies is to prepare the highly skilled labor force, a process which is reinforced by a structure of degrees which cover a broad spectrum. This provides the recent graduate with better alternatives when it comes to job placement and implies a process of professional training once the applicant is located in their specific job. The second stage of tertiary education, postgraduate studies, is the Maestría (Master) (7). These 2-year courses consist of theoretical courses, an internship, and a research project and thesis, which lead to the Maestría. The third stage of tertiary education is the doctorate (8). The doctorate is awarded after 4–5 years of research and after completing a doctoral thesis that has to be defended in front of a jury. Special Education Another subsystem within the National System of Education framework is special education, responsible for educating children and young people who have special educational needs. Special education in Cuba operates across the preschool system, in primary and basic secondary education and in so-called Diagnosis and Guidance centers. These education centers are classified according to the type of impairment they are addressing: behavioral disorders, blindness and low vision, deafness and speech impediments, language disorders, psychological disorders, impairment of mental development, and mental disability or “deviant behavior” (Gasperini 2000, 31f.). In addition to these centers, students with special needs also attend regular schools. Depending on the type of impairment, they may receive additional support by the regular schoolteacher or an assistant. A group of maestros ambulantes [itinerant teachers] is mobilized to reach children in hospital who cannot be transported. The study plans, programs, and books used in general polytechnical and jobspecific education are applied within this subsystem. In the case of schools attended by students with special educational needs, these programs are adapted and modified in accordance with the student’s needs. For example, in primary schools, children with language disorders are cared for by speech therapy experts. Alternatives to schooling which are adjusted to the characteristics of the disability and the place of residence are also applied. This has resulted in maestros ambulantes visiting children with severe motor impediments in their own homes, classrooms being used for teaching deaf and blind adults, and classrooms being established in hospitals. Educational provision for deaf-blind children and children with infantile autism is currently in the experimental phase. Adult Education The Adult Education Subsystem is aimed at those persons who did not achieve the minimum required level of education and who need to do so. It can be subdivided into the following levels: Educación Obrera y Campesina (EOC), primary-level education up until the 6th grade; Secondaria Obrera Campesina (SOC), basic

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secondary-level education up until the 9th grade; and Facultad Obrero Campesina (FOC) up until the 12th grade. Currently, the escuelas de oficios [trade schools] also form part of the National System of Education. These are dedicated to training qualified tradespeople between the ninth and twelfth grades.

3.4

The Supply of Personnel

According to ONE’s Statistical Yearbook (2019), at the end of the 2018–2019 academic year, the number of teaching staff in classrooms amounted to 268,946 teachers and professors, distributed throughout the different subsystems of the National System of Education. This total is broken down into the most representational levels below: • Day-care center educators: 20,843 Among those preschool educators: 1,767 • Primary school teachers: 101,503 Among those urban primary school teachers: 66,648 Among those rural primary school teachers: 34,855 • Basic secondary teachers: 35,956 Among those urban basic secondary teachers: 32,065 Among those rural basic secondary teachers: 3,891 • Pre-university teachers: 14,926 Among those urban pre-university teachers: 11,384 Among those rural pre-university teachers: 2,364 Among those MINT-schools: 1,178 • Special education teachers: 13,877 • Technical and vocational education teachers: 23,920 • Adult education teachers: 4,166 • Higher education, university professors: 53,755

4

Educational Trends and Notable Aspects

4.1

Equality in Education

When discussing equality in education in Cuba, it is important to mention the Cuban government’s emphasis on eradicating social inequalities and on ensuring equality and equity within the education system. The equality of the education system is reinforced by the fact that education is free, from preschool to university. Furthermore, primary and basic secondary education are compulsory. María Isabel Domínguez (2016) distinguishes five phases in the Cuban higher education system.

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1. 1960–1974, education was universalized; (made accessible to everyone – irrespective of socioeconomic background, class, color of skin, physical or mental impairment) 2. 1975–1990, meritocratization 3. 1991–2000, preservation 4. 2001–2010: second time education was universalized 5. 2011–2018: update of the model According to Domínguez (2016), these policies were implemented to guarantee the principles of the Cuban education system: universalization, access, quality, and integrity. The first phase (1960–1974) was characterized by the education of firstgeneration professionals who came from working classes and/or rural areas. It also increased the female presence in higher education. The second phase (1975–1990) was the proliferation of university institutions from 4 to 35, distributed across the country. The number of enrolled students grew, as did the number of teachers. The demand for higher education led to the establishment of entrance exams and, with them, the first obstacle to mass access to higher education. Cursos para trabajadores [courses for workers] (CPTs) and distance learning were established as alternatives to regular courses. In the 1990s, the difficult economic situation led to a reduction in the number of enrolled students, scholarship holders, lecturers, and graduates. These years had an impact in that young people stopped seeing starting university as a priority. They did not continue with their studies and left to pursue work. New Social Programs came into existence in the fourth phase (2001–2010). These made access to universities easier for those who had reached pre-university level. University branches were opened in each municipality. The mass admission of young people with diverse social backgrounds led to a change in the profile of the student body. Teaching quality diminished, and no guarantees could be made as to the availability of employment in the fields of knowledge in which the students graduated. The current phase (2011–2018) has been characterized by a process of reordering. The Higher Education Centers (CESs) are integrated, the Centros universitarios municipales [Municipal University Centers] (CUMs) are being reduced, an entrance exam is being established as a requirement to study at a CUM, the curso por encuentro [hybrid learning course] (CE) is made available as a form of study in order to compensate for the reduction of enrolled students, and the short-cycle form of higher education is being created. The fact that education is free from preschool to university and that primary and basic secondary education is compulsory means that pupils in the Cuban education system are less disadvantaged through “present forms of racism, present forms of structural inequalities” (Gundara 2000, 53). Breidlid (2007, 628) argues that “undoubtedly, the Cuban system has done away with many forms of institutional inequality compared with most countries in both the first and the third worlds.” Target 4.6 of the Education 2030 Framework for Action (2015, 79) – to ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults achieve literacy and numeracy – has already been reached in Cuba. Furthermore, Target 4.1, “By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education

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leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes” (ibid., 20), has also already been achieved in Cuba. Access to primary and secondary education has also been achieved in the area of special education. Notwithstanding, the full inclusion of children with special needs is yet to be achieved. Cuba continues to maintain separate facilities for many of its special needs students. The Latin American Special Education Reference Center (CELAEE) sees separate education institutions as the best way to attend to diversity (Gasperini 2000, 20). These policies contrast with a growing consensus among special educators worldwide. For example, UNESCO (2018) and the Education 2030 Framework for Action (2015, 78, 80) encourage the development and implementation of inclusive policies. Full inclusion for children with special needs without the need for separate schools is yet to be realized in a great number of OECD countries and remains a challenge for many education systems. Cuba has attained high levels of equality at basic education (primary and basic secondary) level and a high quality of education throughout the entire population. At the elite and higher education level, however, there is a prevalence of the elite. According to a study carried out by Gasperini (2000, 25), the composition of students of the prestigious pre-university institute Centro Vocacional Lenin en Ciencias Exactas in Havana was, for instance, not representative of the Cuban population in terms of gender, and especially in terms of race: The school director, when asked why there were so few Afro-Cuban students in the Center, answered that cultural, social and economic transformation takes a long time, that the school still reflects families’ cultural and social backgrounds. As overserved in other socialist countries, the Center provides high quality education for children of the elite, despite quotas designed to mitigate inequalities in student recruitment. (Gasperini 2000, 26)

Thus, despite the efforts of the revolution to equalize opportunity and abolish structural forms of inequality, elite schools still primarily enroll the children of the elite. This suggests that despite all efforts, the Cuban education system is more equitable at the bottom than at the top (ibid.). Notwithstanding, from elementary to tertiary education, Cuba has significantly lower levels of inequality than the majority of other Latin American education systems. This is something which has been able to be achieved through free access to education at all levels in particular.

4.2

ICT and Digitization

The Dirección de Tecnología Educativa [Directorate of Educational Technology] within the Ministry of Education (MINED) was created in 2003 to develop telematics services and create methodological resources for the teaching and learning process. It is made up of two departments: the Informatización para la Gestión Educativa [Computerization for Educational Management] department and the Recursos Informáticos y Audiovisuales para el Aprendizaje [Computing and Audiovisual Learning Resources] department. It is aimed at structuring Informatics

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teaching in schools, guaranteeing methodological work with technological resources (educational software, multimedia products, web pages, educational TV) as well as guiding the process to connect the schools with the development of information and communication technology within MINED (CUBAEDUCA; RIMED 2018). 50 smart classrooms were installed across the country in 2018. Based on the Nova and NovaDroid operating systems – both national products – these smart classrooms are at the heart of the computerization process currently being experienced by Cuban society. In turn, these represent a step forward toward elevating the presence of new information communication technologies in the country’s schools (Sifonte Díaz 2018). What’s more, the company Cinesoft was established in 2015 to integrate the production of audiovisual elements, software, and the creation of web content – all with an educational nature. Its designs have been integrated into an audiovisual computing platform named Cubaeduca. In recent years, the Cuban government has been increasing its spending on ICT and digitization. Minister for Higher Education José Ramón Saborido suggested that this level of IT-based education is a priority for the country and that it is set to receive 5% of the total GDP. He expressed that one example of this was the computerization programs which are being carried out in various institutions. Walter Baluja, MES Director of Computerization, refers to the fact that computerization in Cuban universities is progressing and has been supporting the transformations made within the Cuban Higher Education system. “Today, all of our centers are already connected by fiber optic. (. . .) In the majority of cases, the connections between the main headquarters of these centers and their seats in other towns across the country have also improved” (Cubadebate 2017). For 2018, they are aiming to be able to interconnect the national university network with other scientific and academic networks within the country in order to be able to exchange specialized services. Baluja believes that this will offer the university community a greater number of services and a wider range of content, such as repositories of learning resources, social networks and the portal services provided by RedUniv’s National Node. The following external services stand out in particular: portals of journals; the institutional repositories; the portals for distance learning courses; and the RedUniv external portal (for access to doctoral theses, center portals, open source software repositories, open access books; the portals of the UCI (CNED, the Nova repository, open source software, RedCUBA) (Cubadebate 2017). These initiatives stand in contrast to the fact that the majority of Cubans still do not have a computer or Internet access in their homes. Private Internet access at home is rare. In 2008 under the Raúl Castro government, the restrictions of mobile phone and private computer use were withdrawn. Since then many Cubans are connected to social media especially Facebook and WhatsApp via mobile phones (WeAreSocial 2014). However, in 2016, only 40.3% of the Cuban population had access to the Internet, and only 10.3% of the population had a private laptop/ computer (ONE 2016a). Cuban Internet cafes offer a “national” restricted intranet, which features a national email service, a Cuban encyclopedia and open access material on education, and Cuban websites (Kelly and Cook 2012, 22f.) and an “international” Internet access. The “international” Internet access costs 10 CUC

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(Peso Convertible) per hour, which is about 1/3 of the monthly average income. Internet at home is also very expensive at 15 CUC per month and 70 CUC per month for the fasted Internet (ETECSA 2019). The majority of Cubans have Internet access at the workplace, e.g., in universities, research institutes, and joint ventures. Internet in Cuba is limited due to the United States trade embargo. As the US refuses to allow the construction of an undersea broadband cable between Cuba and Florida, Cuba’s Internet connection is via the 6000 miles ALBA-1 cable to Venezuela, which is affected by technical problems. Limited access to the internet is mainly linked to high costs, limited infrastructure, and slow Internet access. Furthermore, despite having access to the RedUniv and an intranet linking Cuban universities and research centers, university professors and researchers do not have sufficient access to high-ranking international online journals. This is because Cuban universities cannot afford the high costs of licensed access to these journals. To conclude, despite the efforts made in recent years, access to computers and the Internet at home, as well as ICT education, are areas in which the Cuban education system still needs to be improved in comparison to other Latin American countries.

4.3

STEM Subjects

The Cuban education system has always invested in the education of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects. The University Reform in 1962 began the process of allocating scholarships to carry out technical studies outside the country. In 1964, plans were made to train more than 15.000 professionals through science- or engineering-based degrees at the Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echevarría (CUJAE). The government began encouraging the teaching of science in CESs and created new bodies to promote the scientific and technological development of the country. These include the Instituto Cubano de Investigaciones de Minería y Metalurgia [Cuban Research Institute for Mining and Metallurgy], the Instituto Cubano de Derivados de la Can˜ a de Azu´car [The Cuban Institute of Sugarcane Derivatives], the Instituto Cubano de Desarrollo de la Industria Química [Cuban Institute for the Development of the Chemical Industry] (later the Centro de Investigaciones Químicas [Center of Chemical Research]), and the Instituto Cubano de Desarrollo de la Maquinaria [Cuban Institute for the Development of Machinery]. In the 1970s, the expansion of higher education and the MES Network of Universities represented a driving force for science and technology. In the 1990s, the country fell into the so-called Special Period. In spite of the difficult economic situation, the System of Science and Technological Innovation came into existence during this period, as did La Academia de Ciencias de Cuba [The Academy of Sciences in Cuba] and the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment. A key moment during this initiative to promote education in science and technology was the founding of the Universidad de las Ciencias Informáticas (UCI) in 2002, which coordinates computerization programs and projects which provide technological solutions.

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In Cuba, STEM-subjects are referred to as “basic sciences in the disciplines of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and informatics/computing.” Although there is a marked attempt to promote the education of professionals in these disciplines, the country has still not achieved the number of students necessary to bring about the scientific and technological development needed by the country for the current structural changes. The participation of young talents in national and international competitions is being encouraged, and direct access to university degrees in which this talent is interested is being made easier. Grade 12 classrooms have been created in the majority of Cuban universities. However, this is a measure which has been unable to meet demand as only around 10 young people enter into each of the specialties (mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and informatics). Cuba also participates in the ACM ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Contest) computer programming competitions. According to García Cuevas (2018), following the 2017–2018 academic year, it was decided that degrees in the informatics discipline from different universities would be awarded directly to teams from the Vocational Pre-university Institutes in Exact Sciences (IPVCE) who won medals in the ACM ICPC competition at national level. García Cuevas (ibid.) confirms that, with respect to the collaboration between the universities and the Institutos Preuniversitarios Urbanos [urban pre-university institutions] (IPUs) for vocational training which places more weight on basic sciences, the results are insufficient. Accordingly, he suggests that the university-IPVCE channels of communication should be improved, with a greater focus on the promotion of talent and on the basic sciences. Analysis of the expansion of the system which allows direct access to IPVCEs for basic secondary level medalists from provincial basic science competitions is required. Universities should consider a meaningful expansion of the basic science competitions system, as well as other strategies linked with entry to these degrees, and make use of the methodological experiences of the ACM ICPC. García Cuevas suggests analyzing the feedback on IPU grade 12 final state exams in physics, chemistry, and biology, as well as the impact of these disciplines in the improvement of the system which provides entry to higher education (ibid.).

4.4

Emerging Issues

A recent emerging challenge for the Cuban education system is the tension arising from the economic reforms and the introduction of market economy elements in the country’s centrally planned economy. The legalization of the US dollar (later the dual currency system) in 1993, the authorization and expansion of self-employed work in 1996, the Foreign Investment Act, and the introduction of tourism have created new socioeconomic inequalities between those who have access to hard currency (e.g., in the tourism sector or private small-scale businesses) and those who are excluded from this possibility (Togores González 2000; Hoffmann 2008; Brandhorst 2015). In contrast to other countries, state employees, for example, teachers and university professors, who receive their salary in the national currency

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(Cuban pesos), are negatively impacted by these developments (Togores González 2000, 107). This has created an “inverted pyramid” and has led to challenges in the education system. The introduction of tourism and the legalization of private entrepreneurship resulted in an exodus of teachers from the teaching profession into tourism or private entrepreneurship, where salaries were decisively higher and paid out in hard currency. In 1999, the Cuban government increased the salary by 33% in an attempt to get teachers back (Breidlid 2007, 623). Despite this, in 2016, the average monthly salary in the education sector did not exceed 20.11 Convertible Pesos (533 Cuban Pesos) (¼ US $20.11) (ONE 2016b). Earnings in the private sector tend to be much higher. This shows that the education system will be indirectly affected by external factors, such as the potential salary which teachers have the opportunity to earn outside the education system. This gives rise to questions concerning how the system can possibly continue to attract high-quality teaching personnel in schools and universities if remuneration in other sectors of the economy or outside of the country is considerably higher. This poses the question of how the education and labor market system will deal with competition in the labor market, something which was previously disallowed in the planned economy. Other challenges emerging for the education system are also linked to Cuba’s opening up to the world and economic and political transformation. Cuba’s strong commitment to equality might be challenged in a diversifying school system, “as economic opportunities provide greater opportunities for families to purchase high quality education for their members, directly or indirectly” (Gasperini 2000, 8). Will Cuba be able to continue its remarkably high investment in education in the scope of economic reforms and transformations? Can the equality of the Cuban education system at all levels still be maintained in an education system which is less centralized? In the face of the economic reforms and transformations which have recently taken place in Cuban society, the equality and quality of the high-ranking and excellent Cuban education system is under threat. Faced with these changes, the Cuban government must take steps to safeguard the education system.

4.5

Conclusion

In many ways, Cuba’s education system is unique in the Latin American context. As education was earmarked to play a key role in Cuban socialism and in abolishing social inequalities, it moved from the sidelines to taking center stage in politics. Today, Cuba boasts one of the best education systems in Latin America, having already reached the millennium development goals for Education for All and many targets of the Education 2030 Framework for Action. Cuba has universal school enrolment and attendance, free access to education at all levels, universal adult literacy, and proportional female representation at all levels – including higher education – and equal basic educational opportunity across class, as well as across both rural and urban areas. It is remarkable that Cuba has so far resisted the global trend toward privatization and that it has managed to maintain an independent educational system of relatively high quality. Room for improvement exists

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especially in the domain of ICT, digitization and Internet access. Furthermore, there is a need to promote Cuba’s integration into international educational debates in the field of academia, as well as to promote access to international academic journals. The main challenge for the Cuban education system is linked to its global opening up and the introduction of elements of a market economy. The Cuban social project implies the preservation of those educational achievements which have been achieved over half a century. The recent reforms in the education sector indicate that the Cuban government is attempting to adapt to emerging challenges and is continuing to make an effort to maintain the equal access to education and the quality thereof. How the education system will be reformed in response to the challenges presented by socioeconomic shifts and whether Cuba will be able to maintain its strong emphasis on equality in the education sector remains to be seen.

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Education 2030 Framework for Action. (2015). Incheon Declaration and SDG4 – Education 2030 Framework for Action. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002456/245656E.pdf ETECSA Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba. (2019). Internet y conectividad. http://www. etecsa.cu/internet_conectividad/internet/#adsl García Cuevas, J. L. (2018). Ministerio de Educación Superior. Formación vocacional para la promoción del talento y las ciencias básicas. Ponencia presentada para el Congreso Pedagogía 2019, Havana. Unpublished. Gasperini, L. (2000). The Cuban education system. Lessons and dilemmas (LCSHD paper series). Washington, DC: Latin American and Caribbean Regional Office, The World Bank. Guevara, E. (1965). El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba. Havana: Editorial Cubana. Gundara, J. S. (2000). Interculturalism, education and exclusion. London: PCP Publishing. Hoffmann, B. (2008). Kuba: Wohin führt die Ära Rau´l? (GIGA Focus Lateinamerika 02/2008). Hamburg: GIGA. Kapcia, A. (2005). Educational revolution and revolutionary morality in Cuba: The ‘new man’, youth and the new ‘battle of ideas’. Journal of Moral Education, 34(4), 399–412. https://doi. org/10.1080/03057240500410129. Kapcia, A. (2008). Cuba in revolution. A history since the fifties. London: Reaktion Books. Kelly, S., & Cook, S. (2012). Las nuevas tecnologías y la comunicación en Cuba. ¿Quíen tiene acceso a qué? Desafíos a la libertad de Internet en la isla. Revista Hispano Cubana, 42, 17–31. López, F. (2007). Cuba entre 1899–1959. Seis décadas de historia. Havana: Editorial Pueblo y Educación. Ministerio de Educación de la República de Cuba (MINED). (2001). Desarrollo de la educación. Havana: Ministerio de Educación. Ministerio del Trabajo y Seguridad Social. (2009). Resolución No. 99/2009. www.polgalvan.sld.cu/ contenido/resolucion99_2009_mtss.htm Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información (ONE). (2016a). Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2016: Capítulo 17: Tecnología de la información y las Comunicaciones. http://www.one.cu/aec2016/ 17%20Tecnologias%20de%20la%20Informacion.pdf Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información (ONE). (2016b). Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2016: Capítulo 7: Empleo y Salarios. http://www.onei.cu/aec2016/07%20Empleo%20y%20Salarios. pdf Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información (ONE) (2017). Anuario Estadístico, Capítulo 18: Educación. http://www.one.cu/aec2016/18%20Educacion.pdf. Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información (ONE). (2019). Educación: Resumen del curso escolar 2017/2018 e inicio del curso escolar 2018/2019. http://www.one.cu/publicaciones/ 03estadisticassociales/resumencursoesc/boletininicio2018-2019yresumen2017-2018.pdf Pérez de la Riva, J. (1975). El Barracón. Esclavitud y capitalismo en Cuba. Barcelona: Crítica. Pérez, L. A. (1992). Slaves, sugar, and colonial society: Travel accounts of Cuba 1801–1899. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources. Prontuario Estadístico. (2017). Educación Superior. Curso 2016–2017. Havana: Editorial Universitaria, Félix Varela. Red Informática del Ministerio de Educación (RIMED). (2018). https://www.ecured.cu/Red_ Informática_del_Ministerio_de_Educación_de_Cuba Ruiz Hernández, José Ramón and Ida Santana Pérez 2014. Plan Marta Abreu y su contribucińn a la descentralización de los estudios médicos en Cuba. Edumecentro. 6(1), 67–81. Sifonte Díaz, Y. J. (2018). Aulas inteligentes en Cuba: La tecnología al servicio del saber. Canal USB, March 27, 2018. Togores González, V. (2000). Cuba los efectos sociales de la crisis y el ajuste económico de los años noventa. Revista de Ciencias Sociales, nueva época, 8(1), 106–142. Torres Fernández, P., et al. (2009). Evaluación de la Calidad de la Educación en Cuba. Fundamentos, Estructura y Resultados. Ministerio de Educación. http://www.cubaeduca.cu/ media/www.cubaeduca.cu/medias/pdf/4743.pdf UIS/UNESCO. (2018). Cuba. http://uis.unesco.org/country/CU

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UNESCO. (2004). The EFA global monitoring report 2005. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO. (2018). Inclusion in education. https://en.unesco.org/themes/inclusion-in-education UNESCO/OREALC. (1998). Laboratorio Latinoamericano de evaluación de la Calidad de la Educación, Primer Estudio Internacional Comparativo sobre Lenguaje, Matemática y Factores Asociados en Tercero y Cuarto grado. Santiago: UNESCO. UNESCO/OREALC. (2004). Gestión de la educación en América Latina y el Caribe: ¿Vamos por un buen camino?. OREALC/2004/PI/H/7. San Juan. United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld WeAreSocial. (2014). Social, digital and mobile in the Americas. https://wearesocial.com/blog/ 2014/06/social-digital-mobile-americas World Bank. (2014). Public spending on education, Total (% of GDP). http://data.worldbank.org/ indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS. Zeuske, M. (2002). Kleine Geschichte Kubas. Munich: Verlag C.H. Beck.

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED-Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Personnel Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the historical and social foundations of the education system in the Dominican Republic, attending to educational development, governance, and reform within the country’s political and economic context. This chapter provides a general orientation to the structure of the Dominican Republic’s education system while introducing the laws, frameworks, and M. Hamm-Rodríguez (*) School of Education, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA e-mail: [email protected] C. Veras Diaz School of Education, Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE), Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_35

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institutions that constitute the educational system’s primary components and function together to address a variety of priorities across the country. As education in the Dominican Republic has received increasing and sustained political and economic attention since the 1990s, this chapter also describes the key educational policies and programs that comprise the Revolución Educativa, or the educational revolution, as promoted by national and international actors. We thus detail the structural and curricular areas of education that have been targeted by increased financial and programmatic investments through reforms seeking to strengthen the education system and improve student learning outcomes. We also outline the strategic plans and initiatives that have organized contemporary education reform – particularly over the past 30 years – including extended school day, competency-based curriculum development, teacher education and training, and information and communication technology. Looking forward, this chapter also describes emerging issues of importance that influence education reform across the country such as school violence and performance on international assessments. This chapter thus provides a foundational overview of the education system in the Dominican Republic, with a focus on organizational features, social and political context, and strategic initiatives. Keywords

Dominican Republic · Education reform · Educational policy · Education governance · Education quality

1

Introduction

The Dominican Republic is a country in the Caribbean that occupies two-thirds of an island shared with the nation of Haiti. The Dominican Republic is proximal to the archipelagoes of Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Cuba in the Caribbean Sea. With a population of around 10.5 million and a land mass of more than 48,000 square kilometers, the Dominican Republic is the second largest island in the Greater Antilles. As of the most recent national census in 2010, the Dominican Republic does not currently collect census data on the ethno-racial identification of its inhabitants, though some population surveys have identified the majority of the population (more than 80%) as either mestizo (including African, indigenous, and/or European ancestry) or black (Oficina Nacional de Estadística 2012). The majority of immigrants to the Dominican Republic in present day are from Haiti and Venezuela. In addition, Dominicans have a long history of outmigration, particularly to the United States (followed by Spain and Italy), with notable migrations to other locations across the Americas and Europe. The country has long played an important political economic role within Latin America and the Caribbean, including but not exclusively in relation to European and North American colonial and imperial formations. The government recognizes four different historical moments of independence against foreign occupation and/or colonial and imperial governance (1821/

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Spain, 1844/Haiti, 1863/Spain, 1924/the United States) (Portal Oficial de la República Dominicana 2021). Relationships with each of these nations continues to shape public policy and governance in the country today, including in the field of education. Though formal education in the Dominican Republic dates back to the Spanish colonial period, it is within the last 30 years that there has been targeted financial investment in universal access to education as well as increased political and civil society attention to education quality. As a result, the country’s contemporary Revolución Educativa, or educational revolution – an effort to substantially transform the structure and content of the education system to align with international standards and national development priorities through modernization – is a focal point of this chapter. Throughout this chapter, we describe the educational system in the Dominican Republic by drawing from a series of strategic plans and initiatives over the past 30 years that have led to key transformations in the country’s education system, such as building new infrastructure, introducing the extended school day model, developing and implementing a competency-based curriculum, and strengthening teacher education and training. In the sections that follow, we provide (1) an overview of the historical and social foundations of the education system in the Dominican Republic – with a primary focus on reforms, initiatives, and frameworks instituted since the 1990s, (2) an overview of the institutional and organizational principles of the education system in the Dominican Republic, emphasizing structural changes and institutions responsible for leading modern reforms that aim to strengthen education quality, and (3) an overview of educational trends and emerging issues, such as InformationCommunication Technology (ICT), school violence, and standardized assessments that shape teaching and learning initiatives across the country. While the past 30 years have brought significant changes to the Dominican Republic’s education system, there remains room for improvement to ensure that all children have the opportunity to learn and that students’ experiences in schools translate to improved livelihoods and increased opportunities both socially and economically.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

2.1

General Historical Background

Education in the independent nation currently known as the Dominican Republic did not begin with the colonial period, but rather can be traced to the island’s indigenous Taíno populations, whose educational practices were not institutionalized in schools but rather were embedded in intergenerational social and cultural contexts connected to the workings of daily life. Once the island of Ayiti or Quisqueya began to suffer the colonization of Spaniards in the fifteenth century (and was renamed Santo Domingo or Hispaniola), religion became a central organizing force for education. Shaped by the preoccupation of la salvación del alma (or saving souls), convents, monasteries, and cathedral schools were primary sites for formally recognized

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education and learning. Reading and writing through religious institutions was attached both to the proliferation of Christianity and the expansion of Spanish empire. Both Christianity and imperial expansion (through capitalism) gave rise to biological and cultural models of racial inferiority and superiority, which framed the educational practices of indigenous populations as inferior and targeted indigenous peoples for labor and genocidal extermination. In addition, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade during Spanish rule violently introduced African populations to the island for labor exploitation and European wealth accumulation. Notwithstanding colonial attempts to erase and suppress indigenous and African practices from the land, many of these practices – including those related to communal and familial forms of education – have been sustained to some extent and/or transformed, continuing to influence learning experiences and daily life across the country. However, indigenous and especially African history and contemporary formations are still often excluded from the Dominican Republic’s formal institutions of schooling. Though this chapter cannot provide a comprehensive historical overview of education in the Dominican Republic, it is important to highlight how key political moments and figures in the country’s history have intersected with the expansion or restriction of education. When Spanish colonial rule was replaced by French domination in 1795, much of the eastern part of the island was depopulated as families left for other places across the Americas. During this period, schools were closed by the French and largely replaced by normal colleges that employed majority French teachers. The unification of the island as Saint Domingue under French rule eventually gave rise to the independence and pro-separation movement of 1844, led by La Trinitaria of Juan Pablo Duarte, Matías Ramón Mella, and Francisco del Rosario Sánchez. During this time, new ideas about education and teaching circulated as classes were given in people’s homes and popular education grew in service of the independence movement. During the initial stages of the new republic, new schooling initiatives were limited and the few private schools that existed during this time focused on language and grammar as the foundations of teaching and learning. Changes were again introduced across the education system when Spain annexed the country in 1861, a period that lasted several years until the country again gained independence after the Restauration War. Eugenio María de Hostos, a key figure in the education system of the Dominican Republic who also promoted the establishment of an Antillean Confederation, arrived to the Dominican Republic from Puerto Rico in 1875. Hostos played an important role in transforming education in the Dominican Republic, organizing the first education system and founding a normal school that would train men and women to be teachers and thus support the regeneration of a more expansive education system. By 1879, education became one of the most important factors in the country’s development, with new schools created, new teachers trained, and more women included in the educational process as both teachers and students. The education system was again significantly transformed after World War I when the US military occupied the Dominican Republic in 1916. Though much more can be said about the education system under US military control, here we note that during this time the system came to include elementary, middle, and secondary levels and co-ed

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(gender inclusive) schooling was initiated. Subsequently, during the 30-year dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo (1930–1961), the government showed great political interest in investing resources in the education system, with the foundational educational law (Law 29-09) of the Dominican Republic issued in 1951 (MINERD n.d.-b). Despite political attention to the expansion of education during this time period, the system itself was notably antidemocratic, organized around allegiance to the Trujillo regime and the inculcation of discipline and political loyalty. For example, students learned to read using “La Cartilla Trujillo de Educación”; ceremonies such as flag raising, marches, and celebrating national holidays were important school activities; literacy campaigns were instituted and military academies expanded; and portraits of Trujillo were common features in school buildings and classrooms. After the assassination of Trujillo, the first democratically elected President of the Dominican Republic, Juan Bosch, developed a new constitution for the country in 1963. In this constitution, education was established as a fundamental and universal human right through Article 63. The contemporary version of the constitution, approved in 2010 under the Presidency of Leonel Fernández, outlined the state’s responsibility for ensuring that the educational system provides equal access and quality education across the country (Gobierno de la República Dominicana 2010). In present day, there is a firm commitment from the central government, civil society, and local governments to design and implement educational policies focused on improving equity, quality, and the efficiency of the educational system. The foundation of the Revolución Educativa within the framework of state modernization initiatives was set in the 1990s. In 1993, the Ministry of Education developed and presented its first 10-year plan (plan decenal), governing the period from 1992 to 2002. The plan decenal was considered one of the most significant reforms to the Dominican educational system since Law 29-09 was issued in 1951. The 10-year plan gathered the most relevant social actors for a national debate on different approaches to improve education (OECD 2008). The primary concerns of the plan involved increasing school access and enhancing learning for all children, improving education quality, improving teachers’ status, strengthening the effectiveness of the Ministry of Education (MINERD) and its decentralized organizations, engaging the general society to participate in the educational process, transforming the use of public government expenditures for education, and seeking nontraditional funding sources to increase educational investments. This democratic exercise of policy development and planning led to the approval of a new General Law of Education in 1997, Law 66-97 (Congreso Nacional de la República Dominicana 1997), replacing Law 29-09 from 1951. This normative framework focused on establishing standards and delineating expected outcomes of the educational system, promoting the decentralization of administrative responsibilities at various levels, and enabling the involvement of the community, public, and private sectors. The law outlines education in the Dominican Republic as free and compulsory for all – starting at birth until 18 years old – and establishes three levels for the educational system: preschool (birth–6 years old), primary school (6–14 years), and secondary school (15–18 years old) (Congreso Nacional de la

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República Dominicana 1997). In addition, Law 66-97 outlines the values and principles that underpin the Dominican education system. In 2003, a decade after the first plan decenal was launched, a comprehensive evaluation set out to assess widespread access to education, overall learning outcomes, and the efficiency and effectiveness of the educational system. The evaluation’s results paved the way for the National Education Council (Consejo Nacional de Educación, CNED) to champion a national dialogue to design a new strategy focused on improving educational quality and outcomes for sustainable development. Various initiatives emerged from this process, starting with a new 10-year plan launched by MINERD (2008–2018). In January 2012, the President promulgated Law 1-2012 – part of the National Development Strategy 2030 – with quality education for all as one of its primary objectives. In April 2014, the National Pact for Educational Reform in the Dominican Republic (2014–2030) was signed by a broad coalition of organizations, and associations from a range of social-political sectors, civil society organizations, and individual actors. The National Pact includes a series of agreements and commitments to ensure “an education that allows all Dominicans to develop their full potential as individuals and as members of a collective social group, one which they recognize and to which they freely associate, in order to live in conditions of equal opportunity” [translation by authors] (PNRE 2014, 6). Beginning in 2012, the Dominican Republic initiated a series of substantial education reforms which included attention to early childhood education and the progressive implementation of the extended school day model (World Bank 2016), which now requires 1800 instructional hours per year at all levels. In 2012, the National Education Council also passed an ordinance requiring the Ministry of Education to systematically review and update the national curriculum, which had been instituted since 1995 (Ordinance 1-95) (MINERD 2016). The new curriculum is focused on students developing specific competencies, which are defined by the government as the abilities a student needs to develop in order to act autonomously in diverse settings, basing their actions on certain learned procedures, concepts, attitudes, and values. The following competencies are taught in the revised curriculum: Ethics and Citizenship, Communication, Logic, Critical and Creative Thinking, Problem Solving, Science and Technology, Environment and Health, and Personal and Spiritual Development (MINERD 2016). After the curriculum was revised and approved, MINERD designed its strategic plan for the years 2017–2020. This plan proposes ten interventions aligned with international initiatives (the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, Educational Goals 2021, and the Central American educational policy 2013–2021) as well as with national level efforts (the National Pact for Education Reform 2014–2030, the government program 2016–2020, and MINERD’s 2008–2018 10-year plan) (MINERD 2017). The interventions prioritized by this 2017–2020 strategic plan are primary and secondary education; early childhood education; technicalprofessional and arts-based education; support for populations in situations of vulnerability; literacy and education for youth and adults; curriculum and evaluation; safe, inclusive, and sustainable educational spaces; training and development for the

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teaching profession; reform, institutional modernization, and social participation; and digitalization (MINERD 2017). In addition, Departmental Order 21-2017 from the Ministry of Education initiated the Institutional Reform and Modernization Plan for Educational Quality (Plan de Reforma y Modernización Institucional para la Calidad Educativa, PREMICE). This initiative supported the country’s Revolución Educativa by focusing on three key areas: administration and finance, decentralization and participation, and education quality (MINERD 2017). However, despite the many reform efforts and increased investments described above, learning outcomes for Dominican students remain among the lowest in both national and international standardized evaluations (EDUCA 2015).

2.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

Throughout the 1990s, the Dominican Republic experienced strong economic growth which improved the quality of life for many citizens, though such benefits have been distributed unevenly. In comparison to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic is positioned as one of the nations with the highest economic growth rates in the last 25 years (World Bank 2017). Despite the country’s overall economic growth, social inequality and poverty levels remain a challenge necessitating a sustainable development approach that benefits the entire population more equitably. This situation can be understood more clearly by taking a look at the Human Development Index (HDI), which measures three dimensions of well-being: a long and healthy life (life expectancy), access to knowledge (mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling), and standard of living (gross national income per capita). An index closer to the numerical value of one indicates higher levels of social development across a range of factors. While the HDI in the Dominican Republic has increased from 0.593 in 1990 to 0.745 in 2018 (UNDP 2019), when the HDI is adjusted for inequality, it drops to an index of 0.584. According to the Ministry of Economy, Planning, and Development, the total number of households living in extreme poverty has decreased in the country, yet poverty rates in the Dominican Republic remain above average compared to the Latin American region and the Caribbean (World Bank 2016). In 2016, 30.9% of the population was categorized as living in situations of poverty while 6.9% were living in situations of extreme poverty. Improvements in these areas have not kept pace with the country’s overall economic growth. Given the country’s general economic growth, the education system has historically not received an appropriate share of funding from the national government. Although the Dominican Republic’s Constitution federally mandates that 4% of gross domestic product (GDP) be allocated for educational spending, the government had traditionally spent only 2% for many years (OECD 2008). In 2010, a civil society movement spearheaded by the Coalición por una Educación Digna (CED) pushed for government compliance with the 4% mandate in the 2013 national budget (Coalición Educación Digna 2011). Between the years of 2012–2016, a higher percentage of the country’s GDP was designated to fund education (EDUCA

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2015). In several ways, achieving the 4% allocation was considered a victory, as it increased teacher salaries, expanded the extended school day model ( jornada extendida escolar) with the construction of new school buildings, and introduced school meals for students (MEPyD 2019). However, an increase in spending does not necessarily result in improved educational quality. For example, educational spending per pupil is still distributed inequitably across provinces, and this unequal distribution is not based on criteria that would provide additional funding to geographic regions with higher needs relative to others (EDUCA n.d.). In light of funding constraints, the next section describes the extent to which the education system has achieved universal coverage and ensured access to the entire school-age population.

2.3

Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population

With increased funding allocated to education, the primary initiative to expand educational access and coverage for the Dominican student population has been the extended school day, or jornada extendida escolar. Historically, students in the Dominican Republic have attended school on a shift system due to lack of physical classroom spaces available for the entire school-age population to attend classes at the same time. While the shift system ensured that a higher proportion of students had access to education, it also resulted in students receiving far fewer hours of schooling (Secretaría de Estado de Educación 2008). Increased public scrutiny regarding quality use of instructional time led the government to transition to an extended 8-hour school day (8:00 am–4:00 pm), which has required significant investment in educational infrastructure. By the start of the 2019–2020 academic year, the extended school day model had been fully implemented in 35 municipalities across the country, benefitting 73.4% of students enrolled nationally. By August 2020, the government had planned to reach 90% of coverage across schools nationwide. In addition, 95% of provinces had implemented the extended school day in 75% of their school buildings (MINERD 2019b). This result can be compared to 2012 (during the initiative’s pilot phase) when only 21 school buildings (0.3%) were implementing the model, reaching around 8969 students, or 0.5% of the student population (El Caribe 2019). This progress has been complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which closed schools for more than one full academic year beginning in spring 2020. Despite the availability of more school buildings to accommodate a greater number of students and longer school days, the educational system still faces challenges in terms of enrollment, promotion, and repetition. At the primary school level, 4% of children ages 6–11 years old are out of school or are not currently participating in the education system. The number of out of school students reaches 9% when examining the poorest quintile. Among children enrolled in primary school, students are most likely to repeat grade 3, with 4% of females and 8% of males repeating that grade. Across grades 1–5, male students experience a higher rate of repetition than female students (FH1 360 2018). At the secondary level, 17%

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of youth ages 14–17 years old are out of school. Among the poorest quintile, 30% of school-age adolescents are not currently enrolled. In addition, more males than females, and more youth from rural than urban areas, are out of school (FHI 360 2018). While gross enrollment at the lower secondary level (for students at official school age as well as overage students) is 128% for males and 131% for females, this statistic drops dramatically at the upper secondary level, with only 45% gross enrollment for males and 55% for females. Finally, one study by the Education Policy Data Center found that, among youth 15–24 years old, only 19% have completed postsecondary education. In addition, 19% have incomplete primary education and 33% have incomplete secondary education (FHI 360 2015). When comparing outcomes across Latin America and the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic ranks below the 33rd percentile for all of the following categories: gross enrollment rate in upper secondary school (both male and female), net enrollment rate in both primary and secondary school (both male and female), repetition rate for primary school (male), dropout rate for primary school (both male and female), survival rate to grade 5 (both male and female), transition rate to secondary school (male), and percentage of children out of school in urban areas (both primary and secondary school) (FHI 360 2018). This data suggests that there remain significant gaps in ensuring equity for both access to and completion of education at all levels. Several factors contribute to increased exclusion from schools. A study conducted by MINERD and UNICEF (2017) found that barriers to accessing school include the financial precarity of families, limited or inadequate availability of educational programs near a student’s residence, and the low quality of education that students often receive once enrolled (MINERD and UNICEF 2017). In addition, insufficient support for special education services has resulted in many students with disabilities being excluded from the public school system. Finally, the exclusion of children of Haitian descent from the school system has deepened since a series of discriminatory legislation – 2004 migration law, 2010 constitution, and 2013 legal sentence 168-13 – has produced situations of statelessness that deprive children of the documents often required to access formal education. A study completed by the Georgetown Law Human Rights Institute (2018) found that children of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic experienced a number of education barriers when lacking documentation legible to the state, including arbitrary deprivations, the eighth grade exam requiring government identification cards to participate, national testing for high school graduation, discrepancies in written records, and students being discouraged from continuing school (Georgetown Law Human Rights Institute 2018). These issues of discrimination extend beyond schooling into the labor market, the topic of the next section.

2.4

Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support

Adolescents and youth comprise 36% of the population in the Dominican Republic (RTI International n.d.), making the labor market transition (from school to workforce) an important priority of the education system. The education system in the

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Dominican Republic is an organizational labor market, wherein the educational system and labor market of the country are not closely linked. Though there are vocational and technical training opportunities integrated within the education system, as described below, the labor market is not structured in such a way that programs of study are deterministic for future employment. At the same time, the government, the private sector, and national as well as international nongovernmental actors have made significant financial and programmatic investments in developing policies, programs, and initiatives that target workforce integration for adolescents and youth (e.g., the Alerta Joven project funded by USAID and the NEO RD project funded by the IMF). Thus, a significant proportion of workforce development programs also occur outside of the formal public education system, particularly targeting youth that are not enrolled in school and are also unemployed (approximately 17.1% of the youth population). Among youth 15–29 years old who are not in school, more individuals who have completed university (54.2%) are employed than those who have completed either secondary (43.3%) or primary (49.1%) school. The percentage of youth 15–29 years who are either unemployed (and looking for work) or inactive (not in school or in the workforce) is 27.4% for those with primary school completion, 37.1% for those with secondary school completion, and 31.9% for those with university level completion. In addition, 55.2% of females 15–29 years old who are not in school, but have reached secondary level or higher, are either unemployed or inactive. In comparison, only 19.3% of males fall in this category (FHI 360 2015). This information highlights difficulties in securing salaried employment across all levels of educational attainment, and a significant gender-related difference in employment. While females have higher levels of educational attainment in the Dominican Republic, they are less likely to be employed than their male counterparts. According to a 2019 study conducted by EDUCA and the Ministry of Economy, Planning, and Development (MEPyD), the youth unemployment rate in the Dominican Republic is 26%, the highest in the region (EDUCA and MEPyD 2019). Youth in the lowest economic quintile had rates of unemployment three times the national average. According to the study, the average salary of employed youth is RD $11,149, or approximately USD $232, which is 62.1% of the national average. An important finding of the study is that 73.5% of employed youth 15–18 years old work in the informal sector of the economy. Participation in the informal sector of the economy, while providing economic benefits to the individual and/or the household, also produces low wages and limits access to benefits and protections from the government, including health insurance. While the study found that low salaries demotivate youth from seeking employment, it also identified discrepancies between the competencies required by the economically productive sectors and the training provided by the educational system. Educational programming directed at workforce insertion occurs in both formal and informal settings and through a variety of opportunities. In 2016, Decree 173-16 sought to standardize education competencies and enable international comparisons by creating a National Qualifications Framework (Marco Nacional de Cualificaciones, MNC). The MNC design process had collaborative participation

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from a national commission of actors including government ministries, unions, and business associations. The framework’s purpose is to provide competency-based education that is aligned with the needs of the labor market, increasing the economic development of the country while also facilitating workforce preparation and insertion at multiple levels of educational attainment. The framework aligns all certificates, diplomas, and titles awarded by the government with the knowledge, skills, and personal and professional competencies expected of graduates. Figure 1 illustrates the levels associated with the various titles offered by the formal sector of education. Within the formal school system, the first cycle of secondary education (7th–9th grades) is common to all students while the second cycle (10th–12th grades) offers three tracks or modalities: (1) academic, (2) technical and professional education, or (3) arts education. For the technical and professional education modality, the Department of Technical Professional Education (Dirección General de Educación Técnico-Profesional, DGETP) oversees curricular specializations in three areas: the Level

1

2

Primary and Secondary (Academic, Technical, and Arts Modalities) Primary Education Diploma (6th Grade of Primary School)

Lower Secondary Diploma (3rd Grade of Secondary School) Basic Technical Degree

3

High School Diploma (Bachiller) – Academic

Professional Training (INFOTEP)

Higher Education

Qualification Certificates (Certificate of Completion, Certificate of Professional Aptitude, Certificate of Workforce Competency) Supplemental Certificates (Certificate of Completion, Certificate of Professional Aptitude, Certificate of Workforce Competency) Technical Degree

High School Diploma (Bachiller) – Technical High School Diploma (Bachiller) - Arts 4 5 6 7 8

Technical Masters (I) Technical Masters (II)

University Technical Degree Bachelor’s degree, engineer, or equivalent Master’s degree or specializations Doctorate

Fig. 1 National Qualifications Available by Education Level (Jiménez 2017)

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industrial sector, the agricultural and fisheries sector, and the service sector. These programs are offered through 34 specializations and technical career tracks at 126 polytechnic secondary schools across the country. Students in these programs receive entrepreneurship education as part of their training (DGETP n.d.). Technical and vocational training programs are also offered by a specialized institution, the National Institute for Technical and Vocational Training (Instituto Nacional de Formación Técnico Profesional or INFOTEP). INFOTEP, created in 1980 by Law 116, offers a variety of in-person and virtual vocational and technical training programs in stationary buildings, mobile units, and through coordination with nonformal programs that request officially recognized certifications from trained facilitators (INFOTEP n.d.). The subsystem for adult education also provides opportunities for additional learning and development through the following components: adult literacy programs that aim to reduce illiteracy in the country; basic education programs that provide accelerated training to those 14 years and above who desire to complete their primary education; middle education programs for those who have graduated from primary school but need a specialized program to finish secondary school; and professional development courses that provide training alternatives to youth and adults who have dropped out of the regular school system and desire additional support to enter the workforce (Hamm and Martinez 2017). The Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology (Ministerio de Educación Superior, Ciencia y Tecnología, MESCyT) oversees university education and initiatives for science, technology, and innovation across the country. MESCyT offers a variety of national and international scholarships for students to attend universities in the Dominican Republic or in other countries. The areas of study financed by these scholarship programs are decided in accordance with national priorities in the country’s development plan. In addition, MESCyT administers the foreign language immersion programs in English, French, and Portuguese, which provide intensive language instruction with the goal of increasing the international competitiveness of Dominican students.

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

3.1

General Principles

The Ministry of Education (MINERD) is an organism of the Executive Branch of the Dominican Republic. MINERD’s responsibilities include overseeing and administering public policies and implementing all activities related to preuniversity education in the country. Although there has been a movement towards decentralization, the education system is still largely centralized with the national curriculum, standards, and policies intended to be applied consistently across all provinces, districts, and schools. The National Education Council (Consejo Nacional de Educación, CNE) is the highest decision-making body within MINERD, followed by the Minister of Education. The National Office of Planning and Educational Development includes key departments that oversee planning and project implementation,

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budgeting, information analysis, and organizational development, while the Vice Minister of Administrative Support manages the offices of administration, finances, and school infrastructure. The National Office of Supervision, Evaluation, and Quality Control oversees the departments of supervision, evaluation, school accreditation, and curriculum accreditation. The Vice Minister of Technical and Pedagogical Support is responsible for departments that are central to the teaching and learning process: curriculum, early childhood education, primary education, secondary education, education for youth and adults, and special education. In addition, the departments of psychology and counseling, culture, and community participation fall under this Vice Minister’s purview. There are currently 18 regional offices, 122 district offices, and nearly 11,300 schools across the Dominican Republic. In addition, there are several dependent institutions related to the Ministry of Education’s central office. The National Institute of Student Well-Being (Instituto Nacional de Bienestar Estudiantil, INABIE) oversees transportation and nutrition services, uniforms and school supplies, as well as school trips, exchanges, and clubs. The National Institute of Teacher Well-Being (Instituto Nacional de Bienestar Magisterial, INABIMA) administers the social security and benefits system for both active and retired or pensioned teachers. The Salomé Ureña Higher Education Institute of Teacher Development (Instituto Superior de Formación Docente Salomé Ureña, ISFODOSU) is the only institution of higher education that specializes in training and certifying education professionals. The Institute of Teacher Training and Development (Instituto de Formación y Capacitación del Magisterio, INAFOCAM) is responsible for ongoing support and development of teachers and educators. The Dominican Institute for Evaluation and Research on Educational Quality (Instituto Dominicano de Evaluación e Investigación de la Calidad Educativa, IDEICE) is in charge of evaluation and accountability for the education system. The National Institute of Physical Education (Instituto Nacional de Educación Física, INEFI) oversees physical education programming, and the National Institute for Comprehensive Early Childhood Care (Instituto Nacional de Atención Integral a la Primera Infancia, INAIPI) provides holistic services to children 0–5 years old and their families through a network of more than 640 early childhood centers. In addition, the Associations for Parents, Guardians, and Friends of the School (Asociaciones de Padres, Madres, Tutores y Amigos de la Escuela, APMAES) are intended to operate at each school and provide a mechanism for parent, family, and community involvement.

4

Education Administration and Governance

In 2010, the Dominican Initiative for Quality Education (Iniciativa Dominicana por una Educación de Calidad, IDEC) was launched as a collaboration between MINERD and institutions from the government, private sector, and international organizations. In addition to MINERD and the President’s Office, IDEC member institutions include the Foro Socioeducativo, French Development Agency, InterAmerican Development Bank, World Bank, Spanish Agency for International

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Development Cooperation (AECID), Organization of Ibero-American States, USAID, UNICEF, European Union, and the National Association of Youth Entrepreneurs (ANJE). In the monitoring period between 2012 and 2016, IDEC published and disseminated eight semiannual reports highlighting progress and challenges within the education sector (IDEC 2019). During that period, IDEC was composed of ten working groups that aligned with the ten policies presented in the 2008–2018 Ten-Year Education Plan: (1) curriculum development, knowledge management, and evaluation of quality; (2) development of the teaching profession and training of directors; (3) fulfillment of the official school day and calendar; (4) early stimulation and early childhood development; (5) improvement of primary education: early years and internal efficiency; (6) coverage and quality of secondary education and vocational and technical training; (7) literacy and education for adults; (8) school infrastructure; (9) support for students living in vulnerable conditions; and (10) institutional modernization and school administration. IDEC reports during this time period were crucial for developing MINERD’s most recent 2017–2020 strategic plan (PAPSE 2016). In this new plan, the ten strategic areas monitored by IDEC are primary and secondary education; infant and early childhood education (birth to 5); professional and technical training and arts-based education; vulnerable populations; literacy education for youth and adults; curriculum and evaluation; safe, sustainable, inclusive infrastructure; teaching profession; modernization and participation; and education for a digital republic (ICT). MINERD’s 2017–2020 strategic plan includes indicators to assess the implementation of the country’s most recent educational policies. The process of monitoring this plan is divided into two levels. The first level of evaluation is done quarterly by the National Office of Educational Planning and Development, with results first presented to MINERD authorities. Subsequently, these results are disclosed to the society-at-large, through the Dominican Republic institutional portal. The second level of evaluation explicitly assesses progress in relation to established goals and indicators, and takes place annually (MINERD 2017). In addition, Article 60 of Law 66-97 (MINERD 1997) establishes a National System for the Evaluation of Education Quality as a means of determining the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the Dominican education system. The responsibilities of the evaluation system include providing objective information about school performance, establishing systematic and continuous evaluations of student learning, conducting national exams at key points in the student learning cycle, analyzing determinants of education quality, and utilizing research and evaluation results to improve education quality (Hamm and Martinez 2017). The Dominican government defines the factors affecting educational quality as follows: student learning, administrative efficiency, resource investment, innovation, personal and professional characteristics of teachers, academic programming and curriculum, student background and characteristics, physical conditions of learning environment, and the commitment of families to the educational process, among others (MINERD 1997). Ordinance 03-2002 establishes the administrative body in charge of evaluation and accountability for education quality, the Dominican Institute for Evaluation and

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Research on Educational Quality (Instituto Dominicano de Evaluación e Investigación de la Calidad Educativa or IDEICE). IDEICE organizes its work around five dimensions related to the educational system: research, evaluation, public policy, pedagogical innovation, and social reflection. IDEICE links theory and empirical research to contribute to an understanding of the Dominican education system. The institution’s evaluation focus area includes both national and international assessments, while the public policy focus area uses assessment and evaluation data to formulate public policy recommendations that could influence educational decision-makers. In addition, IDEICE seeks to link research and evaluation results to the teaching and learning process. All of these dimensions are connected to what IDEICE calls social reflection, wherein the institution aims to share and facilitate the results of research and evaluation with various actors within the educational system (IDEICE n.d.) Beyond the national level, the educational system is divided into 18 regional offices. Each regional office oversees a number of district/municipal offices, which have under their purview a number of individual schools or educational centers (centros educativos). The National System of Educational Supervision (Sistema Nacional de Supervisión Educativa, SNSE) seeks to ensure educational quality at various levels throughout the education system, including regional and district offices, educational centers, as well as the various educational subsystems and decentralized institutions. An important aspect of SNSE’s work is overseeing the process of self-assessment among schools that participated in the Educational Quality Support Project (Proyecto de Apoyo de la Calidad Educativa, PACE). Some of SNSE’s key responsibilities include ensuring that (1) the curricular content and desired learning goals are put in practice across the educational system, (2) a school culture dedicated to student learning is fostered, (3) spaces for instructional reflection and learning among teachers are established, (4) school time is used efficiently, and sufficient human resources and materials are available, (5) each school has developed an Educational Center Plan (Proyecto Educativo de Centro, PEC) that guides institutional and instructional actions, and (6) each school board (Junta de Centro o de Plantel) has administered resources effectively (SNSE 2014). These key components of educational administration and governance are monitored through processes of accompaniment, auditing, and management to ensure educational quality and student learning.

5

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED-Classification

The structure of the educational system in the Dominican Republic was first established in 1997 by Law 66-97. This structure was not directly aligned with the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) and consisted of four different levels: Initial, Basic, Middle, and Upper. The Initial Education level served children 0–5 years old. The Basic Education level covered 1st–8th grades and was further subdivided into two cycles, each lasting 4 years (Cycle 1: 1st–4th grade,

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Cycle 2: 5th–8th grade). The Middle Education level covered 9th–12th grades and was subdivided into two cycles, each lasting 2 years: (Cycle 1: 9th–10th grades, Cycle 2: 11th–12th grades). The Upper Education level was designated for higher education, including universities and technical training programs. This organizational structure was in operation until 2013, when Ordinance 03-13 was passed by the National Education Council (Consejo Nacional de Educación), which changed the structure of the educational system to align with the International Standard Classification of Education. This policy had two goals: to align educational levels with the appropriate developmental stages of children and adolescents, and to facilitate the comparison of statistics and educational results at an international level. As illustrated in Fig. 2, the current ISCED-aligned structure of the educational system includes four levels: Initial Level, Primary Level, Secondary Level, and Upper Level (higher education). The Initial Level (or early childhood) lasts for 6 years and is subdivided into two cycles lasting 3 years each. The second cycle includes maternal education (age 4), kindergarten (age 5), and preprimary (age 6, mandatory enrollment). The Primary Level is intended to reach students ages 6–12 years old and is divided into two cycles each consisting of 3 years (Cycle 1: 1st–3rd grade, Cycle 2: 3rd–6th grade). The Secondary Level is intended to reach students ages 12–18 years old and is divided into two cycles each consisting of 3 years (Cycle 1: 7th–9th grade, Cycle 2: 10th–12th grade). The first 3-year cycle provides the same curriculum for all modalities offered at the secondary level. The

Age 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Grade Year 4 Year 3 Year 2 Year 1 12th grade 11th grade 10th grade 9th grade 8th grade 7th grade 6th grade 5th grade 4th grade 3rd grade 2nd grade 1st grade Pre-Primary (mandatory) Kinder Maternal

Cycle or Modality University

Non-University

2nd Cycle of Secondary Level

3 Modalities: General, Technical Professional, and Arts

Upper (Higher Education)

Secondary Level

st

1 Cycle of Secondary Level

2nd Cycle of Primary Level Primary Level st

1 Cycle of Primary Level

2nd Cycle of Initial Level Initial Level 1st Cycle of Initial Level

Fig. 2 Structure of the Education System since 2013 (Hamm and Martinez 2017)

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second cycle provides a different curriculum depending on which of the three modalities (general, technical professional, or arts-based) a student enrolls in. This new structure at the preuniversity level was applied to schools from both the public and private sector and required schools, students, and teachers to be reassigned.

5.1

Personnel Supply

A study conducted by the Inter-American Development Bank (2019) predicts that the Dominican Republic’s educational system will need approximately 140,000 new teachers between the years 2018–2040, which is equivalent to approximately 6000 new teachers per year. To enter into the teaching profession, typically candidates should complete a teaching program offered through specialized education departments within mainstream universities or through the Instituto Superior de Formación Docente Salomé Ureña (ISFODOSU), which is specifically dedicated to teacher education. Article 136 of the General Education Law (MINERD 1997) establishes that candidates for school-level positions must meet a series of requirements. The application and selection process for school staff (teachers, principals, assistant principals, coordinators, and counselors) aspiring to public sector positions consists of a set of evaluations based on the country’s teaching standards. The passing grade is between 70 and 100 points (MINERD 2019a), and only those who pass are appointed and assigned to a public school (IDEC 2016). Upon completion of the university program, teaching candidates must pass a competitive exam (concurso de oposición) in order to be named to a school within the educational system. The competitive exam is organized at the national level and is offered irregularly. In addition, the low success rates among teachers who take the exam has contributed to a qualified teacher shortage, where there are not enough eligible teachers to fill the vacancies advertised by MINERD. Recently, there was a 2-year gap between when the exam competition was held for new teachers. In 2016, there were 22,176 teacher candidates who sat for the exam; however, only 6657 of those who passed were selected for positions. There were no exams in either 2017 or 2018, and the teacher’s union (Asociación Dominicana de Profesores, ADP) critiqued the number of positions across the education system being filled by unqualified personnel (IDEC 2019). In 2019, a competitive exam was announced, with 10,738 positions available, of which approximately 56% were for teaching positions, 16% for school director positions, and the remainder for counseling positions. This exam saw record participation from 54,483 candidates. However, there was significant controversy around how adequate and valid the exam was for screening teacher candidates, as 98–100% of applicants failed in 9 regions (IDEC 2019). Successful candidates enter the education system on a 1-year probationary term during which they are evaluated according to the teaching standards. The teaching standards include four dimensions: student learning, curriculum content, process of teaching and learning, and professional and personal commitment. These teaching standards have been used to inform the teacher performance evaluation administered

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by MINERD. Teachers new to the profession are supported through the National Induction Program (Programa Nacional de Inducción), which was established in 2018 through MINERD Resolution 01-2018. The program provides new educators with further training, coaching, and support in their initial years. The induction program is coordinated at two levels: by the MINERD Office for Accreditation and Teacher Certification, and by INAFOCAM. A study conducted by INAFOCAM in 2015 found that primary and secondary teachers had significant gaps in conceptual knowledge of the national curriculum, including key concepts, principles, theories, and disciplines (INAFOCAM 2015). This finding justified the most critical advancement in teacher training and development between 2012 and 2016 (IDEC 2015): the approval of Normative 09-15, which outlines professional and performance standards for teacher certification and career advancement, and also provides guidelines for quality teacher training. For in-service teachers, training has been reoriented to respond to specific needs at the level, grade, or content area in which a teacher works (INAFOCAM 2017). A key element of in-service teacher training and development has been the decentralization of professional development programs to include more school-based programming. The National Strategy for School-Based Continuous Development (Estrategia Nacional de la Formación Continua Centrada en la Escuela, EFCCE) is implemented by INAFOCAM, supporting teacher training and coaching through partner institutions and technical specialists at the regional and district MINERD offices. INAFOCAM also supports schools in developing school-improvement plans. Since 2013, INAFOCAM has worked with more than 31,000 educators, 35 districts, and 2100 schools under the auspices of the EFCCE initiative (IDEC 2019). In addition, INAFOCAM provides a variety of diplomas, workshops, conferences, seminars, and certificate programs to support the ongoing development of in-service teachers across the Dominican Republic. Among higher education institutions, the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology (MESCyT) is responsible for overseeing regulations to ensure quality in teacher education so that all institutions are preparing teachers with the skills needed to be successful in the classroom (MESCyT 2015). Admission requirements to receive a degree in education have been raised to increase the qualifications required for potential teacher candidates (Normative 09-15; MESCyT 2015). In 2017, the government launched a scholarship program to motivate high performing students to enter education programs and become teachers at all levels of the educational system (Ministerio de la Presidencia 2017). The Teachers of Excellence Program (Programa Docente de Excelencia) aims to ensure that teacher education and development programs are updated and aligned with the professional skills required by the Dominican educational system in light of recent curricular innovations and other performance expectations (INAFOCAM 2017). The Teachers of Excellence Program is offered through ISFODOSU and other higher education institutions, under the coordination of INAFOCAM. The current goal for the program is to develop 20,000 students in the field of education (IDEC 2019). In addition, the framework for the Teachers of Excellence Program outlines a comprehensive vision to promote sustainable improvement in education quality and to

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revalorize the teaching profession in the Dominican Republic. The key priorities of the framework include (1) developing a new teaching career system that evaluates, rewards, and promotes teachers according to their performance and students’ results, and (2) implementing professional and teaching performance standards throughout the teaching career (hiring, induction, performance evaluation, certification, and retirement) (MINERD 2017). Having discussed the significant investment in restructuring and supporting the teaching profession, we now turn to an examination of emerging trends that specifically focus on student learning and student experiences in schools.

6

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

6.1

Inequality

Much of the educational reform initiatives in the Dominican Republic have been the product of inequalities within the country’s educational system. These inequities are often framed in terms of student learning outcomes as compared to other countries in Latin America. Since the 1990s, results on international assessments have served as justification for many Latin American countries to pursue the modernization of their educational systems, a key focus of this chapter. In 1997, the Dominican Republic participated in UNESCO’s First Regional Comparative and Explicative Study (PERCE) which assessed 3rd and 4th grade primary students across Latin America in language and math (UNESCO 1998). Through PERCE, students in the Dominican Republic ranked at the lowest percentile, provoking increased accountability movements and a focus on student learning results within the parameters of such assessments. When the Second Regional Comparative and Explicative Study (SERCE) was implemented in 2006, several changes had been made so that PERCE and SERCE results were not comparable. These changes included assessing students at the 3rd and 6th grade levels, adding science as a content level, and adjusting the language arts section to represent both reading and writing development (UNESCO 2008). By the time SERCE was conducted, the Dominican Republic had completed its revision of the first 10-year educational plan. However, SERCE outcomes for students in the Dominican Republic were again among the lowest in the region. In 2006, the Dominican Republic participated for the first time in the Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA), an international assessment of 15-year-old students from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Student outcomes in the Dominican Republic obtained last place in comparative rankings (OECD 2015). In 2009, PISA was conducted in more countries, for a total of 67 participating countries. Again, the Dominican Republic was positioned as the country with the lowest performance of all participating Latin American countries (OECD 2010). In 2013, the Third Regional Comparative and Explicative Study (TERCE) was administered. Results were presented regionally across Latin America and at the country-level, providing an opportunity

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to evaluate student progress in language arts, math, and science learning outcomes (UNESCO 2015). According to TERCE, Dominican students showed a minimum improvement in learning outcomes across all subject areas and in both grade levels assessed, when compared to the previous SERCE evaluation. However, these assessments do not show sustained improvement trends, with the country remaining below the regional average and producing the lowest results. Finally, results from the 2015 PISA assessment show that students in Latin America and the Caribbean continue to be among the lowest achievers in all areas (OECD 2015), with the Dominican Republic at the bottom of the league tables. The Ministry of Education and the Dominican government have explicitly stated that the 2017–2020 strategic plan aims to bring together all elements necessary for the Dominican Republic to move from the last place in student achievement to one of the countries with the fastest improvement rates in reaching OECD-level performance on the PISA assessment (MINERD 2017). Although the results of these international comparative assessments have been the focus of much attention and policymaking in relation to inequality in the Dominican Republic, such assessments do not tell the full story of student learning. In a proposed panel analyzing the evaluation activities of the Consortium for Educational Evaluation and Research (Consorcio de Evaluación e Investigación Educativa, CEIE), researchers with long histories in the Dominican Republic planned to discuss how inquiry activities beyond achievement tests provide alternative perspectives on what students know and are able to do, and how national educational policies and programs have indeed produced changes in student learning (Valverde et al. 2020). Valverde et al. critique how cross-sectional data from international assessments such as PISA and TERCE misrepresent learning progress within the country, advocating for longitudinal measures of student growth rather than achievement tests that only measure what students know at one point in time. Thus, alternative views on learning can reveal inequalities from a more nuanced perspective and inform policy and practice in ways that are explicitly tied to the national curriculum, local priorities, and a variety of contexts while taking into account historical, economic, and sociopolitical realities.

6.2

ICT and Digitalization

Several programs focused on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as well as digitalization have been launched to support student learning in the Dominican Republic over the last several years. One major initiative across the country is Digital Republic (República Digital), which is aimed at fostering a “digital revolution” across four areas: education, technology access, productivity and employment, and open and transparent digital governance. In the education sector, the Digital Republic initiative seeks to use ICT to improve the teaching and learning process and provide more resources for teaching. The program includes nine different projects targeted at K-12 education and beyond: (1) providing training in multimedia, software, digital networks, and ICT tools to young girls and women, children under 12, and vulnerable populations including those with special needs; (2) offering youth

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training and education in software development; (3) educating children, youth, and families on the ethical and responsible use of the internet; (4) focusing on digital literacy and twenty-first century skills; (5) providing computers to university teachers and students in the field of education, supporting the use of ICT in teaching practice; (6) developing a web portal to provide science, technology, and humanities information to members of the university community; (7) developing scientific and technological competencies through student clubs, robotics programs, and other initiatives; (8) creating a unique student identification system; and (9) implementing a “One student, one computer; One teacher, one computer” program to provide computers across the K-12 public education system. Although the Digital Republic initiative is intended to operate nationwide, there are significant geographic differences in access and opportunities. For example, the province of Santo Domingo (where the capital city is located) has been outfitted with 280 Wifi points and 8 Community Technology Centers, whereas some provinces in the middle of the country (e.g., La Vega) and on the border with Haiti (e.g., Pedernales) have received no interventions or very limited services (such as the installation of one Wifi point) (República Digital n.d.). These geographic disparities are present across ICT initiatives implemented by the educational system, wherein schools in Santo Domingo and the Central Cibao have more access to technology and technical support than those in the South. For example, a 2016 study on technology access in educational centers in the Dominican Republic found that only 48% of schools had internet access, 33% have a laptop and projector, 22% have technology labs, and 5% have laptop carts. In addition, 79% of schools have computing equipment, 63% have visualization equipment, and 69% have copying and printing equipment. The study also found that schools with larger student populations are more likely to have technological equipment or benefit from national ICT programs (Molina 2016). The Computeacher (Compumaestro) program, an initiative of MINERD, began its first stage with the government providing individual teachers with laptop computers to support lesson planning and revision, assessment, and the selection of digital materials and resources for teaching. The laptops were outfitted with digital pedagogical resources that teachers could use as they worked to integrate ICT into the teaching and learning process. In the second stage of the program (Compumaestro 2.0), teachers receiving laptops also had the opportunity to receive a specialized diploma administered by ISFODOSU. The diploma curriculum includes modules on advanced digital literacy, digital educational resources, programming, and design for twenty-first century learning. By 2015, the program had reached 8000 teachers (MINERD n.d.-d).

6.3

STEM Subjects

STEM programming promoted by the Ministry of Education has been focused most recently on robotics, digital resources, and software (MINERD n.d.-a). The educational robotics program is aligned with specific priorities in the National

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Development Plan 2010–2030 and the National Pact for Education Reform 2014–2030. Schools that participate in trainings delivered by the Office of Educational Technology (Dirección de Informática Educativa) receive robotics kits to facilitate learning activities with students. Students have the opportunity to participate in robotics competitions, including through MINERD and the Foundation for Scientific and Technological Development (FUNDECITEC). Schools with educational robotics programs are encouraged to link robotics activities with other aspects of the curriculum, such as natural sciences and math. By April 2019, 639 schools in the Dominican Republic had received robotics kits (República Digital 2019). In addition, as part of the Digital Republic initiative, the government has set a goal for more than 660,000 students to study robotics, science, or astronomy online through virtual laboratories and for 166,000 students to study these subjects through local schools (IDEC 2019). In 2010, the Research Center for Feminist Action (Centro de Investigación para la Acción Femenina, CIPAF) created e-Girls (e-chicas) and Supermath (Supermática) STEM clubs to encourage more young women and girls to pursue careers related to science and technology. These student groups are designed for 6th–8th graders (e-Girls) and high schoolers (Supermath), fostering a love for math, science, and technology among female learners. Since 2014, these clubs have been institutionalized with MINERD through the Office of Educational Technology. As part of these clubs, telecommunications companies in the Dominican Republic have collaborated to send female engineers as guest speakers to share their experiences with students. By 2016, there were 50 clubs across the country reaching more than 1400 students (López 2016).

6.4

Emerging Issues

School violence in the Dominican Republic is a topic of concern for students, families, teachers, school leaders, and policymakers alike. A 2014 study on the prevalence, type, and causes of violence in primary and middle grade schools in the Dominican Republic found that bullying was a common occurrence, with 33.6% of students reporting having been bullied within the last 2 months. In addition, 69% of school directors reported having witnessed violence among students (IDEICE et al. 2014). In response, the Organization for Ibero-American States launched a program against school violence in order to promote peaceful coexistence in schools. In addition, the Ministry of Education launched a campaign to prevent school bullying called Tratar bien es vivir. In 2013, MINERD and the National Commission for Children and Adolescents (Consejo Nacional para la Niñez y la Adolescencia, CONANI), with support from UNICEF, designed and implemented the Norms of the Dominican Education System for Harmonious Coexistence in Public and Private Schools. This public policy aims to create positive learning environments in schools through the following principles and values: (1) centering the interests of children; (2) respecting the dignity of all members of the educational community; (3) preventing violence and developing a

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culture of peace; (4) resolving conflicts peacefully; (5) no discrimination; (6) participation of children and adolescents; (7) gender perspective; and (8) human rights focus (MINERD n.d.-c). The policy also serves to fulfill requirements of Law 136-03, the Code of Protection for the Rights of Children and Adolescents (Código para la Protección de los Derechos de los Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes), which was instituted in 2003. In relation to this law, the Coalition of NGOs for Children (Coalición de ONGs por la Infancia) – a membership organization consisting of nonprofit organizations focused on children – collaborates to provide civil society oversight around issues and initiatives that either violate or support the human rights of children in the Dominican Republic. In 2018, MINERD in collaboration with UNICEF developed the National Strategy for a Culture of Peace in Schools (MINERD and UNICEF n.d.). The strategy builds on the eight principles described above and aligns with the National Pact for Education Reform’s focus on promoting a culture of dialogue and mutual understanding among actors within the education system. The strategy addresses topic of violence including psychological and corporal punishment, bullying, physical violence, and sexual and gender-based violence. The plan includes strategies such as peer mediation, emotional regulation, positive discipline, and positive childrearing to address these topics. The actions within the framework of the National Strategy for a Culture of Peace in Schools are also linked to the national public policies advanced by CONANI – the National Roadmap to Prevent and Eliminate Violence against Children and Adolescents, 2015–2020 – which aim to prevent and respond to all forms of violence against young people. Together, these policies and programs represent a concerted effort by policymakers, civil society, and the educational system to address the vulnerability of children and youth and protect their human rights.

7

Conclusions

This chapter has provided an overview of the social and historical foundations of the education system in the Dominican Republic. By linking historical precedents with more recent modernization efforts since the 1990s, we aim to provide a high-level understanding of the development of the country’s education system within the social, political, economic, and cultural context of the Dominican Republic. We describe key structural elements of the education system to provide a clear understanding of how public education is organized, the socio-technical issues it addresses, and the governmental and nongovernmental organizations that make important contributions to its functioning. We also illustrate the core investments in educational reform that have taken place in the Dominican Republic through the Revolución Educativa, a series of coordinated actions carried out in alignment with an ambitious vision for the future of the education system. This chapter thus intends to describe advances in education quality through numerous examples that detail the structural and programmatic transformations that have made a difference for the

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teaching and learning process, including curriculum reform, extended school day, and support for the teaching profession. Despite these advances, gaps in implementation between policy and practice must be addressed in order to fully realize the effects of stated goals. While many programs and initiatives continue to target the same communities and regions within the country, there are others that remain significantly under-resourced and under-supported in their efforts to implement new requirements and strengthen daily practices. As described in this chapter, resources must be more equitably distributed across the education system (geographically, socioeconomically, and ethno-racially) so that all students, teachers, schools, and communities have equal opportunities to benefit from the educational reforms that have been put in motion over the past few decades. In addition, more attention must be paid to other issues of concern that have not been explored in this chapter due to space limitations, such as early childhood education, literacy development, language learning, culturally responsive education, a focus on gender equity, education for students with disabilities, migration and education, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on education and student learning.

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Ministerio de Educación de la República Dominicana (MINERD). (2019b). Tanda extendida cubre universalización de la matrícula estudiantil en 35 municipios; a nivel nacional beneficia al 73.4% de los alumnos. http://www.ministeriodeeducacion.gob.do/comunicaciones/noticias/ tanda-extendida-cubre-universalizacion-de-la-matricula-estudiantil-en-35-municipios-a-nivelnacional-beneficia-al-734-de-los-alumnos. Accessed 2 Jan 2020. Ministerio de Educación de la República Dominicana (MINERD). (n.d.-a). Actividades integradoras con TIC. http://www.educando.edu.do/portal/actividades-integradoras-tic/. Accessed 10 Sept 2019. Ministerio de Educación de la República Dominicana (MINERD). (n.d.-b). Historia. http://www. ministeriodeeducacion.gob.do/sobre-nosotros/historia. Accessed 17 Dec 2019. Ministerio de Educación de la República Dominicana (MINERD). (n.d.-c). Normas del sistema educativo dominicano para la convivencia armoniosa en los centros educativos públicos y privados. http://www.educando.edu.do/files/5914/1200/1735/Normas_de_convivencia_16-0_014.pdf. Accessed 15 Jan 2020. Ministerio de Educación de la República Dominicana (MINERD). (n.d.-d). Programa compumaestro 2.0. http://www.educando.edu.do/portal/programa-compumaestro-2-0/. Accessed 10 Sept 2019. Ministerio de Educación de la República Dominicana (MINERD), & UNICEF. (2017). Niños y niñas fuera de la escuela en la República Dominicana. Santo Domingo. https://www.unicef.org/ dominicanrepublic/media/246/file/Ni%C3%B1os%20Fuera%20de%20la%20Escuela%20en% 20Rep%C3%BAblica%20Dominicana.pdf. Accessed 6 June 2021. Ministerio de Educación de la República Dominicana (MINERD), & UNICEF. (n.d.). Estrategia nacional de cultura de paz. http://www.educando.edu.do/portal/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ Estrategia-Nacional-de-Cultura-de-paz-WEB.pdf. Accessed 15 Jan 2020. Ministerio de Educación Superior Ciencia y Tecnología (MESCyT). (2015). Normativa para la formación docente de calidad en la República Dominicana. http://www.inafocam.edu.do/ transparencia/phocadownload/BaseLegal/normativa/Normativa%20para%20laformacion% 20docente%20de%20calidad%20en%20la%20Rep%20Dom%20Dic%209%202015.pdf. Accessed 5 June 2021. Ministerio de la Presidencia. (2017). Programa de gobierno 2016–2020. https://pld.org.do/ documento/programa-de-gobierno-2016-2020/. Accessed 10 Sept 2019. Molina, H. (2016, October). Estudio sobre la disponibilidad de infraestructura tecnológica en los planteles educativos del sistema educativo público. http://www.educando.edu.do/portal/wpcontent/uploads/2017/11/Informe-Infraestructura-Digital.pdf. Accessed 10 Sept 2019. OECD. (2008). Informe sobre las políticas nacionales en educación: República Dominicana. http:// www.oecd.org/education/skills-beyond-school/41428055.pdf. Accessed 29 Sept 2019. OECD. (2010). PISA 2009 results: Executive summary. https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/ 46619703.pdf. Accessed 29 Sept 2019. OECD. (2015). PISA results in focus. https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisa-2015-results-in-focus.pdf. Accessed 29 Sept 2019. Oficina Nacional de Estadística. (2012). La variable étnico racial en los censos de población en la República Dominicana. Santo Domingo. Pacto Nacional para la Reforma Educativa (PNRE). (2014, April). Pacto Nacional para la Reforma Educativa en la República Dominicana 2014–2030. http://pactoeducativo.do/wp-content/ uploads/2013/09/Pacto-Nacional-para-la-Reforma-Educativa-en-la-Republica-Dominicana.pdf. Accessed 10 Jan 2020. Portal Oficial de la República Dominicana. (2021). Información y estadística general. http:// dominicana.gob.do/index.php/pais/2014-12-16-20-50-15. Accessed 6 June 2021. Programa de Apoyo Presupuestario al Sector de Educación de la República Dominicana (PAPSE). (2016, August). La Iniciativa Dominicana por una Educación de Calidad presenta su informe de seguimiento y monitoreo del período 2012–2016. http://www.papse2.edu.do/index.php/ noticias/131-la-iniciativa-dominicana-por-una-educacion-de-calidad-presenta-su-informe-deseguimiento-y-monitoreo-del-periodo-2012-2016. Accessed 29 Sept 2019. República Digital. (2019, April 1). La educación robótica avanza en República Dominicana. https:// republicadigital.gob.do/blog/eduacion-robotica-republica-dominicana/. Accessed 10 Jan 2020.

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República Digital. (n.d.). Educación. https://republicadigital.gob.do/eje/educacion/. Accessed 7 Jan 2020. RTI International. (n.d.). Impact: Alerta Joven. https://www.rti.org/impact/alerta-joven. Accessed 15 Jan 2020. Secretaría de Estado de Educación (SEE). (2008). Plan decenal de educación 2008–2018: Un instrumento de trabajo en procura de la excelencia educativa. http://www.minerd.gob.do/ documentosminerd/Planificacion/planes/PLAN_DECENAL_final.pdf. Accessed 29 Sept 2019. Sistema Nacional de Supervisión Educativa (SNSE). (2014). Manual de supervisión educativa. http://www.ministeriodeeducacion.gob.do/docs/direccion-general-de-supervision-educativa/ wD1m-manual-de-supervisionpdf.pdf. Accessed 10 Jan 2020. UNDP. (2019). Human development report 2019. Briefing note for countries. Dominican Republic. http://hdr.undp.org/sites/all/themes/hdr_theme/country-notes/DOM.pdf. Accessed 15 Jan 2020. UNESCO. (1998). Primer estudio internacional comparativo sobre lenguaje, matemática y factores asociados en tercero y cuarto grado. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/ pf0000123130_spa. Accessed 10 Jan 2020. UNESCO. (2008). Student achievement in Latin America and the Caribbean: Results of the Second Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (SERCE); Executive summary. https://unesdoc. unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000161045. Accessed 10 Jan 2020. UNESCO. (2015). Informe de resultados TERCE: logros de aprendizaje. https://unesdoc.unesco. org/ark:/48223/pf0000243532. Accessed 10 Jan 2020. Valverde, G., González, S., Roncagliolo, R., Zapata, J., & Scheker Mendoza, A. (2020, March 23). Beyond an achievement standard for educational evaluation: Lessons for formative evaluations from 15 years of research in the Dominican Republic. Panel proposed for the Comparative and International Education Society Annual Conference (conference cancelled due to covid-19). World Bank. (2016). Para construir un mejor futuro juntos: Notas de política sobre República Dominicana. http://economia.gob.do/mepyd/wp-content/uploads/archivos/libros/DR-PolicyNotes-spanish-web.pdf. Accessed 10 Jan 2020. World Bank. (2017). The World Bank in Latin America and the Caribbean. http://www.worldbank. org/en/region/lac/overview#1. Accessed 10 Jan 2020.

The Education System of Ecuador Moving Towards Quality Education

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Marco Rieckmann, Stefany Flores, Mayra Karina Pabo´n Ponce, Edda Ve´lez, and Silvia Leonor Mera Pincay

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Social Conditions: Provision/Population Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Transition to the Labor Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Educational Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Personnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Key Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Reducing Inequality in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitalization in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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M. Rieckmann (*) · S. L. Mera Pincay Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, Department of Education, University of Vechta, Vechta, Lower Saxony, Germany e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] S. Flores Faculty of Engineering in Applied Sciences, Universidad Técnica del Norte, Ibarra, Imbabura, Ecuador e-mail: scfl[email protected] M. K. Pabón Ponce Faculty of Education, Universidad Técnica del Norte, Ibarra, Imbabura, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] E. Vélez Postgraduate Institute, Universidad Técnica del Norte, Ibarra, Imbabura, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_7

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4.3 Improving the Quality of STEM Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

This chapter describes the characteristics and features of the Ecuadorian education system, and discusses historical and social foundations, institutional and organizational principles, and educational trends and key issues. Our discussion of educational trends and key issues focuses in particular on the recent transformation of higher education and the importance of education for sustainable development in higher education. On the one hand, this chapter illustrates how the Ecuadorian education system strives to provide quality education for all and to contribute to the country’s sustainable development. On the other, it also highlights the obstacles that remain to achieving these goals. Keywords

Education system · Ecuador · History · Quality education · Higher education · Education for sustainable development

1

Introduction

The Ecuadorian educational system in its present form has its origins in the sixteenth century. Since then, it has undergone many changes, the main aims of which were to secularize a system that was originally church-led and to provide the general population, including that of rural areas, with access to good quality education. Since 2008, Ecuador’s education system, and in particular higher education, has undergone a fundamental transformation, aimed at improving access to education and providing good quality education. Universities have become increasingly aware of their role in the promotion of sustainable development. This chapter first presents the historical and social foundations of the education system in Ecuador before going on to describe its institutional and organizational principles. Against this background, the third part of this chapter then discusses educational trends and key issues, focusing in particular on the recent transformation of higher education and the importance of education for sustainable development in higher education.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

2.1

General Historical Background

In colonial times, access to formal education was limited to only a few social groups, mostly the white upper class, and education was controlled by the Catholic Church (Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014). Education had two objectives: firstly, to provide

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elitist training for the colony’s future administrators, and secondly, to Christianize the indigenous population (Contreras n.d.). Franciscan missionaries played an important role in education during this time. One of their main contributions was the creation of the first school in the city of Quito in 1553. The school was called San Andrés (Contreras n.d.) and was open to indigenous people, but closed after a few years due to lack of support from the Crown. Later, dozens of religious charity schools opened in many towns. Some other Escuelas de Primeras Letras (primary schools) were privately run and charged modest tuition fees (Freile 2015). The Franciscan missionaries also encouraged higher education, founding Quito’s first university, known as San Fulgencio, in 1596 (Contreras n.d.). Formal education, particularly secondary and higher education, usually favored the upper classes. However, religious orders, especially the Jesuits, granted scholarships to the poor. The arrival of the Jesuits in the Spanish colonies in 1568 was welcomed by most. Education at that time was the sole province of the Church, and the Jesuits were respected and renowned for their knowledge and expertise in relation to education. They founded the Colegio de San Luis, the city’s first secondary education institution, in Quito in 1568, and the Universidad de San Gregorio in 1622 (Freile 2015). Three colegios (secondary schools), namely, San Nicolás, San Fernando, and San Luis, continued to operate under the auspices of the universities of San Fulgencio, Santo Tomás, and San Gregorio, respectively. At the end of the eighteenth century, only Santo Tomás remained, and was known as the Universidad Real. It later became the Universidad Central del Ecuador under Simon Bolívar. (Simón Bolívar, 1783– 1830, was a military and political leader who led what are now the countries of Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru to independence from the Spanish Empire.) The most important thinkers of the time were trained in boys’ schools run by Jesuits in the larger cities (Freile 2015). At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the country’s formal education system was still not well established. In 1825, there were only 14 primary schools in Quito, with a total of 315 students (Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014). In 1830, Ecuador became a sovereign republic and the obligation to promote and foster public education was enshrined in the Constitution (Ministerio de Educación y Cultura del Ecuador and OEI 1994; Moreira Palma 2013). However, even after Ecuador gained independence, the clergy continued to dominate the school system (Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014). In 1836, the first Public Education Authority decree was issued, establishing the Dirección General de Estudios (General Directorate of Studies) as the regulatory body. The same decree also created the Sub-Directorates and Inspectorates of Instruction, the bodies responsible for enforcing and ensuring compliance with the regulations (Ministerio de Educación y Cultura del Ecuador and OEI 1994; Moreira Palma 2013; Contreras n.d.). The first Education Law was approved in 1838, and established three levels of education: primary, secondary, and higher education (Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014). Education of girls was very limited and was essentially confined to convents. The first school for girls, Nuestra Señora de la Caridad (ca. 1835), was opened under

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President Vicente Rocafuerte (1834–1839). The government of President Gabriel García Moreno (1859–1865, 1869–1875) established the first mixed secondary schools in provincial capitals and in some cantons (Freile 2015). In 1871, primary education became free and compulsory throughout the country. Escuelas Normales (Normal Schools) were established in Quito’s women’s schools to train indigenous teachers. Vocational education was introduced in secondary schools. Higher education institutions were also created, including the Politécnica (in its time the best university in Latin America), the Universidad de Bellas Artes, the Universidad de Agricultura, and the Conservatorio de Música. Government scholarships enabled university teachers to train in Europe. President Rocafuerte’s administration also saw the creation of the universities of Guayaquil and Cuenca, and the inauguration of a Chair of Pedagogy at the Universidad Central del Ecuador (Freile 2015). In 1875, the General Directorate of Studies and the Sub-Directorates and Inspectorates of Instruction were renamed the Consejo General de Instrucción Pública (General Council of Public Instruction). This new body was responsible for administering universities and primary and secondary schools, in conformity with Catholic Church doctrine. The bishops of the various dioceses had sole authority over the choice and appointment of rectors, directors, preceptors, examiners, texts, etc. Christian Brothers belonging to the De La Salle congregation were in charge of primary and secondary school instruction, while the Jesuits controlled the polytechnics and universities (Ministerio de Educación y Cultura del Ecuador and OEI 1994). The Progressivist period (1883–1895) saw an unprecedented boom in primary education, in terms both of the number of new schools and the number of students, and Ecuador became the Latin American country with the most children per capita attending school. New colegios (secondary schools) were also opened in several cities, three of which specialized in Arts and Crafts (Quito, Riobamba and Cuenca), and another of which was intended for workers in Guayaquil (Freile 2015). In 1884, the Ministerio de Educación Pública (Ministry of Public Education) was established (Freile 2015; Ministerio de Educación y Cultura del Ecuador and OEI 1994; Contreras n.d.) to organize, administer, and control the institutions providing educational services. Statistics show that there were 1,207 primary schools in the country that year, with 76,150 students and 1,605 teachers; and 45 secondary schools with 7,220 students and 516 teachers (Ministerio de Educación y Cultura del Ecuador and OEI 1994). Under the government of President Eloy Alfaro (1895–1901), secularism prevailed (Freile 2015; Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014). The Constituent Assembly of 1897 approved a new Law of Public Education establishing free, secular, and compulsory primary education (Contreras n.d.). This brought changes to the curriculum, and several secondary schools were founded to serve as models. The Alfaro government set up the Institutos Normales (Normal Institutes) in Quito and Guayaquil to prepare teachers for secular teaching and to establish an efficient model that would not be influenced by religious practices (Freile 2015; Moreira Palma 2013; Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014). In addition, night schools were established, one of

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them specializing in adult education, for the benefit of working people. In the context of this paradigm shift, the government helped many young people to study abroad (Freile 2015). Subsequent governments brought in pedagogical missions with a view to modernizing teacher training. The two German missions of 1912 and 1914 left a longlasting impression, both materially and pedagogically, in the form of the concept of the Escuela Nueva (New School) (Freile 2015). During Eloy Alfaro’s second term, a new Constituent Assembly enacted the progressive Constitution of 1906. This embodied the true spirit of the liberal revolution, that is, complete separation of State and Church, abolition of the state religion, freedom of education, free and secular public education, compulsory primary school education, absolute freedom of conscience and wide-ranging rights for individuals (Contreras n.d.). The Ley Orgánica de Instrucción Pública (Organic Law of Public Instruction) of 1906 stated that all national state-supported primary and secondary establishments and higher education institutions must provide public instruction. There were three types of primary schools: elementary, middle, and upper, and three types of secondary school: lower, upper, and special. Higher education included the following faculties: Law; Medicine, Surgery and Pharmacy; Mathematics, Physics and Natural Sciences. The Organic Law also established the Escuelas Pedagógicas (Teacher Training Schools) and the Escuelas de Artes y Oficios (Schools of Arts and Crafts) (Ministerio de Educación y Cultura del Ecuador and OEI 1994). In 1928, the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (Faculty of Humanities) was founded at the Universidad Central del Ecuador, and within it the Institute of Pedagogy. Since then, concerted efforts have been made to improve the professional training of teachers, although these have been impacted by the recurrent politicization of education and exacerbated by the Ministry of Education’s low budget (Freile 2015). In the 1930s and in the 1940s, socialist ideas prevailed, including at the Ministry of Education. Education in rural areas was thus perceived to have its own function and perspective; education was linked to the social, cultural, economic, and even political environment; curriculum design and development were diversified; communication between administrators and teachers was improved; in short, the democratization of education had begun (Ministerio de Educación y Cultura del Ecuador and OEI 1994). Primary and secondary education in Ecuador was restructured in a more organized manner in 1938 (Salazar Jaramillo 2014), with the passing of the Primary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act. The Higher Education Act granted universities autonomy over their academic and administrative operations (Ministerio de Educación y Cultura del Ecuador and OEI 1994; Contreras n.d.; Salazar Jaramillo 2014). The 1945 Constitution placed greater emphasis on education and culture. It confirmed certain core liberal values: secular, free, and compulsory education (at primary level) (Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014). In addition, the Constitution began to strengthen private education, allocating 20% of municipal resources to it and incorporating it into the National Directorate of Education. Both public and private universities were granted autonomy (Moreira Palma 2013).

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In 1960, a new, more practical, and economics-focused approach to education led to reforms at primary and secondary level, and there was a significant increase in education budgets. Education policy focused above all on the development of primary education in rural areas and the expansion of public secondary education in both the general and vocational sectors. The 1964 education reforms extended the duration of rural primary education to 6 years, bringing it into line with urban education. In secondary education, the 1964 reforms introduced a basic curriculum and a diversified program of study (Contreras n.d.). Pedagogical and curricular reforms succeeded one another throughout the twentieth century. Since the middle of that century, incomes generated by the banana industry and then by the oil industry have allowed the state to substantially increase the number of schools, and also the quality of education they provide (Freile 2015; Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014). After the replacement of the military regime (1976–1979) by democratically elected presidents, a new Education Act was passed in 1983. It remained the official framework of the education system until 1996 (with the exception of higher education, which is subject to its own Higher Education Act) (Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014). The advent of social sciences such as Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology has enabled education in Ecuador to focus on its varied cultural and regional realities. The teaching of native languages was thus gradually introduced in areas where they were spoken. The Diocese of Riobamba and the Shuar Federation pioneered the teaching of native languages around 1964 (Freile 2015). Bilingual intercultural education was first institutionalized in Ecuador by the Dirección Nacional de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe (DINEIB, National Directorate of Bilingual Intercultural Education), which was founded in November 1988 as part of the Ministry of Education and tasked with the education of the indigenous population (Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014). In 1996, a new education reform was undertaken, known as the Reforma Curricular de Educación Básica Ecuatoriana (Ecuadorian Basic Education Curricular Reform), and seeking, in general terms, to raise the educational level of students so that they could respond to developments at national and international level. Its more specific objectives included the development of critical, engaged students who were committed to social change and had scientific and technological training (Salazar Jaramillo 2014). The new Constitution of 1998 stated that the state guaranteed equal educational opportunities to all, as an inalienable right. Education would be free, ethical, pluralistic, democratic, humanistic, and scientific. Education was also guaranteed to individuals with disabilities, and education in rural regions and border areas was prioritized. The funds allocated to education and the eradication of illiteracy were raised to 30% of the central government’s budget (Moreira Palma 2013). The 2000 new Organic Law on Higher Education brought universities, polytechnics, and both vocational and technological institutes of higher education within the National System of Higher Education. It emphasized the need to promote science and technology through teaching, research, and community outreach, and

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recognized the need to respect all forms of knowledge exposed in a scientific way (Salazar Jaramillo 2014). The year 2003 saw the introduction of standards for the first time in the education sector (Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014). In November 2006, the Ministry of Education of Ecuador approved the Ten-Year Education Plan 2006–2015 following a plebiscite. The Plan sought to implement the international standards set out in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which aimed to improve the quality of education (Salazar Jaramillo 2014; Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014). Further major changes in the system were introduced in the context of the political stability brought by the presidency of Rafael Correa Delgado (2007– 2017). The new Constitution of October 2008 (Asamblea Nacional 2008) introduced changes such as the expansion of universal access to school education, with compulsory school education being extended by 3 years, that is, up to upper secondary level (Bachillerato) (Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014). Under this new Constitution, the provision of education was conceived of as a duty of the state, and it was required to be free up to tertiary level (Bachelor or equivalent). In addition, the Ley Orgánica de Educación Intercultural (LOEI, Organic Law on Intercultural Education) and the Ley Orgánica de Educación Superior (LOES, Organic Law on Higher Education) were adopted. The Secretaria Nacional de Educación Superior Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (SENESCYT, National Secretariat of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation) was created and an in-depth evaluation of the country’s universities was conducted by the Consejo de Evaluación, Acreditación y Aseguramiento de la Calidad de la Educación Superior (CEAACES, Council for Evaluation, Accreditation and Quality Assurance of Higher Education). This led to significant improvement in the quality of higher education (Moreira Palma 2013; Salazar Jaramillo 2014). The new 2011 LOEI was intended to transform the educational system. It aimed to enhance students’ analytical, critical, and independent thinking to enable them to build a fair, equitable, and free society, and to promote knowledge and appreciation of, and respect for, the country’s natural and cultural heritage. Importantly, the new Education Act also addressed the Intercultural Bilingual System and special educational needs (Salazar Jaramillo 2014; Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014).

2.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

The Republic of Ecuador has been a sovereign country since 1830. It is located in the north-western region of South America and is made up of 24 provinces. It borders Colombia to the north, Peru to the south and east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. The Andes mountain range divides the territory from north to south, with the Gulf of Guayaquil and a forested plain on its western flank, and the Amazon basin to the east. Ecuador covers a total area of 283,561 km2 including the Galapagos Islands. The country’s capital and biggest city is Quito. The official language is Spanish, which is spoken by 99% of the population. Thirteen other recognized indigenous languages, including Kichwa and Shuar, are also widely spoken (Hanratty 1989).

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The country has always been marked by great political and territorial instability, including several coups d’état. The clerical dictatorship of President García Moreno (1861–1865; 1869–1875), for example, was succeeded by the radical liberal government of Eloy Alfaro (1896–1901; 1906–1911). In the second half of the twentieth century, the country was ruled by the conservative and populist President Ibarra until he was overthrown by the military in 1972. Military rule was followed by several social democratic and conservative presidents who succeeded in serving their full legal terms. Between 1997 and 2007, however, the country had seven different presidents. After President Correa (2007–2017) took office in early 2007, the situation became less turbulent, and in September 2008, a new constitution was approved by referendum (Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014; Hanratty 1989). Since 2017, the country has been governed by President Lenín Moreno Garcés. The political climate once again became unstable in October 2019, when fierce protests followed the government’s proposed cuts to fuel subsidies. In 2019, Ecuador was ranked 85th (jointly with China) out of 189 countries worldwide on the Human Development Index. Gross National Income (GNI) per capita (2011) is $10,141 (UNDP 2019). Ecuador’s economy is highly dependent on oil resources from the Amazon basin, which accounts for more than 50% of exports and 12% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Other sectors that are important to the economy include commerce, construction, and industry, each representing 10% of GDP. Agriculture (bananas, shrimp, coffee) only represents 6% of GDP, although about a third of the population lives in rural areas and most of that group are farmers. Flower exports also play an important role. Between 1998 and 2000, Ecuador experienced one of the worst economic and financial crises in its history, and was deemed the most indebted country in Latin America. Since then the economic situation has stabilized again, with the Correa government succeeding in reducing the debt burden by 70%. However, economic development has also had a significant ecological impact in recent years, and Ecuador currently has the highest deforestation rate in South America (Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014).

2.3

Social Conditions: Provision/Population Participation

Ecuador’s population is estimated at 17.1 million (UNDP 2019). According to the 2010 Census, 71.9% of Ecuadorians consider themselves mestizo, 7.4% Montubio, 7.2% Afro-Ecuadorian, 7% indigenous, and 6.1% white (INEC 2010). However, other surveys assert that 45% are mestizo, 35% indigenous, 10% white/European, and 10% Afro-Ecuadorian (Küper and Valiente-Catter 2014). As in most Latin American countries, the population is very young, with about 28% of the population being under 14 years of age (UNESCO 2020). According to UNESCO statistics (2020), 4,760,000 Ecuadorians are under 14 years old while 3,061,000 are between 15 and 24 years old. 36% of Ecuador’s population lives in rural areas (UNESCO 2020). Figure 1 shows the school age population by levels of education.

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Tertiary education (18-22 years)

1,516,470

Secondary education (12-17 years)

1,864,875

Primary education (6-11 years)

1,871,114

Pre-primary education (3-5 years)

965,501 0

500,000

1,000,000

1,500,000

2,000,000

Number of students

Fig. 1 School age population by educational level. (Source: UNESCO (2020)) Table 1 Gross enrolment ratios and net enrolment rates for primary, secondary, and higher education Participation Participation in primary school: Gross enrolment ratio (%) 2017, boys Participation in primary school: Gross enrolment ratio (%) 2017, girls Participation in primary school: Net enrolment rate (%) 2017, total Pupils completing the last grade of primary school (%) in 2016 Participation in secondary school: Gross enrolment ratio (%) 2017, boys Participation in secondary school: Gross enrolment ratio (%) 2017, girls Participation in secondary school: Net enrolment rate (%) 2017, total Participation in tertiary education: Gross enrolment rate (%) 2015, total

% 102.9 104.2 91.6 91.9 100.8 103.7 85.3 44.9

Source: UNESCO (2020)

The literacy rate is 99.1% for young males (15–24 years) and 99.4% for young females. The net preschool enrolment rate is 65.6% for boys and 68.9% for girls (UNESCO 2020). Table 1 shows enrolment rates for primary, secondary, and higher education.

2.4

Transition to the Labor Market

According to a report by the Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL) (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) and the Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT) (International Labour Organization) (CEPAL and OIT 2017), the increasing lack of opportunity in the labor market is having an impact on young people in Latin America and the Caribbean. This is the age group that is currently experiencing the greatest difficulties in gaining productive jobs that will enable them to earn a fair wage. The report indicates that the transition from school to work is increasingly complex. As a result, young people tend to have many unstable jobs before getting a regular job. The most skilled and best-trained

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80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Ecuador

Costa Rica Students work

Paraguay

Employed people study

Fig. 2 Comparison of students with a job and employed people who are studying. (Source: CEPAL and OIT (2017))

young people, and those with previous work experience, are more likely to find stable employment. In Ecuador, the average transition time (from leaving school to finding a permanent job) is 5.5 years (3.2 years for male and 8 years for female) (CEPAL and OIT 2017). The proportion of Ecuadorian students with a job is relatively low, as is the ratio of employed people who are studying: 18% of students work, while 15% of employed people study (for the purposes of comparison, the equivalent figures for Costa Rica are 27% and 29%, respectively, and the figures for Paraguay are 39% and 28%, respectively) (Fig. 2) (CEPAL and OIT 2017). In 2019, 66.4% of the population aged 15 and over was in employment, while unemployment for young people and young adults (15–24-year-olds) stood at 8.9%. 17.7% of 15–24 year-olds are neither employed nor studying or training (UNDP 2019). An “organizational labor market” (Shavit and Müller 1998; Müller and Gangl 2003) can be said to prevail in Ecuador, since education has a negligible impact on the school-to-work transition. There is little linkage between the education system and the labor market or between qualifications and labor market positions.

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

3.1

General Principles

The legal structure and operation of the Ecuadorian education system is set out in the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador (Asamblea Nacional 2008) at Title II, Chapter 2, Section Five, Article 26. This makes education a right and encourages the involvement of both the educational community and the family in the educational process:

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It is a public policy priority and a major area of state investment that safeguards equality and social inclusion and is an essential prerequisite for a good quality of life. Individuals, families and society have the right and responsibility to participate in the educational process. (This and all following quotes from the Constitution and the different laws have been translated from Spanish to English by the authors.)

Article 27 of Section Five states that education will be focused on human potential and on the development of competencies and skills to promote creativity and employability: within the framework of respect for human rights, a sustainable environment and democracy; it shall be participatory, compulsory, intercultural, democratic, inclusive, compassionate and diverse. It must be of high quality and should promote gender equity, justice, solidarity and peace;

Public education at all levels is required to be universal and secular. It is also free of charge up to tertiary level (undergraduate degree or equivalent): Article 28. Education shall take the public interest into account and shall not serve any individual or corporate interests. There shall be universal access, and a guaranteed non-discriminatory approach to attendance, mobility and the achievement of qualifications; education shall be compulsory at initial, basic and secondary level or equivalent [. . .].

The Constitution of Ecuador, therefore, considers education to be to be a series of rights and a prerequisite for the acquisition of knowledge. However, it also takes a comprehensive view of the need for education to be concerned with the welfare of individuals, maximizing their potential and ability both inside and outside of school, and thus contributing to the construction of a sovereign country. Article 2 of the Ley Orgánica de Educación Intercultural (LOEI, Organic Law on Intercultural Education) (Asamblea Nacional 2011) reflects this approach: b) Education is an instrument that can transform society. It contributes to the development of the country, but also supports individual aspirations and freedoms. It puts human beings, especially children and young people, at the heart of the learning process and positions them as citizens with rights. It is organized in accordance with constitutional principles. [. . .] (f) [. . .] Levels of education must fit with individuals’ lives, promote their cognitive, affective and psychomotor development, and be appropriate to their needs, abilities, cultural and linguistic environment, and the needs of the country [. . .].

This guarantees that educational processes will meet the needs of all of the nation’s communities and the context in which they are situated. Special attention must be given to ensuring genuine equality for groups that have historically been excluded or where disadvantage is still present. Title I, Chapter 1, Article 2 of the Ley Orgánica de Educación Superior (LOES, Organic Law on Higher Education) (Asamblea Nacional 2018) sets out the purpose of that law: “It aims to lay down principles, and to guarantee the right to a high quality of higher education that takes a non-discriminatory approach to intercultural

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excellence, universal access, attendance, mobility and the achievement of qualifications. It must also be free of charge in the public sector up to tertiary level.” Article 3 of this same chapter delineates the purpose of higher education: Humanistic, intercultural and scientific higher education is the right of all individuals and is a social and public good which, in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic, shall serve the public interest and shall not operate in the interests of individuals or corporate entities.

Individual citizens, communities, peoples, and nationalities have the right and responsibility to participate in the higher education process, through the mechanisms established in the Constitution and this Law.

3.2

Educational Administration and Governance

The Ministry of Education administers all educational programs, including public, municipal, semiprivate, and private schools, secular and religious schools, and Hispanic and intercultural bilingual schools. Higher education is the exception, and is managed by the Consejo de Educación Superior (CES, Higher Education Council). The Ministry of Education’s mission (n.d.) is as follows: It must guarantee access to high-quality preschool, primary and secondary education for all. It must also provide comprehensive, all-round and inclusive education for children, teenagers and adults that respects interculturality, plurinationality, ancestral languages and gender [. . .].

At Title VII, Chapter One, Section One, Article 344, the Constitution of Ecuador (2008) states that the national education system includes “preschool, primary and secondary education programmes, policies, resources and stakeholders. It shall also be coordinated with the higher education system.” The provisions of Article 19, paragraph 4 of the Organic Law on Intercultural Education (2011) state that one of the aims of the National Education Authority is to “design and implement a compulsory national curriculum for pre-school, primary and secondary institutions. This shall apply to public, municipal, private and semiprivate schools and shall include classroom-based education, part-time study and online education; [. . .].” It also points out that curricula must always take into account the pluriculturality and interculturality of the state. With regard to the governance of higher education, Title VII, Chapter 1, Article 352 of the Constitution of Ecuador of 2008 enumerates the components of higher education: “It shall be made up of universities and polytechnics; higher technical institutes, technological institutes and pedagogical institutes; and conservatories of music and the arts. All institutions shall be appropriately assessed and accredited.”

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Both public and private institutions are required to be nonprofit organizations. This same chapter also states: Higher education shall be governed by: 1. A public body in charge of planning, regulation and internal coordination of the system and the relationships between its various executive stakeholders. 2. A public technical body responsible for accreditation and quality assurance in relation to institutions, qualifications and programmes of study. This body may not include members of the institutions being regulated.

Article 1 of LOES (Organic Law on Higher Education) (Asamblea Nacional 2018) states that “[. . .] it regulates higher education at the national level, along with the entities and institutions delivering it; it determines the rights, duties and obligations of natural and legal persons, and establishes sanctions for non-compliance [. . .].” Article 15 of Title I, Chapter 3 of the same law specifies the public bodies responsible for regulating higher education. These include (a) the Consejo de Educación Superior (CES, Higher Education Council); (b) the Consejo de Evaluación, Acreditación y Aseguramiento de la Calidad de la Educación (CACES, Council for Quality Assurance in Higher Education); and (c) the governing body for public policy on higher education. Article 166, Title IX, Chapter 2, Section One of LOES (Asamblea Nacional 2018) defines the purpose and structure of CES as follows: The Higher Education Council is a public body with legal status, its own funding and administrative, financial and operational autonomy. It is responsible for the planning, regulation and coordination of higher education, and for coordinating between the various executive stakeholders and Ecuadorian society.

The CES coordinates with the CACES and has permanent delegates who are able to participate in discussion but may not vote at plenary meetings of CES and its commissions.

3.3

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED Classification

Articles 40–45 of Title III, Chapter Five (Structure of the National Education System) of the Ley Orgánica de Educación Intercultural (LOEI, Organic Law on Intercultural Education) (Asamblea Nacional 2011) describe the organization of early childhood education, interinstitutional coordination, primary education, secondary education, and complementary secondary education. They confirm that all upper secondary school qualifications issued by the National Education Authority are recognized and approved for entry to all study programs provided by higher education institutions. According to the LOEI (Asamblea Nacional 2011) and its Regulations (Asamblea Nacional 2012), educational levels are classified as follows:

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• Educación Inicial (early childhood education) • Educación General Básica (Basic General Education ¼ primary education and lower secondary education) • Bachillerato (Baccalaureate ¼ upper secondary school) According to Article 27 of the LOEI 2012 General Regulations, the above levels are subdivided as follows: Educación Inicial (early childhood education) has two sublevels: • Initial 1, for children up to 3 years of age (early childhood educational development), • Initial 2, for children aged between three and five (preprimary education). Educación General Básica (EGB, Basic General Education) has four sublevels: • Preparatory, which corresponds to the first grade of EGB and is mainly for children aged five (preprimary education) • Elementary, which corresponds to the second, third, and fourth grades of EGB and is usually for children aged between 6 and 8 (primary education) • Middle, which corresponds to the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades of EGB and is usually for children aged between 9 and 11 (primary education) • Superior, which corresponds to the eighth, ninth, and tenth grades of EGB and is usually for pupils aged between 12 and 14 years (lower secondary) The Bachillerato (upper secondary school) comprises three grades and is usually designed for students from 15 to 17 years of age. Children, teenagers, and young adults may enter the educational system without any discrimination. Table 2 shows the equivalencies between educational levels, taking into account the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) (2011) and data from the Sistema de Información de Tendencias Educativas en América Latina (SITEAL, Information System on Education Trends in Latin America) (2016). In Ecuador, the period of compulsory education is 15 years. Together with Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, and Venezuela, Ecuador forms part of the group of Latin American countries in which secondary education is compulsory at all levels. The 2008 Constitution of Ecuador describes higher education in Title II, Chapter 2, Section 5: Article 26 – Education is a personal right throughout life and its provision is an inalienable and compulsory duty of the state. It is a public policy and public expenditure priority. It safeguards the social equality and social inclusion necessary for well-being. Individuals, families and society have the right and the responsibility to participate in education.

Based on this mandate, Article 80, Chapter 2, Title IV of LOES (Asamblea Nacional 2018) makes public education free up to tertiary level (Bachelor’s degree

2 01

3 4 02 02 x x Initial 2

5 02 x Preparatory

6 7 8 9 10 1 1 1 1 1 x x x x x Basic general education

11 1 x

12 2 x

13 2 x

14 2 x

15 16 17 3 3 3 x x x High school

Source: Adapted from SITEAL 2016 01 ¼ early childhood educational development, 02 ¼ preprimary education, 1 ¼ primary education, 2 ¼ lower secondary education, 3 ¼ upper secondary education

Equivalencies of education levels Age (in years) 0 1 ISCED 2011 01 01 Compulsory schooling Grade name Initial 1

Table 2 Educational levels in Ecuador

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or equivalent). However, the state will only fund one tertiary degree per individual. Article 81 of the same chapter deals with admission requirements for public higher education institutions. These are managed through the Sistema Nacional de Nivelación y Admisión (SNNA, National System of Levelling and Admission), which lays down processes and guidelines for the national educational evaluation exam known as the “Ser bachillerato” (“being an upper secondary school graduate”). After completing upper secondary school, applicants must take this exam in order to be admitted to vocational, higher technological, and university programs. It takes into account students’ abilities and knowledge, academic background, socioeconomic status, and other affirmative action issues (SENESCYT 2019). As set out in Article 11 of LOES (Asamblea Nacional 2018), the higher education system includes the following institutions: (a) Public and private universities and polytechnic schools that have been appropriately evaluated and accredited (b) Public and private higher vocational, technological, and pedagogical and arts institutes that have been appropriately evaluated and accredited (c) Public and private higher conservatories that have been appropriately evaluated and accredited The academic regulations issued by the CES (2019a) set out the various types of degrees, and the minimum and maximum duration of different levels of training (Table 3). Article 11 prescribes that the year must be divided into at least two academic terms of 16 weeks including 1 week for assessment. Table 3 Qualifications and duration of study programs

Training level Tertiary level

Fourth level or postgraduate

Vocational, technological

University Degree Postgraduate in technology University postgraduate

Source: CES (2019a)

Degree Superior Technician Superior Technician in Technology Superior University Technician in Technology Undergraduate and vocational degrees Technology Specialization Specialization Master’s degree aiming to progress to a professional career Master’s degree aiming to progress to a research career Doctoral degree after a Master’s degree aiming to progress to a research career Doctoral degree after a Master’s degree aiming to progress to a professional career

Academic terms Min. Max. 2 4 4 5 6 7 8

10

1 1 2

2 2 3

3

4

6

8

8

10

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Personnel

The National Plan for Good Living (2017–2021) states at Focus 1 (Rights for all throughout life), Objective 1 (Guaranteeing a dignified life with equal opportunities for all) that, “achieving a dignified life for all, especially for the most vulnerable, requires high quality, relevant and inclusive education, training and development that empowers people throughout their life” (CNP – Consejo Nacional de Planificación 2017, 48). This highlights the need for an education system that is appropriate to the context in which it is situated. The workforce for early childhood, primary, and secondary education is outlined in Title V, Chapter One, Article 93 of the Organic Law on Intercultural Education (2011): “The public education career path includes publicly appointed teachers who work in public or private educational establishments, in any position or capacity or at any level. Teachers working in private institutions are covered by the Labour Law.” Article 94 describes the requirements for becoming a teacher: (a) Ecuadorian or foreign nationality, with legal residence in the Republic of Ecuador and citizenship rights (b) One of the degrees specified in the Act (c) The completion of one compulsory year of rural teaching, if applicable (d) Inclusion on the register of eligible candidates (e) Success in the appropriate public competitions to fill vacancies (f) For intercultural bilingual education, mastery of an ancestral language Higher education personnel are dealt with at Title VIII, Chapter II (Academic Personnel) of the LOES (Asamblea Nacional 2018). Article 147 – Academic staff of universities and polytechnics. The academic staff of universities and polytechnics is composed of professors and researchers. Staff are permitted to combine teaching and research, and management activities, if their schedules allow, without prejudice to the provisions of the Constitution, i.e. this Act, or to the Regulations on the Career and Status of Teachers and Researchers in Higher Education, and the specific provisions of this Act relating to private higher education institutions.

The requirements for becoming a university teacher are described in the same title and chapter under Article 150: (a) A postgraduate doctoral degree (PhD or equivalent) in the general field in which the individual is pursuing academic activities or gaining professional recognition [. . .] (b) Production or publication of relevant works or articles in the general field of academic activity (c) Success in the appropriate public competition (d) Four years’ teaching experience, and any additional requirements set independently by the university or polytechnic school in question, which will be fully consistent with the Career and Ranking Regulations for Teachers and Researchers in Higher Education

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Associate professors or assistant professors must hold at least a master’s degree related to the area in which they will teach. The Regulations for the Career and Ranking of Teachers and Researchers in Higher Education (CES 2012) state in Title II, Chapter I, Article 15 that the “hiring of non-tenured academic staff must be authorized by the institution’s legal representative.” Title II, Chapter II, Article 17 refers to the general requirements for the employment of academic staff: “Applicants must submit their curriculum vitae along with supporting documentation proving that they meet the requirements of these regulations, including experience, training, publications, and other information.” In addition, they must comply with the requirements of Article 5 of the Organic Law on Public Service, where applicable.

4

Educational Trends and Key Issues

Since 2008, Ecuador’s education system has undergone a fundamental transformation, aimed at improving access to education and providing high-quality education. Higher education in particular has seen major reforms. This chapter, therefore, discusses current trends in this field in greater detail and focuses on the changes that have been made to the Ley Orgánica de Educación Superior (LOES, Organic Law on Higher Education) (Asamblea Nacional 2018). In line with the reforms to the LOES (Asamblea Nacional 2018), public policy is planned and implemented, and higher education is regulated, by the following institutions: the Secretaria Nacional de Educación Superior Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (SENESCYT, National Secretariat of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation); the Consejo de Educación Superior (CES, Higher Education Council) and the Consejo de Evaluación, Acreditación y Aseguramiento de la Calidad de la Educación (CACES, Council for Quality Assurance in Higher Education). The accreditation and evaluation of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) is thus controlled by the central government. Studies carried out by Pacheco and Pacheco (2015) and Santelices (2016) show that universities and polytechnics in Ecuador’s higher education system have attracted both national and international recognition for academic excellence. Other institutions are in the process of gaining accreditation, and there are also vocational and technological institutes dedicated to industries of public interest, including software, tourism, primary health care, public safety and public order, underground mining, logistics, automotive mechatronics, plastics, chemistry, and textile manufacturing. Pazmiño Moscoso (2018) emphasizes that higher education in Ecuador is characterized by collective responsibility, emphasizing that the public higher education institutions (HEIs) are clearly unhappy. This is particularly true in respect of the state funding on which public institutions depend, but it also relates to underperformance in higher education, which has led to a number of institutions being shut down. The commercialization of private entities is also questionable and a subject of concern. Another issue is the state’s limited capacity to provide sufficient professional

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training, giving rise to censure from young people, since this makes it harder for them to access HEIs. Finally, academic shortcomings have also led to calls for changes to the system. The creation of a large number of private universities in Ecuador was the result of recurring political issues, just as it has been in many other countries in the region and in the world. The commercialization of Latin America has led to issues with inferior quality education (Pazmiño Moscoso 2018), which in turn has led to accusations of academic fraud in the interests of profit. Rivadeneira (2017) states that higher education in Ecuador has become increasingly linked to business and it has lost its independence. Further to the above, Lourdes et al. (2018) suggest that the public sector should facilitate, support, and promote dialogue between institutions, communities, individuals, and companies involved in the development and application of science, knowledge, technology, and innovation. The guiding principles should be open access to knowledge and the promotion of an efficient and flexible institutional framework to ensure that all involved can take advantage of the available resources. Ecuador, represented by CACES, participates in the Sistema Iberoamericano de Aseguramiento de la Calidad (SIACES, Ibero-American Quality Assurance System) (2019), an organization that seeks to promote cooperation and academic exchange between individuals, and study programs accredited by state bodies whose function is to promote quality higher education in Ibero-America. This facilitates admission procedures for more advanced study and the recognition of degrees and courses. Ecuador has agreements with Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and Cuba. However, many other countries do not have agreements with Ecuador. This makes it difficult for courses and degrees to be recognized (Ecuador Universitario 2019). According to Ruiz et al. (2017) and Vallejo et al. (2018), the challenges for higher education in Ecuador are as follows: • Promotion of national and international mobility for professors, researchers, and students • Identification of strategies for the recognition of degrees; implementation of the Comprehensive Higher Education Information System in order to establish a single reporting record • Facilitation of tax exemptions for HEIs • Empowerment of Ecuadorian students through loans or scholarships to encourage education that will bring short- and long-term benefits for society • Technological training on tertiary-level courses in order to equip professionals to work in the digitalized world without compromising the scientific and humanistic aspects of society • Provision of reliable and productive services to improve academic quality. Clarity of information about all university degrees in order to avoid the generation of false expectations and confusion at different levels • Diversification of opportunities for professional development through community outreach programs and preparatory internships

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It can thus be seen that the Ecuadorian higher education system has had many weaknesses in the past and – despite the extensive reforms of the last 10 years or so – continues to have many weaknesses in certain areas. As will be shown in the following section, however, the reforms have succeeded in eliminating some of the more serious shortcomings and have thus improved both the quality of higher education and access to it.

4.1

Reducing Inequality in Higher Education

From 2008, higher education in Ecuador started to undergo constant and extensive change in order to provide society with higher quality and more equitable education. Table 4 shows the changes in the higher education system between LOES (Asamblea Nacional 2000) and LOES (Asamblea Nacional 2018). The changes relating to inclusion are the most significant aspects of the transformation of higher education. The fourth chapter of the LOES (Asamblea Nacional 2018), Principles and Guarantee of Equal Opportunities, is summarized in the following article: Article 71 – The principle of equal opportunities guarantees all participants in higher education the same opportunities in terms of access, attendance, mobility and the achievement of qualifications, without discrimination on the grounds of gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, culture, political beliefs, socioeconomic status, mobility or disability. Table 4 Changes in higher education Before 2008 – LOES (2000) University teachers held a tertiary degree (Bachelor’s or engineering degree) Universities had low standards Access to universities was not controlled by the state Access to higher education depended on people’s financial resources and abilities Opportunities to get tertiary degrees were limited Discrimination against people from different ethnicities, social status, or disabilities

Now – LOES (2018) University teachers must hold a tertiary or postgraduate degree (Master’s degree or doctorate) Universities are subject to continuous assessment; in order to be categorized as universities they have to continually improve the quality of their services The high school exam known as “Ser Bachiller” and students’ high school academic records make it easier for talented students to access higher education Education is conceived of as a duty of the state and it is free up to tertiary level (Bachelor’s degree or equivalent). Programs based on academic merit or cultural background provide scholarships or loans to facilitate access to university. SENESCYT aims to increase the number of places by diversifying the offer at universities, polytechnics, technical and technological institutes Education is inclusive. There is no discrimination against people of different ethnicities, of lower social status or with disabilities. In fact, priority is given to people with such characteristics

Source: Asamblea Nacional (2000, 2018)

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CES (2019b) analysis highlighted the following measures and achievements aimed at widening access to higher education: • 936 degrees and postgraduate programs were approved: 277 postgraduate degrees, 349 vocational and technological degrees, and 310 undergraduate degrees. Undergraduate vocational and technological training, the creation of new universities, the strengthening of technical and technological institutes, and finally, the broadening of the academic offer in the second semester of 2018 also enabled the number of student places to double (i.e., 127,085) compared with the previous administrative period. However, hundreds of young people did not succeed in passing the Examen Nacional de Educación Superior (ENES, National Higher Education Examination) in previous years, and this remains the case. • The award of scholarships giving priority to vulnerable groups and the granting of funding to 5,605 beneficiaries who benefited from national and international programs. • Implementation of the Comprehensive Plan against Harassment and Gender Violence in the Higher Education System (2019). Access to higher education for indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian ethnic groups has also increased, and these groups constitute 30% of university students nationwide. According to analysis by Santelices (2016), this can primarily be explained by the recognition of free higher education as a right and a public good in the Constitution of Ecuador. It is thus clear that there has been significant improvement in access to higher education in Ecuador since 2008, especially for highly vulnerable groups, and that educational inequality in relation to higher education has been reduced. However, there are still many challenges to be met.

4.2

ICT and Digitalization in Higher Education

In relation to information and communications technology (ICT), Article 16 (2) of the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador states that “all persons, individually or collectively, have the right to [. . .] universal access to information and communications technology [. . .].” Objective 5 of the 2017–2021 National Development Plan (CNP 2017) thus sets the goal of increasing Ecuador’s Information and Communication Technologies Development Index from 4.6 to 5.6 by 2021. As a result, both Ecuadorian public and private universities are committed to state-ofthe-art technological infrastructure to meet the institutional demands by the knowledge society. ICT and digitalization in higher education are seeking to reduce the digital gap in Ecuador more generally. In this context, Article 8 (a) of LOES (Asamblea Nacional 2018) defines the purpose of higher education as being:

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To contribute to the development of universal thought, the application of science, the furtherance of the arts and culture, and the promotion of technology transfer and innovation.

In accordance with the above, the following initiatives were introduced in 2018: • A White Paper from the Ministry of Telecommunications and the Information Society of Ecuador (MINTEL 2018): The objective is to create a framework for the management of academic research, development, innovation, and technology transfer through ICT. The White Paper establishes agreements with universities with the following fields of research: ICT and education, infrastructure networks, telecommunications, technology, digital broadcasting, big data, information security and ICT. • Public Online and Higher Education Distance Learning Program. Five higher education centers with experience in online teaching will participate in this process: Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja UTPL, Universidad Central del Ecuador UCE, Universidad Técnica del Norte UTN, Universidad Técnica de Manabí UTM, and Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE. Other universities may join the project in the future. • Levelling program for online teaching, involving 10,139 students. The Academic Regulations issued by the Higher Education Council (CES 2019a) in Title VI, Chapters II and III, lay down working methods and conditions for study. In relation to online education, it states: The components of online learning, i.e. practical/experimental and autonomous learning for all credits, are based entirely on technology, interactive multimedia and virtual learning environments. The interaction between participants in the educational process is organized in a synchronous or asynchronous way through digital platforms.

Consequently, Ecuadorian universities that offer the aforementioned modality make great efforts to provide a virtual campus that responds to educational demands and institutional management. Since 2017, a study, financed by the Consorcio Ecuatoriano para Desarrollo de la Investigación y la Academia (CEDIA, Ecuadorian Consortium for Research and Academic Development), together with 42 out of a total of 60 public (62%) and private (38%) universities in Ecuador, has provided data on 97 variables relating to the use of ICT in Ecuadorian universities. The following results from this report (CEDIA 2018) are notable: • Mode of study in undergraduate programs (Bachelor or equivalent): 87% classroom-based, 6% online, 5% part-time, and 2% virtual. • Mode of study in graduate programs (Master or equivalent): 88% classroombased, 4% online, 7% part–time, and 1% virtual. • Strategic planning: 32 out of 42 institutions have an approved Institutional Strategic Development Plan. 23 out of those 32 institutions have a strategic plan that includes ICT.

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• ICT policies: 22 institutions have an approved ICT policy. • Virtual learning platform: Moodle is the most popular platform, with 32 out of 42 higher education institutions using this tool. Two institutions use Blackboard and Canvas, while one university uses Sakai and D2L. Finally, four institutions have developed their own platforms. • Number of students registered on virtual platforms: 84% of undergraduate students and 78% of graduate students are registered on virtual learning platforms. • Number of teachers registered on virtual platforms: 91% of teachers are registered on virtual learning platforms. • MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) platforms: 74% of participating institutions do not have any MOOC platform, 2% use CANVAS, 2% Coursera, 5% OpenClass, and 17% of universities have other platforms. • EDUROAM coverage: 67% of institutions have implemented the EDUROAM service, while 33% have not. Salvador et al. (2016) used WCGA 2.0 recommendations to analyze web content accessibility, studying the webpages of three universities classified as category A and seven other universities classified as category B by the Council for Evaluation, Accreditation and Quality Assurance of Higher Education (CEAACES). It appeared that Ecuadorian Higher Education institutions show a very low level of maturity. Even though they have a high level of commitment to improving accessibility, none of the webpages analyzed complied with accessibility guidelines, and the pages were therefore not accessible. University websites present many obstacles to access by a large number of citizens. Each year, the Global Information Technology Report (GITR) presented by the World Economic Forum compares and analyzes the technological capacity of 139 countries. In terms of its capacity to develop and take advantage of ICT, Ecuador ranked 108th in 2011 compared with 82nd in 2016. Minalla (2011) notes that no Latin American country appears in the top 25 countries in the world. Basing itself on the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted as state policy in April 2018, the Secretaría Técnica Planifica Ecuador (STPE, Technical Secretariat for Planning in Ecuador) put together a report presenting Ecuador’s progress towards compliance with the Agenda and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (STPE 2019). Progress with the SDGs relating to higher education and technological infrastructure, and the challenges remaining, are presented in Table 5. It is clear that the Ecuadorian higher education system has made some initial progress with digitalization and increased use of ICT, but there are still many deficiencies. Education policy in Ecuador continues to make concerted efforts to further advance the digitalization of higher education. For instance, the Government of Ecuador, through the SENESCYT and as part of the World Bank-funded Project for the Transformation of Technical Tertiary Institutes, is currently implementing the ActiVaR program. This program will benefit students enrolled in the country’s public vocational and technological institutes through the use of immersive teaching based on augmented reality (AR) and virtual

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Table 5 Sustainable development goals: progress and challenges SDG SDG 4. Education

SDG 9. Industry, innovation, and infrastructure

Progress Supply has been increased and barriers to access removed so as to improve the higher education system. Projects such as “Quality and Inclusion: Expanding Opportunities in Higher Education” focus on the sustainability and quality of higher education Ecuador is making progress with the development of communications technology and the implementation of e-government. Its ICT Development Index, which evaluates access to and the use and capacity of ICT, thus increased from 4.7 in 2015 to 5.0 in 2016

Challenge Work is still needed to establish the appropriate infrastructure, and put in place the appropriate equipment, educational resources, and teachers

Foreign direct investment needs to be targeted at productive diversification, technological innovation, and the generation of regional and sectoral balances in order to promote improvements in living standards

Source: STPE (2019)

reality (VR) technology. It was anticipated that these courses would be offered to students starting in May 2020 (Banco Mundial 2018). Open-source hardware technologies are also being encouraged, and students are thus being provided with the technological tools to develop multidisciplinary projects. For example, the Fundación Telefónica Ecuador and Arduino create opportunities for young students to access knowledge, promoting the use of ICT and the digital culture in the context of learning processes (Paucar 2014).

4.3

Improving the Quality of STEM Education

Development of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) competencies is a central component of compulsory education. STEM education is also trying to remove the barriers that separate its four disciplines in order to deliver meaningful learning experiences for students (Paucar 2014). According to Mayoral et al. (2018), STEM education teaches students to be independent, logical thinkers, problem solvers, innovators, inventors, and technologically literate. A number of authors have made significant contributions that combine active learning methodologies with ICT, and one example of this is digital gamification in mathematics for primary school children. Using such games may help children to gain a better understanding of content, assimilate knowledge, and learn more efficiently (Vélez et al. 2020). Other studies conducted in engineering faculties in several Ecuadorian universities have also found that this methodology is beneficial to students, helping them develop and practice STEM and R&D skills in a nontheoretical way (Bravo et al. 2018; Pisco et al. 2019).

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The Ecuadorian Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) announced the creation of the STEM Coalition in 2018 as a means of improving the quality of education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This coalition is made up of the Ministry of Education, the Universidad Nacional de la Educación (National University of Education), the SENESCYT, the Red de Mujeres Científicas (Network of Women Scientists), the Cámara Nacional de la Pequeña Empresa (National Chamber of Small Businesses), the CRISFE Foundation, the Machángarasoft Technology Park, and the Santa Fe Institute (MINEDUC 2018). In Ecuador, the upper secondary school exam Ser Bachiller provides information about students’ knowledge of basic science, mathematics, and communications technology. However, 2015 results were not satisfactory, and demonstrated that some upper secondary students did not meet this basic standard. This led to the creation of a range of programs, taught during the school holidays, to address the issue. The “Seedbed of Future Engineers and Scientists” program, for example, introduces children aged between 6 and 12 to the fun side of chemistry, biology, engineering, and mathematics (Paucar 2014).

4.4

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Higher Education

The neoliberal and post-neoliberal economic models that currently prevail in Latin America (Serrano et al. 2017) and particularly in Ecuador (post-neoliberal) not only take an irresponsible approach to the destruction of natural resources but also undermine the standard of living and quality of life of Ecuadorian citizens. The current capitalist economic model is in part responsible for the uncontrolled depletion of the world’s natural resources and its irreversible effects. This is particularly true for climate change, biodiversity loss, and the nitrogen cycle. It is clear that mankind is exceeding the capacity of the earth’s ecosystems (Rockström et al. 2009). In this context, sustainable development is defined as offering alternative approaches to global challenges by promoting development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987, 24). In 2015, the United Nations approved the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of Agenda 2030 (United Nations 2015). These set out key actions to promote the sustainable transformation of all societies at a global level. Ecuador adopted Agenda 2030 as a state policy in April 2018 (STPE 2019). Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is one way of promoting and raising awareness of SDGs. ESD’s main objective is the development of the key competencies required to enable people to contribute to sustainable development in general (Rieckmann 2012, 2015, 2018), and to achieve the SDGs in particular (UNESCO 2017). In this sense, ESD is a crosscutting, integrative task (with ecological, social, economic, cultural, and political aspects). It promotes global responsibility; it encourages the development of key competencies that will enable

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conscious action in the interests of sustainable development. It promotes political and social participation and finally helps societies become more sustainable (Rieckmann 2018). Moreover, ESD recognizes the importance both of ancestral knowledge and of the Andean worldview. It welcomes a culture that is capable of exercising its rights and responsibilities at local, national, and global levels and inspires “the belief that each of us has both the power and the responsibility to effect positive change on a global scale” (UNESCO 2006, 16). Higher education plays an important role within the education system. For centuries, universities have been trailblazers, breaking down paradigms and creating new ones. They also train future decision makers such as entrepreneurs and leaders (Cortese 2003; Elton 2003; Lozano 2006). Thus, universities “are essential drivers of education for sustainable development (ESD) and constitute fundamental vehicles to explore, test, develop and communicate conditions for transformative change” (Rammel et al. 2016, 331). Universities therefore need to embrace ESD and incorporate sustainable development into their curricula (Rieckmann 2012, 2015, 2019). Moreover, following the Whole-Institution Approach, the concept of sustainable development should also be applied to all university functions (teaching, research, community outreach, and operations) (UNESCO 2017). The integration of sustainability into Latin American universities is relatively recent. It began with the creation of the Centro Internacional de Formación en Ciencias Ambientales (CIFCA, International Centre for Training in Environmental Sciences) in 1975. As Gonzalez Gaudiano et al. (2015) point out, a number of programs and charters have been issued since then, including the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Seminar on Science, Research and Environment in January 1982 in Bogotá. It is also worth mentioning the UNESCO/UNEP Diagnosis of the Incorporation of the Environmental Dimension in Higher Education, the Conference of the Parties (COP) held under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP20) in Lima in 2014, and the 2014 Lima Declaration, Education for All (EFA) in Latin America and the Caribbean. In order to comply with the regulations promulgated by the state under the 2008 Constitution of Ecuador, the Organic Law on Higher Education (LOES) of 2018 and the National Development Plan (2017–2021), and to gain accreditation, Ecuadorian higher education institutions must address sustainable development as a crosscutting topic. To achieve this, they have had to restructure their Planes Estratégicos de Desarrollo Institucional (PEDI, Strategic Plans for Institutional Development) and adjust their management models and pedagogical approaches so as to incorporate sustainable development but also to enhance the quality of education across their undergraduate, graduate, and vocational training programs. As a result of administrative and academic irregularities, the state – in the form of the CES – intervened at a number of universities from 2012 onwards; these are still undergoing restructuring and are therefore not in a position to implement these policies at present. But universities that have already been accredited and endorsed by the CAES now include sustainable development in their mission and vision as a crosscutting theme for management, academic and research activities.

University Agraria del Ecuador

Nacional de Loja

Estatal Península de Santa Elena Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral FLACSO Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales Sede Ecuador Indoamérica

Andina Simón Bolívar Ecuador Escuela Politécnica Nacional

Table 6 Ecuadorian universities and their sustainable development activities

Master’s in Business Administration (Sustainable Socioproductive Innovation) Master’s in Environmental Management Master’s in Biodiversity and Climate Change Pedagogical model Zapotepamba Binational Technical Training Centre

https://unl.edu.ec/sites/default/files/2019-12/PEDI%202019-2020.pdf https://unl.edu.ec/node/758 (continued)

http://www.uti.edu.ec/~utiweb/oferta-academica/posgrados/maestria-en-administracion-deempresas-mencion-innovacion-socioproductiva-sostenible/ http://www.uti.edu.ec/~utiweb/oferta-academica/posgrados/maestria-en-gestion-ambiental/ http://www.uti.edu.ec/~utiweb/oferta-academica/posgrados/maestria-en-biodiversidad-ycambio-climatico/

https://www.upse.edu.ec/index.php?option¼com_sppagebuilder&view¼page&id¼9& Itemid¼181/3#section-id-1533044559422 http://www.espol.edu.ec/es/ingestigacion/grupos-de-investigacion/ingenier%C3%ADasostenible http://www.espol.edu.ec/es/la-espol/sostenibilidad/quienes-somos https://www.flacso.edu.ec/portal/academico/detalle/especializacion/economia-del-desarrollo2018-2020.11 https://www.flacso.edu.ec/portal/academico/detalle/especializacion/economia-del-desarrollo2018-2021.14

https://www.uasb.edu.ec/oferta-academica?maestria-en-cambio-climatico-sustentabilidad-ydesarrollo-578 http://ulsf.org/96-2/#Ecuador http://www.epn.edu.ec/carrera-de-ingenieria-ambiental/

Link http://www.uagraria.edu.ec/ingenieria-ambiental.html http://www.uagraria.edu.ec/maestria-agroecologia

The Education System of Ecuador

Focus on sustainable development Environmental engineering Master’s in Agroecology and Sustainable Development Master’s in Climate Change, Sustainability and Development One of the signatories of the Talloires Declaration (1990) Environmental engineering Bachelor’s degree in Social Management and Development Research Unit: Sustainable Engineering Sustainable ESPOL Master’s in Development Economics PhD in Development Economics

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Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador San Francisco de Quito Técnica Estatal de Quevedo

University Nacional de Chimborazo Regional Amazónica IKIAM Politécnica Salesiana

Table 6 (continued)

https://www.ups.edu.ec/gestion-cuenca

Bachelor’s degree in Management for Sustainable Local Development Bachelor’s degree in Social Management and Development

Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Management Faculty of Environmental Sciences Master’s in Sustainable Forest Management Master’s in Agronomy, Mention: Sustainable Agricultural Production Master’s in Agroecology and Sustainable Development Master’s in Environmental Management

https://ikiam.edu.ec/

Sustainable university campus

https://www.usfq.edu.ec/programas_academicos/colegios/cociba/carreras/Paginas/gestion_ ambiental.aspx http://www.uteq.edu.ec/2 http://www.uteq.edu.ec/carrera/Maestr%C3%ADa%20en%20Manejo%20Forestal%20Sosten %C3%ADble-20/ http://www.uteq.edu.ec/carrera/Maestr%C3%ADa%20en%20Agronom%C3%ADa,% 20Mención%20Producción%20Agr%C3%ADcola%20Sostenible-33/ http://www.uteq.edu.ec/carrera/Maestr%C3%ADa%20en%20Agroecolog%C3%ADa%20y% 20Desarrollo%20Sostenible-34/ http://www.uteq.edu.ec/carrera/Maestr%C3%ADa%20en%20Gestión%20Ambiental-22/

https://www.puce.edu.ec/portal/carreras/gestion-social-y-desarrollo/

Link http://www.unach.edu.ec/ingenieria-ambiental-ele/

Focus on sustainable development Environmental engineering

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Universidad de las Américas Universidad de Especialidades Turísticas YACHAY Tech

Técnica Particular de Loja

Técnica del Norte Tecnológica ECOTEC Técnica de Manabí

Técnica de Cotopaxi

Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the Andean Region

Master’s in Sustainable Human Development with Local Perspectives Pedagogical model Master’s in Economic Development and Public Policies Master’s in Agronomy, Mention: Sustainable Agricultural Production UNESCO Chair of Sustainable Development Sustainable Loja International diploma leadership for sustainability Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Management http://unsdsn-andes.org/index.php/es/nosotros-esp/organizacion

https://www.catedraunescods.org/? fbclid¼IwAR0PulQHmYPW9Ecd3voRQ3eGNCJvawclWUsW34CeLoAGT4ulRhEghQtgsXI https://smartland.utpl.edu.ec/loja2030/acerca https://www.udla.edu.ec/econtinua/grupo/diplomado-internacional-liderazgo-para-lasostenibilidad/ https://udet.edu.ec/new/gestion-ambiental/

https://www.utm.edu.ec/postgrado/component/content/article?id¼720:maestria-en-agronomiamencion-produccion-agricola-sostenible

https://www.utn.edu.ec/web/uniportal/?page_id¼1902 https://www.ecotec.edu.ec/maestria-en-economia/

http://www.utc.edu.ec/posgrados/desarrollo-humano

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Table 6 shows a list of public, semiprivate, and private Ecuadorian universities offering programs related to sustainable development and “Good Living.” The concept of “Good Living” is a constitutional right in Ecuador based on the principle of “Sumak Kawsay.” “Buen Vivir (Spanish) or Sumak Kawsay (Quechua) is a concept of the indigenous peoples of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru” (Rieckmann 2017, 149). It advocates a world view centered around mankind which is itself part of the natural and social environment (see Rieckmann et al. 2011). Education and Good Living interact in two ways. On the one hand, the right to education is essential to the Good Living concept, because it allows individuals to develop their abilities and make full use of their potential. Education thus guarantees equal opportunities for all. On the other hand, Good Living is an essential aspect of education, insofar as the educational process must focus on equipping future citizens with the values and knowledge required to promote their country’s development.

5

Conclusion

Education is the main transformative agent in a country’s development. Unfortunately, for many years in Ecuador, access to quality education – especially in the context of higher education – was limited to only a few groups. The lack of regularization and the diversification of the educational offer over recent decades led to a number of weaknesses, including the establishment of private universities of questionable quality, and the absence of resources to enable public universities to provide appropriate education that met minimum standards. Consequently, not only was access to education restricted, but the quality of education was also deficient in many respects. The programs on offer therefore did not meet the needs and realities of the country, and were even less well suited to the encouragement of sustainable development. Since 2008, education in Ecuador, and in particular higher education, has undergone structural changes, in terms both of substance and of format. The emphasis has been on improving access to (higher) education and improving the quality of education in all areas (curriculum, administration, research, and infrastructure). The initial results of these changes are already visible: research strands have been diversified, for example, and curricula have been restructured so as to incorporate technology. There has also been an overhaul of subjects that will be key if higher education is to succeed in providing a high level of academic, technical, humanistic, and professional training, and in creating individuals who are aware of the positive contribution they can make and are able to deploy their competencies to identify sustainable development solutions. It is to be hoped that Ecuador will continue along this path, following the UNESCO ESD for 2030 program and the ESD recommendations. Such an ambition will not be easily achievable in the light of the various drivers for change that are part of the reality in Ecuador. However, instability can be addressed, and it may eventually be transformed into opportunities to innovate, enabling comprehensive integration of sustainable development into the education system.

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Rammel, C., Velazquez, L., & Mader, C. (2016). Sustainability assessment in higher education institutions: What and how? In M. Barth, G. Michelsen, M. Rieckmann, & I. Thomas (Eds.), Routledge handbook of higher education for sustainable development (pp. 331–346). London: Routledge. Rieckmann, M. (2012). Future-oriented higher education: Which key competencies should be fostered through university teaching and learning? Futures, 44(2), 127–135. Rieckmann, M. (2015). Educación superior para el desarrollo sustentable: ¿Cómo pueden contribuir las universidades al desarrollo sustentable de la sociedad? In P. Aguirre Mejía (Ed.), Sustentabilidad: Principios y prácticas (pp. 19–24). Göttingen: Cuvellier. Rieckmann, M. (2017). Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung in der Großen Transformation – Neue Perspektiven aus den Buen Vivir- und Postwachstumsdiskursen. In O. Emde, U. Jakubczyk, B. Kappes, & B. Overwien (Eds.), Mit Bildung die Welt verändern? Globales Lernen für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung (pp. 147–159). Opladen/Berlin/Toronto: Budrich. Rieckmann, M. (2018). Chapter 2 – Learning to transform the world: key competencies in ESD. In A. Leicht, J. Heiss, & W. J. Byun (Eds.), Issues and trends in Education for Sustainable Development (pp. 39–59). Paris: UNESCO. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0026/002614/ 261445E.pdf. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. Rieckmann, M. (2019). Desarrollo de las Competencias de Sustentabilidad en la Educación Superior – Propuestas Conceptuales y Experiencias Prácticas. In P. Aguirre (Ed.), Memorias del Seminario Internacional de Competencias en la Educación Superior 2018 (pp. 2–4). Göttingen: Cuvellier. Rieckmann, M., Adomßent, M., Härdtle, W., & Aguirre, P. (2011). Sustainable development and conservation of biodiversity hotspots in Latin America. The case of Ecuador. In F. Zachos & J. C. Habel (Eds.), Biodiversity hotspots. Distribution and protection of conservation priority areas (pp. 435–452). Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer. Rivadeneira, L. (2017). Lineamientos de políticas públicas para la educación superior 2017–2022. http://ecuadoruniversitario.com/noticias/noticias-de-interes-general/lineamientos-politicaspublicas-la-educacion-superior-2017-2022/. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, F. S. I. I. I., Lambin, E., et al. (2009). Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society, 14(2) http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. Ruiz, L., Torres, G., & García, D. (2017). Desafíos de la Educación Superior. Consideraciones sobre el Ecuador. INNOVA Research Journal, 3(2), 8–16. Salazar Jaramillo, R. (2014). Sistema educativo ecuatoriano: Una revisión histórica hasta nuestros días. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301652170_Sistema_educativo_ecuatoriano_ Una_revision_historica_hasta_nuestros_dias. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. Salvador, L., Mora, S., & Vargas, P. (2016). Evaluación de la accesibilidad de las páginas web de las universidades ecuatorianas. Congreso de Ciencia y Tecnología, 181–182. Santelices, M. (2016). La Educación Superior en el Ecuador: Análisis crítico. Universidad de los Hemisferios. http://dspace.uhemisferios.edu.ec:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/517/1/Art% C3%ADculo%20Acad%C3%A9mico.%20mcse.pdf. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. SENESCYT – Secretaria de Educación Superior Ciencia Tecnología e Innovación. (2019). Reglamento del Sistema Nacional de nivelación y admisión SNNA. http://admision.senescyt. gob.ec/media/2019/05/REGLAMENTO-SNNA_-Acuerdo-N%2D%2D-2019-030.pdf. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. Serrano, A., Converti, L., & Navarro, F. (2017). Dos modelos económicos enfrentados en Latinoamérica. https://www.alainet.org/es/articulo/183459. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. Shavit, Y., & Müller, W. (Eds.). (1998). From school to work. A comparative study of educational qualifications and occupational destinations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. SITEAL – Sistema de Información de Tendencias Educativas en América Latina. (2016). Estructura del nivel Educativo, http://www.publicaciones.siteal.iipe.unesco.org/perfiles-de-pais/21/ republica-del-ecuador. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. STPE – Secretaría Técnica Planifica Ecuador. (2019). Informe de Avance del Cumplimiento de la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible 2019. https://www.planificacion.gob.ec/wp-content/

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uploads/downloads/2019/07/Informe-Avance-Agenda-2030-Ecuador-2019.pdf. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. UNDP – United Nations Development Programme. (2019). Human Development Indicators: Ecuador. http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/ECU#. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. UNESCO. (2006). Framework for the UNDESD International Implementation Scheme. https:// unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000148650. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. UNESCO. (2017). Education for sustainable development goals. Learning objectives. Paris: UNESCO. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002474/247444e.pdf. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. UNESCO. (2020). Data for the sustainable development goals. Ecuador: Education and Literacy. http://uis.unesco.org/en/country/ec?theme¼education-and-literacy. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. New York: United Nations. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/trans formingourworld. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. Vallejo Chávez, L. M., Samaniego Erazo, F. D., & Buenaño Pesántez, C. V. (2018). Tendencias y desafíos de la Educación Superior en el Ecuador. In: R. Roig-Vila (Ed.), Redes de Investigación en Docencia Universitaria, (pp. 103–116). Alicante: Universidad de Alicante, Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación. Vélez Meza, E., Alexis, G. T., Mónica, G. V., & Jacinto, M. U. (2020). Digital gamification in basic general education students. In A. Basantes-Andrade, M. Naranjo-Toro, M. Z. Vizuete, & M. Botto-Tobar (Eds.), Technology, Sustainability and Educational Innovation (TSIE). TSIE 2019 (Advances in intelligent systems and computing) (Vol. 1110). Cham: Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-37221-7_13. Accessed 26 Feb 2020. WCED – World Commission on Environment and Development. (1987). Our common future. A/42/427. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/milestones/wced. Accessed 26 Feb 2020.

The Education System of El Salvador Low Efficiency and Contribution to Social Inequity

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Administration and Governance of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Human Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Emerging Issues and Recent (Local) Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The smallest country in Central America is also the one with the highest population density. Since the early nineteenth century, El Salvador has been under the influence of the USA, and experienced many dictatorships, military coups, and weak democratic governments. This has repeatedly led to social unrest, which also had an impact on the education system which is in a dire condition today.

T. Beier (*) Fachbereich Erziehungswissenschaften, Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_8

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Keywords

El Salvador · Education · Social disruption · School attrition · Privatization

1

Introduction

El Salvador as the smallest country in Central America is one with the highest population density. Since the early nineteenth century, El Salvador has been under the influence of the USA, and experienced many dictatorships, military coups, and weak democratic governments. This has repeatedly led to social unrest, which also had an impact on the education system which is in a dire condition today. The chapter presents the historical and social foundations of the education system in El Salvador and its institutional and organizational principles and discusses educational trends of inequality, ICT in education, STEM subjects, and educational and social programs of the government.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

2.1

General Historical Background

El Salvador is a small country with a total area of 8123 square miles and a population of around six million. This makes a high population density. Historically, the country has primarily served as a producer of coffee and sugar crops and has been “owned” by a small oligarchy known as the “fourteen families” (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017, 142). The local oligarchy of the nineteenth century depended on foreign economies and states, first the German Empire, then the British Empire, and since the 1930s, the United States. The status quo was maintained by the Salvadoran army while a large proportion of the indigenous and peasant population was poor, without political rights, under constant repression and used as a migrant labor force (Dunkerley 1985; Krämer 1995; Edwards Jr. et al. 2017). To understand modern Salvadoran history, it is important to know that during an uprising in 1932, more than 30,000 people, most of them peasants and descendants of the indigenous population of the Pipil, were massacred by the military. The massacre, known as “la matanza” (the slaughter), marks a milestone in Salvadoran history because of its cruelty on the part of the military and the fear and hate it caused. Since then, riots and brutal oppression can be seen as components of Salvadoran social reality. The uprising was instigated and coordinated by the communist leader, Farabundo Marti, who was a personal and political friend of Augusto César Sandino, the iconic figure of the Nicaraguan revolution. Marti was the name-giver for the guerilla Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN, National Liberation Front Farabundo Marti) which operated from 1981up to a peace agreement under UN control in 1992, fighting against the Salvadoran

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military which was strongly supported by the US army (Dunkerly 1985). Following its transformation into a political party, FMLN won the presidential elections in 2009 and 2014 after a period of presidents from the right wing ARENA party, which was founded by the modernized oligarchy. During the periods of its government, FMLN tried to solve the great problems of the country, such as poverty, unemployment, economic stagnation, lack of health care, illiteracy, and juvenile violence, and made some progress. Following the party’s failure in the 2019 elections, a young and nearly unknown politician, named Nayib Bukele, took over the presidency, due to corruption scandals involving high-ranking politicians from the FMLN government and dwindling faith of the Salvadoran people in the government’s ability to change the situation and keep political promises. Bukele had previously been a mayor of the capital San Salvador for the FMLN party, but he was later excluded because of political statements against the FMLN. It is too early to tell which political agenda Bukele pursues having won the presidential elections by saying that he is a newcomer who has nothing to do with the political establishment and is not involved in corruption.

2.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

El Salvador is considered a lower middle-income country with a gross domestic product (GDP) of 25.22 billion US-Dollar (USD), i.e., a GDP per capita of 8600 USD. Education expenditure amounts to 3.42% of GDP (DAAD 2016). Services account for 62.2% of economic activity, industry 27%, and agriculture10.8% (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017, 161), indicating that the Salvadoran economy has transitioned from agriculture to services. Especially this sector depends on remittances sent from family members residing outside the country, mainly in the USA, which cover 17% of the GDP. The growth rate fluctuated between 1.4% and 2.2% between 2010 and 2014 after higher growth rates especially in the 1990s (UNESCO 2013). Between 2015 and 2019, its fluctuation was reduced, and the rate was about 2.3% for nearly every year (World Bank 2020). Although considered a middle-income country, in 2013, 29.6% of the population lived below the national poverty line. This ratio has fluctuated between 30% and 40% since 2005 (World Bank 2015). Nevertheless, poverty has decreased over the past 20 years. In 1991, 60% of the total population (UNESCO 2013) lived below the poverty line. A 0.4% per year population growth is among the lowest in Latin America due to the high rate of emigration to other countries, especially the USA. In 2011, the Salvadoran government elaborated a 5-year plan which named the following objectives for improving the economic development of the country: • • • • •

Higher export figures A better national energy policy A better environmental policy to reduce the risk of natural disasters Better agricultural politics Strengthening of the tourism sector (UNESCO 2013)

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The economic plan with a 5-year duration, beginning in 2017, had, among others, the aim to fight food insecurity (World Food Program 2017).

2.3

Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population

In El Salvador, a small proportion of the population is engaged in formal work. More than 50% in the nonagricultural sector are employed in the informal economy (ILO 2012). Several conditions have led to special challenges to education and often make it impossible. People who work in the informal economy normally start to do so during their school career and drop out. On the other hand, informal work often does not need any kind of special training. Economic and social conditions of most of the Salvadoran families remain inadequate and educational success depends on parental capacity to provide support, considered the most important source of education (PNUD 2010). “Statistics show that 38.5 per cent of children in El Salvador suffer some type of abandonment: given a population of 2.2 million people aged between zero and seventeen, 40 per cent live in single-parent homes, and 18 per cent of these are due to migration; 10 per cent have also lost a parent due to death and the rest to separation (. . .). In El Salvador, the probability of being poor as an adult is 1.4 times more likely if the mother has only primary education, in comparison with mothers who have a high school education” (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017, 1614). Disintegration of families and other social institutions such as churches and communities coincides with lack of access to education, contributing to social exclusion, possibly linked to frustration, violence, and youth gang membership (Cruz 2007). The rate of illiteracy is about 14% of the population older than 10 years. This affects more women than men, and the rate is highest among the adult and rural population. In 2009, the rate for urban areas was 9.2%, 22.7% for rural areas, and only 5.95% for the metropolitan area of San Salvador. 16.1% of the total female population is illiterate, while the illiteracy rate of the male population is 11.3% (UNESCO 2013).

2.4

Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support

Access to education could be a great opportunity with respect to work prospects especially for young people in a country that depends more and more on the quality of labor and less on natural resources. This contradicts reality in which school attrition in basic education is high (UNESCO 2013). Figure 1 shows the correlation between school attrition in primary school and the number of students per teacher for 169 countries. With a rate of 33.3 students per teacher, El Salvador ranks among the “middle countries,” but with an attrition rate of 24%, it is above the average of Latin American countries which is at 17.8%.

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Fig. 1 Number of students per teacher and rates of school attrition in primary education. (Source: PNUD 2010)

Another reason for the high school attrition rate is the high number of pregnancies during basic education. Figure 2 shows the rate of young women aged between 15 and 19 years who are pregnant in a comparison of 169 countries. The rate for El Salvador is 80 out of 1000 and thus twice as high as in many other Latin American countries. This corresponds to the attrition rate of 24% and produces a high correlation rate. This means that there is a high correlation between pregnancy and school attrition. Another factor for early school leaving is the high rate of child labor. Children leave school and work to increase their families’ income, especially if these are poor. These families cannot afford the cost of sending their children on a long school career. If children leave school early, parents do not have to pay for school necessities such as school uniforms, books, or transport and they have an additional income from the children’s labor. The ratio of child work (5–14 years) therefore amounts to 6%. But these early work experiences do not lead to employment in the formal labor market. In El Salvador, only 59% of the workers have a formal job with social insurance (medical care and pension) – a fact that is linked to school attrition: If children leave school early, they have not acquired a minimum level of skills necessary for the modern labor market. Figure 3 demonstrates that in El Salvador, the proportion of people working in the formal labor market is low compared to most other countries which range between 80% and 100%. Therefore, the correlation rate with school attrition is quite high.

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Fig. 2 Youth pregnancy and school attrition in primary education. (Source: PNUD 2010, published in: UNESCO 2013, 12)

Fig. 3 Rate of school attrition in primary education and index of formal labor. (Source: PNUD 2010)

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As a consequence, participation in higher education is low in comparison to other Latin American countries. In 2008, 32% of the 15–24-year-olds went to a higher education institution, compared to an average of 44% of the age group in other Latin American countries (UNESCO 2013). The global financial crisis of 2008 led in 2009 to a negative growth of employment and a loss of 70,000 workplaces according to national coverage. In 2010, the Ministry of Labor and Provision (Ministerio de Trabajo y Prevision Sociál, MTPS) started programs to improve access to information on labor demands: local workplace labor fairs and special labor fairs for young workers. Due to these initiatives, the Ministry could help 8300 persons to find a new workplace in 2010 (UNESCO 2013).

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

3.1

General Principles

The principles of modern education in El Salvador are determined by two fundamental acts, i.e., the Constitution of the Republic from 1893 and the General Law on Education from 1996. While the constitution contains the constitutional right for education, the General Law, agreed to by the FMLN government which always emphasized education, gives education in El Salvador a legal basis for the first time. The constitution assigns the following tasks to the Ministry of Education (Ministerio de Educación, Ciencia y Tecnología, MINED): to plan, organize, control, run, and evaluate the different activities of the national education system, including systematic education and nonschool education, in coordination with the institutions which run other educational programs. It also organizes and coordinates education services on all levels of the education system, both formal and nonformal. The MINED builds the institutions and services which are necessary to accomplish its aims such as initial, preschool education, basic education, special education, intermediate education, higher education and adult education, teacher centers of experimentation and specialization (article 54, see UNESCO 2013). The constitution defines: “education has the following aims: to reach the integral development of personality in its mental, moral and social dimension; to contribute to the construction of a democratic, more prosperous, more just and more human society; to inculcate the respect for human rights and the observance of the corresponding rights; to fight intolerance and hatred; to make known the national reality and to identify people with values for the Salvadoran nation and to favor the unity of the Central American people. Parents have the preferred right to choose the education of their children” (article 55 of the Constitution). As will be seen, the constitution not only values education for all as a national and regional aim but also as a personal right and a democratic achievement. It also emphasizes that the kind of education given to their children is the parents’ decision. Regarding the great number of private schools – which are a reaction to the weakness of the public education system and reflect the social division of the Salvadoran society, because only the rich can send their children to an expensive

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private school – the constitution points out that private schools “are regulated and inspected by the state and can be subsidized if they lack support” (article 55). Article 56 defines the right for all persons to receive free basic education from the state. The General Law on Education outlines, in addition to the abovementioned constitutional stipulations, the following aims of education: • To develop as best as possible the physical, intellectual, and mental potential of the Salvadorans • To build plans and programs of learning on the basis of the unity of sciences • To form such didactic units that all cognitive information supports the development of mental functions and that they create positive and desirable sentiments • To improve the relationship between human beings and the environment by using educational and scientific methods which explain the internal processes of this relation • To strengthen relationships which develop feelings of solidarity, justice, helping each other, freedom, and peace in the context of the democratic framework which considers the individual as the beginning and the end of state activities (article 3, see UNESCO 2010/11) Hence, education in El Salvador gets a more scientific, a more didactic, and a more democratic profile, but it does not emphasize a certain way of education, neither a more private nor a more professionally oriented education system. The General Education Law from 1996 established the curriculum as national for public and private institutions.

3.2

Administration and Governance of Education

The MINED holds the highest authority and is responsible for all educational levels. The Salvadoran education system has a centralized structure that incorporates two Vice Ministries: Vice Ministry of Education and Vice Ministry of Science and Technology. The executive level is in the hands of national directors who oversee managers for specific programs that are administered at the central level. “Geographically, there are fourteen individual departments throughout the country, each with a departmental director who oversees schools (. . .) in their department” (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017, 147) Higher education is organized by a special law and 69% of the higher education students attend private institutions. “In general, higher education is characterized by low enrolment, saturation of certain degrees and questionable academic standards” (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017, 147). This means that most of the private institutions do not reach a certain academic level although the students have to pay for them. On the other hand, the state is not able to offer more public higher education due to low capacities and funds. About 57% of the students who finished secondary education do not continue to higher education. El Salvador has 41 institutions for higher

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education, including 24 universities (but only one is public). Ten specialized institutions, six of which are public, and seven technical institutes out of which three are public. Eighty percentage of faculties in private universities are not fulltime. Generally, only a few degrees are offered. Study programs in economics, administration, law and marketing are in high demand. The public national university offers about 76 academic degrees and is attended by more than 50,000 students (https://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_El_Salvador). But only 2% of the chair holders have a doctorate and 23% a master’s degree (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017, 147). This also means that the academic teaching staff has a low level of training. The curriculum of higher education presents one way of improving educational quality. Since it is centralized and has no mechanisms for quality control, its effectiveness is difficult to judge because there are no tests (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017). Edwards Jr. comes to the conclusion that “The national curricular document – Curriculum Foundations for National Education – presents a humanist, constructivist and socially committed approach to education” (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017, 151). It was modified in 2007 by including a competencies approach. This approach follows a global development of education systems by stipulating change of the curricula from an input-based model to an output-based one. This means that the curricula do not emphasize the subjects but the learning outcomes at the end of the educational process. In 2009, the first left-wing government of the FMLN set a Social Education Plan into action that focused on disciplines rather than on subjects, but there was no new curriculum (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017). There is a commission for accrediting the academic quality of institutions of higher education (Comisión de Acreditación de la Calidad Académica de las Instituciones de Educación Superior). Participation is voluntary, and the commission assesses the level of quality and the attainment of the improvement the institutes have promised (UNESCO 2010/11). In 1991, community and government initiatives started a program called Education with Community Participation (Educación Comunal, EDUCO) targeting education in rural areas. “The philosophy behind the EDUCO program is that local people can run the schools in their communities more efficiently and effectively than a centralized bureaucracy. The driving force behind the EDUCO school strategy is the Community Education Association, an elected parents’ association responsible for the administration of the school.” (Poole 2016) Also in 1991, the national council on culture was established (Consejo Nacional para la Culture y el Arte, CONCULTURA) as an institution of the MINED to contribute to cultural identity and to improve the understanding between society and government. CONCULTURA is also responsible for the protection of the national heritage, the adherence to human values, and the promotion of equal rights for women. To support these targets, 119 cultural centers (Casas de la Cultura) were set up across the national territory, which offer their services to the population (UNESCO 2010/11). The MINED refocused the territorial structure during the 1990s by building 14 departments of education (Oficinas/Direcciones Departamentales de Educación). The departments and their education authorities plan, organize, and coordinate the

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schools to develop adequate learning processes. The departments support schools in logistic, administrative, and technical matters. They also help translate national decisions to the local level and the single schools. During the educational reform of 1997, as a part of the decentralization of the education system, three units of school administration were built: 1. First, local-level associations (Asociaciones Comunales para la Educación, ACE), formed by parents who run schools in rural areas, were established. The ACEs’ task and duties include the management of educational services, teacher supply, supervision of teacher attendance, supply of school materials, and the management of all school financial tasks. 2. Second, the MINED established directing boards (Consejos Directivos Escolares, CDE), managed by the director of the schools and with participation of teachers, parents, and pupils older than 12 years. These councils were set up to strengthen citizen participation and to increase social equality, political inclusion, and responsibility especially of parents and older pupils. 3. Third and parallel to the directing boards, catholic boards (Consejos Educativos Católicos Escolares, CECE) were established by members of the community that run schools which are controlled by the MINED and the Catholic Church. Accordingly, by establishing these alliances, school administration was delegated to local areas to develop new forms of school management and organization. These new forms give different interest groups an official voice in the development of the schools. The MINED thus tried to express that education is a concern of the people and responds to their problems, needs, and interests. As a result, ACE and CDE managed directly 17% of the budget allocated to the MINED in 2002. Apart from the budget for teachers’ salaries, it amounted to 41% in the following years. The inclusion of different communities and interest groups increased the social value of education at the local level and consequently school attendance, because by paying more attention to the needs and wishes of parents and pupils as well, parents were more inclined to send their children to school. In consequence, planning instruments were developed at school level like the Institutional Education Project (Proyecto Educativo Institucional, PEI) and the Annual School Plan (Plan Escolar Anual, PEA). In 2008, there were more than 2.140 ACE in action (UNESCO 2010/11). In 2012, the first phase of the ACE-project came to an end after having reached its aims according to the MINED (Pogrebinschi 2017). In 2002, the international discourse on education quality accelerated the development in El Salvador and led to a more decentralized education system. Schools were forced to write their own curriculum adapted to local needs, aiming at more school autonomy and unique school identity. The School Curriculum Project (Projecto de Curriculum de Centros de Educación, PCC) was adopted from Spain, which for historical reasons is the most important country in terms of cultural exchange, and promoted in the schools until 2013. It showed the need for locally adapted curricula although technical implementation was flawed and is still worthy of improvement (MINED 2005).

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Despite all initiatives, regulations, and programs for formal education, adult education is mostly offered by civil society organizations, but also by programs promoted by local authorities and the MINED. These programs focus on literacy, basic education, distance learning, and preparation for work, and play a major role in offering courses for adults as a way of vocational or substituting education. Many other activities also have an educational impact like children’s health, nutrition, environmental education, development for women, community organization, which are run by other ministries in cooperation with the MINED. This means that not only education in the narrow sense, promoted exclusively by the MINED, is carried out in El Salvador. All these developments are complemented by nonformal education which is mostly run and coordinated by the Salvadoran Institute for Professional Training (Instituto Salvadoreño de Formación Profesional, ISFP) (UNESCO 2010/11). ISFP is a public and state institution with economic and administrative autonomy and was founded in 1993 by the Law on Professional Training. Its aim is to satisfy the needs of the Salvadoran society regarding qualification to improve the living conditions of employees and their families.

3.3

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED Classification

To get a first idea of the structure of the educational system in El Salvador, one may refer to the following summary of UNESCO: “El Salvador has a 9-2 formal education structure. Primary school has an official entry age of seven and comprises nine grades. Secondary school consists of grades 10 and 11. Primary school is known as educación básica and is made up of three cycles each spanning 3 years. General secondary school (educación media) has a duration of 2 years, although some technical-vocational programs may last two or three. In principle, public school is free and primary (basic) school is compulsory. The academic year runs between February and October (. . .)” (UNESCO 2018). To get a more detailed overview, the different levels of education are described in the following (see UNESCO 2010/11).

3.3.1 Preprimary Education (ISCED 02) Initial education of a child lasts from birth until the age of 4 years and aims to promote the social-affective, the psycho-motor, and the sense-perceptive development of the child. It also promotes the development of language and learning through play by an early and adequate stimulation. In other countries, preprimary education is administered to children aged 4–6 years, but there is no place for it in the formal educational system of El Salvador, and it is available only to a few children from the upper classes.

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3.3.2 Primary Education (ISCED 1) Basic education is usually offered to children between 7 and 15 years of age and is obligatory. Children can start at the age of 6 years if they are sufficiently mature and if there are enough places in schools. Basic education lasts 9 years (grade 1–9) and is divided into three cycles, each lasting 3 years. 3.3.3 Secondary Education (ISCED 2) Two types of secondary education are available: one general branch that implies 2 years of daily schooling and another technical – i.e., vocational – that has a duration of 3 years. Both allow graduates to continue with higher education or to start work afterwards. The technical branch offers nine technical specialties which are grouped into four areas: commerce and administration, industry, health, and agriculture. The official institutes which are responsible for this level of education define themselves as national institutes whereas the private institutes are called colleges or specialized secondary school (liceo). This secondary education leads to a high school degree. 3.3.4 Tertiary (or Higher) Education (ISCED 6 and 7) Completion of secondary education is a prerequisite to the tertiary level which is offered by universities, technical institutes, and specialized institutes of higher degrees. The study courses entitle graduates to obtain titles and degrees in professional, technical, and scientific areas. Universities can offer academic degrees like: technician (2 years of study and a minimum of 64 units), teacher (3 years, 96 units), technologist (4 years), graduate level engineer, architect (5 years), maestro (2 years additional to a professional career), and doctor (3 years in addition to having graduated as an engineer, architect, or maestro). Specialists, if medical doctor or dentist, need 3 years of additional training. Some careers like law, medicine, and dentistry assume a graduation and 1 year of social service as a requirement. The educational system is structured as follows Education Primary Primary Primary Primary Secondary

School/level Primary First cycle Second cycle Third cycle Secondary

Secondary

Middle education

Grade from 1 1 4 7 10

Grade to 9 3 6 9 12

10

11

Age from 7

Age to 15

16

18

Years 9 3 3 3 3

2

Notes

Bachillerato degree (high school diploma) Bachelor’s degree (high school degree) (continued)

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Grade from 10

569

Grade to 12

Age from

Age to

Education Vocational

School/level Middle technical education

Tertiary

Two years tertiary program Undergraduate

2

Graduatemaster Doctorate

2

Tertiary Tertiary Tertiary

Years 3

5

3

Notes Technical bachelor’s degree (technical high school degree)

Minimum of 5 years Minimum of 2 years Minimum of 3 years

Source: Scholaro (2019)

The hours per week spent on school subjects differ by grades. In the first cycle of primary education (grade 1–3), most hours are spent on language and mathematics, followed by environment and social studies, art, and sports (see MINED 2008). In the second and third cycle of primary education (grade 4–6), the order is the same and the total of lessons per week stays at 25 each school year (see MINED 2008). In secondary education, some new school subjects are introduced like natural sciences, computer science, and foreign language, and the total per week reaches 40 lessons, including vocational training (see MINED 2008).

3.4

Human Resources

There are 16 higher education institutions that train teachers in a 3-year program with a national curriculum which was designed and is monitored by the MINED. The curriculum combines general pedagogy, specific specialty areas, teaching practice, and general interest courses (human rights, environment, inclusive education, preventing family and gender violence). Given an average age of 17 years after high school graduation, teachers are around 19 or 20 years old when they enter the teaching profession (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017, 153). The final exam for teacher education is called Academic and Pedagogical Competencies Evaluation (Evaluación de las Competencias Académicas y Pedagógicas, ECAP), first administered in 2001 to standardize the level of training of the students coming from various teacher training institutions. The assessment instrument did not work well in the beginning. It was criticized because test items were not renewed and adapted for many years. The failure rate at the beginning was 66% and was reduced due to the redevelopment of test items in 2011 to 17% and in 2013 to 8% (CuéllarMarchelli 2015).

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In 2018, 58,077 teachers were working in the national education system (MINED 2019b). The MINED is responsible for supplying the educational system with trained teachers. But the MINED has calculated that many school teachers are unemployed in public education. This means a serious oversupply in the market (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017). Therefore, there is a long waiting period for educated teachers: the young and recently trained teachers may have to wait 10 years to be assigned a position in a public school, because the law gives priority to those who have been trained first (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017). In 2013, the selection board for new teachers placed a total of 890 teaching positions on national level, for which 57,787 applications were received (Hernández 2014). This underlines the oversupply and the high rate of unemployment within the education system. Edwards Junior comes to the conclusion: “One of the ongoing challenges is that teachers are not working in their subject area but are assigned a teaching position in an area different from their specialty, even though the Teaching Career Law establishes a specialty area as a criterion for placement” (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017, 154). School census data in 2013 revealed that only 6% of math teachers in the primary level were educated in this subject. Also 60% of kindergarten teachers did not have a degree for this area (Hernández 2014). Teacher training is also problematic because they are present only 25 h a week, 20 of which are spent on teaching classes. Some teachers work double shifts to raise their income. As is common in Latin America, school days in primary school last 5 h only and there are morning and afternoon sessions, teachers can teach one morning and one afternoon session at different schools on one day (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017). The teaching conditions reflect the low payment of teachers in El Salvador. The salary does not rise much during the career and is not accompanied by quality checks. Table 1 shows monthly salaries for each level and category of the career scale. By comparison, unskilled workers earn about USD 157 monthly, office employees USD 333, and management-level employees USD 970 (Pacheco 2013). The difficult working conditions, long duration of training, low salaries, and other social conditions mean that the professional prestige is low and influence the way society perceives and values teachers (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017). Table 1 Monthly salaries according to career scale Category Years of service

6 0–5

5 5–10

4 10–15

3 15–20

2 20–25

1C 25–30

1B 30–35

Level one salary (5-year university degree) Level two salary (3-year teaching degree)

$717

$ 789

$ 852

$ 920

$ 975

$ 1034

$ 1096

$ 652

$ 717

$ 774

$ 836

$ 887

$ 940

$ 996

Source: Cuéllar-Marchelli (2015), updated by Edwards Jr. et al. (2017), amounts in US$

1A More than 35 $ 1173 $ 1066

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All these factors lead to a vicious circle of inadequate teacher training and over supply.

4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

4.1

Inequality

Inequality is still high regarding access to and duration of attendance in the education system in El Salvador. The poor and rural population has fewer means of access to the education system than the rich and urban population. There is also a better chance for higher education for children whose parents already attended this level of education, coinciding with general social inequality. Children whose parents were poor remain poor. Inequality is also evident between women and men. As outlined above, there are a lot of children who do not complete a primary school career because of social inequality, most of them girls. Scientific investigations show that in 2001 only 58.1% of the children who started with the first grade in primary school reached the fifth grade. In 2008, the enrollment rate rose to 75% due to a program by the MINED but still 25% of the children did not go to school (UNESCO 2013). As a consequence, MINED started a new 5-year plan with social and educational aims called “Let’s go to school” (“Vamos a la escuela”). The instruments of this program set some creative forces free such as more efficient use of funds for education; more efficiency in the administration of education on national and local level; social agreements for education; participation of teachers, families, and local governments; and evaluation of the plan (UNESCO 2013). Some achievements can be recorded: “The Salvadoran education system can boast increases in coverage and gender parity since the early 1990s, spurred by actions to improve education by committed government officials, international institutions and non-governmental sectors of society” (Rivas 2008, according to Edwards Jr. et al. 2017, 150). This includes an advancement in the enrollment of girls. In 2015, the enrollment rate of girls in formal school after kindergarten was higher than that of boys. Boys are not going to school because they have to support their family in economic activities and are more involved in gang-related issues. For both reasons, a significant number of boys drop out of school, especially when they enter grade 7–9, at the end of primary education. To reach equal and permanent access to the educational system was therefore one of the main strategic aims of the 5-year plan 2010–2014.

4.2

ICT and Digitalization

In 2011, UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) described the ITC efforts of the Salvadoran state as follows: “El Salvador, a small and open economy, poorly endowed with natural resources, needs to base its growth on increased productivity and economic transformation towards activities with a

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higher added value. In order to bring about this transformation, the country must focus on developing its own capacities to adopt, use, adapt and generate knowledge.” UNCTAD further points out that this requires public and private investment in knowledge. Secondly, it would be necessary to set up a national system of innovation which conducts these activities in the productive sectors. UNCTAD mentions: “There are signs that various efforts have been made in El Salvador, often against a difficult background of scarce resources, to encourage the development of these capacities.” It should be mentioned that the Government of El Salvador has invested in knowledge-generating activities and the promotion of a national system of innovation. According to UNCTAD, the country has various capacities in the sphere of science, technology, and innovation which can serve as the basis for progress and successful results. There would be scientific research with international impact, especially in the area of the health sciences. Also the nuclei of good quality education, innovative companies, for example, in the agro-industrial and pharmaceutical sectors, and some positive experience of university-company collaboration, for example, in the design of specific study programs. Interest in various spheres in promoting science, technology and innovation, from various public institutions, nongovernmental organizations and international cooperation agencies, is seen by UNCTAD in El Salvador. On the other hand, there is a general lack of interest on the part of the private sector. In addition, in El Salvador, there are a number of factors which offer opportunities for the development of capacities in science, technology, and innovation (STI). On the upside, according to UNCTAD, the country has a good road and air transport system and telecommunications infrastructure (especially mobile phones). There are also national programs, such as the port of La Unión. The strong presence of Salvadorans abroad is a channel for access to valuable resources and knowledge. The diversification of production offers opportunities for progress in many areas, such as the food and beverages industry or the pharmaceutical sector, and the opening of trade is an incentive to innovation by increasing competition and by facilitating the purchase of capital goods and access to new technologies. International cooperation makes an important contribution to the development of innovation skills, and there are ample opportunities for greater international collaboration in research and innovation. Finally, there is broad and continuing agreement in the country on the macroeconomic stability policies and openness to the outside which encourages the private sector (domestic and foreign) to have the confidence to invest in the country. However, at present, El Salvador lacks adequate systemic conditions to develop capacities to adopt, use, adapt, and generate knowledge. There is no government body which provides cohesion and direction to policies concerning STI. Neither is there an articulated system of STI policies, but rather isolated policies focused either on science and technology or on innovation, industrial development, or exports. No efforts were made to identify research strengths and production capacities, and establish priorities from which development programs and policy instruments could be derived. A lack of monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs to allow making the necessary adjustments was also observed. As regards the generation of knowledge, the research sector is weak in human and financial resources, has little private involvement, and is

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strongly geared towards the social sciences and humanities. Levels of investment in R&D, both public and private, are extremely low. Furthermore, there is little contact between the knowledge-generating bodies and the productive sector, and current research efforts have had little impact on improvements in production. The productive sector does not demand knowledge or technology, there is little awareness of the utility of knowledge in generating value, there are few financing options and a limited number of innovation policy instruments with limited budgets. The education system suffers from serious weaknesses. Education in general, and higher education in particular, has ample room for improvement, especially in terms of quality, the expansion of science and technology teaching and research. In addition, the country must face the challenge of building STI capacities against a background of scarce public resources. The weaknesses of public institutions, for example in the sphere of policy coordination, also represent a threat to the development of these capacities which require broad agreement and clear and continuous guidelines. The heterogeneous nature of business, which consists of a large micro and small enterprise sector with low productivity, will also determine the objectives which the country can achieve in STI. The consumption culture acts as a disincentive to productive investment, and the rise in international competition, without greater capacity for technological absorption, among other factors, will cause difficulties to Salvadoran companies. Moreover, the cost of crime, natural disasters and external shocks (such as the sharp increases in the price of oil or other commodities or drastic reductions in remittances), and the country’s fragility in the face of these phenomena should not be overlooked. The analysis of innovation in agro-industry and the information and communication technologies sector broadly reaches conclusions similar to the observations on the national system of innovations. Among other things, insufficient levels of investment in R&D were observed, scarcity of trained human resources, especially at postgraduate level, the lack of a national program to guide development and innovation in these sectors, and a lack of links between institutions and the main stakeholders. In 2012, results of a study entitled “Development of the value chain for products in the Information and Communications Technologies Sector (ICTs) in El Salvador” were released. A statement from the Ministry of Economy reads: “The MINEC (Ministerio de Economía, Ministry of Economy) seeks to position El Salvador as a source of technological development. The Ministry of Economy, through the Directorate of Productive Chains, is aiming to position El Salvador as a source of technological development, since there is a growing demand for value-added services, both nationally and internationally, contributing to the growth of the aggregate supply in the field of Information and Communications (ICTs)” (Centralamerica data 2019). This means there is an effort to strengthen the regional position of El Salvador in the ICT sector but there is still a great lack of development. According to school teachers, equipment of Salvadoran schools with communications technology is poor, and the standard of teaching children in handling of ICT is low. But as seen in 2.3 within secondary and higher education, training, which focuses on ICT and digitization, is offered.

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STEM Subjects

Technical education is important in the Salvadoran secondary education system. Two courses in technical training are integrated in the weekly schedule (Tables 2 and 3). The “Plan Social Educativo” for the period 2009–2014 included an effort to coordinate and to strengthen those technical trainings in the National System for Professional Technical Education (ETP, Sistema Nacional de Educación Técnica Profesional). Some of the initiatives within this system were: • FOMILENIO I: FOMILENIO is the abbreviation for “Fondo de Milenio” (Millennium Fund) and is an initiative of the United States of America which has the aim to support the development of those states which are based on a system of justice and try to develop the economic freedom of their inhabitants. Subject to FOMILENIO I, the Salvadoran government proposed to support productive projects, road building, and human development in the areas of health, education, and potable water and environment. To achieve this, professional technical training (ETP, educación y formación técnica y professional) had to be linked to other policies in the social, labor, and economic area. This also meant a transfer of responsibilities to the local level (UNESCO 2013). • FOMILENIO II is the continuation of the FOMILENIO program and was funded with USD 277 million donated by the United States government,

Table 2 El Salvador. Middle technical education. Commercial training, accounting. School lessons per week according to subjects

Subjects Basic subjects: Language % literature Mathematics Natural sciences Social studies and civic education Foreign language Computer science Subtotal Vocational subjects: Psychology of adolescence Seminars Subtotal Technical subjects: Technology I, II, II Workshop I, II, III Laboratory of creativity I, II, III Professional practice Work and graduation Subtotal Total per week Source: MINED 2008

I

II

II

5 6 6 5 3 3 28

5 6 6 5 3 3 28

– – – – –

3 3 6

3 3 6

– – –

5 3 2 – – 10 44

5 3 2 – – 10 44

18 6 2 2 2 30 30

–

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Table 3 El Salvador. Middle technical education. Industrial training, electronics. School lessons per week according to subjects

Subjects Basic subjects: Language and literature Mathematics Natural sciences Social studies and civic education Foreign language Computer science Subtotal Vocational subjects: Psychology of adolescence Seminars Subtotal Technical subjects: Technology I, II, II Workshop I, II, III Laboratory of creativity I, II, III Professional practice Work and graduation Subtotal Total per week

575 I

II

II

5 6 6 5 3 3 28

5 6 6 5 3 3 28

– – – – –

3 3 6

3 3 6

– – –

3 5 2 – – 10 44

3 5 2 – – 10 44

10 14 2 2 2 30 30

–

Source: MINED 2008

• •

•

•

through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), plus a counterpart of USD 88.2 million contributed by the government of El Salvador, adding up to a total of USD 365.2 million that were invested over a period of 5 years. The objective of the program was to improve the investment climate in El Salvador for economic growth and poverty reduction. For FOMILENIO II, dialogue and citizen participation are fundamental to guarantee the successful management of the environmental and social impacts of their projects (Gobierno de El Salvador 2019). Implementation of the vocational agricultural technical academic degree. Diploma in coffee culture: Transformation of the long-standing tradition of coffee cultivating in El Salvador, which has always been dominated by a small group of rich families with their “secret knowledge,” into a professional training leading to a degree that everyone can obtain, and which has to have a high quality. FOCATEC (Proyecto de Fortalecimiento de la Calidad Académica y Tecnica; Project for strengthening the academic and technical quality) was a program near to MEGATEC and aimed with the help of a Japanese organization at improving the quality of technical training in the eastern region of El Salvador. National Network MEGATEC built a system of certification of secondary education institutions. This included accreditation and evaluation of those institutions and the search for adequate pedagogical aims, teaching personnel, as well as managing staff.

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• Pro-Calidad (Pro-Quality), supervised by a committee within the Ministry of Economy, is a program for the entire ETP to promote the development of competencies which are concerned with the quality of products and aims at secondary technical education as well as high-level technical education. • PROEDUCA (Program of strengthening of social cohesion within the educational sector). Although many efforts have been made to improve technical education, the International Corporation of Education Development CIDE (Corporación International de Desarollo en Educación) lined out in a diagnosis in 2011 that: • Technical training is still not adapted to the wishes of the employers in different sectors of the economy. • The quality of technical training varies from sector to sector. • The quality of work differs and so training has to be more customized. Small enterprises need a basic level, greater enterprises a higher one. • In most of the enterprises, a technical bachelor is experienced more adequate to their conditions than a general bachelor.

4.4

Emerging Issues and Recent (Local) Developments

In order to watch recent developments within the education system of El Salvador, it is useful to look at MINED’s homepage (MINED 2019a). The Ministry’s website highlights seven programs which are considered important for current educational politics and which will be introduced hereafter: a donation program for laptops, social programs, an alphabetization program, a preschool program, efforts in higher education, a program for a distance learning university, and programs in science and technology.

4.4.1 Donation Program for Laptops Starting in June 2014, the program made it possible that by March 2019 more than 104,012 laptops were handed to 981,638 students and to 104,012 teachers. Thereby, 4284 schools received this technical equipment. In March 2019, 15,000 laptops were donated by the People’s Republic of China to the MINED which passed them on to students. 4.4.2 Social Programs As mentioned below, the great efforts of FMLN governments include a social program called “school package” that provides students with equipment like uniforms, shoes, and books. Another social program to back up learning efforts is called “Un vaso de leche” (“A glass of milk”) which, in 2017/2018, meant that nearly one million students were provided with a free glass of milk a day.

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The third important social program that affects school efforts is called “Alimentación y Salud Escolar” (“Alimentation and School Health”). According to MINED, more than one million students in more than 5000 schools were beneficiaries of this program. But within the Salvadoran civil society, especially by NGOs, these programs are also criticized because they are considered as an expression of “asistencialismo” (assistance) instead of bringing the families into a position to support their children with the necessary alimentation and equipment.

4.4.3 Literacy Illiteracy is still considered to be one of the great challenges for developing countries and battling it has to be one of the aims of education politics. But while conservative governments do not attach too much importance to this problem thinking growing markets and modernizing societies will solve the problem, left-wing governments pay considerably more attention to the issue. That has been so in Nicaragua where a great literacy campaign was launched after defeating dictator Somoza, and this is so in the Salvadoran case after the end of the civil war and with the onset of FMLN governing in 2009. Since then – according to MINED’s homepage in 2019–300,000 Salvadorans became literate, 68% of them women and 32% men. Thirteen percentage of them were between 15 and 24 years old, 67% of them between 25 and 59 years old, and 20% older than 60 years. This means that illiteracy disappeared in 93 out of the 262 communities. 4.4.4 Preschool and Integral Education There has been some effort to set up preschool education which before did not exist in the Salvadoran educational system. So in 2017 – according to the MINED – there was a rate of 56% of young children that received a preschool education. 4.4.5 Higher Education MINED does not list any special programs targeting higher education but records long lists of newly authorized careers and institutions. This might indicate that there is a lot of progress in diversification of higher education. But on the other hand, this expresses a segregation of university education into hundreds of private institutions with doubtful quality standards. 4.4.6 Distance Learning University The state University of El Salvador offers a distance learning platform for eight different careers, mostly in the area of technology. On the one hand, this might be a meaningful effort in a country where many young people have to work or because of the weak transport system cannot reach university locations easily from their home towns and now can study. Still, the quality of the distance learning careers is considered to be low and enrollment requires modern technical equipment and a stable internet connection at home which very often is not available.

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4.4.7 Science and Technology This area of study comprises aspects such as water scarcity or drought which is a great problem in the country due to climate change in the last decades. The aspects are, for instance, treated in technological parks on the internet or on a platform called “Centro Interactivo de Aprendizaje de Ciencias,” CIAC (“Interactive Center of Science Learning”). Another subject in this area concerns the promotion of highly talented students. It is at least astonishing for a society that has many more problems with students that do not have the basic requirements for studying. The announcement of a regional robotic fair in the department of Chalatenango which promotes – according to the MINED – an exchange between schools may shed light on what is meant by “technological innovation.”

5

Conclusion

Social violence and an increasing number of organized gangs of adolescents strongly affect schooling of young people. According to UNICEF, El Salvador is the country with the highest homicide rate of minors younger than 19 in the world. In 2012, the rate was 27 per 100,000 (UNICEF 2014). This was even a low rate while it oscillated between 60 and 80 between 2006 and 2011. And after the decline in 2012, it increased again in 2014 and 2015 to up to more than 120 homicides per 100,000 (Indexmundi 2019). The decline was due to the social and security politics of the left-wing FMLN government which in the end could not solve this deep-seated problem of Salvadoran society. “Unfortunately, technical difficulties and politics often reduce the impact of reforms on important social issues like gender equity (. . .) and peace education (. . .)” (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017, 162). A great challenge to the education system is a lack of an efficient infrastructure and instructional resources. MINED in 2014 stated that only 40% of Salvadoran schools are in good condition and over 800 are in vulnerable areas at risk of natural disasters (Cuéllar-Marchelli 2015). MINED statistics show that only 24% of public schools have running water 6% have a lack of electricity and only 16.8% have internet (Hernández. 2014). All this can impact on students’ learning and teachers’ motivation. One can say that the education system in El Salvador is still characterized by a very low participation rate and a low efficiency rate. The rate of enrollment in basic education is among the lowest in Latin America (UNESCO 2013). Nevertheless, there has been some progress, especially under the FMLN government. Value of education increased and the number of children who do not attend school and the percentage of adult illiteracy declined. With support of UNICEF, the early childhood curriculum was reformed, and the MINED invested USD 80 million in school uniforms, shoes, books, and other supplies for all students, also for those in secondary schools to increase access to school and to reduce school attrition rates (Edwards Jr. et al. 2017).

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However, it is not possible to solve educational problems by only addressing education as such. What El Salvador needs is a stable economic and social system that keeps young people from dropping out of school early because there is only one way of finding a source of income and social recognition, by joining a youth gang that deals with drugs. Family disintegration has to be stopped by giving young people a work prospect and by strengthening social cohesion in society and communities. But there is not much reason for confidence. The Salvadoran society is weak, and the economic, social, and cultural inequalities cannot be solved within a few years. One might even expect that this small country with a small economy will stay very vulnerable to changes in the global economy and economic shocks worldwide. El Salvador’s future will be dependent on the global development and local leader states like Mexico and the United States. It is to be feared that therefore there will be no constant positive development in El Salvador. Focusing on the area of education, this means that there only will be the requirements for progress if there is a stable economic and political situation. Regrettably in a state at the level of El Salvador, education is not the main focus of politics. Political support and elections are won by highlighting other topics like anticorruption, security, income, and leadership, as the last presidential elections have shown impressively. As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter for the general expectations as well as for the area of education, it is too early to tell which way Bukele, the new president, will go. It is to be expected that he will change the agenda and reverse some achievements of left-wing politics. There most likely will be a return to a rhetoric of individual efforts and personal will to reach higher education, and the already large scope of privatization of education will grow even more, being perceived as the best way of making the education system efficient and education cheap and of high quality. On the other hand, Bukele is likely to take a pragmatic route in the area of education and follow the path former governments have taken. This includes the welfarism set up by FMLN-governments that included a free school package including uniforms and books and free school lunch. By this, Bukele hopes to win political profile and future elections. The efforts of that kind of education politics – especially the neoliberal parts – can be questioned. As developments in other Latin American countries with similar conditions show, it will lead to greater social segregation and less access to the educational system of a growing number of people, among them poor people, peasants, women, and those whose distance to education is greater by family tradition. The Salvadoran school system will thus contribute to reproducing the inequality of the social system, as it has done before (PNUD 2013).

References Centralamericadata. (2019). Information technology development in El Salvador. Available at https://www.centralamericadata.com/en/search?q1¼content_en_le:%22Information+Technol ogy+Development+%22&q2¼mattersInCountry_es_le:%22El+Salvador%22 Cruz, J. M. (Ed.). (2007). Street gangs in Central America. San Salvador: UCA Editores.

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Cuéllar-Marchelli, H. (2015). El Estado de las Politicas Públicas Docentes. San Salvador: Fundación Salvadoreña para el Desarollo Económico y Social, FUSADES. Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). (2016). DAAD-Datenblatt El Salvador. Available at https://www.daad.de/medien/der-daad/analysen-studien/datenblatt/salvador_daad_ datenblatt.pdf. Last accessed Mar 2019. Dunkerly, J. (1985). The long war, dictatorship and revolution in El Salvador. London: Verso. Edwards, D. B., Jr., Martin, P., & Flores, I. (2017). El Salvador: Past, present and prospects of education. In C. M. Posner, C. Martin, & A. P. Elvir (Eds.), Education in Mexico, Central America and the Latin Caribbean (pp. 141–168). Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10. 5040/9781474267717.0016. Gobierno de El Salvador. (2019). Fomilenio II. Available at https://www.fomilenioii.gob.sv/que-esfomilenio-ii Hernández, J. M. (2014). Caracterización de los docents del sistema educativo salvadoreño. San Salvador: FUSADES. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_El_Salvador. Last accessed Sept 2020. Indexmundi. (2019). Facts. El Salvador. Available at https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/elsalvador/homicide-rate International Labor Organization (ILO). (2012). Statistical update on employment in the informal economy. Available at http://laborsta.ilo.org/informal_economy_E.html International Monetary Fund (IMF). (2011). El Salvador. Third Review under the standby arrangement. Staff Report. Washington, DC: IMF. Keppler, T. (1992). Revolution am Verhandlungstisch. Frankfurt: IKO. Krämer, M. (1995). El Salvador. Vom Krieg zum Frieden niedriger Intensität. Frankfurt: ISP. MINED. (2005). Proyecto Educativo Institucional. Impacto y perspectivas. Unpublished study produced by the Proyecto de Desarollo Profesional Docente para Educación Media, under the BIRF 4224-ES contract. MINED. (2008). Programa de studio. San Salvador: Ministerio de Educación. MINED. (2013). Resultados de la información estadísdica de instituciones de educación superior. San Salvador: Ministerio de Educación. MINED. (2014). Ejes estratégicos del Plan Nacional de Educaciòn en Función de la Nación. San Salvador: Ministerio de Educación. MINED. (2019a). Homepage. San Salvador: MINED. Available at https://www.minde.gob.sv/ index.php MINED. (2019b). Censo Escolar 2018-Sistema Regular. Available at: http://www.mined.gob.sv/ jdownloads/Boletines%20estad%C3%ADsticos/Boletines%202017/Boletin%20Estadistico% 20N%2016%20-20Grado%20y%20Especializacion%20Docente%20Ano%202018.pdf Pacheco, R. B. (2013). Políticas Docentes en Centroamérica. Tendencias Nacionales. El Salvador. Washington, DC: PREAL. PNUD. (2010). Informe sobre Desarollo Humano El Salvador 2010. San Salvador: PNUD con el apoyo de USAID y GIZ. Pogrebinschi, T. (2017). LATINNO Dataset. Berlin: WZB. Poole, M. (2016). El Salvador’s EDUCO Program. A First Report on Parents’ Participation in School-Based Management. Available at: https://silo.tips/download/el-salvador-s-educo-pro gram-a-first-report-on-parents-participation-in-school-ba Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarollo (PNUD). (2013). Informe sobre desarollo humano. El Salvador. Imaginar un Nuevo país. Hacerlo possible. San Salvador: PNUD. Rivas, F. (Ed.). (2008). El estado de la education en América Central: 2000–2008. San Salvador: Fundación de Inovaciones Educativas Centroamericanas. Scholaro. (2019). Education system in El Salvador. Available at https://www.scholaro.com/pro/ Countries/El-Salvador/Education-System UNESCO. (2010/11). World Data on Education (WDE) (VII ed.). Geneve: UNESCO-IBE. UNESCO. (2013). Revisión de políticas en educación y formación técnica y profesional de El Salvador. Santiago de Chile: UNESCO.

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UNICEF. (2014). Ocultos a plena luz. Un análisis estadístico sobre la violencia contra los niños. Available at http://www.unicef.org/ecuador/ocultos_a_plena_luz.pdf United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (2011). Science, technology & innovation policy review El Salvador. Geneva: Unctad. Available at https://www.researchgate. net/profile/Rene_Hernandez9/publication/293488279_Science_Technology_Innovation_Pol icy_Review_El_Salvador/links/56b9019c08ae39ea9905c28d/Science-Technology-InnovationPolicy-Review-El-Salvador.pdf?origin¼publication_detail United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2018). El Salvador. UNESCO Institute of Statistics. Geneve: UNESCO. World Bank. (2015). Data. Available at: http://data.Worldbank.Org/. Consulted November 2015. World Bank. (2020). Data. Available at: http://data.Worldbank.Org/. Last accessed July 2020. World Food Program. (2017). El Salvador country strategic plan (2017–2021). Available at https:// documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/internal/documents/projects/wfp291795.pdf

The Education System of the French Overseas Departments of America

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French Guiana, Martinique, and Guadeloupe Maurizio Alı`

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Educational Personnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

584 584 584 587 589 590 591 591 592 594 596 596 597 599 601 602 603 603

Abstract

French Guiana, on the septentrional coast of South America, and the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, in the Antilles archipelago, are the three French overseas departments of the Americas (Départements Français d’Amérique, DFAs); they have been an integral part of France since 1946, and their political and administrative organization into departments and regions mirrors that of the rest of France. But their peculiar colonial history, their peripheral location, and their “exotic” ecosystems (the French Antilles are small islands in the middle of M. Alì (*) CRREF Research Lab (EA4538), EASTCO Research Lab (EA4241), CIERA Research Centre, INSPE de Martinique, Université des Antilles, Fort de France, Martinique, France © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_9

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the Caribbean Sea and French Guiana is mostly covered by the Amazonian rainforest) characterize their “syncretic” education systems in a unique way. Keywords

Colonialism · Francophonie · French republicanism · French ultramarine territories · Multiculturalism · Multicultural education

1

Introduction

French Guiana, on the septentrional coast of South America, and the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, in the Antilles archipelago, are the three French overseas departments of the Americas (Départements Français d’Amérique, DFAs); they have been an integral part of France since 1946, and their political and administrative organization into departments and regions mirrors that of the rest of France. But their peculiar colonial history, their peripheral location, and their “exotic” ecosystems (the French Antilles are small islands in the middle of the Caribbean Sea and French Guiana is mostly covered by the Amazonian rainforest) characterize their “syncretic” education systems in a unique way.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

For more than three centuries, the development of the school systems in French colonies followed a different path from that in the mainland.

2.1

General Historical Background

In France, King Louis XIV (also known as the Sun King) established the Royal Order of December 13, 1698, which stated that parents were obliged to send their children aged up to 14 years to local “little schools” (petites écoles), managed by Catholic priests and financed by the same pupils’ families. In 1793, during the French Revolution, the Ancient Regime (and the monarchic structure of the State) was abrogated: local schools were nationalized, and teachers recruited by the State replaced the former Catholic magister (Lebrun et al. 2003). But in 1808, Napoleon Bonaparte (who restored monarchy in 1804) reestablished religious education, allowing Catholic congregations to manage French primary schooling. The Napoleonic system would remain unchanged throughout the nineteenth century, until 1881–1882, when the government passed a set of laws – proposed by Jules Ferry (1832–1893), the Minister of Public Education and Fine Arts and future Prime Minister of France – enacting free, laic, and compulsory instruction for all French citizens: the three pillars that still define the Republican schooling system (Terrail 1997; Prost 2004).

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From the date of their annexation to the French Empire, during the first half of the sixteenth century (1635 for Martinique and Guadeloupe, 1643 for French Guiana), and until the end of World War II, in 1946, the territories that at present belong to the French overseas Departments of America were managed by local governors under a set of colonial rules known as the “Indigenous Code” (Code de l’indigenat). The Code institutionalized the subordination of autochthonous and non-French people in colonial territories and assigned the governor the task of “civilizing” those people by educating them (Ballet 1979). During the first two centuries, the mission was assured by religious orders, but after the French Revolution, their educational monopoly was slightly eroded (and eliminated as of 1905, when the principle of state laicity was introduced into French legislation). In French Guiana, the very first school appeared in 1690 in Cayenne, the head municipality. Founded and managed by the Jesuits, it was reserved for settlers and their sons. Education for young girls was administered by the Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres, who joined Jesuit missionaries in the Americas in 1727 and continued until 1822, when the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny intervened, establishing the first boarding school for young girls in the main city/town in 1830 (Verwimp 2011). In 1831, the Cayenne Jesuit School was transformed into the colony’s first public school. In 1845, the “July Monarchy” – the liberal constitutional monarchy under King Louis Philippe I – adopted a series of measures to generalize slaves’ enfranchisement in overseas colonies. That same year, the Mackau Law created the administrative framework for schooling and professional training of former slaves and their descendants. In American colonies, their education was entrusted to the Cluny congregation. Due to the persistence of slavery in rural areas, the Sisters’ prioress, Superior Mother Anne-Marie Javouhey, asked the government to buy and redeem 3,000 slaves with the aim to provide them with quality education according to Catholic values. The governor of the colony refused, and in the following years, the schooling rate of the black population did not increase but rather stagnated, because the scarce educational opportunities were unable to reach the total population. Until 1859, only seven schools were opened in the territory, and all of them were located in urban littoral centers (Cayenne, Rémire, Kourou, Roura, and Monsinéry), along the Atlantic shores. That same year, the local Service of Public Instruction (Service de l’Instruction Publique, in charge of the execution of educational policies in colonial territories) inventoried less than 1,100 students in the entire colony (1,023 children and 60 adults). In 1891, they were less than 1,600. On November 27th of the same year, the General Council of Guiana voted for the laicization of public schooling according to the principles stated in Ferry’s laws but adapted some provisions to local context concerning the age of schooling (compulsory for all children aged 6–10 years) and the recruitment of teachers (staff had to be chosen among the local population, recommended by the municipality and nominated by the governor of the colony). In 1892, 39 teachers were recruited, 20 men (mostly assigned to all-boys schools) and 19 women (for all-girls schools). Half of the teachers were allocated to the two schools located in Cayenne, while the others were distributed among village schools with a single multilevel classroom for children aged 6–14 years. But, with the development of the school network and

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the creation of neighborhood and rural schools, the Council experienced a crisis when recruiting quality teachers among a population composed mostly of peasant people. A plan was needed to attract teachers from mainland France, offering them salary benefits and administrative privileges (Farraudière 1989). In the French West Indies, the development of the local school system took a different route due to their particular economic structure, based on an intensive exploitation of sugarcane plantations, and the conflictive social context, opposing European settlers, slaves, and free creole people (the native people of the archipelago, the Tainos, were rapidly eliminated owing to the violence of the settlers and by illnesses brought from Europe, and at the end of the sixteenth century, the few remaining Amerindians were all assimilated by the colonial society). The Caribbean agricultural economy was based on slave trade, which would be regulated from 1685 notably with the passing of the “Black Code” (Code noir), a Royal decree – prepared by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Minister of Finances of Louis XIV – defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial Empire. In this sector of the Caribbean Sea, the beginning of school organizations was led by religious congregations. The first schools were founded in Guadeloupe in 1838–1839 and then in Martinique in 1840 by the Brothers of Ploërmel. While in French Guiana, all-girls schools were managed by the Sisters Saint-Joseph de Cluny (Schmidt 1984). In reality, the establishment of a network of schools in the French West Indies remains linked to local political issues and French imperial dreams. Benefiting from the disorders within the French Navy provoked by the French Revolution, the islands were conquered by the English in 1794. This prevented the abolition of slavery. The island was then recuperated by France as expected from the 1802 Treaty of Amiens, which temporarily interrupted hostilities between France and Britain. Slavery, however, was maintained by Napoleon Bonaparte. The 1848 Revolution is reflected in the Caribbean colonies. The slaves revolted, and slavery was abolished without delay. Slaves eventually obtained freedom in May 1848. François Perrinon, the first French West Indies mulatto (créole) to join the prestigious École Polytechnique in Paris, brought the abolition of slavery decrees from the mainland to Martinique a few days later. But the measures taken in the public education field by the Commissioners-General of the Republic as soon as they arrived in Guadeloupe and Martinique in June 1848 were part of a political agenda intended not only to maintain, in the short term, the economy of sugarcane plantations but also to promote agricultural work for future generations of schoolchildren (Abou 1988). While the assimilation of the inhabitants of the Empire had never been an official goal, the colonial administrators agreed to consider the expansion of the French language and institutions as fundamental to purporting values, theoretically universal in French civilization. Imperial rhetoric, a changing amalgam of Republican principles and racist prejudices, legitimized the use of force against the colonized and criticized the use of force in the name of France’s revolutionary legacy. Yet, abandonment of the free and compulsory education project for children aged 6–10 years formulated by the French Provisional Government in 1848 in French West Indies benefitted the catechism dispensed by the Brothers on the plantations:

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the opening of so-called rural schools was an integral part of the post-slavery social reorganization system developed in the following years. By 1854, the number of students going to school had gradually decreased, the average time spent in class declined, but the number of children and adult workers catechized in their workplaces increased (Schmidt 1984). In the 1870s, at the fall of the Second Empire, a new local elite appeared, the creole bourgeoisie, trained in colonial urban schools, and well established in the local political landscape as an actor able to mobilize large numbers of voters. As early as 1882, secularism reached the schools. Among the most popular promoters of secular public education, Marius Hurard instigated, in 1881, the creation of the first laic public high school in Saint-Pierre, the former capital of Martinique, and, shortly after, in 1884, created the first colonial all-girls boarding school. In addition, a corps of administrative and pedagogical inspectors was devised, and several lower and upper secondary educational centers were established in urban centers. The colonial administration promoted technical schools to develop the local working force and, in 1894, the Cayenne College (the main primary and upper secondary school) could offer at least five professions to its students (carpentry, forging, fitting, tinsmithing, and furnacing) (Jos 2003). It was only with the late adoption of the Ferry laws by the Martinique and Guadeloupe governors in 1902 that a school network was developed, creating at least one boys school and one girls school in every town, under the control of the General Council, which guaranteed free access for all children aged 6–10 years. In French American colonies, only a minority, whose families belonged to the colonial and economic elite, was able to afford the costs of classical studies in Latin, Ancient Greek, rhetoric and humanities. In 1910, a special high school section to prepare and train prospective teachers was created in every post-primary school, based on the classical curriculum with a complimentary 3-h daily course on basic pedagogy and psychology. After World War I, female students in the colonies were gradually admitted to secondary education, but only at the end of World War II was the principle of coeducation imposed on all public education institutions in overseas France (Farraudière 2008). Nevertheless, the Republican school spread in the former colonies and comprised up to 100,000 schoolchildren at the end of World War II.

2.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

Until the first decades of the twentieth century, the organization of the French West Indies school network was left to the discretion of the colonial government, facilitating clientelism and elitism in resource management. In 1946, French Guiana, Martinique and Guadeloupe were granted the status of “departments.” The Law of Departmentalization of 1946, defended by the young Martinique deputy Aimé Césaire (1913–2008), proclaimed the assimilation of Martinican citizens to the French nation. While some anti-colonialist militants were critical regarding departmentalization, preferring independence, others

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supported the project and the opportunities that a special relationship with France could offer, especially in education, health, and public security affairs (Maurice 2014). The most important effect of this significant administrative change was that new ultramarine departments gradually abrogated the former colonial rule of law and integrated the national normative corpus. Postwar governments chose to follow the paradigm of the “indifference to the differences” without taking into account that the decolonization process was transforming France into a multicultural society assembling very different people, territories and ways of life. So, in the following 60 years, all the departments of the nation – in the mainland and in the overseas territories, including the DFAs – were submitted to the same public policies, including education affairs, with very few exceptions granted to overseas territories. In the DFAs, former slaves and créole people were rapidly assimilated to the colonial societies and local intelligentsia contributing to the development of literary and cultural movements (such as the Négritude and Créolitude cercles, led by Aimé Cesaire and Léon-Gontran Damas, aimed to spread Black consciousness among the African diaspora in France). Conversely, until the end of the twentieth century, the French Government showed little interest in educating autochthonous communities living in the Amazonian sector of Guiana: Wayana, Apalaï, and Teko. Their geographic isolation and their habitat – the tropical rainforest – constituted an obstacle in the development of a local school network and a deterrent for recruiting quality teachers (Grenand and Renault-Lescure 1990). The first school in the Amazonian sector for indigenous people was created in 1977 in Antecume Pata village: it was an informal community school to grant the Wayana-Apalaï people of all ages a basic education. The community school was first of all committed to developing writing and reading skills in both the native and French language, and several autochthonous teachers were recruited who, having worked in the coastal towns (especially Cayenne and Saint Laurent du Maroni), were skilled in both languages (Cognat 1977). During the first decade of activity, the Antecume Pata School focused on facilitating the dialogue with state institutions, offering courses in French civilization, history, geography, and certain notions of calculation, necessary for the management of economic exchanges. In 1986, the French Government recognized the educational center of Antecume Pata as a public primary school by absorbing it into the departmental educational system and making it compulsory for all children of school age. Indigenous communities strongly insisted that Amerindian languages maintain a key role in school curricula and, although not very favorable of the idea of compulsory schooling, they were able to negotiate with the Rectorate of Guiana (the descendent of the colonial Service of Public Instruction) so that Southern Guiana educational institutions could depart from some of the French Code of Education norms (Alì and Ailincai 2015). Thus, for many years, pupils learned to write in native languages, with the help of a cultural mediator (Intervenant en Langue Maternelle, ILM), and, during the first year of schooling, all learning activities were developed in the native languages (Nocus et al. 2014). Such exceptions were gradually removed, and today, local curricula are exactly the same as those taught in all French schools (Grenand 2000; Coïaniz et al. 2001).

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2.3

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Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population

The DFAs are multicultural societies with a long-standing colonial experience. Most of their population are part of the creole mestizo community. In French Guiana, there exist five rural communities of descendants of African slaves who escaped settlers’ plantations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to create “maroons” societies in the forest, maintaining a strict endogamy rule and collectively named Bushinengué: Aluku or Boni, Saramaka, Djuka, Paramaka, Matawai, and Kwinti. French Guiana is also inhabited by several indigenous communities: Teko, Galibi (also known as Kaliña), Palikur, Wayampi, Wayana, and Apalaï. The three departments host a growing number of immigrants from foreign countries (in French Guiana, they count for almost a third of the total population), especially from the Caribbean and American region but also several diaspora communities from China, India, Lebanon, and Syria, established in the French American colonies since the nineteenth century. The DFAs’ economies are still largely based on industry, agriculture, and natural resource exploitation. The tertiary sector is less developed than in mainland France, and almost one third of the population live in poor conditions. The demographic trends are positive for Guiana (+2.6% of annual growth between 2010 and 2015) but negative for the French West Indies: 0.7% in Martinique and 0.3% in Guadeloupe of annual variation during the same period (INSEE 2018; Demougeot 2019). In addition, the three territories present significant differences in the distribution of their population, due to their particular geographical organization. According to the French National Institute of Statistics (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, INSEE), in 2015, 259,865 people lived in French Guiana, distributed across a territory of 83,533.9 km2, mostly tropical rainforest, with a density of 3.1 inhabitants per square kilometer. The same year, the island of Martinique registered 380,877 legal residents, distributed across a territory of 1,128 km2, with a density of 337.7 inhabitants per square kilometer. Guadeloupe showed similar scores, with its 397,990 inhabitants distributed across an archipelagic territory of 1,628.4 km2 and a density of 244.4 inhabitants per square kilometer (INSEE 2014, 2016a, b). According to the Statistical Bureau of the Ministry of National Education (Direction de l’évaluation, de la prospective et de la performance, DEPP), in 2016, the public educational system received, at a national level, 12,398,900 pupils, 6,808,900 in primary school (44,000 in French Guiana, 37,000 in Martinique and 49,000 in Guadeloupe) and 5,590,000 in secondary school (36,000 in French Guiana, 36,000 in Martinique and 47,000 in Guadeloupe): middle schools hosted a total amount of 3,325,400 students, and high schools hosted 2,264,600 students, of which 665,800 followed professional and technical paths. In addition, the same year, 1,642,200 students were enrolled in one of the French public universities (less than 4,000 at the University of French Guiana and 19,000 at the University of the French West Indies: 9,000 from Martinique and 10,000 from Guadeloupe). The same year, the Ministry employed 861,000 primary and secondary school teachers (2,875 were deployed to French Guiana, 2,661 to Martinique, and 2,962 to Guadeloupe).

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In 2018, the Ministry of University and Scientific research employed 109,200 researchers, assistant, and associate professors: 484 of those were affiliated to the Université des Antilles and 96 to the Université de la Guyane (MENESRIDEPP 2019). In French Guiana, 174 primary schools exist (9 of which are private), 258 in Martinique (including 25 private institutions), and 322 in Guadeloupe (29 are private). Secondary education is represented by 52 institutions in Guiana, 84 in Martinique, and 97 in Guadeloupe. Today, almost 97% of the children aged from 3 to 6 years and 99% of the population aged between 6 and 16 years are enrolled in all the French territory (Métayer 2017). Nevertheless, despite the efforts, in the DFAs, the ratio of illiteracy is higher than in mainland France where only 7% of the adult population is unable to correctly write or read compared to 39% of the population in French Guiana, 16%, in Guadeloupe and 13% in Martinique (INSEE 2014, 2016a, b).

2.4

Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support

In the DFAs, more than a third of the candidates for a high school diploma – the baccalauréat, commonly known as the BAC – achieve the final examination. The figure amounts to almost 79.9% in French Guiana, 86.5% in Martinique, and 90% in Guadeloupe (in Paris, by comparison, the ratio is 88.8%). Nevertheless, a significant part of the population (aged between 15 and 64 years) is unemployed: 34.6% in French Guiana, 25.6% in Martinique, and 29.6% in Guadeloupe. This simple inventory raises the question of professional integration of young people, once their studies are completed. Made difficult by a recurrent imbalance between supply and demand for employment, labor market integration is also constrained by new requirements, like the level of professional experience, which penalizes first-time applicants, and a background in terms of qualifications and competences that often are not available among local professionals. Non-possession of a diploma then becomes a de facto discriminating factor in job search. However, even if a diploma does not guarantee access to employment, it is a major asset. Thus, the employment rate of young people without a diploma is 8.1% among 15to 29-year-olds. At the same age, 89.9% of diploma holders also hold a regular job contract. Professional integration is also determined by the degree level: the higher it is, the lower the probability of unemployment. Job security can be achieved only with delay (on average, it takes 4 years to obtain a permanent contract). Working young people are often overqualified with regard to the jobs they hold, a phenomenon especially widespread among people with a university diploma. The available educational training opportunities do not cover the full range of the labor market, motivating a number of the local young people to continue their studies in mainland France or find a job in connection with their training. The inclusion of young people in the local job market is also related to the sex and the field of study: the employment rate of men is much higher than that of in the field of technical and

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vocational training for production (with an average difference of 24.7 points) but equivalent in the field of technical and professional service training and favorable to women in the area of disciplinary training (with a positive gap of 7.2 points). The employment rate follows the same trend, and the unemployment rate is higher for women than for men, no matter the field of study.

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

Generally, the DFAs are subjected to the same legal rules as mainland France, even if some local adaptations have been traditionally allowed in the educational domain.

3.1

General Principles

The modern French educational system, the so-called école républicaine (Republican schooling), is based on three fundamental principles (Thévenin and Compagnon 2005): • Mandatory instruction concerning all children aged 3–16 years • Tuition-free schooling at the primary and secondary level (and social and economic assistance for low-income undergraduate and graduate students) • Secular teaching, guaranteeing the freedom of beliefs but prohibiting all religious symbols within public schools and among students and teaching staff Nevertheless, the French law of separation of church and state, passed in 1905, does not apply to all the French territories: in Guiana, the administrative relationship with the Catholic Church is organized according to the royal ordinance of King Charles X of August 27th, 1828, and to the Mandel decree-laws of 1939, which are the foundations of local rules. This situation did not change when Guiana became a department in 1946. In this overseas department, only the Catholic religion is recognized. Catholic ministers – the bishop and the priests – are considered public officers and compensated by the General Council, the governmental body of the department. In a decision from June 2, 2017, the French Constitutional Council established that the remuneration of religious ministers by the territorial collectivity of Guiana was in accordance with the Constitution. The Mandel decree-laws allow all religious sensibilities to benefit from public support, authorizing public financing. These decree-laws have led to a new public legal entity, the board of directors of religious missions, which manages their assets. Placed under the close supervision of the state, these boards enjoy tax benefits due to the key role they play in education: currently, most private schools in Guiana are managed by religious entities. In addition, the Mandel decree-laws also apply in the overseas communities governed by Article 74 of the Constitution (French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna, Saint Pierre, and Miquelon) with the exception of Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Martin, but also in New Caledonia and Mayotte.

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3.2

Education Administration and Governance

Currently, the French educational system is characterized by a high level of centralization and bureaucratization: educational policies and programs are discussed and determined by the Ministry of National Education, University, Research and Innovation (Ministère de l’éducation nationale, de l’enseignement supérieur, de la recherche et de l’innovation, MENESRI), and their enforcement on the ground is managed by local delegations known as the Academies, managed by Rectors (as established by the Loi n° 2013-595). The Minister of National Education is nominated directly by the Prime Minister, and Rectors are nominated by the Minister of National Education. Rectors are responsible for the entire administration of public education in the Academy, from primary school to university, and also exercise some prerogatives in the field of private education (for instance, the implementation of national programs and the administration of diplomas). This system works at public and private institutions (Hörner and Many 2015). Teachers, university professors, and researchers working in public institutions are recruited by open and highly competitive selection processes. They are assisted by other divisions of public officers: inspectors, in charge of guaranteeing the execution of public policies and programs on the ground; educational senior advisors, in charge of the management of school life and students’ well-being in middle, high, and boarding schools; and the personnel dedicated to psychological support (the school psychologists in primary education and the professional counselors in secondary education). The National Education administration is present both in each region and department and is characterized by a decentralized service of the Ministry of National Education. It is organized around 26 mainland academies and 4 overseas academies (Guadeloupe, Guiana, Martinique, Reunion Island). Mayotte and the overseas communities (French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis, and Futuna) are managed by a vice rectorate or by other National Education services. In a country where education is considered a pillar of the nation and one of the guarantors of Republican equality, this structure requires strict hierarchical control of the educational policies. The state retains responsibility for the administration of public education, the content and organization of educational action, as well as the management of personnel and contributing establishments. It is therefore responsible for: • • • • • •

The definition of school curricula and their content The convocation of degrees and the issue of national diplomas The organization of school and university courses Educational expenses Planning, evaluation, and inspection Educational regulations (and their publication in the Official Journal of National Education) • The recruitment, remuneration, and management of personnel responsible for the administration and proper functioning of public educational services and the institutions involved

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• Recruitment, remuneration, and career management of all teaching staff (including those serving in privately contracted institutions) The Ministry also takes on a number of other roles, such as awarding of scholarship and social and health action in schools and universities. The state also retains the ownership of universities and higher education institutions and is in charge of their construction, renovation, and supply. In addition, it covers the educational budgets for university libraries. The university staff is also part of the National Education System, which remunerates them from its own budget. Nevertheless, the decentralization process, launched in the 1980s and achieved in the 2000s, gradually conferred limited powers concerning primary and secondary education to local and regional authorities. The state has retained the authority over the teaching practice (programs, school calendar, recruitment, and teachers’ salaries) and has delegated material operations (buildings, planning and maintenance, cafeteria, school transport) to local authorities, allowing a financial contribution within the framework of the general endowment of decentralization. To ensure the implementation of the principle of equality and access to public education, the municipalities are in charge of nursery and primary schools; departments are in charge of lower secondary schools and regions are in charge of high schools and vocational education. The municipalities – following the laws of 1879 and 1889 – own the premises. They ensure the construction, reconstruction, extension, major repairs, equipment, and operation of nursery and elementary schools, institutions without legal capacity and classified as communal services. It is the municipalities that recruit, pay, and manage the careers of non-teaching staff in schools. The municipal council decides on the establishment of public schools, according to consultation with both the local school representatives and the citizenship. The mayor plans and sets the work schedules for the municipal institutions, after consulting the school council. A deliberation of the municipal council also sets up, in each municipality, a school fund, intended to aid the pupils to attend school if economic resources are scarce in their households. The departmental councils are given the responsibility for the construction, renovation, maintenance, operation, and equipment (accommodation, school meals, supplies, furniture) of middle schools. They are accountable for organizing and financing school transportation. Each college receives an operating grant and an equipment endowment that, taken together, represents approximately one third of the institution’s budget. The regional councils have the same responsibilities as the departments but for general and technological high schools, vocational and special education, rural schools, maritime, and professional training centers (such as the centers de formation des apprentis, CFA). In higher education, they own university buildings and are consulted on the regional aspects of higher education and research. The DFAs have the double status of both departments and regions, because of the consolidation of the territories administered by the department and by the region. Therefore, the prerogatives formerly assigned to the departmental and regional

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councils are nowadays managed by a single body, the Territorial Collectivities (collectivités territoriales), in charge of the secondary education and school transportation issues.

3.3

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED Classification

In the French educational system, the course of study is organized along three stages (Fig. 1): • Primary school: it includes 3 years of pre-elementary education (ISCED 02) and 5 years of elementary education (ISCED 1). Pre-elementary education is organized in three grades – section des petits (PS), section des moyens (MS), and

23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

ISCED 2011 LEVEL EDUCATION Classification PHD3 8 PhD PHD2 PHD1 M2 7 Master Grandes M1 écoles L3 Undergraduate studies L2 Preparatory 4/5/6 IUT (Licence) classes ISCED 5 ISCED 6 ISCED 5 L1 3

2

1

02 01

AGE

Higher Technical Education (BTS) ISCED 4

T Upper secondary education (academic Upper secondary vocational tracks: lycée général and education (lycée professionnel) 1 technologique) ISCED 34 ISCED 35 2 3 4 Lower secondary school (collège) 5 6 CM2 CM1 Elementary school CE2 CE1 CP GS MS Pre-elementary school PS TPS

Fig. 1 The French education system

25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Compulsory schooling

GRADE

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section des grands (GS) – and is compulsory for all children aged 3–5 years. Several schools in the DFAs have a special grade, the TPS (section des tous petits, ISCED 01), open to 2-year-olds. Elementary education (from 6 to 10 years) is organized in five grades: the cours préparatoire (CP), the cours élementaire 1 (CE1), the cours élementaire 2 (CE2), the cours moyen 1 (CM1), and the cours moyen 2 (CM2). • Secondary school: it starts with a 4-year general education, the college, middleschool equivalent to the ISCED 2 level and organized in four grades – the sixième (6ème), the cinquième (5ème), the quatrième (4ème) and the troisième (3ème) – and is followed by a 3-year high school (ISCED 3), the lycée, the seconde (2nde), the première (1ère), and the classe terminale (T). Students may choose among academic (scientific and literary), technical, or professional sections. The completion of secondary education is awarded by the BAC, the national diploma of baccalaureate. High schools are also entrusted with professional training and with delivering professional diplomas (the CAP, certificate of professional aptitude, and the BTS, high technician certificate, ISCED 4). In the DFAs, there is a large number of lycées agricoles (rural agricultural high schools), located in the countryside and managed by the Ministry of Agriculture. They follow the same organization and programs as high schools managed by the Ministry of Education; • University, delivering undergraduate, Master, and PhD diplomas according to the principles defined by the European Commission’s Bologna Declaration: a 3-year undergraduate course (the license, ISCED 6), followed by a 2-year Master course (ISCED 7) and concluded by a 3-year doctoral course (ISCED 8). The DFAs comprise two public universities: University of French Guiana (Université de la Guyane), in Cayenne, and University of the French West Indies (Université des Antilles), organized into two main sites – one in Guadeloupe and the other in Martinique. France recognizes educational freedom, so there are private schools that educate about 20% of primary and secondary students. More than 95% of these private schools provide education through a contract with the state under the provisions of the Debré law of 1959. According to this contract, private schools must accommodate all children without distinction and follow the official program. In return, teachers’ salaries are entirely covered by the state; public funding covers the majority of the operating costs. The tuition fees for parents in the private sector vary depending on the institution. In the DFAs, most private primary and secondary schools are confessional and linked to Catholic and Protestant congregations. However, there are also some private schools which are not associated with the national education system and are completely at the families’ expense. These are often schools with special educational projects such as Montessori, Steiner, or Freinet schools. Private higher education institutions do not receive public funding. In the DFAs, they are often religious (such as the Institut Catholique Européen des Amériques, in Fort-de-France) or linked to the local Chamber of Commerce and Industry (such as the Ecole de Gestion et de Commerce, in Cayenne).

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3.4

Educational Personnel

According to the constitutional convention of equal access to public employment, teachers are recruited in a competitive process. The principle of the competition is nonetheless an exception: the French education system makes considerable use of contract workers, especially in overseas territories (such as the DFAs). The Law 2013595 established that teachers and educational senior advisors will be trained at a graduate level in the Higher Schools of Teaching and Education (Ecoles superiéures du professorat et de l’éducation, ESPE). They were renamed, under the Law 2019-791, the National Institutes of Advanced Studies in Teaching and Education (Instituts nationaux supérieurs du professorat et de l’éducation, INSPE). They are university departments, delivering Master level diplomas, in four specialties: primary education (premier degré, PDG), secondary education (second degré, SDG), educational advising (encadrement éducatif, EED), and educational engineering (pratiques et ingénierie de la formation, PIF). During the first year of study, prospective teachers receive theoretical training in pedagogy, developmental psychology, sociology of education, anthropology of childhood, information technology applications for education, foreign languages, and elements of didactics. In addition, they take a 2-month practical placement in an educational institution and prepare for the national competitions. During the second year, the curriculum is more focused on professional skills, and a large proportion is dedicated to the analysis of education practices. Prospective teachers are also asked to prepare a final dissertation based on research about a subject in the domain of education, training, and school. After a probationary year, the personnel of the French national educational system are guaranteed employment until retirement. Postcompetition teacher training and continuing education is delivered by the ESPE, but in the DFAs and other overseas territories, the Rectorates are in charge of directly organizing professional training of their employees, often by using online platforms (such as M@gistère) to reach the personnel deployed in isolated or rural contexts. The university teachers and researchers are organized into two main sections (the maîtres de confèrences, assistant professors, and the professeurs des universités, associate professors) and are recruited according to a highly selective international competition. They must first be approved by the National Council of Universities (partly elected body, partly appointed by the Ministry) and then face a selection committee established within the institution they apply to. To be recruited as a professeur des universités, candidates need to hold a post-doctoral special certificate attesting the ability to lead research projects and programs (habilitation à diriger des recherches, HDR, formerly known as doctorat d’État). Given the turnover of the expatriate personnel at universities in the DFAs, many of the teaching and research personnel are recruited on a temporary assignment and without competition.

4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

Data collected since the origins of the colonial school system show that DFA students perform very low in school tests (Farraudière 1989; ONISEP 2015). Currently, several scholars consider that the Republican school system, and its

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centralized management, promotes the academic failure of overseas students, facilitating the persistence of social injustices, often deeply rooted in local colonial history (Alì 2016). Nevertheless, for a couple of decades, the French Government has been putting in place a series of public policies to improve student achievement, mandating the DEPP of the MENESRI to evaluate the performance of the national education system. In addition, the Ministry of National Education participates in several international assessment studies in partnership with intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, such as the International Association for School Effectiveness Assessment (IEA), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the European Commission and its Eurydice Information Network on Education Systems and Policies in Europe, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The latter manages the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).

4.1

Inequality

The INSEE pointed out that every year in France, 4 out of 10 school children – about 300,000 students – finish primary school with serious shortcomings: nearly 200,000 of them have fragile and insufficient skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic; a little more than 100,000 do not master basic skills in these areas. In 2015, 150,000 students dropped out of school, leaving without certificates (Blaya 2010; Bernard 2011). Most of them live in overseas territories or come from poor families, as well as single parent families. In the DFAs, the school dropout rates oscillate between 40% and 56% (INSEE 2014, 2016a, b). In addition, even when secondary education is free of charge and funding is available for low-income students, the proportion of students pursuing college studies remains lower than in other education systems in First World countries (Van Zanten 2017). International surveys made in the PISA framework show that most of the OECD State members permit 15% of students to access the post-secondary level. France, on the other hand, allows only 5% of its students to reach this level of excellence (Duru-Bellat 2007, 2013; OECD 2010). According to the OECD-driven Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), out of 24 countries tested, France ranks 22nd in language skills of adults aged 16–65 coming from the French education system (the ability to understand written texts) and 21st regarding adult scientific skills (the use of numerical and mathematical concepts and problem-solving in technological environments, OECD 2013). PISA tests, that assess the acquisition of knowledge of 15-year-old students, have similar results and also highlight the low educational levels of French students: in 2012, France ranked 21st out of 65 countries for reading, 25th for mathematics, and 26th for science (OECD 2015); in 2018, it ranked between 20th and 26th in reading performance (on a par with Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Portugal, and Slovenia), between 15th and 24th in mathematics performance (such as Australia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom), and between 16th and 23rd in science performance, with an average performance on

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a par with that of Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland (OECD 2019). Thus, the last French national assessment results and pupils’ mathematics achievements in the last year of primary schools, carried out in January 2009, show for the DFAs’ Academies scores significantly lower than those of the national average (Arneton et al. 2013): • In French, 40% of students do not reach average in the academies of Guadeloupe and Martinique; 73% of Guyanese students fail the same assessments compared to 25% nationally. • In mathematics, 55% of the students attending the academies of the French West Indies do not reach average; they are 82% in Guyana, compared to 35% nationally. Finally, statistical data show that, in France, the correlation between the socioeconomic environment and the students’ performance is much greater than in most of the other European countries (Euriat and Thélot 1995; OECD 2014). This is especially relevant for overseas territories where the average family income and the literacy rates are lower than in the mainland. In Guadeloupe and Martinique, difficulties are often linked to the archipelagic features of the department which demand special logistics in managing the deployment and replacement of teachers and the supply of resources to isolated schools and education centers. Also, French West Indies Rectorates have since the 2000s experienced difficulties recruiting new teachers and other members of staff. In addition, the digital gap in relation to the mainland is deepened by a lack of technological infrastructures and a chronic shortage of computer equipment in primary schools. Disturbances related to climate hazards – especially cyclones, earthquakes, and torrential rain, which are very common in the Caribbean – have a serious impact on the regular activities of educational institutions, which often have to suspend operations for several weeks. But in French Guiana, the situation is particularly worrying, mainly because of the high general population growth and that of the school population, especially in the first grade where it has doubled in 10 years (INSEE 2014). In addition, other factors contribute to aggravating the regular enforcement of educational policies in this department: • The geographical conditions as well as the dispersion and isolation of the inhabitants: 90% live in urban centers and the rural interior of the department, where the density is 2.1 inhabitants per km2, making access difficult. • For more than half of the department’s students, French is not the first language, and they learn the national language at school. • The difficulties of recruiting and keeping teachers in the most remote areas (especially the indigenous villages in the Amazon sector). Furthermore, several scholars have pointed out grade repetition – still very common in France – as a major factor of inequality, especially in the DFAs.

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In 2009, 38% of students under 15 years repeated at least one grade in France, compared to 15% for the average of OECD countries (Duru-Bellat 2013). However, since 2015, there is a decrease in the percentage of those held back, as an effect of public policies that prohibited repetition in pre-elementary education and strictly framed its application in primary and secondary education: in 2018, they were less than the 17% (OECD 2019).

4.1.1 Schooling and Disabilities At the end of the nineteenth century, France was one of the first countries to create education structures for children with disabilities. In September 2015, more than 279,000 students with disabilities were enrolled in ordinary public schools (Thélot and Vallet 2000). Regarding specialized education, several types of schooling are possible in the DFAs: • In an ordinary school environment, with or without auxiliary equipment. Mainstreaming is always preferred, as long as it is possible and beneficial for the pupil. • Within a school, in a collective integration scheme. In primary and secondary education, children with special needs are integrated to the Localized Units for Inclusive Education (Unités localisées pour l’inclusion scolaire, ULIS). Since 2015, the ULIS have replaced the special classes for inclusive education (Classes pour l’inclusion scolaire, CLIS). They are based on the principle of hybrid socialization: most of the activities are developed in special classrooms and are followed by a gradual integration into an ordinary school environment. In lower secondary education, the sections of general and adapted vocational education (Sections d’enseignement général et professionnel adapté, SEGPA) and the regional institutions of adapted education (Établissements régionaux d’enseignement adapté, EREA) are in charge of welcoming students with academic difficulties. The Departmental House for the Disabled (Maison départementale des personnes handicapées, MDPH) is responsible for informing, guiding, and accompanying people with disabilities as well as their families. • Schooling in a specialized institution allowing comprehensive care (therapeutic and educational). Regular integration can always take place on a part-time basis depending on the needs and abilities of each student. Even if several initiatives have been deployed in the DFAs, the schooling and employment ratio of people with disabilities remains extremely low (Revillard 2019).

4.2

ICT and Digitalization

Compared to other OECD countries, the French education system started the process of modernization and integration of ICT relatively late (Freeman et al. 2015). In primary school, only one digital device (personal computer or tablet) is available per

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12.5 students. The ratio is slightly higher in secondary education, with a device per 8.5 students for middle school and 1 per 5 students in high school. The ratio is similar in the DFAs, but the digital architecture in those overseas territories is still exposed to several limits imposed by the irregular energy distribution and unequal access to the Internet in the most remote and rural areas. In 2002, with the aim to develop ICT skills among students, the Ministry of National Education has developed a national vision for bringing technology to the school system, based on four goals: • Have 100% of primary and secondary education students obtain the basic informatics and Internet certificate (known as B2i, Brevet informatique et internet). • Develop the use of ICT for fundamental learning. • Develop the use of ICT in learning English. • Reach the proportion of one computer for every ten pupils on a national scale. In order to create the necessary conditions, the former President of France, François Hollande, launched a school equipment plan (Plan pour l’école numérique) in 2008 broken down into two major actions: • The equipment of schools with videoconferencing solutions allowing students to interact with a native speaker of English. • The creation of a national platform to provide all the academies with a digital workspace (ENT) as of the school year 2009–2010. Additionally, in September 2008 the Ministry of National Education launched an experiment with digital textbooks (Expérience tablettes tactiles à l’école primaire, EXTATE), testing the use of e-books instead of printed manuals, especially for students with disabilities. The experience ended in 2014, and, even if it was not replicated at a national level, at the local level, several schools still offer to their students the opportunity to work mainly with digital textbooks (Villemonteix et al. 2014). In French Guiana since 2011, schools in the Amazon sector have Internet connection and a set of laptops to allow indigenous students to develop digital skills, and the following year, the local ESPE launched a plan to train prospective teachers using ICT and online pedagogical resources. In that same year, the Rectorate of Guadeloupe started an experimental ICT program based on strengthening autonomous learning. In Martinique, the Rectorate has been implementing a plan to bring technology to all public middle schools since 2015, delivering a tablet to every student. To guarantee the coherence of its national digital policy, especially in the overseas, the French Government has recently issued the Decree n°1200-2019, attributing new responsibilities to the Directors of the local Academies and planning to initiate future partnership with the Interministerial Direction for Digital Affairs (Direction interministérielle du numérique, DINUM) and the CANOPE network (the national agency charged with the development of pedagogical resources for teachers and trainers of the national education system). The main goals are to facilitate the development of innovative projects integrating fab-labs, hackerspaces, and

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connected classrooms, to strengthen students’ ICT skills, to guarantee the employability of local youth, and to affirm the attraction of the ultramarines territories for technology enterprises.

4.3

STEM Subjects

The French school system has traditionally prioritized humanities over scientific and mathematical knowledge, and the proportion of students choosing STEM careers has never been comparable to the number of students enrolling in social and human sciences in secondary and university education (MESRI-DGES-DGRI 2015). A key issue is the underrepresentation of women in scientific and other STEM-related professions: less than one third of the research personnel in public universities and research laboratories are women (European Commission 2008). Since the 2000s, in order to strengthen scientific and technological skills among students, the Ministry of National Education has been implementing STEM subjects in the national school program, from primary school up to college. During the pre-elementary cycle, pupils are introduced to discovering their immediate environment, to manipulate and to experiment with basic scientific principles. The elementary cycle focuses on mathematics (at least 180 h per year, i.e., 5 h every week), science, and sustainable development (78 h per year), following a skills approach aimed at developing problem-solving skills among students. The lower secondary cycle focuses on both analytical reasoning and critical thinking. Middle-school students devote 4 h a week to mathematics. In the second grade (the so-called 5ème), they are introduced to physics and chemistry, life and earth sciences, and technology (D’Enfert 2017). To strengthen a scientific culture among students, an experimental program gradually implements these subjects starting in the first year of lower secondary education. In upper secondary school, the presence of STEM subjects depends on the subject of study, but it is strongly represented in technological and professional curricula. Higher education in those subjects is delivered by universities, Grandes Ecoles (highly selective public and private institutions) and Technology University Institutes (IUT, they propose 2-year professional undergraduate programs). Despite the fact that, in French popular culture, a career in STEM areas is commonly perceived as prestigious and socially relevant, the research and development sectors experience currently a significant lack of experts in these domains (European Commission 2004). Detecting the geographical sector’s need for a stronger support in mathematical and science knowledge, the Ministry of National Education introduced in 2009 a series of mandatory tests to evaluate scientific skills at the end of the primary cycle. Lower performers are given an individual pedagogical contract and a 60-h personalized program of learning achievement (Programme personnalisé de réussite educative, PPRE), carried out as an extracurricular activity within the school, in the framework of the school-managed personalized help for students in difficulty (dispositif d’aide personnalisée aux élèves en diffuculté, APE).

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In order to increase STEM education, several public and privately funded initiatives have been implemented to develop curiosity and scientific thinking among students: Sciences à l’école, Réseau Ambition-Réussite, J’aime les sciences or the La main à la Pâte Foundation, a joint initiative of the National Academy of Science and a team of prestigious universities and Grandes écoles (Roberts and de Oliveira 2015). Nowadays, a few national initiatives have reached the overseas territories, and in the DFAs, most initiatives are locally funded with the support of local organizations or benefitting from the resource centers available by the CANOPE Network, an autonomous body of the Ministry of National Education committed to develop and disseminate pedagogical resources (textbooks, didactic games, and scientific literature in the field of education). In Martinique, the regional delegation of the CANOPE Network organizes an annual competition in robotics for middle-school students coming from different Caribbean countries. Both in Guiana and the French West Indies, there is a network of antennas of the Research Institute for Mathematics Teaching (Instituts de recherche sur l’enseignement des mathématiques, IREM) that regularly organizes scientific contests (Rallies at the local level and Olympic games at national and international levels).

4.4

Emerging Issues

Since the 2000s, some related phenomena have appeared in the public debate about education and school in France and in French overseas territories. In the DFAs, the key problem is the growth of physical violence and verbal and symbolic abuse reported within educational spaces (in most cases bullying and cyberbullying). The situation is most critical in educational institutions in French Guiana. Every year the authorities record more than 1,250 incivilities in colleges and high schools, of which almost 200 are serious incivilities, almost 30 are attacks on people, less than 100 are crimes against property (Rectorat de Guyane 2014). Martinique and Guadeloupe show quite lower rates, but, as in Guiana, the school is losing its status of “sanctuary of knowledge” and becoming each day more of a public arena where social and interpersonal conflicts are settled. Even though, over the years, the Rectorates have been implementing awareness-raising actions in partnership with local communities and police forces, the problem remains urgent and unresolved (Debarbieux and Blaya 2001; see also UNESCO 2017). In addition, because not all courses are available locally, the number of DFAs students attempting to study abroad is growing (and most of them do not return home after obtaining their diploma). At the moment, some scholars recognize the symptoms of a “Caribbean brain drain” that is affecting the area and describing the loss of its more highly skilled youth, a phenomenon that is evident in several Central American countries, especially the small island states in the Caribbean Sea (Prachi 2006). In order to fight the effect of this exodus of highly skilled people, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), in collaboration with the European Union, has been promoting several interregional programs to create

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an attractive economic environment and to provide incentives for research and development investments in the region. Finally, the integration of the DFAs as an overseas part of the European Union territory not only allowed French Guiana, Martinique, and Guadeloupe to benefit from special protective measures and funding, facilitating the development of structural projects aimed at modernizing the equipment of schools and universities, but also introduced a culture of students’ and researchers’ mobility thanks to their integration into the Erasmus+ European exchange program, opened to teachers, students, and all the education personnel.

5

Conclusions

It is possible to identify some general problematic obstacles in the development of an organized and efficient school system in the DFAs: on the one hand, the structural obstacles (generated by a centralist management of the res publica – and the economic resources – that historically has favored the mainland area of France), and, on the other hand, the ideological obstacles generated by the “colonial” logic that has driven the educational action of the French Government (Alì 2017). In the first category, the main obstacles are the scarce number of schools in the territories populated mostly by rural and indigenous communities and the lack of public investments to support the immediate costs (related to schooling, transportation, school materials, food, and uniforms for students) and indirect costs (related to the loss of income caused by the inability to integrate those family members who follow an educational activity into domestic affairs) of schooling: costs that poor households – a significant number in DFAs – have difficulties to cover. In the second category, three factors are highly relevant: the lack of adaptation to school routines (schedules and calendars) and to both educational contents (programs and teaching objectives) and local realities, as well as the specific needs of overseas communities; the lack of training of teachers sent to work with these populations; and finally, a certain sense of rejection of school – perceived as a “civilizing” institution and symbol of colonization – that pollutes the relationships between parents and educational institutions. In the future, these problematic aspects may be translated into axes of work in order to imagine public policies capable of taking into account the multidimensional social reality of overseas France (Lorcerie 2003; Vernaudon and Fillol 2009). The abovementioned aspects can be generally applied to other postcolonial contexts, as is the case for many countries in the Americas (Lugaz 2008).

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The Education System of Grenada The Place of National Identity in Educational Development

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Influence of British Nationalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Impact of Religious Authority on Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Emerging National Consciousness in Grenada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Influence of the Grenada Revolution on Education and National Consciousness . . . 3 Institution and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Pre-primary Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Primary and Secondary Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Special Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Alternative and Post Secondary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7 Tertiary Degree-Granting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 Personnel and Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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L. D. Lewis (*) Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] O. Benoit Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, St. George’s University, St. Georges, Grenada e-mail: [email protected] L. Lewis Principal and Community Educator, St. Georges, Grenada © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_45

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Abstract

The education system in Grenada continues to be shaped by the colonial history and religious authority of its origins. From its inception in the early eighteenth century, access to education reflected class, racial, and ethnic stratification associated with French and British colonialism and nationalism. Today every Grenadian child has equal access to education. Schooling is compulsory for students between the ages of 5 and 16. However, questions arise about equity and inequality in education provision and attainment based on class, gender, disability, and socioeconomic status. This chapter examines the education system in Grenada against the backdrop of a nascent Grenadian nationalism, informed by a past in which education and access to it is contested. As Grenada gives priority to education for employability through certification and while there is greater regional emphasis on higher education, the persistent challenges such as low secondary school success rate should not be sidelined. Keywords

Grenada education system · Religion · Colonialism · National consciousness · Race · Class

1

Introduction

The tri-island state of Grenada, Carriacou, and Petite Martinique is part of the Anglophone Caribbean because of British success in colonization. Grenada became an independent nation in 1974; five years later, in 1979, a left-wing political party, the New Jewel Movement took control of the island, abolished the constitution, and established the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG). In 1983, the PRG rule ended in violence. Parliamentary democracy was re-established, the constitution was reinstated, and Grenada has had peaceful governance since. Grenada is a member of regional organizations in the Caribbean, including the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), a grouping of 20 countries in the Caribbean region, and the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC). CXC is responsible for aligning the content of the curriculum with the problems, needs, and aspirations of the region. Grenada, like other OECS islands, looks to CXC for guidance in all levels of education. Grenada’s population is about 108,000 people, and the country is ranked 75 out of 189 with a Human Development Index of 0.772. Life expectancy is 72 years. The latest available data on the school-age population was reported as 23,377 for 2010 to 2011 and fell to 19,419 (Government of Grenada Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development 2014). The largest population group (40%) is between the ages of 25 and 54 years. Youth unemployment was 30% in 2020 (UNDP 2021). The trend is that more women than men are unemployed despite women having more certification and years of training than men (National Plan Secretariat 2019).

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Grenada experiences a decline in fertility rate and increases in the elderly population and has a population replacement rate below 2.1 children per woman (Campbell 2019). These changes have longer-term implications for both the country’s educational needs and ability to meet those needs. After Emancipation in 1834, the sugar plantation economy that thrived on the labor of enslaved Africans gave way to small-scale farming of crops such as cocoa, bananas, and nutmeg for export. Neoliberal assaults on conventions that provided Caribbean producers export with preferential access to European markets hastened the decline in agriculture. By the early 1990s, the contribution of agriculture to the economy had declined significantly. Service sectors, tourism, and education were pursued through various tax initiatives. The US-based medical school established in the 1970s became increasingly important to Grenada’s economy. Currently, tourism is the most important sector contributing 80% to GDP. Technical and vocational training and certification were recently introduced to maintain the standards of these and other emerging service sectors like data processing. These changes take place within the absence of a formalized national educational policy. Grenada does not have a “stand-alone” national policy on education (National Plan Secretariat 2019). The dialogic relationship between national consciousness and education in the current neoliberal environment is examined within a postcolonial framework in this chapter.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

The modern education system in Grenada began with the spread of religion as part of colonization, Slavery, and French and British nationalism. Here nationalism is defined as an inclusive community of fundamentally equal and sovereign people stressing individual freedom and liberties while claiming the right to selfgovernment (Greenfeld 1992). This vision of liberty and equality in the nation emerged as significant among Europeans, English, and French and excluded the Enslaved population by virtue of race. Here race is considered socially constructed with no biological bearing. It was used as the basis of the social stratification in the colonies, where whites occupied the highest position and Black enslaved Africans the lowest. Ethnicity defined is a social construct of collective group consciousness, common language past, and place (Yiftachel 2001). The white British assumed dominance over French whites and Creoles whites born in the Caribbean. They were considered of lower status as their morals, personality, and physical traits had been “altered by the tropical weather and association with enslaved Africans” (Polson 2011). The people of color (“coloreds”) were born with mixed parentage white and Black. Their lot in life depended on the benevolence of the white parent; they could be enslaved or free or even own estates with Enslaved Africans, as in the case of Julien Fedon, the leader of the rebellion against the British authorities, 1795– 6 (Cox 1982; Jacobs 2000). In 1763, Britain established its dominance in Grenada, eradicating the French presence while cultivating the identity of Britishness on the island. In the

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post-Emancipation period, this idea of Britishness permeated the colony, and eventually, as with the rest of the Caribbean, the formerly Enslaved Black population were taught to see themselves as British after emancipation (Blouet 1990). Key ideological moments where Grenadians began to assert independence and advocate national consciousness were reflected in the vision of education that contested this Britishness. Key factors influencing the foundation of education are French and British nationalist struggles, religious authority, and emerging national consciousness.

2.1

Influence of British Nationalism

The competition among the European colonizers to rule Grenada was initially won by the French, who, through deception and war, precipitated the decline of the local Indigenous population in the seventeenth century, settling on the island for close to a century. Through the Code Noir, the French mandated that all enslaved Africans be baptized Catholic. While not much is known about education under French rule in Grenada, the first French Catholic Church was constructed in 1718. Perhaps Catholicism was then the foundation of religious education. When the British arrived in Grenada about a century later as part of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, Catholic consciousness was well entrenched among the enslaved population. The French temporarily recaptured Grenada in 1779 and ceded it to Britain by the Treaty of Versailles in 1783. Many French estate owners departed Grenada, granting freedom to some of the enslaved Africans. The Grenada population then comprised ethnic groups including white French, white English, white Irish, Scottish, white Creoles, Free People of Color, Free Blacks, and the Enslaved Africans, who were the majority. Some Indigenous people who survived the French assault were also present (Polson 2011). French Catholicism, the dominant religion, as institutionalized was initially considered necessary for establishing a “peaceful” society (Steele 2003), but the Church of England did not actively attempt to convert the enslaved Africans (Cox 1984; Cornelius 2020). Initially, the British grudgingly permitted the white French Catholic estate owners to participate in the governance of the island without being converted to Protestantism. The French Free People of Color, who were estate owners, were not even considered for this privilege due to the color of their skin. Grenada was ahead of colonies like Quebec, where both the English and French were present and where French colonists were not yet permitted to participate in governance (Hamilton 2005; Cornelius 2020). When the French Revolution occurred in 1789, it marked the birth of French national consciousness, declaring the rights of all men as citizens and adopting the slogan of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity as symbolic of an emerging French national identity. Victor Hughes, the leader of the French Revolution in the Caribbean, spread ideas of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity among French citizens in Grenada, many of whom were later encouraged to participate in the Fedon Rebellion in 1795. Julien Fedon brought together disparate groups in Grenada to battle against

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the white British to seek equality and freedom (Hamilton 2005; Brizan 1984). When the British regained control, there was no tolerance for the French presence. Their language and culture were to be eliminated from Grenada to promote instead, British identity (Britishness). By 1802, formal education was deemed imperative to introduce the English language to the island as part of this process of developing a British identity on the island – an approach that would eliminate future French-led or inspired unrest. Educational endeavors were framed as “acculturating agents” to eradicate French identity on the island where the French language and later the French patois were considered ongoing problems in schooling (Cox 1984, 123; Cornelius 2020; Bacchus 2006), thus devaluing the patois language – mainly spoken by the formally enslaved. Therefore, the struggle over race, religion, and language was featured in the early vision of Grenada’s education, which was central to the nationalist struggle between British and French nationalists in Grenada. Ownership and pride in the local French patois were not aligned with the forging of the British nationalist agenda in the colony. The English language, which most of the population did not master (Smith et al. 2008), would later emerge as a crucial determinant of Grenadian students’ success. The British attack on the French language, particularly after the Fedon rebellion, eventually succeeded; yet Catholicism remained the dominant religion among the masses. Religious authority and the competition for converts were among the other key influences on education development in Grenada.

2.2

Impact of Religious Authority on Education

During Slavery, missionaries of different Christian denominations such as the Methodist and later the Presbyterians came to the island to provide moral upliftment by proselytizing to the poor, Free People of Color, and the enslaved Africans, believing it was a sacred duty. The first private school was established in the 1820s, and within a few years, there were 11 of these private schools in Grenada (Smith 1965) which catered for the poor whites and Free People of Color. The ruling classes traveled to Barbados or Europe for their education and were not included in this type of religious education provided to the former groups. Despite the early structure of education, many estate owners resisted missionary religious education out of fear of uprisings from the enslaved Africans. Missionaries granted access to the estates were expected to provide religious instructions that would reinforce servitude, subservience, and obedience among the enslaved population. Concomitantly, they ignored the violence of Slavery. Religious education was conveyed by oral instruction while reading and writing were prohibited (Rooke 1978). However, some missionaries and clergy were resolute in giving “lettered instruction,” believing that literacy was essential for true religious and moral education. Religious education was delivered through Sunday Schools in public gatherings and on some sugar plantations. These Sunday Schools were held on estates such as the Diamond Estate and Clarks Court Estates (Aymer 2015), places that still bear these colonial names up to today in Grenada. There are no detailed accounts

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available of enslaved people documenting their experience with education during Slavery in Grenada, but there was evidence of demand for literacy skills. Glen (2011, 138) noted that in the late 1780s, a school was “kept for young negros” and paid for by their parents. Enslaved Africans were also able to purchase freedom through the cultivation of crops in the hilly regions of the island (Cox 1984, 41). It is conceivable that Blacks could have paid for their education, reading, and writing. Education could be a site of resistance and transformation, even when it was rudimentary religious education. In Grenada, except for Catholicism, religious education maintained the status quo as there is no evidence that it was used to incite the enslaved population to rebellion (Cox 1984, 131). Yet, there was likely communal benefit to education. Enslaved Africans who participated in Sunday Schools and colonial religions could negotiate their sense of dignity and belonging within the missionary education system. On a broader level, of course, reading and writing increased the enslaved population’s access to Abolitionist push for the end to Slavery. In the 10 years leading up to Emancipation, access to religious education was given urgent attention to maintain the existing social order. The number of schools grew. Some planters even hoped that “education would replace the whip” (Blouet 1990, 643) as a form of control. After Emancipation, the religious authority continued to play a significant role in the development of education. Resolution 5 of the Emancipation Act of 1833 institutionalized funding though the Negro Education Grant which was used to provide schooling to the formerly enslaved population. Between 1835 and 1845, this Grant was managed by the society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Methodist Society. Religious groups were selected, because they had experience educating the enslaved Africans, and the authorities felt it was more economical to continue with this existing framework rather than rethink the delivery of education. They could also raise through mission funds from abroad (Pearse 1956; Gordon 1963; Rooke 1981). While missionaries expanded education, they also resisted government’s involvement in the process and the supervision of the use of funds (Rooke 1981; Brizan 1984). Religious acumen was given preference over the academic abilities of teachers. Competition for religious converts continued to be the driver in school expansion, and no other principle guided the funding of education (Rooke 1981; Bacchus 2006). The result was that after Emancipation, the Black population freed from Slavery were to remain “largely uninstructed.” School attendance among the majority Black population was low. Black children were encouraged to attend schools; however, the children of indentured laborers from Asia who came to compensate for the shortage of labor following Emancipation were initially denied access to schooling (Cox 1984), highlighting the complexities of the colonized population. The three ordinances passed first in 1888, then in 1929 and 1947 failed to improve attendance due to the high fees, long distance from schools, and the diseases that were prevalent at the time. The teaching quality was poor, teacher training was inadequate, and pedagogy was culturally inappropriate. In 1884 when the government began to build schools and take more responsibility for education, teaching appointments became the purview of the office in charge of education. However, religious

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authority led by the Catholics maintained implicit control over education (Rooke 1981; Brizan 1984; Smith et al. 2008; Bacchus 2006). Cornelius (2020) offers an interesting caveat to the discussion of religious education in Grenada. The English had worked to actively suppress Catholicism. However, Catholicism would remain the dominant religion among the masses. In the early nineteenth century, there were 19,377 Catholics vs. 11,518 total of other denominations. Black Grenadians played a key role in sustaining and redefining French Catholic consciousness to a religion entirely associated with the “creolizing culture of Christianized Black Grenadians” (Cornelius 2020, 173). Grenadians chose to enroll their children in Catholic schools and supported the development of the church and schools. By 1891, there were three secondary schools in Grenada, St. Joseph’s Convent, run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny for the children of middle and upper classes, the St. George’s High School for the daughters of middle-class Anglican families and a non-denominational school opened in 1885, which eventually became the Grenada Boys Secondary School in 1915 (Brizan 1984). Scholarships were offered to some poor students to attend secondary school. However, the school fees were prohibitory for many. Fees for secondary school were only abolished in the 1980s. One scholarship tenable at a British University was offered to a secondary school graduate attaining success at the British Cambridge Examination. Hammond (1946) wrote that secondary education in the British West Indies focused on “school achievement upon an examination syllabus and too little upon local interests; and the education of the great majority of children who will not go to university has been tied to the chariot of the small number of those who will” (Hammond 1946, 442). At that time, he reported 10% of public expenditure was on education. There were 17,364 children in elementary schools and 688 in secondary schools in Grenada in 1944. As public education expanded in the twentieth century, it continued to reproduce the social hierarchy of the colonial society within the dominance of Christianity. Durkheim (1973) is instructive in that moral ideas of the time became united with religious beliefs to the extent that they became indistinct. The religious authorities that were responsible for bringing education to the region continued to resist government involvement. Efforts to secularize through the search for a rational basis for morality in Grenada were not actively pursued through scientific education. Scientific inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge were less important than education for work, mirroring protestant ethics of the value of work in early religious education (Weber 1930). Historic oppression has meant that other religious belief systems are on the margins of the educational system in Grenada. Yet, education remains the only possible way to achieve social mobility for most of the population.

2.3

Emerging National Consciousness in Grenada

Throughout the development of education in Grenada, the elite contested the expansion of education (Brizan 1984; Steele 2003). One of the earliest examples was recorded in 1857, where the inspector of schools noted the lack of support for

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popular education among the elites. The efforts to educate the lower classes were regarded with “jealousy and coldness” by some persons (Bacchus 2006, 29). This negative emotion of envy is characterized as ressentiment by Benoit (2011), who showed that it prevented the primacy of the nation, rendering it secondary to the race and class struggles of the colonial era among the elite, and ultimately stalled the development of national consciousness in Grenada and ultimately responsible for ineffective institutions such as education. This struggle was most evident under Crown Colony Rule, between 1876 and 1925. Strong opposition to Crown Colony Rule prompted the early beginnings of national consciousness in Grenada among the educated elite. The nationalist sentiment was driven by outrage against what was effectively racial discrimination that prevented self-governance by the colored elite despite their strong sense of Britishness – British identity (Benoit 2020). Racial discrimination against local “coloreds” was also experienced in professions like medicine and education. A “colored” man, Mr. Hughes, was only temporarily made the principal of the Grenada Boys Secondary School in 1915. His temporary appointment resulted in the withdrawal of three boys from the school because he was not white (Steele 2003). Of course, the “colored” population was in a privileged position compared to the majority Black population. The new constitution in 1925 ended Crown Colony Rule, but political representation was only given to the small class of local “coloreds.” T.A. Marryshow, an educated Black elite, took up the struggle for Representative Government, but it was never extended to the masses until universal adult suffrage in 1951 (Benoit 2012). The significance of the “colored” population in Grenada is related to early demographic patterns. The white French population departed Grenada after the British took over and again after the Fedon rebellion. Grenada could not attract an influx of white colonists as it became less attractive than other colonies. In 1806, the population had a ratio of 1:60 (white to Enslaved Africans), which was relatively high compared to Jamaica’s ratio of 1:8. The decrease in the white population was identified as a problem by the British; the population of people of Free People of Color of largely “French extraction” continued to be explored. The demand for education came from this group who could achieve social mobility in the Crown Colony government because of their proximity to whiteness (Cox 1984; Steele 2003). The anticipated gradual change from the white colonial elite rule to the local elite (not Black) class was interrupted by unexpected, Black-led upheaval in the 1950s (Benoit 2011). In the Grenadian colonial society, race and class status struggles remained primordial because of the absence of gradual leadership transformation to a developed national consciousness. Their racist ideology prevented them from considering that the “Black masses” would gain political power while making the nation paramount to race and class status in Grenada (Benoit 2007). Black leaders like T.A. Marryshow and Eric Gairy continued to experience racial discrimination. In their ongoing quest to prove their Britishness to gain acceptance from the white and “colored” elite, status inconsistency in the Black elite negated the development of a strong national consciousness. Thus, particularistic values of race and class hindered the development of a Grenada national consciousness (Benoit 2007, 2020).

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In the postcolonial era, anticolonial nationalist sentiment formulated by the educated elite in the Caribbean became the basis of rejecting colonialism and pursuing self-determination, racial equality, and economic development in the twentieth century. The “authorial power of an educated elite” dictated the formations of institutions in places like Trinidad and Tobago (Hintzen 2003). Strong national consciousness inspires the formation of institutions oriented towards particular goals (Benoit 2011), in this case, educational institutions. The intentionality of these institutions may be found in the national policies of the country. In the case of Grenada, there is no single document outlining the national policy on education, highlighting the dialectic relationship between national consciousness and institutions of education – perhaps national consciousness suffers without an educational policy and vice versa.

2.4

Influence of the Grenada Revolution on Education and National Consciousness

Universal Adult Suffrage enacted in 1951 expanded voting rights to the population and changed the nature of Grenadian Society. Eric Gairy, a Black union leader and member of the working class, capitalized on the enfranchisement of the majority Black population. One of Gairy’s early political actions was a successful strike for better social condition for the workers in the first quarter of 1951. His efforts galvanized him into victory following the elections in October 1951, and the Governor had no option but to invite him to form the Government (Brizan 1984). Despite earlier success in securing benefits for the lower classes, under his rule, public services suffered due to corruption and mismanagement, and not much progress was made in expanding access to education (Lewis 2010; Lynch 1981). By 1974, when Grenada became an independent nation and Gairy became the first elected Prime Minister of the country, there was sustained opposition to his government. These struggles culminated in the overthrow of the Gairy government. The PRG government which took power on March 13th was nationalist in outlook. First, it suspended the constitution and issued a series of “People’s Laws” by which the country was to be governed. Second, it rejected the Westminster model of governance for representative democracy and the right to self-determination, in direct opposition to the neo-colonialism experienced under Gairy’s leadership. The single most radical attempt to reform Grenada’s education system occurred in the 1979 Grenada Revolution, bringing direct state involvement in education, in contrast to historical control by religious authority. In highlighting the need for new ways of thinking about schooling, the prime minister stated that “If we are to overcome superstition, we need to be able to read, write, to understand in a scientific way the environment in which we live” (Bishop 1980, 162). The philosophy of education was centered around the Grenadian experience and the need to use education to develop Grenadian critical consciousness (Puri 2014). It was believed that education should provide the technical and academic training to aid the creative

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and scientific development of the country and that education must be national, focusing on the country’s development (Creft 1981). The Freire Model of education guided the programs used to address the longstanding colonial problems in education that the PRG had inherited in the 1980s (Jules et al. 2007). The adult literacy campaign called the Centre for Popular Education offered remedial education to adults. It was pertinent given the historic low level of school attendance by most of the population. The Community School Development Program aimed to strengthen the relationship and relevance of the school curriculum to different community needs while emphasizing technical and vocational education. These programs, while innovative, suffered at the implementation phase leading to a lack of confidence in them; their success was questionable (Thorndike 1985). The disparities that the Grenada Revolution addressed were related to access to education at all levels and teacher training. The removal of fees for secondary school resulted in an increase in enrollment from 11% in 1979 to 40% in 1983 (Kairi Consultants 1999). Student councils were introduced in all high schools to improve student retention, interest, and participation. A school feeding program was introduced, and the government provided free transportation for students to attend school. The reorientation of the curriculum to alleviate the systemic violence of colonialism in teaching materials was undertaken. The Marryshow Readers, produced in Grenada for the teaching of Language Arts, was described as a cultural breakthrough in response to colonial texts (Brook 1985). The National In-Service Programme for Teacher Education (NISTEP) was the flagship program to improve teacher training. It was a three-year compulsory in-service program that endeavored to address the inadequacies of the Grenada Teacher’s College, which could have accommodated only 25 teachers per year. The program ended prematurely for the 583 students enrolled when the PRG government ended in 1983. The NISTEP program was not without critique as it was reported that many of the instructors were themselves not adequately prepared to engage in the training of teachers (Smith et al. 2008). Durkheim (1973) explained that the changes to education occur through the disturbance of traditional ideas, the disruption of old habits, the implementation of significant organizational changes, and the search for new answers to problems. The changes implemented during the Grenada Revolution were made to disrupt the traditional ideas about who should access and benefit from education. The innovations in teacher training and adult education were meant to bring new solutions to the inherited colonial problems (see Durkheim 1973). The influence of the Revolution on the education system is evident today. Many Grenadians of the lower social strata were trained in various fields, including medicine, engineering, and the performing arts in Cuba. This tertiary level training has improved the cadre of personnel available in the nation’s public and private sector institutions. The relationship established with Cuba continues to provide avenues for poor students to access tertiary-level education. Cursory observation also suggests that the improvement in access to education promoted by the Revolution may have improved living standards in general. By the time the Revolution ended, the rest of the Caribbean region was well on the way to replacing Britain with

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the United States as the imperial authority in search of economic transformation (Hintzen 2003). The US military invasion in 1983 channeled Grenada along the same path of American dependency and evangelical capitalism (Forde 1992). The neoliberal North American approach to education thus filtered through the Caribbean education systems.

3

Institution and Organizational Principles

The main principles of Grenada’s education system intersect with the OECS Education Strategy and include policy formation, administering, monitoring, and evaluating educational services. While progress has been made since drafting the OECS Reform Strategies of the 1990s, a common theme relating to institutional practices and principles at the local level, as discussed below, is the weak capacity for implementation in Grenada.

3.1

General Principles

The vision of the Ministry of Education is stated as: A well-managed educational system that promotes the principles of morality, equity, relevancy, accountability and lifelong learning opportunities that will produce an educated and skilled citizenry capable of making a meaningful contribution to society. (Ministry of Education http://gov.gd/moe/ministry-overview. 2021)

The stated goals of the Ministry are to: • Create a diverse, adequate, and comprehensive education system • Promote the education of the people in Grenada • Establish a coordinated education system organized in accordance with the Education Act

There is no dedicated document that outlines a national policy on education in Grenada (National Plan Secretariat 2019). The Education Act of 1976 revised in 2004 governs education. Grenada and other members of the OECS, Commonwealth of Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Monserrat, St. Kitts, and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines develop policies and principles for education. This collaboration emerged from dialogue in the 1990s that called for harmonization and integration of education systems beyond individual nations. The benefits of harmonization were transferability of qualifications, efficiency in resource allocation and acquisition, and training and development. As envisaged, the national priorities form the basis for regional projects (Charles 1992). Examples of regional policies include Pillars for Partnership and Progress, OECS Education Reform Strategy 2000–2012, and the OECS Education Strategy 2012–2026 (OECS 2012). Grenada’s strategies, the Strategic Plan for Educational Enhancement and Development (SPEED II) and its

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predecessor (SPEED I), are grounded in the OECS long-term strategic plan, Pillars for Partnership. Major educational initiatives are also undertaken in response to exigences from international organizations (Jules 2008; National Plan Secretariat 2019) and the impetus of the government. The philosophy of the Ministry of Education and its accompanying development projects are aligned with the OECS Education Reform Strategy. The vision of the current version of this strategic plan, the OECS Sector Strategy 2012–2021, is “Every Learner Succeeds.” The vision is expressed in the statement that “All citizens, at every stage of their learning journey, from early years to adulthood are able to reach their full potential and be successful in life, at work and in society” (OECS, 2021 pg vi.). The goal to which Grenada subscribes is to further the socioeconomic needs of the OECS by offering a quality education system that enables learners of all ages to reach their true potential. One of the underlying premises of the education system is that it should provide skills needed for the workers to support economic growth. Grenada targets the improvement of the workforce by focusing on the expansion of access to tertiary education, improving the quality of education, and refocusing education to meet employment demands (UNICEF 2017).

3.2

Education Administration and Governance

The Ministry of Education, Human Resource Development, Religious Affairs, and Information is responsible for the governance of education in Grenada. Within this Ministry, there is a Minister responsible for Tertiary Education, Skill Development & Education Outreach. There are two Permanent Secretaries: one is responsible for Education and the other is responsible for Human Resource Development and Religious Affairs. The name indicates the continuing influence of religious authority (UNESCO 2010) even in the governance of state-funded education. There are fourteen individual units, including curriculum development, guidance and counseling, information technology unit, education planning, testing, and evaluation (Government of Grenada Ministry of Education, Human Resource Development, Religious Affairs & Information 2021). In the 2017 academic year, the latest available data from the OECS indicates that spending on education as a percentage of GDP for Grenada was 3.2%, slightly lower than the OECS amount of 3.86% (OECS 2018). Primary education accounted for 31% of this expenditure, followed by secondary school at 27.4% and tertiary institutions at 14%. Early childhood education expenditure is 6.0% of the budget, while special education was allocated 2%. The anticipated budget for education in 2021 was 10.1% of the total national budget (Government of Grenada 2020a). Key initiatives highlighted for education expenditure include the e-Testing Program and the National Skills Development Programme (Government of Grenada 2020b). Forde (1992) stressed the relatively high financial and social cost of education in the OECS; the counterpoint is the cost to the society if these expenditures were not undertaken.

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Pre-primary Education

There were 67 public preschool centers in Grenada in 2016 with an enrolment number of 2,560. The other half of the students are enrolled in private preprimary schools. The children range in age from less than one year to 4 years. Historically there was resistance to making the ideological shift from childcare to early childhood education. Writing in 1946 about education in the colonies, Hammond stated that the responsibility for the preschool child lies first with the parent and that the state should not shoulder the burden of their negligence. Public Daycare was introduced in 1958 for children ages 0–3. The Ministry of Social Development is responsible for the centers. It is recognized that disparities in student outcomes are linked to access to early childhood education. In 1976 Grenada amended the Education Act to include responsibility for early childcare and education programs. Monitoring and evaluating the quality of teaching and learning in many of the private preschools is still challenging. Training of teachers in early childhood education has been identified as a critical area for improvement.

3.4

Primary and Secondary Education

The number of students enrolled in both primary and secondary school has been declining, and most schools appear to be operating under capacity. In 2007, the total number of children enrolled in primary school was 12,566; ten years later, in 2017, the number had dropped gradually to 11,716. At the primary level in 2016, there were 20,205 available spaces, while the number of students enrolled was 11,716 representing 58% of the total capacity. At the secondary level, the number of schools increased from 19 to 21 between 2007 and 2016, while total enrollment in secondary school dropped from 10,346 to 8,679 (19%) decline for the same period. In 2017, the number of spaces available for students at secondary schools was 8,345, while 8,679 students were enrolled. At the secondary school level, eight schools were overpopulated. Among them, six schools had between 16% and 34% more children overcapacity. The other two were 9% and 11% over the enrollment capacity. On the one hand, if resource allocation is a primary concern, then the long-term viability of some schools at the primary level is questionable. On the other hand, low enrollment in some schools may not be inherently problematic, especially if the low student-to-teacher ratio can be translated to individualized attention to match students learning needs.

3.5

Special Education

Grenada Education digest reported that in 2017 there were 171 students enrolled in Special Education in three schools, an increase of 35% over 2007 when there were 126 students. The Ministry of Education website lists five Special Education institutions: the Victoria School for Special Education, the Grenada School for Special

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Education, the St. Andrew’s School for Special Education, the Resource Center for the Blind, and the School for the Deaf. Neither the education achievements of the students nor the capacity of these schools was included in the reports. The discursive tradition of hiding and excluding people with disabilities in Grenada seems to be reflected in the reporting; the educational attainment of students with disability is not included in the education digest. In Grenada, there is still no legal requirement for access to buildings, including government buildings and schools for people with disabilities. Disability appears as an objective fact instead of being socially constructed, where structures, both physical and legal, determine the pathways of people with disabilities living in Grenada. Employers refuse to hire people with disabilities, and the law does not directly prevent this type of barrier to entry into the workforce (UNICEF 2017). Global reporting on the type and number of accommodations made in primary and secondary schools for students requiring assisted technology is not included. Questions can be raised as to the extent to which students who have learning disabilities remain undiagnosed as they transition through the school system. But how does the absence of reporting on the presence or absence of the special accommodations and adaptive learning technologies impact planning for the success of students with disabilities enrolled in all levels of schooling in Grenada? Some progress is occurring. In 2018 the Ministry of Education issued a press release highlighting the “first-time successes” in the Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA) exams. The students came from the Resource Center for the Blind, the Grenada School for Special Education, and the School for the Deaf. The report explained that 2018 was the first year that the schools for special education attempted the CPEA. The student benefited from the use of assisted technologies to mitigate challenges with fine motor skills. The successful primary school students were integrated into the regular secondary school system (Ministry of Education 2018).

3.6

Alternative and Post Secondary

Grenada has begun to pursue certification as an alternative path to employment. Two institutions work to establish and enforce relevant standards, the Grenada National Training Agency (GNTA) and the Grenada Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (GCTVET). These pathways to employment are for students who have not been successful at the CSEC examinations (Grade 10 and 11). They can obtain a School Leaving Certificate (SLC), which provides them with the opportunity to pursue Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), TVET programs at TVET training centers, or gain certification for a profession. TVET is integrated into the formal education system at all four levels of formal schooling. Advanced and specialized technical courses are offered at the postsecondary, nondegree tertiary level. NVQ is a National Vocational Qualification, and CVQ is a Caribbean Vocational Qualification. According to the GNTA, CVQ standards are used for training and certification whenever they are available. For occupational areas where CVQ standards or Regional Occupational Standards are

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not yet available, the NTA develops and adopts National Occupational Standards used in training and certification. Persons certified using these standards are awarded National Vocational Qualifications. National Occupational Standards can be submitted to Caribbean Association of National Training Authorities (CANTA), for approval as Regional Occupational Standards. The purpose of these regional standards is to enable the free movement of qualified workers within CARICOM to promote sustainable economic development. In the first ten years of the agency’s existence, 3950 candidates received NVQ or CVQ certification. In 2018 alone, 682 certificates were issued. The agency has trained 192 assessors, 14 master assessors, approved ten training centers, trained 429 instructors, 93 verifiers, and 49 quality auditors. The GCTVET has approved 171 Occupational Standards for use in training. There are educational institutions in Grenada that promote equity in access to the secondary school curriculum. The Program for Adolescent Mothers (PAM), and New Life Organisation (NEWLO) are certified by the GNTA. The Grand Anse Social Development Centre works with the GNTA but is not yet certified. The Corpus Christi Carmelite Sisters operate the Grand Anse Social Development Center. It has a capacity of 35 students and serves young women ages 13–18 who have not been successful in the traditional school system. Students pursue courses in areas such as Information Technology, Hairdressing, and Food and Nutrition. Students can also be prepared for CSEC examinations in Mathematics, Social Studies, and English. The Grand Anse Development Centre awards certificates of completion. PAM was started in 1994. The institution provides NVQ and CVQ certifications for students. Students can also write CSEC examination in Food and Nutrition, Clothing and Textile, and English and Social Studies. New Life Organization (NEWLO) was founded in 1984 by a collaboration among Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, and Presbyterian church communities. Initially young men aged of 17–24 from vulnerable backgrounds were targeted for assistance. NEWLO offers technical and vocational education and training. It is now open to both men and women between the ages of 16 and 38 years to meet the evolving training needs of the nation. NEWLO offers its regular programs and engages in short and long-term courses requested by various organizations and government agencies. NEWLO has the ability, through external program funding, to quickly, with GNTA assistance, offer skills training in any area requested. The latest available data indicates a decline in enrolment at NEWLO between 2010 and 2017 (408 students vs. 283 students). Most of the students, 65%, are male. Questions can be raised whether the reduction in enrollment may be related to the overall decline in drop-out rate for boys reported in the Ministry of Education Statistical Digest (2017).

3.7

Tertiary Degree-Granting

The Ministry of Education has outlined several functions for the three tertiary level institutions. These include ensuring tertiary education remains relevant to national development needs, improving adult literacy and training to improve workplace readiness, and directing the development of higher education. After the secondary

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school exit examinations, students may pursue studies at the tertiary level T.A. Marryshow Community College (TAMCC). TAMCC (ISCED 5-8) is a government institution that was formed by the merger of the Grenada Domestic Arts (opened in 1965), the Mirabeau Agricultural Training School, Grenada Teachers College, the Grenada Technical and Vocational Institute (GTVI), and the Institution for Further Education (IFE). IFE was a national sixth form (Grade 13) institution that allowed students from all over the island to attend one institution to prepare for the British GCE advanced level examinations. At TAMCC, students can pursue technical and vocational studies as well as an associate degree. They may also take the CAPE exam in preparation for university studies. Apart from Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics, other areas include Entrepreneurship, Caribbean Studies, and Digital Arts. Bachelor’s degrees are also offered by TAMCC, according to their website. Education certificates are offered in programs such as Nursery, Pharmacy, Business, and Natural Science. Tertiary level education (degree-granting) may also be pursued in Grenada through The University of the West Indies Open Campus. This institution is part of the University of the West Indies, while the institution has expanded to smaller islands in Grenada. It was set up by the Jamaica in 1948 to meet the needs of the Caribbean region after secondary school. The UWI Open Campus offers Continuing, Professional Education courses, graduate and undergraduate courses, including BEd in Educational Leadership & Management, and Doctorates in Education and Learning with Emerging Technologies. Invariably some Grenadians who traveled to countries like Canada or the USA for tertiary level education remained there, contributing to the phenomenon of brain drain. St. George’s University (SGU) is a for-profit institution established in the 1970s in Grenada to provide medical education to Americans. In 2014 private equity companies from Canada and Asia invested an estimated $750 million in funding in the University. The business was considered attractive because of the 14,000 graduates who pay the estimated US $246,000 for a four-year medical degree. Given the limited number of available spots in US and Canadian medical schools, offshore medical schools like SGU fill an unmet demand that these investors expect to be profitable. A few Grenadian students receive scholarships to study medicine or pursue a degree in liberal arts each year. The SGU operation is profit-driven in a liberalized market for higher education where knowledge can be commodified as a private good. Grenadians benefit from the spin-off economy associated with university cities. However, questions can be asked about the extent to which tertiary or higher education offered by the SGU should be treated as a public good for Grenadians such that the institution has some social responsibility to contribute to the social and cultural development and wellbeing of Grenadian students.

3.8

Personnel and Supply

Staffing was identified as a critical issue in the Ministry of Education affecting the administration, planning, and education monitoring. Senior administrative positions remained unfilled for indeterminate periods. Permanent secretaries had short stints in

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their roles, which also affected the Ministry’s leadership and ownership of projects. These personnel problems filter down to the school administrative level (National Plan Secretariat 2019, UNICEF 2013). Teacher training was already identified as a problem in 1858 by the island’s first school inspector (Bacchus 2006). More than a century would pass before the training of local teachers was addressed in earnest (Smith et al. 2008). In 1947, a model school was set up in Grand Roy with a farm school attached to train 400 teachers in 5 years. By 1952, 192 intending teachers had completed their training in the institution. A small number (average 4 per year) of teachers were also trained in Barbados. In 1963 the Grenada Teacher’s College was established and 18 candidates were enrolled; the following year, 12 were enrolled. The NISTEP did not attain its objective. Teachers College trained and prepared teachers for primary schools. In early 2000, an in-service training was instituted for teachers in secondary school, many of whom had been employed as teachers for close to 15 years without pedagogical training. On the positive side, the historic high rate of attrition in the teaching profession has declined somewhat, providing a level of stability for both school administration and students. A teacher’s tenure with a single school is certain, which allows staff to develop loyalty to the institution. The minimum entry requirements into the teaching service are four CXC level passes, including English Language, Mathematics, and a science or social studies subject. A teacher can begin teaching in a primary school without any teacher training. It is also possible for a teacher to be employed at the high school level without prior teacher training. Teacher training and knowledge of appropriate pedagogical practices were identified as critical issues affecting students’ achievement in the mid-1800s when the modern education system was in its early development. A trained teacher is defined as one who has successfully completed a recognized course in teacher education methods and teaching techniques. In 2017 there were 733 teachers, and only 327 or 44% of them were designated as trained. The problem of qualified teachers has persisted throughout the evolution of education in Grenada.

4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

Only 21% or 1 out of 5 students attain five or more passes in CSE subjects, including English the A and Mathematics. English is language of instruction in Grenada. Class differences exist between the mastery of English Language; the students from higher socio-economic backgrounds have great fluency which augurs well for their performance in the secondary school examinations (Smith et al. 2008). English Language as a site of struggle therefore continues to be relevant in Education in Grenada, limiting the academic and professional advancement of some students. The social practices of language learners and teachers and the extent to which language affects power relations in the classroom and how it promotes or limits the conditions under which learners speak, read, or write (Norton 2010) are rooted in colonialism. The “failure” rate in English Language viewed through poststructuralist feminism perspectives requires pedagogical practices that are transformative. These perspectives

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allow Grenadians (adults and students) sense of self to be negotiated through the local dialect of English and English language for formal settings, so that access to both can be sites of power and agency for learners. The Common Entrance Exam began in the late 1960s to test students for admission into secondary schools. In 2012, this exam was replaced by the CPEA which is compulsory from 11 years of age. This exam has two internal components (project, book report, writing, portfolio; teacher made test, pupil-made test, and Can Do-Skills) and an external (final examination components) which tests the students on Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies, and Science. In primary school, students take a Minimum Competency Test (MCT), which is a standardized formative assessment of Mathematics and Language Arts. The MCT is administered in grades 2, 4, and 5. This exam requires significant effort from parents and guardians for students to succeed. The guide for parents is based on a middle-class approach to schooling, which requires parents to participate prescriptively. Given that 37.7% of Grenadian households live in poverty, and one in two children is described as poor, and 14% deemed vulnerable, the model of parental involvement represents barriers to student success. The model of parents’ participants does not consider the realities of under-resourced households. The seventeenpage parent guide uses jargon that would be unfamiliar to any parents outside the field of evaluation and assessment in education. Questions can be raised about the discursive strategy to invite parents to participate in their children’s education by attending the PTA, within a document (CXC 2016) about the examination that associates students’ performance with the parents’ presence at the PTA (Hinds 2002). The PTA can be a site of exclusion for many parents (Lewis 2018). This call for parental involvement in education is a form of social and cultural reproduction that further marginalizes poor and working-class households, echoing the issue of accessibility and class stratification that has historically determined formal education in Grenada. The lessons from postcolonial thinkers like Fanon (1968) are instructive for education planners. The colonized view of education meant to sustain race, class, and the status quo in the eighteenth century is evident in the push for parental involvement in the education system in the twenty-first century. The Grenada Parenting Program is a national initiative that seeks to “support, educate and empower parents in Grenada on the importance of being positive role models to children” (Website, National Parenting Program, 2021). The liberal approach to children’s educational attainment has often shifted the focus from structural issues in society such as class, poverty, inadequately trained teachers, and inappropriate pedagogy on the backs of parents. The individualism of liberal approach represents globalization and the accompanying north-south transfer of ideologies about students success that risk ignoring the situatedness of education in Grenada. The allocation of places in secondary school was determined by the Common Entrance Exam. Preference for places at the secondary schools was given to 13-year students not to be left behind. Knight (2014) summarized the experience of Grenada with its policy change, and the picture was overall dismal. Low levels of preparedness for secondary school manifested low levels of literacy, students having to be

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kept back in the fourth year of high school because they were unable to pass a single exam to be promoted to the fifth form, where they would be required to write the secondary school exit exams. Additionally, there was an increased perception of behavioral problems among students. Teachers were not adequately prepared to or supported to diagnose learning challenges that students were encountering. Knight (2014) argues that data was available to show that the students in the primary school were not adequately prepared for entry into secondary school because of failing grades in key subject areas. Failure to account for and plan for student weakness in crucial subject areas resulted in a mismatch between lofty policy goals and the implementation. The issues with Universal Secondary Education highlighted in Knight’s paper can also be explained by the shortcomings in the Grenada education system related to implementation and monitoring and evaluating programs identified in National Plan Secretariat (2019); The World Bank (2013). The National Plan Secretariat identified factors such as unfilled senior administrative posts and a lack of stability in senior staff positions. These factors have a very real impact on the lives of Grenadian children. The Education Act specifies that children between 5 and 16 years have free admission to public schools. However, registration and examination fees, the school uniforms, and other tangible contributions such as toiletries, the cost of after-school lessons for students writing the secondary school exit examination can be a burden, especially for the poor and families with more than one child attending school. The extent to which these ancillary fees are regulated by the government was not publicly available in the literature reviewed nor on the Ministry of Education’s website. Attempts to address equity in access can be found in the social safety programs in education. Grenada provided school meals to the cost of $US127.00 per child to 7780 students in 2017. The textbook program and Support for Education Empowerment and Development (SEED) represented most of the expenditure under Social Safety Net programs. However, these programs were underfunded and do not adequately meet the needs of the poor (UNICEF 2017). State-sanctioned violence against children in the form of corporal punishment is permitted in schools. The Grenada Education Act currently allows corporal punishment. The reticence to address corporal punishment in schools can conceal other forms of systemic violence that students face from teachers and administrators, that ignore the dignity and respect due to children. It can normalize violence meant to humiliate them into changing behavior. The effect of classism, colorism, and harmful pedagogical practices that exclude the poor and children with different learning styles could easily be construed as disciplinary problems or “rudeness” that should be addressed through the physical violence of corporal punishment. The government of Grenada has also invested in a Roving Caregivers Program to reduce the practice of corporal punishment in the home (UNICEF 2017). The government can change the law; however, there is still widespread support for corporal punishment in schools. The program’s benefit might be its attempt to reduce support for corporal punishment overall; otherwise, the program appears to be disingenuous.

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The global view of boys’ performance in Grenada indicates that more boys than girls are leaving school prematurely. Education statistics report that percentage of dropping out of secondary school between 2006 and 2016 was 0.8% for boys and 0.4% for girls. More boys than girls repeated grades in both primary and secondary school. Socio-economic status seems to be related to the success of boys. The top performance on the CAPE were males – more females than males obtained zero passes in CSEC. Empirically, boys attending schools that cater to the privileged classes outperform girls attending schools with more students from poorer backgrounds (Cobbett and Younger 2012). Male teachers make up on average 22% of the teaching profession in primary schools between 2007 and 2017. In secondary schools, the percentage of male teachers is 35% compared to 65% for female teachers. As with many other places in the world, teaching is a feminized profession. Caribbean scholars who have sounded the alarm over boys’ achievement in school suggested that boys’ underachievement is related to the feminization of schooling, calling for boy-friendly pedagogies. Teaching has not been an attractive option to men because of the relatively low rates of remuneration compared to other available career options. Studies have already established that the success rate of boys is not linked to the presence of female teachers. In a focus group study of boys who experience underachievement in the Caribbean, most participants did not identify male teacher role models as a recommendation for improving boy achievement (Jackman and Morrain-Webb 2019). Addressing boys’ failure in school from a feminist perspective calls for more men to opt into the teaching profession to take up their responsibility for the schooling of future generations. The presence of more men will not necessarily translate to improved performance of boys. In the Caribbean, there are dominant conceptions of masculinities that pressure some boys to disengage from school (Stephenson et al. 2020). A critical feminist perspective with pedagogy advocates for teachers across all genders that do not perpetuate harmful stereotypes of masculinity among students. Improved pedagogy and not the presence of males should be the focus for improving the delivery of education.

4.1

Emerging Issues

The two main sectors of the economy, tourism and offshore education, were impacted drastically by the COVID-19 pandemic; consequently, the medium-term economic outlook for the country is described as bleak due to increase in poverty, unemployment and youth inactivity (UNDP 2021). The earnings losses will hurt those with lower levels of schooling more, as they are likely to move many people to a level of income that will make it difficult to meet basic needs. Even before the pandemic, small island states like Grenada were under threat from the effects of climate change and natural disasters. Apart from the negative impacts of climate change and natural disasters, Grenada has limited ability to mitigate the effects of price volatility on international markets. An economic

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landscape that is subject to external pressures can affect the capacity of a nation to adequately meet the needs of its citizens in the areas such as education.

4.2

ICT and Digitization

Grenada adopted a strategic action plan (2006–2010) to develop Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It is envisaged that ICT will aid the economic development of Grenada. The plan is to have ICT in every parish of Grenada. The government pledges to make ICT available to all citizens and ensuring social equality and enhance education, thus allowing for the expansion of distance learning. The primary and secondary school curricula will be changed to develop an ICT culture. E-Testing is a new initiative by the Ministry allowing students to take their CXC exams electronically. It is expected that there would be testing centers installed with computers around the country. The plan is still in its early phases.

4.3

STEM Subjects

A focus on Science Technology Education and Math (STEM) is a driver of pedagogical practices and the philosophy of education and is not actively pursued in the Grenada strategic plan SPEED II. The sciences are studied as individual subjects in the CXC curriculum. There is a private sector organization that claims to fill the void left by the state in this area. The Center for Enhancing Educational Performance (CEEP) offers a curriculum that includes robotics, computer programming/Coding Theory, animation, and Math (CEEP 2021).

5

Conclusion

Problematizing the emergence of Grenadian language, social structure, and institutions allows for the exploration of education development. The elite thinkers emphasized race and ethnicity and class identities that affected the development of national consciousness. A weak national consciousness in the case of Grenada limits the formation of social institutions with clear goals in the interest of the nation. The development of national consciousness is a modern phenomenon theoretically superior to all other forms of identity such as religious, race, and class; national consciousness presupposes fundamental equality of all individuals in society. As seen, in the early days of colonialism, English nationalism had clearly defined goals for education, to subdue the lower classes with religious education. In the case of Grenada, weak national consciousness and weak national institutions prevented the development of national policy in education which would set clear goals for the Grenadian education system. Significant progress has been made in the access to education at all levels. The advancement of tertiary level education may well be

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associated with improving the area of access to data in the Ministry of Education for researchers and students. A new kind of intellectual elite emerging from the study and research of problems in the local context, through critical perspectives that account for all forms of marginalization, may lead to new solutions to old problems.

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The Education System of Guatemala Realities and Challenges

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical Pathways of Education. Armed Conflict and the Establishment of an Education System in Guatemala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles of the Education System of Guatemala . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Important Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 The Disabled Population in Guatemala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 An Unequal Society: Children and Young Migrants in Guatemala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Bilingual Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Information and Communications Technology in the Education System of Guatemala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) as Key Drivers of the Education System in Guatemala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Emerging Issues: The Initiative for Law 5125 of Guatemala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Conclusion: Guatemala’s Future Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

632 633 640 644 644 648 650 651 653 654 655 655

Abstract

This study reveals how education has developed in Guatemala since 1944. It shall develop the context in which this took place and the repercussions thereof – repercussions which continue to have an influence to this day. It will deal with current topics of interest, such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT), as well as the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) activities which have been carried out on both local and national levels. The study also provides a description of this said education system’s structure, based on its legislation and UNESCO’s 2011 International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED). What is more, it offers a short, concise, and current overview of how the education system is organized into two subsystems – formal and nonformal – accompanied by some data which provide coverage of the L. Oviedo Gasparico (*) Independent researcher and consultant, Guatemala City, Guatemala © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_28

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different levels of education, as well as the resources and respective investments. In the last section, the study will describe some of the specific educational realities facing individual groups, such as children and young immigrants, bilingual and intercultural education and – to a somewhat wider extent – the disabled population. With regard to this last topic, the study will also discuss some of the most important and unsolved issues facing this group of people, as well as the necessity for their overall development. Keywords

Guatemala · Education system · Disability · The disabled population · Governance of education

1

Introduction

About Geography and Population of Guatemala Guatemala is situated in Central America. Its capital, Guatemala City, is the largest in the region. The country is bordered by Mexico to the north and west, by Belize and the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, by the Pacific Ocean to the south, and by Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Geographically, the country extends across 108,890 km2. According to the last census carried out by the National Institute of Statistics (Instituto Nacional de Estadística) (INE 2002), the estimated population of the entire Republic of Guatemala for 2019 is 17,302,084. Despite the fact that the country lacks a statistical basis for indigenous peoples, in 2018 it was estimated that 41% of the population was made up of indigenous peoples. The population growth rate in Guatemala is 2.4% (INE 2014), the highest in the Central American region, and the fertility rate is 3.6% – the highest in Latin America. According to the Foundation for the Development of Guatemala (Fundación para el Desarrollo de Guatemala) (FUNDESA 2017), Guatemala is beginning to have a population with a majority being children. In 2010, 42% of the population was registered as being children and 33% as being young people with a capacity for work. As of 2015, the country has entered into a period which has been dubbed the “demographic bonus.” This period is predicted to last 35 years. During this period, the young, productive population of the country – those aged between 15 and 34 – will represent the broadest segment of the population, a fact that will open up the opportunity for accelerated growth. The country is comprised of 22 departments, which are divided into 340 municipalities. Its capital is Guatemala City. It is a multicultural, multiethnic, and multilingual country. Four peoples live together within the country: the indigenous peoples, the Ladinos, the Xincas, and the Garifunas. The languages spoken include 22 Mayan languages, 1 Xincan language, Garifuna, and Spanish. The official language is Spanish. Together with Costa Rica, Guatemala is one of the two significant tourist destinations in Central America. It is an agricultural, coffee-

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growing country with a great deal of biodiversity. It is also famous for its volcanoes, some of which are still active. According to the 2018 Status Report on Literacy in Guatemala (Informe Situacional del Proceso de Alfabetismo en Guatemala), the national illiteracy rate in 2016 was 12.31%. It will be updated with the data collected in the Population Census that was carried out during the 2018 financial year. Guatemala is ranked as a low human development country due to its high levels of poverty and inequality. The Education for All national report for Guatemala 2000–2013, presented to the United Nations in 2014, indicates that a reassuring development is being made in the field of literacy and closing gender gaps. However, at the same time, a delay is also evident in the inclusion of indigenous peoples, women, and people with disabilities. While it is true that there has been an increase in school coverage – primarily at the pre-elementary and elementary level – the 2017–2018 Government Report indicates that improvements still need to be made with regard to the quality of education (Ministerio de Educaciòn 2018a). Priorities in Education – Government Plan 2016–2020 (Ministerio de Educación 2016), provided by Empresarios por la Educación during the election period of 2015, presents 12 priorities and the actions which must be taken. The majority is still outstanding.

2

Historical Pathways of Education. Armed Conflict and the Establishment of an Education System in Guatemala

In 1944, there was a movement in Guatemala which, to this day, is still commemorated each year: The October Revolution on October, 20th. The population found itself in disagreement with the government at the time, which was the latest in a series of military dictatorships which had ruled the country until that point. The aforementioned movement was the result of a process which took several months. At the time, important events occurred such as a teachers’ protest, a women’s protest which resulted in the death of a female teacher, and inhabitants of the country demanding that the dictator Jorge Ubico – who had been in the power for 14 years – resigns. The population wished to live under democratic principles, with a democratically elected government. This desire was a product of the global conflict at the time. This was a period in which the Allies were waging the last battles of World War II against Germany, Italy, and Japan. These ideas of democracy were fundamentally spread by teachers, students, and workers from the capital city – ideas which would have consequences for the government (Orellana 2007). The revolution of October 20th in 1944 would give way to what has been described by many as the “Golden Age” or the “Ten Years of Spring” due to the comprehensive progress which was made by Guatemalan society. A democratic government, characterized by diverse participation of young people, was inaugurated by a professional teacher, Juan José Arevalo Bermejo. Having written a textbook which was officially used in schools and institutes and having obtained his doctoral degree in education at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina,

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he knew that education was indispensable for the development of the country. During 1945–1950, when Doctor Juan José Arévalo Bermejo was president of Guatemala, the country gained the following: • A labor code • Recognition of private property • A social security system which, to this day, continues to be a source of support for workers • The Bank of Guatemala • Educational reforms: the establishment of mandatory elementary education, the reopening of schools which had been closed under the previous government Basic educational institutes and experimental prevocational schools were founded. Emphasis was placed on teacher trainings based in rural areas and the first “normal school” was created in one of the departments. Buildings were constructed for “federation-style” elementary schools. These reflected the ideal of placing social welfare above the individual, which can be seen throughout the country’s history. Kindergartens and children’s canteens were also opened. An extensive system of scholarships for young people from rural areas was implemented, the teacher’s roster (escalafón magisterial) law was created, the first congress of indigenous teachers was set up, and there was an unprecedented increase in schools, students, and university applicants. From kindergarten to university, education took on a democratic nature. This gave rise to campus journalism, self-governance, and the students’ association. • Support was provided for the revival of libraries, cultural associations, an author’s circle and journals, and the Ministry of Public Education Publishing House was founded. • The law of the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC), the only state university was founded in the country. • The Institute of Nutrition for Central America and Panama (INACAP). • The Institute of Anthropology and History. • The School of Humanities was founded at the USAC, with invitations extended to foreign lecturers to begin teaching degrees in philosophy, literature, education, history, the fine arts, and psychology. • Construction of the National Library began and what is today the General Archive of Central America of the National Conservatory of Music. • The Guatemalan Ballet, Symphonic Orchestra, and National Choir were reorganized. • The Expression of Thought Act (Ley de Emisión del Pensamiento) was passed. • Illiterate people and women were given the right to vote. This revolutionary period, along with a fundamental desire to transform the country from a semicolonial and predominantly feudal economy into an independent, capitalist, and modern economy continued until 1954. The aim was to raise the living standards of the majority of the population. The most important objective was the agricultural reform, which was based on the relationship between agriculture and

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the domestic market. The so-called counter-revolution of 1954 led to trade unions being prohibited, teachers sacked, teachers’ leaders being exiled from the country or imprisoned, educational centers being closed, publications destroyed, and the literacy campaign being canceled. The momentum which had been given to education and culture during the past 10 years abruptly came to a halt. The field of religious education assimilated those elite students who, previously, would have studied in public institutions. Religious institutions thus experienced the same boom in popularity enjoyed by the public institutions 10 years ago (Orellana 2007). Regarding this period of time, Carlos González Orellana – a key figure in education in Guatemala – refers to “the revolution of ‘44 as the period in which education in the country developed most. [...] [these processes led] to a modernization of the State” (Argueta 2015, 237, own translation). González Orellana was himself arrested suddenly as a result of the North American intervention which culminated in the coup in 1954 (Orellana 2007). From 1954 until 1986, the government which was referred to as “democracy” in Guatemala was, in reality, a very restrictive regime. Participation in socialdemocratic, socialist, and communist parties was prohibited, as was any kind of social organization typical of a democratic system (ASIES 2004). To give some international context, this took place when the Cold War was in full swing. Many people – primarily intellectuals – left the country due to the oppression which faced any dealings or parties which leaned more towards democracy. Among them was Miguel Ángel Asturias, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.1 It was during this period and against this backdrop that a military uprising in 1960 sparked the Guatemalan Civil War. From 1962 to 1996, the country bore witness to an internal armed conflict. This consisted of the State’s armed struggle against a range of different insurgent groups which ganged up to form the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca, URNG). This was a conflict which took on different forms in the countryside and in urban areas. The Memory of Silence (Memoria del Silencio) Report, carried out by the Commission for Historical Clarification, by the United Nations in 1994, lists the atrocities which occurred during the armed conflict: disproportionate repression which superseded the law, harm to children, and harm to women due to rape. Forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary executions, massacres, and repressed freedom of expression are just a few of the brutalities which occurred during this period. The population in rural areas saw the most violence, with the majority of victims being men and women of Mayan origin. During this phase in Guatemala’s history, the formal education system remained intact in urban areas. This was not the case for many rural areas, where people’s right to education in their native language was denied as part of the ongoing strategic 1

Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales (1899–1974) was a Guatemalan writer, journalist, and diplomat who contributed to the development of Latin American literature. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1967. This makes him the third American author to win this prize who was not from the United States. He had an influence on Western culture and, at the same time, raised awareness of the importance of indigenous cultures in Guatemala.

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repression. Many public establishments were used as places where lecturers, leaders, and students met in secret. Years later, evidence supplied by witnesses led to the discovery that some educational experiences did happen in the mountains and forests where children were taught during the armed conflict. Many of these experiences were based on Liberation Theology methodology and the approaches of Paulo Freire. When the armed conflict came to an end, the National Literacy Committee (CONALFA 2018) placed the national illiteracy rate at 36.2 %. The early 1980s marked the toughest years of the armed conflict. According to the Memory of Silence Report (CEH 1999), 81% of rapes were carried out between 1981 and 1983. The year 1985 saw the beginning of more political openness and, in 1986, a new government put a stop to 15 years of military regimes. With the support of countries to the north, a declaration was made which constituted the beginning of the peace process in Central America. All Central American countries – with the exception of Costa Rica – were in a state of war at this point. Regardless, political violence increased in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was against this backdrop that Rigoberta Menchú was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 19922. In the same year, Helen Mack3 was awarded the Right Livelihood Award – the “Alternative Nobel Prize” – for asserting the importance of female leadership in Guatemala. In parallel with these events, the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office (Oficina del Procurador de los Derechos Humanos, PDH) was introduced in 1987, an agency which was established in the new political constitution of the Republic of Guatemala in 1985. In 1990, work also began in the Office of Human Rights of the Archbishop of Guatemala. Both institutions, one run by the state and one run by the Catholic Church, took human rights as their foundation and began bringing about and validating educational activities from the 1990s onward. A peace treaty was signed in December 1996. After the Office of Human Rights of the Archbishop of Guatemala presented a report entitled Guatemala: Never again, 1998 [Guatemala: Nunca más, 1998], the human rights education platform was expanded to include education in historical memory. From a pedagogical point of view, when combined with the Memory of Silence report, these constitute a tool to educate towards the future by understanding the past.

2 Rigoberta Menchú Tum (b. 1959) is an indigenous Guatemalan leader of K'iche’ Mayan descent. She is a defender of human rights, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (1992), and winner of the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation (1998). She has written several books: Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y así me nació la consciencia (1983), La nieta de los Mayas (1998), Li M'in (2000), and El vaso de miel (2002). 3 Helen Mack (b. 1952) is a Guatemalan human rights activist and one of the country’s most respected political figures. At the height of the armed conflict, she raised her voice to defend the legacy of her sister, anthropologist Myrna Mack, who was assassinated in 1990. She also condemned the suffering of indigenous populations which were displaced by the war, especially that of the Ixil people. She has gained international recognition as a key figure in the fight against impunity in Guatemala. In 1993, she created the Myrna Mach Foundation (Fundación Myrna Mack) with the aim of seeking justice for the assassination of her sister and for the thousands of citizens who lost their lives at the hands of the military during the civil war.

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Another important educational focus also appeared, that is, peace education. This faced criticism with regard to how it was carried out on a public and private level. It is worth mentioning that one of the six agreements which led to peace being signed featured the Educational Reform, something which was spearheaded and developed by governmental representatives and indigenous organizations. Owing to the latter, improved visibility and recognition of the need for bilingual intercultural education was achieved during this period. Guatemala has had a Vice Ministry for Bilingual Intercultural Education since 2003. As of 2011, Ministerial Agreement 3409-2011 stipulated eight educational policies for Guatemala. This is the result of work carried out by a range of sectors which form part of the National Education Council to ensure that the work of the National Education System is inclusive, effective, and of high quality. These policies are: coverage, management quality, human resources, bilingual and intercultural education, an increase in educational investment, equality and institutional reinforcement, and decentralization (CNED 2010; 2012). To date, the majority of efforts and programs carried out in the field of education have been focused on the elementary level. This has brought about a fundamental improvement in coverage – to levels which come close to achieving the universal coverage proposed in the Millennium Goals. With the aim of achieving more coverage at all levels of education, the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) decided to make enrollment more flexible, as well as to make it automatic. The timely provision of support programs, such as those which provide food, school supplies, a “didactic bag” (“valija didáctica”, a program which provides teachers with financial support to buy the teaching resources they require), and the fact that education is free of charge, have all according to the authorities contributed towards an increase in student enrollment. According to preliminary data provided by the Directorate for Educational Planning (Dirección de Planificación Educativa, DIPLAN) in their 2018 Governmental Report, teacher participation in the household survey which was carried out in 2016 and 2017, combined with the parental participation in management boards on a departmental and national level and the parent-organized maintenance of public buildings, have had a positive effect on coverage. The pre-elementary level contributes most to the statistics. On the other end of the scale, it is the “basic” (“Básico” the first 3 years of high school which provide students with a general curriculum) and “diversified” (“diversificado” the final 3 years of high school with more specialized curriculum) levels of education which – despite having seen an increase in coverage – require more support from the State. Both levels are, for the most part, currently covered by the country’s private education system. It should be pointed out that, according to the National System of Educational Indicators (Sistema Nacional de Indicadores Educativos) 2014, when it came to the basic level, only 50% of those students who were enrolled in elementary school had access to this intermediate level of education. A key reason for this was not a lack of demand for admission at this level, but rather the precarious economic conditions facing families. Coverage at diversified level is even more critical as, according to MINEDUC’s 2014 Efficiency Indicators, the net rate of enrollment was 23.8%. As the ages of those students attending this level of education range from

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approximately 16–18 years, this means that 76.2% of young people are not integrated into this subsystem of education – one which is fundamental for having and/or expanding upon career opportunities. According to PNUD (2016), the main reason for young people leaving school is unpaid domestic work. However, other factors such as late school entry, repetition of grades, premature parenthood, and poverty – which requires young people to work instead – also play a role. Clearly, there is a high percentage of young people entering the labor force without having received a formal education. A formal education would help them to develop the basic academic skills which would offer them the opportunity to access and gain employment – decent work. According to the ILO (International Labour Organization), “decent work” is that which is fairly paid, with the exercise of rights, social protection, and active discourse between employers and employees. As the majority of young people do not have access to the level of education which prepares them for such work, they usually work in the informal sector. Jobs can mainly be found in the agricultural sector, where salaries are very low and labor benefits are not guaranteed, as well as in the textile or maquila industry, where work hours are also long. Young people also find work in informal commercial activities or in services. According to the ILO, these are all jobs which lack the characteristics of decent work. Currently, students are leaving school in droves in search of decent work. Legislative Decree 12–91 of the National Education Act divides the education system into two educational subsystems (Ley de Educación National (1991): the formal educational subsystem for carrying out the education process in schools and the non-formal or parallel educational subsystem, “as another form of the education process provided by the State and other institutions for those who were previously excluded from education, those who did not have access to formal education or those who – having received formal education – wish to expand upon it” (ASIES 2017). The Directorate General for Non-Formal Education (Dirección General de Educación Extraescolar, DIGEEX), currently one of two priorities in the field of education within the Government’s General Policy, deals with the programs offered by: (1). Educational Family Groups for Development (Núcleos Familiares Educativos para el Desarrollo, NUFED), (2). Municipal Centers for Training and Human Education (Centros Municipales de Capacitación y Formación Humana, CEMUCAF), (3). Flexible approaches for secondary education, for the basic and diversified cycles (Modalidades Flexibles para la educación media, para ciclo básico y diversificado), (4). Program for Distance Learning (Programa de Educación a Distancia, PEAC), (5). Academy of Free Courses (Academia de Cursos Libres), and (6). The National Program of Alternative Education (Programa Nacional de Educación Alternativa, PRONEA). This last program, PRONEA, is an educational opportunity which, as of 2017, has the aim of “contributing towards expanding educational coverage for the non-formal educational subsystem through approaches which use blended and distance learning and which are supported by digital media or printed material. It aims to provide accelerated elementary education for young people and adults; completion of the basic cycle and the bachillerato [qualification required for

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university entrance, received at the end of the diversified cycle] by using a flexible approach; as well as professional training and certification of the skills which have been acquired by the students – either formally or informally” (DIGEEX n.d.). At the same time, this is a program which works very well for the migrant population. The assumption that a high percentage of the teenage and adult population do not have a formal education or options when it comes to the labor market has led to a current reform in DIGEEX’s normative arrangements. This is contributing towards giving young people and adults more flexible access to this subsystem, with the only prerequisite being that the student be at least 13 years old when they begin the program. Along the same lines, students will be able to fall back on a new Assessment Regulation, which allows assessment to be carried out based on proficiency without defining a specific time limit because it is always open, as is enrollment. Currently, there is a clear non-formal education timetable, as well as an Information and Registration System for non-formal education (Sistema de Información y Registro de Educación Extraescolar, SIREEX). The young person or adult works at the level appropriate to them and in their own time, using an open curriculum which is suited to the interests of the student. Part of this subsystem consists of three educational radio stations which are broadcast to three areas of the country. This also includes the prison population, where those within the penitentiary system can reduce their sentence through distance learning. This is carried out via a commission delegated by the Guatemalan government. Young people in conflict with the law are housed in centers run by the Secretariat of the Presidency can be certified by this Directorate, as can pregnant girls who are excluded from the formal education subsystem. With the organizational and functional restructuring mentioned above, the Directorate hopes to provide quality services which are linked to the technical and administrative fields. The ILO (2013, 52) explains that three models have been implemented in the field of vocational training for young people in Latin America: (a) The institutional or first-generation model, (b) the focused or second-generation model, and (c) the comprehensive education or third-generation model. The predominant models in Guatemala are first- and second-generation programs, while third-generation programs remain few and far between. The institutional or first-generation model seeks to educate either young people who are already working or the unemployed, in order to provide them with better integration into the labor market. The focused or secondgeneration model is concentrated on specific groups and places. And comprehensive education or third-generation models are programs which provide training over a longer period of time, providing internships in companies through apprentice scholarships and giving incentives to companies which promote the integration of the young person into the labor market and their permanent employment. One example of this last model is the Scholarship (for) “My First Job Program” (“Beca Mi Primer Empleo”), which in accordance with Ministerial Agreement No. 64-2012 has been in operation since 2013. It is a program which has been carried out by the Ministry of Labor (Ministerio de Trabajo, MINTRAB) and the Ministry of Social Development (Ministerio de Desarrollo Social, MIDES) so that young people between the ages of 16 and 21 who are living in poverty, or who are

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vulnerable or at risk, can be integrated into the labor market as apprentices through a contract with a company. Other experiences within this same model include the Technical Careers program run by the Technical Institute for Training and Productivity (Instituto Técnico de Capacitación y Productividad, INTECAP) and the Dual Education Program, run by the German School of Guatemala.

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles of the Education System of Guatemala

The National Education System is based on the Political Constitution of the Republic of Guatemala. Featuring articles 71 to 81, the fourth section of the constitution, located under Chapter Two of Heading Two, is called “Education.” This section clarifies that the State is obliged to provide and facilitate education for its citizens without discrimination of any kind. It also mentions that the primary purpose of education is the fundamental development of the human being, as well as an understanding of reality and of national and universal culture. It claims that education is not only a right, it is an obligation for citizens to receive. This ranges from the initial stage of pre-elementary education to the elementary and basic stages – within the age limits determined by law. The constitution also specifies that the education system can rely on economic assistance from the State and that private education centers can expect state inspections. What’s more, it seeks to promote special education, the diversified stage and non-formal education, as well as literacy, bilingual education, and agricultural education. The values on which the Education System of Guatemala is based are specified in the National Education Act, Decree no. 12-91, Heading I, Chapter I. They bear the title “Values and aims of Education, Article 1” and are as follows: (a) [Education] is an inherent human right and an obligation of the State. (b) It shall take place with respect for human dignity and shall effectively comply with Human Rights. (c) Taking the learner as the center and subject of the active process. (d) It is oriented towards the development and fundamental improvement of the human being through a continuous, gradual and progressive process. (e) In being an instrument which contributes towards creating a fair and democratic society. (f) It shall be defined and carried out within a bilingual, multi-ethnic and multicultural environment that is based on the communities which comprise this society. (g) It is a scientific, humanist, dynamic, participatory and transformative process. In addition to those mentioned above, the Peace Accords, signed in 1996 between the government of the Republic of Guatemala, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG), and the United Nations, include the following values:

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(a) The conceptualization of education as a means of transmitting and developing values and cultural awareness in a multilingual and multicultural society (b) Equality when it comes to accessing educational services (c) The inclusion of concepts, values, languages, etc. from indigenous cultures in the curriculum to promote interculturality (d) The participation of parents of families and communities when it comes to taking decisions regarding education (e) The establishment of the following key points of the curriculum: moral and cultural values; democratic coexistence; human rights; cultural diversity; work; protection of the environment; participation and dialog; and a culture of peace” (Secretaría de la Paz 2006). This same law defines the National Education System as an orderly and interrelated collection of elements, processes, and subjects through which educational activities are developed, in accordance with the characteristics, necessities, and interests of the historic, economic, and cultural reality of Guatemala (Article 3, Chapter I, Heading II). Structurally, the system consists of three components: (a) the MINEDUC, (b) the Educational Community, and (c) the Educational Centers. And, it is the MINEDUC which, as a public institution, is assigned the task of coordinating and carrying out those educational policies which have been determined by the country’s Education System. According to Governmental Agreement Number 114-97 of the Congress of the Republic, MINEDUC’s duties are established in Article 33 and are as follows: (a) Formulating and administering educational policy, ensuring the quality and coverage of the provision of educational services both public and private, and ensuring compliance with the law in each case. (b) Coordinating the proposals which are to be formulated and putting technical standards for the infrastructure of the sector into effect in cooperation with the Ministry of Communications, Infrastructure and Housing. (c) Ensuring that the State Education System contributes towards the fundamental development of the individual, based on the constitutional values of a respect for life, freedom, justice, security, and peace, as well as with regard to Guatemala’s multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual nature. (d) Coordinating efforts with universities and other educational entities within the country to achieve qualitative improvement of the National Education System. (e) Coordinating and ensuring the effective operation of national systems for literacy, educational planning, research, evaluation, training lecturers and teaching staff, and intercultural education, adjusting these to the different regional and ethnic realities which are to be found within the country. (f) Promoting educational self-governance and the decentralization of economic resources for educational support services through organizing educational committees, school boards, and other approaches in all official public schools, as well as approving their statutes and recognizing their legal status.

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(g) In a decentralized manner, administering and subsidizing services for text design and publishing, educational materials, and support services for the provision of educational services. (h) Formulating scholarship policy and, in a decentralized manner, administrating the system of scholarships and study grants awarded by the State. The public servants who provide their services within MINEDUC are guided by the following principles, set out in Article 3 of the Internal Work Policy of the MINEDUC, carried out in 2009: Discipline, confidentiality, transparency, efficiency, efficacy, honesty, integrity, trustworthiness, and punctuality. According to Article 6 of the Governmental Agreement, the National Education System comprises two subsystems: (a) the formal educational subsystem and (b) the non-formal or parallel educational subsystem. This was described in the previous chapter. According to the National Education Act, the formal education subsystem encompasses four levels of education: Early education: 0–4 years; pre-elementary education: infants aged 1, 2 and 3; elementary education: grades 1 to 6; and the accelerated elementary course for adults, 1–4 stages; secondary education: the first to third years of secondary education in the basic cycle (grades 7, 8, and 9) and the fourth to seventh years of secondary education in the diversified cycle (grades 10, 11, 12, and 13).This final level can last between 5 and 7 years, depending on the course within the diversified cycle selected by the student. The bilingual approaches to education operate at the pre-elementary and elementary levels (DIPLAN n.d.; Ministerio de Educación 2013). According to UNESCO’s 2011 International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), Guatemala’s Education System is classified in the following manner: According to Benavides (2018), MINEDUC extends to more than 35,000 schools across the four levels of education (pre-elementary, elementary, basic, and diversified). These are subject to the provision of economic input, supervision, consideration, and logistical support. In order to do so, it relies on a payroll of around 150,000 teachers, as well as almost 20,000 employees who provide administrative support. These figures refer solely to the public sector; they do not take the private sector into consideration. In 2018, the national budget allocated to the educational sector amounted to 2.9% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This makes it the portfolio with the biggest allocated budget. 80% of this budget is allocated to paying salaries and the remaining 20% is allocated to programs for improving education. This budget is primarily spent at elementary level (1.7%), followed by secondary education. Higher education receives the lowest percentage of the budget. As established in Decree 12-91 of the National Education Act, Article 89, Clause 1, this budget should meet 35% of the ordinary income from the general State budget (7% of the GDP), as well as that which was suggested by UNESCO. The Guatemalan Government’s 2017–2018 report Memoria de Labores (Memory of Work) (Ministerio de Educación 2018) indicates that MINEDUC’s financial investment at pre-elementary (in monolingual and bilingual approaches to

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pre-elementary education) and elementary level for 2017 was in: (a) The payment of teaching staff as a human resource, (b) Support programs for children enrolled at this level such as those which provide school supplies and textbooks, (c) Teaching material for teaching staff (the “didactic bag”), (d) Resources for keeping the program free of charge. What is more, investments were also made at elementary level in terms of construction, repairs, and rejuvenation of school buildings and sports and recreational facilities. In addition, financial resources were spent on paying teachers (permanent and hired staff) at the elementary level for adults. For the basic cycle – both in the regular basic approaches (the basic for mature students and the basic which is oriented towards the world of work) and the distance learningbased basic – as well as in the diversified cycle, where the education provided is in teacher training, preparing students for the baccalaureate, and training specialists, secretaries, and industrial technicians. The budgetary resources allocated to secondary education-level programs were allocated to: (a) The payment of teaching staff as a human resource, (b) The education and training of teaching staff, (c) Educational assessment for teaching staff and graduating students, (d) Keeping the program free of charge (paying the official institutes for basic services, materials and supplies), (e) Awarding study grants, (f) Scholarships to pay for food, (h) Transport passes for students in the municipalities of Guatemala within the departments of Guatemala, (i) Support services for teaching staff, (j) The construction, expansion and improvement of sports and recreational facilities. The interest in improving the quality of education within the country has created an obligation for teacher training – a factor associated with the quality of education – to be carried out at university level. Between 2008 and 2014, the teaching degree curriculum was modified and proposals for the continual professionalization of active teaching staff, the induction of entry-level teachers, and the introduction of a teaching degree were made. The National System for Training the Educational Human Resource (Sistema Nacional de Formación del Recurso Humano Educativo, SINAFORHE) formulated a proposal which was divided into two phases: (1) A 2-year baccalaureate with a focus on education and (2) the teaching qualification in elementary education and its particularities (which is carried out at university). MINEDUC and the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC) needed to sign an agreement for this. In 2014, 3,356 students graduated from secondary school with a bachillerato with a focus on education. In 2015, they began their studies at USAC as part of the second phase in becoming elementary school teachers, to be incorporated into the education system in 2018. In addition, the Initial Teacher Training (Formación Inicial Docente, FID) Program has been created via the Directorate General for Physical Education. This provides academic preparation for those holding baccalaureate in sciences and letters with a focus on physical education when it comes to obtaining a technical degree title as a Physical Education Teacher. These studies last 3 years and are carried out at 10 of the USAC’s regional branches. Training of active teaching staff is also part of the educational quality improvement process. This is carried out through the Teaching Staff Professionalization Program (Programa de Profesionalización Docente, PADEP/D), which has been

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operational since 2010 and was defined by Article 1 of Agreement 1176-2010 as “a professionalization program for active teaching staff and school principals, staff in the official MINEDUC sector, and teaching staff at pre-elementary and elementary level. This program aims to raise academic standards and improve job performance within the scope of multilingualism, multiculturalism and intercultural affairs.” This is carried out as part of a collaboration between MINEDUC and the USAC, and lasts 2 years. This program includes a process of pedagogical support within the school itself, which serves to orient and guide teaching staff in the classroom. The strengthening of teaching practices within the classroom is being carried out through the National System of School Support (Sistema Nacional de Acompañamiento Escolar, SINAE), which has the aim of reinforcing the quality of education in schools as intercultural and bilingual centers by means of a district coordinator. This coordinator is responsible for an administrative advisor and a pedagogical advisor who helps to support the school. SINAE was institutionalized throughout the entire country in 2018. Another form of support was provided to teaching staff in 2018, that is, specialized teaching qualifications to teachers at basic level in the fields of mathematics, communication and language, natural sciences and leadership, as well as educational management. The linguistic skills of teaching staff in Mayan and Xincan languages have been reinforced, and a training course for teaching young people and adults – provided by the USAC at their Training School for Secondary School Teachers – has also been created.

4

Educational Trends and Important Features

4.1

The Disabled Population in Guatemala

The discussion of disability in Guatemala is gaining more and more visibility, not only through those people who have some form of disability, but through the institutions, nongovernmental organizations, universities, and the general population which, in one form or another, are becoming increasingly aware of the need to provide more support for the disabled. This has meant a journey at the existing legislative level, and a whole movement being carried out across a range of different sectors. This movement has the aim of facilitating access to a place at school, in the workplace, in the community – in any space where, by right, disabled people wish to be and participate. The focus, terminology, and conceptualization of disabilities has gone from being something solely for those in the medical care provision and rehabilitation fields to something which, today, can be found in the curriculum of studies at universities, in the various training programs provided for the general public, in companies and, above all, in the educational sphere as part of inclusion. This is the focus given by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its optional protocol; a convention which was approved by the Congress of the Republic through Decree 59-2008. Currently, the focus is on rights – especially within the field of education.

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Here, the aim is to have the country accept and integrate people with disabilities into all areas of the policy and among the people. This is mentioned by the first project carried out for Research for Inclusive Education in International Cooperation (REFIE) in the country, presented in 2015, when it describes that “In developing countries, the perspective towards inclusion has a double vision, as proposed in this research, based on the results to achieve the goal of ensuring that the education becomes a motor for the development of the country. One is a task for the educational services and the other one is a task for the development of the country, in which education is a means to achieve.” (REFIE 2015). In many and diverse areas, an awareness of disability and an understanding of the way in which disabled people live their lives continue to be unseen and unheard of. Guatemala is a diverse, multicultural, and multilingual country. It has illiteracy, poverty, extreme poverty, violence, unemployment, corruption, and failing health services. These are all factors which make the subject of disability even more complex, not only because many of these factors are related to or are causes of the disability itself, but because the survival mechanism of the general population and of the country means that priority is given to other issues, adding to the invisibility of this group of the population. The second National Disability Survey (Encuesta Nacional de la Discapacidad – ENDIS 2016) (CONADI 2017b) was carried out across the country in 2016. Within this study, each participant who reported a significant functional limitation (by answering “great difficulty” or “I am unable to do this”) in any field of function was considered to have a disability (CONADI 2017b, 4). The results of the survey demonstrated that the prevalence of disability across all age groups amounted to 10.2%. This is equivalent to 1.6 million people. It revealed that one in every three families is home to at least one disabled person and that the prevalence of disabilities increases with age. That is to say, 5% of children between the ages of 2 and 17 have a disability. Among young people and adults aged between 18 and 49, this tendency increases to 12%, while 26% of people over the age of 50 reported having a disability. This survey is important because it updated statistics which had not been updated on a national level since 2005, when the first survey was carried out. In addition to providing an estimate on the prevalence of disabilities, it provides a case and control study for comparing disabled peoples’ socioeconomic status and use of educational, health, employment, water and sanitation services with those of people who do not have any form of disability. The survey also includes a qualitative component, which reveals how disability is interpreted from a conceptual, cultural and social point of view. In addition to this survey, another advocacy tool for carrying out concrete actions and impact programs for this group of the population was also provided by an external body. In August 2016, Guatemala received the country-specific observations made by the United Nations (UN)’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations 2008)4. Here, the Committee demonstrated its pleasure

4

See United Nations’s website information: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/ DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID¼20406&LangID¼E

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in noting the efforts carried out on the part of the State in terms of establishing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by passing laws, plans and programs. Among others, it highlights: • The reform of the law of the Congress of the Republic to include the Commission for Disability-Related Matters • The creation of Municipal Disability Offices and the Departmental Commissions for Disability • The ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty to facilitate access to published works for people who are blind, visually impaired or who otherwise have difficulty accessing printed texts from the WIPO • The 2016 National Disability Survey called ENDIS 2016 (CONADI 2017b). Simultaneously, the observations also indicated the work which the country has yet to carry out by means of the 83 paragraphs provided in the general principles and obligations (art. 1 to 4), specific rights (art. 5 to 30) and specific obligations (art. 31 to 33) of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. All of the observations and recommendations are urgent and fundamental for providing a dignified life – not only for people with disabilities, but also for every multilingual and multi-ethnic member of the Guatemalan population. These people, too, require respect when it comes to their diversity. In line with the understanding that education contributes to the development of a country, the specific observations and recommendations made by the UN with regards to education in Article 24 shall now be presented: The Committee is particularly concerned with the low rate of school attendance of children with disabilities, especially in rural areas and indigenous communities. It also notes that special education remains virtually the only option available to them, owing to the persistence of negative attitudes towards their inclusion in the national education system and the existence of barriers of all kinds. The Committee recommends that the State party, in line with the Committee’s general comment No. 4 (UN 2016a) on the right to inclusive education: a) Establish, through its laws and policies, a free, high-quality, inclusive education system at all levels and guarantee the provision of reasonable arrangements for students who require it, with adequate funding and appropriate training for regular teachers; b) Adopt measures to ensure that all children with disabilities receive an education, especially those with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities, deaf-blind children and those from indigenous communities; c) Urgently implement measures to improve the accessibility of schools and all teaching materials, including the provision of textbooks in Braille and sign language interpreters, and ensure that such materials are used from the start of education; d) Be guided by Article 24 of the Convention in its implementation of targets 4.5 and 4.8 of the Sustainable Development Goals. (UN 2016b).

The State gave an institutional response to the recommendations of the UN’s expert committee by issuing the 2017–2021 Plan of Action for the inclusion of

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People with Disabilities (CONADI 2017, 2017c)5 as a strategic route for achieving compliance with the recommendations. Operating under MINEDUC, the directorate in charge of the disabled population is the Directorate for Special Education (Dirección de Educación Especial, DIGEESP). This was launched in 2008 with the aim of providing educational opportunities to children and young people with special educational needs – whether these are related to a disability or not – within the public and private education systems. This followed the footsteps of a journey which began in 1945, when individuals with sensory disabilities began attending private institutions. These institutions were pioneers of special education in Guatemala. The advances carried out in this field within the education sector were spurred on by the actions of parents whose children had disabilities. This primarily took place in the country’s interior, where special education schools were created. Currently, the DIGEESP is still referred to as being the smallest directorate at MINEDUC level. It managed to obtain a budget increase for 2019, although it recognizes that, on a technical level, its work is limited due to the small amount of staff at its disposal. The Resource Centers for Inclusive Education (Centros de Recurso para la Educación Inclusiva, CREI) scheme was established in 2017. By the end of 2019, 146 CREI were projected across the entire republic. There are 65 special education schools across the entire country and 21 traveling pedagogical assistants who support teachers at mainstream schools who have children with disabilities in their classrooms; a role which was created to help the schools transition into inclusive schools. The first cohort program of those certified in the inclusive education of students with disabilities was carried out in 2015 with the support of GIZ (the German Society for International Cooperation). A program which continues to this day. In 2019, this program was envisaged for nine departments within the country using the B-learning approach. This time, a focus was placed on teachers at pre-elementary education level. Another goal for 2019 was to offer certification in inclusive education to teachers at basic level. Thanks to an alliance with the Pro-blind and Deaf Committee of Guatemala (Comité Pro-ciegos y Sordos de Guatemala), a sign language course was projected for all MINEDUC staff. A structural and organizational reform is expected to be carried out in order to turn the current Directorate into a Directorate for Inclusive Education. In 2018, the number of people with disabilities which DIGEESP catered to at all levels of education amounted to 20,180 children and teenagers. The Directorate provides scholarships for children with disabilities at elementary and secondary school level, which according to the 2018 Governmental Report, help 4,969 students attend school. When it comes to integrating people with disabilities into the labor market, exclusion continues to be the norm in both the public and private sectors. Regardless, spaces are being created for this purpose, and whether the individual is educated or

5

See website for further information: http://conadi.gob.gt/web/acceso-a-la-informacion-2/

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not. Some private companies have begun hiring individuals with physical and sensory disabilities. With regard to people with intellectual disabilities, initiatives run by families and the civil society sector have opened up opportunities for the integration of these individuals into the labor market. At higher education level, the USAC approved the Support Policy for the Disabled Population in 2014. This policy brings together fifteen different policies within the USAC’s functional and operational frameworks. This is accompanied by a strategic plan which is in keeping with the USAC’s plan for 2022. In parallel to these Support Policies for the Disabled Population, a Chair of Inclusion in Higher Education ng proposed for USAC’s Academic Development Division (División de Desarrollo Académico, DDA) – a department in charge of university professor education and refresher training (Oviedo 2019). What’s more, thanks to the PADEP program – carried out at the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 – teachers from across the Republic of Guatemala are provided with on-site training in the course “Pedagogy for Inclusive Education and Cultural Diversity.” This course is aimed at dealing with students with special educational needs – whether these needs are associated with a disability or not – as well as with those who are particularly gifted. Guatemala disposes of a National Board for the Support of Disabled Persons (Consejo Nacional para la Atención de las Personas con Discapacidad, CONADI), a governing body at national level which coordinates, assesses and spearheads general and State policies. Additionally, it ensures compliance with both the human rights of disabled people in Guatemala, as well as with regulations concerning disability. This has been integrated into seven public institutions and seven subsectors of civil society. At the same time, since 2003, the country has an Ombudsman Office for Disabled Persons which forms part of the nine Human Rights Procurator Ombudsman Offices in Guatemala. It is responsible for ensuring that the rights of this section of the population are upheld. In its report on the evaluation of the budget allocated to defend the rights of disabled people, the observation committee for the fulfillment of the rights of disabled people revealed that the Guatemalan government only allocates 0.68% of the General Budget of the Nation to this cause. To deal with those 1,600,000 people who have some form of disability. According to the Bank of Guatemala, this amounts to USD 12.99 per person.

4.2

An Unequal Society: Children and Young Migrants in Guatemala

Internal migration is not uncommon in Guatemala (Congreso de la República de Guatemala 2016). This is because, year after year, entire families in rural areas emigrate due to the harvest – usually the coffee harvest. This phenomenon has persisted throughout the country’s history, and many children move from place to place to join their parents in making a contribution to their family’s income. This leads to them leaving school and engaging in child labor which, at a later stage, turns

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into informal labor – something which leaves them with no other opportunity to improve their lives. In recent years, this internal migration has been fueled by other motives. One of these is the violence experienced by many families, forcing parents to make the decision to move elsewhere in order to protect their children from groups or gangs which co-opt children and young people for their own purposes. This phenomenon is seen as social violence. Although the state does not acknowledge forced migration, this is something which exists and which continues to be a reality to this day. A few years ago, this sparked a phenomenon whereby children and young people began emigrating to the United States of America. According to Rivera (2017), in 2014, the violence brought about by organized crime – particularly that which was taking place in the countries of northern Central America – led to an increase in the number of applications for asylum which were filed by a part of this population. Rivera also refers to the fact that, after this date, the migration agenda declared migrant children and teenagers who were unaccompanied or separated from their families a vulnerable population group which needs to be protected. This type of migration is often an attempt to reunite the family. It often concerns children and teenagers who have made the independent decision to leave in search of a parent that perhaps they have never even known, with the aim of finding out the reason(s) for their departure for the country to the north. Another reason for the migration of children and teenagers is the violence which they experience within their own homes. This includes emotional, economic, and – in many cases – sexual violence. This violence is carried out by one of their parents or caregivers, and is a reason why some children take the risk of living on the streets. Human trafficking then leads to their migration. According to the Regional Observation Committee for Migration (Observatorio Regional de Migración, OREMI) 2018 marks the year in which the largest number of people have returned from the USA to Guatemala since 2015 (OREMI 2018; 2019). It indicates that, between January and October 2018, an average of 38 migrant children and teenagers returned every 24 h. According to data from the Secretary for Social Welfare6 when it came to the total unaccompanied deported population in 2018, 63.8%, (2,615) were Mayan and 36.2% (1,481) were Ladinos. It also indicates that, due to a lack of access to education and work opportunities, migration is often necessary and the only way for the indigenous population to survive. This same secretary provided the ages of the deported children and teenagers, saying that 11.6% of unaccompanied children and teenagers who returned were between 0 and 13 years of age, while 88.4% belonged to the 14- to 17-year-old age group. The phenomenon known as “migrant caravans” began in October 2017. These began in Honduras, traveling through El Salvador and Guatemala with the aim of arriving in the United States. In November 2017, Honduras reported that 43.9% of the people who formed the caravan were children and teenagers. 26.5% were female

6

For further information, see: https://www.sbs.gob.gt/

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and 73.5% were male. The majority of these were teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17. These figures only represent initial data as, in 2018, more migrant caravans made their way through Guatemala. The data also register the deaths of girls who were traveling within these caravans; deaths brought about by this migratory trend (OREMI 2018; 2019). Guatemala has had a Migratory Code since 2016. However, the country still faces the challenge of drawing up its regulations. Guatemala also has an Ombudsman Office for Migrants, which is supported by the Ombudsman Office for Children and Adolescents for attending to this population in particular. The Ombudsman Office for Migrants educates the population and monitors and oversees those public institutions which provide care for the migrant population. One of the ombudsman office’s current challenges .is reaching the judicial system, as well as educating the population to use the term “irregular” instead of “illegal.” According to the Migratory Code, the government of Guatemala should address the caravan from a human rights-based approach which goes beyond any migratory status. Civil society, as well as institutions and the Migrant House network have responded directly to the recent migratory trend

4.3

Bilingual Education

Bilingual education in Guatemala has been a process itself. To this day, it continues to be one of the education system’s great challenges. The 22 Mayan languages, Xinca, and Garifuna were languages which were recognized in the peace accords signed in 1996. These agreements acknowledged that Guatemala is a multilingual country, with the Constitution stating that Mayan languages should be respected and spread. Nowadays, the most commonly spoken Mayan languages are Q'eqchi’, Kʼicheʼ, el Kaqchikel, Mam, and Tzʼutujil. Due to the Educational Reform, a result of the peace accords, there is now a Directorate General for Bilingual and Intercultural Education (Dirección General de Educación Bilingüe Intercultural, DIGEBI), which, according to Agreement 726-95, is a technical and administrative agency in charge of developing policies and strategies; coordinating, planning, organizing, supervising and evaluating bilingual education activities in Guatemala. At the same time, there is also a Vice-Ministry for Bilingual Intercultural Education. This is another way by which Bilingual Intercultural Education is spreading throughout the country. Ensuring bilingual support for the entire population of linguistic communities within the country – especially at pre-elementary and elementary level – has been a difficult task due to the limited budget, as well as the work involved in recognizing, respecting and promoting Mayan and Afro-descendant languages in the teaching-learning process. Some of the Vice-Ministry’s objectives involve: having an Academy for Mayan Languages in Guatemala (Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, ALMG), which certifies teachers who have been nominated by their communities; having textbooks and books printed in Mayan languages; having the knowledge of various indigenous peoples included within the Basic National Curriculum (Currículo

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Nacional Base, CNB); as well as mentors who use the methodology of bilingual intercultural education to give children the best opportunity to achieve at school and complete the various levels of education. Both entities ensure that languages, culture and multi-ethnicity are given a presence within the country. Initial teacher training for the Mayan, Xinca, and Garifuna people was made available in 2001 by setting up 21 Normal Bilingual Intercultural Schools, a response to teaching within a community context. In 2004, Governmental Agreement 22-2004 made bilingualism in national languages compulsory as part of its national language policy, both for the public and private sectors. This policy stipulates that the first language learned at school be the maternal one and the second language a national one, whereby the third language may then be a foreign language. This is specified in Article 1. Article 2 of this same Agreement, “The spreading of multiculturism and interculturality” was made obligatory for students both in the public and private sectors. It is hoped that this will result in public practices for treating ethnic and cultural differences. As an economic incentive, bilingual teachers at pre-elementary and elementary level who demonstrate success criteria in their teaching are given a bonus. This practice came into being in 2007. The DIGEBI’s current road map is based on four elements: (1) Implementing a curriculum for indigenous people. (2) Methodological innovation – training teachers how to encourage learning in classrooms. (3) Linguistic training for management staff in cooperation with the ALMG, the State-run organization which regulates the use, writing and promotion of Mayan languages, and (4) Educational materials. Bilingual intercultural education has been launched at pre-elementary level. Since then, it has been extended to the third grade of elementary school, with the current aim being its integration throughout the complete education system. The National Register of Persons7, carried out in 2018 (RENAP 2018), provided information on indigenous peoples and linguistic communities for persons aged over 18. It showed that 49.41% of people self-identified as Mestizo/Ladino, 22.34% as Mayan, and 28.07% as belonging to other indigenous groups. 0.13% and 0.05% self-identified as Xinca and Garfiuna. In order to meet the needs required by this population, RENAP unites 362 workers who speak 7 Mayan languages (RENAP 2018).

4.4

Information and Communications Technology in the Education System of Guatemala

UNESCO believes that Information and Communications Technology (ICT) can contribute towards universal access to education, the equality of education, the quality of teaching and learning, the development of teaching staff, as well as towards improving how education is managed, governed, and administered. At the 7

See: https://www.renap.gob.gt/memoria-de-labores

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same time, ICT allows for students to deal with current topics and topics of personal interest. It also forms an intersectoral platform where various agents contribute towards empowering disadvantaged – and thus more vulnerable – social groups. In Guatemala, ICT has been introduced at elementary, basic, and diversified level at State-run schools and institutes. In the Government’s 2016–2018 General Policy, it is the second main focus of education, called Technology in the Classroom. The strategy “360 degrees” (“360 grados”) has been launched as part of the activities earmarked for achieving this priority. This implies a large investment which, despite having already been in place since 2000, still fails to meet the education system’s needs. State resources and received donations currently cover 338 municipalities, where the schools fulfill the basic conditions for having the so-called technological Learning Centers. There are 1,014 of these centers, each one equipped with 16 notebooks from the latest generation. These allow students to search information, the CNB, support materials, learning tools, and Wikipedia, enabling them to connect to the server and anyone in the world, as well as to obtain information to support them in their learning. In areas where Internet access does not exist, investments such as these allow students to overcome the obstacle of not having educational information. This is because the Internet acts as an open library. It can support the members of a community in carrying out their educational and information-related tasks. The 360 degrees strategy includes training teachers inside and outside the country, activating email accounts under the .edu.gt domain for all teachers; developing STEAM events, carrying out the science fair, as well as providing the aforementioned learning equipment in each technological center. Focus has been placed specifically on basic level where, in 2009, Governmental Agreement 178-2009 restructured the CNB (Ministerio de Educación 2018b). Here, Article 6 – named “Fields of competence” – mentions technology as such a field. In 2018, work in this said field, which was given the term Learning and Communication Technologies (Tecnologías del Aprendizaje y la Comunicación, TAC), was set in motion. “These direct Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) towards educational purposes; that is to say, these technologies are redirected to ensure that the teaching-learning-evaluation process is centered on the students and, at the same time, allows them to develop the skills they need to be able to use the array of services, networks, software and devices offered by digital technology. The aim is to improve learning processes and the quality of life of these persons” (MINEDUC-DIGEGUR 2019, 6; own translation). In essence, TAC promotes learning through the use of technological resources – it is not just about learning how to use technology. It does so across the three grades of basic level, which are each oriented towards different levels of use of technology. It also includes interrelated components which allow students to develop skills and abilities which enable them to develop their technological competence. In doing so, in a manner similar to the first component–technological skills–there is a focus on helping students attain skills which will help them to personalize their learning

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environment; receiving feedback and transferring their knowledge by using technological tools in an efficient manner. The second component–technological resources – encourages students to propose collaborative entrepreneurship projects through different virtual approaches. The third component – production and technological innovation – demonstrates the responsible use of digital information or material so that the students’ innovative technological proposals can be put into practice in day-to-day life. With regard to the use of TAC at diversified level, the manner in which learning will be addressed will depend on the career path for which the student is training.

4.5

Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) as Key Drivers of the Education System in Guatemala

Motivated by the movement which happened at a global level, activities which spearhead sciences, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics within the education system were also launched in Guatemala in 2010, as was the Girls in Information Communications Technology (Niñas en la Tecnología de la Información y Comunicación Niñas – TIC) campaign. The directorate spearheading these activities within MINEDUC is the General Directorate for the Management of Educational Quality (Dirección General de Gestión de Calidad Educativa, DIGECADE). Both measures are aimed at motivating students at all levels of education – with the exception of the pre-elementary level – to devise and innovate projects within their selected area of interest. MINEDUC relies on former scholarship holders from Guatemala to provide support in these areas. These former scholarship holders have been educated in countries such as South Korea, Japan, Israel, and China. This human resource promotes the aforementioned areas of interest at local level and, together with institutions and groups of collaborators, forms part of the team which promoted the first STEAM National Education Fair in 2018. In 2017, 1,650 girls across the country took part in the activities carried out through Niñas-TIC. Since 2017, it has reached 2,500 students in general thanks to being part of the program “Technology in the Classroom” – a main focus within the strategic plan for education. In 2018, 15,000 students were involved in preparation activities for the National Fair through Niñas-TIC STEAM events, accompaniment at four normal schools, a training program offered to teachers called “Science in the School”; themed science, technology, art and mathematics weeks; events featuring former scholarship holders, and robotics competitions. The STEAM National Education Fair was institutionalized in 2018. It is aimed at students in the formal education or non-formal subsystem and university students who, by applying the principles of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics, resolve problems or satisfy social needs in any field. Participants come from the public sector and the private sector in equal measure, from all levels and approaches. They can participate as individuals or in a team. The categories are as follows:

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Category A: Pre-elementary Category B: Elementary (formal and non-formal) Category C: Basic (formal and non-formal) Category D: Diversified (formal and non-formal) Category E: University The areas of participation for category A are art and science. Categories B and C involve the fields of art, science, technology, and mathematics. Categories D and E concern those fields already mentioned plus engineering. The presented projects are evaluated based on aspects such as project originality, creativity and innovation, evidence of teamwork (where applicable), and potential impact of the project. The winners receive prizes, such as a chance to study abroad, or monetary prizes, among others.

5

Emerging Issues: The Initiative for Law 5125 of Guatemala

Guatemala has an Act for the Support of Disabled Persons, which was issued in 1996, through Decree 135-96. With the aim of updating this act, and of harmonizing it with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that was adopted and ratified by the country in 2008, initiative for law 5125 was presented to the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala in 2016 via the Commission on Disability (Dictamen Iniciativa 5125). This initiative arranged for the Act for Disabled Persons to be passed. This was agreed upon by CONADI, civil society, the Human Rights Procurator, nongovernmental institutions, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Guatemala. The present law initiative seeks to directly implement the Convention to whatever extent possible. It seeks to direct the work, leaving guidelines in those topics which remain to be legislated and which – for reasons of expediency, convenience or legislation hierarchy – require that either a subsequent or specific law initiative be offered – as the situation advises (Dictamen Iniciativa 5125, 2016).

With regard to the terms, definitions, and principles under which it should be interpreted, this said initiative includes those of relevance from the Convention. In clauses 2 to 19, it discloses the creation and/or modification of these with regard to the following points: Presidential Secretariat for Disability-Related Matters; National Board for the Support of Disabled Persons (now still called CONADI); advisory board; civil and political rights; accessibility; health; habilitation and rehabilitation; education; work and employment; the assessment, certification, and accreditation of disabled persons; register and statistics; Ombudsman Office for the Human Rights of Disabled Persons; exemption from tax, infringements, proceedings, and sanctions; reforms to the Municipal Code; reforms to the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture Act and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; reforms to the Penal Code; reforms to the Law on Access

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to Public Information; reforms to health laws; reforms to the National Education Act and reforms to the Labor Code. This initiative is on its third reading. Each individual article must be approved by the Congress of the Republic in order for this initiative to be fully approved and carry the same weight as a law.

6

Conclusion: Guatemala’s Future Development

Guatemala boasts a considerable demographic wealth. This could help to develop the country not only on an economic level – due to the aforementioned demographic bonus alluded to by economists and statisticians – but also due to the talent possessed by the younger generation. If the country’s policies at educational, health, and labor level are primarily directed towards this younger sector of the population with interest and transparency, this development will become a reality. As a national governing body for education in the country, MINEDUC should lead the way at both public and private levels, making bilingualism, interculturality, and inclusion a reality in a multicultural, multiethnic, and multilingual country. And, in doing so, achieving a more equal country when it comes to education and opportunities in order to eliminate discrimination gaps, extreme poverty, and poverty in a land which is rich in nature, agricultural products, tourist sites, and cultural diversity. The initiatives, advances, and proposals which have grown out of social and political movements over the past few years will have an impact. If education fulfills its role of developing the potential of every individual, regardless of the conditions in which they find themselves, this will give rise to an educated country with no illiteracy – Guatemala will change its history. Each step forward takes the country one step closer towards peace.

References Argueta Hernández, B. (2015). La Historia de la Educación de Guatemala de Carlos González Orellana, su significado y desafíos. Revista Historia de la Educación Latinoamericana, 17 (25), 233–256. Asociaciòn de Investigaciòn y Estudios Sociales (ASIES). (2004). Compendio de Historia de Guatemala 1944–2000. Guatemala: Centro de Impresiones Gráficas. Asociaciòn de Investigaciòn y Estudios Sociales (ASIES). (2017). Nivel Educativo e Ingresos Laborales en Guatemala. 2012–2017. Guatemala. Benavides, J. (2018). Una Guatemala en números: Cuáles son los resultados del Sistema Educativo en Guatemala? Mejoremos Guatemala. Talento en Guatemala. Hacia una educación de calidad. FUNDESA/CACIF. Edición XVIII. Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH). (1999). Guatemala. Memory of silence: Report of the commission for historical clarification: Conclusions and recommendations. United Nations. Congreso de la República de Guatemala. (2016). Decreto Número 44-2016 Código de Migración. Diario de Centro América 18-10-2016, No. 70. Guatemala: Tipografía Nacional de Guatemala. Consejo Nacional de Educación (CNED). (2010). Políticas Educativas. Guatemala.

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Consejo Nacional de Educaciòn (CNED). (2012). Quiènes somos? Available at https://www.cned. cl/quienes-somos Consejo Nacional para la Atención de las Personas con Discapacidad (CONADI). (2017). Compendio. Marco Normativo de Discapacidad. Guatemala. Consejo Nacional para la Atenciòn de las Personas con Discapacidad (CONADI). (2017b). Informe de la II Encuesta Nacional de Discapacidad en Guatemala, ENDIS 2016. Guatemala. Available at https://www.unicef.org/guatemala/media/461/file/ENDIS%202016.pdf Consejo Nacional para la Atenciòn de las Personas con Discapacidad (CONADI). (2017c). Plan de Acciòn para la Inclusiòn de las Personas con Discapacidad. 2017–2021. Guatemala. Comitè Nacional de Alfabetizaciòn (CONALFA). (2018). Informe Situacional del Proceso de Alfabetización en Guatemala 2018. Guatemala. Dictamen Iniciativa 5125 (2016). Dispone Aprobar Ley de Personans con Discapacidad. Commisión Extraordinaria de Asuntos de Dicapacidad. Congreso de la República Guatemala. No. 01-2016. Direcciòn General de Educaciòn Extraescolar (DIGEEX). (n.d.). Ministerio de Educaciòn. Guatemala. Available at http://digeex.mineduc.gob.gt/portal/index.php/en/ Direcciòn de Planificaciòn Educativa (DIPLAN). (n.d.). Ministerio de Educaciòn. Guatemala. Available at http://www.mineduc.gob.gt/DIPLAN/ Fundaciòn para el Desarrollo de Guatemala (FUNDESA). (2017). Guatemala. Available at https:// fundesa.org.gt/en/publications/press-releases-and-documents Instituto Nacional de Estadìstica (INE). (2014). Indicadores Principales. Guatemala. Available at https://www.ine.gob.gt/ine/ International Labour Organization (ILO). (2013). Working Documents. Available at https://www. ilo.org/global/publications/working-papers/lang%2D%2Des/index.htm Ley de Educación Nacional (1991). Decreto Initiativo 12-91. Available at https://www.mineduc. gob.gt/estadistica/2012/data/Conozcanos/Ley_Educacion_Nacional.pdf Ministerio de Educación. (2013). Sistema Nacional de Indicadores Educativos. Guatemala. Available at https://josselin09.webnode.com.ar/_files/200000146-d451cd642a/Sistema%20Nacional %20de%20Indicadores%20Educativos,%20Guatemala.pdf Ministerio de Educación. (2016). Plan Estratégico de Educación 2016–2020. Guatemala. Available at https://siteal.iiep.unesco.org/sites/default/files/sit_accion_files/siteal_guatemala_0757.pdf Ministerio de Educación. (2018a). Segundo aῆo de Gobierno. Memoria de Labores 2017–2018. Guatemala. Available at https://www.mineduc.gob.gt/PORTAL/documents/memoriaLabores/ Memoria_de_Labores_2017.pdf Ministerio de Educaciòn. (2018b). Currículo Nacional Base – CNB. Área de Tecnologías del Aprendizaje y la Comunicación. Guatemala: Nivel Medio, Ciclo Básico. Ministerio de Educación (MINEDUC-DIGEGUR) (2019). Guía metodológica para el docente. Área de Tecnologías del Aprendizaje y la Comunicación. Nivel Medio, Ciclo Básico. Tecnologías del Aprendizaje y la Comunicación - TAC. Ciclo de Educación Básica. Guatemala. Available at https://www.mineduc.gob.gt/DIGECUR/documents/CNB/CNB_TODOS_LOS_ NIVELES/3-PDF_CNB_CICLO_BASICO/Guias-1ro-Basico/Gu%C3%ADa%20Docente% 20Tecnolog%C3%ADas%20del%20Aprendizaje%20y%20la%20Comunicaci%C3%B3n.pdf Observatorio Regional de Migración Infantil (OREMI). (2018). Proyecto Binacional a favor de la niñez migrante Guatemala-Honduras. Boletin No. 3. Guatemala. https://www.ciprodeni.org/ documentos/boletin-3-oremi/ Observatorio Regional de Migración Infantil (OREMI). (2019). Niñez sin Fronteras. Boletin No. 4. Guatemala. Orellana, C. (2007). La Historia de la Educación de Guatemala (6th ed.). Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. Oviedo, Ligia Patrìcia. (2019). Riqueza de las Experiencias Interculturales en el campo de la Pedagogía Especial. Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD). (2016). Más allá del Conflicto, luchas por el bienestar. Informe Nacional de Desarrollo Humano 2015/2016 Available at https://www.

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gt.undp.org/content/guatemala/es/home/library/poverty/informes-nacionales-de-desarrollohumano.html REFIE. (2015). Investigación para la Educación Inclusiva en Cooperación Internacional. Hanover: Informe Final. Available at http://www.refie.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Documents/refieInformeFinal_bf_esp.pdf. Registro Nacional de las Personas (RENAP). (2018). Guatemala. Available at https://www.renap. gob.gt/ Secretaría de la Paz (2006). Los Acuerdos de la Paz en Guatemala. 2006 Año Nacional de la Paz. Available at http://www.muniguate.com/images/2011/user01/fuentes_monumentos/manitas_ paz/acuerdosdepazenguatemala.pdf United Nations (UN). (2008). Convenciòn sobre los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad. Serie de Capacitaciòn Profesional No. 15. New York. Available at https://www.ohchr.org/ Documents/Publications/AdvocacyTool_sp.pdf United Nations (UN). (2016a). Committee on the rights of persons with disabilities. General comment No. 4. CRPD/C/GC/4: https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/crpd/pages/gc.aspx United Nations (UN). (2016b). Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. Concluding observations on the initial report of Guatemala. CRPD/C/GTM/CO/. https://www.un.org/ development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html

The Education System of Guyana

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Social Conditions During Colonialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Scholastic Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Political and Economic Contexts: The Post-emancipation Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Transition to a Post-socialist Labor Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Modern Education System Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 STEM/ICT/Digitization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Foreign Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Teacher Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Current Inequalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Emerging/Continuing Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

This chapter follows the evolution of the Guyanese education system and traces the current difficulties it faces. Though a South American country, Guyana is closely associated with Caribbean culture, including its postcolonial legacies in institutions such as education. Guyana’s education system has transformed

I’m grateful to Kelly Sundberg for her research assistance on this piece and to Richard Arnold for his editorial and technical assistance. This chapter draws upon previously published work in Jules and Williams (2016). T. D. Jules (*) Cultural and Educational Policy Studies and Comparative and International Education, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_27

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significantly, from being viewed as one of the best in the Caribbean in the 1960s to one of its weakest today. The first section provides an overview of how national educational trajectories were shaped by formal education during British colonialism and the numerous reforms that occurred in the immediate post-emancipation and cooperative socialism periods. This is followed by an overview of the institutional and organizational structures that make up Guyanese education today. There is also a brief exploration of teacher training within the country. After an overview of educational trends, the final section concludes with some of the system’s current challenges. Keywords

Guyana · Teacher training · Educational funding · STEM · Fast track initiative

1

Introduction

Guyana is the only English-speaking country in South America, encompassing some 83,000 square miles (214,969 square kilometers). Bordered to the west by Venezuela, in the east by Suriname, and southwest and south by Brazil, Guyana has longrunning contiguous and maritime border disputes with its neighbors. It is composed of four natural regions: (i) the low coastal plain, (ii) the hilly sand and clay region, (iii) the highland region, and (iv) the interior savannah. Because humans use only a very small portion of Guyana’s landmass permanently, there are a large number of schools in the hinterland and riverine areas. While Guyana is located on the northern mainland of South America, it has long been considered part of the Caribbean region because it shares strong political, historical, and cultural ties stemming from British colonialism with other countries in the Caribbean basin. Given its history, Guyana has participated in several Caribbean regional projects. Guyana was a founding member of the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) in 1968, the precursor to the 1973 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the 2006 Caribbean Single Market (CSM). (CARICOM’s full members are Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. CARICOM’s Associate members are Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.) In fact, the CARICOM Secretariat, which houses the union’s headquarters, is located Guyana’s capital of Georgetown. Guyana was colonized by the Dutch in 1616, then later by the British in 1796. It became the first Cooperative Republic in the world after gaining independence from the British in 1966. In the 1980s, under Linden Forbes Burnham, Guyana changed its constitution to instill Burnham as president for life (a post he held until his death in 1985), as well as making Guyana a Socialist Republic. In 1992, the first “free and fair” elections were held.

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In 2011, the World Bank estimated Guyana’s population to be 744,768, and the 2011 Human Development Index ranked Guyana 117 out of 187 countries surveyed, giving it a medium developed country rating. Guyana is a country of six races (African, Indian, Portuguese, Amerindian, Chinese, and mixed-race). However, Guyana’s people are mainly of African or East Indian descent, a direct result of slavery and the importation of East Indians as indentured servants. Today there are nine groups of Amerindian Peoples that occupy the land: Warraus, Arawaks (Lokono), Wapisianas, Caribs, Arrecunas, Akawaios, Patamonas, Macusis, and Wai-wais. (It has been argued that the Arrecunas, Akawaios, Patamonas, Macusis, and Wai-wais are subtribes of the Caribs). Guyana is unique in that more than half of its population lives outside of the country due to Brain Drain and other political and economic constraints. Approximately 90% of the population inhabits only 10% of Guyana’s landmass, primarily along the northeast coast. While agriculture and mining are its main economic activities, Guyana is posited to become one of the fastest emerging markets in the Western Hemisphere because of large oil deposits that have been recently discovered along its coastal and hinterland regions. As of 2019, the political system is a presidential representative democratic republic that is divided along racial lines (between the East Indians who immigrated as indentured servants from 1838 and the Africans who came as slaves). Guyana’s education system has transformed significantly, from one of the best in the Caribbean in the 1960s to being viewed as one of the weakest today. Currently, literacy rates hover between 97% and 98%, respectively, for men and women, while other estimates suggest that 10% of the population is illiterate. Since 2004, priority areas for education have been outlined in the National Education Strategic Plan for the Period and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). In what follows, this chapter chronicles the historical development of education in Guyana by paying attention to the different trends and trajectories that it has undergone, commencing with British rule all the way to the structure of the present day. It then examines current trends, emerging issues, and areas of continued inequality that remain in Guyana.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

2.1

Social Conditions During Colonialism

The provision of education in the colonies created a conflict between planters and managers of estates, as well as plantation workers and ex-slaves. Guyanese society during the slavery era was hierarchically structured, with white planters and professionals at the top, followed by the poor whites, white tradesmen, and bookkeepers, after which were the freed blacks and people of color, with the plantation slaves at the bottom (King 1999). There were very few opportunities for the

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education of slaves, while whites (wealthy and poor alike) and coloreds who could pass as White had limited access to schooling in the form of private teachers and occasional private schools. As such, access to education was restricted.

2.2

Scholastic Historical Background

Formal education in Guyana dates back to 1807 and followed the traditional and “adaptive education” model (Whitehead 2005a, b), which was decentralized using a local curriculum administered through Christian missionaries. In 1808, Rev. John Wray, of the London Missionary Society and Hermanus Post, a Dutch planter and trustee, established the first private school (Cameron 1968). For Wray, schooling consisted of “useful knowledge and Christian truth” and aimed to create a cadre of “catechists, deacons, and teachers trained from among the people to carry on the work of uplift among the people” (Cameron 1968, 9). By 1812, Rev. Wray’s wife, Mrs. Wray established the first school focused on educating the young women of the colony. In the post-emancipation period, this consolidation of the missionary model would eventually lead to the creation of a denominationally controlled British education system at every level. In time, once the government began to provide education, a dual educational system (consisting of state-run schools and religious schools), that is still in existence today, emerged. In the immediate post-emancipation period (starting around 1833), the focus was on granting expanded access to education for all. During this time, the British government created the Negro Education Grant, which subsidized religious bodies in their attempts to construct more schools and employed more teachers (Campbell 1965; Gordon 1962, 1963). This grant lasted for five years, and all funding subsequently ended by 1845. Gordon (1963) notes, “the idea for a public system of universal education in the West Indies was born in 1833 and presented in the fifth resolution of the House of Commons introducing the act to emancipate British slaves” (p. 1). There were many reports commissioned on the Caribbean. Rev. John Sterling submitted one such report, in which he concluded that the Negro Education Grant, despite its flaws, engendered several positive outcomes: (i) that Christianity was established as the religion of the Caribbean, because of its alliance with schools; (ii) the realization of the challenges of operating a nascent educational system; and (iii) the growing idea of popular education gaining traction and acceptance (Gordon 1962, 153). Though slavery was abolished in 1834, there was a mandatory period of apprenticeship before full emancipation would be granted; however, the idea for popular education gained tremendous momentum immediately following emancipation (Walters 1970). In the early stages of this education, there was no separation between primary and post-primary education, and education aimed to accommodate students of all age groups. Thus, schooling consisted of: [. . .] the sermon or address for all, then Bible classes and conversational classes for adults, Sunday Schools, classes with both juveniles and adults learning to read and to write, with the brighter ones helping as monitors, and the gradual development into – infant schools, juvenile schools and schools of industry. (Cameron 1968, 9)

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With the Negro Education Grant ceasing to exist, financing of elementary education shifted to local legislative bodies, missionaries, and parents (Bacchus 1994). As schooling emerged across the colony, it took different forms, ranging from an 1836 Union Chapel in the Parish of St. Catherine school established by freed slave Thomas Lewis, to the 1837 British School in New Amsterdam under the leadership of Mr. and Mrs. Parish. In addition, that same year, the Church of England established its first school in New Amsterdam under the trusteeship of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and in 1838, the Colonial Government supported the establishment of schools in the parishes of St. Michael and St. Catherine. At Bartica, two boarding schools were established for Amerindian students, which provided five hours of instruction daily, excluding Saturdays (Cameron 1968). Once students had completed their fourteenth year, they were sent on apprentices to Georgetown. Despite increased financial encumbrance on localities, enrollment numbers gradually increased. In 1831, there were 74 schools; by 1841, there were 151 schools with 9,513 students (Kandasammy 2005). Meanwhile, education inspectors remained critical of educational quality. While administrators and legislators saw the value in shouldering the cost of primary education, they believed the cost of secondary education should rest with those who could afford it. Thus, the creation and maintenance of secondary and post-secondary schools became a significant challenge. Hindering it further was “an unstated objective ... to discourage any rise in the educational and occupational aspirations of the lower classes” (Bacchus 1994, 220). The precipitous declines in the sugar industry meant less income, which in turn facilitated the increased migration of whites back to Europe. White migration, back to the home colonies (and in some instances to other colonies), left vacancies within various administrative bureaucracies and the secondary schooling system, as well as removed potential private sources of funding for secondary education. Due to the resulting elitist nature, secondary education became one of the best routes for social mobility, while primary-only education better facilitated lower-level white-collar jobs (Bacchus 1994). Because of various inter-religious conflicts, around the 1850s, several reports were circulated criticizing the prevailing education system and called for systematic reforms. There were recommendations by the Keenan Report of 1896 for a secular system of education administration, including instituting boards of education and teacher training schools. However, their recommendations were heavily contested by the various religious denominations that controlled many of the schools. The Keenan Report also called for improved education for East Indian indentured laborers, improved teacher education, culturally relevant pedagogy, and the establishment of a Caribbean University (Keenan Report 1869, as cited in Gordon 1962). The PhelpsStokes Commission to the British Colonies in the 1920s advocated a curriculum that promoted charter development, health and hygiene, productive skills, improved family life, and healthy recreation (Jones 1925, as cited in Metzler 2009). Despite these suggestions, however, the Report of the West India Royal Commission (generally referred to as The Moyne Report) highlighted gaps that still existed when it was published and disseminated in 1945. The Moyne Report emphasized that students could not be educated with the skills and knowledge that

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the local context required. The curricula in the secondary schools of the former colonies mostly resembled those of Europe (Williams 1946); though, they had expanded beyond mere religious instruction in some instances. Deriding the educational materials, Williams (1956) wrote that “the instructional materials. . . include a vast quantity of extraneous material which has no relevance for the Caribbean area” (p. 6). This further augmented the calls for an increased focus on vocational/ technical and agricultural education by varied educationalists and reports; however, this also was met with fervent opposition by parents: Those who want the schools to stress the vocational aspect in the belief that this will help industrial recruitment are probably not doing a real service to industrial development. In many parts of the Caribbean, there is an objection by parents to their children learning through the hands. The usual reason given is that it is due to the memory of slavery . . . [T]he mistake made is to think that a richer life can only be achieved by deserting the soil. The aim should be to improve living in rural areas and make it more attractive. (Howe 1956, 16)

Despite parental opposition to vocational/technical education, there was considerable demand economically for the skills that such an education fostered. To answer this demand, a technical institute was created in British Guiana in 1947, which came out of the wood-working Trading center established in Kingston, Georgetown, in 1931. By 1951, the Government Technical Institute (GTI) opened.

2.2.1 Evolution of Teacher Education The first teachers in the colony (Alexander Wright, Rev. John Davies, Mr. and Mrs. Parish, and Mr. Howe) were never formally trained as teachers as no formal training college existed in British Guiana. When British Guiana decided to expand universal primary education, the most significant challenge that it faced was a short supply of trained practicing local teachers and a lack of teacher training institutions (Wright 1989). Therefore, teacher education was subjected to ridicule as it gave rise to different teacher training priorities since the educational system was dualistic, elitist, and inherently unequal (Bindi 1992). Most of the teachers were imported from Britain, and while efforts were made in the 1880s to establish Mico Teacher Colleges – with the Mico Teachers’ College in Jamaica serving as the primary training facility for special education Guyanese teachers – it closed by the 1840s. The 1835 Negro Education Grant sought to institutionalize compulsory education and advanced teacher training across the Caribbean. When it ended in 1845, it paved the way for establishing national Education Acts and Regulations (Dean 2009; Gordon 1962). All the programs funded under the Negro Education Grant were employed to the preservice training of primary teachers. Most of these schools aimed to train a cadre of non-white teachers since the view was held that education facilitated social mobility, while churches sought to train teachers to ensure proselytism. Early teaching models and programs were cobbled together after schools were already operating and consisted of both nondenominational or traditional programs and the denominational or church programs run by religious societies and

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institutions. As Wright (1989) argues, “each religious body wanted to exert influence in society, and teacher education was an effective way to do that. Training institutions, therefore, were established by the churches wherever the social and political climate permitted” (93). By 1877, the dualist education system would be cemented with compulsory schooling as an ordinance called for enforced elementary education in the colony, a representative board of education, an institution for teacher training, and the creation of the elite schools of Queen’s College and Bishops’ College (Kandasammy 2005). By the turn of the century, most teachers pursued a full-time teacher education program at one of three institutions – the Mico University College in Antigua, Shortwood Teachers College in Jamaica, and Rawle College in Barbados – across the region. In the late 1920s, several influential reports (such as the 1933 Marriott-Mayhew Commission Report, which considered problems of secondary and primary education in Trinidad, Barbados, the Leeward Islands, and the Windward Islands, during 1931–1932) and committees (the Advisory Committee on Native Education in British Tropical Africa [later renamed as the Advisory Committee on Education], from 1929 to 1978) advocated for limited teacher education reforms. Each colony had “its own government and administers its own internal affairs, and differences in the economy, in the extent of religious control” (Walters 1970, 111). The Advisory Committee’s educational policy in the colonies remained consistent by promoting local control of schools, encouraging cooperation between colonial governments, missionary societies, and native educators, and calling for education to be closely aligned to national development needs. While the Advisory Committee could only make policy recommendations, the Colonial Education Department was ultimately responsible for the management of primary schooling, and secondary education fell under the purview of religious groups or individual boards of governors (Rush 2011). By 1939, the Multilateral Teachers’ Training Programme (later called the College for Secondary Teachers and renamed the Lillian Dewar College of Education), aimed at training secondary school teachers, was launched. In 1928 the Teachers’ Training Centre ([TTC], later called the Government Training College for teachers [GTC] in 1942 and renamed the Cyril Potter College of Education [CPCE] in 1974), was founded. In 1963, the TTC began offering a full-time preservice program and a part-time in-service program for primary teachers. In 1983, CPCE started administering all preservice and in-service training programs. It was not until 1991–1992 that the University of Guyana developed a Bachelor’s degree in nursery education. In 2004, CPCE began delivering distance education training in the hinterland regions.

2.3

Political and Economic Contexts: The Post-emancipation Period

As the drumbeat toward independence intensified in the Caribbean, education would take on an even greater vitality, emphasizing quality and equity. With the emergence of cooperative socialism from 1971 to 1985, education in Guyana was

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focused on engendering the Guyanese people a more significant role in the economy and ridding itself of the effects of dependent capitalist development. Under cooperative socialism in Guyana, 80 percent of the commanding heights (the vital economic sectors) were nationalized (Hall 2003; Richardson 1993; Jules 2010). While cooperative socialism sought to feed, clothe, and house all Guyanese by 1976, it also expanded to the education sector. Education reforms focused on producing employment opportunities, equalizing the distribution of incomes, increasing equitable geographic distribution of economic activities, and attaining self-sustained economic growth through de-privatization (eliminating religious schools, increasing mass schooling, eliminating education costs), building new teachers’ training colleges, making schools co-educational, and creating a new governmental secondary school of excellence, named the President’s College (Jules and Williams 2016; Lee 2000; Rose 2002). Under cooperative socialism, education was made free from nursery to university levels. In 1967, the very active trade union created the Critchlow Labour College (CLC) to offer pre-university and Caribbean Examination Council courses to its members. Cooperative socialism ended with President Burnham’s death in 1985. With the death of President Burnham and the 1992 elections, education reforms took a central role. While education reforms occurred in the post-Burnham period, policies, priorities, and learning outcomes were remarkably similar to those enacted under Burnham. During this time, education became a pawn in the broader political game as some educational reforms, such as the distribution of free textbooks and exercise books, provision of school uniform vouchers, and school feeding programs, were motivated by political decisions rather than evidence-based policymaking. During this time, widespread policies and practices, such as corporal punishment and rote learning, were prohibited. Moreover, the disparities between the different regions were magnified after the Ministry of Finance provided budgetary allocations. As the Ministry of Education (2003) notes: [A] Number of economic and social factors. . . have led to a most unsatisfactory and unacceptable state of affairs: learning rates in the schools are extremely low; a large proportion of the teaching force is unqualified and untrained; absenteeism on the part of both teachers and students is rife; and textbooks and other instructional materials are often unavailable. (p. 5)

By the mid-1990s, Guyana had committed itself to several international and regional frameworks (such as the Education for All [EFA] goals and the delivery of Health and Family Life Education [HFLE]).

2.4

Transition to a Post-socialist Labor Market

Under Burnham’s socialist system of the 1970s and 1980s, Guyana’s educational system witnessed a prolonged series of decline as infrastructure, training finance, and spending degenerated. Guyana was falling behind its peers in the Caribbean,

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as “by the early 1980s, several Caribbean countries had developed impressive education systems, relative to many other countries with comparable per capita income” (World Bank 1993, xiv). In 1985, the education system was decentralized, and its management services were given to Regional Democratic Councils and their respective Regional Education Departments (REDs). Regional Democratic Councils were put in place to serve as “the supreme Local Government Organ in each region with the responsibility for the overall administration and management of the Region” (Ministry of Communities 2019, 1). This system established the current 11 education districts. Decentralization aimed to promote greater community involvement in educational management and to provide REDs with the ability to respond faster to community needs (Paul et al. 1991). By the time of socialism’s end in Guyana, many primary and secondary teachers were not being paid on time, illiteracy had increased sharply as students failed their primary and secondary school exit examinations, and the university level suffered since it had more qualified staff than the finances could afford (Rose 2002). After democratic elections were held in 1992, education reform focused on deregulation, decentralization, and privatization with the aid of loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Under austerity measures, the University of Guyana was forced to implement cost recovery measures in the form of tuition fees in 1994. From the 1970s to 1994, students attending the University of Guyana did not have to pay tuition. In short, in the posts-ocialist period, outlined educational reforms were based on market mechanisms.

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

3.1

Modern Education System Structure

Today, Guyana is a parliamentary system, and the President chooses the Minister of education. In the 1970s, single-sex schools became co-educational as private and parochial schools were amalgamated into the public educational system. The highest populations of students and schools are located along the coastal areas encompassing region 4 (the capital), region 6, and region 3. English is the language of instruction in all schools. Under Article 27 of the Guyana Constitution, education is a right, and thus offered as a service from the age of 3 years and 9 months through the age of 16, and is compulsory up to age 14. The state also provides free education from preprimary (nursery) to secondary levels across 11 education districts. Approximately 3.8% of Guyana’s Gross Domestic Product is spent on education, with students averaging 10.3 years of schooling each. The Central Ministry of Education coordinates the development of national education plans and programs and monitors and evaluates the implementation of these policies, plans, and programs. In 1972, Guyana joined the regional education initiative known as the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC), which asserts control over Guyana’s standardized testing structure. With education becoming

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intertwined with the CXC mandates, this section looks at the levels of education in Guyana in relation to the CXC. (CXC’s mandates move through the 1979 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and the 1998 Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE). The CSEC replaced the UK-based General Certificate Examination (O-Level) and has undergone several iterative changes and tests students in both academic and technical/vocational subjects. Some subjects have School-Based Assessments (SBA) which accounts for 20– 40% of the final grade. The CAPE replaced the Advanced Level General Certificate of Education (A-Level) and fulfills the requirements for programs and professional courses at regional and extra-regional universities and other tertiary level institutions. Mathematics and English A exams are mandatory, while students have a choice of 31 other CSEC subjects to choose from, including 28 subjects at the General Proficiency level and 5 at Technical Proficiency level. Students can select any of the 16 CAPE examinations and may earn a diploma after completing six units and an Associate’s Degree after completing seven units, including Caribbean Studies and Communication Studies. UWI and national universities accept CXC as the core entry requirement and candidates must pass a minimum of five CSEC courses with grades 1-3 (A-C), with mandatory passing grades in English A and Mathematics).

3.1.1 ISCED Level 0: Preprimary School Formal nursery schooling (kindergarten) began in 1976, and education is now free and compulsory for ages 5–14. Starting at age 3, children have 2 years of ISCED level 0 preprimary education, as it is “designed for children from age 3 years to the start of primary education” (ISCED 2011, 20). National Grade Assessments (NGA) are administered every two years, after grades 2, 4, and 6. 3.1.2 ISCED Level 1-2: Primary School Level 0 is followed by 6 years of primary education (grades 1–6). This begins with level 1, wherein “the transition point in an education system where systematic teaching and learning in reading, writing and mathematics begins” (ISCED 2011, 30). Before 2007, students were assessed based on the national Grade 6 assessment, called the Secondary School Entrance Examination (SSEE). Community high school (grades 7–10) or junior secondary and high school slots (grades 7–12) are awarded based on results of the NGAs, which began in 2007, in the areas of English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies. (see Fig. 1). 3.1.3 ISCED Level 3: Secondary Schooling Secondary education is tiered across either a 3-year program geared towards academic and prevocational programs or a 5-year General Secondary Program leading to the Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate (CXCSEC) (see Fig. 1) that are “designed in preparation for tertiary education or provide skills relevant to employment” (ISCED 2011, 48). CXC provides secondary school exit examinations in the form of the Caribbean Secondary School Certification Examination (CXCSEC) and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations

Fig. 1 Structure of Guyana’s educational system. (Source: Author)

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(CAPE). In secondary school, students will write the CXCSEC, and if they wish to pursue further studies, some students will spend two additional years (grades 13–14) in high school and write the CAPE to be awarded the CXC Associate Degree, or go directly to the university, or begin work (see Fig. 1). However, students in Community high school will write the Secondary Schools Proficiency Examination (SSPE), and if they are successful, they can transfer to junior secondary school or high school and write the CXCSEC. Students need a minimum of five passes (of either grades A, B, or C) at CXCSEC – including passes in both Mathematics and English A – for admission to the University of the West Indies (UWI) and University of Guyana, established in 1963 as a free public university.

3.1.4 ISCED Level 4–6: Postsecondary Schooling In response to the decline in student performances at the CXCCSEC, the National Fourth-Form Achievement Test ([NFFAT], later renamed the Pre-CXC examination) was introduced in 1988. Students at the end of Form IV in the general secondary school track take NFFAT, one year before CXCCSEC (Fig. 1). It aims to identify strengths and weaknesses in student performances and gather data on helping students select which CXCCSEC subjects they should write. In time, NFFAT became a predictor of CXCCSEC performance as it is managed and implemented by individual schools. Technical training institutes and the industrial training center – the Carnegie School of Home Economics and the Craft Production and Design Division – offer technical and vocational training. There is one central University, the University of Guyana. The primary teacher training college is the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE), while adult education is done through the Adult Education Association and the University of Guyana’s Institute of Distance and Continuing Education. 3.1.5 Teacher Training Today Today teacher education is done through the CPCE and the University of Guyana – across its two campuses at Tain (Berbice) and Turkeyen (Demerara) – while the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD) provides continuous professional development for in-service teachers. CPCE offers Associate Degrees in Education (ADE) across 14 centers. The average training for nursery, primary, and secondary is 8.9 years, 9.5 years, and 8.7 years, respectively. Upon graduating from CPCE, teachers are automatically certified to teach in Guyanese schools. Although the Ministry of Education is responsible for funding education, legal frameworks – given the fact that denominational schools, school-based management, and teachers are all public servants – dictate the terms and conditions of teacher employment. Today there are issues within regions 4 and 6 in terms of a ready supply of teachers: in 2011, only 38% of schools in the two regions had enough teachers to cover its basic science curriculum, and the teacher/student ratio was 1:35 at the upper levels (Ogowewo 2001). The portion of teachers trained during the last decade has remained consistent.

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Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

4.1

STEM/ICT/Digitization

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While the CXC measures STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) and Information Communication Technology (ICT) subjects through assessments such as CSES and CAPE, Guyana also recently launched initiatives in both areas. STEM courses offered in secondary schools in alignment with CSEC exams include information technology, mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, and technical drawing. In their postsecondary years, students can take courses aligned with CAPE that include these subjects, but also digital media, animation design, environmental sciences, and green engineering. Guyana launched a STEM pilot program in 2018, which was a joint cooperation between the Office of Climate Change (OCC) and the Ministry of Education (“STEM pilot programme launched in Bartica” 2018). This was 2 years after a similar pilot program was launched nationwide. This is currently being financed as a series of extracurricular STEM leagues, where students join after school to compete in local and international STEM competitions. The most notable of these current leagues are STEMGuyana (2019), which is both publicly and privately supported nationwide and allows students to compete in challenges such as robotics and computer coding. According to the Department of Information (DPI), Guyana launched a massive development strategy in 2020 to last 10 years, aptly called the Decade of Development (2019). Chief among the anticipated developments is an emphasis on education infrastructure; the major goal is for educators to receive STEM training. Guyana hopes to have one laptop per teacher, modernize ICT laboratories, and establish Guyana as a “digital state” (STEMGuyana 2019). The country’s past-President, David Granger (2015–2020), expressed hope that the initiative “by applying ICT to add value to our production and service sectors. . .will spawn knowledge-based industries, diversify the economy away from over-dependence on primary production, move manufacturing up the value chain and tap into larger external markets” (DPI 2019). There is also an allocated endowment to renovate the CPCE science center to include state of the art ICT training (2019).

4.2

Foreign Funding

In the years since the collapse of socialism in the country, Guyana has come to rely heavily on foreign investment in its education system. Loans from the World Bank, the IMF, and regional development groups have helped shape the modern Guyanese educational system. This funding system has seen a massive increase in schools’ resources, but an emphasis on efficiency has hampered teacher training. Since 2008, the government received numerous grants and loans (the World Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank, UNICEF, and the European Union) and its priorities of literacy, numeracy, science, and technology saw spending on education reach 15% of the national budget, at an estimated 214 billion Guyana dollars or 5% of GDP.

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Guyana was one of the first countries in the developing world to embark on the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) in 1981–1983. Later, an SAP reform called the Economic Recovery Programme of 1989 focused on advancing economic growth through public sector restructuring. In education, this led to a public sector that focused on an “efficient, transparent, high-performing and dedicated organisation, which can serve as the engine and catalyst for national development of all the other sectors– private, non-profit, voluntary and nongovemmental” (Sutton 2006, 118). While SAPs had “a mere superficiality or tinkering with the public institutions, leaving their essential features intact” (Sutton 2006, 132), they completely restructured national educational systems, leading to decreases in teacher salaries and greater emphases on improving efficiency and effectiveness. In 1989, the Ministry of Education was restructured and given responsibilities for children and family welfare. In 1991, the Ministry of Education was again reorganized, and this time it was given the designation of culture while the division of child and family welfare was transferred over to the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security. In 1990, the Inter-American Development Bank funded the Primary Education Improvement Project (PEIP) in Guyana with the goal of improving quality across three areas – in-service teacher training, textbooks, and curriculum, and improving physical conditions and facilities. On the other hand, the Secondary School Reform Project (SSRP) launched in 1996 focused on improving quality, relevance, equity, and efficiency through infrastructure development, in-service training and curriculum reform, and national and regional institutional strengthening. In 1999, Guyana qualified as a Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) through the Paris Club Lyons terms and received US$256 million in debt forgiveness, applying much of the profit to schools. By 2001, Guyana’s debt dropped to US$150 million. Educational improvements included the Primary Education Improvement Project (PEIP), funded by the Inter-American Development Bank for US$51 million in 2000; the Secondary School Reform Project (SSRP), funded from 1996 to 2004 through the World Bank; and the Guyana Education Access Project (GEAP), funded by DFID with US$20 million between 1998 and 2008. Guyana is also a Fast Track Initiative (FTI) country with funding of US$45 million for 2003–2015. By the mid2000s, as Guyana’s population declined, the Global Partnership in Education (GPE) was providing grants towards the improvement of literacy and numeracy at the nursery level. Since the late-1990s, privately owned schools as well as church- and faith-based schools have been reestablished and are self-financed. (These were the Maes’ School in 1992, the New Guyana School in 1994, and the School of Nations in 1996). Under the 1998 rules, the Minister of education dictates the number of private nurseries, primary, secondary schools, and teachers’ qualifications.

4.3

Teacher Quality

Issues with teacher quality have been continuously affecting student performance. On average, at the primary level, only about 50 percent of students pass the national Grade 2 student gain passes in CSEC (i.e., grades 1–3 passes in 5 subjects, including

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English A and Mathematics). These trends show that students are often not adequately ready for the world of work. From 2011 to 2015, the Guyana Improving Teacher Education Project (GITEP) focused on assisting Guyana “. . . to improve the effectiveness and efficiency in the delivery of quality teacher education in Guyana” (Ministry of Education 2014, 10). The program also gave CPCE the ability to deliver an Associate’s Degree program, and the University of Guyana the resources needed to offer a Bachelor of Education. Low teacher salaries, shortfalls in financing education, poor attendance, low passing rates at CXC, teacher migration, and the impact of HIV/AIDS became challenges to the Guyanese education system at the turn of the century. For example, the average teacher salary, per month, is 600 USD. In light of these challenges, the University of Guyana, which faced its own difficulties around staffing, financing, and infrastructure upkeep, struggled to retain and recruit students in the areas of science and mathematics. The amended 1999 Educational Act called for the creation of national Councils for Education to advise and make recommendations on all education-related matters.

4.4

Current Inequalities

4.4.1 Poverty The issue of extreme poverty, hovering at around 18%, continues to plague the system even after the austerity measures of the 2000s. At that time, the gross enrollment rate for primary education stood at 102%, and net enrollment was 84%, while the national completion rate for Grade 6 (end of primary school) was at 85.4%. However, drastic inequalities of access and equity of education existed between the coastal and hinterland areas. For example, Grade 6 completion rates for the Hinterland areas stood at 64.8%. The 2007 Education Bill called for a comprehensive educational system but kept corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure on the books. The Basic Education Access and Management Support (BEAMS) program formed the basis for reforms aimed at improving literacy and numeracy while reforming the public sector. Internal ministry reforms under this program included the rearrangement of the organizational structure, reorganizing the central ministry, and further decentralization of the Georgetown district. Implementation of the 2008 Education Strategic Plan and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) of 2011–2015 benefitted from external support – namely the World Bank and the Fast Track Initiative Catalytic Fund – which supported “improving numeracy and literacy; improving classroom environment; school health, nutrition and HIV&AIDS; universal secondary education or USE; improving teacher education and training; and education and the world of work” (Ministry of Education 2014, 10). 2008 also saw the government of Guyana working closely with the World Bank on its Education for All – Fast Track Initiative (EFA-FTI) that focused on:

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the procurement and distribution of textbooks at the primary level; payment of the Remote Area Incentives to teachers teaching in primary schools in deep riverine and hinterland regions; provision of hot meals, construction of teachers’ houses in hinterland communities, and improvement of utilities (water, electricity) and sanitary facilities. (Ministry of Education 2014, 10)

Guyana was one of the first countries to join EFA-FTI in 2003 as part of its PRSP commitments and to ensure that it was on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Education For All Fast Track Initiative goals for primary education by 2015. Its EFA-FTI endeavors focused on attaining equity in accessing quality education and creating a literate and numerate society by focusing on teacher training in the hinterland region, enhancing teaching/learning environment, and strengthening school-community partnerships (EFA-FTI 2004). Under the EFA-FTI program, utilities (water, sanitation, and electricity) were upgraded in 37 primary schools. Moreover, the program focused on providing access to the indigenous peoples, the historically disadvantaged Amerindians. In fact, recognizing the historical disparities that have plagued this population, the program called for the delivery of culturally compatible, socially, and economically beneficial material to Amerindian communities while enabling the provision of teacher training programs and the development of teacher and pedagogical resources. Also, in 2008, the 9th- and 10th-grade Secondary Competency Certificate Programme (SCCP) was launched, which was aimed at perceived at-risk students who were at high risk of dropping out. The program, implemented in 118 general secondary schools and practical instruction centers, specified that students take the core subjects (English A, Mathematics, Integrated Science, and Social Studies), along with a prevocational elective. At the beginning of the 2008–2013 Education Strategic Plan, the ministry of education identified that its main challenges were teacher and student absenteeism, lack of achievement in national learning assessments at the primary level, and low passing rates at CXC. While the amended 1999 Educational Act calls for the appointment of attendance officers and gives Magistrates the power to deal with offenses, it is rarely enforced. By 2012, per-pupil spending was $333USD, $304USD, and $395USD, respectively, for nursery, primary, and secondary schooling. The secondary level has the highest level of government expenditure. Attempts to address the inequalities also led to an expansion of alternative programs. In 2004, the Basic Competency Certificate Programme (BCCP) was launched as an alternative conduit for secondary students who were interested in technical and vocational training. The Escuela Nueva Programme, aimed at improving the quality of rural public schools and incorporating Health and Family Life Education (HFLE), was expanded to other hinterland communities. Finally, the 2003–2007 Education Plan (Ministry of Education 2003) called for the development of a core curriculum for the first three years of secondary school and a National Third Form Examination was instituted. Students were then expected to write on four core CXCCSEC subjects – English Language, Mathematics, Integrated Science, and Social Studies – in one of two tracks – foreign languages or skill-based vocational competencies. In 2004, the National Accreditation Council was established.

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The 2014–2018 Education Strategic Plan (Ministry of Education 2014) identified that the primary deficiencies at all levels were weak learning outcomes, especially in English and Mathematics. Therefore, the plan focused on maximizing learning achievements while discouraging truancy. The Ministry of Education (2014) also identified a three-system-level enabling conditions – (i) capacities of implementing units; (ii) an accountability system; and (iii) limited autonomy for schools – as the main constraints affecting the education system. The three system-level enabling conditions drew attention to the issues around learning achievements, outcomes, and assessments. Four factors – facilities quality, teacher quality, curriculum quality and learning materials, and classroom time – have impacted learning outcomes (Ministry of Education 2014).

4.5

Emerging/Continuing Issues

4.5.1 HIV/AIDS Since the 1980s began, education in Guyana has had to address the new cultural epidemic of HIV/AIDS. The adult HIV infection rate, of one percent, is second globally to sub-Saharan Africa (UNAIDS & WHO 2009). Caribbean youth and teachers are part of the “AIDS generation” (Kiragu 2001; Jules 2012) because of two specific indicators: (i) the high prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS in the region and (ii) youth of the Caribbean have come of age in a region plagued by the epidemic to the point that it is a daily reality for them (Jules 2012). The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean has significantly impacted the teaching profession through its influence of the performance, retention, training, and recruitment of teachers. Further, it has removed “wage-earners from employment, deflect[ed] resources to medical and health care, and draw[n] down on savings and capital” (Kelly and Bain 2003, 45) while engendering losses of professional personnel, increases in truancy, medical care spending, and the cost needed to recruit and train auxiliary labor. Coupled with these facts, students and youth of childbearing ages continue to be affected. It was not until the 1990s that educational reforms focused on prevention, stigmatization, inurement, and the rights of people living with HIV and AIDS were enacted. Several countries have since developed national HIV/AIDS policies with the help of the Pan Caribbean Health Organization (PANCAP). In 1994, the development of a Health and Family Life Education (HFLE) Curriculum, which promotes responsible decision-making about social and sexual behavior among the Caribbean youth, was proposed in CARICOM countries. Recently, private schools have added the delivery of Health and Family Life Education (HFLE) to their curriculum. While commitments to EFA were about expanding enrollments in basic education across Guyana, HFLE was a response to the “AIDS Generation” and geared towards developing high-esteem mature students who could problem-solve while being creative and critical thinkers. HFLE is a curriculum framework endorsed by the CARICOM Standing Committee of Ministers of Health and Education in 1996 and provides goals, objectives, standards, outcomes, and sample lessons in four thematic areas: (i) sexuality and sexual health

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(which includes HIV/AIDS prevention); (ii) self and interpersonal relationships (which integrates violence prevention); (iii) appropriate eating and fitness; and (iv) and managing the environment. Over time, HFLE became implemented at the primary school level for students in Grades 1–6, while all students at the secondary level, excluding those in Grades 7–9, are being taught HFLE. HFLE got a further boost when INIVEG provided a US$1.2 million grant to support this initiative. In 2003, CARICOM countries endorsed a shift from HFLE using an “informationbased model to a skills development model” that now has four thematic areas: sexuality and sexual health (which encompasses HIV/AIDS prevention), self and interpersonal relationships (which incorporates violence prevention), appropriate eating and fitness, and managing the environment (UNICEF et al. 2008).

5

Conclusion

Education in Guyana developed robustly in the mid- to the late-twentieth century past four distinct milestones: (i) a native curriculum was developed between 1966 and 1976; (ii) education was made free by 1990; (iii) equity of access was achieved by 1995; and (iv) quality basic education endorsed by 2000. The Education Sector Plan (ESP) for 2014–2018 (Ministry of Education 2014) notes that its “focuses [is] on increasing the learning achievements at all levels of education and for all sub-groups and decreasing the differences in learning outcomes between subgroups, especially between students in coastal and hinterland schools” (p. 1). However, at-risk and vulnerable children and special education are two subgroups that require urgent attention and thus, there is a call for an evaluation of the amount of time that students spend learning. Nonformal education is provided through civil society organizations and nongovernmental organizations, while private tuition and supplemental education “lessons” are pervasive at the primary and secondary levels as teachers offer supplementary classes, outside of class time, to subsidize their low wages. The current system faces several governmental and financial constraints. In the past decade, enrollment has been decreasing due to emigration, yet there has been a superlative growth in private suppliers of education at all levels, though there is no comprehensive data on the actual numbers. Management and accountability issues remain. However, the main challenge that remains is curriculum reforms. The curriculum, which has not been reformed since the 1990s, focuses on what “students should know,” and therefore, the emphasis has not been placed on developing critical skills and global learning competencies. Thus, textbooks and teaching materials have also not been updated since the 1990s. Guyana faces many challenges in maintaining an adequate teacher supply. The challenges range from inadequate training (especially for Special Education) to cultural issues (such as early retirement ages). Additionally, low pay, poor working conditions, and competition all contribute to the personnel shortage. The most significant challenge Guyana faces is keeping its best trained people in the country. While it continues to look to its regional country partners to assist in teacher training,

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such as with Mico College in Jamaica for special education teachers (Ministry of Education and Cultural Development, 1995), it is also losing its best trained teachers to other countries in the region, primarily due to the aggressive recruiting some countries employ. The 2006 country poverty assessment/analysis revealed that 36% of the population lived in moderate poverty, while 19% lived in extreme poverty. Since poverty is still an issue in rural areas, educational access and equity in these regions remain a challenge. Moreover, the education system is plagued by years of under-investment and faces several challenges in areas ranging from early childhood education to teaching quality. While exceptional progress has been made towards the advancement of universal primary and secondary schooling, there are still issues around equity and quality at both levels. Despite commitments towards having better access at all levels of the educational systems, challenges remain. Guyana’s education reforms are currently intertwined with the regional vision expounded in CARICOM’s Human Resource Development (HRD) 2030 Strategy (CARICOM 2018) that calls for a seamless HRD system and emphasizes that students should know how to learn, know oneself, and develop technological skills, scientific literacies, civic literacies, problem-solving, design-thinking, communication skills, multilingualism, the ability to manage change and transformation of self and society, and mathematical literacy. Yet, a significant portion of education is funded through donor (bilateral, multilateral, and UN agencies) support. With the emergence of oil exploration off its coast and the first oil extracted in 2020 coupled with the new presidential administration under President Irfaan Ali, Guyana’s educational system is still not producing the talent needed for the new labor market. In short, the current system is not adequately meeting the labor market demands for trained students who have twenty-first-century skills – creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication.

References CARICOM Human Resource Development (HRD) 2030 Strategy. CARICOM. (2018). https:// caricom.org/documents/16065-caricom-hrd-2030-strategy-viewing.pdf Bacchus, M. K. (1994). Education as and for legitimacy: Developments in West Indian education between 1846 and 1895. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Bindi, K. P. (1992). Teacher training in the Anglo-Eastern Caribbean. In D. Ray & D. Poonwassie (Eds.), Education and cultural differences: New perspectives (pp. 237–254). New York: Routledge. Cameron, N. E. (1968). 150 years of education in Guyana, 1808–1957: With special reference to post-primary education. Georgetown: Autoprint Guyana. Campbell, C. (1965). The development of vocational training in Jamaica: First steps. Caribbean Quarterly, 11(1/2), 13–35. Dean, D. (2009). Joshua and the education of a nation: Jamaica educational reform in the ManleyEra, 1972–1980. Master’s Theses. 513. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/513 DPI. (2019). Teachers must be equipped in STEM education. Department of Public Information, September 27, 2019. https://dpi.gov.gy/teachers-must-be-equipped-in-stem-education/

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EFA-FIT. (2004). Guyana: Education for All – Fast Track Initiative (EFA-FTI) Program: Amerindian Peoples’ Strategy. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/699941468252044974/pdf/ ipp95.pdf Gordon, S. C. (1962). Documents which have guided Educational Policy in the West Indies: Rev. John Sterling’s Report, May 1835. Caribbean Quarterly, 8(3), 145–153. Gordon, S. C. (1963). A century of West Indian education: A source book. London: Longmans Western Printing Services, Ltd.. Hall, K. (2003). Re-inventing CARICOM: The road to a new integration. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers. Howe, H. W. (1956). The school in its relation to the community. In Education in the Caribbean (pp. 12–25). Trinidad and Tobago: Kent House. ISCED. (2011). Guidelines for classifying National Education Programme and related qualifications. NYC: UNESCO. Jules, T. D. (2010). Beyond post-socialist conversions: Functional cooperation and trans-regional regimes in the global South. In I. Silova (Ed.), Post-socialism is not dead: (Re)Reading the global in comparative education (pp. 401–426). Bingley: Emerald Publishing. Jules, T. (2012). Neither world polity nor local or National Societies: Regionalization in the global south – The Caribbean community. Berlin: Peter Lang. Jules, T., & Williams, H. (2016). Education reform initiatives in the Caribbean Basin. In I. MintoCoy & E. Berman (Eds.), Public administration and policy in the Caribbean (pp. 247–294). Boca Raton: CRC Press. Kandasammy, L. A brief history of education in Guyana during the 19th century. Stabroek News, September 22, 2005. https://www.landofsixpeoples.com/news503/ns5092250.htm Kelly, M., & Bain, B. (2003). Education and HIV-AIDS in the Caribbean. Paris: UNESCO. King, R. (1999). Education in the British Caribbean: The legacy of the nineteenth century. In E. Miller (Ed.), Educational reform in the Commonwealth Caribbean (pp. 25–49). Organization of American States. Kiragu, K. (2001). Youth and HIV/AIDS: Can we avoid catastrophe? Youth and HIV/AIDS: Can we avoid catastrophe? Bloomberg School of Public Health. Lee, F. (2000). The evolution-involution of “Co-perative socialism” in Guyana, 1930–1984. Merida: Pandemonium Electronic Publication. Metzler, J. (2009). The developing states and education: Africa. In: R. Cowan & A. Kazamias (Eds.), International handbook of comparative education (pp. 277–294). Netherlands: Springer Ministry of Communities. (2019). Regional democratic councils. https://moc.gov.gy/regionaldemocratic-councils/ Ministry of Education. (2003). Education strategic plan 2003–2007. Georgetown: Government of Guyana. Ministry of Education. (2014). The 2014–2018 education strategic plan. Georgetown: Government of Guyana. Ministry of Education and Cultural Development. (1995). An education policy and five-year development plan for Guyana. Georgetown: Government of Guyana. Ogowewo, A. O. A. Supply and demand of Secondary School Science Teachers in Regions 4 and 6 in Guyana: Key element in National Development. In The International Journal of Learning: Annual Review 17 (11): 443–458. 2011. Quamina-Aiyejina, George, J Mohammed, J Fournillier, and S Otway-Charles. Primary Teacher Trainees: Characteristics, Images, Experiences and Expectations. Primary Teacher Trainees: Characteristics, Images, Experiences and Expectations. St Augustine, 2001. Paul, U. M., Bernard, M., Dash. R., & Hamilton, E. (1991). Guyana. In M Bray (Ed.) Ministries of education in small states: Case studies of organizational and management (pp.123–138). Commonwealth Secretariat. Richardson, B. C. (1993). The Caribbean in the wider world, 1942–1992: A regional geography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Rose, E. A. (2002). Dependency and socialism in the modern Caribbean: Superpower intervention in Guyana, Jamaica, and Grenada, 1970–1985. Lanham: Lexington Books. Rush, A. S. (2011). Bonds of empire: West Indians and Britishness from Victoria to decolonization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. STEM Pilot Programme Launched in Bartica. Guyana Chronicle, March 1, 2018. https:// guyanachronicle.com/2018/03/01/stem-pilot-programme-launched-in-bartica STEMGuyana. FAQ. 2019. http://stemguyana.com/stemguyana-faq/ Sutton, P. K. (2006). Modernizing the State: Public sector reform in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers. UNAIDS & WHO. (2009). AIDS epidemic update December 2009. Geneva: UNAIDS. http://data. unaids.org/pub/report/2009/jc1700_epi_update_2009_en.pdf. UNICEF, CARICOM, & EDC. (2008). Regional Health and Family Life Education (HFLE) Curriculum Framework, ages 9–14”. http://hhd.org/sites/hhd.org/files/HFLE%20Curriculum% 20Framework_Merged.pdf Walters, E. H. (1970). Some experiments in training personnel for the education of young children in the British Caribbean. International Review of Education, 16(1), 110–119. Whitehead, C. (2005a). The historiography of British Imperial education policy, part I: India. History of Education, 34(3), 315–329. Whitehead, C. (2005b). The historiography of British Imperial education policy, part II: Africa and the rest of the colonial empire. History of Education, 34(4), 441–454. Williams, E. (1946). Education in dependent territories in America. The Journal of Negro Education, 15(3), 534–551. Williams, E. (1956). The need for instructional materials related to the Caribbean environment. In Caribbean Commission Central Secretariat (Ed.), Education in the Caribbean (pp. 3–11). Trinidad: Kent House. World Bank. (1993). Caribbean region: Access quality and efficiency in education. Washington: World Bank. Wright, J. A. (1989). The development of teacher education in the Caribbean, with special reference to Antigua, Grenada and the United States Virgin Islands (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), University of Hull, UK.

The Education System of Haiti History, Challenges, and Perspectives

27

Marky Jean-Pierre

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations of Education in Haiti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background of Haiti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Geography and Demography, Political System, and Economy and Labor Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Economy and Labor Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Haiti’s Cultural Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Education Sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles, Administration, and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED-Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends, Challenges, and Open Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Advances Toward Tackling Inequality: Private and Public Schools and Sponsored Educational Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 The Issue of Language in the Haitian Education System: A Critical Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Challenges and Open Issues: ICT, Digitalization, and STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

682 683 683 685 686 688 690 690 690 700 700 702 703 704 705

Abstract

This chapter discusses Haiti’s educational context in comparison to the state of education in the world as assessed by UNESCO’s classification. While the discussion takes into account the history that informs Haitian society, it particularly considers the post–World War II period, maintaining that education in Haiti Many thanks to Professor William J. Fielding, Dr. Laurephile Desrosiers, Dr. Grete Viddal, and Professor Willot M. Joseph for their feedback and suggestions. M. Jean-Pierre (*) Foreign Language Department, Faculty of Liberal and Fine Arts, The University of The Bahamas, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_33

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needs to be analyzed in light of the sociopolitical dynamics that prevailed in the country during the second to the fourth decade of the twentieth century, particularly the period of the American Occupation (1915–1934), and the later emergence of the political regime led by the Duvalier family, which has marked the sociopolitical configuration of present-day Haiti in significant ways. Following a brief overview of the geographical, historical, social, and cultural contexts of Haiti, this chapter outlines the configuration of the education system in light of the UNESCO model. In spite of the challenges that the Haitian education sector has faced, this chapter emphasizes the creative power of human mind and articulates a discourse of possibility rather than a cult of lamentation or a deficit discourse that overlooks the prospects for human beings to change their material existence. Keywords

Haiti · Education System · Post-World War II · Caribbean · ISCED

1

Introduction

This chapter discusses Haiti’s educational system in relation to a series of historical developments that formed the nation. The history that brought Haitian society into existence has been tumultuous and permeates all of its social structures. Whether at the level of language, political orientations, social practices, or education, Haitian society has been engaged with its unique history and society. Regarding modes of communication, there is a language dichotomy in Haiti that constitutes a roadblock to education as opposed to being a factor in educational enrichment. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians still long for their country to realize enduring sustainable development and also achieve an educational system that can adequately address their needs. Difficult situations and a tempestuous history have led Haitian people to engage in creative modes of being and robust social and cultural practices. These creative modes of being have in turn informed how the nation has carved out an educational system. This chapter outlines some of the major elements of Haiti’s education system in light of the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) while sketching the sociopolitical structure underpinning the said system. After a brief review of the history of Haiti; including an outline of its geography, demographics, political system, economy, and culture; this chapter considers Haiti’s education system in light of ISCED categorization of education in the world, while highlighting both challenges and possibilities for growth. This study has been developed in part using data from documents produced by the Haitian Institute of Statistics and Informatics (IHSI), the Statistical Office of the Department of Planning and External Cooperation (DPCE) at the Ministry of National Education of Haiti, other agencies at this Ministry, international institutions working in Haiti such as the World Bank and UNESCO, publications by scholars who have conducted research on education in Haiti, and documents produced by the Haitian Ministry of National Education.

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2

Historical and Social Foundations of Education in Haiti

2.1

General Historical Background of Haiti

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Recognizing how historical events, geography, and political corollaries have shaped the social conditions of the people of Haiti is necessary to an understanding of the development of its education sector. Four major historical milestones intersect with the existence of the contemporary society known as Haitian: the memorable dates of 1492, 1697, 1791, and 1804. The year of 1492 marks the time in the history of the American Continent when a free and kind hospitable human group constituted of ethnic subgroups such as Tainos, Caribs, and Arawak surprisingly noticed the presence of a European entrepreneur known as Christopher Columbus along with his crew after having been lost for months on the ocean. The humanity of this group made them recognize the apparent humanity of Columbus and they welcomed him with traditional rituals including precious gifts. Unfortunately, the humanity of Christopher Columbus answered in a different way. Within a short period of time, the native peoples of the Caribbean islands were nearly decimated. Shortly after, Africans became the next target, as they were people that could be enslaved, and become the new fuel to operate the pot of capitalist modes of production. Many Africans were enslaved and transported to the Caribbean. Spain claimed possession of the island of Hispaniola, whose indigenous people referred to it as “Quisqueya” or “Ayiti.” But, this was later challenged by France, another colonial empire also involved in trafficking humans from the African continent. The year of 1697 marks the time when Spain and France reached a settlement on the percentage of the island of Hispaniola each empire would control. The former became today’s Dominican Republic, and the latter became today’s Haiti. Under the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick, Spain retained the eastern part of the island while the western part was ceded to France. Next, throughout the eighteenth century, France turned to using imported enslaved Africans, rather than Indigenous Americans, to labor on plantations and enrich metropolitan France. To keep their system of bondage intact, France established a power structure made of fear, cruelty, rape, and their corollaries. In 1791, slaves in the French colony of Saint Domingue rebelled against atrocities. This year began with a series of armed movements that eventually culminated in the triumph in January 1804 of what is known today as the Haitian Revolution. During the revolution’s many clashes was the Battle of Vertières in November 1803. Here, enslaved freedom fighters of African descent confronted Napoleon’s army in a bloody war that Le Glaunec (2014) describes as “apocalyptic” (79). The rebelling slaves managed to defeat Napoleon’s soldiers, one of the most impressive armies in the world, and triumphed in a victory that included human rights regardless of race and denounced slavery and human trafficking. The year of 1804 was also the time when that formerly enslaved Africans first proclaimed the newly independent country of Haiti free from slavery and European colonial governance. Notably, there were only two independent nations on the North

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American continent at this time. Firstly, the United States, which declared its independence from England in 1776, and next, Haiti, which, after defeating France, declared its independence in 1804. Being the only nation ruled by a Black government in the Americas at that time, and the only country resulting from a successful slave uprising, Haiti spent the first century of its existence as a pariah country. Thus, throughout the nineteenth century Haiti searched for ways to build a prosperous and dignified nation according to the will of the brave rebel slaves who became its founding fathers. But, becoming a modern nineteenth century nation was a thorny trajectory. In 1825, France sent a fleet of fourteen warships into the bay of the capital city of Port-au-Prince, with the goal of summoning the Haitian authorities to pay a large sum that would “compensate” the French for the alleged damage they suffered for losing their human and material “properties,” that is, their plantations and enslaved persons. Refusing to enter into another war, the Head of the State, Jean-Pierre Boyer (1818–1843), agreed to pay France. Later, at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, as the country continued to face challenges to become a developed nation including paying off its nineteenth century “debt of independence” to France, the United States invaded Haiti. In 1914 the United States established a military occupation that finally ended in 1934. But there was a long and difficult confrontation between the US soldiers and the Haitian population, as the US Army faced multiple rebellions nationwide, all around the time of the era of a New World Order following two World Wars. The US Occupation caused trauma and instability for the rural populations of Haiti, by, among other strategies, compelling them to engage in forced work brigades to build roads and bridges to facilitate resource extraction and foreign-owned plantations, and sending representatives to menace and eradicate the peasants traditional culture, including Vodou, an African-inspired religious tradition melded with Catholicism. Post–World War II education in Haiti should thus be analyzed in light of the sociopolitical dynamics that prevailed in the country during the second and the third decade of the twentieth century. As the world recovered from the violence and instability caused by the two World Wars, Haiti had to deal with fragile social and political environments in the post-occupation period. At the same time, the nation was attempting to honor the history that brought freedom to its citizens and the desiderata of the forefathers who wished a glorious future for the first Black republic in the Americas. As Tardieu-Dehoux (1990) recognizes, from 1915 to 1934, the United States established a series of measures favorable to its hegemonic interests. Seeking to maintain its presence beyond the Occupation, the United States directed systemic changes, particularly at the level of the Haitian Army, public treasure and finances, communication, agriculture, and education. Tardieu-Dehoux (1990) describes the period of 1934–1957 (i.e., the first two post-occupation decades) as a period of consolidation of foreign government interests in Haiti, particularly those of the United States. Also, during the period of the presidency of Dumarsais Estimé, 1946–1950, foreign aid was instituted in Haiti, which intersected with dependency, the promotion of European culture, and a neglect of indigenous knowledge and local values (Tardieu-Dehoux 1990, 112–113). The political instabilities of the post-

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occupation period led to a series of provisional governments and ultimately contributed to the rise of the Duvalier family dictatorship, which lasted from 1957 through 1986, when massive street protests finally forced out the Duvalier regime. A new Haiti began to flourish after the 1986 ousting of the Duvalier dictatorship, with a new constitution and new form of government. But, from 1986 to the present, Haiti still continues to quest for the political stability needed to sustain the socioeconomic development of the country. After a long and hard-fought revolution instigated by the enslaved subjects in Saint Domingue resulted in triumph and the former French colony became the independent nation of Haiti, the new state faced international ostracism for much of the nineteenth century. Eventually, in exchange for political recognition, Haiti agreed to pay an economically crippling indemnity to France. Next, during the early twentieth century, and in the post–World War II context, Haiti had to deal with the aftermath of the American Occupation, a nearly 30-year dictatorship (1957–1986), and a series of political instabilities that have hindered the development of its education sector. The contemporary society of Haiti continues to work toward a decent existence by making sense of multiple challenges. The current period is one that invites Haitians to engage with creative modes of being that can positively impact the general social configuration of the country and bring human dignity to its people. In spite of its challenges, the call to advance the Haitian education sector must be geared toward the creative power of Haitian society and the agency of human beings to change their material existence. A cult of lamentation, especially by disheartened Haitians and supported by some international aid organizations or first-world governmental groups, and their continuous discourses of deficit, result in that we overlook concurrent articulations of a discourse of possibility and evolution.

2.2

Geography and Demography, Political System, and Economy and Labor Market

2.2.1 Institutional and Organizational Principles As indicated, Haiti shares the island of Quisqueya with Dominican Republic. Both countries are former colonies, one of France, the other of Spain. Haiti occupies the western third (36%) of this island, located between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Of neighboring islands, Cuba is the closest at 50 miles away across the Windward Passage, Jamaica lies 120 miles (190 km) west of the southern peninsula and Great Inagua, and The Bahamas are located approximately 70 miles (110 km) to the north. Haiti has an area of 27,065.07 km2 which is around the size of Maryland in the United States. About two-thirds of the total land area is above 1,600 feet (490 m) in elevation. In different parts of the country, there are limestone caves, grottoes, and subterranean rivers. Per Article 8 of its Constitution, Haiti encompasses several islands (Lagonav Latòti, Lilavach, Gwo Kayimit, Ti Kayimit, Lanavaz, Gwòskay; as named in Haitian Creole) as well as its main landmass. Its lowest point is the Caribbean Sea at 0 m and its highest point is the Chaine de la Selle, at 2,680 m.

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In terms of demography, the Haitian Institute of Statistics and Information Technology (IHSI) predicted significant population growth, from 8,373,750 (based on the most recent census conducted in 2003) to 10,085,214 by 2010 and 10,911,819 by 2015. IHSI projects that the population will be near 12,000,000 by 2020 (Haitian Government 2007). The age group of 0–15-year-old accounts for 38.5% of the population whereas the age group 65 and older comprises 6.3% of the population (Haitian Government 2003). With a precarious sociopolitical situation, a declining gross domestic product, and a rapidly growing population of school age children, the country is at risk for an increase in its illiterate population if families are unable to access affordable education for their children. Politically, Haiti is a sovereign and democratic republic. The Haitian Constitution proclaims a plurality of ideologies, political alternatives, anti-discriminatory principles, acceptance of plurilingualism and multiculturalism, the separation of powers, human rights, and a culture of peace and inclusivity. The Constitution also postulates that the responsibility of leading the country is shared among three branches of power with a clear separation of executive, judicial, and legislative powers, as well as specifying various local and decentralized governance structures. The sociopolitical history of Haiti prompted the World Bank to state in its 2006 report that “Haitian politics swing between two key dangers: captured by privileged elites who harness government to protect their dominant position in society; and populism that neglects the country’s long-term institutional and economic development while paying lip service to the poor” (World Bank 2006, 66). While the World Bank report calls for a balance of these competing forces and encourages democratic consolidation, the structural inequalities that prevail in the country must be addressed in the search for a stable sociopolitical context.

2.3

Economy and Labor Market

The economic structure of Haiti emphasizes a free market economy. Exports include apparel, manufactured goods, essential oils (particularly vetiver), cocoa, mangoes, and coffee. The services sector makes up over 57% of total GDP, the industry sector 20.8%, and agriculture 21.9% (indicating that agriculture plays a significant role in Haitian economy). As for natural resources, the online World Atlas reports that recent studies show that “the nation of Haiti might have some of the largest oil reserves in the world” (2020). An online article published by the World Oil magazine reports on a statement by Daniel Mathurin, a researcher on geophysics and resource management, according to whom the “Central Plateau, including the region of Thomonde, the plain of Cul-de-Sac and the bay of Port-au-Prince are filled with oil” (World Oil Magazine 2010). The article also reports that “Haiti’s oil reserves are larger than those of Venezuela. An Olympic pool compared to a glass of water is the comparison showing the importance of oil Haitian compared to those of Venezuela” (World Oil Magazine 2010). Additionally, the World Atlas reports that “Haiti is rich in natural resources including arable land, oil, natural gas, gold, and copper,” that the “nation of Haiti is thought to have gold deposits worth about $20 billion,” that “Haiti

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has considerable deposits of limestone and marble,” and that it is “home to the Cervicos limestone formation which dates back to the Paleogene period” (World Atlas 2019). Discussing the economic intricacy of Haiti, scholars at the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) signal that “Haiti exports 60 products with revealed comparative advantage (meaning that its share of global exports is larger than what would be expected from the size of its export economy and from the size of a product’s global market)” (2017). Beyond all these resources and economic possibilities, Haiti is a country that can grow different types of food throughout the year; also it is surrounded by ocean and encompasses several lakes that could be exploited to facilitate a viable fishing industry. With these considerations, it is perplexing to witness the suffering of a significant number of its population. Meanwhile, the population of school age children continues to increase. In fact, sociopolitical uncertainties exacerbate the economic situation, which thus in turn intersects with the stability of Haiti’s education system. Doré (2010) signals an increase in the social demand for job training since the early 2000s. In his work on professional training programs in Haiti, Doré mentions that many young people who fail the official high school exams still find ways to secure a job, which goes counter to common perception. A survey of l’Unité d’Études Scientifiques et de Formation pour le Développement (USFED) reported by Doré (2010) indicates that during the period 1994–2000, 57% of young Haitians who did not obtain their high school diploma were able to find a job, either as a primary school teacher, or in security, business, construction, as an agricultural technician, in carpentry, fashion, or in the clothing industry (USFED 2002, cited in Doré 2010, 166). The survey indicates that 30% of youth learn these trades on the job. Doré (2010) also maintains that the situation of this group, socioeconomically speaking, is less problematic than those who have obtained their high school diploma but are unable to access higher education. A survey conducted by the Institut Haitien de Statistiques et d’Informatique (IHSI) (Haitian Institute of Statistics and Informatics) indicates that only 37% of the population of Haiti is officially employed. It comprises 56.8% males and 45.5% females. Also, of the working population, 77.4% are self-employed, 11% work in the private sector, and 2.8% work in the public sector (Haitian Government 2003). The remaining 8.7% are distributed into family-owned business (5.4%), NGOs (0.2%), homecare (0.4%), and “other” (2.7%). This survey indicates that 44.6% of the working population are employed in the agriculture sector, followed by 27.7% in the business sector. Notably, 60% of the agricultural workforce is classified as having no formal education (Haitian Government 2003). Over 90% of the educated workforce is divided among the private sector (44.6%) the public sector including administration and enterprises (26%) and the self-employed (21.3%). The remaining are found in the NGO sector (2.7%), family-owned businesses (1.7%), and “other” (4.2%). While 21.3% of the educated workforce is self-employed, data indicate that 90.4% of the uneducated workforce – that is, those with no formal education – are found in the self-employment category. The rate of the self-employed workforce falls to only 75% for those in the educated

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workforce that have a primary level of education, and to 54% for those with a secondary level of education. It is the reverse at the level of the workforce in the public sector and the private sector, showing respectively 2.9% and 0.4% for the uneducated workforce, 10.7% and 1.6% for those with primary level of education, 28.2% and 7.9% for those with a secondary level of education, and 44.1% and 26% for the workforce with a university level of education (Haitian Government 2003, 359). In terms of distribution, the sectors where the university level workforce is concentrated are finance (47.4%), public administration and activities related to social security (32.6%), health and activities related to social programs (23.6%), the real estate market, rental services and enterprise services providers (19%), and the education sector (12.7%). The sectors where the university level workforce concentration is smallest are the agricultural sector (0.1%), and “other” (less than 5%), which includes manufacturing, energy production, gas and water, small businesses and mechanics, construction, hostelry and culinary art, and transportation.

2.4

Haiti’s Cultural Contexts

We now turn our attention to culture as it pertains to Haiti. In discussing the notion of culture, Shein (2011) criticizes several approaches to culture (e.g., the Survey Research Approach, the Analytical Descriptive Approach, and the Ethnographic Approach). He argues that these models overly focus on norms, behaviors, and patterns. Instead, Shein proposes an eclectic approach to culture, according to which culture is seen as: 1) “a pattern of shared basic assumptions” 2) “invented, discovered, or developed by a given group” 3) “as it [the group] learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration” 4) “has worked well enough to be considered valid, and, therefore, 5) “is to be taught to new members of the group, and a 6) “correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems” (2011, 312). There are two elements in Shein’s approach to culture that deserve attention. The first one is the fact that the author assimilates culture to what is “shared” and the second is the notion of “content” as regards culture. According to Shein, “culture is the shared common learning output” (2011, 313), and “a given group’s culture will reflect what that group has learned in solving its particular problems in its own history” (2011, 314). Observing Haiti as a society that has been facing chronic and difficult experiences that stem from factors such as political turmoil, natural disasters, and socioeconomic crises, one may tend to reduce its culture to these phenomena. While these unappealing material conditions may dominate the attention of an external observer, they are nonetheless ambiguous and contested. What is more likely to define the shared contents of Haitian society is its resistance to conditions that threaten its dignified existence as a nation. While such resistance and resilience have yet to be translated into decent living conditions for its citizens, to a critically conscious cultural observer, they constitute the greatest available resource of the elements of the culture, in terms of shared contents. This is to say that when studying

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culture, as Shein mentions, one has to adopt an eclectic approach. Defining the culture of the Haitian people in light of its resistance against meaninglessness, language becomes a key component to consider. A thorough analysis involving the cultural contents of the Haitian existential experience since its emergence as the first independent Black Republic in the Americas is beyond the scope of this chapter. We can, nevertheless, mention the Haitian Creole language as an element of these cultural contents. It is a language that transcends the imposed philological hierarchy and it is the main medium of expression of the whole nation. Parallelly, the political culture of the nation must be seen in as resistance to multiple forms of politics that fail to advocate for the desire of the population for human decency and dignity. That said, Haiti’s political turmoil, and its intense and notable street demonstrations, represents the resistance of the people against meaninglessness as opposed to being the defining factors of the political culture of the nation. It is obvious that this resistance needs to be re-appropriated into a call for human decency and just and fair material conditions for the common people of Haiti. Language represents perhaps the thorniest issue the education system continues to endure and is still a work in progress. The Haitian speech community is comprised of over 90% monolingual creolophone speakers. Next, around 10% of Haitians are relatively bilingual speakers of both Haitian Creole and French. The country that became Haiti was a French colony from 1697 to 1804. During the colonial period, the dynamics of slavery encouraged the emergence of a creole speech community. Both French and Creole exist in Haitian society, but not in a continuum. In fact, their usage parallels the socioeconomic divide in the country. French is portrayed as the language of the upper class and well-educated Haitians and the Creole as the language of the illiterate masses. A work of re-appropriation involves putting both languages to the service of the academic development of Haitian students, with a consideration for their respective pedagogical status. In the educational sector, Creole would be beneficially deployed as the first language and main medium of instruction, with French being taught as a pedagogy of enhanced heritage language. While this brief sketch focuses on language as a “shared content” and a durable element, it does not occlude other important aspects of Haitian society and culture. What we should acknowledge is that a caveat must be considered when delineating what is Haitian culture given the tendency to reduce its people to the material conditions that pervade their life. Additionally, the notion of resistance with regard to the culture of Haiti can indeed offer a way of studying different manifestations that may be ascribed to culture and the creative process that fortifies them as a social group that strives to exist with dignity against all odds. Whether at the level of music, such as Haiti’s traditional genres Rara, Konpa, and Madigra, or religious practices such as Vodou or Christian-based groups, and even the arts, there is a level of creativity that interweaves with some form of resistance. Studies on Haitian culture find strong juncture between creativity and modes of resistance. As for the education sector, one needs only recognize Haitian parents’ sacrifices to send their children to school to appreciate their resistance against ignorance and illiteracy. The next section takes up the demographics of Haiti.

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3

The Education Sector

3.1

General Principles, Administration, and Governance

The Haitian Ministry of National Education indicates in its mandated set of curricula that education in Haiti is inspired by a humanist and pragmatic philosophy and emphasizes the affirmation of Haitian persona (Jean-Pierre 2019). Haitian Laws conform to the Ministry of National Education and Professional Trainings, the Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle (MENFP), which is the governing body of the education sector nationwide. This Ministry operates under a Minister, known as Ministre de l’Éducation Nationale who is a member of the Cabinet of the Prime Minister and works in tandem and under the leadership of the President. The current governing structure of this system emerges from Laws and Decrees promulgated since Independence in 1804, through the Law on Public Instruction in 1901, and includes further series of Laws and Decrees promulgated in the post–World War II period. The Decree of March 30th, 1982, directing the reform of the education system has particular reverberation leading into the current administration and governance of the system (Haitian Government 1982). In its 2017 document published as L’étude sur le Management du Système Éducatif d’Haïti, the Office National de Partenariat en Education (ONAPE), an agency of the Ministry of National Education (2017), indicates that the Ministry operates under the Bureau of the Minister; a General Direction, a series of specialized offices, as well as several agencies and secretaries as necessary or as dictated by the established government. Each geographical department is led by an office called Direction Departementale. Nonetheless, the survey that ONAPE conducted and published in this 2017 document acknowledges significant fluctuations at the level of administration and governance of the system.

3.2

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCEDClassification

This section outlines the education system of Haiti in light of the ISCED model of classification of education in the world.

3.2.1 ISCED Level 0: Preschool in the Haitian Education System The school census of 2015–2016 organized by the Direction de la Plannification et de la Cooperation Externe (DPCE), one of the agencies of the Ministry of National Education (Ministère de L’éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle (MENFP)) (2016), found 896 institutions nationwide that are exclusively devoted to preschool education. Besides these preschool establishments, many other schools offer preschool education, whether for a fee or free, as in the case of some public schools. The 896 preschools represent 4.5% of the total number of schools that offer preschool education. There are 19,505 schools nationwide, and 11,759 of these, that

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is 60%, offer preschool education. Preschools are unequally distributed around the country. The West Department where the capital city, Port-au-Prince, is located counts 41% of them, followed by the Artibonite Department that counts 16%. The Departments of North-East, Grand-Anse and Nippes count 3% each of the number of preschools. Although preschool is not part of compulsory education in Haiti, this sector is officially recognized by the Ministry of National Education which provides a 3-year curriculum for 3–5-year-old children. The beginning of Article 14 of the Decree Organizing the Haitian Education System promulgated by President JeanClaude Duvalier in 1982 stipulates that “the first order of the education system is constituted of preschool instruction that is dispensed solely in kindergarten and integrated Centers” (translation by author). Article 17 of the same Decree stipulates the following: “the attribution of preschools consists of their contribution to the personal development of children in different ways (corporal, affective, intellectual, and social) [and] prepares the child for basic education [. . .]” (Haitian Government 1982). This Decree maintains that preschools should facilitate equal chances of school success to all children, and it indicates in its Article 18 that preschools should last 2 years from 4 to 6 years old (Haitian Government 1982). This Decree regularizes preschool education without making it mandatory as it did in the case of Ecole Fondamentale (Grades 1–9) for which it clearly states, “Ecole Fondamentale is mandatory for all children 6 to 15 years old” (Haitian Government 1982). Article 32-5 of the first amendment of the 1987 Constitution charges the state along with its local governance with the responsibility to provide preschool education to all children (Constitution de la République d’Haiti 1987). While there are no specific public institutions devoted primarily to preschool education, the data suggests that 31% of public schools have space available to accommodate preschool children and these schools enroll 7% of all of the identified Haitian preschoolers (Ministry of National Education (2016). The school census conducted by the DPCE found four levels for the preschool sector – a level identified as Poupons for children younger than 2 years old, a section identified as Petits for 2-year-olds, a section identified as Moyens for 3-year-olds, and a section identified as Grands for children 4 years and older. Of the total number of preschoolers, 3.6% are enrolled in the section of Poupons, 28.9% in the section of Petits, 33.5% in the Moyens section, and 34.0% in the Grands group. The census identified 734,028 children in preschools in Haiti, of which girls comprised 50.2%. Preschool attendance grew from 51.5% in 2010 to 60% in 2016. The Table 1 below illustrates the growth of enrollment at preschool level for the period 2010–2016 (Ministry of National Education 2016). While this table presents the number of preschoolers in the system, students who are actually enrolled surpass these numbers due to the overage situation that plagues the Haitian education system, whereby a significant number of students share classrooms with students younger than them. In terms of the teaching body, preschool instructors numbered 28,293 for the academic year 2015–2016 and nearly 80% are less than 40 years old. As is the case in the wider system, many of them are not properly trained for the job. The DPCE indicates 40% of preschool instructors have no corresponding training.

a

Preschool enrollment 3–5 year old Boys Girls Total 187,895 192,612 380,507 228,127 232,226 460,353 228,649 232,375 461,024 215,881 230,416 446,297 – – 227,138 227,874 455,012

Estimation by the Haitian Institute of Statistics and Informatics (IHSI)

Evolution of preschool enrollment rates 2010–2016 3–5 year olda population Boys Girls Total 2010/2011 376,577 362,340 738,917 2011/2012 378,501 364,084 742,585 2012/2013 380,735 366,084 746,819 2013/2014 383,063 368,159 751,222 2014/2015 385,266 370,123 755,389 2015/2016 387,124 371,795 758,919

Enrollment rate Boys Girls 49.9% 53.2% 60.3% 63.8% 60.1% 63.5% 56.4% 62.6% – – 58.7% 61.3%

Table 1 Preschool enrolment per year, sex, and age group – adapted from DPCE School Census (Ministry of National Education 2016)

Total 51.5% 62.0% 61.7% 59.4% – 60.0%

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In terms of infrastructures, out of the 11,759 public and private preschools nationwide, 5,025 operate in establishments that were not designed for preschool education. Furthermore, less than half, that is 5,408, have an administrative space available and an emergency medical kit, only 5,102 have a playground, less than a third 3,323 have electricity, and less than half have potable water, that is, 5,364 of them.

3.2.2

ISCED Level 1 and 2: Grade 1 Through 9 in the Haitian Education System Widespread changes in the education system in Haiti were inaugurated in the 1970s. Under what came to be known as the Bernard Reform, the school system was transformed into two major components: Ecole Fondamentale and Ecole Secondaire. Ecole Fondamentale, considered to be compulsory basic education, is comprised of Grade 1 through Grade 9. It is divided into three sections called Cycles. Cycle 1 includes Grade 1 through Grade 4, Cycle 2 includes Grades 5 and 6, and Cycle 3 involves Grades 7 through 9. Students go through an official exam after Grade 6 and another official exam upon the completion of Grade 9. The Ecole Fondamentale sector has constituted an important portion of the school system and has indeed posed some challenges to the Ministry of Education as it tries to regulate the larger system. The Ministry strives to implement the Bernard Reform that was initiated in 1979, but the path to doing so is still long, muggy, and arduous. The school census of 2015–2016 found that only 4,652 of the 19,505 schools that constitute the Haitian education system actually fully implement the stipulations of the Reform by establishing and maintaining some fully operational Ecole Fondamentale, implying they have a structure in place to enroll students from Grade 1 through Grade 9. This number represents a bare 23.8% of the total of 19,505 schools and a bare 25% of the 18,538 schools that claim to be Ecole Fondamentale. The Ministry laments, in their report, that 75% of Ecole Fondamentale either miss the third Cycle (Grades 7 through 9) or the first two cycles (Grades 1 through 6). This situation provokes a conundrum for parents who have to find ways to register their children in other schools that have their Grade level. The Ministry also suggests that the public sector operates only 15% of the Ecole Fondamentale, which makes the private sector the major stakeholder in basic education with a stronghold of 85% of Ecole Fondamentale. These nonpublic schools are divided into laic, Catholic, Protestant (including Episcopalian and Presbyterian) schools and other categories such as schools created and operated by Mayoral Councils or by the community. During the academic year 2010–2011, the two first cycles, which constitute the former category of Primary Education were comprised of 78% of the 2,834,317 students who attended the 17,076 schools nationwide. This group comprises 6–11year-old students. In 2011, 87% of this age group attended Cycle 1 and 2. Cycle 1 and 2 enrollment jumped from around 40% in 1990 to 50% in 1995 and to nearly 90% in 2003, according to a European Commission study on education (2009 19). The school census of 2015–2016 counted 3,091,592 students in the Ecole Fondamentale sector (Grades 1–9) of which 2,548,446 were enrolled in Cycle

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1 (Grades 1–4) and Cycle 2 (Grades 5–6). More specifically, the 3,091,592 students attending the Ecole Fondamentale were divided into 1,922,053 students or 62% for the first Cycle (Grades 1–4), 626,393 or 20% for the second Cycle (Grades 5–6), and 543,146 or 18% for the third Cycle (Grades 7–9). The public sector accounts for only 705,066, that is, 22% of them. The report published by the Ministry also mentions that some students receive financial assistance from public funds, but it does not indicate how many students are funded in this way or how much. With regard to the teaching force, the issue of grade-specific qualified teachers is one of the very serious challenges facing the education system in Haiti. For example, for the first two cycles (Grades 1–6) the Ministry counts a teaching force of around 94,143 teachers of whom less than 50% have proper qualifications. The Ministry has been trying to find ways to both train existing teachers and new teachers given the unrest that could accompany the layoff of over 40,000 teachers along with the difficulty of replacing them with qualified instructors. In terms of physical conditions of the Ecole Fondamentale establishments, although there are more nonpublic Ecole Fondamentale schools, those of the public sector tend to be more appropriate than those of the private sector. Altogether, nationwide, the 2,788 public Ecole Fondamentale include 1,810 facilities that were designed accordingly, 168 schools that operate in houses, 171 in churches, 265 under tents, and 374 in unspecified structures. As for the nonpublic sector, the 15,756 Ecole Fondamentale include 8,768 facilities designed for academic purpose, 2,050 operate in houses, 2,604 in churches, 878 under tents, and 1,456 in unspecified structures. Of the nationwide total of 18,544 public and nonpublic Ecole Fondamentale, 10,578 schools were built for the operation of academic activities, 2,218 schools operate in houses, 2,775 operate in churches, 1,143 operate under tents, and 1,830 operate in unspecified structures. Nationwide, of the total 18.544 public and nonpublic Ecole Fondamentale, 2,615 are equipped with a computer lab, 3,926 have a library, 3,028 have a cafeteria, 7,337 have a first aid kit, 4,622 have some form of energy source, and 8,350 have potable water. In terms of meals, 1,584 of the 2,788 public Ecole Fondamentale offer meals to students and 5,002 of the 15,756 nonpublic Ecole Fondamentale do so. Analyzing these figures, it is important to consider their context, and the distribution of resources in light of the social and economic statuses of their respective population.

3.2.3

ISCED Level 3: Secondary School in the Haitian Education System As indicated, the wide-reaching Bernard Reform launched in 1979 changed an over 150-year-old system. The long-established system of 6 years of primary education and 7 years of secondary education became a more complex structure that comprises three Cycles of Ecole Fondamentale that graduate students after 9 years of basic education and that orients them toward secondary education with the options of choosing post-secondary career path. The last component of this new system is secondary school. Among the 19,505 schools in the system, 3,932 or 20% offer secondary school with 55% of them located in the West Department followed by the Department of Artibonite, the North Department, and the South department with 9%,

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8%, and 7%, respectively. The public sector counts 260 public secondary schools among the 3,932 secondary schools nationwide. The remaining 3,672 nonpublic schools are divided into 57% laic, 25% Protestant, 5% Catholic, 3% Episcopalian, 1% Presbyterian, and 9% communitarian schools and others, as accounted by the Haitian Institute of Statistics and Informatics (Haitian Government 2007). Secondary school is another component in the system that poses challenges for analysis. Even in terms of data collection, the DPCE acknowledges the difficulty in collecting exhaustive data on the secondary school sector. Although Bernard’s School Reform was initiated in 1979, it has yet to be implemented in its fullness. Many schools, in fact most schools, still follow the pre-Bernard configuration of a straight path of 7 years of secondary education. The 2015–2016 school census deplores that the data on secondary schools lacks exhaustivity and some of the reason includes the fact that many rheto and terminale students (the last two grades of secondary school) are not registered in any particular school. They constitute a category of students who register for the official exams as élève libre (free students), implying they study on their own or in group to prepare for the state mandated exams. Another reason has to do with the fact that some schools, around 1% of them, fail to report their rosters. The census reports that 260 public secondary schools exist in the system, but the data they present covers only 215. The number of secondary school students that the DPCE reports in its 2015–2016 census is 402,257. The census found that 264,841 students, that is 89%, attend schools that still use the traditional system of troisième, second, rhéto, philo, which constitute the last four grades of high school and only 11% of students, that is, 45,841 attend secondary schools that follow the new system, labeled Nouveau Secondaire (New Secondary). The West Department has a larger concentration of secondary schools with 2,146 schools in total including 46 public secondary schools. These 2,146 secondary schools enroll 216,325 students including 15,910 in the New Secondary school system. The West Department is followed by the Department of Artibonite with 363 Secondary Schools of which only 15 are public. These 363 schools enroll 34,426 including 4,974 in the Nouveau Secondaire system. With regard to infrastructure, of the 215 public secondary schools for which the DPCE provides statistical data, 154 schools operate in facilities built for academic purpose, 20 operate in houses, 3 operate under tents, and 38 operate in unspecified structures. As for the nonpublic sector, among its 3,718 secondary schools, 2,385 have facilities designed for academic purpose, 591 operate in houses, 295 under tents, and 447 in unspecified structures. The West Department with its 2,100 nonpublic secondary schools has 1,283 that were built for academic purpose, 362 schools that operate in houses, 162 that operate under tents, and 293 that are housed in unspecified structures. In terms of services, among the 215 public secondary schools, 97 of them maintain a space for administrative purpose, 45 have a computer lab, 57 have a library, 44 have a cafeteria, 76 have a first aid kit, 114 have a playground, 66 have an energy source, and 75 have potable water. The 3,718 schools of the nonpublic sector include 1,466 that have space for administration, 750 that have a computer lab, 922 that have a library, 855 that have a cafeteria, 1,064 that have a first aid kit, 1,476 that have a playground, 1,173 that have an energy source,

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and 1,306 that have potable water. Altogether, among the 3,932 public and nonpublic secondary schools, 795 are equipped with a computer lab, 979 maintain a library, 1,140 have a first aid kit, 1,239 have an energy source, and 1,381 have potable water.

3.2.4

ISCED 4 and ISCED 5: Post-secondary Non-tertiary Education and Short-Cycle Tertiary Education Post-secondary non-tertiary education or vocational school has existed in Haiti since the time of Henry Christophe, one of the country’s first post-revolutionary leaders (1807–1820). However, during the American occupation and onward this sector has undergone significant development. Vocational training is probably the bestorganized education sector in Haiti, in spite of its challenges. The Ministry of National Education is only one of the eight stakeholders involved in Haiti’s system of vocational training, named the Système National de Formation Professionnelle abbreviated SNFP (National System of Professional Training) by the Decree of October 23rd, 1984. Seven other institutions are also involved in the vocational training sector: 1) The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor is involved at the level of workers training; 2) The Ministry of Public Works deals with trainings related to transportation and communication; 3) The Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Development is in charge of trainings for agricultural workers; 4) The Ministry of Public Health and Population is charged with trainings regarding community health workers and midwives; 5) The Ministry of Youth, Sports, and Civic Service deals with trainings related to sports and community cultural development; 6) The Ministry of Tourism deals with trainings pertaining to tourism; and 7) The State Secretary for Literacy is charged with trainings dealing with literacy. A detailed study of this network of training programs and institutions is beyond the scope of this chapter, but research focusing on this sphere of education in particular would be commendable. The Ministry of National Education has under its administrative control three agencies that work on vocational trainings: the Institut National de Formation Professionnelle abbreviated INFP (National Institute for Professional Training), the Service de l’éducation formelle (Service of Non-Formal Education), and the Service des Centres d’Éducation familiale (the Service of the Centers for Family Education). For now, the National Institute for Professional Training organizes vocational training in three categories: formal training programs, non-formal training programs, and programs designed to support institutions that are not under their leadership but that can benefit from their services as a public institution. The formal training programs include three types: technical vocational trainings where trainees receive a diploma upon successful completion of 3 years of study, vocational school that prepares and enhances the competences of some types of workers, which also provide a diploma, and a third category that centers on trainings related to what is sometimes referred to as school of domestic science and that offers trainings on cooking and fashion. Although there is a rather large network of training programs and institutions in Haiti, the programs that are likely to fall within the ISCED level 4, at least currently, are those that are under the leadership of the National Institute

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for Professional Training. Although, admittedly, the ISCED level 4 mentions 2 years of study, those maintained by this Institute are generally 3 years long. In 2006, the Institute published a document titled Les Balises de la voie professionnelle et de l’emploi (Roadmap for professional trainings and employment) in which it claims the existence of 15 branches of study distributed in 60 specialties (Ministry of National Education – Institut National de Formation Professionnelle (INFP) 2006). This document makes ample reference to a Système National de Formation Professionnelle (National System of Professional Training) and describes the configuration of the existing vocational training network as its constitutive element. The document signals two networks in the SNFP: A formal network is comprised of a series of Professional Centers and a non-formal network that offers less rigorous trainings. According to the Institute, the formal network is composed of 400 Centers. Some of these Professional Centers admit students after 9 years of study, that is to say upon successful completion of Ecole Fondamentale, others admit students after 7 years of schooling, that is, before completing Ecole Fondamentale, and another category only requires basic literacy. Students spend 3 years in the first two categories of Professional Centers and the third offers students a 2-year program of study. In 2004 there were 149 establishments offering vocational trainings, but this number fell to 134 in 2005 and to 103 in 2006. Sixty-two percent of the Centers were concentrated in the West Department, followed by the Departments of North, South, and South-West with between 5% and 9%. The other geographical Departments where they exist comprised less than 5%, which are Artibonite, Grand-Anse, North-West, Centre, and the Department of North-East. Data provided by the Institute for 2004 shows a student population of 5,000 for all of the Centers. As in the case of the higher education system, admission to vocational training is limited. In 2006, the Institute was able to admit only 35% of the applicants. Implied in this discussion is the fact that the ISCED Levels 4 and 5 vary substantially in the case of Haiti. Haiti satisfies and even surpasses the ISCED requirement for Level 4, that is, 2 years of education beyond Level 3 that is classified as secondary education (UIS 2012). In the case of level 5, the situation is different. What is considered level 5 is not considered as “tertiary education” in Haiti. The structure that is closest to ISCED Level 5 would be institutions that offer 3 years of study such as établissements d’enseignement technique (EET) and Les établissements d’enseignement professionnel (EEP) that offer 3 years of vocational training. These institutions do not require students to complete ISCED Level 3. They admit students upon the completion of 10th or 11th grade. Yet another category of school exists, such as the Ecole Nationale de Géologie appliquée (National School of Applied Geology), which also offer 3 years of technical studies, but these require a high school diploma for admission. These are in addition to technical schools that admit students upon the completion of ISCED Level 1, that is, primary education. All in all, Haiti satisfies the ISCED Levels 4 and 5 and surpasses them, which allows the country to cope with varying degrees of competencies of different groups of students including those who fail state mandated exams.

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The complexity of the vocational training sector in Haiti can also be assessed in light of the fact that based on the new configuration of the school system, students have the option of enrolling into preferred trainings upon the successful completion of Grade 9, which indicates that some have entered vocational school without completing ISCED level 3. During the completion of their high school education, students may develop competencies in some technical branches that can assure them employment. Those who complete high school can also opt to pursue some vocational training career. As this sector is being developed more and more in Haiti, it is anticipated that it will encompass and surpass the ISCED Level 4 for vocational training. Given Haiti’s population growth, the demand for skilled workers is expected to rise and more work opportunities to develop, as well as limited opportunities for higher education. Every year, thousands of teenagers and young adults complete their secondary education, which manifestly exceeds the capacity of the existing higher education system. In 2014, around 50,000 students successfully completed their secondary education. Around 20,000 of them applied for admission at the State University, which had room for only 4,500 first year students (Paul 2016: 30). The vocational school sector needs to be strengthened to face the challenges to come.

3.2.5

ISCED Levels 6, 7, 8: Bachelor’s or Equivalent Level, Master’s or Equivalent Level, Doctoral or Equivalent It is often reiterated that higher education in Haiti began in the middle of the nineteenth century with the creation of the School of Law by President Elie Lescot in 1860. However, Haiti is one of the first countries in the Western Hemisphere to have established higher education. Indeed, arguably, as early as the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Haiti had already reached the equivalence of the ISCED Levels 1 through 7 and even 8, considering the situation and levels of education in the world at that time. In fact, scholars date the genesis of universities in Haiti to the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The current system owes its existence to these early efforts to establish higher education in the country. The number of students attending the State University varied from around 3500 in 1976 to 24,000 in 2013 (Moisset 2013, 44). The website of the State University of Haiti indicates a student population of 30,000 for the academic year of 2020–2021. GTEF reports 20,632 students for the academic year 2005–2006 (Haitian Government - GTEF 2010, 126). These students major in the 11 Schools called Facultés that constitute the State University System. It also comprises seven entities offering studies of Law and Economy. These eleven academic entities are spread in different locations in the capital city, Port-au-Prince. Additionally, seven entities offering Law and Economy are located in Hinche, Gonaïves, Port-de-Paix, Fort-Liberté, Cayes, and Cap-Haïtien. There is also a campus in Limonade, in the northern region. The State University System employs 2,770 including 1,573 professors. In addition to the State University of Haiti, there is another public higher education system identified as Université Publique en Région (Regional Public University), abbreviated as UPR. This new public higher education system was

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created by the Decree of July 2006 under the presidency of René Préval (1996–2001 and 2006–2011) along with his Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis. This Decree is informed by Articles 208, 209, 210, and 211.1 of the 1987 Constitution, which encourages the development of higher education institutions given that the State University System cannot satisfy the demands for higher education in the country. This system of regional universities is placed directly under the Ministry of National Education, unlike the State University that is granted the status of autonomous and independent institution by the Constitution of 1987 following years of fierce control by the state under the regime of Duvalier (1954–1986). By 2016, the Ministry had already created nine institutions of higher education in nine regions of the country and enrolled eight thousand students (Voltaire 2016). The country is divided into ten geographical areas, called departments. There is at least one institution per department, except for the West Department where the State University System is located. Two departments have two UPR. The first UPR was established in the city of Cayes, in the South Department, in July 2006, followed by the one in the Department of Artibonite in January 2007 and another in Cap-Haitian in the North Department in October of the same year. The deadly earthquake of January 2010 that killed over 200,000 people halted the development of the UPR System, but only temporarily. In fact, the destruction of the infrastructures of the State University in Port-au-Prince in the West Department has fueled the development of the UPR System. As a result, between 2011 and 2014, six UPR institutions were established. One UPR has been established in the city of Jacmel in the SouthEast Department in 2011. In 2012 two UPR were established, one in the city of Portde-Paix in the North-West Department and one in the Department of Centre. This Department has a UPR branch in the city of Hinche and one in the city of Mirebalais. In 2014 three UPR institutions were established: one in the Department of GrandAnse, one in the Department of North-East, and another one in the Department of Nippes. In 2016 a UPR was established in the lower region of the Department of Artibonite. These institutions of higher education face several challenges, as Voltaire (2016) describes. However, their existence speaks to the desire of the general population to have access to higher education. This desire for access to higher education interweaves with the aspiration of the Haitian population for decent life conditions that has been expressed since the revolt of enslaved subjects became the triumph of the Haitian Revolution of 1804. The number of institutions of higher learning that currently exist in Haiti along with the number of students that attend them substantiate the longing for higher education and human decency. Since their 2010 report, the Working Group for Education and Professional Training reports data from the Ministry of National Education indicating that about 200 institutions of higher education exist in Haiti, most of which were founded in the post-World War period and particularly in the 1970s and the 1980s. The same 2010 report estimates that 180,000 students were attending higher education institutions in Haiti in that year. This report also indicated that only 54 out of the 200 institutions of higher learning had received relevant authorization to operate. However, this report was produced only 8 months after the January 2010 earthquake,

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in August of the same year. In an article published in 2018 by Le Nouvelliste, a mainstream Haitian newspaper, data from the Ministry indicated that 138 institutions of higher learning had secured proper authorization to operate (Le Nouvelliste 2018). Their challenges to become contemporary universities are evident and a study on their internal and external efficiencies is warranted, but their existence reflects the strong desire of Haitians for opportunities and advancement that can be afforded through education.

4

Educational Trends, Challenges, and Open Issues

In the case of Haiti, the notion of opportunities, with regard to inequalities, can be analyzed through multiple dimensions that interact with the possibility for the subject to develop his or her capacity to be a useful member of the community. While these factors are doubtlessly multifaceted, this chapter examines the issues of opportunities as regard inequalities in terms of the divide between private and public schools both qualitatively and quantitatively and the language dichotomy situation that constitutes a prime element in unequal opportunities for success. This section ends with a discussion on ICT and Digitalization and STEM subjects as some of the challenges and open issues in the Haitian education system.

4.1

Advances Toward Tackling Inequality: Private and Public Schools and Sponsored Educational Activities

In Haiti, there are a disproportional number of private schools in comparison with public schools. Although private schools have existed in Haiti since early 1900s, it has been during the contemporary era that this sector has exploded. The post–World War II period has seen a very substantial increase in the number of private schools in the country. The synthesis report of the European Commission’s document titled Study on Governance Challenges for Education in Fragile Situations notes that private school enrolment grew from between 20% and 30% for the academic year 1965–1966 to 80% for the academic year 2002–2003 (2009, 18). As indicated earlier, only 7% of all preschoolers are enrolled in public institutions, and only 705,066, that is 22%, of the 3,091,592 students in Ecole Fondamentale (Grades 1–9) attend public institutions. As for high school, among the 3,932 high schools nationwide, the public sector accounts for only 260. The situation is such that many parents who are already struggling for basic subsistence for their families are constrained to mobilize financial resources to pay school tuition, uniforms, books, meals, and transportation for youngsters. As the GTEF’s report indicates, Haitian families spend an average of 30% to 40% of their gross income on the education of their children attending Ecole Fondamentale (Grades 1–9) (Haitian Government – GTEF 2010, 164). This very fragile economic situation is due, in part, to the many challenges (e.g., ecological, historical, political, institutional) that the country has

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encountered. Making parents accountable for the education-related expenses for their children can but exacerbate their precarious life conditions. Nonetheless, in spite of the overwhelming majority of students that are constrained to attend private schools due to the lack of public schools, the Haitian Constitution of 1987 does require free and compulsory education for children of 6– 14 years. In an attempt to address the outcry of the population with regard to the lack of public schools, several measures have been considered lately. In fact, besides the constitutional provisions about free and compulsory education, the GTEF report of 2010 has proposed that the Haitian state takes over the education of 6–12-year-old children for Cycles 1 and 2 (primary school) by 2015 to satisfy the objectives of the Millennium Goal, followed by the Cycles 3 (Grades 7–9) by 2021 and then secondary school subsequently. However, the GTEF recognizes the difficulty of such an endeavor given the number of nonpublic schools that are in the system. The new 2019–2029 Decennial Plan of Education drafted by the Ministry of National Education in 2018 prescribes free compulsory education for 6–14-year-old children while guaranteeing free education for up to 40% of secondary school students (2018, 27–28). The 2016 document of School Subvention that Reginald Paul (Paul 2016) drafted for ONAPE as an agency of the Ministry of National Education proposes a policy that takes into consideration equity and access, efficiency and judicious usage of funds allotted to education, transparency and coherence between the Ministry and different educational stakeholders and the beneficiaries, and lastly, accountability from all sectors. The proposed policy is intended to take effect by 2030, the year that the Haitian government under the Presidency of Martelly Joseph (2011–2016) predicted that Haiti would reach the level of an emergent economy. Meanwhile, there are a few measures that have been in operation aimed at diminishing the burden on parents. The Ministry of Education has partnered with the World Bank, the Inter American Bank of Development, the Caribbean Bank of Development, and the Canadian Agency for International Development to operate an educational subvention program under the UN-based “Education for All” global movement led by the UNESCO. Another program that aims at alleviating the burden of paying school fees is called Programme de Scolarisation Universelle, Gratuite et Obligatoire or PSUGO (Free and Compulsory Universal Education Program) that grants $90 per student enrolled in grades 1–6. The money is disbursed to selected schools. This is a program that has yet to be evaluated, but according to ONAPE, in its first 2 years, PSUGO had subsidized 1,290,000 children in both public and nonpublic schools nationwide including nearly a million textbooks and over a million kits of school supplies (Ministry of National Education 2016). Yet another school subsidy established by the Ministry is the Programme National d’Éducation Intégrée or PRONEI (Integrated National Education Program) which is designed to encourage overaged children to attend school. While these dispositions are valuable, it is important to signal that these institutions that are engaged in subsidizing education cannot do so ad infinitum. They are only responding to an urgent need that is posed by the context. Haiti cannot rely on this patchwork of activities to build the National Education System that the country

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requires. The state must take on its responsibility to provide free compulsory education to Haitian youngsters. At the very least, the state can mobilize the funds that these institutions offer to help with the cost of education, but it cannot leave such a valuable aspect of the development of the nation in the hands of well-intentioned yet sporadic maneuvers. NGOs interested in contributing to empowering Haitians can be welcomed, but they cannot replace the constitutional responsibility of the Haitian state. Free compulsory education in a context such as Haiti must be an unapologetically integral part of both the national budget and the national security of the nation, given the threat that uneducated children pose for the overall existence of the country.

4.2

The Issue of Language in the Haitian Education System: A Critical Perspective

At the conclusion of their study on Accès, qualité et gouvernance dans l’éducation fondamentale en Haïti, Fallon and Mazawi (2014) maintain that the issue of language remains at the margin of teacher training in Haiti. The authors believe that it is necessary to carefully consider language not only a political issue but also as an institutional issue that reverberates in the classroom as well as the relationships between teachers, students, and communities (2014, 92). The limited reference that Fallon and Mazawi (2014) make about language in their report points to a very serious issue in the Haitian education system, which faces a problematic language dichotomy. This language dichotomy is manifested in ways that detrimentally affect the vast majority of students. Over 90% of Haitian families are monolingual Creole speakers. Competencies in the French language are found among some well-to-do families that speak French with children at home; some successful Haitian intellectuals who studied in France and in Montreal, Canada; and some successful Haitian intellectuals who studied in Haiti. All of these groups are also Creole speakers and can be considered, to some extent, as French and Haitian Creole bilinguals with varying levels of competencies in French. The first two groups are quite limited in size. As for the third group (i.e., academically successful Haitian intellectuals who studied in Haiti), there are a few considerations to make. Around 70% of students fail the state-mandated high school exams. Among those who successfully complete high school, access to higher education is inadequate. As indicated, admission to the State University is limited and access to private universities is contingent upon students’ ability to pay for their education. Many students who complete their studies at the State University experience difficulties in submitting their Memoire, which is the work required to graduate with a Bachelor equivalent degree. These factors make the successful Haitian intellectuals who studied in Haiti also a group limited in size. Since they are in general born and grew up in Haiti, they possess native fluency of Haitian Creole. Their level of French can be assessed according to their general individual degree of aptitude throughout their years of studies in primary and secondary education and college. This implies that all Haitian

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students are primarily Creole speakers, and, more specifically, the vast majority are monolingual Creole speakers. Lamentably, in Haiti instruction is primarily in French. Those who have the luck to have been born into families that were able to initiate them to some level of spoken French have the possibility to do better in school than the vast majority of students whose parents are monolingual speakers. The issue of language thus plays a significant factor in the inequality of opportunities for success at the level of education as a predictor sine qua non of overall social mobility in life in general. The challenge that is associated to the issue of language in Haiti is that the two languages do not coexist in a way that benefits Haitian Creole speaking subjects. Instead, it is necessary that the Haitian government endeavor to elaborate and implement a language policy that takes into consideration the history and geopolitical context of Haiti. Plurilingualism is a necessity in the Haitian context. The language planning and policy that is being advocated for the current chapter is in line with the Hornberger’s (1989, 2003) notion of “continua of biliteracy,” which advocates for a continuum among different elements that constitute the educational experiences of students. This new language planning and policy must consider the importance of Haitian Creole as the most widely spoken language and the pedagogically appropriate status appropriate of French, Spanish, and English in Haiti. (Further elaboration about the pedagogical status of French, Spanish, and English, in addition to the pedagogical status of the Creole language in Haiti, can be found in the works cited in this section as well as in Jean-Pierre (2016).)

4.3

Challenges and Open Issues: ICT, Digitalization, and STEM Subjects

In spite of the challenges faced by Haiti’s education system, there are opportunities for students to develop their academic potential. Let us consider the new secondary school system, commonly called Nouveau Secondaire (New Secondary School). The concept refers to a shift from the traditional system of primary and secondary school wherein students spent 6 years in primary school followed by 7 years in secondary school. Since the school restructuring known as the Bernard Reform (initiated in 1979) the school system is now divided into three cycles of basic education followed by 4 years of high school education. As indicated earlier, the three cycles of basic education are Cycle 1 for grades 1–4, Cycle 3 for grades 5–6, and Cycle 3 for grades 7–9. Upon the successful completion of these three cycles of basic education known as Ecole Fondamentale, students begin high school. This newly established high school is designed to channel students toward specific academic areas. The program of the New Secondary School has the objective to ensure that students are exposed to quality general, scientific, technical, and professional instruction. During the first and second year, students further consolidate their general education and explore different professional options. Assessment results at the end of the second year are used to advise students about their respective prospective professional trajectories.

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During their third and fourth year, students explore courses in their respective options. The New Secondary School program is divided into three major categories: a general, a technological, and a pedagogical branch. ICT, Digitalization, and STEM subjects play a major role in the program. The general education branch is mostly science-based, but also includes an Arts component. Three of the four components orient students toward science-based academic areas and the third component orients students toward the Humanities. In particular, the General Education category includes mathematics and physical sciences that prepare students for careers related to sciences, particularly for the School of Medicine and the School of Sciences known as Faculté Des Sciences, the Earth and Life Sciences that prepare students for scientific careers related to agriculture, veterinary medicine, and pharmacy; and lastly, the social and economic sciences, literary, linguistic, and artistic studies, that prepare students for careers related to economic sciences, education, and the humanities. The technological branch is divided between a component that prepares students directly for the job market as technicians upon completion of high school, and another component that prepares them for studies related to technology at a higher education level. The component that prepares students directly for the job market as technicians upon completion of high school offers the possibility to develop skills either in industrial technology, administration and work-place related technology, technology related to rural development (i.e., agriculture, farming), or technology related to the medical field. The program foresees access to technological equipment for all students and access to computers as an obligation for students enrolled in this branch.

5

Conclusion

This chapter provides substance for the idea that Haiti is a country with contrasts. A country with a glorious history as indicated in the short historical overview, a country with multiple challenges, as indicated by its education system, and a country with significant possibilities for growth. The study of education in Haiti represents a particular aspect of the history of education in the American Continent. While Haiti is not necessarily representative of the history of education in the region, as many countries have been able to establish successful education systems in their respective nations (e.g., Cuba), Haiti exemplifies a specific and uniquely interesting history that is reflected in its education system. Haiti represents a distinctive part of the history of the Western Hemisphere. It was the podium for a series of wars against violations of human rights that came to be known as the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), and has the distinction of being the first and only country in which a slave rebellion led to independent nationhood and a free nation governed by Black leadership in the early nineteenth century Americas. Although the new nation of Haiti was coerced into paying money to France to recognize its independence, and this burdened its development for much of the nineteenth century, Haiti represented a possibility for Europe to conceive America without slavery and honor its own enlightenment principles. In the twentieth century, by

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dealing with the US Occupation (1915–1934), Haiti represents one of the settings where power struggles between the United States and Europe were in operation and hampered independent progress. As indicated, Haiti’s debt of independence to France and the US Occupation thwarted the development of education in the country in significant ways. Thus, while the country must overcome the challenges posed by these historical dynamics, the analysis of post–World II education in Haiti illustrates that possibilities for growth should be assessed by the fact that, in spite of multiple challenges, its educational system, with nearly four million students attending the ISCED Levels 0–3, hundreds in vocational school, and with over 200,000 college students, Haiti continues to defend itself as a human society. Saying that Haiti has defied the odds is an understatement, and the education system is only one example.

References Constitution de la République d’Haiti. (1987). Refworld. UNCHR. http://www.refworld.org/docid/ 3ae6b5490.html. Accessed 30 Aug 2019. Doré, G. (2010). Politique de formation Professionnelle et d’Emploi en Haïti – Le Cas du Secteur du Tourisme (1980–2010). Ph.D. dissertation, Université Paris Est: École Doctorale Cultures Et Sociétés. European Commission. (2009). Study on governance challenges for education in fragile situations study synthesis report. https://europa.eu/capacity4dev/education-and-development/documents/ study-governance-challenges-education-fragile-situations. Accessed Feb 2019. Fallon, G., & Mazawi, A. É. (2014). Le programme de Coopeération Volontaire d’appui à la gouvernance, à l’éducation et au développement économique en Hati: Accès, qualité et gouvernance dans l’éducation fondamentale en Haïti. Rapport Final. Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale de la Formation Professionnelle. Programme de Coopération Volontaire Montréal, Canada. www.shorturl.at/ksuT0. Retrieved 27 Jan 2021. Haitian Government. (1982). Decree Organisant le Système Educatif Haitien en vue d’Offrir des Chances Egales a Tous et de Refleter la Culture Haitienne. 1982. University of Florida Digital Collections. http://ufdc.ufl.edu//AA00000092/00001. Accessed Feb 2019. Haitian Government - Groupe de Travail pour l’Éducation et la Formation (GTEF) (2010). Pour un pacte national sur l’Education en Haïti – Rapport au Président de la République. Print It; Haïti. Haitian Government – Ministère de l’Economie et des Finances – Institut Haitien de Statistiques et d’Informatique. (2003). Enquête sur les conditions de vie en Haïti. Vol. I and II. http://www.ihsi.ht/. Accessed Mar 2019. Haitian Government – Ministère de l’Economie et des Finances – Institut Haitien de Statistiques et d’Informatique. (2007). Projection de la Population Totale. http://www.ihsi.ht/. Accessed Mar 2019. Hornberger, N. H. (1989). Continua of Biliteracy. Review of Educational Research, 59(3), 271–296. Hornberger, N. H. (2003). Continua of biliteracy. In N. H. Hornberger (ed) Continua of biliteracy: An ecological framework for educational policy, research, and practice in multilingual settings (Vol. 41). Bristol UK: Multilingual Matters. Jean-Pierre, M. (2016). Kesyon Lang nan Ansèyman Siperyè nan Peyi Ayiti. Haiti Perspectives, 5(2):44–49. Jean-Pierre, M. (2019). Language, education, and development: Postcolonial societies and neoliberalism. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 40(4), 507–522. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 01425692.2019.1591269. Le Glaunec, J.-P. (2014). L’Armée indigene: La Défaite de Napoleon en Haiti. Lux Editeur.

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Le Nouvelliste. (2018). Haïti-Éducation: 138 institutions d’enseignement supérieur sont reconnues en Haïti. https://lenouvelliste.com/article/193660/138-institutions-denseignement-superieursont-reconnues-en-haiti. Accessed Jun 2019. Ministère de L’éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle. (2018). Plan décennal d’éducation et de formation (PDEF) 2019–2029. https://menfp.gouv.ht. Retrieved 27 Jan 2021. Ministère de L’éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle – Direction de la Plannification et de la Cooperation Externe (DPCE). (2016). Résultats du Recensement Scolaire 2015–2016. Ministère de L’éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle – Office National de Partenariat en Education ONAPE. (2017). L’étude sur le Management du Système Éducatif d’Haïti. Rapport final présenté par Social Action Consulting (SACO) Firme. Ministère de L’éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle (MENFP) – Institut National de Formation Professionnelle (INFP). (2006). Les Balises de la voie professionnelle et de l’emploi. https://www.infp.gouv.ht/fichiers/INFP.pdf. Accessed Jun 2019. Moisset, J. J. (2013). Gouvernance du système d’enseignement supérieur et de l’université en Haïti (SESUH): amélioration nécessaire et possible, mais . . . Haïti Perspectives. Enseignement Supérieur et Université. No. 5, pp. 43–47. Observatory of Economic Complexity (The). (2017). What are the export opportunities of Haiti? https://oec.world/en/visualize/network/hs92/export/hti/all/show/2017/. Retrieved 30 July 2019. Paul, R. (2016). Politique de la Subvention Scolaire en Haïti. Rapport final. Office National de Partenariat en Education (ONAPE) – Ministère de L’éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle. Shein, H. E. (2011). What is culture? In G. Mary & J. H. Gittell (Eds.), Sociology of organizations: Structures and relationships. California USA: Sage Publications. Tardieu-Dehoux, C. (1990). L’éducation en Haïti de la période coloniale à nos jours, 1980. Portau-Prince: Éditions Henry Deschamps. UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). (2012). International standard classification of education: ISCED 2011. Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Voltaire, Y. (2016). Le réseau des universités publiques regionals et la refondation du système universitaire haïtien en vue du développement durable d’Haïti. Haïti Perspectives. Enseignement Supérieur et Université. No. 5: 7–15. World Atlas. (2019). What are the major natural resources of Haiti? https://www.worldatlas.com/ articles/what-are-the-major-natural-resources-of-haiti.html. Retrieved 30 July 2019. World Bank. (2006). Haiti: Social resilience and state fragility in Haiti – A country social analysis. Caribbean Country Management Unit ESSD Sector Management Unit – Latin America and the Caribbean Region. Report No. 36069-HT. World Oil. (2010). Haiti could have larger oil reserves than Venezuela. https://www.worldoil.com/ news/2010/1/27/haiti-could-have-larger-oil-reserves-than-venezuela. Retrieved 30 July 2019.

The Education System of Jamaica From Slavery to Neoliberalism

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Social Conditions: Provision and Coverage of Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Personnel Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Educational Trends and Highlighted Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Closing Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Education in Jamaica conforms to a chronology of development contextualized by significant historical events, which then influenced policies, structure, mandates, and organization as well as access. This chapter chronologically examines how organized schooling in Jamaica transitioned to meet the needs of a colonial

K. Thomas-Brown (*) College of Education, Health, and Human Services, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA College of Engeneering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_10

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socioeconomic and political structure and to that of a newly independent agrarian society, industrial, and neoliberal developments, to today’s educational policy reforms that focus on global and transnational pivots. The phases of organized educational development in Jamaica began during colonial slavery, characterized by no regular offering, missionary schools, and gendered structure. Pivotal in this period was the establishment of Wolmer’s School (1729) and the Morant Bay Rebellion (1865). The second period of organized education in Jamaica was preindependence, highlighted by the 1940s granting of suffrage and the 1953 establishment of the Ministry of Education. The granting of independence from Britain in 1962 led to increased access to education for some, and the third period, early independence 1962–1970 marked by infrastructural developments, redefined priorities and the establishment of the national education policy. The fourth period, Manley Democratic Socialism 1972–1979, was marked by universally free education, a drive to eliminate illiteracy and reforms that targeted social inequalities. The fifth period, 1980 to the 2000s, saw shifting educational policies and schooling focused on human resource potential and neoliberal policy reduction of social investments. Today, education in Jamaica is guided by Vision 2030, Jamaica’s strategic roadmap towards developing an educational system that produces globally competitive graduates. Keywords

Education · Training · History · Development · Access · Competitive · Employment

1

Introduction

The historical foundations of education in Jamaica are inextricably tied to the island’s colonial history and notions of development. Public school in Jamaica as in the rest of the British West Indies was designed to replicate the educational system in England. For the most part, education in Jamaica responded to various historical events such as the abolition of slavery, the 1944 passage of suffrage, and the granting of independence in 1962. During the post-independence period, educational developments on the island were and remained focused on developmental goals for Jamaica. The accelerated neoliberalism period of Jamaica’s history from the 1980s to the present is characterized by cycles of economic stagnation and slow realization of the progressive policy changes by the People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), regional integration efforts and the impact of global dynamics. This chapter begins with a discussion of the history of the education system in Jamaica from the colonial period until today as it chronicles the historic policies that led to the structure of education. This chapter examines how various post-independence government policies and initiatives modified the structure and ultimately the function of education on the island leading up to the quality of education offered today. The chapter makes the point that, in Jamaica, educational reforms and initiatives align with the changes to the capitalist economy. Further, the growth in

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the island’s mining sector (bauxite), service sector (tourism), and the manufacturing sector prompted changes to mass education to meet embryonic industrial development and later neoliberal policies. Although the manuscript demonstrates the growth in the Jamaican educational system, it also highlights areas that require further improvements including science, technology, engineering, and mathematical education (STEM) as well as evident inequalities.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

2.1

General Historical Background

Colonial period: Formal education in Jamaica mirrored the institution of slavery and British colonization that determined the economic and political ethos of the island. During this period, there were no government-sponsored formal education offerings, instead there were established missionary schools. During slavery, the education offered was gendered in structure, based on religion and individuals’ anticipated roles in society as well as individual wealth. These factors determined if children had private tutors or were sent back to Britain for metropole elite educational training. The less affluent in this plantation system sent their sons to free schools to receive an education similar to that offered in Britain. The establishment of Wolmer’s Free School in 1770 rearticulated the curriculum to include females and training in running the home, and for employment as tailors, mantuamakers, and even teachers (History of education (n.d.). Emancipation and education: The January 1, 1808 slave trade Abolition Bill and the 1834 emancipation and apprenticeship act meant that schooling and education for the enslaved and newly emancipated were considered a threat to the plantations since they still needed the “little gang” of school-aged children for work in the fields. Full emancipation missionary societies developed a system of elementary education with a new curriculum mandate geared towards helping the former slaves integrate into the colonial economy as a peaceful lower class. This system of missionary-developed elementary schools for the liberated slaves was taken over by the colonial government in the 1860s. The educational policy mandated was for secular education as a response to the conflicts between propertied classes that led to the Morant Bay Rebellion in October 1865. At this time, schooling emphasized skills that would prepare children for eventual employment as estate workers. The elementary curriculum focused on reading, writing, and arithmetic with some religious training and occasional geography and history instruction. Furthermore, boys were given training in agriculture and other manual skills, and girls received lessons in sewing and domestic science. The Lumb Report of 1898 underscored the need for agricultural training to maintain the colonial economy and societal stratification and formalized these separate educational tracks for boys and girls on the island (Hamilton 1997). According to Bailey (1997), Hamilton (1997), Whiteman (1994), Wilkins and Gamble (2000), the colonial focus of the growing school system continued to educate children to fit into their position in the island’s social and economic

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hierarchy as opposed to meeting the needs of the economy. Whiteman (1994) and Ferguson (1947) noted that it was at this point in Jamaica’s history that elementary schools began to offer annual scholarship examinations to give poor children the opportunity to attend secondary schools. Pre-emancipation. The growth of education in Jamaica: Jamaica’s entrenchment in the global economy and an unbalanced colonial system resulted in high levels of unemployment during the period of the Great Depression 1929– 1939. At the time, the descendants of the slaves remained at the bottom of the economic hierarchy with low wages, high poverty, and a general climate of frustration with colonial rule. In concert, these factors prompted efforts towards self-government through the formation of the Jamaica Workers’ and Tradesmen’s Union in 1934 and the Peoples’ National Party in 1938 (Bailey 1997; Hamilton 1997; Sherlock and Bennett 1998; Whiteman 1994; Wilkins and Gamble 2000). This was a period of mass protests, marches, and riots among the working poor and the unemployed in Jamaica. The British colonial government responded by ordering the Brown Inquiry, which reported on the labor conditions on the island and led to the creation of the West India Royal Commission under Lord Moyne charged with investigating the social, economic, and educational conditions underlying the unrest. Later developments include the Kandel Report and Plan for Post-Primary Education in Jamaica 1943–1944 and the Moyne Report commissioned 1938. According to Hamilton (1997), Miller (1997), Sherlock and Bennett (1998), and Whiteman (1994), the Kandel report reinforced the 1898 Lumb Report. It led to the establishment of a common literary core for both boys and girls and gendered vocational training, as well as diluting the island’s self-government in favor of imperial interests. By 1944, limited universal adult suffrage was granted, and the 1938 Moyne report recommendations of curricular changes and organizational restructuring into Primary (6–12 year-old students) and Junior (12–15 year-olds) led to an increase in school infrastructure (Crites 1978; Goulbourne 1985). Independence and the era of structural adjustment: In 1972, a decade after gaining independence, the Peoples National Party (PNP) was elected on a democratic socialism platform. The new government made the enactment of the Free Education Plan (FEP) a priority. The philosophy of the 1970s education policy was that all children had an equal opportunity to access the best education Jamaica had to offer, hence the plan also included improvements to teacher training, upgrades to the quality of the school feeding program, and the dismantlement of the rigid barriers between manual and intellectual labor. This Free Education Plan merged all previous scholarship and school placements into the Common Entrance Examination (CEE) first administered in 1958. The CEE offered 2,180 student scholarships in 1972, 4,782 in 1974, 9,470 in 1978, and in 1998, the last year this exam was administered, more than 50,000 students sat it. In 1999, the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) replaced CEE representing major shifts in Jamaica’s education system, which included the National Assessment Program (NAP). The shifts in primary education in Jamaica facilitated more efficient monitoring, assessment, and interventions for students.

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Table 1 School enrollment in Jamaica 1944 to 1973. (Source: MOE archives)

School level Primary Junior secondary Secondary grammar Technical Vocational Teacher training Postsecondary Total

1944 Pre-1949 Suffrage 171,455 – 3,997 1,702 218 – 177,372

1954 Post WWII 209,717 – 8,175 1,626 340 382 220,240

1962 Independence 300,426 – 18,211 4,508 1,469 1,469 325,149

1973 Manley Ed. policies 434,551 53,331 28,009 9,593 2,781 2,781 530,408

The Free Education Plan opened up unparalleled access to all schools and restructured the method by which primary school students could enter secondary (grammar) schools (Miller 1997), thus total enrollment in the postprimary system rose from 139,960 in 1977 to 158,009 in 1979. At the same time, an expansion of secondary grammar school places was begun, and by 1973, the total number of students enrolled in primary, secondary, postsecondary schools grew from 177,372 in 1944 to 530,408, see Table 1. These patterns established in the 1970s are fundamental to the education system in Jamaica today (Timeline of educational developments in Jamaica pre-independence to present Source: The Jamaica Ministry of Education Youth and Information website https://moey.gov.jm/about).

3

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

According to the Taskforce on Education report (2004), seven critical pieces of legislation govern the education system in Jamaica. In concert, these seven regulations guide the organization and structure of this system. They determine the legal framework as well as providing the basis for curriculum mandates and reform. Regulations number five and six are specific to postsecondary education as well as meeting market needs for certifications and skills training. Regulation number seven addresses early childhood education, which begins at the age of 3 and may extend to age 6 or 7. 1. The Education Act (1965) is the predecessor of the Education Act (1980). It contains the comprehensive regulatory framework for national education procedures, schools operations, teaching, and management. 2. The Education Regulations, 1980 (commonly called the Education Code), an extension of the Act, prescribe the details of administration. Regulations are regularly reviewed since 1989. 3. The National Council on Education Act (1993) establishing the National Council on Education (NCE), has among its functions the nomination, orientation, and

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5.

6.

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training of Board Members, advising the Minister on policy matters and managing of the Education Trust Fund. The Financial Management Regulations (1996) prescribe the rules for the management of Government funds and are an extension of the Financial Administration and Audit Act (FAAA) and Instructions 1977. The University Council of Jamaica Act (1987) gives the UCJ the power to confer degrees, diplomas, certificates, and other academic awards to and on persons who have pursued approved courses of study. The Human Employment and Resource Training (HEART) Act (1982), subsequently amended in 1994, established the Human Employment and Resource Training Trust (HEART) and the National Council on Technical and Vocational Training (NCTVET). The Early Childhood Commission Act (2003) and its Regulations (2005) established the legal framework and standards, which govern the operations of Early Childhood Institutions to ensure equity and the delivery of quality early childhood programs to all children.

Teacher distribution and characteristics: While the population of Jamaica is not racially and ethnically homogeneous, more than 90% of the teaching and student population are Black of African descent. The CIA World Factbook (2019) notes that out of Jamaica’s 2, 812,090 people, 44.46% are aged under 24 years with a youth dependency ratio of 34.6% as of 2015. Therefore, close to 40% of Jamaica’s population are served by the island’s education system. PREAL and CaPRI (2012) indicated that in 2009 some 85% of all teachers in Jamaica’s K-12 schools were trained professionals, having earned either a teaching diploma (3 years of training) and/or bachelor’s degrees (4–6 years of training). Additionally, the percentage of early childhood teachers trained at teaching diploma and bachelor’s degree levels also showed marked increases (ESSJ 1990, pg. 18.12 and ESSJ 2010, pg. 22.11). At the secondary level, the percentage of teachers with bachelor’s and master’s degrees rose from 13% to 41% between 1990 and 2009, see Table 2. These patterns align with successive government policies that target teacher training in efforts to improve K-12 educational outcomes on the island. Furthermore, the fact that female teachers far outnumber male teachers in Jamaica points to the inequality of educational opportunities based on gender discussed in a subsequent section. Table 3 shows the breakdown of the number of teachers by gender and grade level. Teacher salaries: The patterns of numbers, distribution, qualification, and gender of teachers in Jamaica are a result of various government actions and educational reforms that changed teaching qualifications as well as training opportunities to align with local demands for qualified teachers. The capitalist market system also played a significant role as it did determine the number of teachers needed and shifts in qualification standards that gave rise to more teachers transitioning from teaching certificates to teaching diplomas in the 1990s and from teaching diplomas to bachelor’s degrees and graduate qualifications in the 2000s. The administration of K-12 education falls under a government ministry, so does salary and compensation. The Jamaica Teachers Association (JTA) is the country’s largest teachers’ union, and

School type Infant/ kindergarten Primary grades 1–6 Secondary grades 7–12/13 Total

Teaching diploma only 428 6531 5828 12,787

Both teaching diploma and bachelor’s degree 197

3232

5116

8545

1328

1150

169

Bachelor’s degree only 9

761

629

126

Postsecondary diploma or certificate only 6

Table 2 Distribution of K-12 teachers in Jamaica by qualifications. (Source: Economic and Social Survey, 2009 Table 22.5)

1592

866

676

Secondary-level graduate only 50

25,013

13,589

10,734

Total 690

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Sex Both sexes Male Female Both sexes Male Female Both sexes Male Female Male Female Both sexes

2009 769 27 742 10,773 1,153 9,620 13,787 4,161 9,626 5,341 19,988 25,329

2010 784 28 756 10,488 1,138 9,350 13,667 4,112 9,555 5,278 19,661 24,939

2011 751 33 718 10,607 1,177 9,430 13,802 4,115 9,687 5,325 19,835 25,160

2012 788 26 762 10,522 1,178 9,344 13,594 4,023 9,571 5,227 19,677 24,904

2013 822 31 791 10,175 1,175 9,000 13,124 3,918 9,206 5,124 18,997 24,121

2014 865 41 824 10,064 1,162 8,902 12,931 3,857 9,074 5,060 18,800 23,860

2015 1,022 59 963 9,970 1,136 8,834 12,683 3,749 8,934 4,944 18,731 23,675

2016 1,143 70 1,073 9,834 1,149 8,685 12,834 3,723 9,111 4,942 18,869 23,811

Table 3 Distribution of teachers in Jamaica by gender and grade-level teaching. (Source: Statistical Institute of Jamaica 7/31/2017)

Subtotal Subtotal Total # of teachers

Secondary

Primary

School level Early Childhood

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it plays a central role in salary and wage negotiations. PREAL and CaPRI (2012) noted that primary and secondary teacher salaries in Jamaica are lower than in developed countries but are on par with other countries in the region. Additionally, Jamaica’s salary range for teachers, controlling for the cost of living, is less than half that of developed countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, where many Jamaican teachers choose to migrate. However, starting salaries and those teachers with 15 or more years of experience are on par or better when compared to other Latin American nations.

4

Social Conditions: Provision and Coverage of Population

The Ministry of Education (MOE) website states as the agency’s philosophy that: Every Child Can Learn, Every Child Must Learn. Vision: A customer centered, performance oriented education system producing globally competitive, socially conscious Jamaican citizens,” and the mission “to provide strategic leadership and policy direction for quality education for all Jamaicans to maximize their potential, contribute to national development and compete effectively in the global economy, as it pursues its developmental goals for the nation.

Nearly 40% of Jamaica’s almost 2.9 million people are in the K-12 education system that employs between 23,000 and 25,000 teachers. The island’s education system is guided by policies which made education compulsory for all individuals age 6 to 18, and there is universal coverage up to grade 9. There is no mandatory provision in the law for children aged between 3 and 5 years to attend school. According to Vision 2030, the government plans to increase the mandatory school age from 16 to 18 to facilitate two new grades, 12 and 13 in Secondary/High School. In alignment with the Compulsory Education Policy, the Career Advancement Program (CAP) was introduced in 2009 to provide increased opportunities through tuition-free education and training for students aged between 16 and 18 to prepare them for postsecondary studies and careers. The Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica (2010) states that CAP students benefit from academic and vocational skills, career counseling, and mentorship, training in life skills, and entrepreneurship and personal development. As a policy, there is no tuition for grades 1 to 11. Fees for secondary schools were abolished in September 2007. Families are expected to meet other costs related to education: transportation, lunch, books at the secondary level, uniforms, and ancillary fees charged by individual schools. There are textbook rental programs, schoolfeeding programs, and the PATH program that offers assistance to students in need. National grade-level curriculum standards guide the curriculum for K-12. There are several standardized examinations used to measure students’ learning at both the primary (National Assessment Program (NAP)) and secondary levels (Caribbean Secondary Examination Council (CSEC)). As mentioned, there is the GSAT taken by all sixth-grade students on the island and the Grade One Readiness Inventory,

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Fig. 1 Primary school student to teacher ratio in Jamaica 1971 to 2016. (Source The Global Economy.com, UNESCO)

Grade Three Diagnostic Test in English and mathematics, and the Grade Four Literacy Test. Standardized test scores are available to the public as well as there are proxy evaluations of the system. The teacher–student ratio for Jamaican schools in 1971 was 46.7 students to 1 teacher, and 25.61 in 2016, see Fig. 1. The 2016 student–teacher ratio represents a rise from 21.67 in 2013 and corresponds with the decline in the number of teachers employed on the island shown in Table 2 and the increase in student enrollment shown in Table 3. Teachers at both early childhood, primary, and secondary levels require special certification. The Ministry of Education measures quality, and there are plans for an inspectorate through an Education Transformation Program (with regional branches) of the Ministry of Education and School Boards. According to Campbell (2015), Jamaica, like any other developing country, continues to struggle with adequately planning and implementing strategies to alleviate poverty. The 2012 Survey of Living Conditions (Statistical Institute of Jamaica 2016) indicated that more than 500,000 Jamaicans or 1 out of every 5 live below the poverty line with higher numbers in rural communities. Government decisions to phase out local examinations have adversely affected the Secondary Schools Certificate and the Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence Examinations, which were accessed and utilized by many poor Jamaicans as an option to gain skills, vocational and postsecondary training, and to obtain employment. The phasing out of these local examinations is directly tied to the process of upgrading secondary schools and has resulted in many students who do not possess the academic accolades and/or financial wherewithal to sit the Caribbean-based CSCE, graduating from secondary schools without having sat any form of external examination. Campbell (2015) added that weak secondary school students and graduates, disadvantaged by the restructuring and upgrading of these schools across

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Jamaica, can take the City and Guilds examination. However, this examination is worth next to nothing in the labor market on the island. Furthermore, the high level of poverty on the island has resulted in thousands of Jamaica’s primary and secondary students attending school who miss out on meals, who lack adequate resources and the means to access them. Hence, the Program Advancement through Health and Education (PATH) was developed by the Government of Jamaica as a social safety net to address the nature of Jamaica’s poverty. To alleviate poverty, the government is stepping up education investments. According to UNESCO (2016), between 1991 and 2016, on average 16.96 percent of the Government of Jamaica (GOJ) spending went to schools, based on the total general (local, regional, and central) government expenditure on education (current, capital, and transfers), expressed as a percentage of total general government expenditure on all sectors. During that period, the GOJ invested about 11.73% of spending in 2004 and 21.8% in 2014. Additionally, the government spending on education as a value of GDP from 1973 to 2017 averaged 5.03% with a minimum of 3.21% in 1993 and a maximum of 6.37% in 2010. These figures make clear that more investments in education are essential to improve social conditions as well as coverage. Despite the prospects for Jamaica’s primary and secondary education system painted by the figures above, another point of achievement is the progress made in improving the quality and availability of early childhood education across the island. According to McKnight (2017), Jamaica boasts the high levels of enrollment at the preschool level with a sector of education that is both vibrant and community-driven. The Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions (2008) indicates that in 2008 in Jamaica approximately 97% of all children aged 3 to 5 years were enrolled in an early childhood program. Further, in 2011, some 92% of children ages 6 to 11 years were enrolled in either a government primary or private preparatory school (PIOJ 2011). In 2013, there were 3,043 early childhood facilities in Jamaica (McKnight 2017), which enrolled close to 140,000 children aged 3 to 5 years. 5% or 140 of these institutions (Infant schools) are operated by the government through MOE (2013) with no direct tuition costs. In public early childhood schools, teachers receive full salary, classroom materials, and nutrition subsidies for students. Parents are expected to pay for lunches, books, transportation costs, and other school-related expenses. Hence, 95% or 2,903 early childhood institutions in 2013 were privately owned and operated either by religious organizations (Church school), or independent or preparatory schools.

5

Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support

According to Gordon (1977), the government of Jamaica took steps under the Literacy and Fundamental Education policy to ensure that all Jamaicans were able to read, write, and calculate, after only 11% of the jobs then available were found to be suitable for low-skilled individuals who lack essential reading and numeracy

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skills. Hence, illiterate Jamaicans experienced automatic exclusion from close to 90% of employment opportunities on the island. In 1977, approximately 40% of Jamaicans 15 years and older were deemed illiterate. At the time, the Jamaica Movement for the Advancement of Literacy (JAMAL), operated as the island’s prime literacy agency and, by the late 1970s, had helped close to 300,000 Jamaicans change their literacy status. As the island made strides to eradicate illiteracy, training for out-of-school youths was and remains crucial to entering and staying in the labor market. The youth camps initially established to train young people from rural areas evolved into Youth Community Training Centers that offer participants essential educational exposure and skills training in specific areas such as carpentry, plumbing, and catering. Those participants who successfully conclude the skills training programs are admitted for further training in the Industrial Training Centers, operated by the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Community Development, which train skills for employment in construction, manufacturing, commerce, and agriculture. Further, the Vocational Training Development Institute (VTDI) created vocational training curricula and training materials for instructors who would then offer on-the-job-training to employees. Gordon (1977) noted that, between 1966 and 1977, 2,585 trainees enrolled in VTDI, and 50% completed one or more of the required modules. Additionally, during the period, the National Industrial Training Board was established to provide in-service training and professional development to industrial and engineering employees. Youth camps, Youth Community Training Centers, Industrial Training Centers, VTDI, and the National Industrial Training Board all represent the GOJ efforts to promote a skilled labor force. Later, these efforts took on legislative authority which the government saw as a way of ensuring that as many Jamaicans as possible in the labor force had the opportunity to gain the training and skills needed in modern technology, hence reducing the number of immigrants carrying out jobs for which Jamaicans could receive training. At the time, the primary industries on the island that required and were actively involved with supporting the skill training of Jamaicans included the bauxite sector, sugar factories, Seprod, Desnoes & Geddes, Grace Kennedy, and Industrial Commercial Developments Ltd. (LCD). Also, the Institute of Management and Production was established to train local entrepreneurs, while the Jamaican Institute of Management was founded in 1967 to organize in-service training to improve management performance, so too was the University of the West Indies’ Executive Training Program. In the 1970s, the Government of Jamaica focused efforts on nation-building and used a plethora of educational and training organizations to facilitate its vision of education for change through the process of social reconstruction and the enhancement of the quality of life for Jamaicans. Many of the skills training programs that targeted out-of-school youths in the 1980s evolved under the umbrella of Human Employment and Resource Training Trust/National Training Agency (HEART Trust/NTA). By the 1990s and 2000s, HEART grew into a reputable training agency offering a wealth of nationally and internationally recognized certifications and licensing. Building on the progress made towards accommodating the effective transition to the labor force by

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secondary and postsecondary graduates, legislative policies and planning in Vision 2030 Jamaica guide the education system. Vision 2030 Jamaica is a strategic road map by which the country hopes to progress towards becoming developed by 2030, and is implemented through a series of 3-yearly Medium Term Socio-Economic Policy Frameworks (MTFs), which are supported by a results-based monitoring and evaluation mechanism that establishes specific targets and indicators to measure and track performance. Education and labor force transition is prioritized in Vision 2030 by National Outcome # 2 which is the National Development Plan 2009: World-Class Education and Training (Jamaica 2009, XXVI): Under Vision 2030 Jamaica, our country will develop an education and training system that produces well rounded and qualified individuals who are able to function as creative and productive individuals in all spheres of our society and be competitive in a global context. We will build on the foundation of the education transformation processes, which are progressing towards improvement of the education system at all levels. The contribution of the HEART Trust/NTA to the delivery of training in Jamaica will be further strengthened as it continues to contribute to the creation of a society of lifelong learners. Our initial emphasis will be to improve our capacity to support the holistic development of the child and provide opportunities for the education and training of our under-trained population, particularly our unattached youth. We will continue to enhance our tertiary institutions to ensure that we have world-class graduates who are able to contribute to a knowledge-based and innovative society. At the very minimum, the average beneficiary of our education and training system will: have completed the secondary level of education; acquired a vocational skill; be proficient in English Language, a foreign language, Mathematics, a science subject and Information Technology; participate in sports and the arts; be aware and proud of our local culture; and possess excellent interpersonal skills and workplace attitudes. By 2030, more than 98 per cent of our population who are 15 years and older will be fully literate.

6

Institutional and Organizational Principles

6.1

General Principles

The Ministry of Education (MOE) head offices in Kingston and six regional offices (Table 4) oversee the school system in Jamaica. This is one of the largest public entities of the government of Jamaica and collectively covers 11 agencies, six Regional Offices, and one central office with approximately 40 units which fall Table 4 Regional offices MOE Regions for the MOE. (Source Region 1 Ministry of Education Region 2 Website) Region 3 Region 4 Region 5 Region 6

Parishes Kingston, St. Andrew, and Western St. Thomas Eastern St. Thomas, Portland, and St. Mary St. Ann and Trelawny St. James, Hanover, and Westmoreland St. Elizabeth and Manchester Clarendon and St. Catherine

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under five divisions. Each regional office is staffed with a core of education officers responsible for monitoring, supervising, and assessing the educational programs from preprimary to secondary. These unite to provide the framework for the efficient functioning of over 1,000 public educational institutions that serve over 100,000 students and over 20,000 teachers. The Ministry of Education is also responsible for two public universities and several community, multidisciplinary, and teachers’ colleges. According to the Education Act, a Management Board whose members are appointed by the Minister shall administer every public educational institution. In addition, every public educational institution has a student council consisting of elected student body representatives. Through the student council at the secondary and tertiary levels, the students shall have the right to: (a) democratically elect their own representatives; (b) have representation on the Board of the institution; and (c) meet with the principal and staff or both on any matter affecting students’ interests. In alignment with this education act, the National Council on Education (NCE), a nonpartisan council, the HEART Trust, and the National Training Agency (NTA) were established to improve the coordination of vocational and technical training. Additional agencies include the National Council for Technical/Vocational Education and Training (NCTVET), the University Council of Jamaica (UCJ), the Joint Committee for Tertiary Education (JCTE), and the Joint Board of Teacher Education (JBTE). Furthermore, privately operated schools in Jamaica shall register with the MOE.

7

Education Administration and Governance

First established in 1953, the Ministry of Education (MOE) is the GOJ unit responsible for the management and administration of public education on the island. According to the MOE website, this institution is responsible for carrying out the GOJ mandate of facilitating high-quality education and training of all Jamaicans in an effort to augment individual and national development via educational upward mobility. The core philosophical tenets of the MOE is the Vision 2030 Educational Sector Plan/National Development Plan 2009. The predecessor to this plan is the 1980 Education Act, which designated four levels of schooling in the Jamaican education system: early childhood (3–5 years), primary (6–11 years), secondary (12–17 years), and higher (18 years and above), see Table 5. The government provides formal education, as do religious and private organizations and trusts (Saxon et al. 2012). Under the policy mandates of Vision 2030, the MOE is focused on the following long-term priorities: (1) Child and Youth Development; (2) Child Care and Protection; (3) Lifelong Learning, (4) Governance and Accountability; (5) Information and Communication; (6) Quality Education and Training; and (7) Stakeholder Engagement. In the short term, the ministry is attentive to: (1) Safety, Security and Uniformed Groups in all schools; (2) Technology in Education and Administration; (3) Differentiated Instruction for effective teaching and learning; (4) Youth

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Table 5 Structure of the education system in Jamaica. (Data source: University Council of Jamaica list of accredited schools: http://www.ucj.org.jm/accreditation.htm) Educational program Postsecondary tertiary

Short-cycle tertiary education Vocational postsecondary non-tertiary Postsecondary/ non-tertiary

Upper secondary education

Lower secondary education

Minimum entrance requirements: Main diplomas, qualifications, or certificates awarded at end of program Doctoral or equivalent level Doctoral degree/MPhil Completion of degree/MPhil /Master’s degree Master’s degree or equivalent Bachelor’s degree or equivalent Entry requirements Passes in 5 subjects of Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) and/or 2 A level subjects. Entry requirements Passes in 5 subjects of Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) Completion of upper secondary (O level) School Leaving Certificate Completion of upper secondary (O level) Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE); GCE Advanced Level (A-level) Completion of Lower secondary Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC); General Certificate Education (GCE) Ordinary Level (Olevel) Completion on primary education Junior High School Certificate/Lower Secondary Education

Primary education

Primary School Grade One Individual Learning Profile Grade Three Diagnostic Test Grade Four Literacy Test Grade Six Achievement Examination (GSAT)

Preprimary

Preprimary: infant school and basic school Early childhood educational development

Age 23+ 21+ 19

17

17

Grade 13 12 11 10

COMPULSORY EDUCATION

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6

3 0

Development and Career Advancement; and (5) Efficiency in Public Information and Communication. The MOE core administrative functions include: (1) Planning, developing, and implementing educational policies and programs; (2) Monitoring and evaluating the performance of locally and internationally funded projects and programs; (3) Maintaining an efficient system of collecting, collating, analyzing, and presenting current and accurate data on quantifiable educational indicators to meet local

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demand and international standards; (4) Developing and supporting programs, services, and activities geared towards personal and national development, and (5) providing guidance in financial management for all educational institutions and affiliated agencies. Within these five core mandates, the mission is to provide strategic leadership and policy direction for quality education for all Jamaicans to maximize their potential, contribute to national development, and compete effectively in the global economy. The GOJ vision 2030 national strategy for education shares the idea that all learners in Jamaica should become globally competitive; socially conscious within enriching learner-centered and technologically advanced environments. Pursuant to the strategic objectives, the MOE has policy priorities. These strategic objectives include increasing access to high-quality primary, secondary, postsecondary education, and accredited training, as well as to ensure that graduates are immediately marketable based on labor market demands. Further strategic objectives include increasing the island’s literacy rates and improving educational physical and social infrastructure to account for higher quality of delivery, safety, and experience. The MOE aims to become more transparent, accountable, and responsive to all stake holders, as well as to ensure that educators at all levels are appropriately qualified and certified for their roles, by investing the funds needed to achieve the MOE’s goals.

8

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED Classification

The education system in Jamaica has experienced several phases of reform that transitioned it from the phase of meeting the needs of an agrarian society with a social hierarchy headed by a small white elite population and a larger poor labor class consisting of people of African descent to today’s educational system that is meeting the needs of a society forging towards Industrial and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) development. According to the UNESCO ISCED classification, Jamaica’s education system aligns with the British-American model of 6 + 5 + 2 meaning 6 years of primary, 5 years of secondary and two additional years of secondary, based on specific criteria. Additionally, Jamaica reformed its education system to align more with the British-American model. The GOJ is taking steps to increase the duration of schooling, as it tries to shift the additional 2 years of secondary school from optional to compulsory. There is also the trend towards introducing policies that will make preschool education compulsory. Unlike in several other countries, Jamaica has taken steps to simplify the classification of secondary school labels. However, it remains to be seen if changing of school names from secondary to high school and the introduction of a standard curriculum will yield more parity in graduate outcomes. The above question is crucial, because the GSAT examination that determines which secondary/high school a primary school graduate will attend, tracks students based on performance and perceived

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academic ability and places them accordingly. This practice reinforces the academic rank given to each secondary level school on the island. Preprimary, also referred to as early childhood education in Jamaica, focuses on birth to 3 years and students aged 4 and 5 years and is not compulsory. Typically, early childhood education is offered in public and private institutions (see Table 5). In the public sector, early childhood education is provided in Infant schools and Infant departments of some primary-level schools. Nursery and kindergarten departments of independent preparatory (private primary) schools also accept students at age 3. Besides, there are community-operated basic schools. These cater to the most significant number of students at the early childhood level. According to The Dudley Grant Memorial Trust and the Ministry of Education (2010), a critical aim of early childhood curricula is to help children achieve the broad developmental goals and outcomes considered desirable within their particular community. The six beneficial learning goals identified for these students are wellness, practical communication skills, value for his/her culture, intellectual empowerment, respect for one’s self, others and the environment, and resilience. Primary education in Jamaica covers grades 1 to 6 and Junior High, and All-Age schools cover grades 1–9 (Table 5). Primary school grade 1–6 is also offered at religious/private preparatory schools. Typically, students begin primary-level education at the age of 6. Often primary schools are referred to as “feeder schools” to secondary/high schools. At the primary level, students are required to take several standardized examinations through the National Assessment Program. The first standardized exam is the Grade One Individual Learning Profile, and then there is the Grade Three Diagnostic Test and the Grade Four Literacy Test. All these tests lead up to the Grade Six Achievement Examination (GSAT), administered annually in March. The GSAT is also a placement examination for admission to secondary/ high school. Students who attend All-Age and Junior High Schools may remain in the same school after 6th grade to complete grades 7, 8, and 9. The Technical Entrance Examination administered at the end of grade 8 in these schools offers students the opportunity to attend technical secondary/high schools. Likewise, the Grade Nine Achievement Test administered to All-Age and Junior High School students at the end of the 9th grade offers placement into all types of secondary/high schools for the remaining 2–4 years of this education level. The Ministry of Education makes clear that every child completing primary school should be functionally literate and numerate, demonstrating a positive self-concept and a willingness to take responsibility for his/her learning. He/she should be cultural, aesthetically, and spiritually aware, and be guided by a commitment to social and moral principles (1999). Therefore, the goals for primary education are to ensure that the primary curriculum exposes students to a learning environment in which these competencies can be acquired. The basic curriculum in primary schools includes English, Language Arts (ELA), reading, mathematics, social studies, science, art and craft, music, and physical education. Secondary education in Jamaica has two phases (see Table 6). The first is grades 7 to 9, and as mentioned, is sometimes covered in junior high (lower secondary) and all age schools as well as technical, independent/private, and high schools. The

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Table 6 Vision 2030 strategic framework for ITC goal #2 desired education and training outcomes Strategies to improve ITC 2.1.1 Develop and institutionalize a teacher education system that provides a technologyintegrated learning environment and graduates who are equipped to prepare students island-wide with the requisite skill sets mandated by global workforce requirements 2.1.2 Establish full integration of ICT into the teaching and learning processes at the preprimary, primary, secondary, and tertiary level and UTE for all students 2.1.3 Establish basic ICT and information literacy programmes as core components of secondary education 2.1.4 Provide opportunities to achieve 100% literacy of all citizens, including unattached and youth at risk and the disabled population 2.1.5 Encourage increased development of science and technology education in schools to provide a more useful platform for future national and global success 2.1.6 Foster the development of public private partnerships at a national level to ensure alignment of education/training outcomes with requirements of the private sector as well as collaboration for financial sustainability of ICT initiatives 2.1.7 Encourage the development of digital educational content as well as new media channels to support the teaching of all subject areas and the availability of online or on-tap educational opportunities 2.1.8 Ensure equitable access of all educational and training institutions (from preprimary to tertiary to community access points) to low-cost, reliable high-speed Internet 2.1.9 Foster the establishment of community-based cybercafés/telecentres and access points to connect communities and to create actual and virtual spaces for learning and earning 2.2.1 Establish local, regional, and global strategic alliances with internationally acclaimed high-end ICT training providers and accrediting bodies to build local instructor capacity, provide access to cutting-edge technology and materials as well as international recognition 2.2.2 Provide incentives to attract and retain the necessary ICT specialists locally, from the Jamaican diaspora or wherever the skills exist 2.2.3 Encourage the development of knowledge networks and communities of practice to foster continuous learning and improvement among practitioners 2.2.4 Encourage the development of research at the postsecondary level in the area of ICT and related disciplines such as engineering and the physical sciences 2.2.5 Expand opportunities internationally for faculty and postgraduate student exchanges, conferences, seminars, and workshops in the area of ICT

curriculum in grades 10 and 11, the second phase of secondary education (upper secondary), prepares students for the Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) subjects, administered by the Caribbean Examinations Councils (CXC). The dual phases thus separate secondary education into four distinct tracks that have different entry requirements (GSAT scores) and exit points (CSEC grades). There are the academic, mixed academic, and technical, diverse educational and vocational, and prevocational tracks. Even though the MOE has removed the tracking label historically associated with secondary/high schools, student outcomes indicate that these four tracks are still a reality for many students. Therefore, the academic track has traditionally been geared toward white-collar professions, while the mixed educational and vocational tracks are for everyone else (World Bank 1999). Before the

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removal of the labels, secondary-level schools in Jamaica had two categories, and students were and still are placed in these schools based on their performance in the GSAT. The first secondary school category consists of traditional high schools, which are the most prestigious and primarily prepare students for the academic track; the second includes technical and comprehensive high schools as well as some upgraded secondary schools (Handa 1996). The CSEC examinations taken at the end of grade 11 are an academic achievement measure, a placement test that determines if a student will be able to transition to a higher education institution or the additional 2 years of secondary/high school. Further, the CSEC exams are a qualification that determines when, how, and in what capacity a secondary-level school graduate might enter the workforce. Some secondary/high schools have a continuing education program, provided under the Career Advancement Program and the Sixth Form/Pre-university program in grades 12 and 13. In the sixth form, students concentrate on the requirements for entry to tertiary institutions, and the curriculum prepares them to take the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE). At the end of 11th or 13th grade, secondary education assumed a transitional nature (Miller 1997), as the focus switches to educating for the next phases of life be it academic or vocational education, employment or a combination (Miller 1997). The curriculum at Jamaican secondary schools includes all of the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Language Arts and Literature Mathematics—Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry Biology Chemistry Earth Sciences Health Sciences History—World History and Jamaican History Geography IT Foreign Language(s) Art Music Physical Education

Multiple public and private institutions in Jamaica offer postsecondary, both tertiary and non-tertiary education. Several are local while there are a few foreign institutions. These colleges and universities provide training in response to educational needs at different points in the island’s history and offer a range of associate, bachelor’s, and postgraduate degrees, certificates, diplomas, and certifications. The postsecondary and tertiary institutions in Jamaica include teacher’s colleges and departments, community colleges, and vocational training centers and institutes. There is also the Vocational Training Development Institute (VTDI), schools of midwifery and nursing (offering a 3-year program leading to a diploma), Management Institute of Jamaica, Northern Caribbean University, the University

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of the West Indies (a regional institution), and the University of Technology among several others. Passing grades (A, B, C) in individual subjects in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) are qualifications for entry into these colleges and universities. The University Council of Jamaica is the primary accreditation board on the island to which all postsecondary and tertiary institutions are accountable.

8.1

Personnel Supply

Based on the legislation and policies enacted under Vision 2030 and the mission and vision of the MOE, it is clear that Jamaica hopes to prepare all its graduates for a global labor market. Blom and Hobbs (2008) note that one of the primary challenges that face numerous countries in the Caribbean is that many secondary and postsecondary level graduates are not prepared for the competitive global economy because the region’s educational system has not kept pace with technological advances as well as the limitations in credential transfers to places outside the region. The GOJ recognizes that the economic sectors that are growing the fastest are services such as tourism and the technology and communication sector. Despite this recognition by the GOJ, there is growing evidence that the education provided to students is not adequately preparing them for respective positions beyond entry levels. Furthermore, Blom and Hobbs (2008) and CAP (2011) found that Jamaica has a large population of undereducated and unemployed youth who lack the necessary skills for a globally competitive workforce. Hence, postsecondary institutions and programs such as the HEART Trust/NTA and the NYS were created to offer careerready skills to Jamaicans who realize that their secondary or postsecondary education did not prepare them for the job market. The HEART Trust/NTA and the NYS programs target young people who have experienced minimal educational success including CSEC passes that would matriculate them into tertiary institutions. Hence, to meet labor market demands, Jamaicans who successfully train in these two programs are awarded Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) preparing them for the labor market. The primary obstacle facing these two institutions is that needs exceed their capacity. Although the HEART Trust/NTA and the NYS program do have comparatively lower entry requirements compared to other postsecondary and tertiary institutions, individuals who cannot demonstrate secondary level academic success by way of at least passing grades in two CSEC subject areas are often denied entry. Though some specific areas of study might face challenges for talent transfer to countries outside of the Caribbean, generally accepted is the fact that Jamaica’s tertiary institutions provide an excellent education. Jamaica, however, faces the problem of appropriately absorbing all the highly trained individuals into the local labor force. The inability of the island’s labor market to gainfully employ many tertiary-level graduates results in a high level of brain drain caused by the emigration of thousands of skilled and educated people (Clarke 2006).

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9

Educational Trends and Highlighted Issues

9.1

Inequality

727

The UNESCO handbook on measuring equity in education (2018, 17) defines equality as “the state of being equal in terms of quantity, rank, status, value or degree.” Equity accounts for the social justice ramifications of fairness, justness, and impartiality of its distribution at all levels and subsectors. The national vision for education states the education system will be equitable and accessible for full attendance to grade 11. Accountability, transparency, and performance are the hallmarks of operation that is excellent, self-sustaining, resourced, and welcomes full stakeholder participation. A divided Jamaica emerged from colonialism with advantages and disadvantages segmented along economic, social, racial, and gender lines. Rural communities and people with disabilities also experienced particular educational disadvantages. Inequity was always at the forefront of education reform in Jamaica because of issues related to race, skin color, class, gender, geography, and ability (Miller 1997). Efforts to address inequities in the education system in Jamaica include the introduction of learning pathways, and encouraging inclusive approaches. Despite the imbalances noted in all levels of education in Jamaica, PREAL and CaPRI (2012) show that illiteracy rates are trending downwards. In 1999, one in five adults or 20% of the population were illiterate, compared to 8% by 2008 whereas in rural areas the illiteracy rate declined from 27% to 11% from 1999 to 2008. Inequality issues in sex and gender: PREAL and CaPRI (2012, 18) said that “Jamaica is one of 22 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries to have achieved gender parity in enrollment at the primary and secondary level and is doing better than Latin American averages.” However, at the tertiary level, females double the number of males registering and graduating, an issue first written about by Errol Miller under the title Marginalisation of the Black Male. The National Council on Education Performance in CSEC (2009) noted that data from 2009 indicate that females accounted for approximately 63% of all students enrolling in universities and colleges on the island. This report further suggested that girls and boys attend school at roughly the same rate at the primary and secondary schools. The disparities in academic performance based on sex and gender manifest early in formal schooling, for example, the 2006/2007 Grade One Individual Learning Profile, administered at the commencement of first grade, showed that on average 51% of girls compared to 38% of boys mastered the cognitive skills tested. Further, the 2009 Grade Four Numeracy Test demonstrated that 56% of boys compared to 77% of girls learned the cognitive skills tested. The National Council on Education Performance said that the gender differences in primary and secondary performance appear to be systemic, and this chapter argues that it is also a product of socialization. Patterns of inequality in standardized examination: The Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) that determines student placement at the secondary level shows patterns of gender inequality. In 2009/2010, girls outperformed boys in all five

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subjects. The disparity between the performance of boys and girls is also evident in the results of the secondary exams, CSEC. In addition, there is inequity in education transitions from the primary to the secondary level. For instance in 2009, students, informally labeled traditional high school (66% pass rate), outperformed students in comprehensive and technical high schools and new secondary schools (11% pass rate) in CSEC examinations for all disciplines (Planning Institute of Jamaica – PIOJ 2009a). The results for CSEC mathematics were 4% (all other secondary schools) compared to 41% (traditional high schools) (PIOJ 2009a). Students with disabilities: To redress inequities, the GOJ has embarked on a strong campaign to increase access to education for persons with disabilities through policies of inclusion and several initiatives to accommodate both physical and cognitive disabilities. Economic disparities: The PREAL and CaPRI (2012) and the Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions (2008) found that the wealthiest group is eight times more likely to have tertiary education than the poorest 40% of the population. In 2008, the two most affluent consumption groups together received 67% of government spending at the tertiary level, compared to 20% of the poorest 40% of the population who had not passed the required exams to access employment opportunities and higher education (Barro 2002; Fox 2003). Additionally, about 90% of the poorest of Jamaica’s population has not accessed postsecondary education, compared to 56% of the wealthiest. In 2000/2001, 65% of Jamaica’s poor secondary school graduates did not pass any CSEC exam. These individuals are subject to an inequitable system of education that results in fewer opportunities in higher education and for gainful employment. As it pertains to economic disparities at the primary level, children in private preparatory schools that are attractive to the higher socioeconomic echelons outperform their counterparts in the public primary school in the five GSAT subjects. Several factors contribute to this outcome, for example, comparatively fewer resources in schools that cater to poorer students, insufficient parental participation due to a plethora of factors, and often weak school management. Apparent is the fact that not all Jamaican children receive an equal quality education. Currently, most secondary schools receive the same budget allocation from the MOE irrespective of the fact that access to supplemental funding sources including contributions from parents is limited in more impoverished communities. Spatial inequalities: The inequities in education in Jamaica are also apparent across geography, as in many rural communities, more than 80% of the population have no formal certification and are less likely to have earned some form of accreditation than those in other parts of the country (Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions 2008). Remarks: In 2012, PREAL and CaPRI issued a report card on access, quality, and equity of education in Jamaica. The report found that (p. 6) “Jamaicans have long shown concern about investment in and the equity of the education sector. Contrary to popular belief, the problem is not solely about money.” Between 2005 and 2010, the GOJ invested 5.3 to 6.1% of GDP in education, and as demonstrated, most Jamaican children attend school at least through lower secondary grades.

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Nevertheless, weak performance at all school levels highlights economic, spatial, and gender gaps in the system that negatively influence the learning outcomes of too many students. Many poor children and boys are particularly underserved. The scarcity of resources in less successful community schools is unacceptable, and per student spending disproportionately benefits those from better-off backgrounds. Using an A to F grading scale (excellent to very poor), the PREAL and CaPRI report card on education in Jamaica 2012 scored the island’s progress on nine predetermined criteria. On criteria four, equity, the island was deemed D-unsatisfactory because there was no clear path to address the underperformance of boys in the school system and wide disparities in educational outcomes by socioeconomic groups. Equity was the only criterion in which the island showed declines.

10

ICT and Digitalization

Jamaica is striving towards improving information and technology resources and respective knowledge in schools. The introduction of computer-assisted instruction in primary and secondary schools in Jamaica in the 1990s was a bottom-up educational reform. In 1990, the Ministry of Education and several donor agencies placed priority on introducing computers in primary and secondary schools (Miller 1997). Daley-Morris (2000) added to this claim by stating that, during the 1990s, the Ministry of Education authorized the establishment of the Jamaica Computer Society Education Foundation (JCSEF) whose mandate was to ensure that, by the early 2000s, all graduates of Jamaican secondary schools, teachers’ colleges, and community colleges had access to technology-based education. The MOE saw technology-based education as crucial to labor market competitiveness; hence, Information Technology was added to the secondary level curriculum and standardized examinations. Later Project 2000, a partnership with HEART Trust NTA, raised just over 1 million US dollars to establish 15-station computer laboratories in each secondary school, community college, and teachers’ college, and to provide in-service training for instructors (MOE 1998). By 2000, 140 institutions benefitted from this endeavor as each institution was required to provide and seek private sector sponsorship to cover 60% of the cost and the computer labs were primarily used to prepare students to sit CSEC and CAPE examinations. The MOE Project 2020 replaced Project 2000 with the aim of computerization and technology use to facilitate school improvement and learning (Daley-Morris 2000). Jamaica’s Project 2000, 2020, and EduNet initiatives facilitated constructive learning spaces through exposure to IT or computer science-based courses. These efforts extended teacher training to facilitate appropriate pedagogy, and teaching philosophies that complement technology content. In 2012, UNESCO reported that Jamaica was among curriculum recommendations for ICT-assisted instruction only at the secondary level, a far cry from other Caribbean islands including Barbados and Trinidad. Nevertheless, in 2010 Jamaica reported to UNESCO that 99% of primary and secondary schools had computer-assisted instructions (CIA). In further alignment, Jamaica’s efforts towards Internet-assisted instruction (IAI)

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showed that 93% of secondary-level schools had access to broadband connection. This means that Jamaica still has a long way to go as primary schools reported little to no access to Internet and broadband service, hence the learning method in which the Internet is used to deliver instructional material on a computer or through other devices in accordance with learners’ pedagogical needs is not available to students. The indicator of the proportion of Information and Communications Technology (ICT)-qualified teachers in schools measures the availability of teachers trained, according to nationally defined qualification standards, to teach basic computer skills (or computing) in primary and secondary schools. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics Database (2010), Jamaica reported that 3% of its qualified teachers taught basic computer skills for computing in secondary-level schools. There is clear evidence that Jamaica needs greater integration of ICT education and the supporting infrastructure particularly at the primary and teacher training levels. This need foreshadows the Vision 2030 policy goals regarding ICT for education. Under Vision 2030, there is an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Task Force that strategized around the strengths and weaknesses of ICT in Jamaican schools. Hence, steps were taken to establish computer labs in many schools to facilitate the E-learning project that was already in place. Colleges and universities are upgrading their ICT programs to meet local and international standard. Transforming the education system by increasing available technology as well as increasing the number of students sitting and passing CSEC IT examinations has priority for the Vision 2030 plan. There are also plans in place to better align and streamline existing ICT curricula at all school levels to shift the focus from Computer Science to Information Technology and Information Systems courses of study. These will require improvements in ICT technical support within schools as well as increased budget allocations. Such moves will align with industry, labor demands for better-trained ICT graduates and add to the growth of the software engineering sector. Under the Vision 2030 strategic framework for ICT, goal #2 is: An educated and trained workforce and citizenry, possessing the required attitudes, knowledge, and skill sets to function optimally in the knowledge society. This goal recognized that human and technical resources for ICT enable lifelong learning. Further, a subgoal 2.2 mentions quality education and training opportunities to facilitate significant expansion in the number of highly educated and competent Jamaicans available for the ICT sector. Table 6 shows the desired education and training outcomes that correspond with this goal and subgoal. Already efforts are being made to achieve the Vision 2030 ICT goal #2. As reported in the Jamaica Gleaner January 31, 2018, the MOE just implemented the digital mobile classroom project that benefitted about 9,100 students and 30 teachers in 10 primary schools in vulnerable communities across the island. The core of this project was to enhance the students’ and teachers’ skills and competencies and the quality of education through the provision of digital learning. Similar efforts are experiencing piecemeal development across Jamaica.

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STEM Subjects

The Ministry of Education in Jamaica in 2014 made a significant thrust towards enhancing STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and maths) as well as methodology and curriculum beginning in eight schools. Besides, there is now greater emphasis placed on STEM in the National Standards Curriculum (NSC) to rebrand the technical and vocational areas. Moreover, the MOE acknowledged that it used STEM as one of the philosophical underpinnings for the development of the NSC curriculum as the authors modelled the approach from countries that have advanced STEM education in recent years. As a part of the STEM curriculum and methodology, the NSC also mandates the infusion of project-based learning. There is growth in the number of schools participating in the initiative as well as in funding allocation. According to a MOE spokesperson, since 2014, this statutory body designed and piloted a conceptual framework for the implementation of a coordinated STEM curriculum in primary and secondary schools. This conceptual framework recognizes that STEM goes beyond a collection of school subjects and endorses an inclusive pedagogical approach that reduces abstractions and facilitates comprehension, application, and synthesis towards solving real-life problems. The MOE has actively worked with industry leaders in STEM fields such as agriculture, telecommunications, logistics, and transportation as well as with key stakeholders to ensure that this paradigm shift in Jamaica’s education system meets existing and future employment needs. According to the Jamaica Observer (11/20/2015), the incorporation of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) methodologies in the curriculum of schools rolled out in the 2016 academic year. This new curriculum and methodological framework began in 50 schools and was taught to students in grades 1 to 9 in primary and secondary institutions. In 2018, the MOE announced that nine schools were selected and transformed into STEM academies: Dunoon Park Technical, St Andrew Technical, and Kingston Technical in the Corporate Area; Herbert Morrison Technical, St James; Manchester High School; Dinthill Technical, St Catherine; Vere Technical, Clarendon; St Mary Technical; and the Sydney Pagon STEM Academy in St Elizabeth. The MOE acknowledges that a more significant level of resource injection into schools is now necessary to move STEM pedagogy toward a meaningful practice. According to the Clinton Foundation (2014), the Digicel Foundation Jamaica committed to supporting the Ministry of Education’s efforts to improve access to STEM disciplines in primary and secondary schools, particularly in poor urban, rural, and allgirls institutions. Through this venture, the Digicel Foundation has supplied Mobile Science Labs in 50 schools designed to increase access to and usage of STEM resources, grow enrollment in STEM subjects, and improve the pass rates in STEM subjects in all standardized tests. The Clinton Foundation notes that this initiative has influenced 5,000 students and 150 schools. Hence, according to Thomas (2017), the MOE allocated 384.5 million Jamaican dollars to STEM-related areas within the primary and secondary school system. The breakdown of this allocation indicates the following: STEM – 182 million Jamaican dollars, science education – Ja 50 million dollars, and ICT – Ja 151.5 million Jamaican dollars (Thomas 2017). To

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support STEM education in Jamaica, the MOE has made available Ja 2 million dollars for selected schools to upgrade science labs and other STEM facilities. Further, the MOE had also supported the growth of STEM education in Jamaican schools through the bulk purchase and distribution of computers, and microscience kits.

12

Emerging Issues

The contribution has comprehensively highlighted the history, reforms, trends, as well as issues in education in Jamaica. Using an A to F grading scale (excellent to very poor), the PREAL and CaPRI (2012) report card on education in Jamaica evaluated nine criteria. See Table 7 for the list of criteria and associated score. According to USAID (2013, 2), several factors affect student outcomes in Jamaica; some of these comprise persistent low scores in national examinations at all levels of the education system which suffers from three significant weaknesses: inadequate leadership, inadequate resources, and a low accountability environment. Due to the practice of promoting senior teachers to leadership positions without suitable training, school principals tend to demonstrate weak leadership and management skills. Further, there is a dearth of financial expertise in a supervisory capacity in many schools, and many schools require sufficient resources to meet teaching-learning needs. This issue is exacerbated by no formal system to support schools that are unable to access funds to supplement budgetary allocations. Another concern relates to the teacher–student ratio articulated by the MOE, which is not Table 7 PREAL and CaPRI (2012) report card on education in Jamaica Criteria Enrollment

Score B

Retention

C

Test scores Equity

B D

Standards

C

Assessment system

B

Management and accountability Teaching profession

C

Expenditure

B

C

Comments Consistent high enrollment at the preprimary and primary levels, but apparent declines at the secondary and tertiary levels. High retention in primary schools and grades 7–9 but low retention among 25–29 year-old individuals. Performance in all areas of assessment is improving. There was no clear path to address the underperformance of boys in the school system and wide disparities in educational outcomes by socioeconomic groups exist. The National Education Inspectorate is working to upgrade performance standards and to create increased opportunities for learning. National assessment systems have improved but more data drive processes are needed. More tangible improvements needed in accountability at the school level. Legislated teaching standards will contribute to protecting the profession. Allocated a high percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) to education and has made improvements in reducing the disparity in spending per pupil at the basic and tertiary levels.

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supported by the number of teachers currently employed in this sector compared to the actual number of students enrolled. Added to this is the steady stream of highly skilled Jamaican teachers leaving the country. The outmigration of teachers spiked in the early 1990s and continues to spike today. The GOJ is attempting to redress some of the issues identified through accountability and training interventions and subagencies such as the Basic Education Project, Expanding Educational Horizon Project, the National Education Inspectorate, and the National College for Educational Leadership.

13

Closing Remarks

Jamaica’s education system emerged from a history of plantocracy and evolved to meet the ever-changing needs of a society forging a path to development. The education reforms that shaped all levels of school on the island since the pre-independence period have several critical points. The first, while notions of nation-building, nationalism, and democratic values served as the impetus for earlier phases of education reform that desired universal coverage and more equitable distribution, the island’s weak economic growth in an era of a global oil crisis triggered international borrowing. The outcome saw Jamaica entering a period of economic servitude under structural adjustment grounded in cost reduction and retrenchment. Secondly, due to the policy differences of political parties, shifts in educational policy have sometimes caused retrogression in reform efforts as some policies are rolled back when they do not align with the philosophical tenants of the party in power. Third, Jamaica has long since championed education change to facilitate decentralization, improved school-based management, creating and implementing common curricula for grades 1–9, as well as curriculum reform to meet labor market needs. The present state of Jamaica’s education system still shows signs of systemic disadvantages and inequities by sex and gender and economic status despite several phases of reform. Fourth, regardless of the persistent inequality, the education system in Jamaica through the MOE has established a partnership with key stakeholders and organizations in the private sectors to facilitate reforms in STEM and ICT; this is a positive trend for education on the island. Given the plethora of reforms that have taken place in the Jamaican education system, several essential trends are apparent, so too are occurrences worthy of being mentioned. The most critical influencer of education trends in Jamaica today are the policies and actions associated with Vision 2030. Jamaica’s education is slowly but steadily trending towards advancing technological growth and social change. As a mandate from Vision 2030, the general curriculum has undergone substantial change and continues to be updated to ensure that students are well prepared for the challenges and opportunities, though the success in this regard remains questionable in some fields. Still, the MOE continues to work on providing multiple intelligences to Jamaican students, though more needs to be done at the teacher training and classroom practice levels to advance and cater to the real and perceptual needs of diverse learners. In this regard, the MOE has implemented alternative pathways to receiving an education at the secondary level, although there is no data to indicate the extent to which this approach does reach specific categories of diverse learners. The

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MOE purports that facilitating alternative pathways to secondary education is in alignment with their mission of “every child can learn, every child must learn.” In addition, worthy of note is the Career Advancement Program (CAP), a multiagency partnership offered in 53 secondary schools, which, since September 2016, provides opportunities for all students (aged 16–18) to identify, understand, choose, and prepare for careers and occupations of their choice. According to the MOE, this program engages students in meaningful educational activities to prevent them from falling into the high-risk category. The program does this by keeping these students in school for an additional 2 years as well as providing training and exposure, apprenticeship, as well as career counseling and coaching. The MOE has also implemented the Reform of Secondary Education (Phase II2001-2008), which upgraded infrastructure in schools and introduced home visits to address nonattendance and dropouts. The GOJ also introduced the Secondary School Enhancement Program in 2001 designed to redress equities at the secondary level through infrastructural improvements, and the reclassified and upgraded secondary/ high schools, and facilitate practices inclusive of Special Education Students (SPED). According to USAID (2013, 1), the following are noteworthy trends in education in Jamaica: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

The overall pass rates and quality of passing grades in the CSEC have improved. Rapidly increasing enrollment grades 10, 11, 12 and 13 of secondary school. Teacher education levels have improved. Illiteracy rate has declined, especially in rural areas. Targeted registration is 35% of secondary graduates at the tertiary level.

Despite reform efforts and the trends mentioned, many Jamaican students are graduating secondary schools with low levels of workplace skills and, if these young people are to meet their potential as well as become productive parts of the labor force, more will need to be done to close the economic, geographic, and gender gaps. To do so, the two-tiered inequitable secondary education system needs to be scrutinized beyond the relabeling of schools. Instead a reform is needed that takes into consideration the distribution of and access to resources, the professional development for in-service teachers as well as how GSAT places students. Consequently, operation budgets for primary and secondary schools should be equitably rather than equally aligned. There need to be more data-driven policies, decisions, and reform efforts. Thus, reforms should lead rather than follow innovation and change. By extension, there needs to be an expansion in educational research on the island that uses the data on the various reform efforts to determine their success, effectiveness, as well as areas for improvement.

References Bailey, B. (1997). Sexist patterns of formal and nonformal educational programmes: The case of Jamaica. In E. Leo-Rhynie, B. Bailey, & C. Barrow (Eds.), Gender: A Caribbean multidisciplinary perspective (pp. 144–158). Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers.

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Barro, S. M. (2002). Alternative formulas for funding Jamaica’s high schools (English). Washingt o n , D C : Wo r l d B a n k . h t t p : / / w w w. d o c u m e n t s . w o r l d b a n k . o rg / c u r a t e d / e n / 179531468253454788/Alternative-formulas- for-funding-Jamaicas-high-schools. Accessed 15 July 2020. Blom, A., & Hobbs, C. (2008). School and work in the Eastern Caribbean: Does the education system adequately prepare youth for the global economy? Washington, DC: World Bank. Campbell, W. (2015). The doomed marriage of education and poverty. Jamaica Observer Monday March 2. Retrieved from http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/the-doomed-marriage-ofeducation-and-poverty_18494862. Accessed 15 July 2020. CAP (Career Advancement Programme). (2011). http://www.cap.heart-nta.org/ Clarke, C. (2006). Politics, violence and drugs in Kingston, Jamaica. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 25(3), 420–440. Clinton Foundation Clinton Global Initiative. (2014). Innovations in STEM Education in Jamaica. Retrieved from https://www.clintonfoundation.org/clinton-global-initiative/commitments/inno vations-stem-education-jamaica Crites, John O. (1978). Career maturity inventory. Monterey: CTB/McGraw Hill. Development goals for the UN economic and social council annual ministerial review. Kingston: PIOJ. http:// www.pioj.gov.jm/piojdocs. Accessed 15 July 2020. Cummings, R. (1979). Book review “Educational change in postcolonial Jamaica”. Comparative Education Review, 23(1), 160–161. Daley-Morris, P. (2000). Introduction of information technology to Schools in Jamaica. https:// unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000136465 Ferguson, I. L. (1947). Education in Jamaica, British West Indies. The Journal of Negro Education, 16(4), 600–603. Fox, K. (2003). Mapping unattached youth in Jamaica. Report prepared for Inter- American Development Bank, December 2003. http://198.170.76.2/jamspred/Unattached_youth_map ping_report.pdf. Accessed 15 July 2020. Gordon, H. (1977). Building Jamaica by educating adults. Caribbean Quarterly, 23(4), 122–132. Goulbourne, H. D. (1985). Elementary school teachers and politics in colonial Jamaica: The formation of the Jamaica Union of Teachers, 1894. Caribbean Quarterly, 31(3), 16–30. Hamilton, M. (1997). The availability and suitability of educational opportunities for Jamaican female students: An historical overview. In E. Leo-Rhynie, B. Bailey, & C. Barrow (Eds.), Gender: A Caribbean multi-disciplinary perspective (pp. 133–143). Kingston: Ian Randle Publisher. Handa, S. (1996). The determinants of teenage schooling in Jamaica: Rich versus poor, females versus males. Journal of Development Studies, 32(4), 554–580. Jamaica Observer. (2015, Friday, November 20). STEM curriculum to roll out in schools next year. Retrieved from http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/STEM-curriculum-to-roll-out-inschools-next-year_19239417 Jamaica, Planning Institute of. (2009). Vision 2030 Jamaica – National Development Plan. Kingston: Planning Institute of Jamaica. Online at: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/ documents/1501jamaica.pdf Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions (JSLC). (2008). Kingston: JSLC. McKnight, N. (2017). Exploring early childhood leadership and policy enactment in Jamaica. Unpublished Dissertation the University of Western Ontario. Retrieved on January 4, 2019 from https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article¼6708&context¼etd. Accessed 15 July 2020. Miller, E. (1997). Educational reform in independent Jamaica. OECS education reformtask force report. Retrieved from http://www.educoas.org/Portal/bdigital/contenido/interamer/BkIACD/ Interamer/Interamerhtml/Millerhtml/mil_mil.htm. Accessed 15 July 2020. Ministry of Education and Culture, Jamaica. (1998). Implementation Plan for the World Bank INFODEV Project January 1997 –July 1998. Unpublished manuscript. Ministry of Education and Culture, Jamaica. (2010). The Jamaica early childhood curriculum guide for children four and five getting ready for life. Published by The Dudley Grant Memorial Trust in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the Early Childhood Commission, Kingston

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Jamaica. https://moey.gov.jm/sites/default/files/JECCG_%5BFour-to-Five-Year-Old%5D__% 28final%29_intrnt.pdf. 5 December 2018. MOE. (2013). Jamaica. Planning and Development Division. Statistics Unit. Kingston: MOE. Planning Institute of Jamaica, (PIOJ). Jamaica. (2011). Economic and social survey of Jamaica (ESSJ). Kingston, Jamaica. Saxon, T. F., Hull, D. M., Fearon, D. D., Williams, L. O., & Tindigarukayo, J. K. (2012). How do Jamaica’s unattached youth view their career prospects and life skills? Comparative Education Review, 56(3), 421–447. Sherlock, P., & Bennett, H. (1998). The story of the Jamaican people. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers. Statistical Institute of Jamaica. (2016). Education statistics. http://statinja.gov.jm/demo_socialstats/ education.aspx. Accessed 10 Dec. Thomas, M. (2017, Sunday Sept 24). STEM has gathered steam: Increased ministry funding. Jamaica Observer. http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/career-education/stem-has-gatheredsteam_111822. Accessed 15 July 2020. USAID. (2013, 24 July). EduFocus number # 17 Jamaica’s progress towards equity and quality: How are we doing in the education sector? United States Agency for International Development the Caribbean Policy and Research Institute (CaPRI) & Partnership for Educational Revitalization in the Americas (PREAL), p. 39. https://www.mona.uwi.edu/cop/sites/default/files/ EduFocus%2017-Final.pdf. Accessed on 2 Nov 2018. Whiteman, B. (1994). Education and training partnerships, the 1990’s imperatives: Jamaica, The West Indies. Journal of Education Finance, 19(4), 94–98. Wilkins, J., & Gamble, R. J. (2000). An examination of gender differences among teachers in Jamaican schools. Multicultural Education, 7(4), 18–20. World Bank. (1999). Jamaica secondary education: Improving quality and extending, Vol. 1. Report no. 19069-JM. Washington, DC: World Bank. http://www.wds.worldbank.org/servlet/ WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2000/07/25./000094946_00011405342811/Rendered/PDF/ multi_page.pdf. Accessed 15 July 2020.

The Education System of Mexico Inequality, Standardization, and Compensation

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Eugenia Rolda´n Vera and Adriana Robles Valle

Contents 1 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Transition to Labor Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED-Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Personnel Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

This contribution outlines the historical development of the Mexican education system, presents an overview of its institutional and organizational structure since 1921, and discusses selected educational trends. The chapter argues that throughout the twentieth century, the system struggled to catch up with a dramatically expanding population that was divided by enormous social, economic, and cultural inequalities and that a number of contingent mechanisms were devised in order to standardize unequal growth in different areas and compensate for social and economic problems that schooling per se could not resolve. It will be E. Roldán Vera (*) · A. Robles Valle Department of Educational Research, Center for Advanced Studies and Research (CINVESTAV), Mexico City, Mexico e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_11

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shown that the divides between indigenous/rural and urban populations, men and women, regional and central educational traditions, among other factors, were only to an extent ameliorated by a more or less centralized educational system that unified administration, curriculum, and school textbooks. It will be analyzed how the very expansion of the system created further divisions: teachers belonging to different jurisdictions (the central state or each federal state), disparities between state-funded and nonstate funded institutions, and a stratification of educational options for an increasing demand, in particular in upper secondary and tertiary education. The analysis of the 1990s political reforms tending towards de-centralization, de-regulation, and accountability will show how the way in which the funds for education were allocated changed, especially regarding the new weight given to evaluation – schools and teachers had to be evaluated in order to compete for resources – which further increased inequalities between schools in marginal contexts and those in more socially privileged ones. At the same time, since the 1990s, direct cash transfers from the government to families with school aged children generalized throughout the country as a compensatory mechanism to the pressing social factors that lead to school dropout. Keywords

Mexican education system · Inequality · Standardization · Compensation mechanisms · Centralization

1

Historical and Social Foundations

1.1

General Historical Background

Before the Spanish conquest (1521), the territory that is today Mexico was inhabited by a plurality of peoples. Most of them (in the center and south) coalesced around the Mexica (Aztec) empire, a complex and centralized civilization with highly differentiated education structures for the different strata of society, structures that were totally destroyed by the violent conquest. Education during the three centuries of Spanish domination first focused on the Christianization of the indigenous population, but by the eighteenth century it was promoting a more general schooling controlled by the local authorities, both in indigenous and nonindigenous settings, meant to instruct reading, writing, and religion. There were also several institutions of semi-clerical, secondary education, and one University in Mexico City. Following independence in 1821, under the new Mexican republic, education was a matter of jurisdiction of each federal state. Primary education remained in the hands of the municipalities, new institutions of secondary education (colegios or institutos literarios) were founded (Ríos Zúñiga 2002), and the University was subject to several reformation attempts in an effort to fence the influence of the powerful Catholic Church (Alvarado 2009). After decades of civil unrest and foreign invasions, in the last third of the nineteenth century, the national state was

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consolidated upon liberal bases that separated the Church from the civil and governmental spheres, and promoted the formation of homogeneous educational institutions across the country. Control of primary schooling was transferred from the municipalities to the governments of the federal states, primary schooling was decreed compulsory first in the capital of the country (1891) and then elsewhere, and the teaching of religion was banished in the government-funded schools of Mexico City. Professionalization of teachers began with the creation of 45 normal schools throughout the country, and the National University was re-founded with a new structure in 1910. A new Constitution was approved in 1917; it established that all state-funded education should be laic (secular), which entailed the prohibition of teaching religion in public schools throughout the country; it also limited the provision of schooling by religious congregations. Since then, the terms “public schools,” “official schools,” and “government-funded schools” have been indistinctly used to refer refer to schools provided by the state which may or may not be totally free of charge. In the aftermath of the violent social and agrarian revolution of 1910–1920, a new Ministry of Public Education (Secretaría de Educación Pública, SEP) was established in 1921, a date which can be considered the foundation of the present education system. SEP was created with a large number of attributions: whereas urban, primary schools remained in the hands of the federal states, SEP was to rule over all primary rural education, the newly created lower secondary schools and a number of normal schools, as well as other art and archeology schools and museums. The SEP’s penetration throughout the country in the years 1921–1940 (largely through the “ruralization” of many existing schools and the creation of new ones), accompanied by processes of negotiation and adaptation of schooling, contributed to the construction of the new postrevolutionary state, and articulated the bases of the relationship between the national government and the local and regional authorities (Rockwell 1994, 2007). This way of proceeding also created a deep divide – which persists today – between the schools belonging to the “federal system” (i.e., the SEP), and those belonging to the different state systems, since the two types of schools had different conditions especially in terms of teachers’ salaries and conditions of work. In this period, the number of secondary schools rose, and the government created the National Polytechnic Institute as a higher education center alternative to the National University, offering technical degrees at the secondary and tertiary level and opening facilities for children from working class families. Education during the 1930s was advocated as a means to social transformation, at all levels. Advanced by President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940), a reform to article 3 of the Constitution stated that education should be “socialist” – which in reality meant rational, science-based, nonreligious-oriented education. Rural teachers were given the task of promoting the government program of agrarian reform and empowering peasant communities. A conservative turn in the following decade targeted education for the service of “national unity” (the term “socialist education” was removed from the Constitution). However, the social and political representations of education from the 1930s had long-lasting consequences, especially among teachers trained in the rural normal schools of that decade, who developed a highly

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politicized awareness of the problems of the poor countryside, and some of whom later formed communist associations or even joined the guerrillas of the 1960s (Civera Cerecedo 2008). The first general law of education was issued in 1939, legalizing what SEP had, de facto, built since 1921. The law was later reformed in 1942, 1973, 1993, and 2019, with changes related to rhetoric, allocation of teachers and ways of teacher promotion, share of managing duties between SEP and the federal states’ education ministries, increase in the number of years of compulsory schooling, and expansion of the definition of the right of the people to education. However, those changes did not fundamentally altered the basic structure of the Mexican education system laid in the 1920s and 1930s. The National Educational Workers Syndicate (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación), SNTE, was founded in 1943, bringing together a plurality of teachers’ organizations. As the education system was expanding, the transfer of teachers to the federal states and their distancing from the SEP itself gave SNTE much power as the organization that gathered almost all the teachers in the country. As it was the case with many other national unions, SNTE was the only valid interlocutor between the teachers and the state, and it acquired vital functions for the education system that have remained until today, such as the appointment of teaching positions, promotions, changes of workplace, and the negotiation and administration of social security benefits (Arteaga 1994). In the years 1940–1970, the urbanization and industrial development of the country was paralleled by the consolidation of a semi-democratic political regime centered around one single, official party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI), which operated in a clientelist and corporatist way. Whereas the Mexican population grew exponentially from 15 million in 1910 to 36 million in 1960, and 50 million in 1970, the education system strove to come accommodate, but it was always falling behind. By 1960, three million children were not schooled. An ambitious “Eleven-Year-Plan for the Improvement of Primary Education” was put in place from 1960 to 1971. The plan managed to triple the number of places for children in primary school, largely by creating two shifts of school attendance per day, morning and afternoon, which cut by 42% the time each student spent at school and allowed teachers to work two shifts. However, population growth exceeded estimations and by 1971, another three million children were out of the school system. Moreover, one outcome of that plan was the development of regional inequalities in terms of educational offer: whereas the poorer federal states (especially in the south) managed to expand enrollment in primary school, the richer ones (mainly in the north), which already had a good provision of primary schooling, developed in this period their secondary and tertiary education systems, accentuating regional differences in the industrial development of the country (Muñoz Izquierdo 1973). These differences persisted for decades but have significantly lessened in the past fifteen years, since lower and upper secondary education were made compulsory in 1993 and 2012, respectively, at the national level. Simultaneous to the “Eleven-Year-Plan,” in 1959 the central government launched a program of production and distribution of standard textbooks for primary

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school, handed over free of charge to all students of the country in both public and private schools, the use of which was decreed compulsory and exclusive (in public schools). The aim of the Libro de Texto Gratuito program was to make textbooks available to all in order to guarantee the free character of education – considering that only a small fraction of the school population had access to any kind of textbooks, by then rather expensive books – and to provide a clear, uniform curriculum and teaching guide for the often ill-trained teachers (Roldán Vera and Quintanilla 2020). The program, which is still in place, has extended to lower secondary schools (whereby the government authorizes a number of commercially produced textbooks and then distributes them free of charge to all state schools); textbooks are also produced in Braille. Specific textbooks for indigenous (bilingual) and community schools are also produced by the central government, attending the specific curricula of those modalities. In general, standard textbooks have succeeded in providing a common curriculum throughout the country, but their quality has not been constant and they have created wide controversies at different points in time. At present, whereas private schools are allowed to use additional, commercial textbooks, children in public schools only have the official ones. The economic growth of the country in the period 1940–1970 was matched neither with policies of income distribution nor with a democratization of the political system, which contributed to the massive workers’ and students’ mobilizations of the 1950s and 1960s, accentuated by the international tensions and rhetoric characteristic of the Cold War years. The violent repression of such movements, epitomized in a massacre of students on 2 October 1968 in the Tlatelolco square in Mexico City, led, among other things, to a significant loss of legitimacy of the ruling party. Repressive policies remained to an extent while some student groups joined the guerrillas that were forming in different parts of the country and the government under President Luis Echeverría (1970–76) embarked on a major educational reform with the intention of restoring the challenged legitimacy of the state party. The reform, catalyzed by the new 1973 general law of education, was involved in an unprecedented expansion of upper secondary and tertiary education offer, the incorporation of many social leaders in the education sector (in the expanding university system or in the SEP itself), and the production of a new generation of official textbooks that adopted some of the leftist social views of the time. All this was possible thanks to a significant amount of money coming from foreign debt and an increase in highly priced oil exports. In the 1970s, primary schooling continued to expand, but coverage was still far from universal. In 1971 SEP created the Consejo Nacional de Fomento Educativo (CONAFE) to provide primary education, by means of instructors, in little-populated, marginal rural and indigenous communities where regular schools could not be established. At the same time, SEP developed new modalities of lower and upper secondary schools, especially with a technological orientation, conceived of as terminal degrees, intending to enroll students from working class backgrounds (Villa Lever 2010). In 1969, as part of the repression to student mobilization 15 (out of 29), normal rural schools were transformed into Escuelas Secundarias Técnicas Agropecuarias. Tele-secundaria. A program of lower-secondary schools

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supported by TV broadcasting in rural areas where the number of teachers was insufficient was launched in 1968, and it is still important as of today. With government input, but also thanks to the emergence of several private institutions, university coverage grew from 6.4% in 1970 to 14.5% in 1980 (Tuirán and Muñoz 2010). In 1985, teacher training became a tertiary degree, which could be studied in the existing normal schools and also in the National Pedagogical University, founded in 1978. The fall of the international oil prices, excessive foreign debt, and high inflation rates led to a severe crisis and consequent economic contraction in the 1980s. The gross domestic product (GDP) percentage for education decreased drastically and all state-funded education levels stopped expanding – yet they continued doing so in the private sector. Salaries of teachers and academics fell to their lowest level. Social unrest, stirred by the poor government response to the earthquake on 1985, September 19th, as well as the fraudulent 1988 elections, contributed to set the context for the relative democratic turn of the following decade. A series of reforms implemented in the 1990s gave the Mexican education system some new features that still prevail today. That decade was characterized by policies of state reduction – involving privatization of state enterprises and decentralization of social services – de-regulation, and openness of the market. Following international trends set by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and favored by a relative deceleration of demographic growth, reforms in the education system were oriented towards de-centralization and accountability. Through a pact signed between the SEP and the powerful Teacher’s Syndicate (SNTE), the Acuerdo Nacional para la Modernización de la Educación Básica (1992), and a new general law of education (1993), SEP transferred to the federal states’ governments the administration of primary, secondary, and normal schools; however, SEP retained key functions such as the financing of schools, payment of teachers (via money transfers to the governments of the federal states), curricular design, production of primary school textbooks, and the evaluation of teachers throughout the country (Arnaut 2010). Under such parameters, de-centralization turned out to be rather superficial. Moreover, a restructuring of labor relations, nation-wide policies of teachers’ evaluation, and curriculum standardization in the 2000s, followed by a 2013 take up of the payroll of teachers by the SEP, signaled a process of re-centralization of the education system (Olmeda and Armesto 2017), which continues in the present government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018–2024). In terms of accountability, since the 1990s the Mexican government has put in place policies of measuring national standards in primary and secondary schools. The assessments of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) were introduced in 2001 and in 2006 were the so called “National Assessment of Academic Achievement in Schools,” ENLACE (Exámenes Nacionales del Logro Académico en Centros Escolares) were generalized in primary schools. In 2015 ENLACE was replaced by the “National Plan for the Evaluation of Learning,” PLANEA (Plan

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Nacional para la Evaluación de los Aprendizajes), applied to the last grades of primary, lower, and upper secondary schools. Although intended for assessment of the overall Mexican education system, these standard exams have served to evaluate teachers and to create nonofficial rankings of schools. Continuous evaluation of teachers has been seen as a way to guarantee teaching quality in the past three decades. Voluntary programs of salary compensation – individual achievement-related economic stimuli that are not pensionable and are subject to federal budget – were introduced in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a temporary measure to alleviate dropping salaries at all levels of the education system, from primary school teachers (carrera magisterial) to university professors (Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, as well as several productivity programs internal to each university). These programs have become permanent, whereas salaries have been kept relatively low, never recovering to the level they had in the early 1980s. Such programs have created notable inequalities among teachers and professors, as working and infrastructure conditions that favor or deter individual academic performance vary throughout institutions and across the country (Sánchez Cerón and del Sagrario Corte Cruz 2004). The diversity and varied quality of secondary and tertiary institutions that had grown out of any central plan in the 1970s and 1980s was dealt with by means of the introduction of a system of standardized entry and completion exams designed and implemented by the Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior (Ceneval), founded in 1994 (Martínez Rizo and Blanco 2010; Villa Lever 2010). As will be shown later, one outcome of these standardized entry exams is that they allocate low-performing students to lower quality, less demanded institutions, which deepens prevailing social inequality. The tertiary level has expanded consistently in the past two decades. The traditional national and federal state universities still take in the largest number of students yet they have not substantially increased their intake. Instead, new institutions have been created for the pressing demand, which tend to offer shorter-duration degrees and an orientation to the labor market: technological institutes and universities since 1992 (Tuirán and Muñoz 2010), polytechnic universities, intercultural universities (where teaching is conducted in indigenous languages and attending the needs of indigenous communities), and, more recently, since 2019, the so-called “Welfare Universities” (Universidades para el Bienestar Benito Juárez) created by the central government in very low-income, relatively isolated communities. From 1960 to the present, the Mexican education system has expanded and diversified on a massive scale. During that time, the population moved from an average schooling of 2.6 years in 1960 to 7.5 in 2000 to 9.4 in 2017. By the early 2000s, the demand for primary schooling was covered, and by 2015, demand for secondary education was covered as well. However, as will be shown in the following sections, the expansion of the system has coincided with significant inequalities in terms of school quality, infrastructure, opportunities provided by the different types of schools, and considerable disadvantages for rural and indigenous populations.

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1.2

E. Rolda´n Vera and A. Robles Valle

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

Mexico is a country of 1,964,375 square km, inhabited by 119 million people, 77% of them living in urban areas (INEGI 2015). The official language is Spanish, whereas seven million people speak 68 indigenous languages (INALI n.d.). The location of Mexico between the parallels 14 and 32 of the northern hemisphere (area of tropical, temperate climate), coasts to both the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, and two chains of mountains that cross the territory from North to South, give the country a great diversity in terms of climate, biology, and culture. Mexico is a democratic, representative, and federal republic, formed by 31 states and the capital, Mexico City. After a 70 year semi-democratic, single-party political regime, since 2000 there has been significant political alternation between the PRI, the right-wing Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), and the center-left parties PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática) and Movimiento de Renovación Nacional (Morena). The latter had an overwhelming victory in the presidential and congress elections in 2018 and president Andrés Manuel López Obrador is due to remain in office until 2024. The Mexican economy is mainly oriented to oil and manufacturing exports, 85% of which go to the USA in virtue of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement since 2020. Mexico’s GDP (USD 1.21 billion in 2018) is the second largest economy in Latin America after Brazil (IMF 2018). Agriculture, fishing, and forestry provide 3.3% of the GDP; construction, extractive, and manufacturing industry (especially assembly industry) make 31% of the GDP, and 60% derives from the service sector (INEGI 2020). Whereas around 1.5% of the GDP comes from oil revenue (BM 2017), personal remittances (96% of them from the USA) account for 2.8% of the GDP (BM 2019). It is important to note that whereas the per capita GDP is 44% of the OECD average (USD 17,315), Mexico spends around 31% of the OECD average on basic education – that is, USD 27,848 per student between ages 6 to 15 years (OECD 2014). Unemployment amounts to 3.2% of the economically active population (EAP). However, 56% of the EAP work in the informal sector (INEGI 2020), which clearly impacts on the low fiscal revenue of the Mexican State, 16.2% of the GDP in 2017 (the lowest of all 36 OECD members), contrasting with the average of 23.1% for Latin America (OECD 2019b). In spite of being a relatively large economy, 43.6% of the Mexican population live in poverty – 44 million in moderate poverty and 9.4 million in extreme poverty (CONEVAL 2018). Around 75% of the indigenous population live in extreme poverty (CONEVAL 2010). In terms of income distribution, Mexico is a highly unequal country, with a Gini index of 48.2, behind other countries in the region such as Argentina, Bolivia, or Venezuela (World Population Review 2020). The 2020 Covid-19 crisis, which pushed the entire teaching activities to home, Internetmediated learning, evidenced that almost half of the entire population did not have connectivity at home.

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Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population

In 2018–2019, a total of 36.6 million students enrolled in the entire education system, 25.4 million of them in basic education (preprimary, primary, and lower secondary education) attending 233,000 schools. Some 808,000 indigenous children attended 10,000 primary schools with a multicultural and bilingual system (INEE 2018). 49% of the primary schools in the country were multigrade, that is, they did not teach all six grades as separate classes because since they are located in rural, little populated areas, they had few students and few teachers (Juárez et al. 2015). These schools are attended by 16.3% of the primary school population (SEP 2019). In spite of the level being compulsory, only 71.8% of the population aged 3– 6 years were enrolled in a preprimary program in 2018–2019 (SEP 2019). Differences in enrollment are not significant in the rural/urban divide yet they are significant between regions – only 44% of children are enrolled in the northwest of the country vs. 77% in the center (UNICEF 2015). Enrolment in preprimary education is more common in high income families (71%) and less common in poorer families (58%) (UNICEF 2015). Although there is universal coverage for primary and lower secondary school, the net school enrollment for primary education was 98.4% of the population aged 6– 12 years in 2018 (INEE 2018), whereas the net school enrollment of lower secondary education was 84.4% in that year (SEP 2018a). Telesecundaria covers 21% of the lower secondary education demand (SEP 2019). Upper secondary education became compulsory in the academic year 2012–2013. In 2017, it covered 62% of the population aged 15–18 years (5.1 million students), a significant increase compared to 36% in 2001 (INEE 2018). Out of those enrolled in upper secondary education, 8% attend an online or long-distance program (SEP 2019). In 2013, a Telebachillerato comunitario was launched, an upper secondary education for small communities supported by TV broadcasting, modeled on the Telesecundaria; at present, Telebachillerato services around 150,000 students (2.8% of the upper secondary education population) (SEMS 2019). 5.1% of the entire student population in 2018–2019 were enrolled in a vocational education program. Tertiary education (educación superior) covers about 39% of the population aged 18–23. Enrollment in tertiary education is growing faster than at any other level: it went from two million in 2000 to 4.4 million in 2018 (7.6% of them in the postgraduate level) (SEP 2019). 16% of all students in tertiary education are enrolled in an online or long-distance program, a fast-growing modality in the past 15 years (Tuirán and Muñoz 2010). There is an almost equal ratio of men and women at all educational levels. Women slightly outnumber men in upper secondary and tertiary education: of the 249,561 students enrolled in tertiary education in 2018–2019, 129,276 were women and 119,835 were men (UIS 2019). In 2017, the average duration of schooling for the Mexican population was 9.4 years but in that year 4.4% of the population older than 15 years was unable to read and write (SNIE 2017). The overall efficiency of the Mexican education system

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is as follows: in the period 2002–2019, out of 100 students who started primary school, 92 finished it; 88 started lower secondary school and 73 finished it. Given these 73 students, 66 progressed to upper secondary school and 7 to technical education – but only 46, respectively, finished the respective modalities. Of the 46 who finished upper secondary education, 35 started and 24 finished tertiary education (SEP 2019). There is public and private provision of education at all levels, but the large majority of education is public, that is, offered by institutions ran with resources from the national government (directly or through the SEP), the federal states’ governments, or the municipalities. In 2018, the overall education expenditure was 6.9% of the GDP (USD 83.5 million); of that, only 1.52% was from the private sector (INEE 2018). Private funding is higher in the extremes of the system, that is, in early childhood and tertiary education. In the school year 2018–2019, 39% of all early childhood education pupils were enrolled in public centers, as well as 84.1% of students in preprimary schools, 90.2% of primary school students, 90.7% of lower secondary school students, 81% of upper secondary school students, and 70.3% of tertiary education students (SEP 2019). Unlike in other Latin American countries (Chile, Brazil), the increase in tertiary education enrollment has taken place mostly in the public sector (Tuirán and Muñoz 2010). The only subsidy the government provides to private education is by means of tax reductions to parents paying school fees for their children. There is virtually no private participation in either in indigenous and community schools or in technical secondary schools, telesecundarias or telebachilleratos (INEE 2018).

1.4

Transition to Labor Market

Given a total population of 119 million inhabitants, the economically active population (EAP) of Mexico amounts to 57.3 million, out of whom 30.6 million are young people (that is, people aged 15 to 29 years, (INEGI 2020). In 2019, the conditions of the young people were estimated as follows:

Only study Study and work Only work Not in employment, education, or training (NEET) Total

Women (millions) 4.3 0.5 4 6.8 15.6

Men (millions) 4.2 0.8 7.8 2.2 15

Source: Data from Díaz (2019)

The gender difference in terms of those who only study or those who combine study and work is minimal; however, women are at a considerable disadvantage regarding access to full employment and with respect to opportunities to work or study. This has been explained both by cultural patterns (women in most cases are in

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charge of domestic chores and take care of young children, elderly, sick, and disabled members of the family) and by the macroeconomic environment. The transition from school to labor market is not a linear process, but it entails combinations of work and study, study and being in search of a job, getting in and out of the labor market, as well as in and out of the education system. In 2015, the age at which 50% of young people left the school system was 16.1 years for men and 17.1 for women. In that year, the transition from school to a stable job, calculated as the time it takes to 50% of young people to be employed after leaving school, was 2.7 years for men and 6.6 years for women (CEPAL/OIT 2017). The quality of the first job is problematic. In Mexico, 46% of the people aged 15–29 are employed in a low-productivity job (the mean for Latin America). Those who spent the lowest number of years in school hold 60% of the low-productivity jobs, with virtually no difference in the job quality between those who only finished primary school (6 years) and those who completed lower secondary school (9 years) (Gontero and Weller 2015). More than 60% of the people aged 15– 29 years do not have a permanent contract (Gontero and Weller 2015). Whereas this is more common in the age groups of 15–19 years (less than 10% have a permanent contract) and 20–25 years (less than 30% have a permanent contract), there is no significant increase in the percentage of contracted jobs in the age group 26–29 (2%), which indicates the difficulties young people have to acquire permanent, stable jobs.

2

Institutional and Organizational Principles

2.1

General Principles

The foundations of the Mexican education system are laid in Article 3 of the Constitution and in the General Law of Education of 2019 (Cámara de Diputados del Honorable Congreso de la Unión 2019). Both documents state that every individual has the right to receive education and that the State (comprising the Federation, the federal states, Mexico City, and the municipalities) will provide education at the preprimary, primary, lower, and upper secondary levels. All education provided by the State shall be universal, inclusive, public, free of charge, and laic. The entire education system is to have an intercultural approach. Education shall promote the harmonious development of all human faculties, love for the fatherland, respect for human rights, and international solidarity upon a basis of independence and justice. The education provided by private individuals or organizations that have an official accreditation is also subject to the supervision of the State and is considered a public service. Preprimary, primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary education (15 years in total) are compulsory. According to fraction 10 of Article 3 of the Constitution, the State is obliged to provide higher education – that is, it must design policies that favor the inclusion, permanence and continuity as well as provide the means to facilitate access to students to higher education as long as they comply with the entry

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requirements of the tertiary education institutions. Early childhood education development (ages 0–3) is not compulsory but, according to those legal instruments, the State shall promote it.

2.2

Education Administration and Governance

SEP is in charge of planning, coordinating, and operating basic education (preprimary, primary and lower secondary education) both at the national and at the state levels, as well as some modalities of upper secondary and tertiary education. Around 70% of the state-funded, basic education schools (including indigenous and community schools) belong to the national (federal) system and the rest to the education system of the different states. Community education (from early childhood to lower secondary) in marginal, little-populated rural and indigenous areas is provided by CONAFE, a decentralized organ of SEP. Since the 1990s, the federal states’ governments have been in charge of administering the primary, secondary, and normal schools dependent from SEP as well as the many units of the National Pedagogic University, but SEP retains key functions such as the financing of schools, the teachers’ payroll (via money transfers to the governments of the federal states), curricular design, production of the official primary school textbooks, approval of lower secondary school textbooks, and the evaluation of teachers throughout the country (Arnaut 2010). In the past decade, there has been a tendency to re-centralize the administration of those schools, as accusations of corruption and misuse have been common regarding the money transfers from the central to the federal states. Public schools do not receive enough funds to cover all their needs. Although the state covers the teacher’s payroll and some infrastructure, it does not provide for maintenance or renovation of the buildings or a great part of didactic material. To deal with those expenses, since 2002 individual schools have been able to apply for funds from a number of compensatory programs from the national state (successively named Escuelas de Calidad, Escuela Segura, Escuelas de Tiempo Completo, Escuela Siempre Abierta, Escuela Digna), or negotiate resources from local authorities. In addition, almost all public schools have an association of parents that charges voluntary membership fees and organizes regular events to raise funds for school-related expenses. Upper secondary education institutions depend on either SEP, universities, or the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBAL). Most of the terminal, upper secondary education schools depend on SEP. The majority of traditional universities (such as the National Autonomous University, UNAM, and the universities of each state capital) are funded by both the national and the states’ governments, but they are autonomous in their administration and rule. The Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN), technological and polytechnic universities, as well as institutions focused on research and postgraduate studies, such as the Centro de Investigación y Estudios Avanzados (CINVESTAV), also depend on SEP and have greater or lesser degrees of autonomy.

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Both SEP and UNAM provide accreditation to a number of primary, secondary, and tertiary education institutes in the private sector, which guarantees that their curricula and infrastructure meet a set of standard regulations (The SEP accreditation mechanism is known as Reconocimiento de Validez Oficial de Estudios (RVOE). Since the 1990s, a number of civil or autonomous organs have been established in order to assist the state education authorities in tasks of assessment and evaluation. The three main organs are described in what follows. The civil association Ceneval is in charge of designing and implementing the standardized entry and completion exams of upper secondary education as well as of some tertiary education degrees, which serve both as diagnosis but also as a selection mechanism. It is also in charge of examining teachers’ competences. The National Institute for the Evaluation of Education (INEE) was from 2002 to 2019 the autonomous body in charge of assessing all parts of the education system, designing and implementing evaluation instruments to samples of schools over time (the EXCALE tests), and in dictating the guidelines for the evaluation of teachers. In 2019 it was replaced by a Comisión Nacional para la Mejora Continua de la Educación, with less autonomy and not oriented to a punitive evaluation of teachers (DOF 2019b). The nongovernmental Asociación Nacional de Universidades e Instituciones de Educación Superior (ANUIES), which groups 197 public and private institutions from the entire country, is dedicated to assessing several aspects of the tertiary education sector and cooperates with SEP and the national government in matters of policy making.

2.3

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCEDClassification

2.3.1 Early Childhood Education Development (ISCED 01) Early childhood education development – educación inicial – for children aged 42 days to 3 years, is granted free of charge to working mothers or – to a less extent – working fathers by different state bodies and jurisdictions (SEP, social service providers, municipal authorities) and some private enterprises. It is also offered privately, for a fee. The main state-funded early-childhood education centers are the following: Children Attention Centers (Centros de Atención Infantil, CAI) ran by SEP as a service to teachers and other SEP employees, Estancias para el Bienestar y Desarrollo Infantil del Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado (ISSSTE), Guarderías del Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS), Estancias infantiles en los Centros Asistenciales de Desarrollo Infantil (CADI), Centros de Educación Inicial Indígena, and Centros de Asistencia Infantil Comunitaria (CAIC) (UNICEF 2015). Large public universities, the army, and the navy have their own early-childhood education centers for their own employees. All these state-funded centers are supposed to work under the common

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guidelines of the program Educación Inicial: Un Buen Comienzo (2018), which conceives of babies and small children as subjects with rights of their own as well as competent learners and promotes their development in all cognitive, emotional, physical, and social aspects (DOF 2018). On the other hand, private early childhood education centers receive different names and only a handful of them are supervised by state authorities.

2.3.2

Basic Education: Preprimary (ISCED 02), Primary (ISCED 1), and Lower Secondary (ISCED 2) Preprimary and primary school are provided in three modalities: general, indigenous (bilingual), and community (multigrade). Preprimary education (Educación preescolar) comprises 3 years (children aged 3–6 years), all of them compulsory, and is provided also by the Centros de Atención Infantil (CAIs), Preescolar General, Preescolar indígena, Preescolar Comunitario, Preescolar Particular, Preescolar Rural. Primary school comprises 6 years (all 6 years have been compulsory since 1934). Its curriculum and compulsory textbooks are common to the primary schools of the entire country, with the exception of the bilingual-intercultural primary schools. It covers 98.4% of the population aged 6 to 12 years (INEE 2019b). Lower secondary school (compulsory since 1993) comprises 3 years for adolescents aged 12 to 15 years. There are five modalities of lower secondary education: general, technical, telesecundaria, community, and for workers. Telesecundaria (created 1968) is a modality whereby teaching is conducted by one teacher with the support of television broadcasts that cover different disciplines; it covers 20% of the secondary education demand. Technical secondary school attendance can lead to employment in the labor market. Although there are special education schools in all cycles of basic level plus a cycle of vocational training in the Centros de Atención Múltiple (CAM), the General Law of Education promotes the inclusion of special needs children in general schools (SEP 2013). 2.3.3 Upper Secondary Education (ISCED 3) ISCED 3 level has three options: (a) propaedeutic for higher education – bachillerato general or escuela preparatoria (ISCED 34); (b) bivalent, that is, it offers preparation for higher education as well as technical training – bachillerato tecnológico (ISCED 35); and (c) terminal – educación profesional técnica (ISCED 35) (Villa Lever 2010). Upper secondary education may last 2 to 4 years. The third and last year of the general bachillerato allows students to specialize in one of five major areas: engineering, physics, and mathematics; medical, chemical, and biological sciences; economy and administrative sciences; social sciences and humanities; and music and fine arts. The Centros de Educación Artística (CEDART) are bachilleratos generales which place emphasis on the study of one of the fine arts. The largest terminal option of upper secondary education is the Colegio Nacional de Educación

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Profesional Técnica (CONALEP), which has over 300 campuses throughout the country, many of them in rural areas. In several federal states, students are allocated to the different types of upper secondary institutions according to their test scores in the standardized entry exams designed by Ceneval: top-scoring students are sent to the general bachilleratos, average students to the bivalent options, and the lowest scoring students to the terminal institutions. Students graduating from bivalent or terminal institutions may opt to go on to tertiary education (ISCED 5) as long as they pass the entry exams, yet this has proven very difficult and it rarely happens (Villa Lever 2010). In Mexico, there is no postsecondary nontertiary education (ISCED 4): all postsecondary institutions, in theory, enable access to university education. In reality, the particular character of the different institutions favors or precludes access to tertiary education.

2.3.4 Tertiary Education (ISCED 5, 6, 7, 8) Higher education in Mexico includes the levels of Técnico Superior Universitario (TSU) (ISCED 5), Profesional Asociado (PA) (ISCED 5), Licenciatura (ISCED 6), Especialidad (ISCED 7), Maestría (ISCED 7), and Doctorado (ISCED 8). The first of those degrees are shorter and oriented to the labor market. Many institutions offer those different degrees: 61 Technological Universities offer the degrees of TSU and licenciatura; 50 Polytechnic Universities offer degrees at the level of licenciatura and especialidad; traditional universities and 277 Technological Institutes offer licenciatura, especialidad, maestría, and doctorado; 12 Intercultural Universities offer the degrees of Profesional Asociado, licenciatura, especialización, maestría, and doctorado in areas related to the life of indigenous peoples and communities. Art degrees are obtained from traditional universities but also from the Escuelas ran by the National Institute of Fine Arts. Teacher training, as will be shown in the next section, is studied at the licenciatura level in the 408 normal schools (17 of them are normal rural schools) and on 80 campuses of the National Pedagogic University. Private higher education institutions are extremely heterogeneous and offer both short-term and long-term degrees, at all levels. International Standard Classification of Education ISCED 2011 adapted for Mexico Level ISCED 5–8

Tertiary education

Age 25 + 24 23 22

21 20

Grade Specialization, master and doctorate Postgraduate degrees

Normales Teacher training institutes Escuelas Normales

Bachelor degree University

5°

4° 3° (continued)

E. Rolda´n Vera and A. Robles Valle

752 19 18 ISCED 3

Upper secondary educated

ISCED 2

Lower secondary educated

ISCED 1

Primary education

ISCED 0

Earlychildhood education

17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Técnico Superior Universitario Bachillerato

2° 1° Profesional Técnico

a

SNE Adult education

Secondary

Primary

Preschool

b

SNE

6° 5° 4° 3° 2° 1° 6° 5° 4° 3° 2° 1° 3° 2° 1°

Maternal

a

The theoretical age of entrance to these programs differs from those equivalent programs Special needs education Compulsory education

b

2.4

Personnel Supply

By the end of 2019, there were 2,100,277 teachers in the education system, 77% in the public sector. Ca. 1,200,000 worked in basic education, 50.4% of them in primary school, 25.9% in lower secondary, and 23.7% in preschool education. 71% of all teachers in basic education are women (INEGI 2020). Most teachers in basic education have graduated from a normal school or from the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, where they can obtain a licenciatura (equivalent to BA) in one of the following modalities: preschool education, primary education, secondary education, physical education, special education, preschool education in indigenous contexts, or primary education in indigenous contexts (SEP 2019). The majority of teachers in upper secondary and some in lower secondary education have a university degree in a specific discipline and some additional training in pedagogy. Normal rural schools, which have a key role in promoting social mobility as they are the sole option for tertiary education for the youth in many poor areas of the country (with a system of grants and boarding facilities), have been de-financed or closed down since the early twentieth century, but they still train almost 10% of the teacher population.

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Teacher appointment procedures have varied widely over time as the Mexican education system expanded and then began to shrink because of demographic deceleration since the 1990s. It transited from the straight allocation of posts once teachers completed their degree (for most of the twentieth century), to the (irregular but tolerated) “sale” or “inheritance” of posts from retiring teachers to their chosen successors (in the early 2000s), to the selection via a general examination open to anyone regardless of background as long as she possessed a tertiary degree (in 2014– 2018). Since October 2019, the Sistema para la Carrera de las Maestras y los Maestros (2019) has regulated the mechanisms of entry and promotion of teachers in the basic and parts of the upper secondary public education system. According to its law and regulations, teacher positions must be advertised openly and appointment criteria comprise a variety of factors – adequate knowledge and skills for the particular context, previous training in pedagogical areas (not only graduates from Normal schools or the Pedagogical Universities can apply, but they are given preference), graduation report, other training courses, fluency in a foreign language, and digital skills, among others (DOF 2019a). Selection is carried out by commissions consisting of three parts: federal educational authorities, state educational authorities, and representatives from the National Teachers’ Syndicate (SNTE). In the period 2013–2018, regular exams were central to the permanence of teachers in their job. Whereas those exams were banished in 2019 and teacher evaluation has lost its punitive character, prevailing voluntary programs of salary compensation such as carrera magisterial (which began in the 1990s) grant economic incentives according to the results teachers get in such exams, as well as other indicators such as obtaining a postgraduate degree, academic publications, among others. Carrera magisterial is at present being integrated into a new Programa de Promoción Horizontal por Niveles con Incentivos en Educación Básica. One particularity of the Mexican education system is the role of the powerful Teachers’ Syndicate at the national level. Since 1993, all major educational reforms have been negotiated with the SNTE, as well as with the increasingly (re)active alternative teacher association Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE). During the twelve-year rule of the center-right party PAN (Partido Acción Nacional), 2000–2012, the strong alliance between the government and the SNTE (which even had its own political party) meant that the union was given vital functions within SEP, such as the subsecretariat of basic education with the power of redesigning the primary school curriculum and of writing the compulsory textbooks. Although its political power has decreased since 2012, the SNTE, together with the CNTE, remains a powerful actor with which the center-left government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018–2024) has to negotiate. Appointment and evaluation procedures in higher education institutions are subject to rigorous mechanisms which are increasingly standardized. Appointment commissions are integrated by local professors who consider education, publishing, research, and teaching experience of the candidates, as well as their belonging to national and international networks. Full-time professors or researchers in public universities can join the Programa para el Desarrollo Profesional Docente, para el

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Tipo Superior (PRODEP) of the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI), programs that allow them to improve their research infrastructure, get funding for research projects, or receive a monthly (nontaxable, nonpensionable) income. However, around 60% of the personnel in charge of lecturing in public and private universities do not have full-time positions hence they cannot apply for those incentives (except for an honorary appointment in SNI). While they have helped to create a competitive and internationally connected body of researchers, programs of salary compensation have had a negative impact in terms of the ageing of academic staff and the insufficient availability of positions for younger scholars, given that a significant proportion of staff do not retire. Retirement is not compulsory and pensions, based on basic salaries, are very low.

3

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

3.1

Inequality

Mexico is a highly unequal country, with a Gini index of 48.2, behind other countries in the continent such as Argentina or Venezuela (World Population Review 2020) and a very low intergenerational ascending social mobility: half of all the children born in the lowest income quintile of the population will remain in that quintile throughout their adult life (75% of them will stay in the two lowest quintiles), whereas only 2.1% of those born in that quintile will ascend to the highest quintile (compared to 7.5% in the USA and 13.5% in Canada) (COLMEX 2018). Given that inequality of origin, the question arises as to the role education plays in favoring social mobility or in reproducing the social status. Recent studies suggest that for those levels where coverage is total or almost total, such as primary and lower secondary school, there is some “limited educational mobility” (Blanco 2017). That is, there is no direct correlation of socio-economic background and academic performance, and factors such as the educational capital – but not the cultural capital– and family expectations play a big role in pupils’ achievement (Solís 2014). However, socio-economic background does seem to play a decisive role in terms of access to tertiary education. Whereas tertiary education covers 39% of the population aged 18–25 years, about 65% and 45% of those who study in a higher education institute belong to the fifth and fourth highest income quintiles of the population, respectively, and only about 12% belong to the lowest income quintile (Solís 2015). Unequal access to tertiary education has to do not only with the fact that students from low-income families leave school earlier to join the labor force (signified by the 14% dropout rate in upper secondary school), but with the fact that the offer of tertiary education is limited. Since the number of places available decreases in the transition from upper secondary to tertiary education, it is actually the students with the higher socio-economic backgrounds who occupy those spaces (Solís 2014). Because of the way new types and modalities of upper secondary institutions were created over time to include less-favored social sectors, this level segmented in schools of very different quality that leave students unequally prepared

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to continue to tertiary education. Although none of the secondary education options is terminal, only some of them favor their transition to tertiary education more than others. The way in which students are allocated in upper-secondary institutions, by means of standardized tests according to the results of which the students are placed in their school of choice, already produces inequality in the paths they will follow: students who get poorer results are sent to technical schools or to schools of poorer quality whereby their chances to go to tertiary education are decreased (Solís 2014). The quality of upper secondary schools varies throughout regions, being generally worse in rural and indigenous communities. Since 1997, the central government has run programs of cash transfers to families in poverty, conditioned to having their children in school (Progresa, Oportunidades, Bienestar para las familias). Such programs have increased over the years and at present there is a wide range of scholarships for students also in upper secondary education (Becas Benito Juárez), tertiary education (Jóvenes Escribiendo el Futuro) provided they are enrolled in the public education system (Gobierno de México 2020). In 2018, there were about 7.5 million of those scholarships (SEP 2018a). The incidence of these scholarships in preventing drop-out rates has been positively evaluated in the past. Whereas this type of cash transfer tends to have a clientelist purpose, aimed at gaining sympathy and votes for the political party that grants it, since 2020 those scholarships – alongside other cash-transfer programs – are a constitutional provision (Article 4), which makes them a social right.

3.2

ICT and Digitalization

Since the 1990s, the Mexican government has strived to provide public schools with infrastructure for information and communication technologies, often via programs designed under a public and private partnership scheme. Programs such as Red escolar (1998–2004), Enciclomedia (2004–2011), Habilidades Digitales para Todos (2009–2012), Mi Compu.MX (2013–2014), Programa Piloto de Inclusión Digital (2013–2015), Programa @prende.mx (2014–2016), and Programa @prende 2.0 (2016–2017), among others, have provided schools with computers and Internet connection, and students with laptops or tablets for personal use. National and international assessment of those programs has centered on the distribution of equipment and the number of hours it is used in schools, as well as on the incidence the programs have on the performance of students in standardized tests. In this respect, it is evident that those programs have failed to include the majority of the Mexican school population. In the school year 2017–2018, 46.5% of all public primary schools and 74.7% of all public lower secondary schools had at least one computer for educational purposes. However, only 41% of schools had the ideal ratio of 8 students (or less) per computer and only in half of those cases were the computers connected to the Internet (INEE 2019b). Access to ICT varied widely according to types of schools: only 31.9% of indigenous schools and 1.7% of community primary schools had at least one computer (IBIDEM).

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ICT in schools does not automatically translate into better learning. As an OECD comparative study has shown, at least by 2015 no correlation could be detected between expanded use of ICT and better PISA results in mathematics in several countries (OECD 2015). However, the lack of ICT access at home does lead to serious learning inequalities among social groups, as the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic evidenced. In 2019, only 44.3% of all households had at least one computer at home and only 56.4% had access to Internet (INEGI 2020), largely due to the high cost of Internet in comparison to most OECD countries, with significant variations between lower and upper social groups. This led to the exclusion of large numbers of students from schooling when the entire education system was closed in March 2020 (and at least until September 2020). Whereas SEP rapidly put in place a program of unified TV broadcasts for preschool, primary, and secondary education, some schools – public and private – developed regular online classes or chat groups with students and parents, but only those with Internet access at home could join. Since their introduction, the different teaching models promoted by ICT programs in Mexico have ranged from the display of interactive materials on a screen located at the center of the classroom, exercises that students can solve by themselves using their tablets, and models that promote the self-management of learning as well as collaborative work via distant interaction. However, qualitative research suggests that while ICT have changed several teaching practices, they have not (yet) generally transformed the ways in which students relate with knowledge and its production. Whereas teachers in the basic education system acknowledge the importance of promoting research, problem solving, reflection, and analysis of contents and concepts among their students, they also acknowledge that their teaching practices consist mainly of transmitting information, giving their students assignments and evaluating them. Complex assignments that incorporate interactive environments or the use of different digital tools for searching and analyzing data are still uncommon (Kalman 2016).

3.3

STEM Subjects

Professions related to science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) are considered essential for a country to survive in the so-called fourth industrial revolution and to deal with the UN 2030 sustainable development goals. In Mexico, school performance in those subjects is low for international standards and only 25% of the student population choose a university degree in STEM-related subjects. This has raised alarm in recent years. In PISA 2018, Mexican young students had an average performance of 409 points in mathematics and 429 points in sciences, compared to the OECD average of 489 in both. Less than 1% of Mexican students ranked excellent (PISA-levels 5 and 6) in mathematics and natural sciences competences contrasting the 8% average for OECD countries (and the 44% of China and 37% of Singapore). Boys were 12 and 9 points above girls in mathematics and natural sciences, respectively (compared to the OECD average of 5 points boys over girls in mathematics and 2 points girls

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over boys in natural sciences). Students from higher socio-economic status had a 12% better performance in science and mathematics than students from lower status (OECD 2019a). The reasons for the meager performance of Mexicans in STEM-related subjects are located at the basic education level. Poor curriculum planning, inadequate textbooks, memoristic forms of teaching that discourage experimental exercises (lower secondary school laboratories have been gradually dismantled and/or replaced by “virtual” labs), insufficient teacher training, and an idea of science ingrained in our culture as something unreachable (science is for people with special skills), immutable (science reveals absolute truths), and negative (science is potentially destructive) have been named among the factors involved (INEE 2012). Only 38% of those who study a STEM degree are women. Research suggests that girls lose interest in science subjects during the last years of primary and the first years of secondary education. Family, community and institutional culture, as well as gender biased teacher encouragement are considered contributing factors (INEE 2019a). Moreover, although the labor market favors STEM-related degrees (salaries in engineering are 32% higher than in the education area, and a degree in physics or mathematics means 19% more payment than the general average salary), women tend to occupy jobs that are less technical and less managerial, which results in a gender-related income gap (CEE 2019). Although SEP promotes constant curriculum and textbook reforms in all subjects, in the past five years an increasing number of initiatives of promotion of STEM competences come from the private sector. The civil association Movimiento STEAM (created 2017) brings together different stakeholders such as private enterprises, government agencies, academics, NGOs, teachers, and parents (Movimiento STEAM n.d.). Movimiento STEAM works in close relation with the Alianza para la Promoción de STEM, an initiative of several chambers of enterprise in Mexico, the USA, and Canada. These initiatives promote the renewal of learning environments to encourage critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, data and digital literacies, and collaborative work, with the use of methodologies such as challengeoriented and project-based learning. Within that framework, a number of specific programs have been launched to bridge the STEM gender gap (INEE 2019a) mentoring programs (such as Mujeres en STEM: Futuras líderes) (López 2018), workshops, campaigns addressed to parents to create an environment that promotes interest in science and technology without gender stereotypes, and programs for girls ran by SEP, such as Niñas STEM pueden (SEP 2018b).

4

Conclusions

Since its reorganization and institutional consolidation in the 1920s, the Mexican education system has demonstrated an effort to expand coverage in order to include an always increasing population. Throughout that expansion, its policies have strived to fight deep social inequalities in the access to good quality education. The centralization of the education system, the development of a unified curriculum,

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and the distribution of common textbooks for all primary school students should be understood not merely as the pretension of a democratically deficient state to impose a common view of the nation, but rather as part of a century-long process intending to fight deep social stratification that cuts through the Mexican society. A unified curriculum and common textbooks have served to guarantee that all children, regardless of social class, have access to some form of school material and to a minimum set of contents, as well as to provide basic orientation for teachers. Since the 1990s, direct government cash transfers for parents with school-aged children and scholarships to a large number of students in state-funded tertiary education have constituted a social compensation mechanism intending to guarantee the right to education for all. The Mexican education system has diversified to develop specific modalities of education for rural, indigenous, and urban working-class groups of the population. Indigenous and community schools, tele-secundaria, and technological secondary education are some such examples. However, whereas these modalities have extended coverage of primary and secondary school and have helped transform the Mexican society, at present those studies do not necessarily lead individuals to a better social status, the current low rate of intergenerational social mobility suggests. The ways in which the Mexican education system has grown and expanded have produced differences that have been dealt with by new regulatory mechanisms, such as standard assessments for schools, standardized conclusion or entry exams to upper secondary education, and continuous evaluation of teachers. These mechanisms have, in turn, led to further inequalities. For example, standardized uppersecondary entry exams have served to reinforce existing social inequalities by preventing less favored sectors from accessing the schools that would, in turn, lead them to tertiary education. Studies suggest that this situation may change when the tertiary education offer grows to meet the increasing demand. Moreover, standard examinations in primary and secondary schools have been used for the evaluation of teachers and the creation of rankings, which has had a negative impact for teachers working in contexts of extended poverty. Competition-based programs for the improvement of school infrastructure or for salary compensations for teachers and academics have created significant inequalities between beneficiaries and others who are left out, and have contributed to keeping resources low for schools and basic salaries. In terms of gender, the education system has been successful in recruiting an equal number of boys and girls at all levels, girls outnumbering boys in upper secondary and tertiary education. However, the low number of girls in STEM degrees and the delay in women’s transition to the labor market are evident signs of gender inequality related to educational as well as to cultural and social factors. At present, the main challenge to the Mexican education system is the unequal access to ICT which has become vital to continue school from home during the extended Covid-19 crisis. In spite of the schooling strategy via TV broadcasts, studies indicate that those students who manage to have contact with their teachers and peers via online lectures or regular interaction via chatrooms or e-mail are at considerable advantage compared who those who do not have such links. The

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responsibility for education has been largely transferred from the school to the family; hence, learning becomes contingent to the resources, time, and educational capital of the individuals which, as mentioned throughout this chapter, is stratified along rural/urban, private/public, and economic lines. In a deeply unequal society, the homogenizing character of the school space is lost as long as schools remained closed.

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Tuirán, R., & Muñoz, C. (2010). La política de educación superior: trayectoria reciente y escenarios futuros. In A. Arnaut & S. Giorguli (Eds.), Los grandes problemas de México: VII Educación (pp. 359–390). Méxicol: El Colegio de México. UIS (UNESCO Institute for Statistics). (2019). Mexico. Available at http://uis.unesco.org/en/ country/mx#cb-toggle. Last accessed 15 Jan 2020. UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México). La UNAM en números: 2019–2020. Portal de estadística universitaria. Available at http://www.estadistica.unam.mx/numeralia/. Last accessed 15 Jan 2020. UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund). (2015). Encuesta Nacional de los Niños, Niñas y Mujeres en México. Available at https://www.unicef.org/mexico/sites/unicef. org.mexico/files/2019-06/UNICEF_ENIM2015.pdf. Last accessed 15 Jan 2020. Villa Lever, L. (2010). La Educación Media Superior: Su construcción social desde el México Independiente hasta nuestros días. In A. Arnaut & S. Giorguli (Eds.), Los grandes problemas de México: VII Educación (pp. 271–312). México: El Colegio de México. World Population Review. (2020). Gini coefficient by country 2020. Available at https:// worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gini-coefficient-by-country. Last accessed 15 Jan 2020.

The Education System of Montserrat Reflections, Inspections, and Projections

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Poverty and Vulnerabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 The STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Discussion and Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Education systems play a crucial role in shaping and building nations’ development by helping students to become participating and productive citizens. This chapter chronicles the operations of the Montserrat Education System. The narration is framed by the political, economic, and socio-cultural historical backdrop that was instrumental in bringing about formal education, structured educational activities, and an organized administration that supports preprimary, primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of education. Recent

G. Shotte (*) School of Arts and Education, Middlesex University, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_12

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trends that are explored include inequality, Information Communications Technologies (ICT) and digitalization, the STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), and some emerging issues. The challenges faced by the system in the wake of the 1995 volcanic eruption are also highlighted. The chapter concludes with some thoughts about Montserrat Education System, the reason why MES should focus on sustainable education and an assertion about the resilience of an education system that has had to endure the psychological and physical hardships of two major natural disasters within a 6-year time span. Keywords

Montserrat · Education history · Post-Federation education · Culture · Economic growth · Political independence · Natural disasters

1

Introduction The value system of a country comes from the educational system – Sunday Adelaja. Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results – John Dewey. A teacher will be frustrated if she is only motivated to teach what she has learned. Yet, if she is motivated because of the students, then she will learn from them how to teach – Tanya R Liverman.

The nature of education is so all-encompassing that education systems should be areas of deliberate focus for all countries in every inhabited geographical region around the world. Considering the usefulness of education to personal, community, and national development and by extension international development, governments do well to have education systems as permanent priorities in their sustainable development affairs (Cooper et al. 2009; Kingdom and Maekae 2013; Mohammed et al. 2016). This chapter examines the genesis and spread of the operations that have been pieced and knitted together to produce the Montserrat Education System (MES). The amalgamation of political, economic, and socio-cultural circumstances has played a major role in shaping the education milieu in Montserrat. It is within this combined societal network that MES was conceived and allowed to grow and develop. The chapter will therefore begin with some insights into historical and social contexts. This will be followed by an overview of the institutional and organizational principles that guided the administrative operations of MES from preprimary to tertiary levels. The next subheading spotlights important aspects and educational trends and the challenges that have surfaced following the 1995 volcanic eruption. The concluding section presents some understandings about MES, explains why the education system should focus on sustainable education, and makes a claim about the resilience demonstrated by an education system that has had a stormy and an unsettled existence.

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Historical and Social Foundations

This section considers how Montserrat’s education system had its beginning and how it has been shaped by political, economic, cultural, and social factors, mainly from the post-World War II period to the present. The section finishes with an explanation of how MES has addressed transitioning to the labor market with reference to employment prospects for school leavers and the policies that have been used to accommodate the transition. An examination of education systems in the Caribbean may reveal striking similarities and common patterns in policy statements and related management procedures. Yet, Montserrat, like each island, possesses its own distinctive story.

2.1

General Historical Background

While the chapter mainly focuses on a time period from post-World War II to the present, it is necessary to make reference to an important education development that happened during the immediate postemancipation period. Knowledge of Montserrat’s geographical features and political status is also useful for understanding the development of its education system. Montserrat is one of the five remaining British Overseas Territories (BOTs) in the Caribbean. It is situated in the inner arc of the Leeward Islands, approximately 25 miles south-west of Antigua, the hub where travelers make regional and international flight connections. This proximity has, in direct and indirect ways, contributed to the educational growth of Montserrat. Sulfur springs and black sand beaches tell the story of its volcanic nature – the very feature that changed the face of education and related activities post-1995. Montserrat’s membership in several regional organizations, in particular the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), has served it well with regard to education and national development. To fully understand how the education system has become what it is today, it is necessary to mention how it has evolved since the emancipation of slavery in 1834. The educational activities that were organized during the immediate postemancipation period are the pillars on which education systems in the Caribbean were built. Interestingly, the plantation owners used education as “an important vehicle to civilize the ex-slaves and to make them willing workers on the plantations where, to that point, they had been forced to work” (Miller 1984, 35). In fact, the education system at the time did not cater for goal-setting and personal development. As explained by historian Sir Howard Fergus, “any manifestation of autonomous thinking, a positive self-concept or ambition for personal advancement was regarded with disfavour” (Fergus 2003, 20). Although the motives behind the “gatekeepers of education” actions stemmed from fear of revolts, the so-called “freed” saw this as an opportunity to formalize their educational activities and use education as the medium through which they could make positive advancement. Miller explains it this way:

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To the slaves, and the missionaries who championed their cause, education was seen as a major means by which they could demonstrate the humanity of the Black people and afford them the opportunity to rise in the new free society. (Miller 1984, 35)

The foregoing situation described above had not only inspired the genesis of elementary education in the Caribbean, but also the first Montserrat teacher training programs, which can be traced back to the 1840s. These began with structured training for primary school teachers in neighboring islands’ institutions (Fergus 1994, 174). The high achieving students from the elementary system were trained to be teachers. As far as education was concerned, a dual system existed for “Black people” (Miller 1984, 35) was not allowed into the fee-paying, private, entrepreneur-funded, preparatory, and high schools. However, by 1928, with the opening of the Montserrat Grammar School for boys, a few children entered the high school system via a scholarship scheme. In 1932, with the establishing of a Girls’ High School, more children had the opportunity to gain a high school education. During this phase (1928–1932), the social structure was a clear reflection of the education system. The period from 1962 onwards saw the emergence of the political independence era in the English-speaking Caribbean. This was the next major phase in the development of education in the Caribbean. This phase was characterized by constitutional and political changes. As a British Overseas Territory (BOT), Montserrat is governed by a British Constitution; therefore, MES was sculpted from standards and procedures of the British Education System. As a British Overseas Territory, Montserrat also belongs to the Commonwealth Caribbean and in spite of its colonial status, full membership in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) was instrumental in helping Montserrat to make significant educational strides for it benefitted from all the educational programs that were developed by OECS and CARICOM. These programs were catalysts for the development and improvement of formal education in the Caribbean. During the political independence phase, The West Indies Federation (the Federation) briefly existed between 1958 and 1962. In spite of the Federation’s failure in operational issues that related to taxation, customs, freedom of movement, financing and capital site (Aniome 2009), the leaders did not lose sight of the fact that education was central to personal and national development in the region. The following statement tells how the region was able to focus on educational progress: Cooperation in tertiary education was consolidated and expanded during this period. The then University College of the West Indies (UCWI), which was established in 1948 with one campus at Mona, Jamaica, opened its second campus at St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, in 1960. (Caribbean Election 2012)

Consolidating tertiary education was a crucial move after the failed Federation. UCWI, now known as the University of the West Indies (UWI), set the wheel in

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Table 1 Some major educational strides (1959–1962) Year 1959 1960

1961

1962

Significant progress made The Centre for Study in education (CSE) fully integrated in the Department of Education Start of education expansion programs Research work gathers momentum Publication of research work began 3-day conference held at Mona, Jamaica; delegates recommended the establishment of an Institute of Education (IOE) UCWI and governments requested that IOE should replace CSE UCWI granted own charter to award diplomas, certificates, and degrees IOE, an association of UCWI, established

Source: Compiled with information from Miller (1984)

motion for the expansion programs that led to the establishment of other educational institutions in the Region. The evidence of the educational progress made during the Federation’s lifespan can be shown in the following Table 1: The post-Federation phase brought to the fore the political, economic and sociocultural circumstances that have helped to shape the development of the MES. Curricula were improved and education programs were revised (see Boxes 1 and 2). These development programs served as models for the entire Region. Box 1 Some post-Federation major education developments

• The education system was expanded significantly. This involved: – Massive building programs at the primary and secondary levels – Significant increases of teachers in training – The use of the shift system where two sets of teachers and pupils use a single building during a single day • Free primary, secondary, and in some territories, university education was introduced and universal education for every child between the ages of 5 and 17 was achieved in some territories. • Compulsory education laws were enacted in some countries. • Early childhood education for children aged 4–6 years and technical education were established or expanded. • Sixth forms and community colleges were developed. • Curricula were developed and reformed in every country. School-related welfare programs were introduced or expanded. These helped parents of poor economic backgrounds to send their children to school by assistance with grants, school-meal programs, school uniforms, books, rental schemes, and other support services. (Miller 1984, 36)

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Box 2 How well is the education system meeting the needs of the labor market?

Until the 2011 census is completed and the data made available the only data available on the labor market come from the 2001 census and so are nearly 10 years old. The key features of the labor market are: • Population decline has been higher in the under 15 age group than the decline in the general population at 69% and 51%, respectively. • The age group 15–24 experiences the highest level of unemployment of any age group at 20%. • The number of working adults in 2001 for dependents under 15 and over 64 (i.e., excluding any recipients of welfare payments outside this age categories) is 0.94. • Unemployment is higher among men than women overall at 9.94% and 6.68%. • Only about 25% of the workforce are employed in manufacturing, agriculture and fishing, construction, or craft trades. • This leaves approximately 75% of the labor force employed in public administration and services. The above data suggest that young people leaving the education system are unsuited to the opportunities available in the labor market. Hence, the unemployment rate is high. The higher rate of population decline may also be explained by families educating children overseas for a variety of reasons. The difference in male and female unemployment may be a result of the significant gap in student outcomes between girls and boys. Therefore, girls are more suited than boys to the opportunities in the labor market. The structure of the labor market shows that there are very few low skilled and unskilled jobs available and few jobs in areas which are linked to vocational education. This increases the significance of low student outcomes in the five CSEC passes including English and maths measure. The majority of jobs available in the labor market require a good basic academic education. Furthermore, a good basic academic education is the basis of a flexible workforce who can adapt to the changing opportunities in the labor market. (Source: Government of Montserrat 2011)

2.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

Political, economic, and cultural factors have played a vital role in the development of education in Montserrat. To get a fuller understanding of how elements are linked to the development of MES, it is necessary to make reference to some important Caribbean organizations to which Montserrat is affiliated.

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As stated earlier, Montserrat is a member of OECS, owing to location. OECS’ objective to “support alignment of foreign policy of Member States with the development needs of the OECS” (OECS 2016a) has implications for educational progress since foreign policy, directly or indirectly, affects MES’ overall operation. This is even more so because Montserrat shares a common currency with other OECS member states. Montserrat is also a member of CARICOM. One of CARICOM’s objectives is to “enhance functional co-operation.” This includes “intensified activities in areas such as health, education, transportation, and telecommunications” (Anwar 2016). Evidently, the advancement that MES made was due in part to the technical and other assistance received from OECS and CARICOM. Geographically, Montserrat is situated in the Leeward Islands grouping. Therefore, it participates in educational programs like the Leeward Island Debating Competition and the Condé Nast Essay Competition. The University of the West Indies (UWI), Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), Caribbean Festival of Arts (CARIFESTA), Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA), Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), and Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), among others, have played a significant role in the advancement of MES. Membership in CARICOM and OECS facilitates this, which also means that political, economic, and social issues that affect the regional organizations affect Montserrat also. Besides, Montserrat’s BOT status does not prevent it from participating in, and benefitting from, the Region’s education expansion programs.

2.2.1 Political Contexts and Conditions During the years of building the education system of Montserrat, three main aspects of Montserrat’s political context have effected MES’ growth. These are (1) governance and status, (2) issues of independence, and (3) the award of British citizenship. 1. Governance and Status: Montserrat was colonized by the British in 1632 and has since remained a British Overseas Territory. It became a Crown Colony in 1866 when the representative system ended. Up until that time, an authorized single government officer introduced all bills. Historian Fergus explains: The narrow Old Representative system came to an end in Montserrat in 1866, giving way to a more subtle exclusive system as far as the free blacks were concerned. There was only room in Crown autocracy for whites or their wealthy coloured equivalents. The auspices for a balanced and equitable development of the new society were not favourable. (Fergus 1994, 100)

Clearly, the situation described above demonstrates the increased control by the British Government which did not diminish even when democracy and

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constitutional governance emerged during the 1960s. Notably, when Montserrat’s Caribbean neighbors, also members of the British Commonwealth, saw the need to de-colonize during the 1970s and 1980s, Montserrat had a different view. Not even Associated Statehood, the “half-way route to full independence,” was of interest to Montserrat, in spite of the guaranteed security and protection of the state’s rights under the guardianship of the United Nations (UN) (Fergus 1994, 212). This situation makes Montserrat one of the oldest BOTs. For the decades between the immediate postemancipation and the preFederation period, education developed slowly and with much struggle under British colonial rule. The post-Federation expansion education programs that gave some impetus to Montserrat’s national development did not suffice to motivate it to sever the colonial relationship that it has with Great Britain. During the 1970s, when the United Nations Decolonization Committee (UNDC) paid periodic visits to the Caribbean to discuss Associated Statehood with member states, Montserrat declined the offer. It therefore seems a reasonable conclusion that for that period, independence was not on Montserrat’s political horizon. 2. Issues of Independence: Former Chief Minister (CM), P. Austin Bramble, opines on why Montserrat was reluctant to divorce from colonial rule. He alludes to the fear regarding future political instability: “In a tiny territory like Montserrat, an independent government could very easily abuse its power and disrespect the rights of its people, and militant minorities could for selfish interest bring about disruption and turmoil” (cited in Fergus 1994, 212). In 1980, CM Bramble presented to the nation sentiments similar to those quoted as the rationale why Montserrat should not give up its colonial status. Four years later, in the face of the economic downturn that severely affected the Caribbean economies, Bramble reiterated his view when commenting on reports of the People’s Liberation Movement (PLM) (the then ruling party) independence drive: “At a time when widespread political instability in so many parts of the world coincides with economic recession, Montserrat should commit itself unambiguously to maintaining the constitutional status most likely to nurture stability” (Fergus 1994, 213). Bramble’s view was not an isolated one. Bertrand Osborne, another former CM, echoed similar sentiments to the UNDC on its 1982 mission to Montserrat. However, as noted by the UNDC team, a few “strategic” persons did not only deem independence as “a legitimate and logical goal towards which the island should strive” (Fergus 1994, 214), but also believed that the government should begin to prepare for it. Without being able to determine how widespread the views of the few “strategic” persons were, John Osborne, another former CM (1978– 1991 and 2001–2006), constantly and persistently advocated political independence for Montserrat, for he saw it as a catalyst for economic growth and global partnerships. Ironically, during John Osborne’s 38 years in the Legislative Council (now called the Legislative Assembly), he neither made independence an election issue, nor introduced any sustained program to prepare for it (Fergus

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1994, 214). One can therefore reason whether Osborne, like Bramble, saw colonialism as a means of maintaining political stability. William H. Bramble became Montserrat’s first CM in 1961, before the decolonization spirit hit the Caribbean, so apart from W. H. Bramble, seven successive political leaders handled matters that relate to independence – P. A. Bramble (1970–1978), J. A. Osborne (1978–1991), R. T. Meade (1991–1996 and 2009–2014), B. B. Osborne (1996–1997), D. S. Brandt (1997–2001), L. L. Lewis (2006–2009), and D. Romeo (2014–2019). In 2010 Reuben Meade became Montserrat’s first prime minister. Donaldson Romeo, the current political leader is the second. Skelton (2000, 114), citing the International Development Committee’s (IDC) observation, makes reference to the fact that up until then, only John Osborne and Reuben Meade openly courted independence. IDC relates that about 5 months before the volcanic crisis began, CM Meade informed the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that “he hoped to achieve independence by the year 2000,” despite the fact that the population as a whole did not indicate that independence was desirable. Regardless of reflections on independence, Montserrat remains a British dependency. Interestingly, as hinted earlier, Montserrat’s dependent status has not prevented it from benefitting from the Caribbean education initiatives. For example, MES has benefitted from Foundations for the Future (FFF) 1991–2000, an OECS Education Reform Strategy (OERS) and the OECS Pillars for Partnership and Progress (PPP) 2000–2010. Currently, the OECS Education Sector Strategy (OESS) 2012–2021 is the overarching education strategy for all member states (OECS 2016b).

2.2.2 Economic Contexts and Conditions The Montserrat economy unfolded in peaks and troughs over different significant time periods. The sugar and tobacco economy that sustained Montserrat during the slavery years was expanded to take in other lucrative “alternative industries” by the end of the nineteenth century (Fergus 1994, 123). The diversified industry included limes, coffee, cocoa, ginger, and fruits. The first decade of the twentieth century saw the decline in the sugar industry because of the lack of technology and the return of wealthy landowners to England, among others. At this time cotton production, as a primary industry, became the leading economy and remained so up until the early 1950s when “able-bodied labourers left in droves” for England (Fergus 1994, 137). After the 1970s cotton became a secondary industry with the industrial production of fabrics, garments, and other household articles (Fergus 1994, 134). Another noteworthy period in the island’s economy came in 1973 when P. A. Bramble was CM. Montserrat attracted new industries by offering tax incentives such as import duty relief, tax holiday relief, and capital grants to foreign and local investors (Government of Montserrat 1973, 1). The then government development plan proposed “to build a balanced and healthy economy based on a wide range of profitable industrial and manufacturing activities.” CM Bramble reinforced that such development was to “bring new jobs, new income and new strength to the economy”

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Fig. 1 Distribution of jobs – Montserrat work population 1973. (Compiled with information from Government of Montserrat (1973, 13))

(Government of Montserrat 1973, 1–2). Figure 1 illustrates the jobs that were created following the structural change. The focus on an agricultural based economy seemed to disappear for successive CMs continued to pay attention to the transformation of an agricultural-based economy “to a service and export-oriented economy with tourism, light manufacturing (electronic assembly and textiles) and construction as the main industries” (Daly 1996, 1). John Osborne’s time as CM (1978–1991) was a crucial time in the island’s development. It was during his years in office that Montserrat experienced its most significant economic growth. Fergus notes: In 1982, the island graduated from grant-aided status, two years before the time that the British Government had scheduled for it. Osborne was on target in realising his dream of seeing every Montserratian ‘with his own house and car, a good job and money in the bank’. By 1981 the island experienced a growth of 4.6% in the economy, although the agricultural sector remained stagnant. (Fergus 1994, 205)

The economic situation described above lasted until the devastation of the island in September 1989 by Category-5 Hurricane Hugo when over 95% of properties were severely damaged. Britain responded to its responsibility to Montserrat by providing an aid package for the redevelopment of the infrastructure (Department for International Development (DFID) 1999, 15). Undoubtedly, Britain’s support helped to influence the swift “physical” recovery that the island made in the wake of Hurricane Hugo. By 1994, visitors to the island were of the opinion that Montserrat was “back on its feet again.” A similar conclusion was reached by DFID who noted that Montserrat “had largely recovered from the impact of Hurricane Hugo in 1989” (Ibid.). Interestingly, the notable economic growth attained prior to 1989, did not prevent some electorates from thinking that the economy was still too weak and that it needed “substantial economic improvements” before Montserrat should consider independence, hence the preference for a colonial status (Skelton 2000, 105). Confirmation of the island’s economic growth was recorded in an analysis of the

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1991 Montserrat Population and Housing Census (Daly 1996, 46). Skelton describes the general socio-economic situation between September 1989 and July 1995 this way: A quiet and relatively prosperous ‘small place’, Montserrat had good levels of employment, high standards of health care and education provision, an estimated per capita income of over £2000 per annum, and boasted one of the highest standards of living in the Caribbean for its population as a whole. (Skelton 2000, 104)

The eruption of the Soufriere Hills Volcano in July 1995 brought about a crisis that had a devastating effect on the Montserrat economy. Prior to the volcanic crisis, the Montserrat economy realized an average growth rate of 2% per annum between 1991 and 1994 (DFID 1999, 115). Obviously, DFID’s forecasted projections for the island would have been difficult to come to fruition since the volcanic crisis retarded the island’s economic growth. Inevitably, because of Montserrat’s BOT status, since July 1995, Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) has become fully involved in “almost every aspect of Montserrat’s social and economic life and administration” (DFID 1999, 23). More than ever, there exists a need for greater economic stability. Compared to prevolcano times (Fig. 1), the economic situation in 2014 is illustrated in Fig. 2. The post-1995 rapid economic downturn has affected every aspect of national development. Montserrat’s education system has not gone unscathed.

2.2.3 Cultural Contexts and Conditions Culture is a complex term that defies a strict definition. The term is used here as “a system of beliefs, values, and modes of construing reality that is shared by a group or society” (Saljo 1994, 1242). For this representation, traditional customs and principles, creative expressions of music and literature, including storytelling and poetry, are quite relevant. Fig. 2 Composition of the economy, 2014. (Compiled with information from Montserrat Statistics Department (MSD) (2019))

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The cultural activities that have helped to shape MES’ social agenda reflect Amerindian, African, European (particularly Irish) traditions. This is not surprising for the island’s settlement patterns reveal the characterization of the indigenous peoples, the residual effect of the triangular slave trade, and the outplaying of European colonization in the Caribbean Region. This potpourri of influences creates a way of life that is quintessentially Montserratian. Interwoven into this fashioned core cultures are influences from across the Caribbean and North America. It is within this tapestry of traditions and influences that the identity of Montserratians is manifested. This identity has constantly been challenged by influences from the Global North, but even more so during the post-1995 period in the wake of the volcanic crisis. Language plays a central role. French and Spanish traditions are slowly, but surely, making inroads as the identity and cultural challenges increase. MES is forced to rethink its position on particular curricular aspects such as the following: 1. The Irish Legacy: It is difficult to discuss Montserrat’s culture without mentioning its Irish legacy. Notably, Montserrat is the only Caribbean island that celebrates the annual March 17th St. Patrick’s Day holiday. Irish symbols such as the shamrock, the Irish Harp, and Irish surnames (e.g., Allen, Bramble, Dyer, O’Brien, O’Garro, Riley, and Tuitt) have become an integral part of the island’s heritage and are thus intrinsic parts of the Montserratian identity. The surnames have become identifying marks for pinpointing Montserrat nationals in Caribbean circles. Notably, Montserratian surnames of Irish origin represent an implicit strand of “Montserratness.” 2. African and other Influences: Intriguing masked dancers are cultural symbols that are specific to certain African ceremonies. For example, the masquerades are masked dancers in colorful costumes who provide entertainment for various gatherings. The outfit that is worn by the Montserrat masquerades resembles the Belizean and Jamaican jonkonnu, the musical ensemble consists of the Irish fife and the African kettle drums, a boom drum, a boom pipe, and a shak-shak. The folk religion and drum beat are African, while the quadrille and the polka (dance steps) are Irish. The dancers also dance to folk songs that are created from Caribbean experiences. Noticeably, there is an overall weightier African influence in this interpolation. This mixture of ethnic influences is now generally recognized as a Montserrat tradition – the Montserrat masquerades. Understandably, Fergus hails the Masquerades as “the richest expression of African folk art in Montserrat” (Fergus 1994, 242). The masquerades have represented Montserrat at many regional and international festivals, including the 2019 Manchester St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the popular 46-year-old Caribbean Festival of Creative Arts (CARIFESTA). Over the years MES has aligned itself with CARIFESTA activities, because it is considered an educational cultural event that allows schools’ participation. Musical entertainment is a channel that lends itself to cross-cultural influences. The string band, a folk band that features the Hawaiian ukulele, continues to be a Montserrat cultural feature. Calypso and steelband both originate from Trinidad, but since about the 1950s they have become part of the Montserrat culture. The

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calypso competition is an outstanding feature in the annual end-of-year Montserrat Festival. Not even the volcanic crisis halted the calypso competition. In fact, the crisis provided another avenue for the calypsonians to express their views on the crisis in grand, musical style. Calypsos provide rich social commentary and can be heard all year round on the local radio station. Up until the volcanic crisis, the famous All Stars steelband provided weekly entertainment for guests at the Vue Pointe Hotel. Steelband had become so popular that MES ensured that every school had a steelband that was showcased at school events, festive and official events, and the Bi-annual Schools’ Arts Festival.

2.3

Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population

The social conditions “canopy” shelters a variety of factors that have shaped and defined the social milieu of the Montserrat population. For the purpose of this chapter, education level, poverty, and vulnerabilities will be explored as well as occupation, income, and family background.

2.3.1 Education Levels Caribbean peoples have always put a very high value on education attainment. In the latter decades of the nineteenth century, the long-awaited opportunity came for Montserratians to embrace formal education. Thus began the building of a progressive and productive society. By 1995, the start of the volcanic crisis, formal education had developed and expanded to embrace preprimary (early childhood), primary and secondary levels, which are the compulsory education levels. Beyond the secondary level, there is the tertiary level, which is served by two institutions – the Montserrat Community College (MCC) and the University of the West Indies School of Continuing Studies (UWISCS). These two institutions offer ordinary and advanced level programs. MES also supports community education. The general public has access to a video-conferencing center, which was financed by CARICOM. The public also has access to a free Internet kiosk in Brades, which has been viewed as the de facto capital since 1998. The budget allocated to these levels varies: Early Childhood 9%, Primary 17%, Secondary 33% and 41% for all other areas combined. See Fig. 3.

2.4

Poverty and Vulnerabilities

The Montserrat UNICEF Office for the Eastern Caribbean Area (MUOECA) 2016 report is used to explain the poverty and vulnerability situation in Montserrat. The report explains vulnerability as “the risk of deprivations, losing assets, being physically or psychologically hurt or losing life due to different threats in the environment that surrounds the child and his/her family” (MUOECA 2016, 42). The idea of vulnerable populations is also linked to social and economic

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Fig. 3 Ministry of Education Budgetary Allocations 2014/ 2015. (Compiled with information from Montserrat UNICEF Office for the Eastern Caribbean Area (2016))

Early Childhood Primary Education Secondary Education Other Areas

changes that create a risk for the population. For example, families and individuals are said to be in a vulnerable situation if they do not have access to public policies that provide the systemic protection that children should have in order for their rights to be fully realized. Findings from Marcio Carvalho’s 2016 research report, on behalf of MUOECA, identified five categories of vulnerable groups related to children: 1. Children living in families with low or no salaries and/or with low living standards 2. Children living in single parent households, especially those headed by women 3. Children from migrant families 4. Children in need of foster care 5. Children with disabilities and/or special needs (MUOECA 2016, 43) Within these categories, some children are at higher risk than others. Accessing health facilities and registering in schools are higher risk concerns. The report cites family background and migration patterns as the main reasons. This seems to be yet another downside of migration because of the migrants’ exposure to abuse and violation of their human rights. Table 2 presents a summary of the main challenges faced by the children from migrant families.

2.5

Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support

Young people today have more educational opportunities and are exposed to many technological learning resources compared to previous generations. Yet, the concerns about youths’ transition to the labor market continue to grow as the high unemployment rates continue to rise in many countries. Montserrat is no exception. This situation is due to the downturns in labor markets. However, MES still has a responsibility to provide part-time and fulltime programs that can help to meet the

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Table 2 Summary of vulnerabilities faced by children from migrant families Area Financial

Education

Health Child protection

Social protection

Vulnerability Not all nonnationals families living in Montserrat are in a harsh financial situation, but the majority of families that are financially vulnerable are nonnationals. Besides, qualitative assessment identifies those that do not have English as their first language as the ones who have the worse jobs The lack of an English as a second language (ESL) program creates a disparity between children who do not have English as their first language and children who are English speakers. Qualitative assessment shows that some non-Englishspeaking children cannot understand class content There are also reports that non-English-speaking children are the target of bullying at school, and those who do not understand the classes stay behind have lower grades and ultimately drop out of school Bullying is also common among nonnationals who speak English. Among themselves, local adolescents born in the territory will differentiate between “true” Montserratians and others (those who were not born there) Health services are provided in English, with little help in other languages Protective services are mostly available in English. Most (if not all) social workers do not speak a second language Police response to domestic conflict in non-English-speaking families is limited due to language capabilities. Some of the conflicts are solved within the nonbelonger community There are reports that Spanish-speaking children are more susceptible to violence and abuse, including sexual violence Children in this group do not have access to the welfare programs that could alleviate some of the financial and social problems that they might face

Source: Montserrat UNICEF Office for the Eastern Caribbean Area (2016)

needs of the labor market. There is a need for these programs because one of the economic causes of poverty in Montserrat is linked to “lack of employment opportunities” (MUOECA 2016, 41). A CARICOM survey explains the distinction between labor force and labor force participation. The labor force is explained as persons who are over the age of 15 and “are employed in any form of economic activity during the survey week, those with a job but not working, those who were looking for work and those who, although they were not looking for work, wanted work and were available for work during the specified week.” Labor force participation means “a measure of the proportion of the working age population that is in the labour force, i.e., whether employed or seeking employment” (CARICOM 2009). For the purpose of this chapter, the focus is on the age range 15–24, representing “youths, teenagers, and young adults.” The 2018 National Survey reports that for the country, the labor force participation rate increased from 85.1% in 2011 to 89.4% in 2018. For the youths (15–24 years), the unemployment rate in 2018 was 11.8% compared to 16.9% in 2011 (Montserrat Statistics Department (MSD) 2019). The increase in the employment rate in the 15–24 age range may be attributed to a number of factors, including the completion of formal education. Based on both sets of data, the

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difference in percentage in the 15-plus age group who did not complete any formal level of education is slight – 1.5% in 2018 and 1.3% in 2011 (Ibid.). However, this implies that focusing on the kinds of programs that are offered to these youths is crucial. At the height of the volcanic crisis, Paul Payne, the then OECS Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) coordinator recommended the following programs: (a) Advanced Level courses according to established needs. (b) Information Technology related courses, areas, and levels to be determined by established needs and in line with the developing informatics industry. (c) Skill development courses for apprenticeship type workers in specific skill areas, that is, tiling, basic plumbing, and pipefitting, elementary carpentry and joinery and building maintenance. The areas to be ascertained after a proper labor market needs analysis. (d) In collaboration with the NDF (National Development Foundation), provide courses in Entrepreneurial and Small Business Development. This will serve to initially utilize the Training Office to be provided by the OECS/GTZ TVET Project and provide justification for its establishment in the absence of the College (Payne 1999). Payne also recommended that the programs proposed in the Community College Feasibility Study should be reviewed in light of a current labor market needs assessment. This recommendation is just as crucial today because of the decline in regional and international economies. Given that school-to-work transition is completed when school leavers find regular or stable employment and that they consider that employment to be personally satisfying, it is very important for MES to ensure that school-to-work transitions are effective. Sound education programs can play a vital role in these transitions. Findings from research work carried out by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in selected European countries show that less educated youth start off with poorer job prospects (OECD 1998). Obviously, MES cannot be very effective on its own, but is likely to fare much better if it takes Payne’s recommendations about linking up with the private sector on board. Payne’s recommendations went beyond mere collaboration. He emphasized the relevance of establishing “a mechanism to coordinate the TVET element of the training, having multi-sector participation, and not merely membership” (Payne 1999). The need for clear terms of reference with a view to ensuring that the private sector participates actively was equally underlined. The Montserrat labor market has changed considerably as a result of the volcanic crisis. Many businesses were closed and approximately two thirds of the residents were forced to relocate to other shores. This situation has put a lot of strain on MES to carry out its duties effectively, but its tasks are not insurmountable. Unfortunately, MES’ programs so far seem less prepared for transition to the workplace in mind. Mullings 2015 recounts that MES programs do not cater for a “holistic education of our youths, as it often lacks subjects core to many career paths.” In 2015, Mullings was a student of the Montserrat Secondary School (MSS). His sentiments are echoed in an essay he wrote about the challenges that MES faced. As at 2018, youth

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unemployment in Montserrat was 11.8%, compared to the 16.9% in 2011 (MSD 2019). It is not clear whether the decrease in the unemployment rate over the two surveys has anything to do with inactivity. What is obvious is that “young people are particularly likely to drop out of the labour force and become inactive when jobs are hard to find” (Quintini et al. 2007). Understandably, jobs in Montserrat have become hard to find, for in addition to being prone to natural disasters (Shotte 2013), the Leeward Islands’ (Montserrat included) labor markets were negatively affected by the 2008 global financial crisis (World Bank 2018). It is therefore an imperative for MES to position its programs towards meeting the changing demands of the labor market. Box 3 shows the improved curriculum that MES proposes to help to address the needs of the labor market. The significance of the need to assure school-to-work transitioning should remain in focus. Effective and practical transitioning will not only benefit the young adults, but will also accrue benefits to MES as it thrives to attain the national as well as the sustainable development goals. Box 3 An improved curriculum

A more varied and relevant post-14 curriculum • Provide alternative programs for nonacademic students • The range of vocational subjects at MCC to address labor market needs and entrepreneurial demands • Strengthen the technical vocational program • Introduce music and arts (secondary?) • Wider variety of subjects at tertiary level Offer more interesting subjects • More student choices • More CXC subjects to choose from, e.g., sports, music, dancing, photography, etc. • Options for subject choices should be open to all and not just a particular class (e.g., a class gets more options) • A wider variety of subject areas Curriculum too narrow • A broader formal and informal curriculum • Current curriculum too rigid – more vocational and work-related learning • Students who exit the system should be: multiliterate, critical thinkers, ICT literate, problem solvers, have technical and vocational skills, be entrepreneurial and socially and emotionally literate • Students learn to speak standard English as appropriate. (Source: Government of Montserrat 2011, 47)

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Institutional and Organizational Principles

MES is guided by a set of principles that can enhance its operations. One of the main objectives of MES is to improve the governance and administration of the system. This is instructive because effective governance can ensure MES put measures in place that will help teachers develop the pedagogical skills necessary to meet students’ needs. The twenty-first century has invoked many changes, which will inevitably affect how MES utilizes its administrators and teachers to help realize its 2012–2020 Development Plan. It is this development plan that shows the design of the strategic vision for where the education service should be by 2020. Figure 4 shows MES’ organizational structure that the development plan embraces to help it to raise its educational standards. Figure 4 does not illustrate the pedagogical areas that are central to the development and maintenance of educational standards. The Development Plan highlights some of these areas: • • • • •

Standards for school and teacher effectiveness and quality Annual monitoring and evaluation cycles within schools and of education sub sectors Student welfare and safeguarding Systems for the regular collection and reporting of key data Annual school improvement planning that is linked to the three YSP and EDP Continuous Professional Development • School monitoring and evaluation, support and supervision • Student progress and Special Educational Needs (Government of Montserrat 2011)

Honourable Minister

Permanent Secretary/ Chair MCC, Board of Governors

Director of Education

Principal MSS

Principal MCC

Education Officer (Curriculum)/Registrar

Librarian

Schools Psychologist

Head, Pupil Support

Education Officer Primary

Heads of Primary Schools

Fig. 4 Organizational structure of Montserrat’s education system

Assistant Secretary

Education Officer Early Childhood

Heads of Nursery Schools, Heads of Day Care

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Additionally, there is need for written procedures and policy revision and/or policy development in key areas, in order to guide school governance. Based on evidence, it is noted also that learning outcomes, the quality of teaching and leadership and management necessitate a focus on school improvement and raising standards in schools. It might be necessary to restructure the organization in order to accomplish these tasks. The 2012–2020 Development Plan aims to “raise educational standards and improve school and ministry effectiveness so that students’ attainment, at all levels of the education system, is measurably increased year after year” (Ibid.). It is hoped that this goal will be achieved by concentrating on change and improvement in these five key areas: (1) leadership and management, (2) teaching standards, (3) curriculum reform, (4) the learning and teaching environment, and (5) education partnerships.

4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

Inequality, Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and Digitalization, the STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), and Emerging issues are the four areas explored in this section. The information is a summary of a telephone interview held on Monday 28 January 2019 with Dr Gregory Julius, Director of Education, Montserrat (see Fig. 4). It should be noted that in the Montserrat context, the word student is used to represent all children of school-going age.

4.1

Inequality

The issue of inequality is addressed by the 1986 MES restructuring reform, which stipulates that all primary school students are allowed to access secondary school education. This closes the door on the previous system as it was provided for a selected number of students, who were selected on the basis of the required pass level for the Common Entrance Exam (CEE), which was in operation up until 1986 when the system was restructured. The students were tested in English, Mathematics, and Intelligence and those students who did not attain the CEE pass level were allowed to enter the Junior Secondary School (JSS) system (established in 1972) – a 3-year integrated practical and academic program. The curriculum and methodology adopted within the primary schools were influenced by the CEE. Essentially, the restructured system created equal opportunities in that students who would not have had the chance to access secondary education were now allowed to enter the Montserrat Secondary School (MSS) via the 1986 restructured program. Prior to the volcanic eruption in 1995, provisions for tackling educational inequality were less developed than today. There has been a momentum towards

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new reform that would ensure that vulnerable students, the physically and mentally challenged, are given the appropriate attention that would help them to satisfy their educational needs. MES makes every effort to address inequality via modern interventions. A special student support unit that addresses educational learning deficiencies serves students in primary schools and secondary schools. There is also the Special Educational Needs (SEN) program that supports students who need remediation, particularly in language. This provision is another move that addresses inequality since tackling inequalities means more than just providing equal opportunities and related resources, but also takes into consideration access to quality learning.

4.2

ICT and Digitalization

The rapid technological advancement and the trends shown in ICT and digitalization over the years have driven MES to take steps towards ensuring that schools are well placed, within their respective context, to be able to utilize technological devices to support learning. For example, apart from Internet and computers in schools, there are now interactive whiteboards in a number of primary and secondary classrooms. Having the white boards gives way and broadens the scope for teachers to utilize them in the delivery of their instruction and other educational programs. Obviously, there is more to be done in terms of securing sufficient “hard resources” (computers). At present, the Public Library digitalizes and archives historical documents and other relevant material. MES has an Educational Management Information (EMI) system that takes care of data storage. Making data readily available to teaching and administrative staff is quite useful in helping teachers to examine their practice with a view to enhancing teaching and learning, as well as research activities. Similar and related gains are also a benefit to the administrative staff. Researchers too can use data storage systems to access information and/or to investigate a particular issue or problem within the education system. In conclusion, MES is progressing with regard to ICT and digitalization.

4.3

The STEM Subjects

The STEM subjects are offered at the secondary school and to some extent, at MCC as A Level subjects. The challenge here has to do with the number of MSS students who are interested in the STEM subjects and the number of MCC students who have enrolled for these subjects. Furthermore, locating suitable qualified teachers to teach these subjects is also a problem. Securing human and financial resources to support the teaching of STEM subjects is a real issue. In the interview, Gregory Julius suggests that there is a need to broaden the spectrum as it relates to the current programs that are offered. Julius supports getting

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students to engage in the performing arts and other humanities subject areas since these skills are also vital for the development of the country. The hard core STEM subjects are indeed vital, but equally crucial is the development of the performing arts that can help to sustain the island’s cultural heritage.

4.4

Emerging Issues

Ongoing immigration from the neighboring islands, particularly Haiti and the Dominican Republic, is considered an emerging issue. For MES, the tension resides in the language barrier. French and Spanish are the official and Mothertongue languages of the immigrants; a sizeable proportion cannot manage the “intricacies” of the English language. This translates into a major challenge for the students and teachers alike. It is imperative for MES to devise practical strategies to deal with this emerging issue. Policy and curricular changes may be necessary here. As the economic challenges in the Region escalate, it is highly likely that the issue of immigration will remain for some time and MES needs to deal with the challenge sooner rather than later. At present, there is a bi-lingual teacher who works with the Spanish students at MSS to help them build an English language base that would allow them to access the curriculum. MES continues to work with the 2011–2014 National Strategic Plan (NSP) to ensure that it is keeping in step with the Montserrat Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Alongside this, should be a calculated focus on the learning needs of the students and the teaching ability of the teachers. The emerging issues identified have implications for effective school leadership and management, Teacher Education (TE), and Continuing Professional Development (CPD). The need to have quality teachers to deliver quality education is quite acute. These too are emerging issues. MES must therefore utilize the CARICOM and OECS strategic plans to deal with problems that occasionally emerge.

4.5

Discussion and Observations

Information about MES and its operations for this subsection is strengthened by formal and informal research activities and first-hand experiences during pre- and postvolcano times. Inequality: The 1986-restructuring process did make provisions for all students to have automatic access to secondary education; that is, primary school students no longer are required to write and pass a CE exam to have access to secondary education. However, the restructured system exposed some pertinent issues. One of the objectives that the government considered might be achieved through restructuring was: “To avoid an element of social stratification in which some bright children gained places in the Montserrat Secondary School on completion of their

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primary school, but others were ‘doomed’ to attend the less prestigious and less academically oriented junior secondary schools” (Bray et al. 1985, 9). Interestingly, controversy that surrounded the CEE gave rise to the restructured system, but that very system faced as much criticism when it became established. Undoubtedly this was because of the introduction of the Pre-Vocational Program (PVP), thought to be crucial to the restructuring program. PVP started in Form 4, where an academic-based syllabus was combined with practical activities in commerce, industrial agriculture, craft, and hotel trades. Of note, the criticism leveled at the “producers” of PVP did not emerge from rigorous research findings, but rather from antichange sentiments within certain groups. Furthermore, the PVP program was generally viewed as a project that had a lesser academic status than the secondary school overall program. This seems to have been responsible for some of the criticism. Generally, Fergus notes that four basic points of criticism surfaced: 1. It (PVP) leads to low achievement at the primary level. 2. Instead of automatic promotion from grade to grade, children should be allowed to repeat classes. 3. PVP creates a cadre of intellectually backward students. 4. Comprehensivization means a general lowering of standards and therefore the CEE should have been retained, to motivate pupils (Fergus 1994, 191). Also noteworthy is the fact that in 1992, it was the government that appointed the Review Body that supported “comprehensivization” and the abolition of CEE. Yet, it can be said that the inadequacy of the restructured system was not a flaw of the system itself, but rather seemed to have grown from pedagogical weaknesses and failure on the part of some officials to adequately prepare for such an innovation. Nonetheless, some amendments including the adjustments to automatic promotion needed to be given practical consideration. This does not mean that the abolition of CEEs is neither practical nor desirable. Errol Miller, former lecturer of the UWI and leader of an education reform group, has recommended that “the entire sub-region should follow the British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis in providing universal secondary education to all children up to the age of 16” (Fergus 1994, 192). A Grade Six Examination (GSE) replaced the abolished CEE. The purpose of the GSE was to determine how students would be streamed on entering MSS. Based on unpublished school reports, it seems reasonable to report that the scope and depth of the content and the general quality of the GSE were on par with the original CEE. However, the conditions under which the GSE was administered were different and perhaps less formal. Students wrote the examination in their respective primary schools, but general administration remained the responsibility of MES. Additionally, teachers still put emphasis on content coverage since it was generally believed that students who were exposed to more content were most likely to rank higher in the overall GSE “league tables.” Moreover, a school’s “good” rating by the general community was usually defined by the number of “A” places that school attained. Although MES should be commended for addressing issues of inequality, situations

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like the automatic access to secondary education still leave room for questioning issues of imbalance and disparity. ICT and Digitalization: Education systems would be ineffective if they did not keep up with the rapid advancement and trends in ICT and digitalization. MES is making a step in the right direction to have an EMI system that can help to enhance teaching and learning activities, as well as support administrative duties. This also encourages a research-active environment. The STEM Subjects: In the 28 January 2019 telephone interview with the Director of Education, he revealed that MES intended to put a renewed focus on the development of the performing arts. It is intended for the arts focus to be operationalized within a STEAM approach to curriculum development, where “A” stands for Arts. Research findings have shown that the STEAM approach has the potential to help students to continually develop their creative and cognitive abilities and that STEAM can begin at preprimary level and continue right through all the other levels (Coste et al. 2018; Galib 2018; Goff et al. 2018). The STEM/STEAM merger finds much relevance in this Brunerian principle: Children can be taught any subject material at any time given the right intellectual stage of development, provided that the subject matter is taught effectively and its difficulty level increases at a gradual rate. Galib takes a similar position by advocating: “A STEAM environment emphasizes exploratory, non-linear learning, process, and integration of creative problem-solving approaches, rather than following directions in a linear way to generate a right or wrong answer” (Galib 2018, 25). Emerging Issue – Language: The language issue that MES faces is not a recent occurrence that is linked to post-1995 education issues. Language barrier issues can be traced back to the late 1970s when hurricanes that destroyed some countries in the region forced their residents to relocate to Montserrat. This situation has worsened in the wake of the Soufriere Hills Volcano eruption in 1995. Maurisha Browne, second Runner up in 2014 MSSA Essay Competition makes this observation: The non-English speaking students enter the school without having trained teachers to deal with them. They also have no English courses designed for them. Unfortunately, this means that they are most likely to end up in the LEAP classes if they are coming in from first or second form. (Browne 2015)

Browne laments the situation that the educational needs of Lower Educational Attainment Program (LEAP) students are not catered for. Montserrat is located in a disaster prone area, which suggests that the possibility for residents to experience other destructive forces is real. Besides, the volcano, though not explosive, is still active. What does this mean for MES? A foreseeable catalogue of emerging issues seems to be a high possibility. Gunduz contends that a student’s sense of responsibility for learning increases “when a teacher performs his/her responsibility” (Gunduz 2016, 623). Also, research work shows that responsibility is a critical factor in determining meaningful teaching learning experiences (Šteh et al. 2014; Ivarsson and Pihl 2013). This is a factor that MES should give serious attention to, with a view helping to address its recurring issues, hence the need for STrEAM.

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A STrEAM approach possesses the potential to emphasize agency and responsibility in a teaching learning environment that encourages creativity, criticality, reflection, introspection, questioning, problem-solving, social engagement, and personal development (Shotte 2019). STrEAM strengthens the STEM-STEAM curriculum, where the “r” stands for “responsibility.” The relationship between responsible and agency is instructive as well as beneficial (Moretto et al. 2011). MES’ programs should therefore be designed to develop a sense of agency, which can go a long way in helping students to be responsible for their own learning and educational progress. Teachers should create situations where students can become agents of change, while encouraging them to empower themselves to be innovative and engaging. Developing a similar sense of agency is also advantageous for Ministry officials, administrative staff, and especially teachers, who should take responsibility for their own learning, professional practice and development.

5

Conclusion

The main theme of this chapter is Montserrat Education System and the subtheme is Reflections, Inspections, and Projections. The level of exploration in this regard is indeed relevant since MES plays such a vital role in the country’s redevelopment activities. Beyond the explicit attention given to the education system and its institutions, there is the relevance of human growth and development, which in turn benefits national progress and helps to sustain Montserrat’s re-development goals. The historical backdrop provides some useful information that puts the narrative in context. Education systems are usually shaped by political ideologies and are structured in line with economic output and progress, sometimes with the goal of influencing policy. For Montserrat, there are three major factors that merit serious consideration with reference to how MES’ policies are formulated: (1) Montserrat’s BOT status; (2) its CARICOM, OECS, and other Regional connections; and (3) post-1995 dilemmas and remediation. The third factor presents real challenges because of the devastating impact that the volcanic crisis has had, and is still having on educational development and progress. The emerging issues identified are testament of this. Addressing inequalities is an obvious and an on-going exercise, but the post-1995 catastrophe has presented inequalities of unexpected different kinds on different levels. This creates added pressure for MES. The grass-roots traditional Montserrat culture has been frustrated, shifted, and reformed in untold ways. Yes, cultures are fluid and they emerge as constructions are made to form new social identities. Again, the 1995 crisis comes into focus, this time to illustrate how the Montserrat culture has been gradually eroded (a matter that should be discussed in another paper). This implies that the Director’s considerations to broaden the “hard core” subjects to include the performing arts are not misplaced. In fact, the goal of maintaining grass-roots culture has motivated the suggestion to introduce STEAM.

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The rebuilding and redevelopment efforts made by Montserratians and residents after two major disasters have earned them the title “a resilient people.” This is the caliber MES needs if it is to promote sustainable education for sustainable development. This stance seems most appropriate if MES is to remain on target in terms of achieving the SDGs. In reaching out for this target, it seems highly likely that MES’ very own goals will be achieved. The time is right for MES to STEAM ahead and build a culture of success and appreciation as it encourages teachers and students alike to develop the sense of agency that would allow all concerned to engage with STrEAM. This timely reminder is certainly in order: The essence of self-preservation is a blend of intelligence, education, agency, and responsibility.

References Aniome. (2009). The West Indies Federation. Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/aniome/thewest-indian-federation. Accessed 5 Mar 2019. Anwar, S. (2016). Caribbean Community (CARICOM): Objectives and important signing protocols. Available at: https://www.jagranjosh.com/general-knowledge/caribbean-communitycaricom-objectives-and-important-signing-protocols-1458538049-1. Accessed 5 Mar 2019. Bray, M., Fenton, M., Fergus, H., & Ratcliffe, M. (1985). Secondary education in Montserrat: A report on the potential for expansion and restructuring. Plymouth: Ministry of Education. Browne, M. (2015). Education system challenges on Montserrat and solutions. Available at: http:// www.mnialive.com/articles/second-place-essay-in-mss-association-2014-essay-competitionspeaking-about-education-system-challen. Accessed 21 May 2020. Caribbean Election. (2012). West Indies Federation. Available at: http://www.caribbeanelections. com/education/federation.asp. Accessed 5 Mar 2019. CARICOM Capacity Development Program (CCDP). (2009). 2000 Round of population and housing census data analysis sub-project national census report, Montserrat. Georgetown: CARICOM Secretariat. Carvalho, M. (2016). Situation analysis of children in Montserrat. Available at: https://www. academia.edu/31409018/Situation_Analysis_of_Children_in_Montserrat. Accessed 21 July 2020. Cooper, A., Levin, B., & Campbell, C. (2009). The growing (but still limited) importance of evidence in education policy and practice. Journal of Educational Change, 10(2), 159–171. Coste, T., Peabody, M. A., & Personette, L. (2018). Making the old new again: Infusing STEM education with deliberate creativity. In F. Reisman (Ed.), Creativity and innovation in STEM education (pp. 123–138). London: KIE Conference Publications. Daly, O. (1996). An analysis of the 1991 population and housing census for Montserrat. Georgetown: CARICOM Secretariat. Department for International Development. (1999). An evaluation of HMG’S response to the Montserrat volcanic emergency (Vol. 1). London: Department for International Development. Fergus, H. (1994). Montserrat: History of a Caribbean colony. London: Macmillan. Fergus, H. (2003). A history of education in the British Leeward Islands, 1838–1945. Mona: University of the West Indies Press. Galib, C. (2018). Full steam ahead: Conversations with directors on creating a sustainable steam culture. In F. Reisman (Ed.), Creativity and innovation in STEM education (pp. 23–57). London: KIE Conference Publications. Goff, K., Guzik, E., & Jung, R. (2018). Digital creative problem solving: The Beyonders program. In F. Reisman (Ed.), Creativity and innovation in STEM education (pp. 91–108). London: KIE Conference Publications.

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Government of Montserrat. (1973). For industrial development on Montserrat: The welcome mat is out. Plymouth: Government Printing Press. Government of Montserrat. (2011). Draft Education Development Plan 2012–2020. Available at http://www.gov.ms/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/2011-03-22-Montserrat-2012-20-EducationDevelopment-Plan-draft.pdf. Accessed 25 Feb 2019. Gunduz, M. (2016). What are the teaching responsibilities of being a teacher? Educational Research and Reviews, 11(8), 623–629. Ivarsson, D., & Pihl, F. (2013). Learner responsibility in the English classroom. https://pdfs. semanticscholar.org/1149/cbf3689e21c6b5c2495e96083537c621ba77.pdf. Accessed 21 May 2020. Kingdom, O. E., & Maekae, J. (2013). The role of education in national development: Nigerian experience. European Scientific Journal, 9(28), 312–320. Miller, E. (1984). Education research: The English-speaking Caribbean. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre. Mohammed, M., Rufai, M., & Azeez, R. (2016). Tertiary education and human capital development: Implication on the National Development. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 5(2), 14–21. https://doi.org/10.6007/IJARPED/v5-i2/ 2069. Accessed 27 Dec 2018. Montserrat Statistics Department. (2019). Intercensal population count and Labour Force Survey 2018 key findings report. Available at: http://www.gov.ms/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/ FINAL-REPORT-KEY-FINDINGS-CENSUS-LABOUR-FORCE-SURVEY-2018-.pdf. Accessed 19 May 2020. Montserrat UNICEF Office for the Eastern Caribbean Area. (2016). Situation analysis of children in Montserrat. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/easterncaribbean/Montserrat_SitAN_2016_ WEB.pdf. Accessed 25 Feb 2019. Moretto, G., Walsh, E., & Haggard, P. (2011). Experience of agency and sense of responsibility. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21920776/. Accessed 21 May 2020. Mullings, A. (2015). Three issues I struggle with concerning Montserrat’s education system. Available at: http://www.mnialive.com/articles/three-issues-i-struggle-with-concerning-montser rat-s-education-system. Accessed 21 May 2020. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (1998). Getting started, settling in: The transition from education to the labour market. Available at: https://www. oecd.org/els/emp/2080238.pdf. Accessed 21 May 2020. Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). (2016a). OECS strategic objectives. Available at: https://www.oecs.org/homepage/strategic-objectives. Accessed 5 Mar 2019. Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). (2016b). OECS education sector strategy 2012– 2021. Available at: https://www.oecs.org/edmu-resources?start¼9. Accessed 5 Mar 2019. Payne, P. (1999). Reestablishment of Post-Secondary Education and Training in Montserrat: An Analysis of the Present Post-Volcanic Situation with Recommendations for the Re-introduction of ‘A Level Courses and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). https:// www.oecs.org/edmu-resources/re-establishment-of-post-secondary-education-and-training-inmontserrat-final-report-december-5-1999-pdf. Accessed 27 Feb 2019. Quintini, G., Martin, J. P., & Martin, S. (2007). The Changing Nature of the School-to-Work. https://www.oecd.org/employment/emp/38187773.pdf. Accessed 19 May 2020. Saljo, R. (1994). Culture and Learning. In T. Husen & T. Postlewaite (Eds.), International Encyclopaedia of Education (pp. 1242–1246). Oxford: Pergamon, Oxford. Shotte, G. (2013). Transformational Leadership for Sustainable Education: Reflections on Montserrat. In P. Miller (Ed.), School Leadership in the Caribbean (pp. 29–44). Oxford: Symposium Book Ltd. Shotte, G. (2019). Educating for National Development, Redevelopment and Sustainability: STEM, STEAM and STrEAM. Paper presented at the KIE Conference, Dubai, UAE. Skelton, T. (2000). Situations – Political Uncertainties and Natural Disasters: Montserratian Identity and Colonial Status. Interventions 2. 2(1), 118–134.

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Šteh, B., Kalin, J., & Mažgon, J. (2014). The Role and Responsibility of Teachers and Students in University Studies: A Comparative Analysis of the Views Expressed by Pedagogy Students. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274530384_The_role_and_responsibility_of_ teachers_and_students_in_university_studies_A_comparative_analysis_of_the_views_ expressed_by_pedagogy_students. Accessed 21 May 2020. World Bank 2018. Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Systematic Regional Diagnostic. http:// documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/300861530819875538/pdf/OECS-Systematic-RegionalDiagnostic-P165001-1.pdf. Accessed 21 May 2020.

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Five Decades Later the Vicious Cycle of a Poor Education for the Poorest Persists Vanessa Castro Cardenal and Jose´ Ramo´n Laguna

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 General Information About Nicaragua . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Characteristics of the Nicaraguan Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The Lack of Equity Continues in the Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Achievements in a Context of Underdevelopment Relative to Other Countries of Central America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Education Coverage Continues to Be Unequal, Despite Showing Improvements . . . 2.3 Challenge to Be Faced: Poor Education for the Poorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

This chapter deals with the limitations of the Nicaraguan Education System when it comes to contributing to equity and social progress. Although from 1970 to 2014 the average level of education of the population of 15 years of age and older went from 2.6 to 6.2 years, access to education continues to be limited for those who live in remote rural areas of the central and northern parts of the country, the Caribbean Coast, and even in some marginal urban areas. In terms of educational quality, the gaps are even more pronounced. The causes of this inequality are multifactorial: political conflicts, wars, natural disasters, and, above all, the lack of national-interest public policies that foment major, progressive investments in education. In Nicaragua, investment in education does not exceed 4% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and is regressive in general, as a large part of it is absorbed by V. Castro Cardenal (*) International Consultant, Member of several NGO´s directives: IPADE, Nicaragua Lee, OLI (Online Learning Initiative), Managua, Nicaragua J. R. Laguna Independent Consultant World Bank, Managua, Nicaragua © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_40

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the public universities, which are attended by many students who are not poor. The basic education (preschool, elementary, and high school education) budget continues to be low with respect to the total spending of the public sector and is mainly used for current expenditures. Due to the fact that the educability of those who enter the education system is determined by the “accident of birth,” a major investment in preschool and elementary (primary school) education, based on policies of positive discrimination for children of rural areas and the Caribbean Coast, would lead to growth in the rate of graduation from sixth grade and to a widening of access to high school education. The sixth-grade graduation rate – lagging behind with respect to Central America – does not exceed 60%, being 21% among those in poverty. The education system does not take advantage of the technology available and the quality of the service continues to be incipient, which is evident in the results of Nicaraguan students in national and international tests like the Second Comparative and Explanatory Regional Study SERCE (Segundo Estudio Regional Comparativo y Explicativo, SERCE) in 2006 and the Third Comparative and Explanatory Regional Study (Tercer Estudio Regional Comparativo y Explicativo, TERCE) in 2013, in which Nicaragua ranges below the Latin American average and even below various countries of Central America. This limited learning is even more reduced among indigenous people and students living in poverty, meaning that the vicious cycle that originated decades ago is maintained. Reducing educational inequality is a pending task. The solution is not easy and must be assumed by all Nicaraguans at their different levels of responsibility. Keywords

Inequality · Poverty · Political conflicts · Discrimination · Weak educational quality

1

Introduction

1.1

General Information About Nicaragua

Nicaragua, located at the waist of Central America, has a geographical size of 130,373 square kilometers (km2), bordering with Honduras to the north, Costa Rica to the south, the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Its population is slightly more than 6,000,000 inhabitants (INIDE 2017), of whom 1,852,519, between 3 and 16 years of age, are of school age (INIDE 2017, 86). According to estimations of INIDE (INIDE is the governmental institution in charge of collecting, managing and disseminating information on the country’s development) (cited by CODENI 2019) in 2015, 40% of the population was less than 20 years old at the time. The country is divided into 15 departments and 2 autonomous regions on the Caribbean coast; 7 of the departments located on the Pacific coast are densely

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populated, especially Managua, with 365 inhabitants per km2, and Masaya, with 475 inhabitants per km2. In the central region, which is mountainous and less accessible, there are 8 departments, whose average is less than 50 inhabitants per km2. On the Caribbean Coast and in Río San Juan (the latter in the central and south of the country), there are no more than 10 inhabitants per km2 (INIDE 2015). Nicaragua is the second poorest country in Latin America after Haiti, with a GDP per capita of US$ 2030 (Central Bank of Nicaragua 2019), with the country occupying 103rd place in the Social Progress Index (SPI) (Calero 2019). According to information from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), 64.6% of Nicaraguans live below the poverty line; of these, 46.3% suffer general poverty and 18.3% live in extreme poverty (ECLAC 2018a, 26). The population living in poverty is overrepresented among indigenous people, people of African descent, and inhabitants of rural and marginal urban areas. The above is clearly seen in the fact that Nicaragua has a Gini coefficient of 0.49 (ECLAC 2018a, 39), which confirms the income inequality existing in the country. Considering that investment in human capital is one of the mechanisms to break the vicious circle (To study the topic of human capital in greater depth, the following sources, among others, can be consulted: Psacharapoulos y Patrinos (2002); Hanushek and Woessmann (2012); Hanushek (2013); Sapelli (2009); Laguna (2004); Laguna and Porta (2013)), the low financing aimed at education is concerning, since, according to the data of ECLAC (2018a, 118), Nicaragua invests only US$ 220 (In 2016, the average social investment of Central America, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, calculated in US-Dollars of 2010, was 579.00 US$ per person (ECLAC 2018a, 119)) per person in the social sector every year, of which less than half (41.5%) is aimed at education. Although the low investment in the education system is a factor that explains to a large degree the existing deficiencies and gaps, to attribute the deficiencies of the system only to financial problems is too simple to explain the problems of Nicaragua’s education system. The vast limitations and the lack of equity that still distress the country in 2019 cannot be disconnected from the fact that public education has also been affected by other acute problems and conflicts throughout the last five decades. This analysis will focus on documenting how the Nicaraguan Education System has not been designed to offer quality education to those who are most in need; however, it will also highlight the main achievements obtained throughout the period analyzed. This document is organized into three sections. The first section describes general information about Nicaragua, relating the positive and negative aspects of its education system throughout the last five decades. The second section presents the current advancements and challenges in terms of coverage and quality of basic and high school education, as well as one of the most important tasks the country must solve, to improve teachers’ professional capability. Finally, conclusions and reflections are presented to provide an insight on how reductions of the educational gaps will produce progress in Nicaraguan education.

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Characteristics of the Nicaraguan Education System

Since the Second World War, the Nicaraguan education service has improved substantially, with basic education coverage and adult literacy having been augmented, which contributed to the increase in the average education level of the population of 15 years of age and older from 2.6 to 6.2 years in the period from 1970 to 2014 (Arrien and Matus Lazo 1989; INIDE 2015). Nevertheless, this progress has been unequal, particularly between: rural and urban areas; the poor and other more favored groups; and inhabitants of the Pacific zone and those of central and northern Nicaragua and the Caribbean Coast. Access in general and, above all, to quality education services, is a challenge for Nicaraguans living in poverty in the twenty-first century. The lack of equity, generated by the absence of public education policies and positive discrimination strategies, has prevailed during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Despite initial efforts during the 1980s to increase equity by preferably serving the rural population, women, and people in disadvantaged sectors, these efforts did not last long enough. Therefore, it could be affirmed that during the last five decades, many Nicaraguans have not been able to exercise their right to access quality educational services that would allow them to leave poverty behind, and have a better future as well as a dignified life as citizens. The inequality is a product of different causes, one of them natural disasters – too frequent in the country – others of political and ideological origin, as well as wars. In the twentieth century, two earthquakes (The first one was in March 1931) destroyed Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. The last one in December 1972 left more than 10,000 dead, and 400,000 people harmed and suffering due to the loss of family members, homes and jobs and meant severe economic losses. Constant hurricanes, floods, landslides, and volcanic eruptions have also affected the sustained development of the country and the education system. According to information from ECLAC, in the last quarter of the twentieth century the accumulated economic damage in Nicaragua due to natural disasters reached 6.2 billion dollars, an amount representing half the average value of the country’s total exports in that period (Wheelock 2000). Moreover, the war fought against Somoza by the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) between 1978 and 1979 and by the Sandinista Popular Army (Ejército Popular Sandinista, EPS) and the counter revolutionary (¨Contra¨) army between 1982 and 1990 caused thousands of deaths among combatants and the civilian population. Both wars contributed to major economic erosion. The 1980s war that lasted more than 8 years, drastically affected the investments and budgets assigned to the education service and limited the coverage for specific population groups (especially indigenous groups and rural inhabitants) and among age groups (adolescents) who were obligated to fulfill the Military Service in the 1980s. Additionally, the radical changes in the conceptions regarding the objectives of the public school system and how to organize and manage it, also caused harmful effects. Unfortunately, the majority of government officials in charge of the education system during these five decades has not administered education as a public asset to

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be used as a mean for the country’s sustainable economic and social development and the welfare of its citizens. This narrow national and strategic vision among the political parties in charge of governing the country has generated profound damage, and as a consequence, Nicaragua lags behind the rest of Central America economically, and has the lowest development indicators. The historical lack of stable state educational policies and the erroneous conception that each government, or even individual ministers, can introduce drastic changes to the education system, has had a major negative effect on the efficiency and quality of the service. This instability has limited the possibility to learn lessons from what has been done before, and caused confusion and conflict among teachers, students, and their families. Ensuring a good quality education for all takes years and much financial investment, both on the part of the State and of families. The absence of properly designed, monitored, and evaluated public policies has caused harm, especially to those who, due to living in poverty, do not have access to private education. The efficiency of the education system is limited. The teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) is not among Nicaragua’s priorities. Additionally, digital technology is neither present nor used in the majority of schools, and is also not considered of great importance by the current government. The digital service is very limited in the country and its average national coverage is barely 19.4% of homes (ECLAC 2018b), being even lower in rural areas.

1.2.1

Education During the Somoza Era and the Existence of Major Educational Gaps Between 1937 and 1979, Nicaragua was governed by a dictatorship, the Somoza’s dynasty (father and sons). During this regime, the national army and important sectors of the country’s economy were controlled by this dynasty. They exercised power despotically and cruelly for more than 40 years. Economic growth policies focused on primary production for exportation and the widening of the transport infrastructure (Walter 2004). According to the cited author, “investment in health, education, work, and agriculture rarely exceeded 10% of the total spending budget” (Walter 2004, 146). In consequence, the education system failed to attend to social needs not prioritized by the economic policies of the Somoza regime. During the 1950s and up to 1979, Central America – encouraged by the external Post-War demand, positive terms of exchange, and the establishment of the Common Central American Market since the 1960s – grew economically at a rate higher than the Latin American average: “4.9% until 1975 and 3.2% until 1979” (Arríen and Matus Lazo 1989). This was not the case for education or for the range of educational services on offer. The main export products that sustained the national economy were low technology agricultural products and did not require “qualified” labor (Arríen and Matus Lazo 1989). Harvesting coffee, banana, and cotton, and looking after livestock to export meat – the country’s most important products (Wheelock 1978, 5) – did not demand a high level of school education, and for many jobs it was not even necessary to be able to read and write. As a result, in 1970, 47% of Nicaragua’s

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population was illiterate (Filgueira 1975), while that same year the Latin American average was 27.3% (Arríen and Matus Lazo 1989, 153). In 1978, due to the lack of appropriate educational services, the illiteracy rate was 50%, reaching 76% among rural inhabitants, and an even greater percentage among women living in rural areas (Arríen and Matus Lazo 1989, 70). By 1970, 77.4% of “field workers” did not have any education, and 15.5% had a maximum of 3 years, equivalent to being functionally illiterate (Filgueira 1975). That same year, illiteracy rates in Costa Rica and El Salvador were lower. In the age group from 15 to 19, Nicaragua had an illiteracy rate of 33.4%, while, for this sector of the population, El Salvador registered 26.6% and Costa Rica only 4% illiteracy (Nassif et al. 1984, 135). During the Somoza regime, inequality was very pronounced and the level of school education presented gaps derived from the exclusion of those living in rural areas. For example, in Managua only 15.4% of the population did not have any level of education, a percentage that increased to 29.0% at the national urban level, while in rural areas the population without any education reached 70.8% (Filgueira 1975, 22). It was in the urban areas, especially in the three most populated cities – Managua, León, and Granada – where the incipient industrialization and the range of banking services on offer required a high level of education. As a result, among the population classified by Filgueira (1975) as “Medium and high occupational sectors in tertiary occupation,” only 12.7% had no schooling at all, and 27.4% had more than 10 years of education (Filgueira 1975, 22). The enrollment of children 7 to 14 years of age in elementary – first to sixth grade – school increased at a slow rate. As an example, in 1957, this enrollment covered 53.5% of this age group, but in 1961, it had increased by only 0.7%, reaching 54.2% (ECLAC 1965, 532). According to the cited document, very modest advances were produced in rural areas in that period. In rural areas, only 1.1% of those enrolled in elementary school passed sixth grade, but the urban population who managed to pass sixth grade represented 12.9% of the total enrollment. According to ECLAC (1965, 534–536), dropping out of school constituted one of the most serious problems affecting teaching in Nicaragua. Traditionally, dropping out of school has been concentrated in the first grade. In 1965, dropping out of school in this grade reached a rate of 73%. In 1978, the preschool student population was 9000 students, spread across 54 institutions, 46 of them in the urban area and the majority of them private. There were a total of 396,640 elementary school students, distributed across 1168 schools. The high school population was only 80,254 students enrolled in 114 schools; however, only 5 of these were in rural areas (Arríen and Matus Lazo 1989, 153 and 535). Evidence of the low priority assigned by the Somoza regime to offer educational services to the entire population and especially to the rural population was the net rate of first to sixth grade schooling, which reached 64.8% in Nicaragua. According to Arríen and Matus Lazo (1989), the net rate of average education levels decreased in rural areas, where 80% of schools had only four grades, tended by one teacher.

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Due in part to this, the sixth-grade completion rate was only 6% among students in rural areas (Arríen and Matus Lazo 1989, 153 and 217). Therefore, in nearly 14 years, from 1965 to 1978, the graduation rate increment from sixth grade was only of 4.9%, going from 1.1% to 6% (ECLAC 1965). However, the urban public education services, especially in the capital, had a certain quality, benefiting from the services of teachers of recognized ability. By 1978, there were only a dozen “elite” schools, which offered the complete elementary, middle and high school service. That year, due to the scarce high school enrollment, there were only 23,291 university students (ECLAC 1965, 30).

1.2.2 The 1980s At the start of the 1980s, the education system experimented with a strong change of direction. The FSLN, a revolutionary movement toppled the Somoza’s dictatorship, and its government had the priority of establishing social equity: The Government of National Reconstruction (was) is committed to the redistribution of wealth to provide better access to public services for the dispossessed classes of the population, in particular: education, health services, better housing and better nutrition. (CIDH-OEA 1980, Cap. IX)

To expand access to public services, a literacy campaign was implemented to benefit mostly inhabitants of rural areas and women. Educational services were offered free of charge, opening the doors of the education system to thousands of Nicaraguans who had previously been excluded. As a consequence, general enrollment increased from 485,894 students in 1978 to 979,580 in 1983 (Arnove 1994). The number of schools also multiplied, and great importance was given to preschool education, which rose to a total of 50,163 students in 1983, 41,163 more than in 1978 (Arríen and Matus Lazo 1989, 30). However, the expansion of the coverage generated by enrollment growth was not due to meticulous planning that would allow the public education service to be widened gradually based on priorities. In this sense, some experiences from the Somoza dictatorship in education were lost, among them good practices in teacher training and the nuclear schools’ experiment. The nuclear schools – advised by ECLAC – combined traditional and technical education in some areas of the Caribbean Region, the island of Ometepe, and small territories from Nueva Segovia in the northern part of the country (Revista Conservadora 1963). The legitimate and ethically correct effort to increase school coverage put strain on the system, specifically on the teaching profession and quality. It was not feasible to train teachers successfully in such a short period, and the decision to offer free education to all Nicaraguans – clearly fair – meant that the quality of an education system, conceived by the previous regime to respond to its conception of exclusive economic growth, was reduced even more. At that moment, it would have been wiser to have priorities, but the Sandinista revolution was a process with ambitious goals that did not correspond to the resources available.

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This reduction in quality was seen even at schools that, prior to 1979, had been “standard bearers of the system.” Teachers who had neither been properly trained, nor graduated as teaching professionals – known as “empirical teachers” in Latin América, represented 27% of the total force during the Somoza’s regime (Arríen and Matus Lazo 1989, 70). Due to the multiplication of enrollment, the percentage of uncertified teachers increased. According to Arnove, volunteers with limited education (1994, 36) and teachers lacking appropriate preparation took on the job of educating thousands of Nicaraguans who attended classes that were in many cases improvised. The number of non-graduated teachers increased proportionally to enrollment (According to charts 5XX and 5XXI in Arríen and Matus Lazo (1989, 386, 388), it is inferred that “empiricism” reached 58% in 1983, decreasing to 52% in 1987. In 1983, there were 15,639 teachers, of whom only 9176 were graduates), and many “instructors were just a step ahead of the students” (Arnove 1994, 36). This problem greatly limited the possibility of offering quality education, but it was not the main setback that marked the 1980s. The war, which was fought above all in rural areas destroyed schools recently built, and scared people away from assisting educational centers. Also, the FSLN, as the ruling party, imposed its ideological vision on education; all the schools’ texts were changed and some of them prioritized contents adequate to the ideas that the Sandinista government had about democracy (Arnove 1994). During the 1980s, the government’s conception of education was utilitarian and deeply ideological. An example of this vision is illustrated by Arnove (1994) who stated that the Sandinista’s priorities were: “to equip rural farmers, workers, women, and indigenous groups to participate in the tasks of the revolution” (Arnove 1994, 31). A quote by Arrien and Matus Lazo (1989) reinforces Arnove’s view, these authors state that during the revolution a student was to be trained as: A patriot, revolutionary, solidary, and committed to the interests of the workers and peasants, in particular, and (committed) with the wide working masses made up by our people in general; anti-imperialist, internationalist, contrary to every form of exploitation of external and internal factors. . . (Arríen and Matus Lazo 1989, 120)

The conception of education as an instrument of the ruling party – instead of seeing it as a national public service for the country’s development – created contradictions with important sectors of society, religious people, middle class sectors, and peasants among them. The contra war during the 1980s, which began in 1982, had a very negative effect on the sustained growth of enrollment. Enrollment, having been on the increase in 1987 and reaching a maximum of 76,635 preschool students, 583,725 elementary school students, and 177,202 high school students, decreased significantly by 1990. Between 1987 and 1990, the number of students diminished, with the biggest reductions among preschool students, for whom enrollment decreased to 13,434 students, and among high school students, with enrollment being reduced to 25,246 students (Arnove 1994).

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In the 1980s, public universities – with an enrollment predominantly from middle class students – lost their autonomy, which had been snatched away from Luis Somoza in 1958 after students’ painstaking struggle supported by the university authorities (Tünnermann 1958). Additionally, the quality of the education services offered by higher education also decreased, mostly because the Universities began to hire a majority of young and inexperienced professors, “3/4 of the university teachers were employed after 1979” (Arnove 1994, 39). In the educational system as a whole, loyalty to the ruling party remained more important than professional capacities in the selection of principals, directors, professors, and responsible persons.

1.2.3 The 1990s Having arrived in power by means of legitimate elections in 1990, the government of Violeta Chamorro brought another change of direction to the education system. The effort to reach greater coverage did not decrease; however, the form of management of the system did change and laicism (Laicism prevailed in the country since Zelaya – later turned into a dictator – assumed the presidency of Nicaragua in 1893) was suppressed. In the first years of the 1990s, a regime of School Autonomy was set up. The school autonomy reform was born with several purposes, among them to restore what Arcia and Belli (2001) called “social contract,” broken in the 1980s; second, to reduce misuse of resources in schools (The schools expenses for energy, water and maintenance were paid by the central level, as a consequence they did not monitor their expenses, and in some cases, there was severe waste (Interview to Humberto Belli Minister of Education, February 20th, 2020)); third, to involve families in the direction of school affairs and in the choice of principals to stop clientelism; the fourth objective was to lower school dropout by giving teachers material incentives if they managed to retain all the students initially enrolled in their grade. The school autonomy regime implied that each school joining this reform should receive a monetary transfer from the central government. The budget assigned depended on a formula based on its enrollment. If the money was not enough to pay for the basic services and maintenance, the school had to get the funds on its own. This resulted in charges to families, so education ceased to be free in some of the schools included in this reform that was not piloted. The school had to involve the students’ families in the process of choosing its authorities. The reform that brought this change was very much in vogue in Latin America in the context of decentralization efforts. According to Gershberg who quotes the IDB 1994, 194, and Dillinger 1995: Over the past decade, the multilateral development community’ has espoused the fiscal and administrative decentralization of the social sectors and often specifically of primary and secondary schooling. (Gershberg 1999, 8)

In Nicaragua school autonomy brought positive and negative effects. Among its positive effects were: fomenting the retention of enrollment, giving a key role to

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families, and opening up spaces for the participation of heads of households in school management and even in the election of the school principals and viceprincipals. This last aspect was very positive, as it strongly limited the concentration of clientelism-oriented practices which, in the 1980s, exerted a negative influence in the system. However, the autonomous school regime also had problems. The collection of fees from parents, tended to limit the opportunity for some families to enroll their children in school. Second, the fact that the principals, being obliged to ensure the collection of fees and a proper management of school funds, prioritized their administrative functions and relegated their educational work to second place (Rivarola and Fuller 1999). The World Bank, which supported this change, had established (This incentive was delivered by the World Bank to the Ministry of Education beginning in 1993 to encourage the regime of school autonomy, a reform initiated that year. This reform was promoted by Humberto Belli who was the Minister of education. Some months after the autonomous movement began, Belli got financial assistance from the World Bank. This financial support was provided in connection with a joint effort between MINED and the World Bank to promote the “Basic Education Project” which ended in 2001. (www.oas.org)) that the teachers would receive an incentive if they managed to retain the majority of all the enrolled students at the beginning of the school year. In some cases, this practice ended up being a “perverse incentive” for a good quantity of teachers, who altered the initial enrollment by diminishing the numbers of enrolled students to cover up dropout rates (Castro et al. 1999; Rivarola and Fuller 1999; Rapalo et al. 2004). Another limitation was that during the period, in which school autonomy prevailed, functions were not transferred to the Municipal Educational Councils created in those years. The majority of these Councils, which were supposed to be the rectors of the educational work in the municipality, did not function fully (Rapalo et al. 2004). Therefore, the rapidly expanding autonomous schools lacked local support in their management, and had to resolve their problems directly with the central level, making their administration a tedious burden. Finally, the most important and strongest teachers’ union, the National Association of Nicaraguan Educators (Asociación Nacional de Educadores Nicaragüenses, ANDEN) of Sandinista ideology, was opposed to the school autonomy regime, resisting its implementation by calling strikes and other forms of protests that limited the educational work during some years in the 1990s. Just as the Sandinista government failed to learn from some of the experiences of the Somoza regime, the government in the 1990s implemented new policies, failing to obtain lessons from the previous decade. The same cycle was repeated by the governments elected in 1996 and 2001. In spite of sharing a similar political ideology to that of Violeta Chamorro’s coalition, these governments made changes without implementing prior evaluations of the results of past educational decisions. As an example, the Minister chosen by the president Arnoldo Aleman’s Liberal Party Government in 1996, began to make important modifications to the school autonomy regime, some of those changes implied that one of the positive accomplishments, the

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reduction of clientelism, was reversed, as the decision to appoint school authorities was once again in the hands of the minister at the central level. These decision-making processes, explained briefly at the start of this document, have hindered the educational system. An education without a clear aim and a welldesigned framework of public policies focused on national interests cannot prioritize those, who have been disadvantaged since their childhood, and does not promote sustainable development or poverty eradication. The lack of public policies and the absence of agencies responsible for managing the proper functioning of the education system independently from the ruling party has produced negative outcomes for the country. The fact that the decision-making process is not based on evaluations exacerbates a cultural practice where state officials do not consider themselves public servants. Moreover, government officials are not fiscally accountable to the Nicaraguan citizens who pay for the education service with their taxes. In 2006, Daniel Ortega, secretary general of the FSLN and a candidate for the presidency, won the elections and became president in 2007. This meant a new turn for education, that was reflected in the suppression of all types of autonomy for schools and the participation of heads of households in their management, ignoring the established legislation (The “Ley de Participación Ciudadana No. 475,” “Citizens participation Law,” was approved by the National Assembly in 2003) in favor of the involvement of families and communities in the school’s decisions; the total centralization of the system management; the change in the method of teaching how to read and write at elementary school level; the dismissal of agreements reached with the rest of Central America to modernize teacher training putting it in charge of the National Universities; the return to clientelism in its acutest expressions and the extreme politicization of school texts, which now include elements of cult of the personality of the current rulers (CONNECTAS examined 25 elementary and high school books of public schools of the government in 2019 – 9 on social studies, 11 on language and literature, and 5 on cohabitation and civility –, in which it found 35 photographs of dictator Daniel Ortega along with constant allusions to the benefits left by the government projects (Navarrete 2019)) (Navarrete 2019). The decision to not modernize teacher training, casting aside plans of the last liberal government (Enrique Bolaños 2001–2006) and agreements with the other Central American countries, has had very negative results. The most important being that primary teachers continue to graduate with fewer than 14 years of education in old fashioned institutions designed in the 60s by the Somoza regime, when the educational system served a population mostly from urban areas and predominantly from the middle classes whose families had a high level of education. As a consequence, being a teacher graduated from one of these institutions, according to a group of studies on factors associated with learning, does not seem to be linked to students’ best development and skills in mathematics, reading and writing (Early Grade Reading Achievement (EGRA) and Early Grade Mathematics Achievement (EGMA) were the tests used in the majority of these studies. Both tests were designed by the Research Triangle Institute (RTI international) with the support of international experts, they were both piloted in Nicaragua, EGRA in 2007 in Spanish

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and Miskitu, and EGMA in 2011. When using EGRA later for different studies conducted in Central America and Nicaragua, it has been contextually designed and its reliability measured carefully using different tests, among them Alpha Cronbach. The results of this test showed a very high coefficient) (Castro et al. 2009, 2010, 2015a, b, 2019; Laguna et al. 2008).

2

The Lack of Equity Continues in the Education System

In accordance with the General Education Law, the Nicaraguan Education System consists of “the Subsystem of Basic and Medium Education, the Subsystem of Technical and Professional Education, the Subsystem of Regional Autonomous Education (SRAE), the Subsystem of Non-formal Education, and the Subsystem of Higher Education” (Asamblea Nacional de Nicaragua 2006, arto. 6, inciso h). The Subsystem of Basic and Medium Education is under the authority of the Ministry of Education (Ministerio de Educación Cultura y Deportes, MINED). The SRAE, created in the 1980s, receives funding from the MINED but is in the jurisdiction of the government of the two autonomous regions on the Caribbean Coast. Technical Education is dependent on the National Technological Institute (Instituto Nacional Tecnológico, INATEC), and higher education which includes the public universities is governed by the National Council of Universities (Consejo Nacional de Universidades, CNU) (Since 2013, there have been no educational data open to public scrutiny, with the liquidation reports of the General Budget of the Republic of Nicaragua being the only way of knowing at least about the universal enrollment).

2.1

Achievements in a Context of Underdevelopment Relative to Other Countries of Central America

In 50 years from 1979 to 2018, Nicaragua has achieved slight and slow progress, which is insufficient. Costa Rica achieved better educational results in less than 20 years, beginning its main indicators improvement in a period prior to 1979; even Honduras, which is the third poorest country in Latin America and has undergone years of extreme violence, has had better results than Nicaragua (see Chart 4). The advancements obtained in Nicaragua have not closed the gaps in the education service for those living in rural areas, the Caribbean Coast, and marginal urban areas. But in these last few decades there are some positive aspects to be mentioned: • Gender equality has improved. In Nicaragua, girls have better retention and pass rates at elementary, middle and high school than their male counterparts (In 2007, in rural areas, girls had a pass rate of 86% and boys of 82% at elementary school; in 2009, the pass rate of girls had reached 90.5% and that of boys 87% (MINED 2011, 20)), and they obtain better results in the reading tests (TERCE/EGRA). • There are advancements in investments and improvements in infrastructure. According to a study of the Latin American Forum on Education Policies, in

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2008, after a stagnation of investments, 4000 classrooms and 112 schools were constructed (FLAPE 2009, 24). With regard to improvements in sanitation and drinking water, the total invested by FISE and the mayor’s offices to provide schools with water went from 10.7 USD million dollars in 2006 to 12.5 USD million dollars in 2009 (IEEPP 2010). In this field, there is also important support from UNICEF, which, in 2008, with its project “Escuelas Amigas y Saludables” (EAS; “Friendly and Healthy Schools”), covered 342 schools in 45 municipalities identified as priority in the Poverty Reduction Plan of the period (Castro 2010).

2.2

Education Coverage Continues to Be Unequal, Despite Showing Improvements

School coverage has advanced; however, the objective of universalizing elementary school education has not been achieved. The average schooling of the population has increased, from 4.9 years in 2001 to 6.2 in 2014 (INIDE 2015). But the gap between those living in rural areas and urban areas and between the inhabitants of the Pacific Coast and those of the Caribbean Coast has not been closed. In 2011 (Education statistics have not been published for more than 6 years, and the website of the Ministry of Education does not provide data either), MINED reported that, in the Caribbean Coast, the population did not exceed 3 years of schooling (MINED 2011); it is likely that this rate has not improved or perhaps is just reaching the level of the rural rate. The deficits in the two Nicaraguan Autonomous Regions due to lack of quality of their educational service harm a vast number of their inhabitants who come from ethnic minorities and afro Caribbean origins (Table 1). Table 1 Nicaragua: educational indicators development Illiteracy Average schooling Rural schooling Preschool coverage (3–6 years) Gross elementary (first to sixth) coverage Net elementary (ibid) coverage

End of 1970 50% 2.6 years 1.2 years 2.5% 84.5% 44%

2018 12.7%a 6.2 years 4.3 years 66.8%b 108.1% 91.8%c

Source: Own preparation based on Arríen and Matus Lazo (1989), INIDE (2015), and Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (2019) a The illiteracy and average schooling data are taken from the Living Conditions Survey of 2014 (INIDE 2015) b The preschool and elementary (primary) school education coverage data (gross and net) were calculated based on data of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (2019) and population projections based on data of INIDE (2015). The Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (2019) reported enrollment of 283,102 students in preschool education; 887,207 students in elementary school, and 392,440 high school students. According to INIDE (2015), by 2014 the enrollment total for the population of 3 to 5 years of age was 391,418 students; for the population of 6 to 11 years 758,148 students; and for the population of 12 to 16 years 651,757 students c Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (2019)

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Access to schooling has widened, with important leaps in preschool education, whose enrollment developed from approximately 30% to more than 65% in the last few years (Castro 2000; ECLAC 2010; Ministry of Finance and Public Credit 2019). Table 2 presents the education coverage data at all levels for the period from 2001 to 2018, observing that the systems with the greatest growth were preschool and high school, which had very low enrollment in 2001. EDUQUEMOS states that the “adjusted net rate of enrollment in elementary school education grew on a constant basis from 80% to approximately 93% in the decade 2000–2010” (Flórez 2011, 14). However, a 1.2% reduction of the net elementary school rate is noted between 2010 (93%) and 2018 (91.8%). When comparing data from 2015 with data in 2018 (see Table 2), there is a reduction in the number of students enrolled in the three public systems governed by MINED. Preschool enrollment decreased by 11,561 students; first to sixth grade enrollment diminished by 16,705 students, and high school student numbers decreased by 10,688. Even in teacher training, there was a regression. In 2018, 3566 fewer aspiring teachers enrolled compared to 2015.

2.3

Challenge to Be Faced: Poor Education for the Poorer

The problems of the Nicaraguan Education System are complex. Not only is there a need to change the method of management, planning, and evaluation; it is also necessary to establish accountability, as a minimum, the public should be provided with periodic statistics. In addition, it is imperative to universalize elementary school education and to increase enrollment, especially in preschool education and the first years of high school. It is also indispensable to diversify high school education, improving technical education; to return autonomy to the universities and promote access to this level for less favored families, combining a scholarship program with a system of financial participation for those who can pay for attendance at a private university and who currently benefit from the free status of public universities. Table 2 Development of student enrollment by educational program 2001 to 2018 Program Special Preschool Elementary High school Teacher training Adults Total

2001 3366 163,832 866,516 334,986 6201

2005 3353 213,672 945,089 415,273 5351

2009 2927a 213,224 926,969 443,644 NA

2012 3103 241,169 902,790 504,541 7158

2015 2960 258,637 874,249 527,571 5609

2018 3596 247,076 857,544 516,883 2043

83,413 1,458,314

91,961 1,674,699

NA 1,586,764

154,452 1,813,213

101,266 1,770,292

116,312 1,743,454

Source: Own preparation with data of MECD (2006), MINED (2011), and Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (2019) a This piece of data may not be comparable given that inclusive education programs have been promoted since 2005. According to MINED (2011), there are a total of 23,472 students with special educational needs attended to in Basic and Medium Education

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But, above all, it is a duty and a pressing need for the development of the country to elevate the quality of the public education service so that the education system is a vehicle of social mobility and sustainable growth. The vicious cycle of providing a poor education for the poorer, indigenous people, inhabitants of remote rural areas, people with disabilities, etc., perpetuates inequality and deepens the exclusion and marginalization of these sectors. The use of the education system as a mechanism to propagate political and ideological proselytism undermines the goals of educating for responsible citizenship and also takes away teaching time. Therefore, it is improbable that the majority of public school students are learning abilities that prepare them for the future, and that, upon leaving school, enable them to “communicate efficiently,” be “creative,” “able to collaborate and work in a team,” and, above all, equip them with analytical and critical ability, both to apply in their profession and in investigative and entrepreneurial work and in their everyday life (see The 4 Cs, http://aeseducation.com).

2.3.1

Inequities in the Nicaraguan Education System

Early Childhood and Preschool One of the problems that makes it difficult to include the children of low-income families in elementary, middle, and high school education is their low educability, associated with the absence of policies that mitigate what Heckman recognizes as the main source of inequity: “the accident of birth” (Heckman 2012, 3). Hence, experts (Center on the Developing Child Harvard University 2007; Duckworth et al. 2007; Tough 2012) insist that, to promote “personal success, greater equality of opportunity, a more dynamic economy, and a more cohesive and healthier society,” (Heckman 2012, 6) it is necessary to carry out a radical change in the social policies, so that these prioritize early interventions focused on children whose families have economic, cultural, and social limitations. Early childhood has not been prioritized: A successful program according to various evaluations, the Program of Integral Attention to Nicaraguan Children (Programa de Atención Integral a la Niñez Nicaragüense, PAININ), was broken up starting in 2008 and monetary transfers to incentivize school service demand were also ceased by the current government (OVE-BID 2012). Therefore, educating children who are vulnerable due to accident of their birth is not receiving enough attention and investments. FUNIDES (Belli and Flórez 2011), quotes Goldhaber (from The Economist), who attributes 60% of children’s school performance to nonschool factors (socioeconomic condition of the student, education level of the mother, cultural capital of the community and the family, etc.). Different studies in Latin America attribute greater importance to non-school factors. Moreover, studies conducted in the Caribbean Coast in Nicaragua, accredit 90% of explicative power of reading performance to non-school factors (Castro et al. 2010, OREALC/ UNESCO 2016). In Nicaragua, the attention to early childhood and preschool – the educational level that ensures a large part of the success of elementary education – is now better

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than several decades ago. The Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (2019) statistics establish an average coverage of 67%, but, being a mean, this hides the gaps in the Caribbean and rural areas. Resources assigned to preschool are very modest, oscillating from 1.1% of the budget of MINED in 2002 to 5.2% in 2018 (Ministerio de Hacienda y Crédito Público 2019), while the annual investment per student is limited to US$ 83.63 (Ministerio de Hacienda y Crédito Público 2019). In 2014, there were 200,953 children between the ages of 3 and 5, of whom 51% were outside the system (INIDE 2015). Moreover, the unattended population is unequally distributed. A study performed in 2009 indicated that in the Caribbean, only 4% of first graders from Miskitu ethnicity had gone through preschool education (Castro et al. 2010). It is a possibility that coverage has increased in this region since then, but deficits continue to be important. Research conducted in rural areas of the Central part of the Caribbean, indicated that only 37.9% of students of a representative sample had attended preschool (Castro et al. 2015a, b). Although, this area is predominantly inhabited by Spanish speaking families and less isolated than the coastal part of the Caribe, preschool coverage is almost 30% below the national average. The low coverage in the Caribbean can be attributed to the lack of services for children older than 3 years of age who live in remote areas and/or their precarious quality. Nearly all rural and remote areas are served by community preschools. In 2009, there were 5888 (IEEPP 2010), preschool centers of a total of 8016 that covered 53% (112,485 children) of the total enrollment: 213,224 (MINED 2011). The community preschools – operating since the 1990s – have allowed a widening of coverage; however, the majority of their sites do not have appropriate conditions. In 2009, while 85% of regular preschools had water, only 51% of the community preschools had access to this service (IEEPP 2010). Even in this community modality, the teachers, known as popular educators are not on the payroll, and instead of a salary, they receive an “assistance” which does not exceed US$60 a month on average and is not provided on a regular basis (Chart 1). Elementary According to data of the National Development Information Institute (Instituto Nacional de Información para el Desarrollo, INIDE 2015), approximately 39,207 children of 6 to 11 years of age were outside of elementary school that year. A survey performed by that institution found that 59,107 children between 6 and 11 years of age did not attend classes, which is indicative of the severe problem caused by dropping out of and failure at school. Among the sources of these disparities are a much lower elementary and preschool coverage in remote areas and high dropouts rates. Many of these children are victims of child labor (According to data of INIDE (2015), 9.5% of children between 10 and 14 perform child labor. A total of 25,560 children combine work with their studies and another 10,194 only worked and had abandoned the school system). To support these children and stop their marginalization it will need a government with a social vision that analyzes the multiplicity of factors creating the problem in the

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80.0% 66.9%

70.0% 60.0%

57.5%

59.2%

12.3%

12.4%

11.8%

1.5%

1.4%

1.7%

2006

2009

2012

66.1%

63.9%

50.0% 40.0% 30.0% 20.0% 10.0%

14.7%

14.7%

4.2%

5.0%

2015

2018

0.0% Primary education

High-School

Preschool

Chart 1 Spending by educational level in relation to the total spending of MINED (2006–2018). (Source: Own preparation based on Budgetary Liquidation Reports)

different territories. Currently, causes already identified are: meager or distant service, incomplete schools, family poverty, low valuation of education from the cultural point of view, etc. To increase coverage, it is key to reflect on the fact that to make a child of 14 return to the second grade is very different from getting a child of 6 to attend this grade. In relation to this, ECLAC maintains that: fomenting the incorporation of the most neglected groups (extremely poor, inhabitants of rural areas, indigenous peoples, and people of African descent) requires important investments that should be centered not only on increasing the education service but also on ensuring the conditions that foment effective access to these services, which frequently entails multisectoral interventions. (ECLAC 2010, 7)

Data from 2011 illustrate disparities between the urban and rural areas. For example, the net rate of elementary schooling in Managua, Estelí, and Carazo – accessible departments with a majority urban population – was 100%, 99.8%, and 98.3%, respectively, in 2010. But in Jinotega, Boaco, and Madriz – rural and remote departments – the schooling rates that year were 82.5%, 87.1%, and 87.9%, respectively (MINED 2011). Data from 2010 indicated that by limiting access to high school and/or technical education, social mobility was affected by discrepancies in the termination rate of sixth grade. By then, this rate reached an average of nearly 50% in the country, but in remote municipalities located in the Caribbean Coast, such as El Tortuguero, the rate was 12.2%, in Prinzapolka 19%, and in Bocay, Jinotega, 23.8% (MINED 2011).

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There are similar gaps identified when income level is analyzed. According to Flórez (2012), among those who come from poor families (extreme, medium poverty), sixth-grade graduation rate is less than 21%, which is why these children tend to have fewer than 3 years of elementary school education. In contrast, those who are “not poor” reach an average of 7 years of education, with a sixth grade graduation rate above 90% (Flórez 2012). Secondary Education INIDE (2015) reports that approximately 113,172 young people are not enrolled in secondary education. The high school’s low coverage is a serious problem, as it hinders the development of the net rate of (complete) secondary education. In 2005, secondary education coverage was 45.2%, having increased to 55.6% in 2018, that is, 10.4% points more in a period of 13 years. However, this progress is not equitable. Estimations, based on the Homes Survey of 2014, indicate that, at rural level, the net rate of schooling was close to 39% among young people of the corresponding age group (INIDE 2015), 16.6% lower than the national average of 2018. This can be attributed to at least two problems: the service, not versatile and even nonexistent in the rural areas, and the absence of policies that stimulate demand. An aggravating circumstance in the weak increase in demand is the fact that in more than a decade the sixth grade graduation rate has not exceeded 60%, being the lowest in Central America (PREAL-EDUQUEMOS 2007). Data from 2010 illustrate the problem in high school (ninth to eleventh): he lowest gross coverages are in Jinotega, the Autonomous Region of the Caribbean North (Región Autónoma de la Costa Caribe Norte, RACCN) and Boaco, with 38.5%, 39.7%, and 41.2%, while the urban departments, Managua and Estelí, have reached 71.3% and 68.5% (MINED 2011). Another interesting aspect in the completion of secondary education is the differences by age range. It should be noted that while only 6% of people 61 years of age and older managed to complete their high school education, slightly more than half of the population between 20 and 29 completed this educational level. It is appropriate to highlight the 30% leap of the generation of 40 to 44 years of age with respect to that of 45 to 49 years of age (the latter generation corresponds to young people affected by the war of the 1980s). These gaps are even bigger when differentiating by socioeconomic level, gender, or area of residence (Chart 2). Secondary education, like preschool education, does not receive the necessary investment to adapt it to the current scientific and technical advances, much less for teaching which prioritizes the sciences, technology, and the possession of skills in engineering and mathematics. According to Belli and Flórez (2011), “in 2009, Nicaragua assigned 9.9 percent of its GDP per capita to elementary – first to sixth grade – education, 4.5 percent to high school education.” This 4.5% translated into an investment per student of 120 US$ (Belli and Flórez 2011). But in 2018, an estimation, based on the data of the official enrollment and the budget executed, indicated that the investment per student had decreased to US$ 116.2. The low quality of this system is expressed in the limited number of high school graduates who pass the admission examinations to public universities. According to

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% COMPLETING HIGH SCHOOL

60.0 50.0

53.4

809

53.4 48.3

46.5

48.2

40.0 30.0 18.0

20.0

17.0

14.3 10.4 6.1

10.0 0.0

20 - 24 25 - 29 30 - 34 35 - 39 40 - 44 45 - 49 50 - 54 55 - 59 60 - 64 65 Y +

AGE RANGE Chart 2 Percentage of students who complete high school education by age range. (Source: Own preparation based on INIDE 2015)

Belli and Flórez (2011, 22), in 2004, UNAN, based in Managua (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua, by the Spanish acronym), administered entrance exams to 6342 students, only 77 (1.21%) students passed the math test and 756 (11.92%) passed the Spanish one. Higher Education According to Belli and Flórez (2011), in 2011, enrollment in higher education was slightly fewer than 100,000 students. In 2019, enrollment rates diminished even more due to a deep political crisis that began in 2018. Only those, who managed to graduate from sixth grade and, consequently, could enter high school, completed it, passed the admission tests and were able to enroll. Consequently, the vast majority of young people who have traditionally entered higher education are “not poor” which is confirmed by data of the Homes Survey of 2014 (INIDE 2015). Fewer than 1% of young people older than 24 years of age belonging to the poorest quintile complete university (Chart 3), while in the quintile with the highest income nearly 27% do so. Additionally, it illustrates that the rates of graduation in 5 years contain differences that slightly favor women and, significantly, young people living in urban areas. Fewer than 2% of young people living in rural areas complete their university studies. The chart data also confirms how high investment in higher education (see Laguna et al. 2008; Belli and Flórez 2011; Castro et al. 2015a, b) has tended to benefit those who come from families of medium and high incomes, which converts it into a regressive investment that contributes to perpetuating the inequality.

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% completing 5 years of post high school education

30.0

27.3 26.0

25.0 20.0 15.0 10.5 8.8

10.1 8.4

10.0 5.0 3.5

5.0 0.4 0.8

1.2 1.3

Quintile 1

Quintile 2

0.0 Quintile 3 Male

Quintile 4

Quintile 5

Total

Female

% completing 5 years of post high school education

35.0 29.5

30.0 25.0 20.0

14.9 15.0

11.6

10.0 5.8 5.0

1.7

2.1 0.3

5.3 3.5

1.9

0.5

1.5

0.0 Quintile 1

Quintile 2

Quintile 3 Urban

Quintile 4

Quintile 5

Quintile 6

Rural

Chart 3 Who complete 5 years of post-high school education? (Source: Own preparation based on INIDE 2015)

2.3.2 Equity and Quality The unequal quality in the education service plus the disadvantages with which students from poor homes enter school generate more inequality. Learning measured by different means is a trustworthy variable that can be used to conclude that, in this key educational area, there is a vicious circle that foments inequality.

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Possession of Basic Reading Skills Diagnoses of reading abilities made with EGRA (Early Grade Reading Assessment) place students from the Caribbean Coast at high risk of failure at school. To continue his or her learning, it is expected that a first grader is able to read at least 35 correct words per minute (cwpm) when completing the school year. In a representative sample that was tested in 2009 in the Autonomous Region of the North Caribbean Coast (ARNCC) and the Autonomous Region of the South Caribbean Coast (ARSCC), first grade students read in November – the last month of the school calendar – an average of only 17 cwpm (Castro et al. 2010). Other studies performed in Nicaragua in the period from 2014 to 2019 (Castro et al. 2015a, b, 2017, 2019; Castro and Luna 2018) prove that the development of reading fluency continues to represent an important challenge, particularly in the central and northern territories, and the Caribbean region. These investigations provide evidence that studying at rural schools has negative results for learning to read. A regression analysis of the last of these studies (Castro et al. 2019) showed that, in the sample, those who studied at rural schools of the Caribbean and of Jinotega read 7.9 correct words per minute (cwpm), fewer than their counterparts studying at urban schools of the same territories. The differences between rural and urban children of the fourth grade were statistically significant. There are also gaps at territorial level. According to studies from 2013, in Managua and Carazo, 69.2% and 73.9% of third graders had achieved the reading standard established by Dynamic Indicators of Success in Reading (Indicadores Dinámicos del Éxito en la Lectura, IDEL) (IDEL standards (Dynamic Indicators of Success in Reading), according to school period for third grade (Table 3)). In 2018, only 48.9% of third grade students from Jinotega that took the same test reached the standard. This places these children at the risk of failing at school and increasing the lines of illiteracy. International studies (Kim et al. 2016, 43) verified that for a student to learn what is taught it must be comprehensible to them. An essential component for the content to be accessible to the students is to receive instruction in their mother tongue (Kim et al. 2016, 43). In this respect, a study implemented by Castro, Laguna, and Callejas (2019) in territories of the Caribbean South found that, when the native language of the teacher is not the same as the one in which they teach, this has a negative and significant impact on their students’ learning to read fluently. Those, who receive classes in Spanish from teachers who do not speak Spanish as their mother tongue were found to read 11.3 cwpm fewer than those, who receive classes from teachers whose mother tongue is Spanish.

Table 3 Standard for measuring reading fluency in number of words to be read correctly in a minute Standard Above

Year start > ¼ 60 cwpm

Mid-year > ¼ 70 cwpm

End of year > ¼ 85 cwpm

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Performance in International Tests Disadvantages for Groups Whose Mother Tongue Is Not Spanish

Huelva, Pacheco, and Toruño, using data from TERCE, show how the accident of birth continues to be a limiting factor for students’ learning, in this case for those who come from homes where Spanish is not the mother tongue. The cited study shows that, in the reading tests for third and sixth grade, the average differences between students of families from ethnic groups and Spanish-speaking families were negative for those whose first language was not Spanish. Those who did not have Spanish as their first language obtained 40 and 160 points fewer in reading in grades 3 and 6, respectively (Huelva et al. 2017, 38).

The General Learning Problem

The national standardized tests and the results of SERCE (2006) and TERCE (2013) (OREALC/UNESCO 2016) indicate that the performance of the majority of students puts Nicaragua in a worrying situation. In the SERCE and TERCE tests, 75% to 80% of students did not achieve more than unsatisfactory performances, which, according to the Latin American Laboratory for Assessment of the Quality of Education (Laboratorio Latinoamericano de Evaluación de la Calidad Educativa, LLECE), locates them in the range denominated “basic” equivalent to insufficient learning (OREALC/UNESCO 2016). From SERCE to TERCE, there was a slight improvement, but Nicaragua continued below the regional average, despite the fact that Latin America as a whole had a positive development. For example, for mathematics of sixth grade, Latin America increased its average by 19.04 points, Nicaragua by only 4.38 points. In Guatemala, third graders improved their average by 47.91 points and in mathematics sixth grade students increased their average by 32.17 points; this was not the case in Nicaragua. Chart 4 indicates that Nicaragua obtained inferior results to Guatemala – a country

Chart 4 Performance in reading tests for third and sixth grade (TERCE 2013). (Source: OREALC/ UNESCO 2016)

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with 23 ethnicities and languages – and to Honduras, which has one of the highest levels of violence in the world. The Disadvantages in Performance for Those Who Come from the Most Disadvantaged Quintiles

The most recent national tests with a representative sample and officially published were conducted in 2006. Their results indicated that nearly 70% of students of grades 3 and 6 had unsatisfactory results in Spanish (reading and writing). And nearly 90% of sixth graders had deficient results in Mathematics. Although the data is from 2006, it is interesting to note that those who obtained better results were students from households with larger incomes (The socioeconomic quintile of the school was estimated by using the data generated by a questionnaire for the students, and the schools were classified according to the percentage of students of each quintile that predominated in them, see Table 4). In third grade, only 3.6% of the students from the first quintile were reading and comprehending proficiently, meanwhile the students from the fifth quintile were almost 10 points above the average and 15 points above their peers from the poorest sector.

2.3.3 The Teachers, Key Part of the Current Problems As indicated by a publication of UNESCO on the topic of teachers in Latin America and the Caribbean: the education system and the learnings it achieves and distributes socially will have the quality corresponding to the quality of its teachers; these professionals, their training, and the conditions they work in should be the true center of the public efforts in education. (OREALC/UNESCO 2012)

In Nicaragua, the selection, training, and professional development of teachers does not correspond to guiding plans or policies, which constitutes one of the most serious problems for the country. The Education Plan 2017–2021 (MINED n.d.), indicates that there are more than 48,000 teachers. This total includes 1500 popular educators in the subsystems of preschool, and 8451 community teachers. The Table 4 Results of tests 2006 according to socioeconomic levels of the school – third grade percentage of students in each range, being “basic” equivalent to very low proficiency Quintile Quintile 1 Quintile 2 Quintile 3 Quintile 4 Quintile 5 Total

Spanish third grade Basic Intermediate 80.2 16.2 73.8 20.8 67.7 24.8 68.2 23.9 52.8 29.1 68.4 23.0

Proficient 3.6 5.4 7.5 7.9 18.1 8.6

Mathematics third grade Basic Intermediate 68.3 23.8 74.2 19.6 73.0 21.1 72.4 21.2 60.8 28.0 69.7 22.8

Proficient 7.9 6.2 5.9 6.4 11.2 7.5

Source: MINED, Standardized National Tests 2006, taken from Laguna, Castro, and Porta (2008)

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popular educators tend to be moms who work as volunteers without being certified and/or having completed primary education. The community teachers don’t have certification for teaching but have a better preparation than the popular ones. Neither of them receive a formal salary. UNESCO indicates that Latin America and the Caribbean share the difficulty of making the teaching profession more attractive and efficient (OREALC/UNESCO 2012, 92). As a result, one of Nicaragua’s central limitations is to attract and retain good candidates for teaching positions. This problem is central in Nicaragua and it is linked to the lack of effective plans for recruiting good candidates, of training them properly, of identifying and keeping motivated the best teachers within the system. In various studies of reading skills (Castro et al. 2009, 2010; Laguna and Chow 2014), teachers were asked “where they saw themselves in the near future.” Unfortunately, teachers, whose students had performed better in the reading test, envisioned themselves out of the educational system in a 5-year term. Factors influencing that answer could be: very low salaries, lack of performance evaluation, and consequently absence of proper stimuli for teachers who are actually motivated and able to efficiently teach students at risk of failure. If Nicaragua does not have the capacity to increase the salaries of all teachers, it is imperative to better remunerate those who succeed in improving their students learning. (OREALC/UNESCO 2012, 96). Also, parents might be useful to teachers if they are more involved in their children’s education. Since parents’ involvement in their children’s learning helps to increase quality and reduce the workload of teachers, it is important to encourage it. Parents’ participation in school management is a right allocated in the Law on Educational Participation 475 of 2003. However, its fulfillment has been sidestepped by the Ortega government since 2007. Studies in the region have proved that parental involvement has a positive impact, helping to improve the education service (Rapalo et al. 2004).

Initial Training Unlike Costa Rica, Honduras, and El Salvador, Nicaragua continues to graduate teachers at high school level by means of traditional training schools that were founded during the middle of the last century. These schools are responsible for training teachers for elementary school education and have serious limitations in infrastructure, availability of teaching materials, modern libraries, connectivity, and technology. Historically, the average schooling of elementary school teachers has not been more than 11.2 years (MECD 2006, 11). The efforts, made by different education ministries from 2002 onward to modernize these teachers’ training schools (Bolón 2006), were frustrated in 2007 by the FSLN’s current government. Presently, the curriculum of these institutions does not focus on the creation of skilled teachers in key areas such as: science, oral and written communication, creativity, analytical capacity, critical thinking, mathematical logic, and the development of civic competencies: empathy, assertiveness, and team working abilities.

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The General Education Law (2008, Article 26, clause c, 19–20), approved and applicable during the government of the FSLN, does not include these topics, on the contrary what it establishes is that the focus of teacher training must be: “didactics, artistic education, integrated special education, psychology, pedagogy, interculturality, educational and professional orientation, educational technology, educational investigation, general education law, and education in values.” The current curriculum of elementary and middle school education, approved in 2008 and governed by competences, is still not harmonized with the curriculum of these training schools. Currently, the world is moving to establish competences (Competences are defined as “an integrated set of characteristics, knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are needed for effective performance in various teaching contexts.” In Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia, countries that experienced a ferocious conflict, four competences have been debated that will govern their teacher training system: the capacity for selfevaluation and the motivation to develop professionally; knowledge of the subjects or topics to be taught, of pedagogy and of the ruling curriculum; understanding of how the education system works, and values, sensitivity, and disposition to work with children (Pantic et al. 2011, 172)) that teachers must possess when they complete their formal training period; but in Nicaragua, teacher training is still governed with a profile developed several decades ago, which has been modified only slightly (Venegas 2002). Continuous Training The continuous training service has always had important deficiencies and has been remedial and unlinked to the learning problems of the students. Moreover, MINED has not developed a monitoring system and the training offer is not efficiently organized (When consulting statistics for the total teachers trained per year, there was no system making it possible to quantify the total hours of training received by a teacher or to group by topic or determine how much annual training a teacher receives. In the extreme, it is not known if the entry of 1000 sets of training in the year refers to the fact that 1000 teachers were trained or that one teacher received 1000 sets of training). Continuous training is not responding to classrooms’ and students’ learning needs. Teacher Remuneration In spite of salary raises in the last 10 years, the remuneration of teachers is the lowest in Central America. In 2018, an elementary school teacher earned US$ 275 (El Nuevo Diario 2018), a salary that covers only 60% of the cost of a basic basket of food. In El Salvador and Costa Rica, teachers received US$ 564.00 monthly and US$ 407 per month respectively (IEEPP 2010, 39). Teachers Lack of Appropriate Training and Certifications for Teaching As an example of the deficits in professional training, being a teacher graduated from a “Normal School” (training institution for elementary teachers), according to several studies conducted in Nicaragua, has not yet been proven to be linked to

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students learning (Laguna et al. 2008; Castro et al. 2017, 2019; Castro and Luna 2018). Data from these studies show that, instead, teachers’ motivation to teach has a more significant statistical influence in students achieving positive results in reading abilities tests. Despite those results, it can’t be affirmed that being a graduated teacher has no importance. Although there is no recent official information indicating that this plausible limiting factor has been overcome, data from 2009 recognized that an 88.3% of teachers from community preschools did not have a certificate (Laguna 2009, 7). However, news broadcast by T.V Channel 13 in 2017, owned by the governing family, reduced the percentage of preschool teachers without a certificate to 4.26% (Canal 13 2017), which is highly unlikely. According to Laguna (2009), the percentage of teachers in elementary school education who work in schools without the necessary preparation was 28%, being even greater in the Caribbean Coast (Prior to the current government of Daniel Ortega, the acronyms of the Autonomous Regions of the Caribbean Coast corresponded to RAAN and RAAS), Jinotega, Matagalpa, and Río San Juan (See Chart 5). Nevertheless, according to data reported by MINED, always through Channel 13 (Canal 13 2017), in 2017 the level of “empiricism” had decreased to 13%. It is important to note that surveys applied to teachers in various studies conducted between 2017 and 2019, evidenced that the percentage of “teacher empiricism” was higher than 40% in Jinotega and the Caribbean Coast (Castro et al. 2018, 2019). Data from 2011 indicated that in high school 41% of teachers had not graduated (MINED 2011). However, according to figures published by the aforementioned news channel – which have not been produced in an official manner – “empiricism” at this level had decreased to 5% in 2017 (Canal 13 2017).

70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

2006

2008

Chart 5 Teachers teaching without certification (empirical ones) per geographical area and per period (2006 vs. 2008). (Source: Statistics Division, MINED (Laguna 2009, 14))

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Due to the discrepancy of the official data and those compiled in the cited studies, it can be deduced that the number of uncertified teachers continues to be large. And the gaps in the number of uncertified teachers between urban and rural areas and the Caribbean Coast probably persist.

3

Conclusions

Nicaragua is lagging behind in relation to the rest of Central America not only due to its poverty, but because the majority of its different governments has neither prioritized social investment nor designed national policies that value education as a crucial factor for the country’s development and as a mean to eradicate poverty. The advances have taken place in a fairly long period. In nearly 50 years, the education coverage has increased although elementary and middle school education, whose net rate grew from 44% to 92%, is still not being universalized. Illiteracy among persons older than 14 years of age decreased from 50% to 12.7%; and the average schooling increased from 2.6 to 6.2 years; but it is lower in rural areas and in the Caribbean. Although the net preschool schooling rate grew from 3% in 1970 to 66.8% in 2018, that mean hides inequalities. The disadvantages hidden by averages are related with limited and low quality of service in the Caribbean Coast and rural areas. Secondary education continues to have partial coverage, though it is important to emphasize that, according to data of the Homes Survey of 2014 (INIDE 2015), while only 6% of people of 61 years of age and older completed their high school education several decades ago, by 2015, more than half (53.4%) of the population of 20 to 29 years of age was completing this level. In the period between 2006 and 2018, the budget allocated to basic and medium education was increased; however, this increment has been aimed at improving current expenditures in teachers’ salaries. The investment in current expenditures – teacher’s salary – has been raised during the decade, but continues to be lower than in the rest of the countries of Central America. Current expenditures in salaries also bring very limited benefits to students: there is absence of teaching texts or materials in the classrooms as well as literature for children and adolescent; public educational facilities with technological means are scarce, and there is a shortage of schools in remote territories. Additionally, poor infrastructure prevails in marginal urban areas. Various studies on reading abilities of Nicaraguan children show that the development of reading fluency continues to represent an important challenge. Tests (EGRA; SERCE and TERCE) show that teaching does not guarantee students’ reading fluency or comprehension of the text they read. Taking into consideration that the association between reading fluency and the ability to understand has been proven, Nicaragua needs to address this vital problem (Abadzi 2010). Possessing basic reading skills is key and must be achieved by third grade to guarantee that, when students begin fourth grade, they are able to use reading skills to learn. Consequently, the risk of failure at school is high, particularly in rural areas of the central and Caribbean regions and among the students of the quintiles of fewer resources. Limited basic skills in fluency and comprehensive reading impedes

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students from achieving analytical capacity, develop critical thinking tools, and abilities to communicate appropriately. Different investigations confirm the profitability of education and the need to graduate from high school to obtain higher incomes than those of the poverty line (Laguna 2004; Laguna and Porta 2013). In contrast, Nicaragua’s average schooling of 6.2 years indicates that a great number of Nicaraguans are not graduating from medium-level education. Moreover, less than 1% of young people older than 24 years of age, coming from the poorest quintile, complete higher education, while nearly 27% of those belonging to the quintile with the highest income manage to complete it. The aforementioned leads to the conclusion that the high financing that the government grants to higher education, apart from tending to benefit those coming from medium and high-income families, has become a regressive investment that contributes to the perpetuation of inequality. In terms of educational quality, the national standardized tests and the results of SERCE and TERCE indicate that the performance of the majority of students puts Nicaragua in a worrisome situation, as its results were lower than those of Guatemala – a country with 23 ethnicities and languages – and Honduras, which has one of the highest levels of violence in the world. One proof of the poor educational quality and of the lack of appropriate education services for those who are disadvantaged is the difference in performance between students whose mother tongue is not Spanish, shown in the cited studies. This education system is of very low quality for those most in need of social support to overcome the obstacles caused by their “accident of birth” and ethnic origin. For this reason, instead of generating equity, it forms part of a vicious circle that perpetuates inequality. The following have contributed to sustaining this vicious circle for several decades: • The lack of public policies focused on national interests. • The lack of clear positive discrimination strategies to enhance chances for students from poor households to have the opportunity to change their future and contribute to the sustainable development of Nicaragua. Consequently scarce attention has historically been given to children in rural areas and in the Caribbean. – There is an urgent need to offer more and better education to those disadvantaged because they belong to vulnerable social groups. This is an ethical problem and also a limitation that should be addressed because it affects negatively Nicaragua’s development and its citizens’ potential. – Attention to early childhood needs to be prioritized to improve the limited educability of those who enter first grade. This would contribute to the increase of graduation rates from sixth grade, and also increase access to secondary and technical education and universities. – Students should be expected to learn the twenty-first century skills, and teachers, principals and MINED’s officials should be accountable for students’ learning. • Coverage expansion and, above all, the quality of the educational service have been negatively affected by failure of the system management, as the few public

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policies drawn up, in addition to being submitted to political ups and downs, have neither been properly designed, nor guided in their implementation by rational planning. As a consequence, a management style has persisted in which experiments of reforms and changes that predominate are not a product of rigorous evaluation. The quality of the educational system has been hindered by: low remuneration of teachers, under appreciation of their profession and clientelism, which harms education and extends its negative effects throughout the system. Political affiliations are decisive for the appointment of officials at management level, both at central level and in the departments, and even of teachers, both in the preschool, elementary, and high school education system and at the public universities. There are severe limitations in the quality, training, and professionalization of the teaching staff. Teacher absenteeism, more pronounced in the rural areas, is worsened by the insufficient use of class time (Castro and Luna 2018), which affects learning and the possibility for the students at public schools in remote areas even to learn to read and write properly. The politicization of the education system and the lack of priority in the financing of the public schools, especially those located in remote and marginalized places, such as the Caribbean Coast. There is insufficient budget spending and meager investments in more profitable and progressive segments of the system, as elementary, preschool, and secondary education which due to their contribution to equity are more progressive. These investments in Nicaragua are the lowest in Central America. – Social investment should be increased and given priority but these expenditures should obey a national plan of sustainable development where educational policies and strategies must be based on evidence of what works, and on clear priorities implemented in close relation to the educational community. – Evaluation and monitoring of these policies should be a requirement and accountability a must. – Decentralization is necessary and the 475 Citizens participation law should be implemented again to empower families and community members and also guarantee their support to schools and their children’s learning. – The municipal educational system also must be strengthened. At the municipal level, the different ministries working in the social area must coordinate their efforts in favor of the comprehensive care of children at risk. – Public service should be a professional career designed to eradicate politicization. – Initial and in-service training of teachers and principals should be modernized and receive high priority. Teachers should be educated as professionals and their training must be outsourced to universities, which must recover their autonomy. – A system of support and monitoring of teachers’ performance: class instruction, effective hours of class and assistance should be implemented to provide stimuli for the best teachers and make accountable the ones that are failing.

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– The management of the educational system should be in the hands of experts instead of politicians. These experts should be in charge of an institution independent from the ruling party. This institution in conjunction with the educational community should design and implement educational policies to be monitored and evaluated periodically. Evaluations results must be shared with the Nicaraguan citizens.

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Laguna, J. (2004). Años de Estudio y superación de la Pobreza en Nicaragua. El Caso de la Red de Protección Social. Santiago: Estudio de caso para optar al título de Magíster en Gestión y Políticas Públicas, Departamento de Ingeniería Industrial, Universidad de Chile. Laguna, J. (2009). Análisis de la Situación Docente en Nicaragua 2008. Managua: MINED/CETT. Laguna, J. R., & Chow, N. (2014). Informe de Resultados: Línea de Base del Proyecto CARS Aplicación de EGRA 2014. Bluefields, RAAS, Nicaragua: CARS/DEVTECH. Laguna, J. R., & Porta, E. (2013). Análisis de la Rentabilidad de la Educación en Nicaragua. Documento de Trabajo. Managua: FUNIDES. Laguna, J. R., Castro, V., & Porta, E. (2008). Determinantes de la Calidad de la Educación e Incidencia del Gasto Público. In B. Mundial (Ed.), Análisis del Gasto Público Social en Nicaragua. Managua. MECD. (2006). Estado de la Educación Básica y Media 2005. Managua: Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deportes. MINED. (2011). Plan Estratégico de Educación 2011–2015. Managua: Ministerio de Educación. MINED. (n.d.). Plan de Educación 2017–2021. Managua. Ministerio de Hacienda y Crédito Público. (2019). Informe de Liquidación del Presupuesto General de la República 2018. Managua. Nassif, R., Rama, G. W., & Tedesco, J. C. (1984). El Sistema Eductivo en América Latina. Buenos Aires: KAPELUSZ. Navarrete, J. (2019). Daniel Ortega “vuelve” a la escuela. https://www.connectas.org/danielortega-vuelve-a-la-escuela/. Accessed Agosto 2019. OECD. (2005). Resumen ejecutivo de Competencias Clave. http://deseco.ch/bfs/deseco/en/ index/03/02.parsys.78532.downloadList.94248.DownloadFile.tmp/2005.dscexecuti vesummary.sp.pdf OREALC/UNESCO. (2012). Antecedentes y Criterios para la Elaboración de Políticas Docentes en América Latina y el Caribe. Santiago. OREALC/UNESCO. (2016). Informe de Resultados TERCE (Tercer Estudio Regional Comparativo y Evaluativo). Santiago: Factores Asociados. OVE-BID. (2012). Evaluación del Programa país Nicaragua 2008–2012. Washington, DC. Pantic, N., Wubbels, T., & Mainhard, T. (2011). Teacher competence as a basis for teacher education: Comparing views of teachers and teacher educators in five Western Balkan countries. Comparative Education Review, 55(2). PREAL-EDUQUEMOS. (2007). Apostar por la educación. Managua: Informe de Progreso Educativo Nicaragua. Psacharapoulos, G., & Patrinos, H. (2002). Returns to investment in education. A further update (The World Bank Working Paper 2881). Rapalo, R., Asturias, L., Castro, V., & Valera, S. (2004). Estudio cualitativo sobre la participación ciudadana en el mejoramiento de la calidad de la educación en cinco países latinoamericanos. Informe consolidado regional, CERCA. Revista Conservadora. (1963). Ante la Alianza para el Progreso. Agosto, Num. 35. Rivarola, M., & Fuller, B. (1999). Nicaragua’s experiment to decentralize schools: Contrasting views of parents, teachers, and directors. Comparative Education Review, 43(4), 489–521. University of Chicago Press. Sapelli, C. (2009). Los Retornos a la Educación en Chile: Estimaciones por Corte Transversal y por Cohortes. Documento de Trabajo Num. 349. Instituto de Economía, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Tough, P. (2012). How children succeed, grit, curiosity and the hidden power of character. Boston/ New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Tünnermann, C. (1958). Breve Reseña de la Conquista de la Autonomía Universitaria. León: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua (UNAN). Venegas, M. E. (2002). Perfiles y Planes de Estudio del docente de la educación primaria o básica de los países de Centroamérica: Estudio Comparativo. San José: Coordinación Educativa y Cultural Centroamericana (CECC).

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Walter, K. (2004). El régimen de Anastasio Somoza 1936–1956. Managua: Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica, UCA. Wheelock, J. (1978). Imperialismo y Dictadura. México D.F. México: 5ta edición revisada. Siglo XXI. Wheelock, J. (2000). Los Desastres Naturales de Nicaragua. Hispamer: Managua.

The Education System of Panama Perspectives from Revolution to Independence

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Social Conditions: Provision and Coverage of the Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Transition to the Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED-Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Personnel Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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K. Thomas-Brown (*) College of Education, Health, and Human Services, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA College of Engeneering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA e-mail: [email protected] P. R. Fossum College of Education, Health, and Human Services, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_38

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Abstract

With three million people, La República de Panamá occupies 30,000 square miles, bordered by Costa Rica and Colombia. It forms a bridge between Central and South America and is home to the Panama Canal. In 1821 the Independence Act of Panama declared this country’s independence from Spain and joined with the confederation of the Republic of Gran Colombia, which consisted of Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, and Ecuador. The country has had fragile independence, sometimes contentious ties to Colombia, and short-lived freedom rebellions, including the Panama crisis of 1885 and the United States intervention. The Thousand Day’s War propelled the country into political separation from Colombia. It fostered the negotiations for the construction and perpetual lease of the Panama Canal in exchange for military protection against Colombia. By November 1903, the United States formally recognized Panama as a sovereign nation and later signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty. This history serves as a foreground for the development of education in this country that advanced through three distinct periods. Education in Panama began in the colonial period under Spanish rule then evolved through a short Colombian occupation and the period of the free republic which lasted until today. The secondary data shows that this this country has made great strides in its education, but there is still room to address educational inequities that are rooted in socioeconomic conditions and rural urban divides. Keywords

Panama · Education system · Education reform · Education history · Education and political change

1

Introduction

With three million people, La República de Panamá occupies 30,000 square miles, bordered by Costa Rica and Colombia. It forms a bridge between Central and South America and is home to the Panama Canal. In 1821, the Independence Act of Panama declared this country’s independence from Spain and joined with the confederation of the Republic of Gran Colombia, which consisted of Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, and Ecuador. The country has had fragile independence, sometimes contentious ties to Colombia, and short-lived freedom rebellions, including the Panama crisis of 1885 and the United States intervention. The Thousand Day’s War propelled the country into political separation from Colombia. It fostered the negotiations for the construction and perpetual lease of the Panama Canal in exchange for military protection against Colombia. By November 1903, the United States formally recognized Panama as a sovereign nation and later signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty (Google sites 2009). This history serves as a foreground for the development of education in this country that advanced through three distinct periods. Education in Panama began in

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the colonial period under Spanish rule then evolved through a short Colombian occupation and the period of the free republic which lasted until today. The secondary data shows that this country has made great strides in its education, but there is still room to address educational inequities that are rooted in socioeconomic conditions and rural urban divides. This chapter charts the development of education in this country using themes such as the structure of education, achievement levels, personal supply, inequalities, and the future of education in this country. With the scarcity of information about education in this country, the chapter pieced together several sources, including PISA data, to present a holistic picture of the structure and effectiveness of how people are educated to meet a rapidly growing and advancing job market in this country.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

This section will examine the historical and political factors that influenced the development and transitions in the Panamanian education system. The section begins with reviewing the Spanish colonial influence on education in Panama. It deconstructs who had access and why the country shifted away from religious schools to more secular influences. This section then details how political alliances with Colombia and later the USA resulted in an education system struggling to meet the needs of a technologically advancing jobs market and a growing need for a bilingually educated job force with specialized skill sets.

2.1

General Historical Background

The system of education in Panama advanced through three distinct periods. The first was the Colonial Era which lasted from 1501to 1821. The Colombian Era was the second, lasting from 1821 to 1903, and third, the Era of the Republic from 1903 to the present. During the colonial period, education in Panama began with the arrival of the Jesuit priests and the founding of Panama City in 1519. The Jesuits established various primary (primaria) schools and created a high school in 1744. The Universidad de San Javier was founded in 1749. In 1767, the Jesuits were expelled from the country by King Carlos III of Spain; the university closed altogether in 1776. This period led to the second noteworthy period of education development in Panama, which began in 1821 with Colombia’s independence from Spain when Panama was a territory in Colombia. In 1841, the Universidad del Istmo was established to provide Spanish and Latin grammar, rhetoric, theology, and law and maintained operations until 1852. There was no further formal higher education in Panama until the beginning of the 1900s. After Panama gained independence from Colombia in 1903, efforts to develop public education began (Google sites 2009). In 1913, the first Panamanian Educational Assembly noted that the cultural heritage given to children should be determined by the social positions they will or should occupy, thus indicating that early public education was envisioned as needed to maintain socioeconomic stratification

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in this country. Hence, the education offered was different per the social class to which the student belonged; however, as the country experienced increased US influence in the early to mid-1900, this elitist approach to public education began to shift. Consequently, by the 1920s, public education in Panama had a more progressive agenda focused on assisting the able and ambitious individuals searching for upward social mobility. Successive national governments prioritized universal primary education, and by the late 1930s, approximately one-fourth of the federal budget was allocated to education. As an outcome, between 1920 and 1934, primary school enrolment doubled and adult illiteracy rates fell by more than 50% from its rate in 1923 and accounted for approximately half the adult population (Davis 1961). Several sources, including Davis (1961), indicated that with the education push of the Panamanian government, by the early 1950s to 1960s, adult illiteracy had dropped to approximately 28%. By 1970, this rate had dropped further to 8%. Furthermore, by 1980, only 13% of Panamanians over age 10 were illiterate (Hanratty and Meditz 1989). Men and women were approximately equally represented among the literate. The most notable disparity was between urban and rural Panamanians; 94% of city-dwelling adults were literate, but fewer than two-thirds of those in the countryside were, thus, continued high illiteracy rates in the Indian population (Hanratty and Meditz 1989). The period between the early 1950s and the early 1980s in Panama saw significant growth in school enrolment, particularly among the school-aged population. Secondary education grew 30 times it is pre-1950 enrolments, while higher education grew ten times its pre-1950 enrolment. Hanratty and Meditz (1989) noted that by the mid-1980s, primary school enrolment rates were roughly 113% of the aligning aged population. Male and female enrolments were relatively equal despite regional variations. Further, between 1960 and the mid-1980s, secondary school enrolments expanded some quadrupled and higher education. Regardless of the growth in school admissions at all levels, these writers noted that in 1965 fewer than one-third of the secondary school-age children and 7% of people aged 20– 24 years were registered in school. By the mid-1980s, this pattern changed with approximately two-thirds of children ages 12–19 years, and 20% of those ages 20– 24 years participated in educational pursuits. Also, the number of school-aged children enrolled in primary and secondary schools included those who attended various private schools. Private schools accounted for 5–7% of primary-school enrolment and approximately 25% of secondary school students in the mid-1980s. The growth in school registration among the population aged 6 to 19 also aligns with the government push in the 1950s and 196 s to make school attendance compulsory for children age 5 to 15. Additionally, the law made provision for mandatory education until the completion of premedia school. The country instituted a 6-year primary school phase, followed by two secondary-level programs. The first program was an academic track and the second a vocational track. During the 1980s, approximately 75% of secondary school students were on the academic path. The lower cycle was of a general or exploratory nature, with a standard curriculum that included Spanish, social studies, religion, art, and music. The upper cycle consisted of two academic courses of study: in arts and sciences, leading to university enrolment, or a less rigorous course of study, representing the end of a student’s

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formal education; in the mid-1980s, less than 4% of students pursued this course of studies growing to around one-quarter of all secondary students by the end of the 1980s. Both secondary level tracks had a two-cycle program, lower and upper cycle. In the nineteenth century, the failed Colegio del Istmo college opened; Colombia supported higher education for Panamanians until 1935 when the University of Panama was founded. Admission to the university typically required the Bachillerato (graduation certificate or baccalaureate), awarded on completion of the upper cycle of the academic course of studies. The University of Panama had some latitude in determining admissions standards. The Bachillerato was generally considered an essential component of middle-class status. The National Institute in Panama City evolved into the University of Panama, still attracts its student body from the emerging middle class, and has a philosophy steeped in political activism. During the mid-1980s, this university was the primary destination for higher education, with the School of Nursing, and the Superior Centre for Bilingual Secretaries, accounting for approximately 3% of postsecondary matriculations. Nearly 75 of higher education students in Panama during the 1980s attended the University of Panama. Plus, the University of Santa María la Antigua, a private Roman Catholic institution established in 1965, enrolled another 5,000 to 6,000 students in the 1980s. The Technical University, founded in 1981 at the time, accounted for roughly 7,000 students. Despite the rise in college-enrolled students, the pattern of local universities serving the emerging middle class while members of the elite class continued to educate their children overseas persisted.

2.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

Public education in Panama began around 1903, under the Secretary/National Council of Education through the Ministry of Education, which regulated the number, nature, and location of schools. It managed the curriculum, plan of study, diplomas to be granted, and relevant examinations. This entity also regulated salaries, the length of the school year, and the school day. By the mid-1980s, education accounted for 15–20% of governmental expenditures, with the lion’s share (40%) of this amount allocated to primary schooling. Never mind that during this period, secondary (20%) and higher education (20%) also received proportionately higher per-student funding. According to budgets, reports from 1979 to 1983 allocated on average Balboa 220 per primary school student, Balboa 274 per secondary school student, and Balboa 922 per university student (Hanratty and Meditz 1989). Busso and Ambrus (2016) noted that over the last 25 years, Latin American and Caribbean nations had bet heavily on education as a route to more equitable and prosperous societies. Today, the region spends on average three percentage points more of its GDP on education than in the early 1990s-spending fast approaching levels in the developed world. According to Davis (1961), in the middle of the twentieth century, Latin-American education still resembled its ineffective past despite constitutional provisions guaranteeing free compulsory education. “In Panama, no child under fifteen years of age may engage in any occupation which will prevent attendance in school, under

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penalty of ten cents per day assessed against the parents. The penalty is seldom invoked: in 1946, of the 120,000 school-age children, 82,800 were enrolled in school, with high dropout rates beginning in third grade” (p. 97). In Panama, historically, educational legislation is not aligned with the reality of locals because of the lack of buildings, trained teachers, and sufficient funds, and they did not realize the national ideal of education in the 1960s. This outcome is even though the educational legislations were rooted in the global context and theoretically grounded in John Dewey and other theoretical approaches. Some of the legislation of the 1960s and before also covered compulsory public education for children ages 7 to 15 and free kindergarten, elementary, and secondary levels countrywide. Moreover, included in the legislation were technical schools for boys and girls, night schools for adults, commercial schools, art and music schools, rural and urban schools for teacher training, and universities in the principal cities. Davis (1961) noted that the educational institutions Latin America inherited from Spain were inadequate in number and curriculum coverage to meet the needs of the newly independent countries. Hence, the early independent government tried to combine a broadened curriculum with centralized control of public education. At the same time, the Royal and pontifical universities were becoming national universities in the region due to attempts to remove the church from the education systems. Despite these gains in higher education, the government was less proactive in revising and establishing primary and secondary curriculums frequently. The outcome was the authorization of a more comprehensive and nonecclesiastical course in schools run by the clergy due to teacher shortages then prevailing. The legislation also, in some instances, borrowed the “Lancaster System of instruction (Davis 1961, 98) from England as it allowed one teacher to instruct large numbers of students (typically 40 to 200), since enrolment in primary and secondary school outstripped the availability of trained teachers and the educational infrastructure. Even though the Lancaster System proved ineffective in other settings, Panama, like other LatinAmerican countries, did not have the money to support a grade school program. Additionally, male teachers were among those recruited into the military to help the revolution. Added to this mix was the impact of poverty and social and political turmoil that undermined public educational efforts, causing schools to stagnate, perpetuating backwards and outdated practices that lasted well into the twentieth century.

2.3

Social Conditions: Provision and Coverage of the Population

Today, the Ministry of Education provides tuition-free education in public schools for the compulsory years of school. The quality of education in these schools is uneven, however, depending mainly on the location although all schools must teach a prescribed curriculum. In remote areas, the standard of education is more fundamental. In some cases, as it is hard to find enough teachers, children of different levels and ages might be together in the same classroom. However, the quality is much better – although relatively low compared to schools in Europe or the USA and

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schools in the big cities (MEDUCA 2015). School hours depend on the institute, but the school day usually begins between 7 and 8 am and finishes around 2 or 3 pm. The school year runs from February to December and divided into three semesters. Preschool education is not popular in Panama. Panamanians prefer to have a nanny at home, but there are playschools and kindergartens in major cities. In terms of coverage, some 87% of students are enrolled in public education in Panama, which in 2013 also included just over 40,000 students in the vocational track and 34,000 in the academic track at the secondary level. According to MEDUCA, in 2013, 100% of primary-school-aged children were registered, while enrolment for premiddle school was 97.6%. Dropout rates though still high reduced from 5.1% in 2009 to 3.1% in 2012 (MEDUCA 2015). According to information from the National Directorate for Education Planning (DNEE) (MEDUCA 2015), gross coverage at the primary level varies between the different education regions from 83% in Panama province to 79% in Ngäbe-Buglé county. As mentioned, this country has significant educational disparities between urban and rural communities, and dropout rates tend to be higher in remote and pastoral villages. The rate of outof-school adolescents at the lower secondary level was 11.3%, among the highest in Latin America and the Caribbean; this ties in with the gross enrolment ratio at the secondary level in 2013, 71.49% (Inter-America Development Bank 2011). Furthermore, pass rates at the primary level also vary between rural regions. In Emberá county, 86.5% of pupils’ pass, while in Herrera, 98.5% pass. Of significance is the country. Only 68.6% of students pass standardized exams at an early secondary level with no retakes required, whereas 16.2% achieve a pass while retaking subjects pending. Students must pass all subject disciplines for promotion to upper secondary. The outcome is a 6.3% drop-out rate between 9th and 10th grade. Despite this dismal report, education levels among people aged 25 years and over show that education coverage has increased substantially over the past 20 years. In 2010, 38.1% of this group in Panama had under a 6th-grade education, with little to no type of postsecondary education (Inter-America Development Bank 2011), see Table 1. Regarding quality considerations, according to Oxford Business Group (2015), Panama uses two-shift school days to optimize infrastructure use. This strategy, however, negatively influences educational quality education and outcomes as students receive less instructional time – leading, in turn, to disparities in the development of students’ basic skills – shortcomings that again point to the limited Table 1 Educational level of people age 25 and over 2010. (Source: UIS. Statical data base, http://data.uis.unesco.org) Education level Unschooled Incomplete primary Lower secondary (7th to 9th grades) Secondary (10th to 12th grades) Post-secondary and higher

Percentage of the population 7.3% 9.9% 21.0% 20.1% 22.6%

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teacher supply, and inadequate teacher training, and historic underspending; thus, this country has low ranking in math and science proficiency, which in 2010 stood at 107th out of 144 countries. In recent years, several multilateral agencies, including the WTO, have recommended that Panama devote more resources to social programs, including improving the quality of education to meet the needs of a sustainable and growing economy. In Panama, two different units do the educational evaluation. The Directorate for Education Assessment (DNEE), created in 2002, is responsible for school and learning assessments, teacher appraisal, and some special programs’ evaluation. The second assessment agency in Panama is the NC for PISA, which is responsible for administering PISA-D. This second agency is an independent unit that reports to the Minister of Education. Both assessment agencies recognize the need for Panama to develop a robust national assessment system. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which since 2000 assesses the skills of 15-year-old students in the areas of reading, mathematics, and sciences, has provided reliable evidence to support decision making in educational policies in member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2018b). The OECD reports have noted that Panama’s participation is unique compared to other countries participating in PISA-D because Panama had already taken part in PISA in 2009 and PISA 2018. PISA-D includes a Capacity Building Plan (CBP) for participating countries, primarily intended to build more excellent learning assessment and analysis of results geared towards evidence-based decisionmaking in educational goals. Nevertheless, the government capitalized on the capacity building offered by PISA-D and the incorporation of out-of-school 15-year-olds into its skills assessment. According to The Latin American Post, December 5, 2019, of the countries whose student took the PISA 2018, no Latin American country ranked in the top 10, and Panama ranked 71st for reading and 76th for science and mathematics. The PISA results reveal that this country, like the region, needs to improve its educational standards (Busso and Ambrus 2016). According to the OECD (2018a) report on reading literacy, Panamanian students averaged 377 points compared to an average of 487 points among OECD countries. On average, 15-year-olds in Panama scored 353 points in mathematics compared to an overall average of 489 points in OECD countries (see Fig. 1). The data from the 2018 PISA demonstrated in Fig. 1. indicates that students in Panama scored lower than the OECD average in reading, mathematics, and science. Compared to the OECD average, a smaller proportion of students in Panama performed at the highest levels of proficiency (Level 5 or 6) in at least one subject. Further, a smaller proportion of Panamanian students achieved a minimum level of proficiency (Level 2 or higher) in at least one discipline. For this literacy-focused PISA test cycle, 36% of students attained at least Level 2 proficiency in reading compared to the OECD average of 77%. Additionally, Fig. 1 demonstrates that only a tiny percentage of students in Panama were top performers, whereas 20 education systems, including those of 15 OECD

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Fig. 1 PISA test scores: Summary for reading, mathematics, and science. (Source: OECD, PISA 2018 Database, Tables I.1 and I.10.1)

countries who participated in 2018, had more than 10% of participating students as top performers.

2.4

Transition to the Labor Market: Organization and Support

Improving the education system is identified as key to ensuring sustainable economic growth, particularly after slower growth since 2014. Panama has accordingly seen an increase in the budget allocations to expand the postsecondary offering and improve bilingualism rates. The government has also committed to enhancing Panama’s education outcomes by strengthening vocational training in the medium term. Regardless, according to Oxford Business Group (2015), tertiary education remains limited at the technical and vocational levels. There is still a social stigma attached to this type of training, making it less attractive for the youth, and that has prevented the development of a solid postsecondary offer. Enrolment at the state’s vocational institute, Instituto Nacional de Formación Profesional y Capacitación Para el Desarrollo Humano, decreased from 108,467 in 2009 to an estimated 78,611 in 2013; according to INEC, this has further fuelled the country’s significant skills shortage. The vocational institute offers an assortment of training programs in the agriculture, industries, commerce, and tourism fields, areas in which the shortage of skilled labor is most severe. This shortage is prompting authorities to address the issue with long-term strategies. The current government administration has worked toward expanding the country’s offering in technical and vocational training to the extent that by 2015, the county had its first bilingual technical institute. Many secondary school graduates are not prepared to transition into the job market. They lack the technological and specialized skill sets in demand, and universities do not graduate enough to meet these demands. High rates of secondary dropouts who thus lack requisite skills contribute to high unemployment.

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3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

3.1

General Principles

The primary organizing principle of primary and secondary education of Panama postindependence was the intellectual, moral, and physical development of children. Within this approach was the notion of fostering international corporation steeped in Pan-Americanism. The education system was organized under the principle of peace through social harmony and eliminating social costs. Curricular principles for schools in Panama have emphasized personal hygiene, national prosperity, antialcoholism, and national loyalty-beliefs and principles inflected by the country’s revolutionary history. This government organization also appoints and direct education supervisors responsible for schools’ accounting and professional duties. A thrust toward centralization from the mid-1940s into the early 1970s obligated schools to report to education supervisors, who are in turn accountable to the Ministry of Education. In general, the average school day ranges between five to six h, and during the 1960s and 1970s, the school days ran from 8 to 11 am and from 2 to 4 pm. The school day, five and a half days per week (half-sessions on Saturday mornings) with an average of two hundred to two hundred and twenty-five days to a school year. Though kindergarten to eighth grade is compulsory, during the twentieth century, Panama had an annual dropout rate of around 10%, and a failure to enroll rate sometimes as high as 40–50% after the first year of school, for both public and private institutions. Primary and secondary education in Panama during the 1960s was government controlled. Both boys and girls in the primary and secondary schools wear a standard uniform, a white, long-sleeved, knee-length dust coat made according to an official pattern, and worn over clothing (Davis 1961). Early on, the teachers in primary and secondary schools wore a similar uniform. Justification for the uniform is that the white dusters coat reduces economic distinctions since all students, rich or poor, dress similarly, while for teachers, they say it protects their clothing. This argument has been proven invalid over the decades. According to Davis (1961, 105), “for the teachers, the duster is the uniform of poverty: their dusters must last a week, and no person can wear the garment that long and have the white coat crisp on Friday morning. Generally, the teachers’ limp and drab dusters emphasise, not conceal, their limited means. . . and a sign of academic discrimination” since university professors do not wear this uniform. Today uniform for students consists of white or light blue shirts with navy blue trousers or skirts. Early in establishing a public school system in Panama, the school authorities choose buildings due to low costs, availability, and accessibility. Ideally, school buildings are near town centers within proximity to the business district and residential area. Often the schools had no designated playgrounds. Revised plans implemented in the post-1960s period remedied these concerns. Another organizing principle for Panamanian schools was the availability of resources. During the early days, the newly established primary and secondary schools had scanty equipment, few trained and qualified teachers, limited supplies

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for students such as reading texts, notebooks, and drawing paper. A frequent limit was two boxes of chalk per teacher for the year was about all the state provided, for example, and blackboards were often black oilcloth. Many classrooms did not have sufficient desks per student. Additionally, while a state mandate for student-teacher ratio supposedly limited class sizes to from 40 to 50 students per teacher, it was not uncommon for a teacher to be responsible for 80 to 100 students in each classroom. Due to high levels of poverty and the limited availability of textbooks, and the fact that the principals, supervisors, and teachers all took identical teacher training courses in the normal schools, there was marked standardization of classroom procedure. Hence, the standard pedagogy was teacher centered.

3.2

Education Administration and Governance

The Ministry of Education directly administers education from the first grade to university entrance. The central agency determines courses of study, qualifications and appointments of teachers, regulations concerning examinations and promotions, and confirmation of textbooks and reference materials. This centralized department notifies the directors of the districts of its latest decisions. Schools officially observe the regulations. Inspectors (supervisors), after their official visits, report on how thoroughly these directives are applied. A national board advises the supervisor, allocates funds for maintenance and repair of the school building, recommends salary payments, and decides on transfers and promotions. As mentioned, like other Latin American countries, Panama enacted laws that made education nonsectarian and compulsory from ages 5 to 15 and improved accessibility. Historically, coeducation ended at third grade except remote rural or foreign operated private schools experiencing teacher shortages that kept children together beyond third grade. Panama has seventeen teachers’ unions organized under the umbrella teachers’ union – Unión Nacional de Educadores Panameños (UNEP). This organization negotiates salaries, job requirements, teaching hours, and strikes. Hence, the teachers’ unions are a significant body in the administration and governance of schools. For example, in 2016, UNEP organized a 6-day strike demanding higher salaries and more government spending in education produced an agreement with President Juan Carlos Varela’s administration to pay teachers a monthly increase of US$150 from July 2017 and the same again from July 2018. Also guaranteeing against disciplinary reprisals against those who went on strike, the deal further incorporated the teachers’ call for the government to spend 6 of GDP on education (up from the government’s initial offer of 5.5%) (Latin News Daily, July 25 2016; UNESCO 2016b).

3.3

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCEDClassification

In 2019 Panama had an estimated 827,583 students, 703,445 of these students attended public schools, and an estimated 124,138 students attend private schools.

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For the 2019–2020 academic year, 12th graders in public schools accounted for 43,466 students and 10,000 high school seniors in private schools. During this school year, there were 35,000 students in higher education across 11 private universities and 18,000 year-1 students admitted to the University of Panama (US & Foreign Commercial Services Global Education Program 2020). According to Oxford Business Group (2015), this country achieved universal coverage for the primary level aligned with curricular reform introduced in 2010. This approach has increased retention rates, while at the tertiary level, the accreditation process for universities has undergone reforms. In the World Economic Forum’s (WEF’s) Global Competitiveness Report 2014–2015, Panama ranked 83 of 144 countries in the quality of its education system, compared to 75 of 148 countries in the 2013–2014 report. In particular, the report highlighted the disconnect between the educational offering and labor market needs, which has resulted in a skills gap. The Panamanian education system has three stages (Table 2): basic, secondary, and tertiary. Basic education covers students from ages 4 to 15 years, split into preschool, primary, and premiddle schools. Preschool consists of 2 years for 4- to 5-year-old children. According to the Ministry of Education (Ministerio de Educación, MEDUCA), in 2013, an estimated 100,744 students were enrolled at this level. Primary school (ages 6 to 12) lasted 6 years and accounted for 427,165 students in 2013. The premiddle school covers 12 to 15 (or grades seven to nine) and accounted for 134,601 students that same year. These three stages constitute the compulsory education phase. The secondary or middle school covers students 15 to 18 years and operates on a bachelor’s system whereby students can choose from two areas of study: academic or technical/vocational. In 2013 nearly 34,000 students Table 2 Grade distribution on Panama’s Education System Typical age 5 and earlier 1–12

Years

Notes

Elementary

Grades Pre-K, kindergarten 1–6

6

Junior high

7–9

13–16

3

Secondary

10–12

16–18

3

Primaria (elementary education) Premedia (junior high school) Educacion media

Level Preprimary

School/level

Primary Lower secondary Upper secondary Tertiary

Undergraduate

2–5

Tertiary

Graduate

1–2

Tertiary

Doctoral

3

Undergraduate studies (estudios postsecundarios; post-media; estudios de pre-Grado; estudios de licenciatura) Graduate-estudios de postgrado; estudios de maestría;

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chose an academic track, while close to 40,500 chose technical training (Lee 2016), public education up to middle school is free of charge, while for-profit institutions among private schools are allowed at all levels. The public sector accounts for the largest share of enrolment, roughly 87%, with the private sector accounting for the remaining 13%. Table 3 shows the structure of the education system in Panama based on the ISCED classification. The table shows the education system structure based on student’s age distribution, school level, and grade level. Preschool and kindergarten education: Children entering the primary grades from kindergarten are found to adjust themselves more readily than others to the schools’ academic and social programs and make more significant and more general progress. The presence of kindergartens in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s was limited, however, and only a relatively few children had an opportunity to attend these schools. Some of Panama’s schools and preschools offer classes – called maternales – for toddlers, which accept children from the age of 1 year and 8 months and provide childcare for up to 4 h a day. Kindergarten is now compulsory when a child turns 5 years old. With the school year starts in March in Panama, the child must be five by May to enter Kindergarten. Those preprimary schools are authorized legislatively and privately owned, though they must meet specific nominal state regulations. The kindergartens serve as part of a more extensive school system, though some operate separately. Kindergartens tended to follow the principles of Montessori rather than Froebel with free play. The curriculum and activities emphasize sensory perception and symbolism, which allows for moralizing and abstract instruction. For the most part, the individual kindergarten teacher is free to plan the program of daily work. However, attendance at many schools reaches not more than 50–60% of the first-grade enrolment. Primary level education – elementary schools: The 6 years of primary school are compulsory, as are the first three middle school years that follow. Education curricula follow the traditional pattern that focuses on the humanities. There are 6 years of primary education (primaria), beginning in grade one at six. USAID (2014) as well as Davis (1961) noted that the program for elementary education in Panama fairly represents the traditional schedule outlined in (p. 111): First Grade: Reading, Nature Study, Arithmetic, Religion and Morals, Drawing, Agriculture, and Industrial Arts, Sewing, Physical Education, Total hours of class recitation: thirty. Second Grade: Same as the First, with the addition of Dictation and Writing. Third Grade: Same as the Second, with Composition, Geography, History, and Hygiene. Fourth Grade: Same as the Third, with the addition of English and Civics. Fifth and Sixth Grades: Language replaced by Grammar, Manners, and Domestic Economy, are added.

Panama’s standardized curriculum pivots success on test scores. For grades 1 to 4, the teachers set their examination and grant certificates of promotion to students. Beyond the fourth grade, however, the national education staff noted above is responsible for examinations. Official examinations consist of a written composition, mathematical questions, oral tests, and various subjects that evaluate the

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Table 3 Structure of Panama’s Education System Educational program Postmedia Postsecondary tertiary

Postmedia Vocational postsecondary nontertiary Postmedia Postsecondary/ nontertiary Teaching track

Minimum entrance requirements – Main diplomas, qualifications, or certificates awarded at end of program Doctoral or equivalent level Doctoral degree/masters Completion of degree/Master’s degree Master’s degree or equivalent Bachelor’s degree or equivalent Entry requirements Passes university entrance exams and one of the following: *pedagogical baccalaureate (Bachiller Pedagógico), *upper secondary school diploma (diploma de Educación media) *baccalaureate diploma (diploma de Bachiller) Completion of upper secondary – Diploma de Bachiller Certificates of promotion upper/lower secondary

General education and pedagogy in the liceo/ Bachiller Pedagógico +30 h Certificates of promotion upper/ lower secondary Completion of lower secondary (PISA & Certificate of promotion) Certificate of promotion lower secondary

Grade 13 12

Premedia Lower secondary education

Completion on primary education

Primaria Primary education

No standardized examinations or literacy tests identified No testing used for secondary school placements

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Media Upper secondary education

Jardin kindergarten Pre Jardin prekindergarten

21+ 19

19

19 18

11 10 PISA

Age 23+

BASIC/ COMPULSORY EDUCATION

17/ 18 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6

4–6 0–4

student’s mental agility. The standardized assessments – scored on a 0–10 scale and requiring extensive memorization of approved texts – generally have low pass rates, thus exacerbating the dropout rate among school-age children. Nevertheless, Busso

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and Ambrus (2016) added that enrolment in primary school has become nearly universal. Middle Education: Middle school follows on a similar basis with little having changed either over time. Teaching quality is low, especially in rural areas where many middle-school-age children work as laborers in fields instead. Note that middle education is really the first 3 years of secondary education in this country. Secondary Education: During the 1960s, all Latin-American countries indicated the aims for the secondary education program as fostering the intellectual, mental, and moral development of the adolescent, preparation for entrance into university, and effective participation in the nation’s life. However, preparation for admission into the university is the fundamental objective of secondary education. Any person who completes secondary schools and does not enroll in the university is regarded as having failed. Across the region in the mid-1960s, about 18% of those who enrolled in the first year of secondary school finish with only 65% of these graduates (12% of the general population) passing the examinations for entrance into university. Between the 1950s and 1960s, educational leaders began to look more closely at the massive percent of secondary students who either drop out or fail to enroll for university. This effort bore little fruit as many public secondary schools are called liceos and private and church schools known as colegios because of the quality of education offered and the opportunities for students to qualify for university. Both liceos and colegios offered a five (sometimes six) year course divided into two cycles. The first cycle was general studies, designed for those who intend to pursue higher education and specialized in history, languages, and mathematics. Those who intend to become teachers enrolled in the second program and focused on teaching methods, educational psychology, philosophy, and practice teaching. The secondary system supports those who pursued the teacher track did not need to attend university upon graduation. Between the 1940s and 1960s in Panama, there were less than 150 public (state) liceos and private, church, and municipal colegios. A few of the private schools, but none of the state institutions, were co-educational. Not all schools offered the entire six-year program; less than half did so. A few schools offered the second cycle for teachers, and some conducted, in addition, preparatory (elementary) sections (Davis 1961). In this country, legislation prescribed the curriculum, and all public and private schools must follow it. All students must take all subjects in the curriculum every year, regardless of interests or abilities. In general, this means about 34 h of class attendance every week. The secondary curriculum often provided courses in history, philosophy, sociology, political economy, and cosmography. Table 4 shows the typical program of study for secondary students pursuing the academic track in Panama and demonstrates that this program was like many Latin American countries at the time. The secondary students received a certificate of promotion at the end of each successive year. At the end of the course, the students may apply for graduation diplomas; this does not guarantee acceptance into university. Around year 3 of secondary school, students pick the program they would like to pursue (university track or professional training or teacher preparation). If she/he selects the teaching

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Table 4 Typical program of study for secondary schools in Latin America – Panama First year Subject Arithmetic Elements of geography Old world history Spanish – Grammar & syntax English Botany Moral education Drawing Music Physical education Third year Subject Geometry American geography History of America Literature English French Geology & mineralogy Anatomy, physiology & hygiene Music Physical education Fifth year Subject Cosmography Sociology French/Spanish Organic chemistry Physics Eugenics

Hrs. 5 3 3 5 3 3 3 3 3 2 Hrs. 5 3 3 5 3 3 3 3 2 2 Hrs. 3 3 3 5 5 2

Second year Subject Algebra World geography Spanish – Grammar & syntax English Zoology Civics Drawing Music Physical education History of Panama Fourth year Subject Trigonometry Central American geography History of Central America Literature French/Spanish Inorganic chemistry Physics Philosophy, psychology & logic Physical education Sixth year Subject Political economy Philosophy (ethics & history of philosophy) Physical education Agriculture (boys) Sewing (girls) Free activities

Hrs. 5 3 5 3 3 3 3 3 2 3 Hrs. 3 3 3 5 3 5 5 3 3

Hrs. 3 3 1 3 3 2

Source: Davis 1961, pg. 114

track, the student adds general education and pedagogy in the liceo was added to the existing 30 h. At the end of their secondary school work and at an average age of 18 or 19 years, students are awarded their graduation certificates and (if pertinent) teacher’s diplomas. To qualify for university, all students (regular secondary graduates and the ones who earned a teacher’s certification) must pass several standardized entrance examinations, and the process is competitive. During the 1960s, the dominant narrative around primary and secondary education in Panama and other Latin American countries was that their education system was antiquated and could not meet the needs of the present generation (Davis 1961). Parents who were dissatisfied enough could afford the tuition sent their children to

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Europe or the United States for an education. Others remained in the Panamanian education system but ensured that they learned English to increase their marketability and access to education outside of the country. For the privileged classes, the liceo offers more opportunities. In general, there was little advocacy for change. Hence, the government was not experiencing the type of educational revolution witnessed in some Latin American countries in the Caribbean and many former colonies in the 1960s. The lower cycle or general education phase has a standard curriculum that included Spanish, social studies, religion, art, and music. The upper cycle consisted of two academic courses of study: in arts and sciences, leading to the entrance to the university, or a less rigorous course of study, representing the end of a student’s formal education. There are also vocational secondary school programs in Panama. The secondary vocational programs offer specialized and technical courses that prepare students with the technical skillset needed for employment following secondary school graduation. Similar to the academicoriented secondary school program, the vocational program has two cycles. Students choose their training from various specializations, including agriculture, art, commerce, and industrial trades. In the last decade, the Minister of Education worked towards improving secondary education quality and promoting teaching as an occupational option. The ministry has begun to incorporate technologies and provide computers for students to use in schools. Beyond the compulsory education limits, there are three additional years of secondary education (educación media) available, from grades 10 to 12, but optional and tuition based. The growth in enrolment accompanies a simultaneous expansion in school facilities and an increase in teaching staff. Secondary schools in both public and Panamanian private schools operate a five-point assessment system, in which level three is a pass. Students failing four or more courses within the same year or failing the same course two consecutive times will not progress to the next grade and transfer to another school. Higher Education: After secondary school graduation, one may pursue university or vocational education. The national institute of vocational training and human development was established under a government plan to boost industrial growth. Hence, the Ministry of Education created the policy guidelines, registered private training colleges, and established certification standards. Successful completion of secondary school qualifies a graduate to study at a public or private vocational college or university. There are many universities in Panama City, including the University of Panama, the University of Santa María la Antigua, the Technical University, and several affiliated universities in Canada or the USA. The University of Panama, established in 1935, is the nation’s leading tertiary institution. Admission to the university requires typically the bachillerato (graduation certificate or baccalaureate) awarded on completion of the upper cycle of the academic course of studies. Most of the universities in Panama offer bachelor’s degree programs in science and technology, medicine, economics and law, public and business administration, humanities, agricultural sciences, and fine arts.

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Fig. 2 School segregation and resources gaps

3.4

Personnel Supply

According to Fig. 2, derived from the OECD PISA Report for 2018, an achievement gap among schools is evident based on resources available to and within them. The report also found that there was a staff shortage between advantaged and disadvantaged schools. School principals in Panama reported more staff shortage and more material shortage than the OECD average. School principals of underprivileged schools frequently reported staff shortages compared to better-funded schools. In Panama, both well-resourced and disadvantaged schools share equal parts of 22% of students’ enrolments. However, principals in less financially able schools reported more limited capacity to provide instruction due to lack of teaching staff. This outcome points to issues with personnel supply in this country: some 69 of teachers in these disadvantaged schools and 72% even in advantaged schools are fully certified. And overall, between 29 and 30% of teachers in Panama possess more than 5 years of teaching experience, again pointing to failures within the tertiary education system to balance the supply of qualified teachers with the demands of the PK-12 system (OECD 2019a–d).

4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Themes

4.1

Inequality

According to studies published by the Inter-America Development Bank (2011, 2013) and Busso and Ambrus (2016), for youth aged 10 to 24 years, 9% were working towards qualifying to attend a tertiary while 26% attended one such institution. This publication also found that 35% of youth in this age range were

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not participating in higher education because they dropped out of primary or secondary schools. The remaining 30% of these individuals had not completed secondary school. This statistic points to significant inequities in the public education system of Panama, with a ratio of about one in every six youth attending university. There were also only a small number of rural children given the opportunity to pursue higher education. In general, the dropout rates are high, and improving school infrastructure does reduce these. More direct interventions are needed. Like many Latin-American countries, Panama has made strides in the past two decades in providing access to education (Educando.org 2019). Still, a large percentage of children are not receiving a high-quality and relevant education. As a result, many young people in Panama enter the labor force lacking the skills necessary to find dignified work and participate in an increasingly competitive, information-rich, and globalized economy. Concurrently, many employers struggle to find qualified people to fill open positions, hence an apparent human resource mismatch that negatively impacts economic growth and perpetuates the gap between the various socioeconomic classes. Moreover, an evident education gap aligns with the income gap between rich and poor in this country. As in other Latin American countries, the levels of inequality in Panama are among the highest in the world. Lustig (2015) noted that countries in the region are nearly 30% more unequal than the global average in terms of Gini coefficient comparisons. Some 74 million Latin Americans (about 12.4% of the region’s population) live on less than $2 per day. Over half of them are children. And, in Panama, children in the bottom income quintile complete an average of 8 years of school versus over 10 years completed by children in the top income quintile notwithstanding declines. Lustig (2015) demonstrated that between 2000 and 2010 Panama accelerated its poverty reduction and growth in per-capita income. Regardless of these strides, countries such as Panama need to expediently move towards higher education quality. Lustig (2015) and Busso and Ambrus (2016) stated that many Latin American countries fall behind other regions of the world concerning years of school and quality of schooling. In 2015, Latin America was, on average, 2.5 years of education behind the OECD average. Inequality also presented itself in the Panamanian students’ performance in standardized international examinations. As mentioned in this chapter, Panamanian 15-year-olds score poorly in math and science, critical skills in today’s job market. Approximately 50% of the students did not demonstrate the skills necessary to solve simple math equations or explain basic scientific phenomena. On average, students score significantly below the OECD average of 494 points in mathematics. This outcome is equivalent to a loss of 2 years of schooling. In the 2015 PISA exam, this gap widened even further to the equivalent of 3 years loss in education, says Busso and Ambrus (2016). Furthermore, the PISA 2015 exam results showed that less than 1% of students scored at the top level, the work for science was similar. This factor would explain why in the 2018 PISA exams, socioeconomic status explains 17% of the variance in reading performance in Panama (OECD average: 12%). The average difference

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between advantaged and disadvantaged students in reading is 95 points, compared to 89 in OECD countries. However, 9% of disadvantaged students are academically resilient (OECD average: 11%) (OECD, Education GPS 2018a). Not only did the OECD PISA (2018a, 4) point to economic inequalities as a determinant for teaching supply in various schools in Panama, this report also noted that “Panama, socio-economically advantaged students outperformed disadvantaged students in reading by 95 score points in PISA 2018” (p. 4). This report also stated that in the 2009 PISA, the performance gap related to socioeconomic status was 110 score points. This statistic means that none of Panama’s economically disadvantaged students were top performers in reading in PISA 2018. Further, socioeconomic status was a strong predictor of performance in mathematics and science in all PISA. Despite the dismal outlook, in 2018, 9% of economically disadvantaged students in Panama scored in the top quartile for reading performance. Overall, low- and high-performing students tend to cluster in the same schools in this country. See Fig. 3. There were further inequities in the secondary school dropout rates. Garcia da Rosa, Guadalupe, and Ruiz Pozuelo (2015) pointed out that primary school completion rates had risen from around 85% in 2001 to just over 90% in 2013. This growth demonstrates gains in educational access. However, only between 35 and 40% of students graduate from secondary schools. This pattern is tied to economic access and life outcome in career paths, earning capacity, and social class. Moreover, Rogers (2016) noted that in Latin America, one in five youth aged 15–24 is out of school and not working, a phenomenon referred to as “Ninis” – short for “ni estudian ni trabajan.” This writer notes that despite declines in the number of Ninis in places like Panama since the early 1990s, the reduction is not fast enough to offset the population growth and to concurrent physical, mental, and economic deprivation that goes along with school dropout and un- and underemployment.

Fig. 3 Differences in performance related to personal characteristics

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Furthermore, several studies show that education investments are inadequate, poorly directed, and favor students from high-income families and communities. This approach serves to exacerbate inequalities further. Despite increases in past years, spending on elementary education is still low. As mentioned, the universities in Panama serve less than 10% of the population and receive a disproportionate share of education dollars compared to primary education. Further, there are inequalities in the availability of high-quality teachers in all spaces in this country. Known is the fact that teachers are the primary drivers of education quality, hence impacting student success. Evidence shows that there are few opportunities for teachers to increase their skills through professional development opportunities. Further outcomes indicate that a large percentage of teachers reported not feeling prepared to perform their work, even though more than 60% of teachers have completed teacher education or training programs. Finally, according to Kriout (2017) and the 2017 OECD Multi-dimensional country review, Panama needs smart investments into social policies and territorial development to make growth more sustainable and inclusive. This report noted that Panama needs to work to reduce inequality gaps and focus on promoting inclusion in the allocation of public resources towards improving the quality of life of all Panamanians. During the late 1990s and 2000s, the country’s economic growth has contributed to reduced poverty, but they have not benefited all groups in society equally. The multidimensional country review shows that Panama has significant weaknesses in education and skills, innovation, and infrastructure gaps, particularly at the subnational level, that directly affect productivity and inclusiveness. Almost half of the Panamanian firms report difficulties finding workers with the skills they need. This fact highlights the importance of focusing on a broader range of skills in the curriculum and improving vocational education, training, and mechanisms to match the demand and supply of skills better. Additionally, low investment in research and development and the weak diffusion of knowledge affect innovation outcomes. Although Panama has made considerable progress in infrastructure investment and more robust international connectivity, equal access to infrastructure is critical at the local level.

4.2

ICT and Digitalization

Educational technologies include computers, smartboards, and various software, such as websites. Large-scale meta-studies demonstrate that educational technologies can have a positive impact on student performance. However, attempts to introduce educational technologies to the developing world have demonstrated that success in the developed world does not necessarily translate to wins in a developing country such as Panama. The Panamanian government now seeks to develop partnerships with the private and knowledge sectors both in the country and across international borders. Several of the world’s leading technology companies recruit remote workers in Panama. The ambition to become a logistical hub for the region’s humanitarian aid sector reflects international organizations’ opportunities based in

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the country. Further supporting the aspiration to see Panama become a global “Digital Hub” is its advanced Internet connectivity infrastructure, including six fiber optic submarine cables. In this sense, Panama should consider developing programs that attract foreign digital, data, and technology companies to base themselves in the country. Panama has a comprehensive governance framework for the development of digital civil systems. Led by the National Digital Agenda, the Panamanian governance structure enables the coordination, alignment, and development of synergies across different government sectors. Foraging ground on its datadriven public sector policy, include data availability and promoting digital systems across public sector organizations. Additionally, these efforts promote an internal service design culture to improve partnerships between the public and private sector. Not clear is the role of the Panamanian government in the drive to digitization. If the government and civil society stakeholders grow strategic use of emerging technologies, these will support better quality, responsiveness, and sustainability of public services. Missing from this plan is ITC in education within this country. Gikas, Golden, Kracinovich, and Spiegel (2015, III) noted that many educators are exploring educational technology as a potential solution to improve learning in the developing world. However, several obstacles impede the implementation of educational technologies in developing countries such as Panama. These obstacles include limited equipment, misunderstandings of technology, inadequate funding, little training for teachers, and economic feasibility (Woolf et al. 2011). Educational technologies must be affordable, accessible, and practical to foster academic success. Despite the preceding, some Panamanian public and private schools have attempted to implement educational technologies such as Smartboards, Balboa Laptops, and Destino Matematico. Still, most have ultimately failed because of insufficient teacher training and frustrations such as losing a significant class time to set up the technology. Panama has attempted to introduce several educational technologies such as Balboa Laptops, Smartboards, Schoology, Destino Matematico, and Khan Academy. Common problems included truncated programs due to government turnover that stunts technology growth in schools from these experiences. Moreover, there is not enough class time devoted to getting both teachers and students competent in applying technology to the teaching-learning process. Classes in Panama are short, sometimes only 30–45 min. Teachers found that time taken for setting up computers and connecting to wireless Internet for an online assignment could be up to half of the class time. The matter of insufficient training is a significant one, as frequently teachers did not receive enough training and thus did not fully understand the technology and efficiently use it. This problem led to inadequate support on multiple levels and results in teacher frustrations, apathy, and lag in technology use and application. Students tended to be enthusiastic about using educational technologies, and those who have used educational technology generally reported positive experiences and a greater desire to use this means of learning again.

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STEM Subjects

According to Gikas, Golden, Kracinovich, and Spiegel (2015, III), a 2010 survey found that 95% of Panamanian teachers considered math to be the subject that their students struggle with most. Panamanian math education is weak in terms of scoring on international standardized tests globally including versus neighboring countries with similar education investments, such as Colombia (OECD 2014). Studies show that Panamanian math students struggle with basic skills such as the multiplication table and the four basic arithmetic operations. Likely explanations for Panama’s problems with math education include socioeconomic inequality, limited funding and resources, and government turnover (del Carmen Valderrama and Schmidt 2010). Gikas, Golden, Kracinovich, and Spiegel (2015) found that most teachers receive inadequate training, particularly at the primary level, and there is a need to improve prelogical skills and techniques. Additionally, primary school teachers in Panama are only required to complete high school with a specialized teaching diploma. Since primary school teachers are often not specially trained to teach math, students regularly do not learn math basics early. Further, many Panamanian students find math to be particularly difficult, according to a survey conducted by Gikas, Golden, Kracinovich, and Spiegel (2015). The results indicated that 80% of the 100 middle school students surveyed rated math difficulty three or higher on a 5-point Lockhart scale. A more widespread survey found that 44% of Panamanian students found math to be their most challenging subject (del Carmen Valderrama and Schmidt 2010). The perspective is also dismal on a regional scale, with 12-year-old students results raking Panama third from the bottom among close to 500 countries whose same-aged students took the TERCE (Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Exam) and SERCE (Second Regional Comparative and Explanatory Exam), international tests in 2013 and 2006. The report found that even Panama’s best math students measure poorly against the best math students from around the world. Panama placed 99th out of 104 countries in the 2015 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), an invitation-only competition for top high school math students. The three reasons cited by PISA (2018a) for Panama’s poor educational performance were the socioeconomic gap, limited resources and funding, and the frequent government turnover. There are also no collective or concerted efforts to build STEM field in public schools. There are no active initiatives, no emphasis, and no mention of STEM fields in policies and plans for primary, middle, and secondary education.

4.4

Emerging Issues

Emerging issues in the Panamanian education system are several, and among them, this section will address reform, supports, tertiary level, accreditation, and outlook for education in this country. Dropout rates are high, and students must walk long distances over often rough terrain to access schooling in rural communities. As if the

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formidably rugged terrain were not enough, an extended rain season produces dangerous rivers at flood stage, with overland and flash flooding producing significantly higher dropout rates in the rural mounts of Panama. Many rural parents are farmers, and children are often called on to serve as supportive agricultural laborers. Skirting current child labor laws, children as young as 14 years are sometimes forced to work. By contrast, in the cities, attendance is better due to easier access. This disparity in accessibility to schools leads to overcrowding classrooms and begets an inability for infrastructure to keep pace with demands. Reform: The Panamanian education system faces frequent teacher strikes, combative unions, and unsuccessful reform efforts. The Panamanian education system has undergone several recent efforts aimed at reform, and some has served to foster improvements. The government introduced curriculum reforms in 2010, and these emphasized skills training and contributed to the unification of curricula and standardization of education across the country. Educational reforms also divided the academic year into quarters and established the National Curricular Innovation and Renovation Team (NCIRT). The NCIRT comprise teachers and professionals dedicated to updating the curricula throughout the year. By 2014, 3185 educational centers had implemented the reform, while the total annual investment in this program averaged 0.9% of GDP since it began (OECD 2014). Reform efforts have also led to the creation of the National Teacher Training Team in 2011. A year later, there was an active movement to extend instructional hours and introduce a new salary package. However, opposition from teacher unions sparked a month-long protest in August 2013, shutting down a large part of the primary education system and ultimately leading authorities to discard the decree (Oxford Business Group 2015). This research group also found that, since 2012, the Entre Pares program has also required teachers to undergo a 15-day intensive course on computer-oriented teaching. As of early 2015, the scheme had covered 100% of the permanent workforce or 35,300 instructors. Policy: The successive governments since 2010 and in 2014, President Juan Carlos Varela administration expanded infrastructure and improved teacher training and strengthened student funding. MEDUCA’s budget for 2015 is nearly $1.29bn (up from $1bn in 2013), of which $412 m earmarked for investment, particularly in expanding infrastructure for middle and postsecondary schools. In October 2014, Varela initiated the Mi Escuela Primero program to rehabilitate and improve conditions in 3600 schools across the country with private sector assistance. Additionally, Varela’s government has plans to add 10,000 classrooms to the existing 28,000, to enable students to shift to full-day schooling. The Ministry of Public Works oversees tenders for construction and renovation. Efforts to improve bilingualism are also continuing. Though English was made mandatory in schools in 2003, a lack of bilingualism has affected several sectors, especially tourism. To increase bilingualism rates and improve English teaching skills, the government launched the Panamá Bilingüe program in 2014, which will remain until 2019 with an annual investment of $10 m. It aims to train 2000 teachers a year in bilingual education and improve bilingualism rates for 30,000 basic education students and more than 20,000 secondary students. Several reposts have

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also outlined that the program has three main components, the first is the teacher training, the second is an after-school program for grades seven through 11, and the third is a program for preschool to grade six. As part of the teacher training component, in January 2015, the first group of 550 teachers left for the USA and the UK to improve their English skills and prepare for an English-teaching career. In 2013 the government created a new bilingual teaching degree. The country’s first Bilingual Technical Institute in the Tocumen area will train bilingual students at the technical level for the services sector (Oxford Business Group 2015). Support: The Juan Carlos Varela administration increased the Universal Grant (Beca Universal) as part of the effort to increase enrolment at all levels by ensuring more students have the means to attend school. This administration introduced the grant program in 2010, and it provides financial support to primary and secondary school students in the public and private systems. More recently primary level, each student receives $30 per month, premiddle each student gets $40, at the middle school level, each student receives $50 during each academic year. Since implementation, approximately 500 students receive grant funding totaling $53 m. Tertiary: As mentioned, there is a rising trend in Panamanian students pursue higher education at universities or institutes, rising from 135,209 in 2009 to 138,894 in 2013, according to the National Statistics and Census Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censo, INEC). Though rising demand has broadened the areas of study available, some remain unexplored. According to Bruno Iván Garisto Petrovich, president at the Universidad Latinoamericana de Comercio Exterior and reported in Oxford Business Group (2015), there has been little emphasis on health sciences, administration of health science systems, and export and logistics programs. Hence, universities can better respond to economic demand. Despite the academic limitations identified by this university president, one must acknowledge that increased government financial support increases students’ access to higher education. Further, grant funding opportunities from the Institute for Training and Improvement of Human Resources at the university level more from 2863 in 2009 to 12,582 in 2013, according to INEC. Further, the emerging trend is increased disbursement of funds to faster access higher education, and according to several sources, this sum totaled over $6.5 m in early 2014. As with basic education, shortcomings persist at the tertiary education level. The World Economic Forum (2015) ranked Panama’s higher education and training 83rd for 2014–2015, scoring 3.5 on a scale of one to seven. The score represents a significant drop from the previous edition in which Panama ranked 68th, with a score of 4.26. Accreditation: In 2010, the National Council for University Evaluation and Accreditation of Panama (Consejo Nacional de Evaluación y Acreditación Universitaria de Panamá, CONEAUPA) standardized the accreditation process for higher education institutions. Several positive changes have come from formalizing the accreditation, the most significant being promoting integration between universities and the labor market (Oxford Business Group 2015). Panamanian universities have since gained some ground at the regional level, with two institutions holding positions in the Latin American top 300 university rankings for 2014, and continued

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growth is notable. There are currently 22 accredited universities, five of which are public. Also, in 2014, approximately 42 private universities in this country held operating licenses. In concert, the accreditation process has also led to research and extension, increased collaboration between academia and local communities, and growing connections to labor market trends. In totality, Panama prioritizes the quality of its education system as a vehicle to sustain social and economic growth. Such efforts have increased its global completeness and built its capacity to meet complex demands depends. Nevertheless, education in Panama is historically underfunded and weakly governed and lacks continuity of policy. Recent efforts to expand educational infrastructure at all levels, to provide more opportunities for high-quality technical training and bilingual programs, and to expand funding prospects for students are all positive endeavors that will have an assortment of positive impacts on the job market and overall growth in this country.

5

Concluding Remarks

This chapter charted the historical developments of education in Panama beginning with Spanish colonial occupation, to independence from Colombia to independence. The chapter also examines the structure of education in this country and spends some time discussing inequality in education in Panama. The chapter noted that inequality poses a significant challenge for the education system, making the establishment of uniformity regarding infrastructure conditions in the education context and of the quality of teachers and learning achievement a necessity. Students from the capital, Panama City, tend to outperform students in rural communities in standardized exams and other educational indices; this is a significant manifestation of the geographically unequal quality of education and a critical issue that the government needs to address. Additionally, primary school completion and dropout rates are relatively high, particularly among rural and indigenous populations. In 2008, 88% of the indigenous and African ethnic population in Panama did not graduate high school. This inclination towards educational disparity exacerbates the gaps that exist between public and private education in this country. Several sources pointed to private schools providing a higher quality of education due to available funding, resources, and longer instructional hours. Hence, it is imperative that the country reduce these disparities and rework the structure of the Ministry of Education, state policy measures and planning, assessment systems and provide more resources to fund and sustain high-quality public education for all. With an unequal education system, it is no surprise that Rogers (2016) found that one in five youth aged 15–24 years in Latin America is out-of-school and not working (ninis). A similar statistic exists in Panama. While the share of ninis has declined gradually since the 1990s, it has not fallen fast enough to offset the population growth. Added to the concern is that while most ninis are young urban women, who are secondary school dropouts, the share of males in this group is growing, up by 46% since the early 1990s. This surge explains the media’s male-oriented depiction of the ninis. Most male ninis drop out of secondary school

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for jobs. Despite this, the low-skilled job market is unstable; already high unemployment, few vocational training opportunities, and barriers to returning to secondary school all complicate the problem. Several writers have alluded to the possibility of a high dropout rate, compounded by high unemployment and limited training opportunities as a primary contributor to increased crime and violence. However, more statistical evidence correlating ninis and crime will be needed to validate this argument. However, having a growing unskilled youth and the young adult population does not argue well for the Panamanian economy. Panama ranks low in quality of education (Santiago 2016) despite a decade of social progress. Poverty is still a problem, but with a $4 a day poverty line, the country’s population living in poverty is falling. Add to the mix the poor education quality and the regional and socioeconomic disparities evidenced earlier and envisioning a future in which all children in this country receive the education they need to become productive members of society will take a lot of commitment from the Panamanian authorities. As highlighted by the Brooking Institute, some of the areas of focus that could foster this vision include leadership at the school level, high-quality training, and in-service professional development and support to teachers and principals, especially in underserved schools. Expansion of teacher training capacity and infrastructure to grow the quality of education, investment in classroom resources (computers, etc.), mandating attendance, curriculum, development, tackling dropout rates, and making education align with market needs. Obtaining private sector support to help fund and partner with local governments and resources and expertise to schools will be essential. Research shows that education in many Latin American countries such as Panama is overlooked by international grantmakers, as only a tiny portion of overseas funding directed toward Latin America. In addition, only an insignificant fraction of the global budget goes towards education, and of that, only a tiny fraction directed to K-12 education. Such moves would contribute to efforts to address underfunded education in many communities. Also, this would go a long way to support a system that will give all Panamanian children a head-start in life, not just those at private schools. This author supports the conclusions of the OECD (2017) multidimensional country review. It said that Panama stands to benefit from strengthening institutions’ capacity to improve evidence-based decision-making and increase its capacity for long-term strategic foresight to move forward educational reforms. Although the country has a comprehensive National Development Plan (Plan Estratégico de Gobierno, 2015–19), planning and evaluation processes could be improved by strengthening technical capabilities within most ministries, if for nothing else to bring the scholarly output in alignment with the job market. Panama has inconsistency of government; hence, the Ministry of Education has a near-complete government turnover every 5 years, making reform extremely difficult. In the election of a new Minister of Education for a nonrenewable five-year term, he or she selects who will fill all the ministry coordinator positions. Reforms started during a recent period are rarely continued until their completion. In general, there is no full implementation of many educational improvement programs, meaning they do not last the time required to see an impact. Committing to consistent

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educational policy and reform efforts that transcends government administrations is essential for this country. Furthermore, the government needs to commit to implementing a suitable STEM curriculum and resources to prepare graduates for the existing job market. This STEM curriculum implementation must be through top-down policies and direct funding that is not piecemeal – replicating programs shown to have tangibly improved K-12 students’ test scores should be considered by the Ministry of Education. Investing in higher education and skills and vocational training will allow this country to meet the demands of rising job competition and increasing demand for specialized knowledge. Overall, Panama represents untapped potential in the extent to which education can play a pivotal role in this country’s social and economic growth. However, this is not possible unless there are conscious and deliberate efforts towards reform to include substantial investment.

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Kriout, B. (2017). OECD 2017 report: Panama stands to benefit from tackling inequalities, gaps in education and skills and informality to maintain its economic progress. https://www.oecd.org/ dev/panama-stands-to-benefit-from-tackling-inequalities-gaps-in-education-and-skills-andinformality-to-maintain-its-economic-progress.htm Latin American Post. (December 5, 2019). How did Latin America do in the Pisa test? https:// latinamericanpost.com/31159-how-did-latin-america-do-in-the-pisa-tests Latin News Daily. (July 25, 2016). Teachers end strike in Panama. https://www.latinnews.com/ component/k2/item/69498-teachers-end-strike-in-panama.html Lee, R. (2016). Education in Panama. Borgen Magazine, 2, 2016. Retrieved from https://www. borgenmagazine.com/education-in-panama/ Lustig, N. (2015). Most unequal on earth. Finance and development, 52(3), 14–16. Retrieved from https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2015/09/pdf/lustig.pdf MEDUCA. (2015). National Directorate for education planning charts 01 to 03, leading primary education indicators, early secondary and secondary education (preliminary). OECD. (2014). Teachers love their jobs but feel undervalued, unsupported and unrecognised, says OECD. OECD report June 25, 2014. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/teacherslove-their-job-but-feel-undervalued-unsupported-and-unrecognised.htm OECD. (2017). Multi-dimensional country reviews (MDCR), visit: Retrieved from http://www. oecd.org/development/mdcr/ OECD. (2018a). Education GPS: Panama student performance (PISA 2018). https://gpseducation. oecd.org/CountryProfile?plotter¼h5&primaryCountry¼PAN&treshold¼5&topic¼PI OECD. (2018b). Capacity building plan: Panama. PISA for development. https://www.oecd.org/ pisa/pisa-for-development/pisafordevelopmentworkingpapersandblogs/Panama-Capacity-Build ing-Plan.pdf OECD. (2019a). PISA 2018 results (volume I): What students know and can do, PISA. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/5f07c754-en. OECD. (2019b). PISA 2018 results (volume II): Where all students can succeed, PISA. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/b5fd1b8f-en. OECD. (2019c). PISA 2018 results (volume III): What school life means for students lives, PISA. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/acd78851-en. OECD. (2019d). Digital government review of Panama: Enhancing the digital transformation of the public sector. September 20, 2019, OECD Digital Government Studies. https://www.oecd.org/ countries/panama/digital-government-review-of-panama-615a4180-en.htm Oxford Business Group. (2015). Panama makes progress towards sustainable education growth. Retrieved from https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/overview/learning-curve-progress-beingmade-towards-sustainable-growth-rising-budget-and-push-raise-postgeographic.org (November 10, 2004). Panama EDUCATION. PISA. (2018). Program for international student assessment (PISA) results. Retrieved from https:// www.oecd.org/pisa/publications/PISA2018_CN_PAN.pdf Rogers, H. (2016). The “mini” youth of Latin America: Out of school, out of work, and misunderstood. Education and Global Development: World Bank Blogs. https://blogs.worldbank.org/ education/nini-youth-latin-america-out-school-and-misunderstood Santiago, L. (2016). Poverty in Latin America: Where do we come from, where are we going? Brookings Institute May 10, 2016 https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/poverty-in-LatinAmerica-where-do-we-come-from-where-are-we-going/ The Library of Congress Country Studies; CIA world Factbook. https://photius.com/countries/panama/society/panama_society_ education.html U.S. & Foreign Commercial Service Global Education Team. (2020). Retrieved from http://www. trade.gov/education-industry, https://www.trade.gov/knowledge-product/panama-educationand-training UNESCO. (2016a). Recomendaciones de Políticas Educativas en América Latina en base al TERCE, UNESCO, OREALC, Santiago de Chile, 2016. http://www.unesco.org/new/ fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/FIELD/Santiago/pdf/Recomendacionespoliticas-educativasTERCE.pdf

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The Education System of Paraguay Trends and Issues

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Transition to the Labor Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of the Education System According to ISCED Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Inequality and Inequity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Paraguay is a relatively young country, which still carries the aftermath of different wars in its history, as well as last century’s political instability during the first part of the presidential era, and a long-term dictatorship that ended in

D. Zarza Paredes (*) Consejo Nacional de Ciencias y Tecnología (CONACYT), Presidencia de la República, Asunción, Paraguay S. Suarez Enciso Instituto Nacional de Evaluación Educativa, Ministerio de Educación y Ciencias (MEC), Asunción, Paraguay © This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the U.S.; foreign copyright protection may apply 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_19

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1989 lasting 35 years. Nowadays, Paraguay still faces the challenge of ensuring education with quality and equity. This chapter aims to describe the education system of Paraguay, starting with a review of the political, economic, social, and historical conditions, their effects on education, the system’s current conditions and structure, as well as the challenges the country faces regarding participation and progression, equity and equality, financing of education, along with some emerging issues. Current data indicates that 52% of 3- to 5-years-old children are enrolled in preprimary programs, 61% of a student cohort finish primary and lower secondary education, 42% complete upper secondary education, and only 1.2% of students aged 24 years old and over graduate from tertiary education; students from rural areas and socioeconomically disadvantaged conditions tend to receive lower quality education and stay less time in the system, most of students’ performance is below the minimum competency level in PISA-D (level 2) in math (92%), reading (68%), and science (76%); financial resources are far below what is required to meet the country’s educational needs. Keywords

Paraguay-education · System-equity · Equality-historical · Social foundations

1

Introduction

This chapter presents an overview of the Paraguayan educational system, describes the most outstanding elements of the country’s historical and social development in general and the education sector in particular. The first section deals with different contents of the political, economic, and sociocultural events that shaped the educational reforms over the last 40 years. This section also includes the population structure, poverty, bilingualism, education participation, and progression indicators. It ends with a brief characterization of the country’s labor market, some considerations about education for employment and transition from school to work. In the second section, institutional and organizational aspects of education are listed. It includes details about the general educational principles, education policy and the governance, administration, and financing of the education system. It concludes with a description of the Paraguayan education system structure from early childhood education to tertiary education according to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), the standard framework used to categorize and report cross-national comparable education statistics. This section also examines personnel supply in the education system. The third section looks at the country’s education trends and highlighted aspects, focusing on equality and equity, ICT and digitalization activities, STEM subjects, and the emerging issues such as truancy of students and teachers, the need for strengthening and consolidation of the education assessment institute, to install the Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) in tertiary education, and the current government’s intentions for another education reform. These emerging

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issues, chosen according to the authors’ point of view, presuppose key issues and important challenges for the Paraguayan education in the medium term. This chapter is based on an exhaustive review of published and unpublished materials generated mostly by national referents, multilateral cooperation agencies, and – to a lesser extent – on information published in the official pages of the country’s Ministry of Education and other government agencies.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

2.1

General Historical Background

A brief historical review is necessary to understand the current situation of the Paraguayan education system. The first part of the presidential era (1844–1954) was characterized by political instability, armed conflict, and a number of authoritarian governments that led to the establishment of Stroessner’s dictatorship from 1954 to 1989 (Elías and Segovia 2011). During this time, the country had 44 presidents, 24 of which were displaced, and three wars: the Triple alliance war (1864–1870), the Chaco war (1932–1935), and the Civil war (1947). Due to the Triple alliance war, the country was devastated: a large proportion of its inhabitants (around 69%) died and a significant part of its territory was lost (about 150,000 square km). The enrollment rate was unstable due to poverty and migration, which forced children to abandon school and/or to repeat the year. By 1929 around 1.5% of a cohort of students finished primary education (i.e., 6 years of school), and around 60% of school-age children were in the system. The 6-year long secondary education was considered propaedeutic for tertiary education, and therefore administered by the university. Teachers with no formal training, an insufficient educational infrastructure and scarce school materials, low budget, and contempt for the Guarani language, spoken by a high proportion of Paraguayans, were also part of the educational scenario (Velázquez 2015). The Chaco war brought again political instability. In education, students from high-school and universities were sent to war, the education did not improve in terms of quality and coverage. There were some attempts to reform primary education but they did not succeed. The secondary education reform (1931) reduced the number of schooling years from 6 to 5 and made drastic changes to the curriculum (Velázquez 2016). Between 1844 and 1954, the education in Paraguay can be considered as low in quality and elitist in character. The later due to its low coverage, given the high costs of studying, low number of people who could afford to study, and the repression of the Guarani language. During this time, education enhanced heroic nationalism, and militarism was present throughout the educational program. Principles such as discipline and obedience were encouraged and political issues were not absent (Velázquez 2016). The Alfredo Stroessner’s military dictatorship, which began in August 1954 and ended in February 1989, was characterized by a persecution of people and organizations engaged in activities related to development of social thought, education, and knowledge production. Therefore, many intellectuals were exiled. Stroessner’s

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government was highly centralized, corrupt, discretional, arbitrary, individualistic, military, and partisan (Powers 1992; Velázquez 2018). His dictatorship was the longest in Latin America, with long-term effects for the country’s development, affecting several aspects of today’s politics, economy, culture, and education (Elías and Segovia 2011). Education was used by Stroessner to control people. There were two educational reforms during Stroessner’s dictatorship (1957 and 1973), both supported by the US government and UNESCO (Elías and Segovia 2011). The 1957 reform focused on changes in secondary education. Due to this reform, secondary education was separated from tertiary education and the structure of the education system changed: 6 years of primary school, 3 years of lower secondary, and 3 years of upper secondary school, and technical education was emphasized. Lower secondary education became a requisite to access the preservice teacher training; before then, elementary school was the only requirement. This reform was proposed based on the increasing number of students in primary and secondary levels, and to make up for a deficit in the educational offerings. Consequently, the number of schools and teachers had to increase to face this imbalance. By 1970, two-thirds of school-age children were in the system and one out of two children finished primary education. Investment in education increased by 8% yearly in 1954–1960, and by 9% yearly in 1960–1970. In 1954, the education budget represented 1% of the gross domestic product (GDP), 1.3% in 1960, 1.7% in 1965, and 2.2% in 1970. The budget was highly dependent upon international funding (Velázquez and D’Alessandro 2017). In the 1970s, the education budget decreased, representing 1.8% of the GDP in 1973; teachers were underpaid, the coverage in primary education was low, a large proportion of students did not get beyond 3rd grade (21% finished primary education), and the enrollment rate was among the lowest in Latin America and the world. The 1973 reform originated in the 1967 Constitution and focused on primary education curriculum changes, teacher training, and professional technical training which aimed to develop students’ technical skills for the labor force (Elías and Segovia 2011; Velázquez and D’Alessandro 2017). The authoritarian regime of Paraguay was the last to succumb in South America, leaving the country isolated and out of the international agenda. The transition into democracy began in 1989. Human rights were ratified in 1989, leaving some laws obsolete; the electoral law was changed; the country signed a commercial treaty with Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay (called MERCOSUR); the 1992 Constitution was established and reelection was prohibited. Since then, there have been nine elected presidents, two of which could not finish their periods due to political issues. The movement that led to the 1994 education reform began in 1990.

2.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

Paraguay is a relatively small landlocked country, located between Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia, with a surface area of 406,752 square kilometers, which is split by the

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Paraguayan river in two regions: eastern (39% of the total surface area and 97.3% of inhabitants) and western. Consequently, density is very different between eastern (42.3 persons/sq) and western regions (0.8 persons/sq). The country is divided into 17 administrative departments and Asuncion, the country’s capital. Between 1950 and 1960, the GDP growth was relatively low, averaging 2.7% and largely dependent on agriculture. The following decade, the GDP grew at a rate of 4.5% yearly, mainly due to good commodity prices in the international market. Between 1970 and 1975, the economy experienced an annual growth of 6.7% and between 1976 and 1980 the GDP grew at an average of 8% due to the push received by the construction of the Paraguay-Brazil hydroelectric power plant “Itaipu Binacional,” and the agricultural growth and diversification (Insfran Pelozo 2000; Velázquez and D’Alessandro 2017). Between 1982 and 1983, the country went through its first economic crisis in 30 years. After the advent of the democratic era in 1989, the country faced a period of legal, political, fiscal, financial, and social adjustment before reaching macroeconomic stability. Stroessner’s dictatorship left the country with a large public deficit, a distorted currency exchange system, and inflation rates above 20%. Consequently, a set of adjustments were required to recover the economy (e.g., interest rates and currency market were liberalized and consumption tax was established). Not all of the adjustments, however, generated the expected effect in the economy (e.g., the inflation rate increased up to 44% by 1990) (Insfran Pelozo 2000). The crisis of the financial system (1995–1998) was general, profound, and expensive for the country, representing around 10% of the GDP (Insfran Pelozo 2000). It reflected the information system’s weakness, the supervision and control system’s inefficiency, and the bad practices that banks were using for loan assignments. The financial sector had to undergo a legal transformation in order to reach stability. The average GDP growth in the 1990s was 3.1%, in the following decade, the average was reduced to 2.4%, and in the last decade, it was 4.8% (BCP 2018). The Paraguayan economy moved from being highly agricultural to strongly relying on services, while industry did not increase much of its contribution to the GDP. Agriculture accounts for 11% of the GDP (constant values, 2017) and almost 20% of the total employment. The industry sector accounts for 34% of the GDP and 20% of the employment, while 48% of the GDP comes from the service sector, which employs 60% of the occupied workers. The relatively persistent economic growth implied an important increase in the average income level (GDP per capita, in real terms, tripled between 1970 and 2015), which contributed to poverty reduction (from 39% in 2010 to 26.4% in 2017) and equality (Gini reduced from 0.58 in 2003 to 0.48 in 2015). Although poverty and inequality have decreased, the problem is not solved. Only 24.5% of Paraguayans are covered by social protection; 21% of workers contribute to social security, 16% of the population aged 64 and above receives contributory pension; and the population’s health insurance coverage remains low (26%); education full coverage and retention remains unreachable and quality of education has to improve; the country scored among the lowest in the 2017 Human Development Index in South America (and 99th out of 189 countries in the world), and took the 132nd position

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among 180 countries in the 2018 corruption perception index (BCP 2018; DGEEC 2017a; OECD 2018; Rupper Balmer et al. 2017; Transparency International 2018).

2.3

Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population

Population Structure, Work, and Poverty. According to the Dirección General de Estadística, Encuestas y Censos (DGEEC), Paraguay has 6.953.696 inhabitants, of which 12.3% are 5 years old or less; 17.6% are between 6 and 14 years old; 6.2% are between 15 and 17; 13.3% between 18 and 24; and the rest are 25 years old and above. Indigenous population represents around 1.8% of the country’s inhabitants. The working-age population (15 years old and over) represents 70.6% of the total inhabitants, while the labor force is 72% of the working-age population. The working-age population is relatively young (39% are between 15 and 29 years old), mainly located in the urban sector (63.5%), and evenly split between females (50.2%) and males. Out of the total labor force, 94.4% was occupied in the last quarter of 2018. A larger proportion of working-age males (81%) are employed compared with working-age females (55%); while almost similar proportions of working-age people from rural (69%) and urban (67%) areas are employed. Underemployment affects 5.9% of the labor force, and it is larger for females (8.7%), and for those living in rural areas (7.7%). Most of the occupied labor force (65%) is informally employed (i.e., poor working conditions and low wage). A larger proportion of female (67.9%) than male (63.2%) workers get an informal job; it is more frequent in rural (74.8%) than in urban (62.4%) areas; and among young (more than 90% of 15–18 years old) and old workers (more than 70% of 60 years old and above). Out of the labor force, 5.6% does not work. Unemployment is higher for women (6.8%) than for men (4.8%), and in urban (6.5%) than in rural (4.1%) areas (DGEEC 2018b, c). On the other hand, poverty affects 26.4% of the people, 16.7% of which are extremely poor. The problematic is larger and deeper in the rural (36.2%) than in the urban areas (20.2%). The literacy rate for the population aged 15 years and over is 94% at the country level, being lower in the rural area (89.8%); the average schooling years is 8.8 for the population of 25 years old and older, with urban people having 3.6 more years of schooling than rural people. There is no gender difference in attendance to primary education, but the percentage of women attending secondary education surpasses the percentage of males (DGEEC 2017a, b, c). Bilingualism. Since 1992, the country has been declared bilingual, both Spanish and Guarani are considered official languages. Guarani is an oral-based indigenous language spoken by 70.7% of the nonindigenous inhabitants (DGEEC 2017a), and has played an important role throughout the Paraguayan history. The Academia de la Lengua Guaraní, which standardizes the language, was created in 2010 (Act 4251). Guarani language is of great relevance in the country, although its inclusion in the educational policies has been a challenge. There have been many attempts to incorporate it in the curriculum; the efforts seem to have no impact. Most of the Guarani-speaking population are socioeconomically disadvantaged and live in the rural sector.

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Multiculturalism. Around 1.8% of the country’s population is indigenous; 55.3% of whom are below 20 years old; and 50.5% are female. There are 19 ethnic groups within this subpopulation, belonging to 5 major linguistic families. Indigenous are in more disadvantaged conditions than the rest of the country: unemployment affects 9.8% of the active population (i.e., people aged 10 years and above that work or look for a job), they mainly work in the primary sector, as independent workers, the majority do not hold any type of health insurance (85%), and live in poverty (31.7%) or extreme poverty (34.4%), since their average income only covers 50.2% of the basic living expenses. Illiteracy rate is 33.4% for the 15 years old and over, and larger for females (40.8%) than for males (25.4%); the average number of schooling years for people aged 25 years and above is 3.4; repetition (5%), dropout (20%), and over-age students (56%) rates are larger than for the nonindigenous people in primary education (MEC 2007; DGEEC 2018a). Like with the Guaranispeaking people, there have been efforts to adapt the curriculum to their cultural characteristics. Language-specific materials have been prepared, printed, and distributed, but they have not impacted the quality of the education offered to this subpopulation. Participation in Education and Progression. Preprimary education serves the 0–5 years old population, it has two modalities and two cycles (specific aspects of the education system are discussed in the next section). The participation in this level is extremely low (0.6% of the 0–2 years old group, and 27.6% for the children aged 3–4), except for preschool, where 75% of 5-years-old children attend school. Primary and lower secondary education aim at the 6–14 years old population, and it is divided in three cycles of three grades each. Attendance rate for the first cycle (6–8 years old) is 99.2%; for the second (population aged 9–11), it is 99.6% and it is 95.7% for the third group (12–14 years old). The theoretical age for upper secondary education goes from 15 to 17 years; 79.3% of which are in the system (DGEEC 2017a). Also, there are a small proportion of people who study through alternative programs such as youth and adult, special needs, and distance education. Although repetition and dropout rates have decreased, they are still relatively high. While repetition is higher at the beginning of the primary level, dropout increases toward the end of it. Yearly, 6.4% of the students enrolled in the first cycle of primary education repeat by the end of that year, this lowers to 2.3% in the second cycle, to 1.1% by end of the third cycle (lower secondary education), and to less than 1% for upper secondary level (MEC 2015a). Repetition not only increases education expenditure for government and families, but also affects student attainment, generates over-age students, reduces their probability of finishing school, impacts their learning, and increases dropout risks. The percentage of yearly dropout per cycle is 2.9%, 2.4%, and 4.1% of the enrolled students in the first, second, cycles of primary and lower secondary education, respectively, and 4% for upper secondary level (MEC 2015a). The proportion of people out of school was 1.9% for the 6–14 years old, while this percentage was 20.5% for the population aged 15–17. Only 1.2% of the students of 24 years old and above has graduated from tertiary education (DGEEC 2017a).

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To sum up, out of a cohort of 100 students enrolled in 1st grade of primary, 61 finish 9th grade and only 42 finish upper secondary education (MEC 2016). Relationship between Public and Private Sectors in the Education System. There are three types of educational offerings: public, independent private, or government dependent private (i.e., the school have all or part of their teachers funded by public resources, while all the rest of the offer is private, also called subsidized). Education is, however, mainly public; 77.5% of the students from preprimary to secondary level attend public schools, 13.4% attend private schools, and the rest (9.1%) goes to subsidized schools (MEC 2015a). At the university level, there seems to be a more balanced distribution of students between public and private institutions. Other tertiary educational offers (vocational and teacher training services) are also mainly funded by the government. Out of 10 students of tertiary education aged 18–24, seven reported to be attending a private institution (DGEEC 2017a).

2.4

Transition to the Labor Market

Transition to the labor market in Paraguay falls within the organizational labor markets classification (Shavit and Muller 1998; Muller and Gangl 2003). Transition from school to work faces several issues. First, a considerable proportion of students do not finish compulsory education or do not do it on time. Learning outcomes are also poor, meaning that a high average of schooling years does not necessarily translate into better quality of education and/or skills development (OECD 2018). Second, although there are programs that prepare for the labor market –the ones listed in ISCED and those offered by the Ministry of Work, Employment and Social Security (MTESS), which require different school completion levels, are based upon curriculum complexity –, the offer is limited and does not cover the demand. Third, Paraguayan economy growth (for the 2004–2014 period) translated into a job growth (especially in the service sector and in urban areas) that increased at higher levels than the labor force. Formal jobs increased twice as much as informal jobs between 2008 and 2015 so that the share of formal employment rose from 22% to 29%. There exists transition within the labor market, with workers’ mobility in and out of inactivity, employment, and between informal jobs; while transition into or within formal employment is rather low, especially in the public sector. Nevertheless, the country’s “job production” level related to the GDP growth was below the Latin American average (Ruppert Bulmer et al. 2017). Fourth, the “mechanisms or institutions that intercede between job seekers and employers” (Autor 2004) are scarce and incoherent in the country. There are some private companies that bring together human capital supplies and demands, but personnel recruitment service is costly; thus, only a small proportion of people use them. The education system facilitates youth’s transition from school to work. For instance, technical education programs and tertiary education require internship experiences for students. Recently (2018), the MTESS started to pilot a dual professional training model, called “MoPaDual,” with the German government’s

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support (Instituto Federal de Formación Profesional, BIBB). This model seeks to improve workers’ qualification using an approach that distributes learning time between theory (30%) and practice (70%) in the public or private sector (Información Paraguay 2018; Sinafocal n.d.). Fifth, access to the labor market is difficult depending on some demographic characteristics. Among urban males aged between 15 and 29, around 30% enter inactivity when they leave school, around 10% get informal jobs, and 25% become unemployed; while the situation for urban females of this same age range is worse, 40% become inactive when they leave school, 12% join informal jobs, and above 35% become unemployed. Workers from poor households are more likely to be employed in informal jobs. Around 6 out of 10 workers aging 29 belonging to extremely poor households are neither employed nor in school or training programs (NEET), 3 have informal jobs and only 1 has a formal one. In vulnerable households, 5 out of 10 hold formal jobs while the rest are either NEET or have an informal job; while in households considered middle class, 8 out of 10 join the formal labor market (OECD 2018).

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

3.1

General Principles

Education in Paraguay is compulsory from early childhood education up to upper secondary education (3 through 17 years old); and it is free and secular in public schools. The right to integral, permanent, and bilingual education is guaranteed by the 1992 Constitution. It also states that no less than 20% of the yearly central government budget – excluding loans and donations – should be assigned to education. Education is considered an essential public service by law, meaning that nothing should prevent the government from offering such service (1992 Paraguay Constitution). Paraguayan education is regulated by the General Education Act (1998). It establishes that the MEC is responsible for defining and standardizing the educational policy from early childhood up to tertiary education except universities and their equivalent educational institutions (see next section). In 2010, preprimary and upper secondary education was declared to also be free and compulsory. Tertiary education is regulated by the 2013 Higher Education Act, the Consejo Nacional de Educación Superior (CONES), and their quality is assessed by the Agencia Nacional de Evaluación y Acreditación de la Educación Superior (ANEAES). The principles of Paraguayan schooling refer to equity of education, Spanish and Guarani fluency, development of cognitive, scientific, technical and socioemotional skills as well as personal and social development, civic and citizenship education, environmental education, and education for work. These principles are reflected in the educational policies and have been approached in several educational sector plans since the reform in 1994. The Plan 2024 (MEC 2009) is the current framework for the educational policy. It defines three strategic axes: (i) education for all through

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different programs and under minimum conditions, (ii) quality of education, and (iii) management of the educational policies based upon the efficiency, effectiveness, participation, and coherence. The current Educational Agenda (MEC 2014) emphasizes policies associated with the second strategic axis of the Plan 2024, without neglecting the other two. This agenda defines the education sector priorities for 2013–2018, including the budget needed for its implementation.

3.2

Education Administration and Governance

The Paraguayan education system is highly centralized. That is, the MEC serves as the central governing, managing, regulating, and controlling body for most aspects of the education system, except universities. The provision of the educational services of preprimary, primary, lower and upper secondary, and tertiary nonuniversity education is MEC responsibility. The ministry also regulates the private and subsidized offers at these levels of education. The MEC deals with the formal processes related to the definition of educational policies, as well as the implementation and follow-up of reforms, in coordination with the National Council of Education (CONEC), an organ created for this purpose. The structure of the MEC is defined in the 5749 Act (2017). The ministry is comprised of vice ministries, the national institute of educational evaluation (INEE), and advisory representatives. There are three vice ministries: (a) the vice ministry of basic education (VEB), (b) the vice ministry of tertiary education and science (VES), and (c) the vice ministry of culture (VC). The VEB has in turn nine general directorates, which oversee preprimary, primary, and secondary education for indigenous and nonindigenous students, in all its formats (regular and alternative offers). The VES has five general directorates and oversees preservice and in-service teacher training, ICT policies for the whole education system, artistic education (art academy, art school, and conservatory), and tertiary education (except university level); it also conducts educational research. The VC is responsible for promoting human rights, dissemination and practice of values and principles, and keeping records of religious and philosophical entities. The INEE is responsible for evaluating the quality of the education system in its three dimensions: teachers, schools, and students’ achievement. The advisory representatives have deliberative powers; they can propose policies or guidelines related to the goals their correspondent entities have. The MEC oversees all aspects of public education such as: identification of priorities, definition of educational guidelines and standards, allocation of resources, evaluation of students’ learning and teachers’ performance, and provision of teaching materials. It also defines the principles that shape teachers’ recruitment, selection, and hiring; both pre- and in-service teachers training; salaries and administration of financial resources; formulation of curriculum; organization of instruction, students’ certification, and the school’s calendar. Implementation of the educational policy at the departmental and local level is carried out by representatives of MEC, who directly interact with the school’s staff,

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students, and their parents. For this, the MEC has departmental boards located in the 17 geographic departments and the country’s capital. Each board has its respective educational supervisions, which locally work on aspects related to the educational service, delivery of resources provided by programs, provision of pedagogical assistance, and the administrative control of schools. The country’s educational model, however, recognizes that the collaborative work between the central government, departmental, and local governments and other actors is relevant. Consequently, the MEC coordinates and connects efforts with the departmental, and municipal governments through the Departmental Council of Education, which is formed by: the governor, a mayor representing his peers, the Departmental Education Director of MEC, the Secretary of Education of the departmental government, a representative of the teacher’s union, a representative of the parent’s association, a representative of the student’s union, other representatives of the society, according to the characteristics of the Department, which may be NGO, universities, churches, production guild, etc. Universities and their equivalent tertiary educational institutions are created by law. They are autonomous and the way they were regulated has gone through several changes since 1993. Currently, they are regulated by the 4995 Higher Education Act (2013). This Act also creates the CONES as the responsible body for proposing and coordinating the higher education policies and programs. In addition, the ANEAES was created (2072 Act 2003) in order to assess, and when appropriate, accredit quality at the institutional and academic level of higher education institutions.

3.2.1 Education Funding Education in Paraguay is financed through a complex mechanism that involves multiple sources of financing administered by various entities and levels of government. In terms of the budget administration, 68% of public education resources are administered by the MEC, 1% by other ministries, 7% by departmental governments, 4% by municipal governments, and 20% by public universities. Most of the public education budget, including universities, comes from genuine resources (91%). The budget for compulsory education (preprimary through upper secondary education) covers salaries and other bonuses for teachers and administrative staff, basic services (water, electricity, etc.), school kits, and gratuity. Gratuity is the only yearly budget directly executed by schools; the amount of money to be transferred is based upon the school’s enrollment and is used to finance the school’s expenses. The school’s principal is held accountable for its administration and must report on a yearly basis how it is used (Yanes-Pagans et al. 2018; Zarza 2018). A small part of the governmental resources is administered by departmental governments, mainly to cover school snack program (glass of milk) costs. Public universities are also funded by governmental resources and administered by each university separately. Public universities can generate their own resources through the different fees the students have to pay throughout their academic life.

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Since 2012, the scenario of public finances for education has undergone an important change at the three government levels (central, departmental, and municipal) with the incorporation of additional resources coming from the royalties obtained from Itaipu binacional. This is due to a large increase (three times bigger) of the compensation that Paraguay receives from giving its energy to Brazil. In order to channel these resources, a special law was approved (4758 Act 2012), which created the National Fund for Public Investment and Development (FONACIDE) and the Fund for Excellence in Education and Research (FEEI). FEEI resources are administered by the central government and representatives of civil society under the supervision and control of a Board of Directors. These funds are executed upon a project-based approach. These projects could be directed toward ICT, teacher training, school infrastructure, comprehensive early childhood development, evaluation of education quality, higher education scholarships, and research. These areas are considered strategic according to the country’s long-term development policy. Currently, there are 13 projects funded by FEEI. FONACIDE resources are transferred to local governments, both departmental and municipal, to exclusively cover students’ lunch and school infrastructure. FEEI and FONACIDE represent around 7.2% of the total budget for education. To a lesser extent, external resources and taxes contribute to the total public education funding (Yanes-Pagans et al. 2018). Although regulations guarantee free compulsory education in public schools, households have to make important additional contributions to finance their children’s education. Out of the total invested in primary and secondary education, private contributions to education represent around 35% and 37%, respectively. These private counterparts are mainly related to transport costs, uniforms, sportswear, and school supplies (book, pencil, notebook, among others). The proportion of private contributions is even larger for tertiary education; it is 55% of the total expenditure in universities and 66% in nonuniversity. Of the total public resources for education, 94.5% corresponds to current expenditure, mainly for teachers’ and administrative staff’s salary, and only 5.5% is capital expenditure (Yanes-Pagans et al. 2018). Public investment in education (from preprimary up to tertiary education) in real terms has grown steadily during the period 2003–2016 at an average rate of 6.7% per year. In 2016, the overall investment in education amounted 3.4% of the GDP in real terms, below Latin America and OECD averages. On the other hand, the current constitution establishes that public investment in education cannot be lower than 20% of the central administration expenditure. This makes Paraguay the country with the highest level of education investment related to public expenditure, when compared with Latin American and OECD countries averages. However, given the relatively high number of young people in the country and the poor conditions of the schools, the level of investment in education is still low. The country not only spends relatively little in education, but also it does not allocate the resources following equity criteria. This results in expenditure patterns that increase socioeconomic gaps (Yanes-Pagans et al. 2018).

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Structure of the Education System According to ISCED Classification

Paraguay’s national education system includes general, special, and other forms of educational provision. Formal education is structured in three levels: first level, preprimary education (PPE) and the first and second cycle of Basic School Education (BSE); second level, the third cycle of BSE and Secondary Education (SE); and third level, tertiary education (TE) (5749 Act 2017). Figure 1 shows the structure of the education system.

3.3.1 Preprimary Education (ISCED 0) Preprimary education is divided into two stages: (i) maternal, which targets children aged 0–3, provided in daycare centers, nurseries, or guarderías with programs that foster self-expression, with an emphasis on language acquisition, and active play, so that children can exercise their coordination and motor skills under supervision and through interaction with staff, (ii) pre-kindergarten for 3-years-old kids, kindergarten for children aged 4, and preschool for 5-years-old children, which are school-based programs, compulsory and free in public schools. These services include interaction with other children and teachers, in order to develop skills needed to interact with the society (socioemotional), for academic readiness, and for entry into primary education. Preprimary education is developed in formal (school-based) and nonformal (community-based, home-based, church-based) environments. Teachers in these programs require not only tertiary and pedagogical qualifications, but also receive specific training as preprimary teachers. These programs are also offered for the indigenous population with programs adapted to their customs and beliefs. For children with special needs there are two possibilities: they could be integrated in “regular” classes or they could be enrolled in “special schools,” which are schools exclusively for them, with adapted programs and teachers especially trained to work with them. 3.3.2

Basic School Education (First and Second Cycles)/Primary Education (ISCED 1) Primary school has an official entrance age of 6 years and a duration of six grades. The programs of this level are organized in broad learning areas and not by specific subjects and intend to provide systematic teaching and learning in reading, writing, and mathematics, along with elementary knowledge of other subjects. The first cycle includes the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades, and the curriculum is structured in four integrated areas: social life and work, natural environment and health, mathematics, and communication. The second cycle encompasses the 4th, 5th, and 6th grades. Continuing the previous cycle, it expands knowledge in the broad learning areas of the first cycle, with greater systematic instruction in fundamental knowledge and skills. The second cycle is structured into eight integrated areas: natural sciences, social sciences, artistic education, health education, mother tongue, second language, mathematics, and work and technology are addressed. One main teacher is responsible for the class and trained in pedagogical methodology for

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Age

Grade

23 22 21 20 19

Primary education Pre-primary education

ISCED 1

ISCED 2 ISCED 3 Lower U pp e r secondary secondary education education

18

ISCED 0

Specialization, master and doctorate Postgraduate degrees

24

Specialization programs Teacher trainning institutes nonuniversity

Technical institutes nonuniversity

Bachelor degrees Bachelor Higher institutes degrees (university (university) status)

17 16

Technical/vocational

15 14 13

Basic School Education rd 3 cycle

12 11 10 9 8 7 6

Basic School Education nd 2 cycle

5º 4º 3º 2º 1º 3º

Humanities and sciences

2º **SNE /Adult education

Tertiary education

ISCED 5-8

25 +

1º 9º 8º 7º 6º 5º 4º 3º

Basic School Education st 1 cycle

2º 1º

5

Preschool

4

Kindergarten

3

Pre-kinder

*SNE

Level

2 1

Maternal

0 *Special needs education ** The theoretical age of entrance to these programs differs from those equivalent programs Compulsory education Fig. 1 Paraguayan education system structure

core subjects, although a class may have more than one teacher, especially for certain subjects or units. Indigenous education for native peoples is characterized by a more flexible curriculum and designed to adjust to the sociocultural requirements for each ethnic group; they have been using texts written in its own language. This level also includes “adult education,” an alternative and equivalent program in terms of its content and qualifications, aimed at people aged 15 and older. It is

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organized into three cycles of studies that encompass the content of all six grades of the general offer. Each cycle develops the content program corresponding to two grades of the general offer. Finally, this level also offers educational opportunities to children and young people with special education needs. This subpopulation can go to special schools, special grades in regular schools, or be integrated to classes in the regular instruction.

3.3.3

Basic School Education (Third Cycle)/Lower Secondary Education (ISCED 2) The education contents of this cycle are aimed at completing basic education begun in primary school, which means in Paraguay the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. The programs are organized around subject-oriented curriculum: Spanish and literature, Guaraní language and literature (native language), mathematics, history and geography, artistic education, ethics and citizenship, work and technology, sciences, health, and sport. The theoretical age is 12–14 years. Teachers of this level have pedagogical training in specific subjects; therefore, students have several teachers with specialized knowledge of the subjects they teach. Due to the teachers’ specialization, they rotate between classrooms within and between schools. There are 200 days in a school year, distributed in 40 weeks, 5 days per week, and 270 min per day. Each class lasts 45 min. There are 2 weeks of winter holidays (July), and there is no school on national holidays. Most of the schools work on a shift basis, twice a day (morning and afternoon), and sometimes there are three shifts (morning, afternoon, and night). This level also includes equivalent programs for indigenous population, special education (3rd cycle), adult education (4th cycle), and vocational programs (Agricultural Professional Initiation, IPA). IPA is an alternative modality aimed at 3rd cycle of BSE in rural contexts. Since 2001, it is implemented by the MEC jointly with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. IPA is structured by areas related to agricultural production, management of technology for small family farm, rural engineering, management and conservation of natural resources, and agroecology and rural administration. It aims to be an alternative program that enhances opportunities of employment for young people of rural areas in their own communities and increases the productive capacity of family farms (rural goods and services), using an agroecological approach with management and conservation of natural resources (MEC 2011a). 3.3.4 Secondary Education/Upper Secondary Education (ISCED 3) The secondary level is a two-track system, where students are allowed to choose either a general academic curriculum in the humanities and sciences, intended to lead to studies at the university, or the other geared toward a vocational curriculum (technical/professional), and intended to prepare pupils for the work force and also for technical studies at a higher educational level. The technical orientation has 25 specialties grouped into three groups: (i) industrial: food processing and preservation, civil constructions, industrial production, electricity, electronics,

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electromechanical, electrotechnical, automotive mechanic, mechatronics, general mechanics, mechanical metal, industrial chemistry; (ii) service: business administration, environmental sciences, accounting, geographical sciences, sports, graphic design and advertising, hotel and tourism, computer science, marketing, artisanal production, health; and (iii) agricultural: agricultural, agro-mechanics. Programs at this level are designed to complete secondary and compulsory education, in preparation for tertiary education and provide skills relevant to employment and social life. It has a single cycle, lasting 3 years and consisting of three courses, and requires specialized and in-depth instruction in specific subjects. As in ISCED 2, there are domain-specific teachers highly qualified in the subjects or fields of specialization they teach. Due to the teachers’ specialization, they rotate between classrooms within and between schools. The theoretical age range for this level is 15–17 years. This level also includes equivalent programs for indigenous population, youth and adults’ education, which could be full-time or part-time attendance, or long-distance learning.

3.3.5 Higher Education/Tertiary Education (ISCED 5–8) Tertiary Education includes university education as well as nonuniversity education. Universities and higher institutes are often designed to provide participants with academic and/or professional knowledge, skills and competencies, leading to a first degree or equivalent qualification in several branches. Programs at this level are typically theory-focused but also include practical components. Universities and higher institutes offer degrees at two different levels: bachelor degrees and postgraduate degrees (specialization, master, and doctoral programs). Nonuniversity tertiary institutions, like technical institutions (e.g., military, police, nurse, dental technician, among others) and teacher training institutes (preparing teachers for preprimary, primary, and lower and upper secondary level), are also professional programs. Entry into tertiary education requires the successful completion of secondary level (ISCED 3, general or vocational). Additionally, public universities require entry examinations. The age structure of the students is not homogeneous. 3.3.6 Personnel Supply Teaching activity in Paraguay is concentrated mainly in urban areas and in the public sector, which is directly associated with the existing demand and the number of educational institutions. In 1st and 2nd cycles of primary education, the relationship between urban and rural teachers is 50–50. This distribution increases in lower and upper secondary education, favoring urban areas, where 71% of the teachers are located. Available data about teachers’ gender by educational levels show that 84.5% of teachers in preprimary education are women, while in upper secondary education this percentage decreases to 60.6% (MEC 2016). There is no available information about tertiary-level professors. The workload also changes between levels of education. From preprimary up to 6th grade of primary education, teachers work 4 h per shift. Most of these teachers have double shift. In lower secondary education, teachers work by teaching hours of

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45 min each. Due to the fact that teachers are specialized, every subject is taught by a different teacher. This is the reason why teachers’ work has be distributed among different schools, generating high mobility of the teachers between schools, which is why they are called “taxi teachers.” In other words, 63% of teachers of upper secondary education have less than 15 teaching hours per week in the same school, and 39% teach in different schools (World Bank 2008). In the case of tertiary education, most of the instructors do not hold a full-time position as professors, working on an hourly basis per hour taught. For the majority of them teaching is a complementary job. The preservice training of teachers for preprimary, primary, and lower and upper secondary is done at the “Instituto de Formación Docente” (IFD), which is a tertiary nonuniversity offer managed by both public and private sectors, and typically has a duration of 3 full-time years. Public IFD requests entrance tests. The universities, on the other hand, offer bachelor’s degrees in education sciences, with 4–5 years of duration. Both IFD and universities offer in-service teacher training programs (e.g., specialization, professional development, and improvement) in several areas (e.g., math, science, language) and aspects (e.g., school management, early childhood, curriculum). A bachelor’s degree is required to teach in tertiary education, while teaching in postgraduate programs, requires the corresponding degree. To become a teacher of ISCED 0, 1, 2, or 3 a certification in teacher training according to the ISCED level is required. For lower and upper secondary education, however, professionals with a bachelor’s degree can also become teachers as long as they have: (i) a diploma in the specific area they teach, and (ii) a pedagogical qualification for the level they teach. To become a professor in tertiary level, professionals need to take a pedagogy course. Teachers’ recruitment and selection for preprimary, primary, lower/upper secondary, and tertiary nonuniversity education in the public sector is carried out through public contest, which evaluates applicants’ résumé, and assesses general teaching and school management knowledge through a standardized test and personal interview. Selection tests, however, do not assess teachers’ skills and competencies in specific areas. Although ISCED 0–3 teacher’s performance assessment in public schools has been conducted by themselves (self-assessment) and by their principal for decades, it is since 2014 that the MEC started to pilot a more holistic assessment approach, which encompasses four views: (i) self-assessment, (ii) principal assessment, (iii) peer assessment, which includes portfolio (documental review), classroom observation (note-taking, direct observation, and videotape), and feedback (a meeting with the teacher and school principal in order to suggest improvement strategies). Once teachers are hired by the MEC, they achieve job stability. Recruitment and selection of professors for universities are regulated by their own statutes. According to the 4995 Act “in all cases, access to teaching and research, will be made by public contest of titles, merits, and aptitudes, in which the scientific production, their professional development, skills and experience are valued.” Likewise, professors’ salary is determined by each university.

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4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

4.1

Inequality and Inequity

Despite all efforts, the Paraguayan education system does not reduce inequity and inequality gaps. Socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with the area of residence (rural/urban), ethnic group (indigenous/non-indigenous), and language mainly spoken at home (Guarani/Spanish), type of school the child is enrolled (public/private). That is, it is more likely that a low SES family lived in rural areas, spoke Guarani at home, had their children attending public schools, or belonged to an indigenous subpopulation. Consequently, even though statistics vary depending on the factor that is considered (e.g., area or language), SES-based statistics portrait the same trends when using any of the other mentioned factors. Access to compulsory education varies as a function of children’s socioeconomic and school level. In 2016, only 59% of 5 years old children from poor families (i.e., the lowest 20%) attended school versus 86% of those belonging to rich families (i.e., the highest 20%). Access to primary and lower secondary education (6–14 years of age) is practically universal, however, there are still gaps among households of different income levels: 92% of children from the richest households attend school compared to 88% of children from poor families. A bigger difference appears at the upper secondary level and becomes more profound in tertiary education. That is, 35% of teens from poor families get upper secondary education while 69% of their peers from rich family receive it. In tertiary education, less than 6% of people from poor households have access to tertiary education compared to 44% from rich households (Yanes-Pagans et al. 2018). These differences are attributed to opportunity costs for the low SES families, lack of motivation, insufficient educational services in the catchment areas, or perceived bad quality of education by the available services (DGEEC 2017a). Quality of education, measured as learning outcome, is, overall, low. In PISA-D, Paraguay positioned among the lowest levels of performance, only above Dominican Republic, and not in all the assessed areas. Out of 10 students, 7 did not reach the minimum established proficiency level (i.e., level 2) in either science or reading, while in math 9 of them scored below this level. Despite these concerning results, learning outcomes still proved to be strongly related to SES. Students socioeconomically less favored attend schools that also have poor infrastructure, low school resources, limited access to technology, and reduced amount of learning time, especially in rural or vulnerable areas. While 80% of students from the bottom 25% of the SES distribution (poor) did not reach minimum level of reading competencies in PISA-D, this percentage reduces to 42% for the top 25% of the SES distribution (rich). Similar trends are observed in math and sciences. When controlling learning outcomes by SES, Guarani-speaking students are about two times more likely to not reach level 2 compared with their Spanish-speaking peers. Likewise, there are statistically significant differences among students when considering their area of residence and type of school, after controlling for their SES (MEC 2018).

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Although the government has tried to enhance equity and equality of opportunities through improvement of school infrastructure, resources, teacher training, pedagogical strategies, and compensatory programs such as distance education and remedial programs for at risk population, efforts are not enough to reduce the gap due to limitations in different areas: budget, school management style, and staff’s deficient capacity to implement, monitor, and oversee improvement interventions, at the central, departmental, and local levels.

4.2

ICT and Digitalization

The limited incorporation of ICT in the pedagogical and administrative processes in education constitutes an important limitation of the Paraguayan education system, especially in the public sector. There have been efforts, albeit isolated, to bring together learning and ICT since the 1994 education reform. The use of ICT oriented toward students and teachers occurred first in secondary education and in some cases in preservice teacher training institutions, partially supported with loans from the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), and the government of Spain (Costa Borbon 2012). Between 2001 and 2007, there was a push to use ICT in education, which resulted in the provision of computers to schools, the development of virtual encyclopedias, portals, tele-education programs, and the country’s participation in regional projects, most of which supported by enterprises and cooperating agencies. In 2009, most of the schools did not have computers, and if so, they were not used for educational purposes; the student to computer ratio was extremely high (75 students per computer); 7% of teachers received some training in ICT; and only 10% of schools have Internet (MEC 2011b). This proportion was not far off from the national statistics, given that only 11.3% of households had access to Internet (DGEEC 2009). Throughout the years, there have been multiple ICT initiatives in the education system, supported by multilateral agencies (IADB, AECID, Eurosocial), Itaipú binacional, and the MEC. Most of these projects were focused on specific goals, and benefitted a small proportion of schools. The project one laptop per child (OLC) is among the well-known interventions in the country, which was fostered by an NGO (Paraguay Educa). This is a still ongoing project, which started in 2009, and has a 100% coverage of schools in one municipality (Caacupé). In 2015, FEEI approved USD 120,000,000 to implement a 5-year long ICT project, whose main goal is to “improve learning conditions in the Paraguayan education system with the incorporation of ICT in the pedagogical and administrative processes” (MEC 2015b). This project intends to directly benefit 56% of the population of public primary and lower secondary education; 100% of students of vocational orientation and 52% of general orientation of upper secondary education; and 56% of the public-school personnel (principals, teachers, administrative, and technical staff). The main components of this projects are: (i) school staff ICT training, (ii) data center and connectivity, (iii) educational portal and learning

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platform, (iv) hardware and software provision, (v) ICT-based I+D+i, and (vi) the Education Management Information System (EMIS) for the MEC (2015b). As mentioned, the efforts to integrate ICT into education have been several, although isolated and with a relatively small coverage range due to both budgetary restriction and the lack of a clear and solid ICT policy in education. That is, the government did not have the capacity to connect the ICT experiences in the Paraguayan education (even though many of them had common objectives); they were disconnected and with little impact on the education system as a whole. Among the two reasons, budget and solid ICT policy in education, the latter represents a greater challenge. Additionally, Paraguay has not taken advantage of ICT learned lessons of other countries’ ICT experiences in education.

4.3

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM)

Although scarce, there are some attempts to install STEM-based programs in the country. There are companies that have developed STEM programs, their target being mainly private schools. A couple of NGOs have worked on the topic either with teachers or elementary-level students. In the public sector, the MEC has not developed or promoted any STEM-based program policy yet; while the MTESS created a STEM lab in 2017 for people aged 15 years and over. Since then, there have been several editions of free courses, using online technology (online platform), and educational robots. They have also been implementing a variety of activities such as summer camps and robotics competition (SNPP 2017, 2018). There is a lot to do in Paraguay in terms of STEM-based program development, implementation, and research.

4.4

Emerging Issues

Student and Teacher Truancy. Truancy has been labeled as one of the major problems in the Paraguayan schools in PISA-D. Numerous students (83.5% of 15 years old) miss the opportunity to learn because they are late or skip one or more daily classes. A recurrent absenteeism showed to be related to negative behaviors: those who miss classes are more likely to drop out of school, get poorly paid jobs, become pregnant unintendedly, abuse drugs and alcohol, and become delinquent (Baker et al. 2001; Hallfors et al. 2002; Henry and Huizinga 2007; Barber et al. 2010; Juvonen et al. 2012; Office for Standards in Education 2001, as cited in MEC 2018). Likewise, teachers also contribute to this problem, given that more than 80% of students report that their teachers were late or did not arrive for classes. Teachers, in turn, state that strikes or union meetings, health problems, and family matters are among the main reasons why they miss class. Furthermore, it is also known that students are often told to not go to school on rain and/or cold days; or when they are sick. Chronic absenteeism is typically defined as missing 10% or more of a school year; in the Paraguayan academic calendar, this represents around

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18 school days. Given the high proportions of declared absenteeism, it is likely that this phenomenon is affecting the education system (MEC 2018). Assessment Institute. Paraguay has implemented sample-based large-scale national assessments called “Sistema Nacional de Evaluación del Proceso Educativo” (SNEPE) since 1996. SNEPE measures learning in math, reading (both in Spanish and Guarani languages), and writing in students enrolled in the last year of every educational cycle (i.e., 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th grades). Moreover, Paraguay has taken part in four regional studies carried out by the Latin American Laboratory for Education Quality Assessment (LLECE) together with the Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Program (LAMP) of UIS, the International Civic and Citizenship Study (ICCS) of IEA, a study on preschool children in their homes (PRIDI), and PISA for Development (PISA-D). However, the government does not allocate financial resources to carry out large-scale assessments on a regular basis, proof of this is that all standardized measurements have been funded with external resources through specific projects. For instance, the first and second census-like SNEPE evaluations were funded by FEEI in 2015 and 2018, respectively. The lack of budgetary allocation not only restricts the periodicity of SNEPE but also the possibility of Paraguay’s continuity or participation in international studies outside the region, such as ICCS, PISA, PIACC, TIMSS, and PIRLS. The undervaluation of available data on students’ learning levels might be due to: (i) limited access and use of this information for decision making; and (ii) the lack of an assessment institute with legal, technical, and financial autonomy to lead the education standards definition, to design a national evaluation policy, and to install a quality assurance and accountability system. Although FEEI is funding a project since 2015 to set up the conditions for the installment of such an institute, achieving this goal has become a challenge. Education Management Information System in Tertiary Education. The availability of information is a vital element for the planning, management, monitoring, evaluation, and decision making in education systems. It is a basic resource to institute public debates, generate knowledge, offer services to citizens, make management more transparent, and democratize information. Even though there exists a working EMIS for ISCED 0 through 3, tertiary education lacks it. This poses a challenge for students, who cannot make an informed decision, which university or institute to choose, or for researchers, who cannot evaluate the quality of expenditure in tertiary education, to determine the different offers and the programs’ demands. It is necessary to develop and implement an EMIS for tertiary education in Paraguay, as a tool for continuous improvement. There is a genuine concern of stakeholders about the institutional, conceptual, methodological, functional, and accessibility weakness of tertiary education institutions to approach this matter. The government should promote the use of this information for decision making, planning, management, monitoring, and evaluation of educational policies for this level of education (Zarza 2018). Paraguayan Education Reform. The Ministry of Finance, MEC, and Ministry of Planning (STP) are working on the design of the Plan Nacional para la Transformación Educativa 2030 (PNTE), using the country’s National Development Plan 2030 as the reference framework, aligned with the education policy “Plan 2024” and

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international agreements. The final goal is to develop a long-term education plan (2019–2030) that states the priority areas and specific objectives, using a participatory process of consensus (OECD 2018).

5

Conclusion

Paraguay is a relatively young and small country, with a large proportion of people below 35 years old and a relatively low population density. The triple alliance post war time was characterized by political instability and dictatorship. Thirty years after the beginning of the democratic era in 1989, the country still suffers the effects of the past events and did not manage to establish a solid institutional basis to maintain the democratic structure regardless of the people who take over the country leadership. Paraguayan economy has shown to grow at solid pace, even though there is little industrial development and agriculture still represents an important contributing sector. This relatively sustained growth did not translate into an equal distribution of resources and opportunities. Consequently, poverty rates are still high, socioeconomic differences persist, and education and health are still the main areas where inequity and inequality are reflected upon. Paraguay has made, especially since the 1994 education reform, enormous efforts to improve both access to and coverage of education services by opening more schools, increasing the budget, recognizing the people’s cultural background, training teachers, and providing infrastructure and other school resources. There are, however, great challenges the country needs to face to weaken the conditional relationship between quality of education and socioeconomic status in order to break the vicious circle of poverty. First, access and coverage issues have not been entirely overcome, especially when moving toward the upper levels of education and when specific students’ characteristics are considered, such as language, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Second, an increase of education investment is needed, as well as quality improvement of the education expenditure at all levels, including tertiary education, for which there is not enough information to determine their expenditure efficiency. Third, staying in the school does not guarantee good learning outcomes or skills and competence development, in particular in socioeconomically disadvantaged contexts, where high education quality (measured in terms of school resources, completeness of offer, truancy, quality of instruction, compensatory programs, among others) is relatively scarce, if not null. The ministry of education has not been able to establish and strengthen supervision and a quality control system for the offered levels. It is even weaker for tertiary education (e.g., preservice teacher training) and alternative programs (e.g., vocational) in both private and public sectors. Likewise, the existing structure for tertiary education supervision still lacks experience, standards, and demanding protocols to monitor their education services. As a consequence, the education students receive does not relate to what the labor market requires, at the same time as the labor market does not provide many opportunities for newcomers. Therefore, transition to work becomes challenging and low-quality jobs are more likely to be taken by those who belong to poor households.

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Fourth, Internet access is a nationwide issue, and schools have not been able to close this technological gap between different socioeconomic contexts. The country needs to make great efforts to connect people from remote areas to the rest of the world, and to promote – through the education system – technology-based learning opportunities for all. In summary, a large set of issues need to be solved in order to not only guarantee the right of education, but also quality education for all, through consolidation of undertaken improvements and evidence-based decision-making processes.

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The Education System of Peru 1948–2021 from Hispanicization to Neoliberalism

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Luis Martín Valdiviezo Arista, Jonathan Eduardo Alvarado Ramos, and Mayra Salas Matienzo

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Before World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 After World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 A Pedagogical-Critical Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 A Decade of Destruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 The World Bank Reform 1990–2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The period following World War II begins with a succession of governments in Peru following a policy of alignment with the USA: the dictatorship of General Manuel Odría (1948–1956), which focused efforts on the construction of schools in urban areas (Great School Units); the democratic government of Manuel Prado (1956–1962), whose Inventory of the National Reality (Inventario de la Realidad Nacional) allowed a diagnosis of the national educational reality; the dictatorship of the Military Junta of Pérez Godoy (1962–1963), which created the Regional Education Directions and the House of Culture of Peru; and the first government of Fernando Belaúnde (1963–1968), which focused its education policy on increasing the number of school enrollments and on raising the teachers’ salaries. The military dictatorship of Juan Velasco (1968–1975) initiated a change toward a position of nonalignment with the governments of the USA and the USSR. This regime focused its education policy on a critical-pedagogical reform of the system. The schools were to become instruments of social transformation by L. M. Valdiviezo Arista (*) · J. E. Alvarado Ramos · M. S. Matienzo Departamento de Educación, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_29

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means of a process of awareness and the solution of the social, cultural, linguistic, economic, and gender injustices. The military dictatorship of Francisco Morales Bermúdez (1975–1980) deactivated this educational reform. Belaúnde was elected as president for the second time from 1980 to 1985. This period coincided with the start of the armed subversion of the Communist Party of Peru, Sendero Luminoso. This conflict tragically affected the Peruvian teachers, especially those who worked in rural and marginal urban schools, who were victims of an extreme violence coming from the subversive groups and from the repressive forces of the State. During the regime of Alan García (1985–1990), violence, chaos, and political corruption upset the national education system. The regime of Alberto Fujimori (1990–2000) embarked on an educational reform orientated toward and financed by the World Bank that emphasized constructivist methodologies and neoliberal conceptions of education. These methodologies and conceptions continue to this day. Keywords

Hispanization · Cultural imposition · Indigenism · Education reform · Interculturality · Neoliberalism

1

Introduction

This chapter describes the continuous dilemmas and tensions of the Peruvian public education system during the second half of the twentieth century up to our present day with respect to the challenges of serving a nation: (1) with a majority of indigenous and Hispanic roots and with African, Asian, and Middle Eastern minorities; (2) with extreme economic and gender inequalities; and (3) with military and civil governments identified with Western capitalist models, except for that of the period of 1968–1975. The chapter is divided into five parts. The first part describes the education policies prior to World War II, with special emphasis on the civilian education project born at the beginning of the twentieth century and the indigenista’s policy demands a few decades later. Both concepts were a response to the problem of integrating the Peruvian nation, whose search for a solution directly affected education. The second part explains the most important educational measures of the military and civil governments of the 1950s and 1960s, considering the state’s response in connection with international policies in the face of unprecedented migration from the rural to urban areas and the resulting new public service demands. The third part is dedicated exclusively to the educational reform of Velasco, not only because it was an unprecedented educational model, but because its creation and implementation was meticulous and profound, committed to understanding and transforming Peruvian society from the state planning apparatus to the traditional role of teachers, family heads, and students. The fourth part describes the dismantlement of Velasco’s education reform by the democratically elected

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governments and the direct consequences of the internal armed conflict on the rural education system. Finally, the fifth and last part summarizes the educational reforms from Fujimori’s government to today, with emphasis on the programs agreed by the World Bank, the introduction of international standards of control of educational quality (Programme for International Student Assessment, PISA) and the insertion of the interculturality model into the recent policies and programs. The Peruvian education system after World War II had the objective of cultural and linguistic homogenization of the country under Hispanic-Castilian urban-capitalist models. However, this objective has been continuously questioned from indigenistas, socialist, and, in the last few decades, intercultural points of view. On the other hand, gender inequalities in access to education have been reduced progressively to the point of nearly disappearing in urban sectors, although they still remain in rural sectors.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

2.1

Before World War II

The formation of the Peruvian Republic beginning with independence in 1821 was marked by tension between the Hispanic minority (Creoles of European descent) and the majority of the population, largely indigenous but also with minorities of African, Asian, and Middle Eastern origin. Mainly, the projects of the Creoles clashed with a vast cultural and social indigenous diversity (Contreras and Cueto 2015). (According to the Peruvian census 1876, the indigenous population in Peru represented 57.59% of the population.) Larson (1999) states that at the end of the nineteenth century, the idea of a mixed-race nation in countries like Peru was undesirable from the perspective of the political and economic interests of the Creoles. (A main obstacle, in accordance with the civilian thought, was the existence of a huge mass of indigenous people immersed in an economy of subsistence, lacking “civil life” and a minimal culture to integrate into national life; in sum, a group of people that became a “dead weight” for the country (Contreras 1996, 6).) The attempts to impose those interests on the indigenous political-cultural forms generated continuous uprisings beginning in the 1890s, following the country’s defeat to Chile in the War of the Pacific (Larson 1999, 558–703). Thus, the concern over possible indigenous uprisings that could subvert the Creole governments was intense at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. At the time, a group of Creole intellectuals adopted the scientific-racist English and French discourses of the era. These discourses allowed them to justify maintaining the colonial hierarchies in Peru, describing indigenous people, people of African descent, and Asians as inferior and ignorant. According to Patricia Oliart (2011), in the twentieth century, public education developed as a response to said hierarchical organization. On the one hand, local communities demanded the creation of schools and universities to integrate into national society. This demand was supported by the workers’ parties and the rural farmers’ movements.

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Nevertheless, the school and university expansion was often driven by electoral interests and the quality of the new schools and universities was neglected. (In the 1920s, teachers’ schools had been set up in the main cities of the country (Arequipa, Puno, Cusco, and Trujillo). To begin with, these were managed by European and North American teachers with good standards of quality. Unfortunately, the first teachers’ schools did not satisfy the expectations of the Creoles nor the demands of the indigenous groups. Moreover, the politicians used the creation of teachers’ schools as a tool to gain votes. However, many of these institutions did not have an adequate budget nor the future teachers with suitable qualifications (Oliart 2011, 28).) On the other hand, the progressive Creoles who identified with the civilian ideas saw in education the tool to improve the indigenous masses, which were considered a major obstacle to the country’s progress. The large majority of the indigenous communities lived at the margin of the Peruvian state and dominated large stretches of the national territory (Oliart 2011, 26–27). (Intellectual Francisco Graña coined the term autogenia (1908) to refer not to a type of improvement by means of genetic crossover, but on the basis of improving the health, nutrition, and education of the inferior groups: indigenous people, people of African descent, and Asians. Thus, in the face of the high illiteracy rates in Peru, the projects of the Creole elite focused on the creation of schools in the rural areas (De la Cadena 2004, 34).) In 1929, the state commenced the implementation of the Rural Education Nuclei (Núcleos Educativos Campesinos, NEC) with the economic support of the US government. This was the first NEC generation. For the Peruvian government, the NEC meant the insertion of the indigenous people into the productive system; for the rural farmers, they meant the possibility of standing up to the abuses of power of the large land owners. In the same year, the School Farm was created in Salcedo, Puno. This was a boarding school for indigenous adolescents directed by the Salesian catholic order. The objective of this boarding school was to “civilize” the young people, separating them from the “native influence” that supposedly promoted ignorance and a lack of patriotism. Later, in 1939, the indigenous culturization brigades would be formed, with the aim of dissuading the indigenous population from migrating, since the land holders feared that the Andean areas would be left without workers. To this end, the brigades made use of the Andean community models to attract young people from rural areas. In the 1940s, according to Kubler (1956), Peru had 6,207,967 inhabitants, of whom 2,856,000 were indigenous (46%). 57.6% of the inhabitants were illiterate (Cardo et al. 1989, 30). (For more detailed information, see: Oficina Nacional de Estadística y Censos (National Office of Statistics and Censuses). La Población del Perú (Lima: Series C.I.C.R.E.D. 1974), 256 http://www.cicred.org/Eng/Publica tions/pdf/c-c41.pdf) Moreover, the illiteracy rate was greater in the Andean regions: Puno 87%, Apurímac 87%, Ayacucho 85%, Huancavelica 84%, and Cusco 82% (Contreras 1996, 37). In that same decade, the indigenous educator José María Arguedas criticized what he called “the method of imposition” in education. With Spanish being the only

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language of school teaching, indigenous students did not achieve true literacy; their learning was limited to reading foreign characters that were not understood: The Indian pupil graduates from elementary school, returns to his means, tries to read a newspaper, a book, any text, and never manages to feel any interest in reading, because he is unfamiliar with 80% of the words that he reads, he pronounces them without understanding their meaning (. . .), he definitively loses any excitement in, any desire for reading, and enters again into the huge and nearly inalterable multitude of illiterate Indians, into the world of the ‘blind’ (ñausa), as they call with terrible bitterness those who cannot read.” (see Contreras 1996, 22)

Arguedas proposed “the cultural method,” consisting of alphabetization in the mother tongue. These pedagogical innovations, according to Contreras (1996), sought an integration of the Peruvian nation by means of affirming the cultural identity of the indigenous people. Arguedas proposed three important changes for Peruvian education: “1. The rural teachers should speak Spanish and be well-trained in the subjects they teach. 2. Likewise, the teachers should have a profound knowledge of and appreciation for the cultures of their students. Only thus will they be able to gain ‘the confidence and affection’ of the children and their communities. 3. The teachers should be well-trained in contemporary methods of teaching and be able to teach in the mother tongue of their students in the first years of school” (Oliart 2011, 31). In 1945, José Luis Bustamante y Rivero became president (1945–1948), supported by a political alliance of multiclass groups and the emerging middle class. This alliance sought to implement substantial reforms in favor of the popular sectors and to combat the centralization of power in the capital, Lima, exercised by the oligarchical groups. For the first time in Peruvian history, a government opted for an indigenist education model. Provincial intellectuals were incorporated into the Ministry of Education. Indigenista Luis Valcárcel, the Minister of Education, believed that the previous educational plans had not tackled the geographical and cultural complexity of Peru. He also identified the lack of budget for public education, which explained the teachers’ low wages. On January 4 in 1946, the government established the Peruvian-North American Cooperative Service (Servicio Cooperativo Peruano-Norteamericano, SECPANE). Under the influence of the indigenous culture, NEC were expanded in the regions of Puno, Cusco, Apurímac, Ayacucho, Junín, Huancavelica, Pasco, Huánuco, and Cajamarca. This was the second NEC generation. Left-wing intellectuals and indigenistas such as José María Arguedas participated in their implementation; moreover, the ideas of pedagogue José Antonio Encinas, also an indigenista, were reinvoked. The government of Bustamante y Rivero increased the proportion of the education sector from 10.1% to 17.1% of the national budget. During his presidency, the number of elementary schools increased to 4,882 in 1940 and was more than doubled to 10,512 elementary schools 8 years later. The number of teachers also increased exponentially: from 8,911 in 1940 to 22,238 in 1948 (Contreras 1996, 24). Moreover, the number of secondary schools went from 45 to 215 between 1940 and

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1948. With respect to the cultural and social impact of said democratization of secondary education, Contreras states: The mixed-race sector had finally reached secondary education; and even sectors of the indigenous and rural population had done so, who, in traversing the “strainer” of secondary education, began to be considered as “of mixed race” in cultural terms. (. . .) Many of them came from the interior provinces, with their studies signifying the fruit of a major personal sacrifice and the economic sacrifice of their families. (1996, 25)

In 1947, the entry examinations for the teachers’ schools were abolished (higher education institutions for training school teachers). Thus, many people of the bluecollar and rural sectors who had no opportunity to access higher education could become teachers. The influence of an indigenous model and the increase in the number of teachers and rural schools were a counterweight to the power of the land holders, mainly of the center and south of Peru. But the increase in the number of teachers’ schools was not reflected in their quality.

2.2

After World War II

Toward the 1950s, different social conflicts made it difficult to implement the civilian ideas and those of the indigenists in the field of education. On the one hand, the creation of rural schools faced the continuous opposition of the land holders, especially in the south of the country. On the other hand, the indigenous students’ parents saw in the alphabetization of the mother tongue a delay in Hispanicization. Girgio Albeti and Julio Cotler (1972) indicated the contradictory nature of the role of education as a “social filter,” as it created aspirations of social mobility that the oligarchical political order could not satisfy without first being radically altered (quoted in Contreras 1996, 45). The regime of General Odría (1948–1956) maintained a policy of alignment with the government of the USA and, therefore, of repression of any criticism of or resistance to capitalism in Peru. Under this dictatorship Colonel Mendoza Rodríguez occupied the Ministry of Education during two periods: from 1948 to 1953 and from 1955 to 1956. Mendoza Rodríguez developed the National Education Plan, focused on the military regime. According to this plan, each NEC had a complete elementary school with land for cultivation and livestock and taught agricultural techniques. This was the third NEC generation. In 1948, the government set up the National Education Fund, which financed the construction of school infrastructure. At the beginning of this government, the average years of schooling among rural women was 2, while among urban women it was 7; in the case of men, the average was nearly 6 years in rural areas, while in urban areas it was 10 years (Benavides 2006). Toward 1951, the Bilingual Schools in the Amazonia were launched following the agreement between the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) of the University of

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Oklahoma and the Peruvian government. (The Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) was founded by William Cameron Townsend in 1934. The SIL has existed in various countries in Latin America (Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Honduras, Suriname, Panama), Asia, and Oceania (Adanaque et al. 2011, 215).) In Peru, the initial campus of the SIL was established in Yarinacocha (Pucallpa), with Efraín Morote Best appointed by the Peruvian government as coordinator (Adanaque et al. 2011, 220). In 1952, this Institute began to train Indigenous teachers in order to later create bilingual schools. In 1956, there were 37 bilingual schools and 12 rural bilingual schools of the jungle that catered to 1.195 students of the Aguaruna, Amuesha, Huitoro, Bora, Ocaina, Yahua, Cashibo, Shipibo, Machiguenga, and Cocama communities (Cardo et al. 1989, 32). The exports of minerals to the USA increased due to the country’s participation in the Korean war. With this profit, 23 Great School Units (Grandes Unidades Escolares, GSU) were constructed for elementary and secondary education, 9 in Lima and 14 in 12 other cities in Peru. The GSU were a response centralized in the country’s capital and in the capitals of the departments to the schooling demands of an emerging urban middle class, stimulated by migration from rural areas to the cities. The GSU covered the final 2 years of elementary education and secondary education. These educational centers had health services, farms, workshops, and even housing for teachers. (Currently, these educational centers render services under the denomination of emblematic colleges (Colegios emblemáticos).) In order to have a teaching staff more interrelated with the state, the Odria’s dictatorship elaborate the Organic Statute of Teachers (Estatuto Orgánico del Magisterio), which converted teaching into a public career that was subject to recognitions, salary improvements, and a hierarchy. In the words of Minister Mendoza, during this administration: An Education Plan could not be carried forward without a teaching staff linked technically and spiritually to the work organized and directed by the Ministry. We must seek unity in teacher training with sufficient flexibility for the rural teachers’ schools the indispensable preparation to proceed in each case in accordance with the local needs of the environment in which they operate. Of a total of 19,532 teachers in 1949, there were 8,053 without an official qualification, 2,224 elementary school teachers, 4,321 teachers of other professions, and only 4,934 graduates with a background in pedagogical studies. The government therefore sought to balance out the level of qualifications offered at the urban and rural teachers’ schools. With a centralized criterion, justified by the purpose of elevating the quality of training, an attempt was made to merge the eleven urban teachers’ schools. Some of them were transformed into rural schools and the Central Teachers’ School for Men was created. This school, built with the support and assistance of SECPANE, was an advancement in the modernization of teacher training, which had been offered in the National Pedagogical Institute of Men, and which would later be transformed into the current National University of Education Enrique Guzmán y Valle, located in La Cantuta. (Cardó et al. 1989, 33–34)

In 1956, Manuel Prado y Ugarteche was democratically elected president with the support of an alliance between the country’s main political groups. His government was denominated as that of the “superconvivencia” (supercoexistence), as it reconciled parties with opposing political stances: that of the previous president

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Odría, the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana, APRA), and the party of Prado, which represented Lima’s oligarchical class. The economic model continued to have a liberal strand; however, the focus remained on an assistance-oriented state that responded to the needs of the popular sectors, provided that this did not entail structural changes. The Minister of Education was the historian Basadre (1956–1958), who ordered an Inventory of the “National Reality (Inventario de la Realidad Nacional)” in order to carry out a diagnosis. By then, the migration from rural areas to the cities had made clear the demand for education in the popular sectors. In turn, education in the rural areas had caused an important social impact. The rural leaders had accessed higher educational levels and now demanded structural reforms by the state, such as an agricultural reform. In 1958, President Prado promulgated Law 12.997, which allowed rural communities to build new schools with their own resources. According to Cardó Franco and others: The data of the Inventory of the Educational Reality show that from 1956-1957 there were 1,348,700 students enrolled, of whom 80% attended educational centers of the state, and that the population aged 5 and older possessed an average educational level of 2.8 grades. The schooling rate of the population aged between 0-24 years was 26.5% and illiteracy reached 42.9% of the population older than 14 years. In regard to the efficiency of the system, 35.3% of the total elementary enrollment corresponded to the first grade but only 5.4% constituted that of the final grade of this level. An analogous situation developed in secondary education: 34% in first grade, only 12.1% in the final grade. (1989, 50)

At the beginning of the administration, women on average had 3 years of formal study in rural areas, while in urban areas, women on average received 8 years of formal study. In the case of men, in rural areas, they received approximately 6 years of formal education, while in urban areas, it exceeded 10 years (Benavides 2006). During the 1960s, the Peruvian population was convinced that education was the most efficient way to achieve progress and the development of their families and communities. The myth of education was one of the motivations of migration from rural areas to cities in search of secondary or higher education services. In the face of this demand from the population, the politicians continued promising the construction of new schools and universities in the country’s regions (Ansión 1995). In 1962, a military junta led by General Pérez Godoy took power and called elections for the following year. Vice-admiral Pease was announced as Minister of Education and executed the Educational Decentralization Program (Programa de Descentralización Educativa), by means of which Regional Education Directorates were created and entrusted with the administration of budget, personnel, and technical-pedagogical supervision (Cardó et al. 1989, 86). Additionally, Pease established the “Year of Literacy” (Año de la Alfabetización), a campaign to eradicate illiteracy throughout the country, and promoted business schools. During this period, the House of Culture of Peru (Casa de la Cultura de Perú) was created,

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now the National Institute of Culture (Instituto Nacional de Cultura) (Cardó et al. 1989, 73). In 1963, the presidential election was won by Fernando Belaúnde Terry. Under his administration (1963–1968), the education policy sought to increase the number of enrolments, reactivate the construction of schools, and increase teacher salaries. A large percentage of public spending went toward education, “coming to represent 26.5% of the total spending of the state in 1966 and around 5% of GDP, one of the highest percentages in Latin America and equivalent to the percentages of developed countries” (Cardó et al. 1989, 74). At the start of the Belaúnde government, women on average had 4 years of formal education in rural areas, while in urban areas, women nearly received 10 years of formal education. In the case of men, in rural areas, it was 6 years, while in urban areas, it was slightly more than 10 years (Benavides 2006). There had been many expectations on the part of the popular and progressive sectors with respect to this administration, as Belaúnde had promised to carry out the agricultural reform. This led to many rural farmers advancing to the reform and occupying the large plantations, as well as to thousands of university students coming together in Popular University Cooperations (Cooperación Popular Universitaria) with the aim of supporting the rural farmers in the fields (Cardó et al. 1989, 65). Nevertheless, the APRA obtained a majority in the congress, forged alliances with bankers, exporters, and land holders, and opposed the Belaúnde government. The Cooperation program and the reform were stopped. The government itself resorted to the army to repress the invasion of the large plantations. These political crises, exacerbated by the majority in congress, affected the fulfilment of a national education policy: Interesting proposals of change such as the establishment of a basic education of nine grades, the generalization of an intermediate education before university, among others, figured only in the Development Plan 1967-1970, as the Parliament did not come to approve the new education law either. (Cardó et al. 1989, 76)

In spite of these difficulties, the Ministry of Education took on the responsibility of ensuring the continuation of the NEC and of creating the Communal Development Centers in the mountains of Peru. With an annual rate of 9.1%, greater than the demographic, the number of school enrolments doubled; enrolment in kindergartens increased by 100%; and the promotion of students who finished elementary school and who continued on to secondary school went from 63.4% to 75.9%. There were 111 teachers’ schools, and the number of young people in search of teacher training tripled. For Carlos Contreras, this number of teacher preparation schools was “excessive for the country” (Cardó et al. 1989, 75). Contrary to the elementary schools of short duration (2–3 years), where it was easier to abandon the alphabetization process, the single-teacher and complete elementary schools were created. With these measures, illiteracy was reduced from 37.7% in 1962 to 31.2% in 1968 (Cardó et al. 1989).

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Migration from rural areas to cities intensified in the 1960s. In 1962, the urban population represented 48.5%, while in 1968, it represented 55% of the population. According to sociologist Quijano, this phenomenon entailed another problem: the marginality of a population deprived of education, health, housing, and work, given the class-conscious, dependent order established by the oligarchy and the state (Quijano 1970). During the government of Belaúnde, Peru received important loans from the USA and the World Bank, to the benefit of American companies and Peruvian capitalists (Contreras 1996, 71). Velasco’s military regime severely criticized this dependency eon external forces. For the report on Planning and development of education in Peru (Planificación y desarrollo de la educación en el Perú) (1948–1985), said situation forced the Belaúnde government to respond to the growing demand by extending education services: On the one hand, (i) the impact of the migration coming from the rural environment that does not stop increasing, congests the existing educational services in the cities, making their extension obligatory, with the government also having to face the growing demands of a population eager to access the basic social services provided by the state, as a modality of redistributing the income; and on the other hand, (ii) schools and the achievement of knowledge, become or are perceived as a condition sine qua non for progress and social ascent in the new urban habitat of the rural migrant and his family. This reality transforms the 1960s to the highest point of the investment in national educational development, reinforcing the trend toward mass schooling initiated in the preceding decade (1985, 78). In 1968, the Belaúnde government was deposed by a military coup led by General Velasco. According to Benavides (2006), at the start of the regime, the average years spent by women in the formal education system was 5 in rural areas and slightly more than 10 in urban areas. In the case of men, it was nearly 7 in rural areas and more than 10 in urban areas.

2.3

A Pedagogical-Critical Reform

In 1969, the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces (Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas, GRFA) formed the Commission for Educational Reform (Comisión de la Reforma Educativa, CRE), chaired by educator Barrantes and consisting of more than a hundred specialists, whose main representatives were Salazar Bondy, Delgado, Peñaloza, and Chiappo. The CRE, organized into various subcommittees, was entrusted with analyzing each level of educational training (elementary, secondary, adult education) and formulating pioneering programs, as was done by educational psychologist Carmen Lora with respect to the preschool level. This meant an unprecedented collaboration between a group of military officials and an interdisciplinary group of civilians, “who were conscious of – and participated in – the academic and political criticism of education and the school system that was developing in Europe, the United States, and Latin America” (Apple, quoted in Oliart 2019, 168).

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One year later, the CRE findings and diagnoses were disseminated to the public by the General Report on the Reform of Peruvian Education (Informe General de la Reforma de la Educación Peruana) (known as the Blue Book due to the color of the dustjacket). The objective of this Report was to modernize the Peruvian education system, “in harmony with the social and economic changes desired by the military regime” (Oliart 2019, 168). With an anti-imperialist and anti-oligarchical ideology, this regime presented itself neither as Marxist nor as capitalist, opting, in contrast, for a path of radical development of the highly idiosyncratic character of Peruvian society: the Peruvian model. A revolutionary process is understood as “a revolutionary humanism, of the creation of a new Peruvian man, of the formation of a new society of social democracy with full participation and of national sovereignty” (Cardó et al. 1989, 98). Even if the revolutionary character of a regime has traditionally been associated with models of masses who come to power or bring to power a specific government to destroy the political and economic bases of the previous regime. Academics such as Trimberger have noticed the idiosyncratic nature – although still revolutionary – of the rise to power by means of a coup d’état of Velasco leading the GRFA in 1968. Calling them “revolutions from above,” he designates “the extralegal takeover of political power and the initiation of economic, social and political change” (1978, 3), led by military bureaucrats who, in turn, destroy the political and economic bases of the aristocracy or the upper class, without participation of the masses. By 1968, the major problem of the national project had not been resolved, which was expressed in the absence of a political integration of the popular classes into the system presided by the oligarchical class. Without learning to read and write, said sectors could not participate in the suffrage process: “The political regime, commonly termed oligarchical, maintained itself by the systematic exclusion of broad sectors of the population, which meant that most Peruvians were only indirectly incorporated into the national market and had a poor standard of living” (Pásara 1985, 309). In 1961, more than half of the population still did not speak Spanish in six provinces of the mountain range. Stacey Churchill states that in 1961, the national rate of illiteracy was 39% among persons older than 15, but reached an average of 65% in regions with high percentages of non-Spanish speakers (1980, 16). In the Report on the Planning and Development of Education in Peru, published in 1989, Peru is described as a country of contrasts. On the one hand, the political and economic power is held by a small white and Creole group, eager to imitate the models and institutions of industrialized nations; and on the other hand, the inhabitants of the Andes, the majority of them Quechua-speaking, without participation in the political debate (Cardó et al. 1989, 30). Given this state of affairs, the design of the educational reform was developed in confrontation with the ethnic and class divisions. From the first pages of the General Report, the role of the education reform within the model of the revolutionary policy is repeatedly stated. It is not purely a school reform. This reform depends on two central factors, “in extra educational rigor by nature: the national policy of development on the one hand, and the political

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orientation of the state on the other” (Education Reform Committee 1970, 5). Considering the problem of subdevelopment as a result of social domination, the GRFA conceives “a new and authentic concept of development” (Cardó et al. 1989, 30). This consists of a series of transformations at social, economic, and political level, by means of the full participation of social sectors traditionally marginalized. For Oliart, the political orientation of the education reform is to be understood in terms of a criticism of the failures of the Peruvian school system to be guided by national interests (2019, 147). In his Crónica de una reforma (Chronicle of a Reform), Barrantes highlights the conjunction between education and politics: “those of us working on the reform were convinced of the imperious need for a radical modification of our society, thanks to a collective work of politics and education” (quoted in Aguilar 2017, 26). Under a more critical vision, the Report on the Planning and Development of Education indicates that at this unprecedented level of politicization of Peruvian education the education debate compared to a political discussion that finally polarized the defenders and enemies of the regime (Cardó et al. 1989, 110). Inversely, the social transformation began in the classroom. In the words of Churchill: “instead of considering the educational problems as having originated mainly within the educational system, the Reform Committee treated the problems as symptoms” (1980, 24). The learning process could not be limited to the acquisition of knowledge without a critical dialog with the national reality, but rather it had to transcend the sphere of schooling and create a new social consciousness. The goal of education was to transform society. Against the blind capitalist developmentalism, interpreted in the General Report as “simple economic growth that only accentuates the unequal distribution of wealth,” “the humanist principle of man as an end in itself” was proposed (1969, 39). The foundation of these ideas, as well as the project of revolutionizing pedagogy in the classroom, can be tracked in Pedagogía do Oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) by Paulo Freire (Oliart 2019, 180). In the light of these: The separation between the individual and his social environment – a modern phenomenon endemic of alienation – would have to give way to an authentic interchange in which the individual and society would mutually stimulate and strengthen each other. The completeness and independence of the individual, the community and the subcultures would form part of a process that would lead to the elimination from society of the internal marginalization that has been the epidemic of Peru for such a long time. (Bizot 1976, 19)

In articulation with other economic reforms (agriculture, industry), the education reform expressed the possibilities of a radical transposition of all the vices concentrated in the old social structure. This is thus exposed in the strategy of the MediumTerm Development Plan 1971–1975 (quoted in Cardó et al. 1989, 110). The focus of the decision to embark upon the transposition of values consisted of what Churchill calls “a raising of awareness” (1980, 22). The latter, according to Oliart, “had to be pursued not only by means of the inclusion of new topics in the curriculum, but also through the diffusion of a critical agenda using all the means over which the State had control” (2019, 180).

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In this way, the expropriation of the communication media by means of the confiscation and transfer of the property of the daily newspapers to the communities (both industrial and rural) obeyed the promoting impulse of new social values. The daily newspaper Expreso assumed education by means of its regular publications. Therefore, the attempt to eliminate any sign of cultural alienation should be ascribed to said reform. This cultural intervention of the revolution included the creation of the National Institute of Tele-education (INTE), with a production of films for television and radio, as well as the foundation of the National Institute of Culture, which assumed the preservation and diffusion of the cultural heritage. In 1974, the Empresa Nacional de Radiodifusión del Perú (National Broadcasting Company of Peru, ENRAD Perú) was created with the objective of integrating the entire population into the reform. The General Report was the instrument that, in the hands of the teacher trainers, was to enable said raising of awareness of social oppression (Churchill 1980, 22). One of its objectives was to analyze the education system of the time in order to thus establish a critical diagnosis of the underlying obstacles not just to traditional education, but to the parallel socioeconomic factors. In the following, we will enumerate some deficiencies identified in the Report, each accompanied by a brief explanation: 1. Incapacity to resolve the problem of illiteracy. Toward 1969, the school system in the rural sector had been able to retain the students only for three consecutive years. 2. Neglect of the children of marginalized groups. The differences in the assimilation of techniques and abstract notions between children from different social and economic backgrounds were not considered. The lack of integration of Peruvian society is interpreted in terms of the reproduction of the interests of a privileged class by means of education. 3. Absence of recuperation mechanisms. No previous reform was concerned with providing an alternative for completing studies (and integration) for adults who had not been able to complete their secondary education. 4. Divorce between education and reality. Under a critique of the previous reforms, dropping out of school is explained by an absence of continuity between knowledge and the lives of the majority of people. 5. Alienation from national reality. In relation to the previous problem, the little or no knowledge of the real problems of the nation is observed, leaving aside “the sense of personal and national independence.” 6. Deficiency in the selection and consolidation of teachers. On the one hand, the vocation of teachers has not been resolved; on the other hand, the role teacher training has within the collective social task has not been recognized (Education Reform Committee 1970, 15). Stacey Churchill has emphasized the role of planning as a technical strategy of the regime to conduct social change. Therefore, the education reform is to be understood as a process of planning that demanded detailed organization and administration

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(1980, 19). In the words of the Minister of Education of the time, General Arrisueño, it was a complete renovation: “from the fundamental principles of education up to its aspects of implementation, that is, the infrastructure, the curriculums, the methodology, the training of teachers” (quoted in Churchill 1980, 20). With a view to institutionalizing the planning, the government promulgated the General Education Act no. 19326 in 1972. According to this law, for the first time women of all social classes were given access to training and leadership positions within the education system. Additionally, three levels were established: initial, basic, and higher education. The state committed itself to attending to the education of children aged under 6 years, using non-school forms of care such as the nurseries (in the first 4 years) and the kindergartens (for the other 2 years prior to school enrolment). This proposal received the support of UNESCO, UNICEF, and USAID. The main difference between the traditional system and the reformed system revolved around the restructuring of regular basic education (for students aged 6–15 years), for which the first years of secondary education were grouped with elementary education (Churchill 1980, 28). On the other hand, the Higher Professional Education Schools (Escuelas Superiores de Educación Profesional, ESEP) were created for grouping of the final years of secondary education with the first years of university. Upon then completing six or eight semesters, the students obtained a professional bachelor’s degree in a certain specialty. However, the diversification of these institutions was not limited to the sphere of regular education. Modalities such as basic work education, non-regular higher education, special education, extraordinary professional training, and educational extension were aimed at people who had not been able to continue or complete their regular studies (Cardó Franco et al. 1989, 115). Basic work education (La Educación Básica Laboral, EBL), for example, was intended as a separate system thanks to which students older than 15 could access university after completing elementary and secondary education: The creation of a parallel, unified system of adult education for the basic years, combined with the new ESEP, in which all types of instruction will be brought together, represents an important break with the separation of the classes and with the separation of academically oriented learning from learning oriented toward work. (Churchill 1980, 32)

The restructuring of basic education was represented under the concept of “permanent education,” (“educación permanente”) with which the regime’s concern for offering educational experiences to all the social sectors that recognized the continuous nature of the acquisition of knowledge was expressed. Teachers were to assume the role of students throughout their professional career, “participating in the learning process comparable to that of their own students and, additionally, sharing the same interests with them” (Churchill 1980, 37). Additionally, in contrast to the traditional education system, the new system sought to stimulate the use of indigenous languages. In 1975, Quechua was recognized as an official language of the Republic. For Churchill, this new bilingual education policy added “a completely different cultural content to the participation process” (1980, 63).

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In order to achieve community participation and the participation of local institutions, Núcleos Educativos Campesinos (the Rural Education Nuclei, NEC) were established and called “Communal Education Nuclei” (Núcleos Educativos Comunales). One of the major difficulties of the NEC at the start of the 1960s had been the lack of knowledge of the local indigenous culture on the part of some teachers; another, more extrinsic difficulty revolved around the prejudices of the Lima political class toward the indigenous citizens. This finally led to the deactivation of the NEC in 1962. The Ministry of Education reactivated the NEC in 1972. This was the fourth NEC generation. The rural schools were connected to just one large school or zonal office in capital cities of provinces of the Peruvian mountains and Amazonia. However, in the urban class, the NEC were not well received, as they were identified with an indoctrination in the classroom. With the formulas denominated “evaluation plus modification” and “reflection plus action,” Bizot understands the NEC as a result of a plan of operations and a diagnosis of the situation. And he states: “by means of such a process, the NEC subordinate itself to constant and healthy examination of conscience” (1976, 38). Bizot (1976) examined the NEC of three marginalized localities: Villa El Salvador (coast), Iscuchaca (Andes), and Imacita (Amazonia). In the case of Villa El Salvador (Lima), NEC #15 was established in the Fe y Alegría school, managed by Jesuit priests. This NEC offered the community courses in accounting, carpentry, typing, tailoring and design, home economics, and some programs specially aimed at women. The school curriculum covered the areas of mathematics, languages, social sciences, natural sciences, art, religious teaching, and sports. These areas developed in dialog with the students’ experiences and knowledge. In this respect, Bizot offers an example: A work file typical in social sciences (prepared by the teachers in collaboration) may ask the student to compile an inventory of the characteristics of the city with regard to housing, income, diet, and sanitation; to indicate the problems he/she considers most pressing, justifying his/her choice; to make a list of other problems still to be resolved; to determine what is being done to solve them, and to evaluate the efficiency of the effort made in this respect. (1976, 47)

Every 2 months, the students published a bulletin, Crítica, in which members of the community also wrote; they participated in a drama group representing work they had written collaboratively and organized a cinema club followed by debates. In the 1940s, rural school nuclei had been established in the region to which Iscuchaca belongs (Cusco), which were the predecessor to the NEC. The NEC of Iscuchaca, located in the center of Anta, integrated 31 educational centers. The implementation and functioning of the NEC required understanding the culture and language of the indigenous communities of the area. Nine promoters were key in this work; every week they work with more than a hundred people at their plots of land, workshops, or houses. These communications made it possible to elaborate the diagnosis and the action plan. The dialogue with the communities was used to revitalize their traditions of solidarity and face their difficulties. From that time, for

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example, a food program for the children was implemented. Moreover, art was used as a way of strengthening the communities: The theatrical representation, which the promoter helps to set up, is performed not just in the primitive setting of a remote town, but, as far as could be expected (an effort that attempts are being made to increase), across the length and breadth of areas neglected up to this point. These representations constitute somewhat more than a simple pantomime: they represent all the drama of a developing nation. (Bizot 1976, 54)

In Imacita, on the banks of the River Marañón, was NEC #9, which brought together 45 schools and depended on the Zonal Office of Jaén (a day’s journey away from Imacita). This office supplied this NEC with a technical teaching team, a trainer, and various small courses. This NEC mainly served Awajún communities. Among other services, the Zonal Office distributed the text of the Law on Indigenous Communities translated into the Awajún language and developed different initiatives to implement bilingualism. Thus, six schools became laboratories of a bilingual education program for the area. Whatever the subject the children learn, they learn to identify it according to the Spanish or Aguaruna terminology, according to the official language pertinent to them as Peruvians, as well as according to the regional language that corresponds to them as a people possessing a society, of certain traditions and of a culture of their own. By means of this experimental program, NEC No. 9 has assigned itself the task of eliminating discrimination, domination, and subordination. (Bizot 1976, 57)

The Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL, which had offices in the Ministry of Education) took on the responsibility of training a good part of the teachers of NEC #9 and other NEC. The Compañía de Jesús also has a school within NEC #9 that offers technical-professional training in agricultural matters. “. . .the Jesuits have encouraged their students to translate into Spanish a certain quantity of fables and stories in the Aguaruna language as part of their school activities” (Bizot 1976, 58). Moreover, Bizot highlights the work of the Colegio Agropecuario Valentín Salegui, where: the Indians learn to resolve their own health problems, serve their own agricultural needs, and practice the offices that are essential for them in their environment, so that, in this way, they are no longer obligated to emigrate to other places in search of work. (1976, 59)

As a result of these reforms, between 1968 and 1975 illiteracy decreased to 24.5% and the schooling rate of the population aged between 0 and 24 years increased to 47.0% (Cardó et al. 1989, 116). However, it was difficult for the administrative apparatus to adapt to the approach of this new law and the reform that stimulated it, which aimed to “separate education from the centralist, elitist, and paternalist system” (Bizot 1976, 39). The Report on Planning and Development explained how the administrative tasks acted little by little to the detriment of the work of the nuclei and their technical and psycho-pedagogical aspects. The ideological structure and the conceptual orientation of the reform and the mechanisms of the sectoral

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planning made the reforms possible in a short lapse of time. General Miranda, a member of the President’s Advice Committee (Comité de Asesoramiento del Presidente, COAP), added other limitations in an interview: fiscal and budgetary insufficiency and the conflict with teachers, who did not identify themselves with the reform (Cardó et al. 1989, 114). The Inca Plan had already identified national bureaucracy as an “object of change and an obstacle to change” (Churchill 1980, 20). Likewise, the regime was suspicious of the partisan inclinations of the teachers from the start and criticized the politicization of the teaching career when deciding on who would be part of the reform process (Churchill 1980, 20). For Churchill, this would explain the conformation of the Education Reform Committee of persons who did not belong to the Ministry of Education, with the exception of Andrés Cardó Franco, who became the Ministry’s Director of Planning (1980, 20). In contrast, the Committee was composed of left-wing intellectuals. However, the success of the reform depended on the commitment of the teachers within the general framework of the Education Act: “success depends entirely on the ability of the teachers to put into practice the intentions of the planners of the curricular reform” (Churchill 1980, 40). Contradictorily, one of the major obstacles in this educational reform were the teachers. According to Bizet, a considerable percentage were reluctant to modify their methods, “filled with a conservative mentality regarding their mission” (1976, 62). Judging that the poor quality of their performance reflected the decrease in the academic level in the training of teachers, the GRFA decided to close a hundred teachers’ schools (Oliart 2019, 187). Finally, it is necessary to add to this the lack of dialogue between the military government and the Sole Union of Peruvian Education Workers (Sindicato Único de Trabajadores de la Educación Peruana, SUTEP). This Union had been born in opposition to the regime. The previous government had recognized the teachers’ right to unionize in Act No. 51215. Since then, the unions maintained relations with the Ministry of Education, integrating by means of their representatives some technical committees as part of the National Council on Teaching Evaluation. However, the military government did not acknowledge the teacher unions, who managed to unite under the SUTEP. Thus, a prolonged period of noncommunication began (Oliart 2019, 111). Recent personal conversations with members of the SUTEP from the 1970s have revealed an internal fight to occupy the leadership of the teachers between the pro-Soviet communist party and the Maoist communist party. The pro-Soviet sector decided to support the education reform, while the Maoist sector opposed because of it being a “reform” and not a “revolution.” This latter sector won the leadership of the union. A coup d’etat by General Morales Bermúdez followed in 1975, who, after promising to deepen the reforms initiated by Velasco, reversed them just a few months later. He also realigned the government with the USA and followed the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund. One of these recommendations was to deactivate the education reform. The period of government by Morales Bermúdez ended in 1980.

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A Decade of Destruction

In 1980, Belaúnde, a candidate of Acción Popular, was elected as president for the second time. During this period (1980–1985), the undoing of the changes introduced by the education reform was completed. Among other aspects, the Communal Educational Nuclei (NEC) became Educational Supervisions, later named Education Service Unions (Unidades de Servicios Educativos) (Apaza 2016). This was the end of the NEC. Additionally, the textbooks produced during the reform were removed from circulation and 3000 teachers who had been dismissed during the military regime were rehired (Oliart 2011, 50). At the start of this period, the average years spent by women in the formal education system reached 6 in rural areas and exceeded 10 in urban areas. Meanwhile, the average years of education for men in rural areas was nearly 8 and slightly less than 10 in urban areas (Benavides 2006). At the start of 1980, the Communist Party of Peru, Sendero Luminoso (SL), of Maoist orientation, began its armed subversion. This affected the relations between the teachers and the government, which were already conflictive, due to the acerbation of the economic crisis and the drop in teacher salaries. SL proselytized especially in the education faculties of the public universities, whose graduates were incorporated into the urban and rural public school system. Based on the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Informe Final de la Comisión de la Verdad y la Reconciliación, CVR), Oliart indicates that it was in this period that the greatest number of detentions and executions of teachers were carried out both by SL and by State law enforcement entities (2011, 50–51). Toward the end of the Belaúnde administration, a new Teachers Law was approved (Law 24029). This Law established five scales in the teaching career, thus prioritizing the criterion of seniority. The responsibility for regulating and implementing this law passed to the following administration. The APRA candidate, Alan García, was elected president for the period 1985–1990. According to Oliart, the Ministry of Education was used as a resource to give work to the members of the APRA. This form of clientelism led to arbitrary dismissals in offices and schools to give way to the hiring of unqualified persons. During this government, relations with the SUTEP were nearly always conflictive. Only toward the end were the regulations of Law 24029 promulgated (2011, 52–56). In general, the level of education in Peru decreased in the 1980s due to the economic crisis and the armed violence unleashed by the subversive groups and the law enforcement entities (army and police). According to the Final Report of the CVR, teachers and the young people at university found themselves in a situation of social exclusion. The teachers were no longer middle class citizens due to the continuous reduction in their salaries since the 1970s. On the other hand, the number of students increased. There was no greater investment to ensure educational quality. In the more rural areas, the education system became an institution that reproduced inequalities and exacerbated the frustration of the excluded rural farmers.

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According to the CVR, the abandonment of the public education system by the State, especially in the provincial schools and in the public universities, facilitated the propagation of Maoist-fundamentalist discourses such as those of Sendero Luminoso. The latter took advantage of the teachers’ situation and the abandonment of the schools to propagate its “popular war” in schools and universities. Hundreds of teachers were victims of the violence from both sides of the conflict: In an interview given to the magazine Idéele in 1992, Olmedo Auris refers to how between 1980 and April 1992 the arrested- victims of enforced disappearance teachers reached a total of approximately 300; Víctor Manuel Quechua, in his book Perú, 13 años de oprobio (Peru, 13 years of oppression) indicates that the socioeconomic losses that occurred between 1980 and 1993 includes the death of 127 teachers; the First White Book Project of the National Defense (website of the Ministry of Defense) also considers the number of teachers who died between 1980 and 1993 to be 127; and, for the Documentation Center of DESCO, the total number of teachers who were arrested or went missing between 1980 and 1993 is 112. It should be noted here that the institution that should have handled more exact figures, in order to group those affected directly, is SUTEP; however, it possesses neither updated nor systematized archives, which limits to some extent the historical reconstruction of the repression endured by the teachers. (Truth and Reconciliation Commission 2003, 595)

3

Organizational Principles

3.1

The World Bank Reform 1990–2020

The implementation of the Perestroika (1985), the fall of the Berlin wall (1989), and the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1991), together with the military defeat of the Peruvian Maoist revolutionary group Sendero Luminoso (1992), impacted on the neoliberal reorientation of the Peruvian State beginning with the administration of Alberto Fujimori (1990–2000). In general, in this period, the majority of the countries of Latin America adapted to the Washington Consensus as the only viable path for their development. The neo-liberalization of the Peruvian State came with a reform of the public education system financed with loans from the World Bank. According to Oliart, these “loans for the development of social policies . . . formed part of the Brady Plan, as a condition for the reinsertion of Peru into the international financial system” (2011, 69). This reform was similar to those implemented in other countries of the region. The Fujimori administration did not elaborate a central discourse that formed the basis of its educational proposal; it only made use of “loose phrases such as modernity, educational quality, freedom of teaching” (Morillo, 4). Thus, in the first few years, the work of the Ministry of Education focused on the emergency programs (La escuela defiende la vida/School Defends Life) to offer food to more than 3 million children and adolescents in the public schools. These programs were a response to the increase in poverty generated by the program of economic adjustment recommended by the International Monetary Fund. Later, the General Diagnosis on Peruvian Education (1993), elaborated by the World Bank, the German Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), UNESCO,

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and the Ministry of Education itself, centered the improvements on overcoming the material, methodological, salary, administrative, and management deficiencies at the schools (Morillo, 5). Beginning with this Diagnosis, the government initiated an education reform based mainly on the proposals of the World Bank. The reform was announced by Minister of Education Jorge Trelles in 1994. The key reference points in this reform were reduce administration build schools, and substitute the dogmatic and memoristic methodology (in the teaching of disarticulated subjects) for a constructivist methodology integrating subjects and centered on interaction between students and teachers (De Belaúnde et al. 2013). By the time the education reforms of the 1990s began to be introduced in the classrooms, the authoritarian relationships between teachers and students were present not only in specifically disciplinary aspects such as the maintenance of order and silence in the classroom, or the use of a sole uniform, but were also evident in the teaching methodologies used in class and the pedagogical assumptions behind them (De Belaúnde et al. 2013, 15). With respect to the pedagogical practices in the classrooms, this Diagnosis “does not go deeper into the background that said characteristics reveal” (De Belaúnde et al. 2013, 14). That is, the promoters and managers of this education reform avoided analyzing and discussing with the teachers, learners, and Peruvian families the cultural, historical, economic, and political context in which the schools function. According to Oliart, “The process was characterized by the use of a language and methodologies covered in technical arguments that avoided the clearly political aspects involved in the reform” (2011, 65). The break-up between the different teams that were to carry out the reform of the curriculum, of the school texts, and the training of teachers, as well as the disagreement that occurred between the NGOs, universities, and the administrative personnel of the Ministry of Education (Ministerio de Educación, MINEDU) were obstacles to the satisfactory implementation of the MECEP (Proyecto de Mejoramiento de la Calidad de la Educación Peruana) (De Belaúnde et al. 2013). Added to this were the MINEDU decisions regarding quantitative data showing immediate improvements under the double demand of the central government, which sought to self-legitimize, and of the officials of the World Bank, which financed the reform (De Belaúnde et al. 2013). According to Oliart, the incongruencies of the reform were due largely to the fact that: “The government of Fujimori combined a populist presidential style and a corrupt bureaucracy with the application of neoliberal policies designed after the Washington Consensus” (2011, 67). The PLANCAD commenced its implementation in 1995 with the elementary school teachers. In 1997, it was extended to the preschool teachers and in 1998 to the secondary school teachers. Its main aim was to improve the technical-pedagogical quality of teaching with constructivist focus. During the implementation process, the New Pedagogical Focus (Nuevo Enfoque Pedagógico, NEP), which the reform proposed, was constructed. No official document was ever prepared regarding the NEP (De Belaúnde et al. 2013). The administrators of PLANCAD called on “universities, higher education institutes (HEI), NGOs, and other institutions to

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stand to be part of the program and offer training, with the aim of ensuring better national coverage” (Oliart 2011, 95). According to Carmen Trelles, the success of PLANCAD depended on teacher training. (For more information, Formación continua de docentes en servicio. Lima: Ministry of Education, 2002.) The call of the Ministry of Education directed at the educational institutions to tender as executors of this training indicated that the quality of the entire education system depended on: Initial, diversified, and regionalized training, in relation to strategies of active methodology, techniques and resources that generate the necessary conditions for the optimal use of time, the active participation of the students in their learning, the application of formative evaluation strategies in human values and differential evaluation strategies. This had to take into account their needs and their different rates of learning, based on the New Pedagogical Focus. (2002, 24)

This reform neglected the situation of the educational institutes and of the education faculties, from which the authoritarian and memoristic educational tradition (which Paulo Freire called “banking”) held by the majority of the teachers in the public system emerged. It was training with a virtual absence of reflection and criticism at all levels, a very restricted concept of knowledge and learning, and a practically non-existent use of reference materials (with the exception of those of encyclopedic type, which led to a fairly superficial treatment of the information). (De Belaúnde et al. 2013, 27)

In general, the academic demand of these public and private institutions was very low and the teaching career lacked prestige in the dominant sectors of the country due to their low salaries. At the end of the 1990s, teachers earned 20% of what they had earned in the 1960s (De Belaúnde et al. 2013). However, the Fujimori administration authorized (without major evaluation) the creation of 95 private educational institutes and 53 public educational institutes throughout the 1990s (Oliart 2011). In 1997, under the motto “To make our education the best in the Americas,” the Fujimori administration granted free health insurance to students aged between 3 and 18. According to José Rivero (2005), between 1997 and 1998 UNESCO carried out a comparative study of 13 countries of the Americas. Peru was the only country that did not authorize the publication of its results. These results would point to an educational regression in the Peruvian system. A short time later, the results obtained both in the National Evaluation of Student Performance (Evaluación Nacional de Rendimiento Estudiantil) and in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Programa Internacional de Evaluación de Estudiantes, PISA) in 2000 led a good part of the national education community to conclude that the majority of Peruvian students did not achieve basic skills in communication or in mathematics. Peruvian students came last among the participants. For this reason, the public education system was declared a national state of emergency in 2003 (Rivero 2005).

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In 2006, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, in collaboration with the World Bank, published a collection of reports entitled Toward high-quality education in Peru: standards, accountability, and capacity building. Education quality is thus defined as “learning achievement on some standardized test” (World Bank 2006, 3) and the PISA Assessment was accepted as the global standard of quality compared across countries. In 2000, Peru’s performance was “worse than that of any other participating country” (World Bank 2006, 3). The World Bank report states that “Peru’s main problem in the education sector is quality, and more specifically, providing quality education to the poor” (World Bank 2006, 23). This was translated into the need to improve performance in the national and international standardized tests of the students coming from the rural and urbanmarginal sectors. Regardless, according to this report from 2006, the results obtained by Peru in PISA 2000 were not disastrous: Peru was one of the poorest countries to participate in PISA 2000 and also one of those that most recently had advanced toward mass literacy. Of all countries included in PISA 2000, Peru had the second-highest rate of young people . . . If one takes these disadvantage factors into account simultaneously, Peru’s performance on PISA 2000 was only somewhat worse than expected. (World Bank 2006, 3)

For José Rivero (2005), the main problem of Peruvian public education was the low quality of teaching. This crisis was expressed: In the existing contradiction between the major efforts nearly all Peruvian families make by advocating for their children access to adequate education and the non-correspondence to those efforts within a system that is not centered on the student as its ultimate end. (2005, 200)

Rivero (2005) identifies three key factors in this contradiction: teachers, financing, and management. With respect to the teachers, he considers the teaching condition to be affected by the entry of low-quality professionals into the public system. This was conditioned by the proliferation of low-quality universities and institutes dedicated to teacher training, as well as to short-termist and partisan trade union activity. In relation to financing, Rivero (2005) says that state investment in public education is one of the most reduced in the region. In 1990, it reached its lowest level, with the equivalent of 1.6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). After a progressive recuperation, in 2000, it reached the equivalent of 3.2% of GDP. However, 90–95% of the education budget goes toward salaries and pensions. For Rivero, the management has been strongly affected due to: . . . successive improvisations and the lack of an agreed direction in national education. Disorder and corruption have been constant in the midst of a policy that favored the fulfillment of detailed standards over the quality of the education services. (Rivero 2005, 206)

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During Fujimori’s 10-year government, there were 13 education ministers (Oliart 2011, 75). The education budget for the schools of the regions was administered by the Ministry of the Presidency until 2000, which sought to increase and consolidate the popularity of the president more than the quality of education in the poor sectors of the country. For this reason, there was no transparency in the evaluation of the quality of the latter. Only in the regions of Lima and Callao did the Ministry of Education manage the school budgets. For their part, the administrative and pedagogical roles of the Regional and Sub-regional Directorates were not well established. Many teachers of mediocre performance had taken the offices of these Directorates. Finally, the school directors did not have primary decision-making authority in the selection, hiring, and evaluation of the teachers (Rivero 2005). According to Oliart, another characteristic of the Fujimori administration was its rejection of the Sole Union of Peruvian Education Workers (Sindicato Unificado de Trabajadores de la Educación Peruana, SUTEP), to such a point that the first Minister of Education of his government between July and December 1990, Gloria Helfer, had to step down mainly due to this policy of marginalization against SUTEP. Helfer stated I stepped down [when] the most essential aspect for any transformation in the education sector was severed [that is] the relationship with the teachers. What they asked me [to do was] exploit the teachers, [and I did not want to lose] the link, that communication vessel that is between emotional and administrative as well, is it not? That is, they are people who depend on your management. (Oliart 2011, 57)

The projects that promoted the reform had first to be approved by the World Bank (Oliart 2011). To avoid the obstacles that the regular employees of the Ministry of Education placed on these projects, offices were created ad hoc and professionals who had graduated from private universities, from the social sciences faculty, and with experience working in NGOs were hired as consultants. Moreover, many of them had a political past associated with the left wing (Oliart 2011, 75). These professionals administered the loans and donations of the international cooperation, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the World Bank to finance the reform. The differences between the regular employees and the consultants hired for the different projects of the reform also reached salary matters. All of this generated more conflicts and incoordination that undermined the success of the projects. Oliart (2011) states that this education reform also had three lines of intervention: decentralization, gender equality, and bilingual intercultural education (educación intercultural bilingüe, EIB). Ultimately, the decentralization was to give greater efficiency to the local schools. This clashed with the centralist practices of the central government. Gender equality was tackled by training the in-service teachers. However, the greatest obstacle, far from being conceptual in nature, resided in the lack of material resources. Girls from poorer families have greater obligations in home life. Thus, gender inequality in school graduation becomes more dramatic as economic inequality deepens. The BIE was restarted in its linguistic and educational

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aspects but ignoring its criticism of racism and cultural injustices. For this reason, indigenous organizations were excluded in the design and implementation of the BIE projects. The Constitution of 1993 had established the right to ethnic and cultural identity, as well as the encouragement of bilingual and intercultural education. Additionally, it declared the native languages official in the localities where they predominate. However, as Alessandra Dibós (2005) has pointed out, the State confined interculturality to the field of education. For Valdiviezo (2012), with this confinement, interculturality was excluded from the economic and political debates so as not to question the hierarchies of power established in Peruvian society. What is more, the MINEDU restricted educational interculturality to the rural sectors. In the 1990s, a minority of private schools became affiliated with the Diploma of the International Baccalaureate Organization (IB). In the last few years, the High-Performance Schools (Colegios de Alto Rendimiento, COAR) managed by the public system have also been affiliated with the IB (Guadalupe et al. 2017). During the Toledo government (2001–2006), the MINEDU published the National Program of Languages and Cultures in Education (Programa Nacional de Lenguas y Culturas en la Educación), prepared by the National Directorate of Intercultural Bilingual Education in 2002. The general objective of this Program was to address cultural diversity in order to promote the equality, equity, and democratization of the education services. However, throughout the document, only six native languages are mentioned, the cultural diversity to be addressed is not described, nor are the historical and systematic cultural injustices in Peruvian society alluded to. According to Valdiviezo (2012), the discourse of this Program implicitly protects the privileged position of Hispanic culture. In 2003, the Congress of the Republic promulgated the General Law on Education. According to this Law, the Peruvian education consists of the following principles: (a) An ethical approach, by which education promotes values as peace, solidarity, justice, liberty, honesty, tolerance, responsibility, workforce, truth, and respect for the rules of coexistence. (b) Equality of opportunities in education. Everyone has fair and equal access to a good quality education and treatment. (c) Inclusion, which integrates people with disabilities, socially excluded groups, especially in the rural area, regardless of ethnic, religion, and sexual background. (d) Quality of education. (e) Democracy measures to promote respect for human rights. (f) Interculturality, which promotes mutual respect and mutual awareness of preserving the cultural identity of each individual. (g) Ecological awareness, which raises awareness of respect, care, and preservation of nature. (h) Creativity and innovation, which involves production of knowledge in all content areas.

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Article 8 of this Law states interculturality to be one of the central principles of Peruvian education “for the harmonious coexistence and interchange between the diverse cultures of the world.” A notion of interculturality amiable to differences and open to global aspects is used. Article 20 of this same law establishes that “Intercultural bilingual education is offered throughout the education system: a) It promotes estimation and enrichment of one’s own culture, respect for cultural diversity, intercultural dialog, and awareness of the rights of the indigenous peoples, as well as of other national and foreign communities.” The “indigenous peoples” are the only explicit reference to a cultural identity mentioned from a different “we” perspective but whose identity and position of power are not specified. In 2004, the National Curricular Design for Secondary Education (Diseño Curricular Nacional para la Secundaria) was published, which assigns interculturality a transversal role in the design of education policies, as “it recognizes the importance of plurilingualism and ethnic and cultural diversity, and values the different cultures that make up the national identity.” Nevertheless, Valdiviezo (2012) indicates that in spite of said assignment, neither the linguistic nor the cultural diversity of Peru is described in the Area of Social Sciences. On the other hand, the Area of Language-Communication uses the term “language” as a synonym for “Spanish.” The Area of Foreign Languages is limited only to English and the Area of Religion refers to religion as a synonym for Catholicism. All non-Catholics are even called “non-believers.” During the second Garcia government (2006–2011), the MINEDU promulgated the National Education Project Until 2021 (Proyecto Educativo Nacional Hacia el 2021, PEN 2021) in 2007. Initially, this Project was drawn up by the National Council of Education beginning with consultations and dialogue with diverse sectors of the Peruvian educational community. In the text of PEN 2021, discrimination based on social class and gender is identified as the main obstacle to achieving quality in public education. However, this same text concedes that this discrimination affects rural and bilingual students more: “Perhaps there exists no more emblematic expression of this situation than the failure in the learning of reading and writing, which is especially grave among the rural and bilingual population, victims of a sort of educational apartheid” (2007, 32). Rural and bilingual are two characteristics directly associated with indigenous Peruvian citizens. Although ethnicity is a relevant factor in a situation called apartheid, the text does not include ethnic matters in the analysis of the educational reality of the country. In 2008, the Commission of Andean, Amazonian, and Afro-Peruvian Peoples in the Peruvian Congress presented for discussion a law project that regulated the use, preservation, and promotion of native languages. This project was discussed intensively in the Congress and in the communication media before being rejected by the majority of members of Congress as well as the communication media. According to Valdiviezo (2012), the intensity of the discussion and the final result express how controversial the topics of cultural and linguistic discrimination are within Peruvian society. In the final year of the government of Humala (2011–2016), the National Curriculum was renewed. This Curriculum reaffirmed interculturality as a

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transversal principle of basic education as a whole, as well as bilingualism in the cases of communities with mother tongues different to Spanish (Guadalupe et al. 2017). According to Guadalupe and others, toward the end of the second decade of this century: The expansion of elementary education has reached near-universal levels; secondary education has not achieved this same level of penetration; and preschool education has achieved wide coverage, although at a later stage and with an important participation of non-school programs. This expansion is not limited to the urban sphere: in rural areas, elementary education is also close to universality, while the difficulties related to preschool and secondary education are more acute. (2017, 49)

In general, according to data obtained by intersecting the Population Census of 2009 and the School Census of 2016, 95.6% of children aged 6 years in March 2016 commenced first grade in elementary education. The Peruvian regulations orders precisely this. 3% commenced first grade at age 5. A remaining percentage of 1.7% will possibly have done so late. However, only 49.3% of adolescents aged 12 years commenced the first grade of secondary education that year. 25% did so the previous year. 11.4% would do so in 2017. 6.1% would begin in the following years. In 2014, 54.4% of adolescents aged 17 had already completed secondary education. It is estimated that 25.6% will do so in the following years (Guadalupe et al. 2017). The greatest difficulties are presented in the evaluation of learning achievements. Since 2007, different standardized evaluations have been implemented. The most important at elementary level is the Censual Student Evaluation (Evaluación Censal de Estudiantes, ECE). This covers only reading comprehension and mathematics. In regard to secondary education, an ECE was performed only for the second grade of secondary education in 2015. However, Peru participated in PISA in 2009, 2012, and 2015. The results indicate that more than 80% of students do not reach the desired level of reading comprehension and around 90% do not do so in mathematics either (Guadalupe et al. 2017). With respect to the profile of the teachers (according to the National Teacher Survey (Encuesta Nacional de Docentes, ENDO) of 2014, women occupy 96% of the positions in the preschool and elementary levels, while in secondary education, they occupy only 48% of the positions. 20% of preschool teachers have an indigenous language as their mother tongue, while in elementary and secondary the figure is 15%. Additionally, around 10% of preschool and elementary teachers have a master’s degree or a doctorate, while around 15% have such in secondary education. 58% of preschool teachers and 65% of elementary school teachers were educated at an institute, while 56% of secondary teachers were educated at a university. 83% of teachers in public schools were educated in public institutions, while in private schools 70% come from public institutions. On average, public or private school teachers attend one training course per year. The topics on which the majority request training are: (1) strategies and didactics of the learning areas, (2) teaching materials and use of ICTs, and (3) student psychology and culture. Preschool teachers register absences at 20%, elementary school

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teachers at 25%, and secondary education teachers at 29% (Guadalupe et al. 2017). The same National Teacher Survey 2014 (ENDO 2014) points out that the three main factors to promote improvements in educational practice are: exchanges with colleagues, access to the Internet, and access to reference materials. On the other hand, the main obstacles to improving educational practice are: insufficiency of educational materials, lack of knowledge of educational strategies, and inadequate educational infrastructure. Only 36% of public school teachers agreed to being evaluated, compared with 50% of private school teachers who agree to evaluation. With respect to the Teacher Reform Law (Ley de Reforma Magisterial) promulgated in 2012, approximately 50% of teachers consider it harmful, although they acknowledge that the Law brought an increase in salaries, training opportunities, and possibilities of promotion. The worse aspect of this Law, they say, is that it establishes retirement at 65 and introduces labor instability and the change of level in the teacher scales (Guadalupe et al. 2017). With respect to the profile of the school principals, according to the National Survey of Educational Institutions (Encuesta Nacional de Instituciones Educativas, ENADU) (2014), 86% of the preschool level are women; at elementary level, 35.6%; and at secondary level, 23.1%. The majority of principals at all levels are 45 years or older, although at the preschool level 14% are younger than 35 years old. On the other hand, 14% of preschool principals speak at least one indigenous language; 22% at elementary level; and 18% at secondary level. Moreover, 47% of preschool principals, 44% of elementary school principals, and 50% of secondary principals are high school or university graduates. Finally, 14.4% of preschool principals, 17.6% of elementary school principals, and 24.1% of high school principals are postgraduates. The current structure of the Peruvian education system consists of four levels: I. Comprehensive early childhood programs: An initial first-cycle education that corresponds to ages 0–2 is considered. II. Regular basic education: This is compulsory and universal, and it is taught in both public and private institutions. It covers three stages: 1. Second cycle initial education for children from 3 to 5 years old. 2. Primary education that regularly consists of six degrees, aimed at children between the age of 5 and 11. 3. Secondary education that regularly consists of five degrees, aimed at students between the age of 12 and 16. There are three modalities: scientific-humanist, technological-productive, and commercial. Unfortunately, the low investment for the implementation and the few ties with productive sectors mean that very few schools offer these last models so the scientific-humanist variant is predominant in Peru’s secondary education system. On the other hand, there is alternative basic education aimed at people who were unable to meet the corresponding grades during the age ranges established by regular basic education. In addition, special education is offered for students

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who have a different capacity that does not allow them access to regular basic education. Moreover, few private secondary-level educational institutions and an even smaller group of state secondary educational institutions have chosen to join the International Baccalaureate Organization. These optional programs offer an additional year compared to regular secondary basic education. III. The new University Law (Law 30220) was approved in 2014 and returned to the State the regulation of the Peruvian university education system for the licensing of university institutions and the supervision of programs. Higher education is divided as follows: (a) University higher education. It offers three academic degrees: bachelor, master, and doctorate. In addition, colleges offer specialization programs, diplomas, or courses that do not involve obtaining academic degrees. (b) Non-university higher education is governed by Law 30512 enacted in 2016. This law considers two modalities: (c) Higher education institutes (IES) and arts schools that offer professional certifications. (d) Schools of technological higher education (EES), which would give a first academic degree. This variant was established in Law 30512 of 2016 so that students of technical higher education have access to university academic degrees. IV. Occupational education offered in institutions for work in manual trades usually aimed at people who have not completed regular basic education. Structure of Peruvian education and its correspondence to ISCED 2011: Ages 0-2

3-5

6-11

12-15

Basic educationa

Level Elementary education (I cycle) Elementary education (II cycle) Primary school

Duration 3

Compulsory Note No Schooled and non-schooled

3

Yes

6

Yes

Secondary school

5

Yes

Technicalproductive education

It varies

No

Schooled, non-schooled and special Regular (underage), alternative (youth and adults), and special education Regular (underage), alternative (youth and adults), and special education Certificates based on occupational orientation courses

Equivalence ISCED 2011 ISCED 0

ISCED 0

ISCED 1

ISCED 2 and ISCED 3

ISCED 2C y 3Cb

(continued)

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Level University extension

Duration –

Nonuniversity higher education Nonuniversity higher education University higher education University higher education University higher education

3

Compulsory Note No Certificates or diplomas based on short courses No Technological, pedagogical, and artistic

Equivalence ISCED 2011 ISCED 4B

ISCED 5

5c

No

High schools that ISCED 6 offer an academic degree

5c

No

Bachelor’s degree

ISCED 6

2c

No

Master

ISCED 7

3+

No

Doctorate

ISCED 8

Authors’ elaboration, based on the ISCED Mapping of the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) In basic education, cycles operate as horizons in which expected learning achievements must be achieved, considering that not all students progress at the same pace in all areas b Technical-productive education does not appear in ISCED Mapping c The duration of university higher education programs (ISCED 6 and 7) is defined by the number of credits (a credit equals 16 theoretical teaching hours or 32 internships) a

One of the most serious shortcomings of Peru’s education system is the failure to offer early childhood, special, alternative, technological-productive, and commercial education in many of the country’s educational communities. This limits the right to education for the most vulnerable groups. Moreover, when these programs are offered, it is rarely done with linguistic and cultural relevance. During the period 2016–2021, the governments of Kucynski, Vizcarra, Merino, and Sagasti succeeded each other. In 2017, the National Census 2017 was carried out: the XII population census, as well as the VII housing census and the III census of indigenous communities of Peru. 23,196,391 persons older than 12 were censused, of whom: 13,965,254 identified themselves as mixed-race (60.2%); 5,176,809 as Quechuas (22.3%); 1,366,931 as white (5.9%); 828,841 as of African descent (3.6%); and 548,292 as Aymaran (2.4%). Moreover, the census indicates that 1,262,075 (5.8%) persons older than 15 of the Peruvian population are illiterate. In terms of sex, the illiteracy rate in the 2017 census indicates that there is a greater number of illiterate women (8.5%) than illiterate men (3.1%). Compared with the results of the 2007 census, the female illiteracy rate decreased from 10.6% to 8.5% (by 83,510 women), while the male illiteracy rate decreased from 3.6% to 3.1% (by 13,973 men). On the other hand, illiteracy is greater in rural areas, where the majority of persons identifying

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themselves as Quechuas and Aymarans are found. The majority of the persons identifying themselves as white are found in the urban areas. Illiteracy in rural areas was 17.0%, while in urban areas it was 3.2%. Finally, a piece of data that also reveals the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and illiteracy inequalities is that the greater rate of illiteracy is found in women in rural areas who identify themselves as indigenous: “516,379 women in the rural areas of Peru are illiterate, a figure that represents 40.9 % of all illiterate persons in Peru. In the intercensal period 2007-2017, the illiterate population decreased by 97,483 persons (-1.3 percentage points). Rural areas presented a reduction of 1.5 percentage points in the illiterate population, while there was a reduction of 0.2 percentage points in urban areas” (National Institute of Statistics and Information. Peru: Final results: National Censuses 2017: XII population census, VII housing census, and III indigenous communities census. Volume I. Lima, October 2018). The global Covid-19 pandemic has aggravated the lacks, inequalities, and contradictions described on the previous pages. Due to the pandemic, all public and private education services were virtualized during 2020 and 2021. According to the technical report Information and Communication Technologies Statistics of the second trimester of 2019, prepared with the results of the National Homes Survey (Encuesta Nacional de Hogares, ENAHO) of the National Institute of Statistics and Information (Nacional de Estadística e Informática, INEI), only 39.5% of homes in the country had access to the Internet a few months before the pandemic. This has caused more than half of Peruvian children and adolescents to lose full access to formal education as of 2020.

4

Conclusion

1. In the last 73 years, public education has been one of the central settings of the fights for the democratization of Peruvian society. Among the collectives who have fought most for their inclusion (by means of education) in a desired republic of liberty, equality, and fraternity are women, indigenous peoples, peoples of African descent, Chinese, Japanese, Jews, rural communities, and marginal urban residents. Meanwhile, the forces of exclusion have come mainly from the Hispanic groups (Creoles), land holders, and oligarchs, and from the political parties that have represented them, as well as from the patriarchal paradigms that remain in the diverse Peruvian cultures. 2. Although there was an increase in education centers, both of basic education and of higher education, during the governments of Odría (1948–1956), Prado (1956–1962), and Belaúnde (1963–1968), this increase did not contribute to an increase in education quality, but, on the contrary, to its decrease. 3. During the governments of Prado (1956–1962), Pérez Godoy (1962–1963), and the first government of Belaúnde (1963–1968), the migration from rural to urban areas made visible the marginalization suffered by persons who migrated in order to access quality education.

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4. The NEC (Community Education Nuclei) allowed access to education in rural areas and they were crucial in the education reform of the 1970s performed by the Military Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces of Velasco (1968–1975). 5. The government of Velasco implemented an education reform supervised by intellectuals such as Salazar Bondy. This reform focused on humanist education inspired by Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed. The tension between the military government and the SUTEP did not allow the reform to prosper. Finally, President Morales Bermúdez (1975–1980) abandoned the reform. 6. During the second government of Belaúnde (1980–1985) and the first of García (1985–1990), the economic crisis and the appearance of terrorist groups such as Sendero Luminoso provoked a dramatic decrease in education quality. Currently, the exact number of teachers who became victims during those years is unknown. 7. The Fujimori government (1990–2000) followed the educational focus indicated by the World Bank. This focus concentrated on constructivist methodologies; nevertheless, the quality of Peruvian education deteriorated. At the end of the Fujimori regime, the country’s terrible performance in the PISA test showed that the majority of students in Peruvian basic education did not achieve basic skills in the areas of communication and mathematics. 8. During the Toledo administration (2001–2006), the Curricular Design for Secondary Education was published (2004), which recognized the importance of plurilingualism and ethnic and cultural diversity. During the second García administration (2006–2011), in 2007, the Ministry of Education promulgated the National Project Until 2021; in this document, emphasis is placed on the need to fight against social class and gender discrimination. Moreover, it was indicated that these types of discrimination are more likely to be found in rural areas. 9. Although there has been evidence of an improvement in education quality in Peru during the Humala administration (2011–2016), the levels of illiteracy demonstrate the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and social class in the persisting education inequalities, since the majority of illiterate persons continue to be indigenous women from poor rural areas. 10. The virtualization of school education due to the Covid-19 pandemic has excluded more than half of Peruvian students partially or totally. More than half of Peruvian families lack Internet services at home.

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The Education System of Puerto Rico

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Contents 1 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED-Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Personnel Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Emerging Issues Discussion of Recent (Local) Developments Author’s Critique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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P. R. Fossum (*) College of Education, Health, and Human Services, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA e-mail: [email protected] K. Thomas-Brown College of Education, Health, and Human Services, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA College of Engeneering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_36

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Abstract

Shaped by Puerto Rico’s five-century status as a colony – first of Spain, next, and presently, of the United States – Puerto Rican education and schools have been at the center of the imperial visions of these colonizers, seeking to evangelize and subjugate the island’s original inhabitants in the first instance and to convert Puerto Ricans into “tropical Yankees” in the second. US officials saw schools as an essential tool for the Americanization of the island’s citizens, thus transplanting from the US mainland many of the structures visible in Puerto Rico’s contemporary system of schools as well as in its postsecondary institutions. Still, the island’s public schools in particular emerged as sites within which Puerto Ricans have negotiated and maintained a unique cultural identity. Keywords

Puerto Rico · Education system · Educational history · Education inequality · Colonization

1

Historical and Social Foundations

The subsections that follow take stock of the historical and socio-cultural landscape in Puerto Rico, offering specific commentary on antecedents of the present-day education system but more generally providing background and footing for fuller understanding of formal schooling in cultural context. The first subsection – the most general of those in this major section – acknowledges prehistorical aspects while attending primarily to Puerto Rico’s significant history as a colonial possession of Spain, later (and contemporarily) of the USA. The additional three subsections, respectively, explore in greater depth additional political and economic aspects affecting education, social conditions especially as related to coverage of the population with regard to education’s provision, and comments regarding transition from school to work.

1.1

General Historical Background

Beginning at least as early as 400 B.C.E. and lasting until the late fifteenth century, the sole inhabitants of the island now called Puerto Rico were of a matriarchal and largely agrarian civilization, the Taino. Evidence of periodic contact with a rival civilization, the Caribs, who inhabited primarily more southerly Caribbean regions, constitutes an exception to the relative isolation the Tainos evidently sustained as the island’s original human population (Rouse 1992). Under the Tainos and for a period of at least two millennia, then, education on the island centered on the practices of this indigenous society: the conveyance of history and tradition through oral and performance means including music and dance, the passing on of geographical knowledge based on orientation and on navigational awareness and skill, and apprenticeship in agricultural and other subsistence activities that shaped the

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everyday life for the Taino people. As Carrion (1983) documented, significant use of place names, terms denoting foods, and other linguistic references to everyday objects on the island continue as legacies from the Tainos’ Arawakan tongue. In the contemporary Puerto Rican vernacular, for example, Puerto Ricans commonly refer to each other as fellow “Borinquen,” for instance – a term deriving from the Taino name of the island. Notwithstanding the relatively recent emergence of genetic evidence confirming the significant prominence and extent of the Taino bloodline among modern Puerto Ricans (Poole 2011) and a corresponding present-day rise in interest in Taino heritage (Neeganagwedgin 2015), the transmission of indigenous Taino knowledge was often thwarted and the sociocultural identity of these aboriginal Puerto Ricans subverted – often via brutal means – by its first colonizer, Spain. Nearly four hundred years of Spanish oversight in Puerto Rico began with Columbus’ “discovery” of the island in 1493 and ended nominally upon Spain’s ouster in 1898 by a new imperialist aspirant, the United States. As the USA has asserted its own cultural dominion upon the island, a continuing tension shaping modern Puerto Rico since that turning point centers on the island’s ongoing renegotiation of four centuries Spanish heritage with the contrasting cultural, economic, and political imperatives of its current American colonizers. It would be inaccurate to characterize this project of sociopolitical reconciliation between the cultures of its colonizers as symmetrical in character, however. As Carrion (1983) stressed, the 1898 Paris Treaty “was not simply a tabula rasa,” for, by then “a people of nearly one million inhabitants had emerged” – one having a “historical density” (p. x) to suit the growing density of the island’s population. Rooted in generations of linguistic, religious, political, and economic relations and practice, then, Puerto Rico’s Spanish identity has remained pronounced, and the deep imprint of Spanish culture remains ubiquitous – “evident in the literature, the music, the dances, and the rituals of life and death, love and patriotism” (Babin 1983, 320). Thus, in spite of multiple efforts by US authorities to impose English as the language of instruction on the island, for example, such efforts have been persistent (Epstein 1967a, b; Hsu 2015) yet interrupted, and ultimately unsuccessful (del Moral 2019) as further discussion will reflect, leaving Spanish as the virtually universal language of instruction in Puerto Rican schools at present. Among additional sources of influence tied to Spanish rule beyond this linguistic legacy, the role of the Catholic Church in shaping Puerto Rican social and political development is difficult to underestimate (Osuna 1975). Moving well beyond its far reaching spiritual mission – that of evangelizing the indigenous populations of colonial territories (Costas 1983a) – the establishment of the island’s first hospitals and the sponsoring of care within them of the island’s indigent were early examples of the church’s role in founding an institutional infrastructure on the Puerto Rican island. In tandem, in the realm of education, the first grammar schools, postsecondary academies, and libraries were also the products of church action through the patronage of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and of the efforts and investments of various monastic orders. The Spanish kings themselves held churchly imprimatur, as Papal decree had extended to Spain’s monarchs exclusive authority (Costas 1983b) to claim colonial territorial possessions, empowering the Spanish crown as well as the sole legitimate issuer of travel permits to colonized territories. This thus made the church a

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key arbiter even regarding basic access to Puerto Rico and Spain’s other colonial possessions, let alone regarding the thrust and scope of economic activity within them. This duality of secular and sacred role as vested in the Spanish kings extended to the vicars appointed in the persons of the Puerto Rican governors: Puerto Rico’s early governors acted as stewards of church possessions and monitors of religious activity in addition to serving as the colony’s chief political authority. This thus established early precedent for a pattern of centralized administrative control visible in the island’s contemporary structures of oversight. The fact that Puerto Rico’s contemporary system of primary and secondary level schools is comprised as a single district falling under oversight of an individual Secretary of Education appears at least in part to be a vestige of historical precedents of such centralized governance – a pattern reinforced by later US colonial practices. In addition, the royally appointed governors in Puerto Rico’s during the Spanish era oversaw economic aspects such as land use, further establishing administrative structures including territorial divisions that resemble modern political subdivisions affecting the marshaling and distribution of human and materiel resources including those pertaining to education. A so-called “third root” of pre-US cultural influence is memorialized in a permanent artistic exhibit titled “Our Heritage” that greets visitors to the Museum of the Americas in Puerto Rico’s Old San Juan district: namely, alongside a Taino weaver and a Spanish artisan, the display depicts an African drummer (Davila 1997). Indeed, Puerto Rico’s identity as an ethnic and cultural mélange has been inevitably shaped in significant respects by African influences – cultural roots linked to the island’s history as a locus of considerable exploitive commerce involving slavery and taking shape in particular as economic activity on the island veered toward agricultural pursuits. An early period of mining an activity in pursuit of precious metals dwindled as yields declined along with the availability of indigenous labor to meet the need. With a turn toward agricultural production – major crops including commodities such as sugar, tobacco, ginger, and rice – lands were worked increasingly by slaves of African descent brought to the island either under Papal sanction or smuggled to the island to meet demand (Vales 1983c); slave labor was sanctioned on the island until it was at last abolished in 1873 (Vales 1983a). By 1531, censuses taken on the island revealed that the proportion of the population of African descent was significant (Costas 1983a). Yet recognition and acknowledgment of the African contributions to the Puerto Rican cultural and ethnic identity is muted and disproportional with regard to the actual depth of that African cultural influence. Scholarship has pointed to evidence of a racist underpinning accounting in part for this skew. Limited publically portrayed examples of African folklore – generally presented in an idealized and tokenistic fashion as embodiments of African influence – have an overall effect of erasing broader examples of this influence rather than heralding its importance. Cultural traits “not identifiably Spanish are attributed to the Taino rather than the African” (Davila 1997, 71), and it is the Taino and not the African thread of cultural influence that therefore tends to be evoked in legitimizing cultural events as authentically Puerto Rican. Rivera-Batiz (2004), further, has documented a process of “whitening” in which Puerto Ricans increasingly self-identify as White rather than Black “despite the acknowledged racial mixing of the population,” and he has attributed this phenomenon to “the history of social exclusion and economic penalties

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associated with slavery” (33). This emerges as a pronounced concern with regard to the distribution of public resources, Rivera-Batiz (2004) has soundly asserted, within a Puerto Rican policy climate that, in spite of this phenomenon, “pretends racial issues do not exist on the island” (34). In schools more specifically, early examples of English language readers designed to project lessons regarding Puerto Rican cultural identity along with instruction in English language acquisition taught that “indigenous heritage was cultural not biological while black heritage was minimal and irrelevant” (del Moral 2019, 56) – the latter having a presence “located outside of ‘the community’” (58) according to the information imparted in these instructional materials. In sum, “Puerto Rico’s African heritage. . .is seen as the last to arrive and having the least to contribute” (Davila 1997, 70). Although a US formal imperialist presence in Puerto Rico did not commence until slightly over 400 years following Spain’s arrival, US expansionist designs on a Caribbean presence had by that time been longstanding (Immerwahr 2019). Alexander Hamilton, in 1787, for example, promoted annexation of Puerto Rico along with Cuba, echoing John Adams’ 1783 calls for expansion into the Caribbean basin – along with the unfamiliar territories of the western continent – to create a hemispheric domain of sorts (Herring 2008). Later, strategic aspirations for a significant presence in the Caribbean region intensified as the opening of the Panama Canal, constructed chiefly between 1899 and 1903, became imminent. Thus, in the immediate wake of the 1898 Treaty of Paris marking the end of the SpanishAmerican War, “notwithstanding objections from anti-imperialists. . .[t]he 1898 [Spanish-American] war. . .provided a timely opportunity for U.S. expansionists in government and industry” (del Moral 2018, 40). del Moral (2013) has offered three summary aspects characterizing the USA’s colonialist treatment of Puerto, with each asserting marked influence on education. First, adopting a paternalistic outlook hinging on a metaphor of parenting, the USA asserted its “authority, superiority, and control” (del Moral 2013, 47) as a sort of “justified domination” (p. 48). Capitalizing on the putative shortcomings of the Spanish colonial project, American authorities extolled the promise of a modernizing, a benevolent, and a “tutelary” (del Moral 2013, 28) form of governance of the island – addressing in particular the failure of the Spanish to extend education more universally to Puerto Rico’s inhabitants. Second, applying tenets of progressivist reformers stateside, US authorities envisioned and advocated for an educational system that would be shaped and informed via the then-emerging social sciences. Envisioning an education that could serve at once as “a model for efficient administration” (del Moral 2013, 45) – quite in the image of the mainland technocrats that Tyack (1974) had labeled “administrative” progressives. American colonial officials, then, engaged in significant systematic assessment of the island’s population and its schools, seeing institutionalized education as “an engine for the transformation of colonial subjects” (del Moral 2013, 45), Third, del Moral (2013) emphasized the relationship of reliance that the USA fostered especially between Puerto Rican elites and American interveners – the former constituting a “lumpenbourgeoisie” (Frank 1972) that held a prevailingly disparaging outlook toward working class Puerto Ricans. Systematic appraisal of Puerto Rican schools under the imported progressivist impulse, for instance, often prominently included

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Puerto Rican social elites, contributing to curricular stratification along lines of socioeconomic class (del Moral 2013). Among practiced analysts of the reciprocal influences binding a society and its schools, recognition of the role of education as an instrument for shaping societal identity and cohesion is a given. And from the perspective of the nascent colonizing authority, the USA, the project of cultivating an “American” Puerto Rican citizenry steered clear of any end goal of eventual independence and self-rule, pursuing instead the creation of nothing less than a US colony within the Caribbean basin. Walsh (1991) captured the pivotal role of education in this enterprise, quoting the arrestingly frank summation of the first Commissioner of Education following the initial period of military occupation: “Colonization carried forward by the armies of war is vastly more costly than that carried forward by. . .the public schools of the advancing nation” (6) – institutions that serve as the “outposts and garrisons” of the “armies of peace” (6). Accordingly, just as political efforts such as the Foraker Act of 1900 legislatively bound the Puerto Rican economy with the commercial interests of US corporate actors (Hsu 2015), educational policy directives emphasized instruction in the English language as a central thrust in the development of “tropical Yankees,” as Navarro (2002) observed.

1.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

Even a relatively course grained review of some major events in the history of the USA’s political control in Puerto Rico is useful in situating education there. With the Treaty of Paris, signed on December 10, 1898, to mark the end of the SpanishAmerican War, Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the USA along with two of its colonial possessions in the Pacific (Guam and the Philippine Islands). Thereafter and for a period of around 16 months, Puerto Rico was in essentially an occupied possession overseen via military rule until the Foraker Act was signed (April 12, 1900) nominally establishing civilian rule there. Any democratic hallmarks accompanying this change, however, were limited, as the US’s political control remained exacting. The Puerto Rican governor as well as the eleven members of an executive council and the presiding judges in an insular supreme court were, for example, all appointed directly by the US President. In 1917, the so-called Jones Act extended full citizenship to Puerto Ricans, yet accompanied this new status only with comparatively paltry rights and privileges to suit. For instance, while the Jones Act brought into being the election of a Resident Commissioner as a partial participant in the US House of Representatives, the appointment of the Puerto Rican governor remained a matter of US Presidential prerogative. Signaling education's importance to US colonizers as a major instrument in the American assimilationist project, the appointment of the island’s Commissioner of Education (along with its Attorney General) also lay directly in the hands of the US President. These appointments were, moreover, all subject to the confirmation of the US Senate, as were the gubernatorially nominated heads of six additional executive level departments that the Jones Act called into being. Not until 1948 were Puerto Ricans extended the right to participate in the election of their own governor, at which time the island was also charged with the development of an insular

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constitution, which upon ratification came into full sway in 1952. At that time, a Department of Public Instruction came into being, overseen by a Secretary of Public Instruction to replace the “commissioner” formerly in charge of education throughout the island. In 1989, that department became the Department of Education, still overseen by a cabinet level Secretary of Education appointed by the elected governor. Because Puerto Rico continues, as noted, to operate as a single “district” under the discretion of this secretary, the contemporary vesting of centralized authority in this department head constitutes oversight prerogative for education that is comparable to that of the earlier colonial “commissioners.” An oppressive historical and continuing US policy stance promotes and maintains the island’s dependency and thus sustains Puerto Rico’s inability to reinforce and improve its own economic footing (Monge 1997; Go 2000), to the specific detriment of the maintenance and improvement of education (Hsu 2015). In addition, however, home-grown political corruption and administrative mismanagement on the island have contributed to the plight of Puerto Rico’s educational institutions: neglect in the supplying and equipping of schools, deferred infrastructural upkeep, and disregard toward updating in terms of technology, for instance, have severely hindered the island’s education system. Inefficiency and unevenness in the utilization of available school facilities has contributed to endemic inadequacy across much of the system (Robles 2017). Ostensibly in order to address budgetary problems and to consolidate resources confronting Puerto Rico’s primary and secondary level schools, in early 2017, the island’s Secretary of Education announced the closure of over 160 of the Puerto Rico’s primary and secondary schools – an action that drew strong criticism among parents on grounds that it threatened community cohesion particularly in more rural settings. The island’s teachers, for their part, issued concerns regarding the stability of their livelihoods but in addition warned of the potential decline in professional capacity that the decision threatened (Robles 2017). On top of specific examples of the erosion of Puerto Rican public education, political apathy has contributed to an overall decline in the public’s trust regarding Puerto Rican institutions more generally. Vargas-Ramos (2018), for example, has attributed substantial decline in voter participation in Puerto Rican elections – from a typical rate of nearly 90% in the late twenty-aughts to a strikingly diminished rate of about 55% currently – to flagging public opinion regarding the government’s legitimacy rather than to the precipitous rate of out-migration and general population decline on the island. Into this context of considerable instability confronting formal schooling in Puerto Rico, Hurricanes Irma and Maria – two storms days apart in late 2017 – left virtually every school facility across the island without electrical power, displacing around 350,000 students, many for months. According to credible estimates, between 25,000 and 30,000 of those schoolchildren left the island permanently in the wake of the storm (Hinojosa et al. 2019; Ferguson 2018).

1.3

Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population

Recent economic calamity in Puerto Rico has had major consequence on the structure and the delivery of education. Although the twin catastrophes of hurricanes

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Irma and Maria in late 2017 dealt blows to the island’s educational infrastructure for which considerable recovery time has been necessary (Ujifusa 2018), these disruptions were to an already hobbled system. Entrenched economic hardship in the years prior to the hurricanes had forced Puerto Rico into a years-long debt crisis that culminated in its declaration of bankruptcy in early 2017 (Williams Walsh 2017). The origins of that crisis, in turn, were themselves years in the making and fostered by multiple exploitive policies regarding taxation and exemption (Ayala and Bernabe 2007), disparity in social welfare benefits between mainland Puerto Rican Americans and those living on the island (Hinojosa et al. 2019), shifting terrain in federal subsidy toward mainland-based corporations regarding their Puerto Rican enterprises (Melendez and Venator-Santiago 2018), and an overall climate of uncertainty these circumstances combined to engender. Consequently, a significant exodus of working aged citizens from the island to the mainland has systematically hampered Puerto Rico’s workforce development capacities (Ferguson 2018), and it has placed the island’s school-aged population in a state of persistent flux that undermines the provisioning of the island’s educational infrastructure. Among the most prominent single effects of a continuing Puerto Rican diaspora, in fact, concerns the influences of migration upon education (Melendez and VenatorSantiago 2018). These effects impact schooling on the island itself but also educational circumstances of Puerto Rican’s on the US mainland as well. Notwithstanding contemporary growth in rates of school participation as a percentage of the whole Puerto Rican school-aged population and in spite of an improved record of rising educational attainment in Puerto Rico in recent decades (Ladd and Rivera-Batiz 2006), out-migration of island inhabitants to the US mainland, together with declining birth rates on the island, has produced a declining Puerto Rican school-aged population (Hinojosa et al. 2019). School closures, as noted above, and consolidations have constituted major mechanisms that the Puerto Rican government has marshaled in response to these population shifts and to the island’s pronounced economic straits. According to US Census Bureau estimates, around two-thirds of the island’s school closings have been in rural areas (Melendez and Venator-Santiago 2018), and immediate effects of the resulting redistribution of school-aged children have of course included overcrowding in the classrooms of the facilities retained as consolidation plans have been executed. But with school closures having in addition been substantially more common among the island’s primary schools than is the case among its lower level/intermediate schools and its upper secondary institutions, alternative education programs including a significant number of Montessori schools have opened within traditional public school buildings that have recently closed (Hinojosa et al. 2019). Accordingly, the Puerto Rican government has recently recognized Montessori alternatives as an integral part of the island’s education system. It is important to emphasize that the mobility of Puerto Ricans between the island archipelago and the continental USA shapes the Puerto Rico’s political and social identity; thus, some attention to circumstances affecting the Puerto Rican diaspora is warranted. Stateside, the most common established destinations of migrating Puerto Rican islanders have been several northeastern states (in particular New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania) along with Texas. Intensified out-migration in the

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wake of Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017 has produced some new patterns, with new stops such as Florida, North and South Carolina, and Virginia emerging as frequent destinations of those leaving the island (Mora et al. 2018). Acknowledging the positive socioeconomic and cultural stimuli the influx of arriving Puerto Ricans have often begotten in the receiving communities of the USA, Melendez and Venator-Santiago (2018) have added that oftentimes the arrivals of islanders are in impoverished communities, further exacerbating conditions there. In US schools, pressure for bilingual education services escalated along with demand for social services for both school-aged children and their parents (Hinojosa 2018). Drawing additional attention to positive and sometimes rejuvenating aspects of the posthurricane influx, Irizarry et al. (2018) have documented the establishment in several instances of community welcome centers in and about schools and providing information and assistance on additional resources such as housing. US higher education institutions have also prominently accommodated Puerto Rican evacuees through fellowships, extraordinary financial aid arrangements, and additional forms of support (Irizarry et al. 2018). Given these examples and others, some find positive potential in the combined effects of the posthurricane exodus, seeing in it a “call for action” in support of reform on the island (Melendez and Venator-Santiago 2018). And in the states, meanwhile, the recent growth of the Puerto Rican population stands to benefit the island by mobilizing support for Puerto Rico in Congress (Mora et al. 2018). And Melendez and Venator-Santiago (2018) have concluded that, in light of “the direct impact of the exodus on both the island and stateside communities, education is an area that could unify a common agenda among island residents and stateside Puerto Ricans” (p. 24).

1.4

Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support

Considerable historical precedent reflects a slant in Puerto Rico’s workforce preparation efforts during the island’s early years as a US possession toward manual and industrial programming. In the first place, such an emphasis lent itself to the envisioned needs of US agricultural and manufacturing concerns interested in Puerto Rican dealings. In addition, however, US policy makers laying the groundwork for the Puerto Rican education system “sought models of instruction for the education of. . .students of a cultural and language background different from their own” (Navarro 2002, 115). Accordingly, among the approaches seen as promising included those in use stateside for the training and the putative “civilizing” freed slaves postemancipation (i.e., the Hampton and the Tuskegee Normal and Agricultural Institutes in Virginia and Alabama, respectively) and for use with Native American youth with similar intent (i.e., the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania). As a partial legacy of this historical prominence, some continuing emphasis on vocational and technical education pertains (see, e.g., Gonzalez et al. 2020). Higher education at the baccalaureate and graduate level seems to be perceived in less occupationally oriented terms – as a humanizing pursuit most available to the more affluent. Thus, Calderon (2013) cited 2012 data reflecting

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that the Puerto Rican labor market produced only about 6000 jobs requiring this level of credential – about 3% of the number of graduates earning them. In contemporary context, adjusting appropriate levels of worker supply to meet need within the labor market is a task that is confounded in Puerto Rico by a number of obstacles. Unemployment seems to be an important driver of this phenomenon, with levels of joblessness on the island typically at least doubling parallel unemployment rates present on the mainland (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2021). A number of forces, in turn, combine to hamper the ability of the island’s education and training infrastructure to respond nimbly and effectively. The sustained economic downturn that the island has experienced since 2006 has in the first place depressed job creation and escalated levels of unemployment as is typical of such periods of economic stagnancy. Second, a Rand analysis performed for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the wake of Hurricanes Maria and Irma noted that although wages are lower in Puerto Rico than pertains in the continental USA, public benefits are comparatively more generous (Gonzalez et al. 2020). This and other policy idiosyncrasies thus appear to disincentivize entry of ably prepared workers into areas of workforce need, also likely promoting premature departures of able bodied workers from the labor force through early retirement and further compounding the difficulty for education and training programs to respond coherently. A smooth transition from education to labor market in Puerto Rico is further hampered by relatively high “selective outmigration” (Gonzalez et al. 2020, 21). Because Puerto Ricans gained recognition as US citizens in 1917, with that came the right for Puerto Ricans to live – and to work – freely anywhere within the USA. Although conceptually migration patterns affecting Puerto Rico work in both directions – residents of the US mainland may move to Puerto Rico, that is, just as Puerto Rico residents can relocate to the US mainland – in recent years, the extent of outmigration has surpassed migration to the island at a rate of about three to one. As a consequence, education and training programs maintained on the island and generally developed for the island’s workforce needs and economic gains are in effect preparing graduates who often ultimately become participants in the wider US labor market rather than contributors within Puerto Rico’s local workforce as envisioned. Finally, Puerto Rico has a relatively large informal economy (comprised of businesses that do not register as such or otherwise comply with public regulation) that in turn produces a sector of the labor market about which little can be verified. This, of course, includes reliable information with regard to workforce need, shortcircuiting confident and competent policy and instructional responses within the Puerto Rican education system.

2

Institutional and Organizational Principles

The first of four subsections that follow introduces prevailing aspects that together characterize aspects particular to the provision of formal education in Puerto Rico. In three additional and generally descriptive subsections, discussion focuses, respectively, on formal administrative and governance structures (primary, secondary, and

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tertiary levels), aspects regarding the institutionalized structuring of schools in terms of ages and grade level, and considerations about the preparation and staffing of these institutions.

2.1

General Principles

In broad terms, three particular aspects characterize the structuring of Puerto Rican education. First, as has been noted, significant centralization of oversight and control distinguishes the Puerto Rican system, especially relative to the decentralization prevailing across the states of the US mainland. This emphasis on centralization of authority has antecedents in Puerto Rico’s Spanish colonial era reinforced via practices implemented as well across several administrative phases during the island’s period as a US jurisdiction. Flowing to some degree from that system of centralized governance, a prevailing ecology of patronage has emerged. With significant decision-making authority regularly vested in a single political appointee placed in charge of a vast single primary and secondary school district, turnover in leadership and control is frequent, and the qualification of those appointed varies markedly in terms both of extent and of character. Education – a near-universal locus of citizen attention and a major public policy arena across nations – practically always occupies contested terrain. Yet the nature by which education is contested in Puerto Rico has been shaped by this overtly partisan approach to governance. A second anchoring norm characterizing education in Puerto Rico goes to its pursuit of universalized access. Principled in its intent if imperfect in its execution, access to education in Puerto Rico is an explicit right articulated in the island’s constitution – in marked contrast to the US Constitution’s deference to tradition and preference for localized control and its resulting silence regarding education. Third, Puerto Ricans continue to “negotiate” their identities as “foreign in a domestic sense” (del Moral 2013, xi), thus producing an educational terrain that has adapted as required yet is also self-asserting in preserving Puerto Rico’s unique identity. Much about the education system of primary and secondary schools in Puerto Rico resembles education as institutionalized in the continental USA. And not coincidentally so: When control of the island shifted from Spanish to US hands in 1898, after all, considerable attention went to the task of “Americanization” of Puerto Rican citizens and institutions (del Moral 2013, 2018; Hsu 2015; Walsh 2014; Ayala and Bernabe 2007). For instance, as we shall see, the progression of school grades per student age in contemporary Puerto Rican schools mirrors this aspect of the US system, as does the regular grouping of certain grades into different facilities at primary, transitional, and later secondary levels. A marked distinction between education as organized and codified in Puerto Rico versus on the US mainland, however, concerns the overt institutionalization of educational administration at the highest levels of governance on the island. Just as historical precedent shaped preferences on the mainland for a radically decentralized approach to authoritative control of formal schooling (see on the foundations of education in the

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continental U.S. ▶ Chap. 39, “The Education System of the United States of America: Overview and Foundations,” by Fossum, in this volume), the centralization of educational control in Puerto Rico stems as well from its early history. A major preoccupation of the Spanish colonizers of the early sixteenth century had been that of inculcating the island’s original inhabitants in the Catholic catechism and the Spanish language (Costas 1983). The fact that oversight for this major interest was delegated to no less prominent an authority than the royally/regentally appointed governor for the colony reflects the centrality of education as a government undertaking in Puerto Rico from its earliest colonial days. And in addition, because the island’s governors from 1564 to 1898 were almost without exception “officers of the Spanish infantry or cavalry. . .[t]his military emphasis gave the island a highly centralized and stronghanded government” (Costas 1983a, 26). As well, “[e]ducation and schools were at the heart of U.S. imperial intentions” (del Moral 2013, 7), and, as pertained under Spanish rule, the earliest governors of the island as a US colony were also military officers, thus reinforcing an existing pattern of martial dominion in the island’s approach to governance – to include oversight of its educational institutions. Legacies of this pattern of strong centralized control of education continue in contemporary context, as the island’s Secretary of Education presides as an appointee of the island’s governor and possesses broad power over curriculum, staffing, facilities, and policy from preprimary through secondary levels. An apparent element patronage influencing in Puerto Rico’s educational governance also has historical antecedents in its colonial identity. At the beginning of the Spanish colonial era, the island’s first governor, Juan Ponce de Leon, was appointed to this role in in return for his expedition to the island – deemed especially successful on account of the gold his party unearthed there (Lawson 1946). The privilege of appointing Puerto Rican governors was itself for a brief period an object of patronage accorded to the descendants of Christopher Columbus in return for his exploits; Columbus’ heirs eventually sold this right to the Spanish crown (Costas 1983a), further reflecting the extent to which control of the island was regarded as a perquisite. Regardless of the appointing authority, among the responsibilities of the Spanish governors of the island was monitoring the mutual educational enterprise of Spain and the Catholic Church (Costas 1983a). Later, upon the US’s acquisition of the colony following the Spanish-American War, Puerto Rico’s governors served via direct appointment by the US president; in addition those that the president placed in charge of schools were until 1948 vested with the title Education Commissioner – later upon the appointment of the elected Puerto Rican governor (and titled Secretaries of Public Instruction from 1949 through 1989 and as Secretaries of Education since 1989). A logic of patronage extends to higher education governance on the island: the trustees of the largest and most reputable institution, the public multicampus University of Puerto Rico, for instance, are largely seated by the political party in ascendancy at a given time. In sum, because such appointments are tied to political loyalties and affinities rather than based on a logic of expertise or merit, often their directives have pursued ends that are politically rather than pedagogically anchored. An extended study by Negron de Montilla (1970), in fact, serves essentially as an exploration of a span

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of Puerto Rican education commissioners’ contrasting ideologies regarding “what is meant by ‘Americanization’” (xiii) and as a cataloging of policies enacted under each leader to suit. At earlier educational levels, significant vacillation surrounding the matter of what should be the required language of instruction in Puerto Rico’s public schools has illustrated the unevenness in direction this ideologically driven approach to school governance can produce: From 1900 to 1903 and again from 1934 to 1937, Spanish was the language of instruction in all elementary grades. From 1903 to 1916, English was the language of instruction in all elementary grades. From 1916 to 1934 and from 1937 to 1942, Spanish was the language of instruction only in grades one through four. . . . From 1900 to 1942 English was the sole language of instruction in all high school grades. (del Moral 2019, 60–61)

In light of the see-sawing that has typified educational policy and oversight within such a politicized administrative ecology, the teaching force has often advocated outspokenly in support or opposition to proposed changes (e.g., see Brown 2018; Florido 2018), thus providing some on-the-ground continuity to counter the prevailingly uneven governance climate, and serving as a stabilizing influence in Puerto Rico (del Moral 2018). Education is compulsory on the island for citizens between the ages of 5 and 17 (UNESCO 2021), and the right to access to an education provided by the government is articulated in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, ratified in 1952. Invoking the principle that church and state should remain separate, the constitution thus provides that publically funded schools must be nonsectarian. Too, even religiously affiliated schools within the private educational sector – schools that fall under a partial purview of government permission and monitoring – prospective students may not be denied admission on the basis of religious difference. Further, echoing eighteenth-century administrative reforms by the Spanish requiring that schools must be ethnically integrated (Vales 1983b), the contemporary constitution also establishes that “the system of public education shall embody. . .[the] principles of essential human equality” (Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico 1952). Universal educational access, then, exists as a matter of doctrine in Puerto Rico. Yet the system that historical and socio-political circumstance has begotten has furnished mixed results in pursuit of this egalitarian aspiration. The Puerto Rican literacy level of about 92.5% (UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2015) places it well ahead of Central American countries having comparable levels of poverty. But discrepancies in the quality and the stewardship of school facilities especially in rural as compared to urban settings contribute to unevenness in the provision of education across the island. Governmentally mandated school closures in the aftermath of the Hurricane Maria disaster “disproportionally occurred in the island’s rural areas (65%),” for example (Hinojosa et al. 2019, 8). Educational attainment is comparatively high and generally rising as mentioned (Ladd and Rivera-Batiz 2006). However, with the private school sector tending to cater primarily to Puerto Rico’s more privileged classes, socioeconomic stratification illustrates the

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limitations of the island’s achievement of the constitutionally articulated ambition that its schools “shall embody. . .human equality” (Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico 1952).

2.2

Education Administration and Governance

As noted earlier, the Puerto Rico Department of Education, under the leadership of a gubernatorially appointed Secretary of Education, bears principal responsibility for the oversight of primary and secondary level education across the island. As such, the department comprises a single school “district” in the vernacular of US educational administration. Since the department functions like a US state’s educational bureaucracy for certain purposes – such as interface with the federal level – yet operates like a local US community’s education authority, Puerto Rico’s Department of Education is relatively anomalous in its structure and function vis á vis agencies for educational oversight in other US jurisdictions. As the administrative locus for single island-wide district, the Puerto Rican system is among the largest administrative districts for primary and secondary education in the USA. (Although Puerto Rico does have seven local education agencies (Hinojosa et al. 2019), these are distinct in function from the local agencies and intermediate districts that typify governance in the states of the US mainland.) Significantly, although the Puerto Rican Department of Education has unusual reach and oversight prerogative, Puerto Rico’s system is subject to compliance with most federal policies implicating US public schooling. Accordingly, Puerto Rico Department of Education schools must adhere to planning, reporting, and testing requirements that are obligatory for recipients of federal funding (Puerto Rico Department of Education 2020). Thus, in compliance with the US’s federal Perkins Act, the department maintains a division in charge of occupational and technical education programs that bridge certain secondary and postsecondary institutions, for example. To this extent, then, the department’s main purview – primary and secondary education – expands to include certain postsecondary career preparation efforts. Testing requirements mandated for recipients of federal funds under recent reauthorizations of the U.S Elementary and Secondary Education Act apply to Puerto Rico schools, to cite another example. Although the Puerto Rico Department of Education bears major oversight responsibility for the facilities, staffing, and curriculum pertinent to public primary and secondary level schooling in Puerto Rico, a second entity – the Puerto Rico Education Council – assumes responsibility for licensing of such schools on the island. That council, in fact, has authority as well for the licensure of institutionalized education more generally across Puerto Rico, to include the island’s postsecondary institutions as well as its private and religiously affiliated primary and secondary schools. Formed via the consolidation of a former Council on General Education and Council on Higher Education, approval and licensure of institutions seeking to operate in Puerto Rico is contingent on demonstrated adequacy of the facilities and their supporting infrastructural features, their safe and sanitary conditions, and

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the overall suitability of their instructional programs and staffing (Council on Education of Puerto Rico 2015). Governance at the island’s main university systems lies primarily with an appointed or elected governing board at each, as is common in universities within the continental USA as well. To cite one example, a Board of Directors for the private Ana G. Menendez University system (which maintains campuses in the U.S. state of Florida in addition to several on the island) identifies five permanent members among the eleven total comprising the board. That institution’s system, in addition, maintains four additional governance commissions monitoring and advising exceptional administrative concerns including government relations and finance. The elected members of the Board of Trustees at the religiously affiliated and private Interamerican University system, meanwhile, work in tandem with a University Council comprised of administrator and faculty delegates representing the system’s multiple campuses across the island in advising the institution’s president as presiding officer. And at the multicampus public University of Puerto Rico, the island’s largest postsecondary institution, a Governing Board consists of four student and faculty members elected by their respective peer constituencies working together with a remaining nine members who are gubernatorially appointed subject to the approval of the Puerto Rican Senate. The politicized nature by which the majority of the University of Puerto Rico’s governing board are appointed has been criticized for the persistent lack of oversight continuity it tends to beget.

2.3

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED-Classification

At all levels, primary through postsecondary, the school year in Puerto Rico runs from August through May (UNESCO 2021). The primary and secondary components of the Puerto Rican education system have four general levels (Therriault et al. 2017; Ladd and Rivera-Batiz 2006). A preschool level (ISCED level O: preprimary), first, includes grade K/Kindergarten which is compulsory and aligns with children aged 5 years, but the preschool level includes optional pre-K programs for younger children. Federal programming in the form of Head Start and Early Head Start funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services addresses the specific needs of Puerto Rico’s significant low-income population in this pre-K setting. Elementary school (ISCED level 1: primary education) generally includes students in grades 1 through 6 and aged 6 to 11 years. Intermediate schools (escuela intermedia; ISCED level 2: lower secondary) regularly serve early adolescent students aged 12–14 years in grades 7 through 9. And completing the compulsory phase in the Puerto Rican system, the high school (escuela superior; ISCED level 3: upper secondary) serves students aged 15 to 17 in grades 10 through 12. Some additional attributes characterizing institutionalized primary and secondary schooling in Puerto Rico warrant mention. First, in optimizing the use of facilities and improving access to school buildings, adaptations to the prevailing grade delineations outlined above are relatively common especially in the island’s more

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rural regions. These may, for instance, combine ISCED level 1 and 2 students in facilities serving grades K through 9 or may alternately place ISCED level 2 and 3 students together in schools for grades 7 through 12. Second, private schools – the majority of which are Catholic in affiliation – comprise a major part of the island’s primary and secondary system as a whole. On account of prolonged economic difficulty and due to the disruptions caused by Hurricane Maria, the significant flux in Puerto Rico’s population that has resulted make pupil counts unreliable and in any event fleeting. But as a proportion of the population of primary and secondary aged students, between a quarter and a third of the island’s children attend private schools (Calderon 2013). And third, regarding the language of instruction in Puerto Rican primary and secondary classrooms, following years of shifting policy seeking to prescribe English as the language in which school curriculum would be covered, Spanish is now universally the language of instruction in public and private settings. Notably, however, English is a required subject at primary and secondary school levels (Pousada 2000). Turning to higher education, at ISCED levels 4 (postsecondary nontertiary) and 5 (short-cycle tertiary), a number of career and vocationally oriented schools with public provenance include the Colegio Universitario de Justicia Criminal, Colegio Tecnologic de San Juan, Conservatoria de Musica, Escuela de Arte Plasitcas, and the Insitutos Tecnologicos in Maneti, Guayame, Ponce, and San Juan (Ladd and Rivera-Batiz 2006). A number of additional junior colleges and professional schools, mostly private, further expand Puerto Rican education at ISCED levels 4 and 5, augmenting as well the island’s institutionalized education at ISCED levels 6 through 8 – the latter, including independent private schools of medicine in Ponce and in Caguas, for instance. As noted above, however, three university systems are particularly prominent in the Puerto Rican landscape: the private Interamerican University and Ana G. Mendez University systems plus the public University of Puerto Rico, all three multicampus institutions providing instructional programming at ISCED levels 6 (baccalaureate level), 7 (master’s level), and 8 (doctoral level). Practically all of Puerto Rico’s prominent universities and community colleges are accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, thus conforming with rules and standards that apply to mainland institutions in the pertinent US region and reinforcing significant similarities between Puerto Rico’s institutions and those in the continental USA.

2.4

Personnel Supply

During an initial phase soon after the signing if the Treaty of Paris, with the significant US preoccupation being that of better to “Americanizing” the island’s inhabitants, an attending concern was in preparing and installing a teaching force deemed suitable for that putative need. Early measures in pursuing this aim involved the export as it were of US teachers to Puerto Rico to serve – “in the tradition of U.S. missionaries” (del Moral 2018, 41) – as exemplars and authorities to local teachers and recruits. In addition, among number of Puerto Ricans selected

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to undertake specialized studies on the US mainland, a limited number pursued teacher preparation. Intensive summer teacher training programs conducted in the continental USA augmented the undertaking of seeking to place a teaching force that was considered appropriately prepared, and, so, supposedly capable in turn of integrating school-aged Puerto Ricans as Americans – that is, of teaching them “to love, support, and advocate for U.S. colonialism on the island and to imagine themselves as members of the United States” (del Moral 2018, 41). These labors, however, proved to be insufficient to the substantial undertaking of staffing an increasing number of school facilities across the island. It was thus the local teachers who had served Puerto Rico’s teaching force prior to the USA’s accession who emerged to anchor the island’s teaching force once more: “Local Puerto Rican teachers. . .had cultural capital. They were literate, ran local schools, and emerged as community leaders” (del Moral 2018, 42). Required – then as now – to demonstrate their facility in the English language, as noted earlier they nonetheless fought persistent efforts to privilege the use of English as the language of instruction (del Moral 2019), recognizing that for rural children in particular, English would be of little practical worth (del Moral 2018). Thus, while Puerto Rico’s status as a US polity has resulted in notable parallels regarding Puerto Rico’s teacher preparation and school staffing efforts vis a vis circumstances in the continental USA, it is important to stress that Puerto Rican teachers possessed and maintained a distinct professional and pedagogical character, legacies of which continue to shape teacher identity on the island. Still, history reflects substantial momentum in the structuring of teacher education following US examples. The Foraker Act of 1900 had mirrored the US systems and processes in pursuing its raison d’étre of structuring of Puerto Rican institutions in general – establishing executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, installing a bicameral legislative system, and creating a judicial system like that in the US mainland, for instance. In this vein, within the realm of education in particular the actions of the inland’s earliest Commissioners of Education imposed new educational laws and policies heavily inflected by education policies and practices prevailing in the continental USA. The resulting legislation “established the framework that continues to shape contemporary education in Puerto Rico” (del Moral 2013, 49). And this influence extended to the realm of teacher preparation. As in the USA, for instance, for much of the first half of the twentieth century, teachers for primary classrooms were prepared in the two-year programs of normal schools championed by the islands early appointed Commissioners of Education. These programs were ultimately replaced by university-based four-year programs implementing increased focus on instructional method and on extended clinical preparation in field-based settings – also in keeping with teacher preparation trends on the US mainland. Secondary teaching, which required attainment of a bachelor’s degree typically emphasizing a content specialty, came to require increased college level emphasis on pedagogy – again paralleling reforms prevailing in the USA. As a result, contemporarily around 20 universities or university branches offer programs in elementary education preparation, with somewhat fewer providing teacher preparation programs at the secondary level. Certification is a requirement for work in the

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island’s public primary and secondary schools. In private Puerto Rican schools, attainment of a pertinent baccalaureate degree alone is more commonly sufficient, with certification not required. As pertains regarding the licensing of Puerto Rico’s teachers through completion of approved certification programs, administrators for Puerto Rico’s primary and secondary schools also must complete special licensure programs offered in the island’s universities. The maintenance of distinct educational leadership programs also parallels the structuring of educator credentialing that prevails in the continental USA, as do the ways in which academic units structure such programs and their attendant subspecialties organizationally – in faculties focused on the preparation of school counselors or on special education for the teaching of children with developmental disabilities, for example. Notably, such educator preparation programs – for both schoolteachers and administrators – often pursue accreditation through authorizing agencies based on the US mainland, thus requiring the organizations and academic departments seeking such endorsement to observe standards set by the accrediting agency. The mutual adherence of programs seeking accreditation to these requirements therefore produces movement toward normalization and similarity across the programs in Puerto Rico and on the mainland. Among additional influences that tend to produce Puerto Rican education structures that parallel circumstances in the continental USA, Puerto Rico is generally eligible to receive federal funds intended for schools, or, importantly, may vie for funds made competitively available to states and other US jurisdictions in support of their educational affairs. Compliance with the rules that inevitably accompany such federal investments asserts a further homogenizing effect upon programs within and across these jurisdictions – states and territories alike. Finally, the relative mobility of the Puerto Rican population between the island and the US mainland produces additional movement toward similarity in professional preparation and practice, as a nationalized professional discourse for teaching prevails. This professional identity is further reinforced by strong participation among Puerto Rican educators in two influential unions – the Teachers’ Federation of Puerto Rico (Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico) and the Puerto Rico Teachers’ Association (Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico), each having ties with parallel organizations in the US states. The staffing of faculties within Puerto Rican postsecondary institutions also reflects practices prevailing in the continental USA, with considerable prerogative regarding hiring residing with the leadership and the faculties of the institutions in question and of their pertinent subdivisions. Attainment of the terminal degree – commonly a doctorate – is generally required to assume a role as a starting professor in the faculty of one of the island’s universities as is common within the academy on the US mainland. In Puerto Rico’s two-year technical colleges (ISCED levels 4 and 5), a master’s level degree is typically declared as the required credential. Academic ranks within the professoriate also parallel those in place in mainland universities, with the roles of assistant professor then associate professor comprising steps within the so-called tenure track faculty toward full professor status; “instructors” in four-year institutions typically serve in teaching-focused roles outside the tenure track.

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Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

The following sections first discuss each of three trends prominent in contemporary educational discourses: educational inequality, information and communication technologies for education, and education in support of science, technology, engineering, and math (the so-called STEM fields). A final section provides brief closing observations regarding challenges and future prospects for education in Puerto Rican context.

3.1

Inequality

Socioeconomic stratification interacts with additional factors to compound persistent issues of educational inequality in Puerto Rico. First, differences in facilities and their provisioning, in particular in rural as opposed to urban schools, create unevenness in the quality of instruction available across the island. Second, the delivery of primary and secondary level education is bifurcated, with as many as one-third of the island’s schools that serve grades K through 12 students consisting of private schools. These issues, in turn, influence circumstances such as educational attainment, ultimately contributing to a cycle of inequality thus made more intractable. Sometimes seen as a consequence of dynamics such as financial instability, Toro (2008) has instead placed “social and economic inequality in Puerto Rico. . .at the root of many of its ailments” (paragraph 3). With median household income in Puerto Rico hovering at around $20,000, well over 40% of the island’s citizens live in conditions of poverty (U.S. Census Bureau 2019). Puerto Rico’s levels of income inequality compare unfavorably with circumstances in the least wealthy of the US states (Toro 2008). In fact, levels of inequality in Puerto Rico are comparable to those in countries having the most pronounced conditions of income inequality. Mounting levels of inequity in earnings have tended to move in parallel, with top earners generally increasing their share of earnings across the island as a whole in recent years. Pathways to quality education are manifestly more plentiful and reliable for those populating these wealthier strata. Accordingly, certain higher education opportunities are limited to a fortunate few: in 2016, for instance, only around 2% of the Puerto Rico’s high school graduates were able to pursue college alternatives by attending institutions on the mainland or abroad (Marcus 2019). In addition, municipalities near Puerto Rico’s urban centers support higher per capita income levels, owing to the island’s history of educational expansion and industrial development in ways that have favored urban residents (Toro 2008) and that have consequently made quality educational facilities and programs more readily available in such settings. In the primary and secondary education sector, even the island’s most readily showcased public institutions – consisting of a relatively limited number of magnet institutions – are concentrated in urban settings, making the highest quality alternatives in both public and private spheres more accessible there. Environmental disaster has exacerbated conditions of inequality, with recovery from catastrophes such as Hurricanes Maria and Irma and

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multiple recent earthquakes striking shortly thereafter coming much more rapidly to wealthier Puerto Rican citizens in urban centers (Long 2017). In sum, as Toro (2008) has noted, “the geographic contiguity of gaping social and economic distances in resources and opportunities. . .become concrete in the experience of an ecological disaster” (Toro 2008, paragraph 2). In light of the mobility of the Puerto Rican population between the US mainland and the island due to the social, economic, and political ties that consequently unify the Puerto Rican population, issues of inequality of educational access affecting the Puerto Rican diaspora are pertinent. Noting that Puerto Ricans are among the most bilingually proficient population in the western hemisphere, Mercado (2019) added that Spanish remains “the language of family life wherever Puerto Ricans reside” (p. 21), including the large and growing Puerto Rican contingent pursuing economic opportunity on the US mainland (Mora et al. 2018). For the Puerto Rican diaspora, this phenomenon asserts itself in terms of inequality of educational experience and outcome in at least two ways. First, the supposed right under US bilingual education policy for mainland Puerto Ricans to access public instruction in Spanish is a chimera. Among majorities of Puerto Ricans – even those living in concentrated Puerto Rican communities – English is ascendant as the main language of public instruction (Mercado 2019; Rivera-Batiz 2008). Second, although Puerto Ricans tend indeed to be adept speakers of English as noted, English and Spanish as spoken by Puerto Ricans both on the island and the mainland are heavily interwoven. In terms of educational consequences, the prevalence of a nonstandard dialect contributes at least in part to the flagging performance of Puerto Rican schoolchildren on nationwide assessments (e.g., National Center for Education Statistics 2020) and on international tests of numeracy and literacy skills (e.g., National Center for Education Statistics 2018).

3.2

ICT and Digitalization

Access to information technology is relatively limited in most Puerto Rican primary and secondary schools, with technology more readily accessible in the country’s higher education institutions. Several educational facilities at the secondary and college-age level and generally located in the larger towns and cities on the island focus on IT training and are popular because they bridge to positions in commercial concerns and government agencies that depend on digital literacy. Digital literacy – a capacity that is increasingly presumed to be secure among primary and secondary aged students in the continental USA – is a skill set that is less sound among Puerto Rican school children, as was revealed in instructional responses to the COVID 19 pandemic. Teacher to student communication during the crisis has on the one hand been aided by certain twenty-first-century technologies. Applications popular in Puerto Rico as a means of enabling communication with friends and family on the mainland have emerged as a boon to Puerto Rican teachers in maintaining necessary instructional-related communication with their students, for instance. On the other hand, technologies that rely on more stable connections

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furnishing higher capacity instructional interaction have been less helpful in Puerto Rico due to a continuing digital divide hindering students in their ability to benefit. For instance, the Puerto Rico Department of Education was able to distribute computers and to connect facilities widely when the US Secretary of Education released COVID relief funding that had been withheld be the prior US presidential administration. Yet due to their relative unfamiliarity with the technology entailed, many students were unable to take advantage of the technology-driven solutions these investments intended to enable. As a result, around a quarter of the island’s primary and secondary students were placed at risk of academic failure during the pandemic in spite policy intent and of substantial investment aimed at preempting this vulnerability (Agosto-Maldonado 2021). Meanwhile, years after Hurricanes Maria and Irma, Puerto Rico has continued its work of rebounding (Nelson et al. 2020); among the key areas of capital investment in the Government of Puerto Rico’s recovery plan are infrastructure and systems in support Puerto Rico’s capacity and resilience in education. Digital transformation is seen as an area of particular opportunity with regard to long-term infrastructural improvement (United States Government Accountability Office 2021).

3.3

STEM Subjects

Some (see e.g., Morey 2019) see Puerto Rico’s the massive recovery effort in responding to its spate of natural disasters less as a project of rebuilding and instead one of pursuing new momentum for significant transformation. Expansion of education in the realm of the STEM subjects comprises an area of specific potential, with a number of assets providing a foundation for such a focus. Puerto Rico’s public university system, for instance, is comparatively strong in key STEM emphases. For example, the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez offers programs focusing on energy network systems and microgrids that will be vital to the island’s continuing infrastructural development (Nelson et al. 2020). The top two STEM fields in Puerto Rico in a recent analysis were in engineering technologies followed by computer and information sciences (Velez et al. 2020). Given this strength, strategic advantages available to Puerto Rico as a means of leveraging federal disaster relief dollars include enhancements to the STEM pre-K-12 pipeline. In addition, vocational high schools in Puerto Rico serve around 18,000 students positioning this subsystem to serve as key transitional component via some refocusing of curricular emphases on areas having economic potential including data science (Nelson et al. 2020). Private 2-year institutions programs in pertinent fields such as biotechnology provide curricula that could be adapted for secondary grades. Corporate partnerships have emerged as allies in enabling pursuit of this vision. In the city of Bayamon, for example, a Puerto Rican architecture firm has supported and steered the design of an “innovation center” for STEM to be located on the campus of one of the island’s prominent private secondary schools (Reid 2020). Sponsored co-working spaces have emerged, providing reduced and shared-rate support services for multiple STEM startups incubated in Puerto Rico’s

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education sector, providing efficiencies that make transition to and success within the marketplace arguably more likely (Morey 2019). And in terms of the policy terrain pertaining to potential expansion in STEM, the island is also poised for expansion in STEM, incentivizing research and development activity in Puerto Rican universities, for instance, through tax exemptions pertaining to salaries earned from eligible grants in R&D (Morey 2019).

3.4

Emerging Issues Discussion of Recent (Local) Developments Author’s Critique

Puerto Rican education faced important challenges prior to the natural calamities that have befallen it. Public schools’ populations have been declining due to years of economic hardship and the significant outmigration these challenges have spurred. Most public schools cater to significant proportions economically disadvantaged students. Financial stress to the educational system results from its need to compete for funding with additional services for low-income households and citizens with disabilities. Transportation issues affecting the schools that have been common for geographic and infrastructural reasons have been exacerbated on account of natural disaster. Given challenges like these, Puerto Rico’s school have lagged in terms of their performance on national and international tests as noted above (National Center for Education Statistics 2018, 2020) and high school graduation rates (United States Government Accountability Office 2021). As with prior educational challenges, Puerto Rican educators have had to adapt quickly in responding to the 2020–2021 COVID-19 pandemic – using online and digital platforms where possible, other tools and approaches where such solutions were impracticable. New educational initiatives have emerged to augment this overall effort. Puerto Rico’s Montessori communities, for instance, improvised classrooms using open-air tents as learning spaces (National Network of Public Health Institutes 2020). As in this example, Puerto Ricans, led in significant part by its educators and the institutions in which they serve, have demonstrated resiliency in the face of uncertainty (Agosto-Maldonado 2021),In spite of the challenges confronting Puerto Rico, these sources of adaptability remain vital assets.

References Agosto-Maldonado, L. E. (2021, May 21). After a hurricane, earthquakes and a pandemic, teaching in Puerto Rico is an act of resilience. EdSurge Newsletter. https://www.edsurge.com/news/202105-25-after-a-hurricane-earthquakes-and-a-pandemic-teaching-in-puerto-rico-is-an-act-ofresilience Ayala, C. J., & Bernabe, R. (2007). Puerto Rico in the American century: A history since 1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Babin, M. T. (1983). A special voice. In A. M. Carrion (Ed.), Puerto Rico: A political and cultural history (pp. 319–352). New York: W. W. Norton. Brown, N. (2018, February 5). Puerto Rican governor announces public education overhaul. Reuters.

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Calderon, J. (2013). Panorama del sector educavito. San Juan: Puerto Rico Education Council. Carrion, A. M. (1983). Puerto Rico: A political and cultural history. New York: W. W. Norton. Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. (1952). https://welcome.topuertorico.org/ constitu.shtml Costas, A. R. (1983a). The organization of an institutional and social life. In A. M. Carrion (Ed.), Puerto Rico: A political and cultural history (pp. 25–40). New York: W. W. Norton. Costas, A. R. (1983b). The outpost of empire. In A. M. Carrion (Ed.), Puerto Rico: A political and cultural history (pp. 9–24). New York: W. W. Norton. Council on Education of Puerto Rico. (2015). Home page. https://agencias.pr.gov/agencias/cepr/ inicio/Pages/default.aspx Davila, A. M. (1997). Sponsored identities: Cultural politics in Puerto Rico. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. del Moral, S. (2013). Negotiating empire: The cultural politics of schools in Puerto Rico, 1898–1952. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. del Moral, S. (2018). Colonial lessons: The politics of education in Puerto Rico, 1898–1930. The American Historian, 2018(3), 40–44. del Moral, S. (2019). Language and empire: Elizabeth Kneipple’s colonial history of Puerto Rico. CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, 31(1), 56–86. Department of Education [Puerto Rico]. (2020). Home page. https://de.pr.gov/ Education Commission of the States. (2019). Teacher preparation state policy profile: 50 state analysis. https://www.ecs.org Epstein, E. H. (1967a). Linguistic orientation and changing values in Puerto Rico. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 9(3–4), 61–76. Epstein, E. H. (1967b). National identity and the language issue in Puerto Rico. International Comparative Education Review, 11(2), 133–143. Ferguson, M. (2018). The plight of Puerto Rico. Phi Delta Kappan, 99(7), 74–75. Florido, A. (2018, March 2). Puerto Rico and its teachers’ unions clash over charter schools. [Radio news broadcast transcript]. Washington, DC: National Public Radio. Frank, A. G. (1972). Lumpenbourgeoisie and lumpendevelopment: Dependency, class and politics in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press. Go, J. (2000). Chains of empire, projects of state: Political education and U.S. colonial rule in Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 42(2), 333–362. Gonzalez, G., Edwards, K. A., Zaber, M. A., Andrew, M., Strong, A., & Bond, C. A. (2020). Supporting a 21st century workforce in Puerto Rico: Challenges and options for improving Puerto Rico’s workforce system following Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017. Washington, DC: United States Department of Homeland Security. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/ pubs/research_reports/RR2800/RR2856/RAND_RR2856.pdf Herring, G. C. (2008). From colony to superpower: U.S. foreign relations since 1776. New York: Oxford University Press. Hinojosa, J. (2018). Two sides of the coin of Puerto Rican migration: Depopulation in Puerto Rico and the revival of the diaspora. CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, 30(3), 230–253. Hinojosa, J., Melendez, E., & Pietri, K. S. (2019). Population decline and school closure in Puerto Rico. [Research brief.] CENTRO: Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College, CUNY. Hsu, F. (2015). The coloniality of neoliberal English: The enduring structures of American colonial English instruction in the Philippines and Puerto Rico. L2 Journal, 7(2), 123–145. Immerwahr, D. (2019). How to hide an empire: A history of the greater United States. New York: Picador. Irizarry, J. G., Rolon-Dow, R., & Godreau, I. P. (2018). Despues del Huracan: Using a diaspora framework to contextualize and problematize educational responses post-Maria. CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, 30(3), 254–278. Ladd, H. F., & Rivera-Batiz, F. L. (2006). Education and economic development. In S. M. Collins, B. Bosworth, & M. Soto-Class (Eds.), The Puerto Rican economy: Restoring growth. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

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Lawson, E. W. (1946). The discovery of Florida and its discoverer Juan Ponce de León. Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing. Long, C. (2017, October 25). Hurricane Maria widens Puerto Rico’s inequality gap. Detroit News. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/world/2017/10/25/hurricane-maria-puerto-rico-richpoor/107010546/ Marcus, J. (2019, April 26). In Puerto Rico, the odds are against high school grads who want to go to college. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/04/26/puertorico-odds-are-against-high-school-graduates-who-want-go-college/ Melendez, E., & Venator-Santiago, C. R. (2018). Introduction to Puerto Rico post-Maria: Origins and consequences of a crisis. CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, 30(1), 5–29. Mercado, C. I. (2019). Navigating teacher education in complex and uncertain times: Connecting communities of practice in a borderless world. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic. Monge, J. T. (1997). Puerto Rico: The trials of the oldest colony in the world. New Haven: Yale University Press. Mora, M. T., Davila, A., & Rodriguez, H. (2018). Population, migration, and socioeconomic outcomes among island and mainland Puerto Ricans: La crisis Boricua. Lanham: Lexington Books. Morey, J. (2019, October 7). Silicon island: The future STEM economy of Puerto Rico. Forbes. Retrieved from. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/10/07/silicon-island-thefuture-stem-economy-of-puerto-rico/?sh=72d25f54bce9 National Center for Education Statistics (2018). Program for international student assessment: State results, Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico literacy studies. https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/ pisa2018highlishts National Center for Education Statistics. (2020). National Assessment of Educational Progress: Puerto Rico mathematics studies. https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/puertorico/ National Network of Public Health Institutes. (2020, April 1). Puerto Rico provides new educational initiatives to alleviate challenges after disasters [Report]. https://nnphi.org/puerto-rico-providesnew-educational-initiatives-to-alleviate-challenges-after-disasters/ Navarro, J. M. (2002). Creating tropical Yankees: Social science textbooks and US ideological control of Puerto Rico, 1898–1908. New York: Teachers College Press. Neeganagwedgin, E. (2015). Rooted in the land: Taíno identity, oral history and stories of reclamation in contemporary contexts. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 11(4), 376–388. Negron de Montilla, A. (1970). Americanization in Puerto Rico and the public school system. San Juan: Editorial Universitaria. Nelson, C., Prado Tuma, A., Marsh, T., Andrew, M., Anderson, D. M. Whitaker, A. A., Karoly, L. A., Murphy, R. F., Nanda, N. Ryan, J., et al. (2020). The education sector in Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria: Predisaster conditions, hurricane damage, and themes for recovery. Washington, DC: United States Department of Homeland Security. https://www.rand.org/ pubs/research_reports/RR2858.html Osuna, J. J. (1975/1949). A history of education in Puerto Rico (2nd ed., p. 4). New York: Arno Press. Poole, R. M. (2011). What became of the Taino? Smithsonian Magazine, online. https://www. smithsonianmag.com/issue/october-2011/ Pousada, A. (2000). The competent bilingual in Puerto Rico. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 142(2000), 103–118. Reid, R. L. (2020, July 1). Puerto Rican school’s STEM project demonstrates commitment to innovative learning. ASCE Source. https://source.asce.org/puerto-rican-schools-stem-projectdemonstrates-commitment-to-innovative-learning/ Rivera-Batiz, F. L. (2004, May 21). Color in the tropics: Race and economic outcomes in the island of Puerto Rico [Paper presentation.] Russell Sage Foundation conference, New York.

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Rivera-Batiz, F. L. (2008). Educational inequality and the Latino population of the United States [Report]. Teachers College: Campaign for Educational Equity. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ ED524001.pdf Robles, F. (2017, May 10). Fiscal disaster in Puerto Rico claims new casualty: Schools. New York Times, A-1. Rouse, I. (1992). The Tainos: Rise and decline of the people who greeted Columbus. New Haven: Yale University Press. Therriault, S., Li, Y., Bhatt, M. P., & Narlock, J. (2017). Puerto Rico school characteristics and student graduation: Implications for research and policy (REL 2017–266). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands. http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs Toro, H. (2008). Inequality in Puerto Rico: Facing the challenges. ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America, Spring. https://archive.revista.drclas.harvard.edu/book/inequality-puerto-rico Tyack, D. B. (1974). The one best system: A history of American urban education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ujifusa, A. (2018, February 1). Crumbling classrooms and power outages: Inside Puerto Rico’s storm damaged schools. Education Week. UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2015). Literacy statistics metadata information table. http://uis. unesco.org/en/topic/literacy UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2021). Browse by country: Puerto Rico. http://uis.unesco.org/en/ country/pr United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021). Puerto Rico Economy at a Glance. https://www. bls.gov/eag/eag.pr.htm United States Census Bureau. (2019). Puerto Rico income and poverty. https://data.census.gov/ cedsci/all?q¼Puerto%20Rico%20Income%20and%20Poverty United States Government Accountability Office. (2021, May). Puerto Rico recovery [Report to Congressional requesters]. Washington, DC. https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-264.pdf Vales, L. G. (1983a). The challenge to colonialism (1866–1897). In A. M. Carrion (Ed.), Puerto Rico: A political and cultural history (pp. 108–125). New York: W. W. Norton. Vales, L. G. (1983b). The eighteenth century society. In A. M. Carrion (Ed.), Puerto Rico: A political and cultural history (pp. 41–50). New York: W. W. Norton. Vales, L. G. (1983c). Toward a plantation society (1860–1866). In A. M. Carrion (Ed.), Puerto Rico: A political and cultural history (pp. 79–107). New York: W. W. Norton. Vargas-Ramos, C. (2018). Political crisis, migration, and electoral behavior in Puerto Rico. CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, 30(3), 279–312. Velez, A. L., Yeo, H. T., Zamani-Gallaher, E. M., & Keist, J. A. (2020). Hispanic-serving community colleges and STEM degree attainment in Puerto Rico. Office of Community College Research and Scholarship, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. https://files.eric.ed.gov/ fulltext/ED605946.pdf Walsh, C. E. (1991). Pedagogy and the struggle for voice: Issues of language, power, and schooling for Puerto Ricans. New York: Bergin and Garvey. Walsh, E. (2014). The not-so-docile Puerto Rican: Students resist Americanization, 1930. CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, 26(1), 148–171. Williams Walsh, M. (2017, May 3). Puerto Rico declares a form of bankruptcy. New York Times, A-1.

The Educational System of Suriname From Colony to Independent State

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Educational Development During Colonial Rule (1667 to 1863) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Education Development from Emancipation to Self-Governance (1863–1954) . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Compulsory Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Dividing Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Establishment and Abolition of “Coolie Schools” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Hindustani Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Obstacles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7 Limited Primary Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 Dessa Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.9 The School Struggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.10 Complaints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Development in the Post-Colonial Period (1954–1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Reform of the Educational System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Educational Structure (Figs. 1 and 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Primary Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Primary Special-Needs Education (Special Education) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Secondary Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Tertiary Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Recent Developments in Education (After 1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The educational system of Suriname is largely a copy of the Dutch model. After the Second World War, however, attempts were made to attune the education of Suriname more to the country itself. Later on, more attention was paid to the

K. Autar (*) Independent Researcher and Consultant, Zoetermeer, The Netherlands © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_49

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diversification of education and to the adjustment of curriculum content. This has led to an expansion of the educational system with more school types and levels. The Surinamese education system is facing a number of problems. The explosive growth of the number of students is placing a heavy burden on the country’s education system. Plans and projects in the policy field of education are frequently commenced, but are then not followed through to their completion. A lack of human and financial resources, the absence of administrative decisiveness, political vigor and vision are the root causes of these difficulties. The percentage of students who repeat a class in primary education and the number of dropouts in secondary education are relatively high. Keywords

Educational system · Suriname · Dutch colony

1

Introduction

Suriname is part of the Guianas and is located on the northern coast of South America. The country borders Brazil, Guiana, and French Guiana. The country’s official language is Dutch, and several local languages, such as Sranantongo, Sarnámi, and Suriname Javanese, are used as a vernacular in the country. The country obtained independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1975 and has been a sovereign state ever since. The country is home to various demographic groups whose roots lie in the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe. The indigenous population consists of the Amerindians, who mostly live inland. The majority of the population lives in the coastal area of the country. According to educational economists, good-quality education constitutes a contributory factor to economic growth.1 It is therefore to be desired that countries invest strongly in the educational sector. In particular, investment in the early development of children yields significant economic benefits to any country.2 Education is one of those public services which can be utilized for shaping children and preparing them for their future lives as members of society. In light of this, the question arises as to which educational measures Suriname has implemented in order to prepare its young people for working life. In order to answer this question, the educational system of Suriname will be described in four successive periods, including both its current form and past forms:

In the first chapter of part 2 of “Education: System and Policy” Ritzen 1987 elaborately discusses the influence of education on a country’s national income; he considers investing in education a profitable endeavor. 2 The American HighScope program of the 1960s reports that, for every US dollar that is invested in the early education of children, $7 are saved by the time that the participant has reached the age of 27, and $13 are saved by the time the participant reaches the age of 40 (https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/HighScope). 1

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First, the education system of Suriname in the period from 1667 to 1863, which is delimited by the colonization of the country on the one hand and the abolition of slavery in 1863 on the other hand, will be described and discussed. In the following section, the organization and development of Suriname’s education is described for the period until Suriname was made a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1954. In the third section, this chapter describes the country’s educational system during the period of (partial) self-governance until Suriname’s independence in 1975. In the last descriptive section, the developments and trends in Suriname’s education system following the country’s independence are discussed. The chapter finishes with summarizing conclusions.

2

Educational Development During Colonial Rule (1667 to 1863)

The colonization of Suriname by the Netherlands began in 1667. In the beginning of the country’s colonial period, there was no high-quality education in Suriname (Jagdew 2010), and institutionalized education did not yet exist in the country. At that time, the colonial government did not prioritize education for children. In 1677, Jewish immigrants from Europe established their own school in their settlement: de Jodensavanne (the Jewish Savanna). This school taught Spanish and Portuguese, languages spoken by the Jewish immigrants. It is reasonable to assume that this school also provided religious education, since Jews were not able to practice their religion openly in Europe. Beyond this, it is difficult to ascertain what other subjects the children were taught at this school. This private school can be regarded as the first school in Suriname. Jews and other white groups were part of the local elite. Whenever possible, the elite sent their children to Europe for their education and upbringing. Since 1650, the larger part of the population consisted of enslaved Africans. Nowadays, the descendants of those African slaves form the Creoles and Maroons population groups.3 In this period, the children of African slaves were excluded from education, because the colonists did not see any point in teaching slaves how to read and write, nor in providing them with religious education. The Moravian Brothers were not allowed to teach at the plantations. These Brothers were religious fugitives from Moravia and Bohemia, who had been given shelter at Herrnhut, Germany. The first missionaries from Herrnhut came to Suriname in 1735. Initially, the Moravian Brothers developed their educational activities for the indigenous population, which had fled deep inland. This education was targeted at children of Amerindian natives and Maroons. The overall goal of the Moravian Brothers was mainly to convert indigenous peoples to Protestant Christianity. Their educational activities are referred to in Dutch as “zending” (i.e., Protestant mission), whereas those of the Roman Catholic church are called “missie” (i.e., Catholic mission), the Roman 3

Maroons are the descendants of runaway slaves.

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Catholic mission having commenced its activities more than a hundred years after the Protestant mission. Despite resistance from the colonists, the Moravian Brothers founded a school for slave children in 1793. They educated their students in order for them to take their places as preachers and teachers. The spoken language at school and in church was a creole form of English called “Negro English” (now Sranantongo), the language that the slaves spoke among each other as a lingua franca, both in the city and on the plantations. The Brothers preached in the language of the slaves and also printed books in it (IOL 2019). In time, the layout of the education landscape in Suriname changed. In 1760, for instance, a “mulatto school” for the children of free “mulattoes” and Dutch natives was opened. Six years later, the Protestant mission started offering education to children of people of color4 and “negroes.”5 In 1787, the Catholic mission, too, began offering education for these demographic groups. According to Adhin (1973), good-quality education existed in the colony during the first years of the nineteenth century. He illustrates this assertion by dint of two examples. In 1809, Johannes Vrolijk6 founded his own school. The coming of the Dutch headmaster, C.A. Batenburg, in 1816 contributed to the further development of education in the colony. He established a school for extended primary education (EPE). In this period, education was entirely privately owned, especially by the Protestant and Catholic missions, whose goal was of a missionary nature. As the prospect of abolition drew near, plantation owners’ attitudes changed. As of 1844, the Moravian Brothers began providing education to slave children, for which purpose they had established schools in cities and in the provinces. During this period, mass education was entirely owned by private persons, the Protestant, and the Catholic missions (Adhin. ibid).

3

Education Development from Emancipation to SelfGovernance (1863–1954)

Following emancipation of the slaves in 1863, the educational landscape changed. Henceforth, the colonial government assumed responsibility for providing education. Thus, compulsory school attendance was enforced this year7 According to Hans Ramsoedh (2018), “people of color” originated from relationships between white men and female slaves, thus constituting a class in between the white and the enslaved population. 5 Nowadays there are more politically correct alternatives for this term, which is used in the literature, such as “creoles” or “Afro-Surinamese.” 6 Johannes Vrolijk was the first teacher of color. Upon his return from his studies in the Netherlands, he opened his own private school, which enabled change and progress in education in early nineteenth-century Suriname. 7 Compulsory school attendance is the legally imposed obligation for parents or legal guardians to send their children to school. Therefore, compulsory school attendance surpasses compulsory education. 4

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and applied specifically to the children of the emancipated slaves, who were placed under state supervision. After the abolition of slavery, the liberated slaves were required to continue working on the plantations for meager wages for 10 years under state supervision, and their children were now required to attend school. A penalty was imposed for noncompliance with compulsory school attendance, applying to both the plantation owners and the parents. This compulsory school attendance applied solely to the children of emancipated slaves, not for the immigrant children (children of Hindustani and Javanese contract workers). This compulsory school attendance meant that from the age of 7 to 15, the children of emancipated slaves were obligated to go to school for 2 h a day to be educated in religion and other school subjects. One year after the abolition of slavery, the Moravian and Roman Catholic missions began to receive support from the colonial government, and in 1867, the government itself began to found schools (Adhin, ibid.). For these schools, the government compiled regulations with regard to the hiring of teachers and their expected behavior, the division of schools into primary and secondary schools, and subjects which were required to be taught in both types of school. It also established ranks for certified teachers. Furthermore, the government determined what the goal of school education was to be, and stipulated that education was to be offered in classrooms to the greatest possible extent. The school was required to teach children useful skills, develop their cognitive abilities, and offer education in social and communal values. Elements of this formulation of the general objective of education are still present in the country’s educational policies and objectives. As of 1865, there has been a regulation that education is a duty of the state, which has had an impact on the development of education for all, including for children of the poor. Freedom of education was guaranteed by this regulation, and it offered possibilities for subsidizing missionary schools and for the establishment of state schools (Adhin, ibid.).

3.1

Compulsory Education

The 1876 Compulsory Education Act was an act that obliged parents and legal guardians to send their children between the ages of 7 and 12 to receive primary education. In Suriname, the general compulsory education law entered into force 25 years earlier than in the colonial motherland (Karsten 2019). Proclamation of general compulsory education rendered mass education a legal requirement in Suriname. Alongside compulsory education, the government also commenced its assimilation policy. For instance, education was not to be offered in creole English (Sranantongo). Dutch was introduced as the compulsory, privileged language in all schools. Such attempts at assimilation stemmed from a belief that the children of former slaves needed to be “civilized” and should no longer be allowed to be on the loose, which was a nuisance to the urban elite in particular (Gobardhan-Rambocus 1989; Ramsoedh 2018).

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Dividing Lines

From colonial times onwards, Suriname has been characterized by two clear dividing lines: one ethnic and one geographical. During the inchoate stages of colonization, the white-versus-black contradistinction constituted the ethnic dividing line. This was epitomized by a difference in legal status between, on the one hand, free citizens and, on the other hand, slaves with practically no rights. While this divide disappeared after the abolition of slavery in 1863, the arrival of Asian contract workers (Hindustani and Javanese immigrants) increased the complexity of the country’s ethnic makeup and relations. The ethnic dividing line was not separate from the geographic dividing line, namely between Paramaribo and the other districts. As of the nineteenth century, Paramaribo became creole and white territory. The rural districts, which, save two, were predominantly Asiatic, had a structure which remained unaltered until the middle of the twentieth century. As a consequence of this contradictory policy, various ethnic groups were treated differently in the field of education. (Van Stipriaan 2002). For instance, educational efforts were strongly focused on the City of Paramaribo, thereby neglecting the other districts (countryside). While the Hindustani focused on agriculture, trade, and industry, the creoles had the tendency to climb up the social ladder as civil servants or teachers by obtaining qualifications. At least until the Second World War, the civil service and the entire education system were typically a creole stronghold (Renes 1981).

3.3

Establishment and Abolition of “Coolie Schools”8

The question is whether the General Compulsory Education Act also applied to the children of the Asian9 contract workers who were employed on the plantations. Which attempts did the colonial authority of Suriname undertake to promote school attendance among Asian children? How was education for Asian immigrant children designed? What was the parents’ opinion on this? And what was the nature of this education compared with the education for children from other groups? In answering these questions, we shall furthermore describe the motives of the colonial government for implementing new school types for Asian children or for venturing proposals to this end. Around 1890, the colonial government attempted to encourage the Hindustani contract workers to settle in Suriname permanently. In an effort better to reach this population, a course in Hindustani was offered, aimed specially at civil servants. This was necessary as the immigrants did not trust the interpreters. The Hindustani

The colonial authorities used the term “coolie schools,” but the stakeholders did not call themselves “coolies”; they called the schools Hindi páthsála, which means Hindi school, a school for learning how to read and write the Nágri or Urdu script. 9 This concerns education for Chinese, Hindustani and Javanese immigrant children. 8

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course was offered for 2 h a week, and, owing to a lack of interest, this course was cancelled 4 years later (Gobardhan-Rambocus 2001). Neither the 1863 compulsory school attendance regulation nor the 1876 General Compulsory Education Act applied to children of the Hindustani and Javanese contract workers. Compulsory education was clearly intended for the creole children who were to be assimilated through education (Van Stipriaan, ibid.). Judging by today’s standards, one might easily opine that the colonial government failed to offer the immigrant children equal opportunities in education. Although this treatment of the first group of Hindustani immigrant children was unequal, it can be readily explained. General compulsory education did not apply to children of the Hindustani immigrants until the end of the first contract period in 1878. This is because the contract workers and their children were British subjects, that is, foreigners, and compulsory education or school attendance was not a part of the agreement between the Netherlands and England on hiring British-Indian workers. Only much later was this requirement included in the work contract of Hindustani contract workers. The goal of the education system was to assimilate immigrant children into the Judeo-Christian tradition, that is to say, to initiate them in Western culture. The Compulsory Education Act was, however, not particularly effective with regard to the Hindustani contract workers, because their children were contractually obliged to work on the plantations from the age of 10 to 15, albeit part-time. In order to promote school attendance of Hindustani children, governor Lohman introduced a new school type for Hindustani children on some plantations (Mariënburg in the Commewijne district and Waterloo in the Nickerie district) in 1890, the so-called coolie schools. One year later, two more such schools were opened on the Visserszorg and Alliance plantations. Teaching in these “coolie schools” was conducted with Hindustani as the main language. The reason behind this practice was the prevailing view at the time that the government could not force Hindustani immigrant children to learn Dutch, but at the same time, it did not want to deny this group of children any form of education. At the time, the phrase “Hindustani as the main language” chiefly referred to providing education in the languages of the Hindustani immigrants’ countries (De Klerk 1953); this meant simple education in Hindi and Urdu. This education was provided by “coolie teachers” who were recruited on the plantations. The children mostly learned reading and writing in the Nágri and Urdu scripts. To this end, coolie teachers used Hindi and Urdu booklets from India. The question is whether these “coolie teachers” were sufficiently capable of providing education in Hindi and Urdu. In all probability, the teachers hardly understood these languages themselves, and Hindi and Urdu certainly were foreign languages for the Hindustani immigrant children. After all, the majority of their parents spoke regional languages that were most definitely not Hindi or Urdu. Most of the Hindustani contract workers came from regions in northeastern India, the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where Bhojpuri and Awadhi were spoken. The study materials used came from India, which did not take Hindustani children’s home languages into consideration nor their surroundings and experiences on the Surinamese plantations. In the National Archive of Suriname, order lists can

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be found for Hindi and Urdu calculation books requested by “coolie teachers.” From a submitted document of Agent-General Barnet Lyon (De West, August 29, 1898) it also transpires that education was offered at “coolie schools” in the subjects of reading and writing in the languages of the parents’ countries. According to him, the children were also taught arithmetic, geography and history. The literature also refers to the latter two subjects as Suriname knowledge (cf. Van Boheemen 1951). The majority of the student body of “coolie schools” was boys. The number of girls who attended these schools was low by comparison. In a footnote, De Klerk (1953) gives an overview of the school attendance figures, broken down into boys and girls. At the end of 1891, the “coolie school” of Mariënburg was attended by 49 boys and 20 girls, Visserszorg 18 boys and 13 girls, Alliance 8 boys and 8 girls, and Waterloo 18 boys only, without any girls. Some Hindustani parents were critical of the “coolie schools,” as they had a low opinion of “coolie teachers.” Sometimes, the school was neglected by the teacher, causing the children to stay away. Parents complained that the children did not learn anything at the “coolie schools,” and that they only did chores for the teacher, such as chopping firewood and cooking. One hundred and fifty-five children attended these schools in the first years of the twentieth century, which existed but shortly, being abolished in 1906. The introduction of the “coolie schools” was an attempt by the colonial government to meet the desires and needs of the Hindustani immigrants. At the same time, the government wanted the Hindustani immigrants to stay in Suriname after expiry of the contract period. The country needed these immigrants for the plantation agriculture, as well as smallholding. They mainly produced food for domestic consumption. The Hindustani immigrants were initially loath to send their children to regular primary school as the education was provided in Dutch, and they were as yet undecided as to whether they wished to settle in Suriname permanently. It should be noted that, after 5 years of contract work, they were able to return to their country of origin. Moreover, the Hindustani parents objected to their children having to attend schools also attended by creole children. The creole children beat and bullied the children of Hindustani immigrants – behavior with which these immigrant children were ill-equipped to deal. In opening “coolie schools,” not only did the colonial government take Hindustani immigrants’ needs into consideration, it also created an environment in which the immigrants became aware of their own cultural heritage. Their children were educated in their countries’ languages, albeit not directly their mother tongue, by Hindustani teachers who were familiar with the children’s cultural backgrounds. Dutch was therefore not the language of the school.

3.4

Resistance

Many people in the community opposed the “coolie schools.” Even though children were able to enjoy education in their own languages as of 1890, certain parts of the colony resisted this form of education during the entire period of the schools’

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existence. From 1892 onwards, a certain amount of money was reserved for the “coolie schools” in the national budget. After the “coolie schools” had been in operation for 6 or 7 years, Governor Lohman submitted a proposal in the colonial states to increase the number of these schools. A letter from Agent-General Barnet Lyon (ibid.) reveals that there was fierce opposition against Lohman’s policy in the press. The issue was an amount of 4500 guilders for the expansion of four to ten “coolie schools.” The strongest opponents to the “coolie schools” were the Protestant and Catholic missions. They wanted to civilize the Hindustani children by converting them to Christianity, and assimilate them into the Judeo-Christian tradition. The white elite and people of color also belonged to the group of opponents to the “coolie schools.”

3.5

Hindustani Teachers

From the beginning of 1907, the “coolie schools” were replaced by the institute for non-graduated Hindustani teachers. These teachers were appointed at regular primary schools in districts with a large proportion of Hindustani immigrants to teach in the Hindustani language in preparation for Dutch education. Moreover, the children were simultaneously educated in the Dutch language. This was hence a form of bilingual education in which the first language was used to learn the second one as a step towards Dutch education. In other words, they taught the immigrant children in Hindustani as a means of transitioning between the “coolie schools” and the regular general primary education. It is likely that this constituted the beginning of instruction in the immigrant children’s mother tongue10 as well as Sarnámi as a vernacular of Hindustani immigrants. From an educational point of view, the use of Hindustani teachers in primary education was innovative. Teaching the children a second language through the first language was progressive from an educational-theoretical perspective. From a pedagogical point of view, too, employing Hindustani teachers may be regarded as appropriate. The children were not plunged directly into Dutch (school) culture without preparation; adaption to Western culture happened gradually, which highlights the colonial authorities’ pedagogic awareness. The first non-graduated Hindustani teachers were hired at the primary schools of Mariënburg and Meerzorg. These teachers were also called “barefooters” or “assistance teachers.” The teachers without degrees were required to adhere to the dress codes for teachers, but because of their low wages, they were not able to afford all the necessary clothes and footwear during the first months of their employment; hence, some teachers taught barefooted at their schools (“blotevoeters”) (Loor 2013). The institute for non-graduated Hindustani teachers at regular primary schools in the districts, too, was short-lived, being abolished in 1929. The abolition was partly 10

Education in Hindustani, the mother tongue of Hindustani children, was not a new thing in Suriname. The EBG schools were already providing education in creole English (Sranantongo). EBG: Evangelische Broeder Gemeente (Moravian Church), a protestant movement.

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due to a lack of new British-Indian immigrants. In the government’s opinion, the task of non-graduated teachers had been fulfilled. It was allowed, however, for Hindustani children to be educated in their spare time, in their own language. The immigrant parents were expected to finance this education themselves. In all likelihood the immigrant parents did not opt for their own mother tongue to this end, but rather the official languages of India: Hindi and Urdu. This is certainly a missed opportunity for developing education in the children’s mother tongue and making them appreciate their own native and vernacular language and culture. Compulsory education notwithstanding, the immigrant parents did not send their children to school, as they assumed that they would be returning to their country of origin. The first groups of immigrants in particular did not see the benefits of education, as they were not wont to attend school in their countries of origin. The large majority of the immigrants could not read or write in their native language. Only 10% of the immigrants were literate in Hindi and Urdu, and only a few in English.

3.6

Obstacles

Hindustani children in the districts encountered many obstacles to attending to school (Choenni and Choenni 2012). The geographic distances between home and school were great. The children were forced to traverse great distances along muddy roads in order to reach the school. In addition, connections between home and school were lamentable and time-consuming for many. Most children in the districts needed to work at home first and only attended school thereafter. Parents lacked the wherewithal for clothing and footwear for their school-aged children. Girls were expected to mind the younger siblings and to help in the household after obtaining their primary school certificate. Education was provided in Dutch, which was a foreign language for the district children. Furthermore, the education material had no relation to the everyday lives and experiences of Hindustani children. The areas in which the district children lived offered no options for secondary education. Neither did the city have sufficient childcare and housing for the district children. These factors are partly responsible for the low participation rates of district children in secondary education until 1920.

3.7

Limited Primary Education

As of 1920, privately run schools (Protestant and Catholic missionary schools) were also granted subsidies for providing education to school-aged children. This equalization of the public and privately run education spheres meant that education expenses increased. The colonial authorities adhered to a policy of simplification in education. In 1929, in order to keep education expenses in check, the possibility was offered to establish a simpler form of primary education in the districts. The prevailing idea was that district children did not have such a great need for advanced education, and that it was appropriate to offer them a limited curriculum instead. For the district children, the regular primary education (RPE) was converted into limited

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primary education (LPE). The organization of this form of education was limited in all regards. It was limited in the curriculum, in the quality of the teachers and in the salary of educational staff (Van Boheemen, ibid). At the very least, the curriculum consisted of the subjects reading, writing, arithmetic, and Dutch. LPE required only the lowest level of qualifications from its teachers. These schools employed auxiliary teachers or entirely unqualified persons: the “districtskwekelingen,” or district teacher trainees. They received a very low salary for their work. These districts were home to primarily Asian farmers. Consequently, their children were provided with less and inferior education. It is not an exaggeration when Van Boheemen (ibid.) claims that district children were, in essence, being neglected. Of the 86 district schools in 1940, 74 were LPE. In Paramaribo, by contrast, none of the schools were LPE facilities. This is an illustration of the unequal treatment of district children and of segregation in education. In Paramaribo, the regular primary schools were mainly attended by creole children, and in the rural districts, the LPE schools were intended for Asian children, in particular many Hindustani children. The LPE had disastrous consequences for the level of education in Suriname. District children had extensive educational gaps, which, in practice, could only be overcome by visiting consecutive supplementary courses, which was not feasible for many of them. If a district child wanted to continue their education, they would first need to attend a regular primary school (RPS) and then the EPE11 and MEPE12 after the LPE.

3.8

Dessa Schools

Governor Kielstra had intended to initiate a trial with the Dessa Schools for Javanese district children. Dessa means Indonesian countryside; it is the smallest administrative unit in Java. By dint of this trial, he wanted to offer education to dessa children that better suited their needs by not elevating them above the status of their peers. The education was to take the “adat” (tradition) of the Javanese immigrants into consideration. At this school, the children would only learn the most elementary parts of 11

EPE stands for extended primary education. In 1948, the eight-year EPE school was transformed into a two-year program following primary school. Children who were no longer admitted to more extended primary education (MEPE) or primary technical school (PTS),had the option of attending the EPE. In 1975, the gradual abolition of the EPE was commenced, leading to it being subsumed by a new structure: Secondary level junior education (SJE) (Plet 2003) 12 MEPE stands for more extended primary education. Prior to the establishment of secondary schools (in 1950), the eight-year MEPE school was the traditional combination of primary and secondary education which offered the opportunity to progress to higher education. The diploma awarded by these schools provided access to higher education in Suriname, in particular the School of Medicine.The current four-year MEPE school is a preparation for professional academic, secondary and teacher training education, as well as intermediate vocational education. In addition, it is the final form of education for many (Plet 2003).

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reading, writing and arithmetic in their own language. Kielstra’s plan was to convert all district schools with more than 90% Asian children into Dessa Schools. The curriculum of the Dessa School would be more limited than that of the LPS. These Dessa Schools were to have Javanese as the main language and the education was to be provided by Javanese teachers. These schools struggled with the problem that there were no Javanese teachers to employ, and there was no option for continued education at the Dessa School either. In Kielstra’s opinion, the Dessa School was also the final phase of education for Asian district children. The Dessa School, too, was perceived as an inferior school, because this school type was not part of the regular education apparatus. Ultimately, this idea did not materialize, and with that, Kielstra’s resolution to implement the concept of the Dessa School for the Hindustani immigrants in the districts as well, was abandoned. This undoubtedly saved many district children from experiencing unbridgeable gaps in education and an unequal position in society. Besides, the introduction of the Dessa School would have meant a break in the prevailing assimilation politics of the colonial government. Kielstra wanted to reinforce the cultural and religious heritage of these ethnic groups, rather than homogenizing education and rendering it more Dutch. His idea met considerable resistance from the “Dutchized” creole elite, who accused Kielstra of wanting to make Suriname “more East Indian.”

3.9

The School Struggle

Despite the 1876 Compulsory Education Act, there were an insufficient number of state schools in Suriname. During the first few decades of the twentieth century, Protestant and Catholic missions founded a number of district schools for Hindustani children, including in the Paramaribo region. The first EBG school for Hindustani children in Paramaribo was the Annieschool on the Gravenstraat. This school was founded in 1905 and was mainly attended by boys and one girl named Annie. The school was named after her, as she was the adoptive daughter of the school’s headmaster. In the morning, the children would be taught reading, writing, arithmetic, speech exercises, and education through images. At noon, the curriculum included reading and writing in Hindustani, Biblical stories, and singing. The first Roman Catholic mission school was founded 5 years later, in 1910, exclusively for Hindustani children. Reaching far into the district, the church was busy assimilating Hindustani children through education. As of 1927, the Hindustani children born in Suriname obtained the same rights as other Surinamese children, which were previously denied them. A number of Hindustani activists demanded neutral state schools for Hindustani children. These organizations successfully opposed the construction of even more Christian schools for Hindustani children. They called for the colonial government to open neutral state primary schools for Hindustani children. Without a doubt, these advocates contributed to the opening of more state schools in Suriname, given that, at the end

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of the nineteenth century, the education landscape in Paramaribo had primarily been comprised of private and privately run schools, and but a small number of state schools. In an interview from June 2018, Lila Gobardhan-Rambocus plainly summarizes the achievements of Hindustani people in the field of education in Suriname. In her opinion, the settlement of Hindustani contract workers in Suriname has had a permanent influence on the education landscape in the country. According to her, Hindustani immigrants fought hard for the foundation of state schools, because those did not feature religion on the curriculum (Starnieuws, June 4, 2018). In order to exert pressure on the colonial government, Hindustani activists founded private schools themselves, for example, two private schools for Hindustani children in the Paramaribo vicinity. One of these schools was closed when a state school was founded in this vicinity. The subsidies allocation policies of the government reveal an unequal treatment of different privately run schools. Whereas Protestant and Catholic missions did receive government support for education, the private Hindustani schools did not. By consequence, the survival of Hindustani private schools was in jeopardy from the very beginning, but it did prove its use as a means of leverage. The government succumbed, and, in one fell swoop, ten state schools appeared which were attended not only by Hindustani children, but also by Chinese and creole children who were not members of the Christian church. Although, by virtue of equalization of privately run and public education in 1920, the Hindustani advocates could have opted for their own schools, they refrained from doing so. They preferred state schools in order to improve the integration with other population groups. The Hindustani advocates believed that, in state schools, the immigrants’ religion would not be under threat. They demanded that the colonial government convert the limited primary education for district children into regular primary education. This demand on the Hindustani advocates’ part was later met. In 1947, the d’Haens report was published, which includes a number of measures for the improvement of education in Suriname (Van Boheemen, ibid). The proposals raised by d’Haens are described below. Furthermore, the advocates demanded that the colonial government enable Hindustani children to be educated in the Hindustani languages for half an hour per week. In 1922, Hindustani teachers provided lessons in Hindustani13 at ten state, four EBG and four Roman Catholic schools. Five years on, the number of schools that provided education in Hindustani had increased to 37. As mentioned above, in providing education in the Hindustani immigrant children’s own language, the Christian schools were primarily pursuing a missionary purpose. Education in Hindustani was abolished in 1928, as the government decided that this type of education was no longer compatible with the educational system. It was moreover deemed unfair and disproportionate in relation to other ethnic/demographic groups, and no funding was available to finance this education. With the abolition of

In this context, education in “Hindustani” refers to education in simple Hindi and Urdu, and not in the children’s native tongue.

13

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education in Hindustani, the Hindustani teachers were dismissed. The government assumed that the second generation of immigrant children had parents with some Dutch language skills. The abolition of “Hindustani” education was a blow to the Hindustani population, because, in their opinion, thousands of immigrants were completely unable to speak the Dutch language. The advocates of education in “Hindustani” did not want the children to become estranged from their native language, a wish that was very much connected to the desire to preserve their customs and traditions. The advocates of education in Hindustani held the opinion that this education represented a vital component in supporting children at school (Gobardhan-Rambocus 2001).

3.10

Complaints

After the Second World War, dissatisfaction with the education system in Suriname was voiced increasingly strongly by those working in the field of education. The Dutch government decided to investigate the educational situation in the colony. Former superintendent d’Haens from the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), who also served as an advisor to the national governance in the field of educational development, was tasked with this investigation. In 1946, he published a devastating report that confirmed the grievances voiced by education practitioners. In certain ways, the condition of the Surinamese education system was alarming. For instance, the report found that the provision of learning materials, particularly in state education, was in an abysmal state, school absenteeism at most schools was over 40%, and school results were disappointingly poor. Following the investigation, the author of the report made a number of recommendations to reform the educational system of Suriname in accordance with to the model of the Dutch East Indies. These recommendations were a major departure from the existing educational system. The proposals that were put into practice can be summarized as follows: – Keeping Dutch as the primary language – Organization of kindergarten classes, especially intended for non-Dutch-speaking children as a preparation for primary education – Further differentiation of primary education, with the effect of even stronger class education than before – The foundation of a Suriname teacher training college and a limited secondary school (Karsten 1967)

4

Educational Development in the Post-Colonial Period (1954–1975)

In 1954, Suriname obtained limited autonomy which lasted until the country’s independence. During this self-governance era, education was largely the responsibility of Suriname itself. Despite new forms of primary and secondary education, the

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educational situation had not significantly improved. Education in Suriname was, in fact, severely hampered during this period of self-governance. Education was entirely based on Dutch methods and provided in accordance with these Dutch methods. At the time, there was little money and expertise available for the country to develop its own methods. Moreover, the management of the education system was a one-to-one copy of the Dutch system. Education was still organized according to the three-pillar structure, just as it existed in the Netherlands at the time. There were state, Protestant, and Roman Catholic schools for primary and secondary education. The latter two pillars together are also called privately run or confessional education. While the population was 19% Hindustani and 31% Muslim, privately run education was not expanded to include schools of Hindu and Islamic religious movements until the 1960s. This means that, initially, half of the population was not part of the pillarization of education (Karsten, ibid). Beside this colonial heritage, other factors also had an impact on the development of education in Suriname during the time of limited self-governance, first of all, the demographic factors. From 1950 onwards, the population increased rapidly with approx. 3.5% growth per year, which had far-reaching consequences for education. The number of school-aged children increased from 37,000 to 103,000 in the period between 1950 and 1965, which, in the course of 15 years, represents a growth of 278% (Van Leeuwen 1968; Sietaram 1979: Karsten 1984). The sheer size of the education system put immense pressure on the Surinamese economy, which was hardly able to survive. Another consequence was that the education system was faced with a permanent shortage of material means, which in turn was detrimental for its quality. A third consequence was the continual shortage of qualified teachers. To cope with this shortage, the government was compelled to recruit educational staff from the Netherlands; hence, the Dutch element in the Surinamese education system remained strong. In addition to the colonial heritage and the demographic development, there were other factors that caused Suriname to remain dependent upon the Netherlands. Production of intellectual property and services was chiefly based in the Netherlands, or remained Dutch in nature. The cultural dominance this engendered was not only noticeable in education but also in the media and literature. In the educational sector, this cultural dominance came to the fore in the transfer of educational knowledge by external Dutch experts. They continued to define the educational issues and offer solutions (Kartsen, ibid.).

5

Reform of the Educational System

D’Haens designed a new educational system for Suriname. The improvement of education required some urgent measures to be taken. – The Suriname teacher training college (Kweek-B) was founded in 1949. – The number of MEPE schools in Paramaribo was expanded and two MEPE schools were established in the coastal districts of Nickerie and Marowijne.

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– The EPE and MEPE were separated from the RPS and became independent schools. – Primary school education was split up into three categories: • Regular primary education A (RPS-A), intended for children from a Dutchspeaking background. • Regular primary education B (RPS-B), for children from a non-Dutch-speaking background. • District-regular primary education, which was to replace the limited primary education (LPE). – At present, students from all primary schools may take the entrance exam for MEPE schools. – The district teacher trainees system (“kwekelingenstelsel”) was formally abolished. – The education inspection was extended. – The general secondary school (GSS) was opened in 1950. The leaving certificate of this three-year education is equal to the Dutch H.B.S certificate14 (Sietaram 1979). Originally, this secondary school consisted of four departments (A, B, C, and D).15 In addition to the implementation of d’Haens’ recommendations, the Suriname Law School was founded in 1948, and, in 1952, the training school for Teachers-A (Kweek-A) was established. This four-year course trained kindergarten teachers and enabled them to care for young children in their native language, as well as to teach them sufficient knowledge of the Dutch language in their early years, so that they could attend primary education, in the school language, that is, to improve the toddlers’ school-readiness. These teachers were qualified to teach both in kindergarten (ages 4–6) and the first two classes of primary school (ages 6–8). In essence, it was a reasonably innovative education for the time, which was tailored to the local needs and circumstances of the country, rather than being a copy of a Dutch school type. Furthermore, the departments C and D of the general secondary school became the general trade school in 1962. Suriname did not have a general curriculum for primary education until 1965. In that year, an Education Committee, led by Dutch expert W.F. Prins, composed a general curriculum for primary education, which is still used as a basis for the organization of primary education today. However, there are plans to change this curriculum into a national curriculum for primary education (kindergarten and primary education).

14

H.B.S.: Hogereburgerschool (higher civic school) was a Dutch education form for intermediate secondary education 15 A: Alpha; B: Bertha; C: Commerce; D: Administrative services

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During the same period of limited self-governance, Suriname established a six-year lyceum in 1967, which was short-lived; after six school years, this form of secondary school was abolished in 1973. In addition to the lyceum, a secondary technical school was established in 1967 that was soon changed into the Natuur Technisch Instituut (NATIN, Natural Technical Institute) (Nuffic 2015; IOL 2019).

6

Educational Structure (Figs. 1 and 2)

Until its independence, Suriname had an educational system that consisted of various school types that could be subdivided into three levels (Mijs 1974). Figure 1 represents the educational structure of Suriname prior to its independence, and Fig. 2 the more recent version of it.

6.1

Primary Education

6.1.1 Kindergarten Education This level of education was intended for children aged 4–6. It spanned 2 years. The goal of kindergarten education is to prepare four- and five-year-old children for primary school in the course of 2 years. In 1952, this objective was adapted to accommodate children from non-Dutch-speaking backgrounds. Kindergarten education was to teach children additional knowledge of the Dutch language, so that they were able to attend regular primary education in this language from the very beginning. 6.1.2 Regular Primary Education (RPE) Primary education was established for children aged 6–12, extending over a period of six school years. RPE has two objectives: • Providing general primary education for children. Those for whom this school type is their final education, subsequently enter the labor market. • Preparation for the various forms of secondary education.

6.1.3 Boslandonderwijs (Bushland Education) This form of education is intended for the age group of 6–12-year-olds and is provided in the course of 4 years. It is intended for the population of the Suriname inland. The curriculum consists of a four-year program and covers the subjects arithmetic, language, writing, history, and geography. Mostly, the lessons are taught in the children’s native language, and attendance is voluntary; compulsory education was not enforced in the inland. The “Boslandonderwijs” is entirely in the hands of the evangelical and Roman Catholic missions.

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Fig. 1 Educational structure of Suriname before independence (Bruijning and Voorhoeve 1977)

6.2

Primary Special-Needs Education (Special Education)

Children with mental or physical disabilities attend this type of education. In 1969, Suriname had a school for children with hearing disabilities, a school for the physically disabled, and five institutions for children with learning disabilities. According to Mijs (1974), the lack of facilities for special education at the time

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Fig. 2 Educational system of Suriname (Nuffic 2015). In this recent diagram, some new school types on the secondary level and the introduction of the bachelor’s-master’s degree system on the tertiary level are displayed in comparison with Fig. 1

meant that most children with disabilities attended regular primary education; they were often perceived as a disruptive element in classes, slowing down the learning speed of other students.

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Secondary Education16

6.3.1 Extended Primary Education (EPE) EPE was intended for students aged 12–14/15. Until 1948, this school type offered an eight-year education, of which the first 6 years were identical to regular primary education. Following d’Haens’ recommendations, the eightyear EPE was changed into a two-year program with only the two highest grades of the eight-year school type being maintained. Admission to EPE requires the RPE certificate. Until 1965, an EPE diploma allowed students to be admitted to the Kweek-A; thereafter, this teacher training program for women required an entrance exam. Circa 1960, a trial was conducted with a new type of EPE with a three-year curriculum. This was the so-called new-style EPE, which was a type of societal school that was aimed more at social practice. Its intention was to incorporate students into the labor force upon completion of the three-year EPE. 6.3.2 More Extended Primary Education (MEPE) This school type spans 4 years and is intended for students aged 12–16. Until 1948, the MEPE, too, was an eight-year school type. After 1948, the junior classes of this school type were abolished and the current four-year type remained. The MEPE has an A and B level. Qualifying for the MEPE requires an entrance examination to be taken. At the end of the third year, students can take an entrance examination for general secondary education (GSE) or proceed to Suriname teacher training (Kweek-B) without entrance exam. 6.3.3 Primary Technical Education (PTE) PTE was a form of three-year education attended by students aged 12–15. At the end of the nineteenth century, Paramaribo already had a vocational school. In 1950, this school was changed into a PTE school, where students could attend education in the following subjects: automotive mechanics, electrical installation, carpentry, lathe operation, painting, and masonry. Furthermore, students were divided into a theoretic and practical orientation. Admission to PTE requires applicants to pass an exam. 6.3.4 Secondary Technical Education (STE) The first STE school in Suriname commenced its activities in the 1969/1970 school year. Later, the STE was absorbed into the NATIN (natural technical institute). Holders of the MEPE B diploma and graduates of the theoretic orientation of the PTE were eligible for admission to the STE. 16

Secondary-level education following independence is divided into secondary level junior education (SJE) and secondary level senior education (SSE).

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6.3.5 Home Economics Education This school type has a three-year program and is intended for students aged 12–15. Paramaribo has had a home economics school since 1938. Students in the possession of an RPE certificate are eligible for admission to this school. 6.3.6 General Secondary Education (GSE) In the late 1960s, Paramaribo had three secondary schools: the GSE, the lyceum, and the Free H.B.S. All three are schools for secondary academic education (VWO in Dutch). The GSE is intended for students aged 14–17 and offers 3 years of education. The lyceum, which was founded in 1966 and abolished in 1973, was accessible to students aged 12–18. This school consisted of an Atheneum, a gymnasium, and a higher general secondary education department,17 a copy of Dutch school types for secondary education. The Free H.B.S. is a private secondary academic school established in 1962. 6.3.7 Teacher Training Teacher training takes place in four school types: (a) The training school for female teachers A (Kweek-A). This school is intended for students aged 14–18 and spans 4 years. Graduates receive a diploma specific to Suriname that qualifies them to teach in kindergarten and in the first 2 years of RPE. The requirement for admission is an EPE diploma or having progressed from the second year of the MEPE to the third year. Since 1965, applicants to this school must pass an entrance exam. (b) The Suriname teacher training school (Kweek-B). This three-year professional training is intended for students aged 15–18. The Kweek-B trains teachers to reach the third-tier qualification or teaching certificate, a certificate that grants the right to teach in RPE. Students who have successfully attended 3 years in MEPE may be admitted to this school. (c) Training headmaster’s certificate This experimental training for the headmaster’s certificate was introduced in the 1970/1971 school year and was subsumed by the Suriname teacher training school. Exercising the position of headmaster at an RPE school requires a headmaster’s diploma. Students wishing to be admitted to the training for the headmaster’s certificate must have a teacher’s certificate. (d) The Christian educational institute In the school year 1970/1971, a second teacher training school was opened in Paramaribo by a cooperation between two Christian school boards (RCPE and

17

Higher general secondary education (HAVO in Dutch): this is the second highest level of secondary education in the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Suriname.

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MCE).18 This school offers trainings for the teacher’s certificate, headmaster’s certificate, and the certificate for kindergarten teachers.

6.3.8 Trade School Suriname has had a trade school (MHS) since 1959. This form of education trains students as middle and higher-ranking employees in trade and prepares them for their future professional life. The admission requirement is the MEPE diploma. The trade school was later changed into the Institute for Secondary Economical and Administrative Education (ISEAE).

6.4

Tertiary Education

The tertiary education in Suriname consists of higher professional trainings and academic education. The objective of tertiary education is training and preparing educated people for the higher professions and management positions.

6.4.1 Institute for Teacher Training The Institute for Teacher Training (ITT) was founded in 1966 under the name of Didactic Institute. The ITT trains teachers for teaching in secondary education (SJE and SSE).19 Until 1969, the year in which ITT received its current name, this institute provided secondary education20 courses only. The institute issued primary, secondary A and secondary B diplomas. The one- and two-year primary school programs offer professional training in chemistry, household economics, and textile handicraft. Admission required a secondary academic education diploma, a headmaster’s certificate, higher general secondary education or a teacher’s certificate. The primary education certificate was abolished in 2002. The secondary education A training takes 2 years and the secondary education B training 4 years. They can be attended in the subjects: English, Dutch, Spanish, biology, physics, mathematics, geography, history, business studies, pedagogy, handicraft, physical education, drawing, and music. The diplomas of the primary and secondary educations qualify holders to provide professional education at MEPE and other secondary schools. Working at the teacher’s trainings (Kweek-A and Kweek-B) requires a secondary education diploma at the very least. 18

RCSE: Roman Catholic privately run education. MCE: Moravian Church education SJE: Secondary level junior education. SSE: Secondary level senior education 20 Primary education certificate: Offered a third-tier teaching qualification for SJE schools. Secondary education A certificate: Offers a second-tier teaching qualification for the junior classes of SSE schools. Secondary education B certificate: Offers a first-tier teaching qualification for the senior classes of SSE schools. 19

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6.4.2 The Academy for Art and Culture Education (AACE) This higher form of education was founded in 1981 and is the only Surinamese institute that offers bachelor’s degrees (bachelor of arts) in the field of visual arts, journalism and communication, and social and cultural education. 6.4.3 University Education The School of Medicine, which had been founded in 1882, was transformed, alongside the Law School, into the Medicine and Law Faculty of the University of Suriname, respectively. By merging the two faculties, Suriname finally realized its longstanding desire for its own university in 1966. In 1975, this institute was expanded to include the Social Economic Faculty, followed by the Natural Technical and the Technical Faculty in 1977. In 1983, the University of Suriname was renamed Anton de Kom University (Adekus). Prior to the foundation of the university, courses for surveyors, pharmacists, dentists, and notaries were offered in accordance with demand. Since 2010, Adekus has been expanded also to include the Faculty for Humanities and the Faculty for Mathematics and Physics. Also worth mentioning is the opening of the Center for Agricultural Research in Suriname (CARS) in 1967, department of the Higher Agriculture College Wageningen in the Netherlands (now University of Wageningen). This institute was intended for applied research and as a practice center for students from Wageningen. After the transfer of sovereignty in 1975, this institute became part of the University of Suriname (Bruijning and Voorhoeve 1977).

7

Recent Developments in Education (After 1975)

The description of developments and trends in education following the independence of Suriname is largely based on a review article by Lila Gobardhan-Rambocus (2015). Education in Suriname is centrally managed by the Ministry of Education and Community Development (MINOV in Dutch). Since 2015, the Ministry’s remit has included education, science and culture. Owing to political strife concerning independence (1975), a significant portion of the staff emigrated to the Netherlands. The military coup of 1980 also caused many citizens to leave the country. The 1982 December Murders that followed the coup and the closing of the university caused a renewed brain drain. The Suriname Guerrilla War between 1986 and 1992 destroyed a considerable part of the internal infrastructure, sending schools into a state of decay and forcing many people living in the Surinamese inland (Maroons) to flee to neighboring French-Guiana. Although the constitution states that the government has a duty to provide education aimed at the “complete development of the personality,” Suriname did not have any well-formulated educational goals in 1975 nor a national curriculum. The right freely to choose a school was nevertheless guaranteed. Parents were free to choose schools that corresponded with their religious or ideological convictions. Tuition fees for public schools in primary and secondary education were also abolished in that year.

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Despite a plethora of plans and projects, at the beginning of this period, education did not profit to any significant degree. According to Gobardhan-Rambocus (ibid), this was due to internal political developments. Incompetent ministers and ad hoc policy were detrimental to education. Nevertheless, there are a number of initiatives that do deserve mentioning: The Trefossa Institute was a training institute for teachers for secondary junior education (SJE). This program existed for 6 years (1977–1983). This institute was founded in an effort to solve the shortage of qualified teachers in SJE. Upon completion of this program, the teachers were qualified to teach two subjects, such as geography, biology, English, history, business studies, handicraft, physical education, music, physics, Dutch, Spanish, and drawing. Any such applicants as possessed, for instance, a higher general secondary or general educational phase21 diploma with a pass mark in the chosen subjects, were admitted. Although this institute did meet an existing need, the program encountered a great deal of opposition from the educational field, mobilized by teacher unions. Another initiative is the curriculum development. After the country had gained independence, people strove to make education more attuned to Suriname by tackling the curricula. The most important activities were aimed at changing and adapting the educational, learning, and reform programs, for instance, in the field of language and arithmetic education. In addition, the teacher’s training apparatus was reformed. The new teacher’s training school was changed into a four-year program, consisting of a general educational phase (GEP) and a professional educational phase (PEP). The final level of the GEP matched that from higher secondary education. In the professional phase, this innovation yielded three possibilities for students to progress: PEP, the training institute for teachers in SJE education, and teacher training. An important condition for renewal of the curriculum was language education, which was to be attuned to the Surinamese situation. For instance, it was decided that the education in Dutch would no longer be seen as native language education, but as second-language education, or Dutch as a second language (Nt2). The National Institute for Culture is another initiative. This project was aimed at establishing a National Institute for Culture. Its objective consisted of finding, adapting and making available the traditional cultural expressions of Suriname for the development of material in the fields of education, science, culture, community development and recreation. Despite the laudable goal of this institute, it was not realized. The institute would have been able to contribute substantially to making education more suitable for Suriname by taking into account the multicultural character of the country. Another development took place in the field of literacy. This project was a literacy program created for eight locations in the inland of the Marowijne and Brokopondo districts. The program was intended to run from 1977 to 1983. Courses in Aucan, Saramaccan, and Sranantongo were already in existence.

21

General educational phase (GEP): part of the Pedagogic Institute.

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The goal was to raise literacy rates among the inland inhabitants (Amerindians and Maroons) in their own language. After having learned reading, writing, and arithmetic, they were taught Dutch as a foreign language. The project Language and language behavior as a function of the multilingual Suriname community was intended to run for 5 years and was to be implemented under the auspices of the Ministry of Education in Paramaribo and the districts. With this project, the government wanted to gain insight into the way in which and the extent to which the various languages were spoken in Suriname. During this period, attention was paid to the native languages and acceptance of the multilingual character of the community, in which Dutch was the official language. The Ministry’s intention was to encourage the use of the various ethnic groups’ own languages and to make them more known in wider circles. At the time when Suriname gained independence, the Ministry provided courses in Sranantongo and Sarnámi. Most educational projects in the 1975–1980 period were financed by the Netherlands within the framework of development cooperation. During the military regime (1980–1987), appreciation for the native languages continued, as was reflected in the appointment of orthographic committees for Sranantongo, Sarnámi, Suriname Javanese, and Carib, the ultimate goal being to standardize the spelling of the important Suriname languages. The spelling recommendations were adopted and published in 1986, with the exception of the recommendations for Carib, which were not implemented. Neither was standardization of the other Suriname languages realized. The Primary Education Curriculum Renewal Project (PECRP) sought to reform the entire curriculum of primary education, given that no changes or innovations had taken place in kindergarten and primary education over the last 20 years. New methods for kindergarten and primary education were developed and published, for example Language for you, a language method for primary education. This renewal project was to be continued for SJE and SSE, yet owing to several factors in the second half of the 1980s, it was abandoned. As a consequence, the SJE is still using Dutch methods that are primarily intended for Dutch schools. SSE, too, continued to utilize old educational methods. The Dutch teachers began to develop their own material, which they shared with one another. In 1977, students in Dutch from the ITT and teachers from SSE commenced a research project that resulted in a method for teaching literature for SSE schools and a method for teaching language proficiency. The Alpha ’84 project was a literacy campaign aimed at teaching every single citizen to read and write. This campaign was launched in 1984 and built on the 1979 program that provided education in classrooms in the native languages of the various population groups. In 1983, course takers already preferred learning in Dutch, which has a higher status and offers greater possibilities for social mobility. Since its initiation, this project struggled with practical problems, such as a lack of human resources and insufficient response from the population. In the period 1994–1998, a study for the reorganization of education in Suriname was initiated. This study was financed by the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB). In 2000, the Surinamese government submitted a proposal to the IDB, to wit:

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the Proposal for the Suriname Basic Education Improvement Project (BEIP). Currently, Suriname is still in the process of conducting the second BEIP project. The education sector was given greater attention in the first decade of the twentyfirst century, since this sector guarantees sustainable development and social justice. The focus was on curriculum development, the education inspectorate, the national examination board, and research and planning. The entire administration, too, was to be automated and education was to be accessible to everyone. In the period 2006–2011, the country began implementing plans in these fields. Data obtained from a stocktaking survey and study revealed the alarming results of educational practice. It had already been evident in 2004 that 7% of the population had not enjoyed any education and that one-third of the population from the ages of five onwards had attended primary education only. The other third had also attended SJE after primary education, 11% had an intermediate vocational education and 4% a higher vocational or university education (Gobardhan-Rambocus 2015). The study also showed that there is a large discrepancy in the educational offers between city, district, and inland. Estimations on the rate of repeaters and dropouts are 50%, with the figures for repeaters being higher in the lower-income districts. The outcome was that 70% of the students at schools in the lower-income districts of Paramaribo do not reach third grade without repeating (Plet 2003). The identified problem areas were in the field of flawed curricula and didactic methods, as well as archaic learning materials, inadequate education and further training of teachers, insufficient supervision from the school board and inspection, and too many unqualified teachers working in the inland, special education, and SJE. It was decided to reform the educational system. A policy paper from the Ministry for 2000–2005 states that there is a need for a national curriculum for primary education to revise and update the 1965 general curriculum. The national curriculum was hardly used, because in 2004 the BEIP project, financed by the IDB, commenced. As in the Caribbean, the intention was to introduce an 11-year primary school that was tailored to secondary education (SSE). The various schools for SJE (MEPE, lower professional education, technical, and industrial education) would be integrated into a three-year education program. This would mean that the students would no longer need to choose a profession at the end of primary school, as that decision was postponed by 3 years. Moreover, extra attention was to be paid to Surinamese multilingualism and arithmetic teaching. Creating new curricula and learning materials also required teacher guidance. An evaluation of the IDB in 2012 showed that the project management of BEIP was unable to realize the set objectives. Furthermore, this evaluation makes mention of underperformance and inefficient working procedures, owing to which the objectives were not met (Gobardhan-Rambocus 2015; Orie et al. 2015). Nevertheless, permission was granted for the follow-up “2nd BEIP” phase, whose objective is to improve the educational outcome of primary education. The subsequent project consists of four components relating to the revision and rewriting of the curriculum, application of ICT, building, expanding and renovating school

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buildings, teacher’s housing and sports facilities, and reinforcing the Ministry’s capacity. Apart from BEIP, the Flemish Association for Development Cooperation and Technical Assistance (VVOB in Dutch) started the Progress project (Suriname Effective Schools Program) in 2008. This project was aimed at reinforcing services for schools (inspection, guidance, research, and planning) to improve the quality of the schools by enabling them to offer more effective and more child-friendly education to Surinamese children. Concomitantly, Progress has reinforced the Ministry’s managerial capacity by implementing the support program, Educational Management Information System Suriname (EMIS), a database with output from the Suriname education system. A new curriculum was developed for the pedagogic institutes based on the profile. The new teachers can enjoy a higher professional education. The admission requirement will be higher secondary education. In order to realize this, the curriculum of the pedagogic institutes will be changed from profession-oriented to competence-oriented. In 2007, the implementation of a national body for accreditation (NAB) and the establishment of a central register for trainings were ratified. The goal of NAB is to improve the quality of educational offers and to guarantee regional and international comparability of training in higher education. The central register is intended to give an overview of existing accredited and new education offers. NAB was officially launched in 2012. It was responsible for overseeing the quality standards of training offers in higher education that are publicly accessible. NAB is, among other things, tasked with accrediting all training offers in higher education, including the existing training and the new training offers in higher education in Suriname. There is a great need for organizing the ever-increasing number of offers from private education institutes. A number of government policy decisions are also addressed here, which were taken in the 2010–2015 period. The Ministry of Education intended to use ICT as an aid on all levels. Such a plan requires well-trained teachers in primary education, SJE and SSE. To realize this goal, two training types were to be offered: one two-year primary education (associate degree) for computer-based education, intended for applying modern technology at schools for supporting the existing curriculum. The second training is research-oriented on the basis of applied science and technology. This is a three-year bachelor’s degree course. These days the necessity for ICT in education for providing “distance learning” during the COVID-19 pandemic is more evident than ever before. Another policy decision is aimed at tackling the dropout problem in SSE. To this end, a “transitional institute” for secondary education (SMO, Schakelinstituut voor het Middelbaar Onderwijs) has been founded. Upon completion of the SMO, students can opt for the ISEAE and/or sit the entrance exam for secondary academic education or higher secondary education. In 2012, the Ministry began reforming the lower vocational education. Teachers and headmasters teach their students to prepare for their role in society. To tackle this reform, the Suriname National Training Authority (SNTA) was established in many

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Caricom countries22 in accordance with the specific situation, which is responsible for technical and vocational training (TVET). The new professional education is to correspond to the demand from industry and government (outcome-based). The lower professional education (LPE) will be split into two parts in the future: service-oriented LPE and technical LPE. This education is prepared on a secondary level, with internship placements in companies. Moreover, the ministry reports that several other important educational activities have been undertaken: new primary, SJE, and secondary schools were added, including office spaces, libraries, ICT spaces, simulation classes, and housing for teachers. Furthermore, additional classrooms have been built and an agricultural course in “Agronomy” has been established, as well as the expansion of the mining education at the University of Suriname. This was done to ensure the future diversification of the Surinamese economy. Concomitantly modernization and legislation for primary and higher education have entered their inchoate stages. There is to be a Primary School Act and a Higher Education Act (Gobardhan-Rambocus 2015). ICT in education (e-education) in Suriname is still in its infancy. A survey from 2013 shows that 69% of schools have no problem with electricity, merely 48% of schools have access to computers, merely one-third of the schools with computers have a computer room, 33% have an Internet connection; however, in the inland, not a single school has an Internet connection, schools in the inland have less access to other ICT means such as radio and TV than the national average, and many teachers lack the right competences to use ICT as an educational tool in classes. Meanwhile, in order to confront the challenges of e-education, a National Strategic Policy Plan has been issued (MINOV 2014). There are currently a number of initiatives for digital learning environments. For instance, higher education institutes used Moodle, and now the Ministry of Education is well on its way to implementing Google Classroom in primary education. Further, following independence, a number of new education options were implemented in the field of tertiary education. In 2000, the FHR Institute for Social Studies was opened. This is a private education institute consisting of the School of Business, School of Management, School of Law, and School of Governance. It offers bachelor’s and master’s degree programs. This institute cooperates with the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and the University of the West Indies. The Institute for Graduate Studies and Research (IGSR) was founded in 2006 as the predecessor of the Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS). This institute offers master’s degree programs and also has the task of safeguarding the quality of all master’s programs offered at the university.

22

Caricom: Caribbean Community and Common Market. Suriname has been a member of Caricom since 1995. Caricom’s goal is to improve the trade and economic relations between the various members and the co-ordination and regulation of these relations.

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In 2011, the Conservatoire of Suriname was founded. It is located in the building complex of ITT and offers profession-oriented higher education leading toward the degrees of Bachelor of Music and Master of Music. The intention was to incorporate the Institute for Teacher Training (ITT) into the University of Suriname. However, owing to inadequate preparation, this did not come to fruition. The educational program is being continued, but structured differently in a bachelor’s and master’s degree program (Ba-Ma).

8

Conclusion

From the beginning of the colonial era until after the country’s independence, the development of education in Suriname has been cumbersome. Until the emancipation of the slaves, education was in the hands of private institutions, in particular of the Roman Catholic and Protestant missions, although their priority was evangelization. Mass education did not commence until after the abolition of slavery, following the introduction of compulsory education in 1876. Initially, this compulsory education was not intended for all children; children of Asian contract workers were excluded. The colonial authorities attempted to promote the spontaneous school attendance of Hindustani immigrant children, for example by introducing so-called coolie schools and employing unskilled teachers. None of these initiatives accomplished their goals. All attempts by the colonial government failed shortly after their introduction. Furthermore, there was considerable opposition to education in the national languages of Hindustani immigrants. Despite the abolition of the limited primary education (LPE) and the introduction of RPE schools, the disparity in the level of education between city and district remained. Hindustani activists successfully campaigned for the promotion of public education in Suriname. They did so in order to prevent their children from being Christianized by the schools of Protestant and Catholic missions. Following criticism from the educational field, the reform of the Surinamese education system was initiated after the Second World War. This reform was mostly entrusted to external Dutch experts. They made recommendations for redesigning the educational system. Since then, the educational structure has been thoroughly reviewed. Until Suriname’s independence, education in the country was still strongly based on the Dutch example. The introduction of the Dutch model has had far-reaching consequences for the social-economic and cultural development of the country. The dominance of Dutch culture was clearly noticeable in education, media, and literature. This was also true for the governmental organization of education according to the Dutch three-pillar structure: public education, schools of Protestant, and schools of Roman Catholic movements. Hindustani and Muslim movements did not begin to establish their own schools until the 1960s. Education reinforced the ethnic fragmentation that had been caused by the colonial labor division.

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However, some desire was noticeable to make education more appropriate for Suriname. In this period, the contents and structure were still insufficiently adapted to the economic, sociocultural, and political needs and circumstances of the population. The focus was on intellectualist formation, while the country needed middle management in the technical and service sectors. Relatively few students attended a profession-oriented education. Most students chose a school for general education after primary school. Although an essential part of the professional population (approx. 20%) worked in the agricultural sector, Suriname did not yet have any agricultural education during this period. The education system worked with vague objectives which had been insufficiently formulated in accordance with SMART practices. Education was, moreover, insufficiently attuned to the labor market. Most graduates with a diploma preferred a white-collar job, something which the labor market was unable to cope with, resulting in increasing youth unemployment. Education focused more on the personal development of individuals than the desired social-economic development of the country. In addition, the children who attended school were still insufficiently educated with regard to their own multicultural community and environment. Indeed, there is still no focused cultural policy in place for eliminating this problem in the future. The school culture expected students to play but a passive role in the educational learning process. The predominant type of relationship between students and teachers took the form of a top-down authoritarian one. Shaping students into outspoken and critically thinking citizens did not constitute a part of the erstwhile goals of the Surinamese education. Physical, creative, cultural, and social education, too, were relatively neglected. By using Dutch as the main language in education, the students of various social groups, ethnic, and geographical backgrounds were put into different starting positions and, thus, existing inequalities were further exacerbated. In particular, students from the lowest social strata, districts, the inland, and non-Dutch-speaking backgrounds were at a disadvantage. In this period, the contents taught were largely determined by the textbooks, which mostly originated from the Netherlands. The most common didactic work methods used at the time were predominantly aimed at memorizing and reproducing knowledge, which restricted independent thinking. After independence, many initiatives were taken further to reform and improve education. However, due to brain drain, incompetent ministers, and a lack of financial resources and political decisiveness, many plans and projects were not realized or were simply abandoned. Attempts to make education more suited for Suriname did result in the adaptation of some curricular contents for primary and secondary education. The country is still working on reforming the training of teachers for primary education, with which the transition of the teacher’s training schools to a higher vocational institution is being implemented. The digitalization of education in Suriname is at present still in an inchoate phase. Suriname does not intend to lag behind in this field; plans have been developed to

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introduce e-education in the foreseeable future. There are currently a number of initiatives for digital learning environments. Education in Suriname remains inefficient; the results are alarming. There are still many repeaters in the lowest classes of primary education and a lot of dropouts in secondary education. Looking ahead to the next few years, Suriname is facing daunting challenges to improving the quality of education. It is remarkable that hardly any or no attention is paid in the policy plans to preschool and early childhood education, even though it is known that educational disadvantages cannot be dealt with early enough. In education, deficits, once accumulated, can frequently no longer be remedied. Centralization of education, too, should be reviewed critically. Decentralization of management, governance, and in departments of the Ministry of Education can contribute to improving Suriname’s education.

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Plet, E. G. (2003). Hulpverlening aan Surinaamse lagereschoolleerlingen. Utrecht: Universiteit Utrecht. Ramsoedh, H. (2018). Surinaams onbehagen. Een sociale en politieke geschiedenis van Suriname 1865–2015. Hilversum: Verloren. Renes, J. B. (1981). Het Surinaams Onderwijs. In: Losbladig Onderwijskundig Lexicon. Alphen aan den Rijn: Samsom. Ritzen, J. M. M. (1987). Onderwijs en economie. In: J. A. van Kemenade et al. (Eds.), Onderwijs: bestel en beleid 2. Onderwijs en samenleving. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff. Sietaram, J. (1979). Evaluatie van Onderwijsgedrag. Dubois en Dubois: Paramaribo. Van Boheemen, H. (1951). Surinaamse onderwijszorgen. In: West-Indische Gids (Vol. 32, pp. 65–91). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Van Leeuwen, H.D. (1968). Verandering en onderwijs in Suriname. In: Sociologische Gids, 15. 6. Groningen: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Van Stipriaan, A. (2002). Tussen assimilatie en segregatie: koloniaal onderwijs in Suriname in de 19de en 20ste eeuw. In: P. Boekholt, H. van Crombrugge, N. L. Dodde, & J. Tyssens (Eds.), Tweehonderd jaar onderwijs en de zorg van de staat (pp. 221–254). Assen: Koninklijke Van Gorcum.

Website https://www.minowc.sr

The Education System of Trinidad and Tobago: Overview and Foundations

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Contents 1 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED-Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Personnel Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 ICT and Digitalization ICT and Digitization Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The postemancipation period marks the start of formal attempts to develop the education sector of Trinidad and Tobago. Over the decades that followed and with the changing political, social, and economic landscapes, the education system has experienced many changes, with specific advances in terms of curricula reform, consolidation, and coordination of the sector, and with increasing access/participation for diverse groups of citizens and across many levels of the education system. This is certainly evident in the increasing expansion of schools, curricula as well as continuous introduction and expansion of emerging areas such as information, communication, and technology (ICT) and STEM education. T. Esnard Department of Behavioural Sciences, University of the West Indies, Arima, Trinidad and Tobago e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_26

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Despite these advances within education provisions and infrastructures, deepseated issues of inequality and inequities remain pervasive challenges that continue to weigh on progress of this sector. The chapter presents therefore an overview of these advances with a substantive discussion on these challenges across specific levels and timelines. Keywords

Education · Trinidad and Tobago · Achievements · Challenges

1

Historical and Social Foundations

This chapter presents an overview of educational developments in Trinidad and Tobago, with specific assessments of the achievements and gaps that remain. The chapter will show therefore that despite ongoing educational reforms, which have increased access and participation, persistent issues continue to affect the achievements for this sector. This section of the chapter provides a general background to these transformations, with a discussion on the social, economic, cultural, and political landscape.

1.1

General Historical Background

Prior to 1834, there was little formal education in Trinidad and Tobago. At the onset of the emancipation period however, a central goal for this unfolding postcolonial society was that of shaping a nation with a citizenry ready to advance the social, economic, and political order. With access to formal education as a major issue, an immediate mandate therefore became that of providing educational opportunities for the freed masses. It is within that context that ward schools established under the Mico-Charity and Negro Education Grants became instrumental aspects of educational expansion (both at the primary and secondary levels), across rural and urban communities, as well as with some accommodation for teacher training (Campbell 1996). In years that followed, successive Five-Year Development Plans facilitated the further access to primary, secondary, and tertiary education, as a strategic way of widening formal systems of education. What unfolded through these reforms at that time within the history of educational development in Trinidad and Tobago, however, was a still limited education system, characterized by the adoption of a British curriculum educational structure and with a growing tendency at the primary and secondary school levels, for missionary schooling dominated by Roman Catholic schools (MacKenzie 1991; Bailey 1997). This predominance of religious/denominational and ward schools resulted in the establishment of the dual system of education and the signing of the Concordat of 1960, which gave denominational schools more control over their institutions and specified the role of the state within these said schools (Campbell

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1996; Besson 2011). This dual system also created a long-standing preference for denominational schools, growing status of and sustained competition to attend these schools (see De Lisle et al. 2009; Campbell 1997). Thus, while these preindependence reforms signaled a strong attempt to address the structural inequalities within the school system, and to some extent, facilitated a destabilising of existing elitists structures, it did not remove the significance of social strata (such as race, class, ethnicity, and gender) or the pervading status quo on the educational experiences and performance of citizens (Campbell 1996; Bacchus 1994). The postindependence era presented a major shift in the educational landscape for Trinidad and Tobago. At the dawn of the independence period for instance, two noted developments were the implementation of successive educational development plans and the institution of the Education Act 39:0, 1966. The significance of latter, that is the Education Act, is within the right given to the state, specifically as it relates to the administering of educational policies and the governing of the education system (Campbell 1996). There is no doubt that the 15-year plan that followed (i.e., 1968–1983) and the onset of an oil boom in the 1970s facilitated further advancements in the educational landscape for Trinidad and Tobago. Such is evident in the attempts during those critical years to democratization school placements and that of the curriculum. At the primary level for instance, a significant reform during this period was the establishment of the Common Entrance Examination, which replaced the college exhibition as the basis for entry into secondary schools (Campbell 1997). At the secondary level, the heavy investments in junior and senior comprehensive schools, with a focus on technical education and vocational training, and with the short-lived establishment of the shift system, also formed central aspects of educational reforms during this time (Campbell 1996; Alleyne 1995). Despite some of the pervasive stereotypes that remain with these technical and vocational training, the upgrading of the junior and senior secondary schools to full five-year government schools represents major achievements at this level. Likewise, the signing of the Salamanca statement by the ministry of education (MoE) also signaled a commitment to the goal of securing education for all (EFA) and the general move toward more inclusive educational environments (UNESCO 1994). The most successful implementation in recent times is in early childhood care and education, with early childhood centers located in disadvantaged areas and with attempts at standardizing and monitoring. Despite these achievements, the goal of inclusive educational systems however remains contentious with continued questions related to the relevance of the curricula, the persistent disparities in educational performance across diverse groups, and the quality of educational systems (Alleyne 1995; World Bank 1995). At the tertiary level, the establishment of the University College of the West Indies, (now the University of the West Indies), and the subsequent liberalization of that sector emerged as a response to the growing demands for higher education across the Caribbean. In Trinidad and Tobago, however, the introduction of educational policies, such as the dollar-to-dollar education plan in 2001 and the Government-Assisted Tuition Expenses (GATE) program in 2004, worked to

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collectively make higher education more affordable and ultimately accessible (Hosein and Tewarie 2007). The growth of locally accredited institutions within Trinidad and Tobago and in the scope of the programs available through these institutions also served as a critical aspect increasing enrolment and participation levels over the last decade (Tewarie 2010; Herbert and Lochan 2014). Hosein and Tewarie (2007, p. 12) noted in the case of the GATE program that the “objective was to reduce the social inequity in terms of access to tertiary level education by low-income groups in Trinidad and Tobago.” To further address this issue of equity, we see the subsequent introduction of the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) in 2006 (which assisted students with local commercial loans) and the expansion of national and open scholarships to citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. The expansion of this higher education sector however has raised many questions related to the quality of programs that have mushroomed during this period and the fragmentation of institutions within that sector (Whiteley 2002; Howe 2003). With concerns for sustainability, the sector has within recent times been subjected to ongoing rationalization and cut backs in funding from the state.

1.2

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is part of the English-speaking Commonwealth Caribbean and the Caribbean Common Market and Community (CARICOM), with the latter established in 1973 by the Treaty of Chaguaramas to promote greater resourcefulness and collective action among member states. This agreement has influenced the establishment of Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) as a regional free trade agreement that removes associated tariffs on goods between member states, while promoting greater economic, political, and social cooperation. Despite these efforts there are barriers to full integration and particularities of Caribbean nations that remain distinct. This section of the chapter will therefore speak to the geographic, political, economic, social, and cultural aspects or features of Trinidad and Tobago.

1.2.1 Geographical and Physical Features Trinidad and Tobago is often described as one of the most Southern Caribbean countries that is geographically located northeast of Venezuela and South of Grenada. The twin-island republic has a tropical climate with mostly dry or wet conditions, where the latter is particularly evident during the hurricane season, which typically runs from June to December. On average, temperatures range between 26
C and 33
C. One of the unique features within its topography is that of having three ranges: the northern, central, and southern. The northern range has parallel coasts and two mountain peaks, namely El Cerro del Aripo (940 m on the outliers of the Andes Mountains in Venezuela) and El Tucuche (with 936 m). The central range extends across the island of Trinidad and has a maximum elevation of 325 m and the southern range with a maximum of 305 m. The main ridge on the other hand is the defining feature for Tobago with elevations up to 550 m.

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1.2.2 Political System Two major political factors within preindependence Trinidad and Tobago were the granting of adult suffrage in 1945 and the beginning of party politics in 1946 (Beckles and Shepherd 2006). These two political factors resulted in the suite of constitutional changes, with first local elections in 1946 the move toward ministerial government, the formation of major political parties, and to a full internal selfgovernment in the 1950s (ibid.). By 1962, Trinidad and Tobago became an independent nation and in 1976 a republic. To date, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago remains a parliamentary democracy, which aligns with that of a Westminster model of government inherited under the old colonial system. While this Westminster model continues to face heavy criticism by political parties and citizens, this type of government has allowed for general elections to be constitutionally held every five years. Within this model citizens vote for candidates charged with various political seats or constitutions and who serve as party representatives from major political groups, including the Peoples National Movement (PNM), the United National Congress (UNC), Congress of the People (COP), and the Independent Liberal Party (ILP). Within this parliamentary democracy, administrative powers fall within three arms of government, namely the legislative, judicial, and executive. Legislative powers for instance lie within the House of Representatives with 41 elected members and the senate with 31 members (including independent senators), who in the case of the latter are appointed by the president on the recommendation of the prime minister and the leader of opposition. Executive power on the other hand falls within the remit of the prime minister and his cabinet members. Constitutionally speaking, the judiciary however operates as an independent body to resolve dispute in accordance with the law, to address matters of conflict between private and public bodies, as well as to protect the rights and freedoms of persons within the country. The supreme court (with the court of appeal and the high court), the magistrates court, and the Department of Court Administration make up the judiciary. In Tobago, however, the Tobago House of Assembly (THA), created in 1980, stands as the elected body to govern its socioeconomic affairs. 1.2.3 Economic Structure On the economic front, Trinidad and Tobago is recognized as a high-income country within the Latin American and Caribbean region, with highest incomes from oil and gas production, as well as the service sector (GORTT 2020). Other key revenue areas remain those of utilities (electricity and water), construction and quarrying, distribution and restaurants, finance, as well as transportation, just to name a few. For the 2019 financial year, key trade policies were developed to stimulate agro-processing, research and innovation, reforms in the ease of doing business, e-commerce, digitization of operational functions, as well as to introduce data protection legislation for Trinidad and Tobago (GORTT 2011; GORTT 2020). While existing trade relations and agreements between the Republic of Chile, Curaçao, Panama, CARICOM, CARIFORUM, and European Union (EU), for example, also provide fertile grounds for the sustainability of the economy,

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there are also growing concerns at the local level for the declines within the exploration and extraction of natural gas, manufacturing, quarrying, and construction. Other sectors such as agriculture and tourism continue to face sectoral challenges that affect both employment levels and contribution to the gross national product. In 2020, however, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected the economy of Trinidad and Tobago (GORTT 2020; Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago [CBTT] 2021). In the Review of the Economy report for instance, the GORTT (2020) noted that annual GDP contracted by 1.9% in the first quarter (with a 3.7% short fall in the energy sector and 0.4% in the nonenergy sector) and by 10% in the second quarter (with 8.3% fall in the energy sector and 0.9.1 within the nonenergy sector). The GDP contributions for 2020 were 36% for the energy sector and 68% for the nonenergy sector (ibid.). The decline in the energy commodity price index, coupled with a fall in demand for Trinidad and Tobago energy exports due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the closure of several downstream petrochemical plants in 2017, among others, all contributed to this economic outlook (CBTT 2021). While there were signs of economic adaptation in nonenergy sectors for that 2020 period, the public sector continues to mitigate the full impact of the pandemic on the economy and on the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago.

1.2.4 Cultural Contexts Culturally, the twin island of Trinidad and Tobago has a rich heritage based on histories of French, Spanish, British, Dutch, African, East Indian, Asian, and Dutch settlements. Religiously, these patterns have led to the presence of diverse religious groups as Orisha (or Shango), Hindus, Muslims, and Christians, but with a large following across persons who identify as Roman Catholics, Methodists, Moravians, Anglicans, Baptists, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Presbyterians. Religious composition for Trinidad and Tobago in 2011 shows the largest group as Roman Catholics (with 285, 671 followers, GORTT 2012). There were also noted declines in fellowships for Hindus, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Methodists. However, increases were noted for persons who identified as Pentecostal/Evangelical/Full gospel, with an increase from 76, 327 in 2000 to 159, 033 in 2011 (ibid.). The twin island also remains culturally diverse. Christian groups have celebrated a still strong Christmas tradition marked by consumption of food and drinks, home decorations, and gift giving/exchange. African culture has influenced the celebration of Carnival (introduced by the French but transformed by Afro-Trinidadians), musical genres (such as calypso and soca music) and steel band or pan music (Brereton 1996). Indian immigrants have also impacted the cultural landscape of Trinidad and Tobago, with Hindu celebrations (such as Diwali/Divali and Holi/ Phagwa) and Moslem festivals (such as Hosay/Hussay or Moharram and Eid-ulfitr; their rituals around marriage, the birth of a child, and/or death), music (e.g., Chutney and Tassa drumming), and foods have all shaped the cultural milieu of Trinidad and Tobago.

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Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population

Trinidad and Tobago has a population of 1,328,019 million people with a median age of 32.6, age dependency ratio of 41.9, proportion of aged persons at 9, and with higher male population and sex ratio of 100.7 (GORTT 2012). Based on the 2011 Population and Housing Census Demographic report, there are noted changes in the age structure for the national population with an increase in the 0–4, 20–34, and over 45 age groups when compared to the data for the 2000 census. On the flip side, there were noted declines in the size of the population for 5–9, 10–14, 15–19, and 35–44 age groups and across both sexes. The dependent groups were for citizens between the 0–14 and over 65 years’ age categories, and with a working population between 15 and 64 years, constituting 70.4% of the population (ibid.). Trinidad and Tobago is also described as a multiracial society with East Indian (35.4%), Africans (34.25%), and mixed (African/East Indian 22.8%) populations representing the largest demographic groups (GORTT 2012). When racially disaggregated, Trinidad has a racial distribution with East Indians 37.01%, Africans 31.76%, mixed (African/East Indian) 7.83%, mixed other 15.69%, indigenous 0.11, Caucasian 0.59%, Chinese 0.31%, Lebanese 0.08%, and Portuguese 0.07%. For Tobago, there is an African majority of 85.2%, with East Indian 8.5%, mixed population of 2.5%, Caucasian 0.73, Chinese 0.08%, indigenous 0.11, Portuguese 0.02, and Lebanese/Syrian 0.03%. In terms of education, there are mixed positions. Within the education sector, the census report shows highest levels of attainment at secondary (546, 435 persons or 41% of the population) and primary levels (393, 762 persons or 30% of the population), with lower attainment at the tertiary but nonuniversity level (81, 441 persons or 6% of the population). The 2011 population census also shows that only 111, 688 persons or 8.5% were recorded as having a university education. Smaller numbers were reported for qualifications at the kindergarten (41, 385 persons or 3% of the population) and postsecondary levels (30, 223 persons or 2.5% of the population) (GORTT 2012). At the collective level, however, Trinidad and Tobago remains listed as a country with high Human Development Index (Human Development Report, UNDP 2020. Of note are the Human Development Ranking of 67 out of 187 countries, a Human Development Index of 0.796, life expectancy at 79.3, with 13 years of expected schooling (11 years on average), a gross national income (GNI) per capita (PPP-US$) of 26, 231, and a high literacy rate, which stands at 99.69% for the 15–24 age group and 93.8% for 65 and older.

1.4

Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support

Transition from school to the labor market is facilitated through both academic and nonacademic/technical and vocational training, but at both the formal and informal levels. The importance of this transition is captured within the 1993 White Paper on Education, and in more recent times, the Vision 2020 and 2030 policy documents, which collectively point to the importance of training for a globally competitive

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market. In the draft education policy document 2017–2022, the foci for instance are on the creation of modern, relevant education and training systems equipped with the necessary infrastructure, curricula, and resources to promote workforce readiness and civic engagement. At a collective level, the concentration has been on expanding access to tertiary education through the GATE and HELP programs, as well as through partnerships with other nongovernmental agencies (NGOs) to bolster training and vocational opportunities that align with existing and emerging labor market needs. The Government of Trinidad and Tobago has also attempted to introduce many formal and informal training and employment opportunities to close the gap between education and/or training and work. Such is the case of the On-the-Job (OJT), the Youth Training Entrepreneurship Program YTEPP) and the CommunityBased Environmental Protection and Enhancement program (CEPEP), which all provide opportunities for paid employment across diverse groups and under different contractual arrangements. Key criticisms on the approaches to this transition however have been those of the continued rigidity within the training and educational philosophies of traditional institutions, the less than acceptable perceptions of technical vocational education, and the lack of participation, particularly for girls and women within the STEM fields. A key observation is that of the weak intermediation systems to effectively match employers and job seekers and to regulate the labor environment. No doubt, these challenges both affect the readiness to engage within the labor market, the need for equitable provisions to support the engagement of diverse groups, and the potential for both labor market and civic participation. If these gaps within the school to work transition are not considered, the immediate consequences are for growing dropout rates, increase cases of socially dispossessed youth, unequal patterns of engagement both within the school systems and the labor market, and ultimately the incapacity of the country to meet its development and competitive mandates. The question therefore of how this should be addressed must be situated within an understanding of both the gaps between school to work and the persistent problems that affect the prospects for sectoral collaborations to address this. This potential for private-private partnerships across educational and labor market institutions would require greater stakeholder engagement, sector financing, monitoring and evaluation, and data and research. However, where access to and acquisition of information remains a major limitation of the education sector (GORTT 2017), it is also important to build the research and development capacities across both sectors and to use these insights within the development of initiatives that narrow existing sectors between school and work. This remains a challenge that continue to affect the achievements within this educational landscape.

2

Institutional and Organizational Principles

While there have been shifts in the political administration of Trinidad and Tobago, there are clear institutional structures and organizational principles that guide the general functioning of this sector. This section of the chapter therefore presents some

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of general principles or policies guiding ongoing investments, the educational administration and governance of the sector, the structure of the education system, and training of teachers to work within the school system.

2.1

General Principles

Historically speaking, that is since the postindependence era, educational policies have made issues of access and equality of opportunity for all groups core mandates for educational reform. With access as an underlining aspect of educational development, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago over the last five decades have pushed for educational reforms that diverse educational opportunities, improve the structures and practices within the school system, and increase the holistic development of citizens. These mandates have shaped changing educational policies and strategic mandates of the ministry of education, the structure of the education system, the practices around assessments, promotion, placements, and teacher training. These are discussed in the following subsections.

2.1.1

Educational Policy (Mainstream Versus Technical/Vocational Education) Historically, educational policies and strategic initiatives have pushed for radical restructuring of the education system in Trinidad and Tobago. The introduction of Industrial Training Act (Chapter 39:54, 1906), that of the National Training Board in that of technical and vocational education training (TVET) programs in the 1970s, and the National Training Agency (NTA) in the late 1990s, represented some major milestones in the diversification of the curriculum and educational opportunities for citizens of Trinidad and Tobago (GORT 2016). This vocalization of education was perceived as a new pathway to higher education and as a response to the growing demands for new skills required to function within the global market economy (Maclean and Pavlova 2013). This offered an opportunity to provide technological skills and industry-based training to serve key areas such as manufacturing and construction. In more recent times, the Education Sector Strategic Plan 2011–2015 also introduced 16 priority areas, such as the universal ECCE, teacher retention, and curriculum reform. While such initiatives have followed with continued revision of the curriculum, the establishment of key testing and awarding bodies, such as the Trinidad and Tobago National Vocational Qualifications (TTNVQ), Caribbean Vocational Qualifications (CVQ), as well as the strengthening of such institutions overtime, represent key achievements during this period. It was also through the implementation of Vision 2020 for instance that we saw the further expansion of the postsecondary sector. Such is evident in the creation of a new national university, UTT, the College of Science, Technology, and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago (COSTATT) as an applied program with technical certification, as well as the Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago. These are also supplemented by a number of public TVET institutions, the University of the Southern Caribbean (as a not-for-profit institution) and many for profit private

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institutions throughout Trinidad and Tobago. It is this consolidation of the education sector together with the cooperation among ministerial bodies (Ministry of labor, Small Business, and Microenterprise Development [MOLSMED]), National Examinations Council (NEC), and the Caribbean Association of National Training Agencies (CANTA) that assisted in the regulation and management of higher education in the country. Other nonformal programs included the on-the-job training, which gives young persons the opportunity to gain practical work-based training, youth camps, and trade centers. No doubt, the development of teacher professionalization, school leadership initiatives, and technological education, through the implementation of Vision 2030, builds on these achievements. Where the sector remains in need for further harmonizing to reduce the overlapping within the curriculum and the training thrusts of TVET institutions (MOE 2012), there are ongoing public consultations to address these issues.

2.1.2 Financing (Including Private Schools, Shadow Education, etc.) The Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (GORTT) is the main provider and source of funding for the education sector. While the GORTT is responsible for all public or government schools, they also provide financial assistance to denominational and special schools for students with disabilities. The Minister of Education is centrally responsible for funding both recurrent and capital expenditure, government assistance with tuition at the higher education levels, national and open scholarships for top performers, grants, and soft loans to students. This commitment produces a recurrent expenditure over the last five years from between TT$2, 410, 259, 841 in 2014/2015 and TT$ 4, 769,034,830 in 2019/2020 (GORTT 2017, 2021). Private schools however do not receive funding from the state. 2.1.3 Access, Compulsory Education, and School Zoning/Choice Children and young persons between the ages of 5 and 16 have access to free education in Trinidad and Tobago. This is however restricted to government and government-assisted schools at the ECCE, primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. Although there has been a steady growth of early childhood centers across Trinidad and Tobago, with access to both public and private preschools for children from the age of 3 years, this level of education remains an option to parents. From the age of 5, however, children enter into traditional schools, which, generally speaking, follow an academic curriculum until their successful completion of the secondary entrance assessment (SEA) or what was often referred to as the 11+ examination, as a condition for entry into the secondary level where greater curriculum diversity exists. Through the application of EFA and Universal Secondary Education (USE), there has been increased access to both primary and secondary levels. While there have been many reforms and initiatives to expand access to schooling in Trinidad and Tobago, the issue of access has led to broader questions related to choice. However, De Lisle et al. (2009b) noted that the placement of students in top schools based on highest scores and a persistent competition schools (based on the types of

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governance, years of schooling, and years of establishment) nuances the issue of school choice. In this context, the authors contend that highest values are placed on traditional denominational schools (ibid.). While the MoE has attempted to address some aspect of choice through the use of school zoning (as a strategy within school placement), parents have the right to choose. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the switch to online learning, the issue of choice has been somewhat silenced by other concerns related to internet connectivity and access to hardware/ devices. In response to this most recent concerns, the MoE has increased the training of teachers, sought the procurement of e-books, and has partnered with private institutions for the donation of devices to students. These most recent initiatives also demonstrate a clear commitment to needed improvements of infrastructures offered through the school system. Notwithstanding these efforts, emerging challenges for the Government of Trinidad and Tobago remains those of the level of engagement on students during this period of remote learning, the quality and effectiveness of teaching during this time, and the general well-being of students and staff during this health crisis.

2.1.4 Promotion, Examination, and Certification Once a child enters into the formal education system, typically at the age of 5, they are subjected to the formal academic curriculum and to high-stake or standardized testing that are executed in both formative and summative ways. At the end of the 7-year primary school period, the expectation is for students to write the SEA examination (with a key focus on mathematics and english), as a criterion for promotion to secondary schools. The regulations allow for students to repeat this examination for a maximum of 2 years or if unsuccessful with this examination, choose to attend a private institution that offers secondary education. Based on the signing of the Concordat between the state and denominational schools, religious schools have the privilege of choosing 20% of their placements. The other 80% of their placement is informed by students’ scoring on the SEA examination and subsequent assignment by the state. For all other government schools, the state executes the placements of schools based on their SEA results. Those who leave at this level can be awarded with a School Leaving Certificate (SLC) examination. This SEA examination continues however to be the subject of much contention based on associated levels of stress and subsequent stratification of students based on the school placement system (see De Lisle 2012). While there are ongoing plans to revamp the evaluation of students at this time, the discussions around this proposal remain ongoing. At the secondary school level, students spend another 5 years, doing academic and/or technical-vocational subjects. During this time, continuous and end-of-term assessments are used through the academic year and time frame of enrolment. Students are also subjected to national testing and assessment at the end of form 3, through the National Certificate of Secondary Education (NCSE) and at the end of form 5 are awarded the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate. Secondary schools decided however on whether students sit the CXC-CSEC examinations or the CVQs. Students can write the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate

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(CSEC) examinations, focusing on academic subject areas, usually after five years of secondary school. CSEC results on the other hand are based on school-based assessments (SBAs), orals in the case of foreign languages, and final written examinations (multiple choice, short answers, and essays). Subjects such as visual art and music are examined with theoretical and practical components. Students doing vocational subjects can write Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) examinations. At the end of the five-year period, students can receive a full CSEC certificate with five CSEC-CXC passes, including mathematics and English. A within grades of between I and IIs, students who exit the school system at this point can receive a school leaving certificate. In some schools, where sixth form is offered, students have the option to stay on, once they have obtained 5 CSEC passes. Once in sixth form, students write the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) level, which was introduced in 2003, as a replacement for the Cambridge University Advanced Level proficiency examination. Once complete, students have the option of accessing university education, where CAPE grades are used for matriculation. At this this point, students can be promoted to a postsecondary institution, based on the grades obtained at CSEC level and their choices around the educational stream that they wish to pursue. At the TVET institutions, such as MIC-IT and YTEPP, students are subjected to the completion of a full certificate for successful graduation. In some colleges and universities, such as COSTATT and UTT, students can enter based on having 5 CXC passes. At the tertiary level institutions (TLIs), there is some diversity in the testing of students based on whether the programs follow educational models adapted from the USA or the UK, or in some cases, a combination of both based on a fusion of foreign-based structures and content. However, students are subject to both continuous and end-of-semester examinations that inform they cumulative grade point average or overall performance. Once they meet the entry requirements and these offerings are present, students can enrol within higher education programs such as bachelor’s degrees, postgraduate certification, diplomas, masters, and doctoral programs.

2.2

Education Administration and Governance

According to the GORTT (2017, 17), the MOE is “governed by a multiplicity of legislation, among which the chief is the Education Act, Chapter 39:01 (as amended by the following Acts: Number 1 of 1981 Number 5 of 1985, 9 of 1987, 19 of 1989 and 20 of 1987).” The draft education policy document describes the management structure as one that remain top heavy (GORTT 2017). The executive management team includes the honorable minister of education, permanent secretary, chief education officer, three deputy permanent secretaries, and an advisor to the honorable minister of education. Schools however are organized by educational districts across Trinidad and Tobago. In Trinidad, there are several core divisions within the ministry of education, with two state enterprises and 13 statutory boards. Tobago school management falls under the remit of the Division of Education, Innovation,

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and Energy, within the Tobago House of Assembly. Across Trinidad and Tobago, the minister of education is responsible for the governance of all ECCE, primary, secondary, and postsecondary institutions. Public schools are generally either fully or partially owned/managed by the state. In that regard, government-assisted schools are owned by religious denominations, financially aided by the government, and administered jointly by the ministry of education and the respective denominational church boards. The government pays salaries and personnel benefits of all teachers in government and governmentassisted schools; and substantive capital costs for both government-assisted primary and secondary schools. The government-assisted schools however generally have their own boards that function to aid in the development of the curriculum and in the general management of these schools. The ministry of education has the overarching responsibility for school inspection, curricula, assessment, and monitoring of school performance.

2.3

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED-Classification

Within Trinidad and Tobago’s education system, schools have been classified into: 1. Government owned and managed (such primary and secondary schools) 2. Government-assisted or denominational primary and secondary schools, which are managed by a private body but given financial assistance by the state 3. Private schools, which are not funded by the state 4. Special schools at the primary level, which are supported by the state Educational provisions within this system are as follows: 1. Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)-including public and private schools, which cater to children between the ages of 3 and 5. There are also options for homeschooling at this level. 2. Primary education for children who are typically between the ages of 5 and 11+. Here there are diverse school types within denominational, government-based, and international schools (e.g., based on Canadian and UK curricula). 3. Secondary education for young persons between the ages of 12–16 and18 years (with government schools [both 5 and 7 years], denominational, and private schools). 4. Postsecondary/nontertiary TVET institutions such as MIC, YTEPP, and SERVOL. Postsecondary/tertiary-level institutions with the University of the West Indies, University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT), and University of the Southern Caribbean (USC) exist as the three main public providers. Other for-profit tertiary-level institutions also exist with access to diplomas and degrees, based on collaboration or

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partnerships with other foreign-based private institutions in the USA, Canada, and the UK. Adult education, which was formerly under the ministry of education and ministry of community development, is now offered through the ministry of social development and family services. The adult education program offers a second chance to complete primary, secondary, and technical-vocational training. In that vein, the ministry of social development and family services offers services and programs that address vocational skills development, literacy, and leisure.

2.4

Personnel Supply

The history of teacher education in Trinidad and Tobago dates back to the pre-emancipation period, with the establishment of the first national school to train only a handful of male teachers, but, with a greater push and resources for teacher training in the immediate postemancipation period. As the Keenan Report of 1869 would show, the provision of teacher training in Trinidad remained deficient, with teachers emerging from the primary school system after a period of apprenticeship as monitors in the school system (Campbell 1997). Key contentions at that time were the lack a necessary system of monitoring to ensure the training of qualified teachers and relative short supply of teachers (see seminal work, Gordon 1973). This problem was escalated in 1899 when Tobago became the ward of Trinidad; a political move which added to the demand for both financing and sustaining teacher training across the twin island. It is not until the early twentieth century or preindependence era that some changes unfolded in the training of teachers. By 1916, the Education Commission cited several challenges related to the low standards of teachers, the relevance and lack of standardization around the curriculum, as well as the lack of coordination for (non)governmental institutions. In 1916 and 1918 respectively, we saw the admittance of the first set of female teachers for training and the introduction of the code of elementary education, which advanced the professionalization of teacher training with what is now called in-service learning. While there were a number of temporary or emergency training courses, the high number of untrained teachers in the system remained a persistent issue (Campbell 1997). It was not until the end of this decade that we begin to see the consolidation of this sector with merger of several training institutes into the formation of the University of Trinidad and Tobago, as a national university. Today, teacher education is currently addressed through programs offered mainly by the University of the West Indies, the University of Trinidad and Tobago, and the University of the Southern Caribbean. At training colleagues, students are given the opportunity to pursue both in bachelor in education with either primary or secondary school specializations (with specific areas in early childhood, special education, social studies, history, and geography, just to name a few). The entry requirements remain that of five O-level passes at the UTT. The secondary specialization within UTT however remained substantively smaller than that for the secondary

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specializations. We also note the retention of many other teacher training programs in the University of the Southern Caribbean and the University of the West Indies. At the UWI, teachers are afforded the opportunities to pursue a certificate in education (Cert. Ed.), bachelor of education (B.Ed.), diploma in education (Dip.Ed.), masters in education, and PhD education. The B.Ed is based on a three-year in-service program, and Dip.Ed. one year in service. The B.Ed, diploma, and PhD certification however are offered to more senior teachers, principals, and administrators within the school system. Across all institutions, teachers are expected to do in-house training/practicum at different stages of their programs. Despite these many advances within teacher training, some persistent problems remain. In a baseline study of teacher education in Trinidad and Tobago, QuaminaAiyejina (2001) argued that there are not many differentials in the type of teachers available at the schools except for those who are upgraded into secondary school assignments based on the completion of professional development courses. George, Fournillier, and Brown (2001) also stressed that while the teacher training component of the on-the-job training program was originally designed to enhance the preparedness of young persons for employment, many structural problems including the lack of sufficient funds, effective systems of mentoring and support, and reporting of the work of the trainees affected the overall outcomes of the program. Other regional scholars speak to the lack of a policy that standardizes the curricula and practices around teacher education (Myers et al. 2005). In her examination of UTT, Steinbach (2012) highlighted in particular the resistance to change in teacher training, relative absence of male teachers, the low status of the teaching profession, as well as the general lack of a research and evaluation of teacher training as key areas for needed review.

3

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

As noted earlier in the chapter, educational inequalities remain major challenges, despite the advances within the education sector. This section of the chapter will speak to the broader issue of inclusivity, with some discussion on the challenge, specifically as it relates to emerging areas or educational trends.

3.1

Inequality

At a general level, the educational policies underscore the ongoing challenges of inequality and equity. Such is the case, for example, within the Educational Policy Paper 1993–2003, where there is a focus on the mainstreaming of children with special needs and the establishment of a diagnostic center to provide support services to schools (GORTT 1993). In 2008, we also see a broader commitment toward inclusive education within the 2004 report on the Development of Education in Trinidad and Tobago (MOE 2008). The MoE introduced the training of special education teachers, counseling for disadvantaged youth, as well as specialized

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interventions, such as book grants, transportation services, and food feeding programs for at-risk students (MOE 2008). Through the 2017–2022 Education Strategic Plan, the MoE also advanced the development of ECCEs, the establishment of protocols for students with special needs, and a renewed attention to monitoring and evaluation within the school system (MoE 2017). This policy initiative takes into consideration the need to ensure inclusive and quality education to promote lifelong learning, a goal that remains consistent with both the millennium development goals and those of the CARICOM regional educational and Human Resource Development 2030 plans. The challenge however remains that of addressing the deep-seated challenges associated with access, participation, and school-related outcomes (De Lisle 2012; Deosaran 2016). In fact, many scholars continue to question the gendered nature of education (Figueroa 2004; Parry 2004; Reddock 2010) and the lack of accommodation for persons with disabilities (Lavia 2006; Conrad and Brown 2011) and for students who are at risk (Armstrong et al. 2005). While the EFA flagship of the right to education for persons with disabilities was established in 2002 (UNESCO 2004), the championing of different concerns for teacher education, persons with HIV/AIDS, and in early childhood are less visible (Miles and Singal 2010). Others have stressed on the need for more nuanced analyses that factor in intersecting stratifying factors such as race and class (Rampersad 2012). Where these strata represent key socially constitutive markers of difference for citizens in Trinidad and Tobago, then the historical moorings of colonialism that reproduce these social divides, not just within our school systems but within the broader fabric of our society, are worthy of deeper interrogations (Nakhid et al. 2014; Escayg and Kinkead-Clark 2019).

3.2

ICT and Digitalization ICT and Digitization Activities

While since 1984, the call for ICT within the education system emerged as a political mandate at then meeting of ministers of government within the commonwealth secretariat, there is little empirical research on the level of preparation and pedagogical designs inherent in that process (Waldron 2009; Kistow 2009). In part, this is due to the relative absence of formal ICT curriculum and strategic mandates within the education system. In recent years, however, the ministry of education has instituted many technology-driven-based initiatives to serve the education system. Such is the case of a school infrastructure and learning management systems, with access to materials/information on assessments, e-learning platforms, and professional development activities (see MOE website). At the secondary school level, we also see the introduction of ICT as an examinable subject at the CSEC level. In 2010, the government also distributed laptops to students who passed the SEA examinations and trained 200 teachers on e-connect and learning program, with the intention to bridge the digital divide and to leverage the potential for ICT within the school system (Gopeesingh 2010). This training emerged as a spin-off from the e-connect policy and the ICT professional development implementation plan for educators

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(Ministry of Science, Technology and Tertiary Education 2010, 2012). These developments have also extended to the tertiary level where there are significant both ICT and STEM fields are part of the curriculum and are examinable at this level (Phillip 2008). The UWI also scaled up their distance education programs with the establishment of open campus, which to date offers from certificates to doctoral programs online. In 2005, a MOE/SEMP-sponsored postgraduate diploma in educational technology was started at the School of Education, UWI (Phillip 2008). Most recently, the “Policy for Information and Communication Technology in Education” also emerged as a response to the need for a clearly enunciated policy on ICT (MOE 2005; George 2020). Despite these developments, there is little information on the effectiveness of these programs, the extent to which teachers are integrating ICT in the classroom, the types of instructional strategies used to implement this, and/or data on the returns on investments (MOE 2020). In his review of the ICT developments for Trinidad and Tobago, Ezenne (2008) contended that more is needed on the quality of such delivery and with some attention to a more blended approach to accommodate different learners. Maharaj-Sharma, Sharma, and Sharma (2017) argued that notwithstanding the drafting of the information and communication technology policy for schools in 2005, a key challenge was the need of changing mindsets, inadequate infrastructure within schools, and the lack of technical support systems and staff to support this process. A related finding was that while science teachers in Trinidad and Tobago used ICT-based instructional technologies, they continue to use traditional methods (white board and text books), with power point presentations, simulations, and videos being the most used platform (Maharaj-Sharma et al. 2017). While the MoE through its TVET unit of the Curriculum Planning and Development Division (CPDD) continues to provide learning activities through the learning management systems to teachers and students at the CSEC, CVQ, and CAPE levels, the lack of reliable Internet connectivity and access to hardware or devices for vulnerable or at-risk youth hinders the potential impact of these learning interventions. This is clearly evident within the period of the pandemic. With a move toward remote work and schooling, the pandemic has also exposed some of the major drawbacks within these achievements. Thus, while there are clear efforts toward digitization, there is a need for greater collaboration and cooperation between network administrators, government officials, academics, and business leaders to address the persistent gaps.

3.3

STEM Subjects

In Trinidad and Tobago, there has been a growing focus on STEM education. The incorporation of these fields is clearly evident at all levels of the education system. There is also a history of teaching and research in science for the region, particularly in areas of mathematics education, engineering, and technology (Sweeney 2019; Adams and Radix 2018). In recent times, the notion of STEM has been expanded to include the arts and reading, thereby encouraging the move toward science,

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technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) and science technology reading, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STREAM) education. As a forerunner in this process, HIHERST has partnered with Shell Trinidad and Tobago, an oil company in Trinidad and Tobago, to offer science, technology, research, engineering, arts, and math (STREAM) program over a five-year period. The key aim of the program is that of strengthening the pipeline for energy sector, promoting problembased learning and creative applications, while raising the level of awareness related to these disciplines. Secondary objectives are those of promoting advanced educational pursuit and careers within STREAM areas. This program continues to be promoted, with a potential to change the scope and reach of opportunities within STEM fields. However, major gaps remain within these core fields. On one level, there are ongoing calls for more STEM-related disciplines, training, and technologies to support the development of this area within the Caribbean (Jules et al. 2000; Jaipaul-O’Garro 2016). The inequality in access and participation of girls within STEM areas emerges as another area of concern (Martin-DeLeon 2010). This is particularly so for the pattern of enrolment within higher education institutions for Trinidad and Tobago (Kassim et al. 2015). Ongoing concerns however that of the preparation and retention of teachers within the region (Lewis 2011) On another level, concerns are also for the extent to which scholars, educators, and researchers within the STEM areas produce innovation solutions such as biotechnologies, nanomedicine, and nanomaterials to influence the advance of service and manufacturing sectors within the Caribbean (see Sweeney 2019). Other researchers note that while STEM is believed to prepare persons for the modern workforce, there are ongoing issues of alignments and training deficiencies (see Dixon and Hulton 2016).

4

Conclusion

As a former British colony, Trinidad and Tobago continues to negotiate the remnants of this colonial legacy. To a large extent, the structure and working of the educational system remain ongoing points of contention that continue to affect the realities and prospects within the education system. The increasing interconnectedness and interrelatedness of global educational systems however do not rescue Caribbean countries from the vestiges of this colonial past. In fact, citing the work of Rizvi, Bob, and Lavia (2006) and Lavia (2011) reminds us that the connection between the global demands of education and unfolding forms of cosmopolitan learning continue to change the identities and cultures of the people across social geographies. Critical points of dissension here are the movement away from taken-for-granted notions about the nature of our societies and the recognition that the practice of education is far removed from the goal of providing skills and training to people of the region. While this global analysis can be extended across the region, Trinidad and Tobago’s social, cultural, economic, political, and educational history represent unique points of interrogation. Thus, a major contention on the chapter is that

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while the mandates of free society propelled a long history of educational reforms and development as a strategic attempt to expand issues of access and quality, persistent changes remained nested in deeply seated inequalities that continue to weigh on the formation and implementation of equitable measures across the school system. To a large extent these persistent struggles have created measured degrees of achievements within the education system, with nuanced realities across various levels of the education system, school types, and for different stakeholders. While it is noted that the government has historically attempted to address key issues within the education system, the fundamental challenge remains that of radically altering both the structures and the practices that sustain persistent inequalities. The COVID19 pandemic has intensified this struggle.

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Myers, M., Lochan, S., Patricia, B., & Jones, M. (2005). Draft policy framework for transferring and restructuring teacher education and development in Trinidad and Tobago. Preparing high quality teachers for a changing society, Discussion paper, work in progress, teacher Professional Development Unit. Port of Spain: MOE. Nakhid, C., Barrow, B., & Broomes, O. (2014). Situating the education of African Trinidadians within the social and historical context of Trinidad and Tobago: Implications for social justice. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 9(2), 171–187. Parry, O. (2004). Masculinities, myths and educational underachievement: Jamaica, Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. In R. Reddock (Ed.), Interrogating Caribbean masculinities: Theoretical and empirical analyses (pp. 167–184). University of the West Indies Press. Phillip, G. (2008). Information and communications technology initiatives in secondary schools in Trinidad and Tobago. In L. Quamina-Aiyejina (Ed.), Reconceptualising the agenda for education in the Caribbean, proceedings of the 2007 biennial cross-campus conference in education (pp. 139–147). School of Education, UWI. Quamina-Aiyejina, L., Mohammed, J., Rampaul, B., George, J., Kallon, M., Keller, C. & Lochan, S. (2001). A baseline study of teacher education system in Trinidad and Tobago, School of Education, Faculty of Humanities and Education, The University of the West Indies, Monograph 1. Rampersad, R. (2012). Interrogating pigmentocracy: The intersections of race and social class in the primary education of Afro-Trinidadian boys. In K. Bhopal & J. Preston (Eds.), Intersectionality and race in education (pp. 57–75). Routledge. Reddock, R. (2010). Gender and achievement in higher education. Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean, 12(1), 1–21. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rhoda_ Reddock/publication/235500045_Gender_and_Achievement_in_Higher_Education/links/ 0fcfd51354c3802303000000.pdf Rizvi, F., Lingard, B., & Lavia, J. (2006). Postcolonialism and education: Negotiating a contested terrain. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 14(3), 249–262. Steinbach, M. (2012). Obstacles to change in teacher education in Trinidad and Tobago. The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, 11(1), 69–81. Sweeney, A. (2019). Promoting STEM education and literacy in Jamaica. The Gleaner. http:// jamaicagleaner.com/article/art-leisure/20190407/promoting-stemeducation-and-literacyjamaica Tewarie, B. (2010). Concept paper: For the development of a CARICOM strategic plan for tertiary education services in the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). http://www. caricom.org/jsp/single_market/services_regime/concept_paper_tertiary_education.pdf UNDP. (2020). Human development report-The next frontier human development and the Anthropocene. UNDP. UNESCO. (1994). Final report: World conference on special needs education: Access and quality. UNESCO. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (2004) The Right to Education for People With Disabilities: Towards Inclusion. UNESCO, Paris Waldron, L. (2009). Technology-oriented or learning-driven? International Journal of Education and Development using ICT, 5(4). Retrieved March 24, 2011 from http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/ viewarticle.php?id¼870 Whiteley, P. (2002). Quality assurance in selected Caribbean universities. In I. Austin & C. Marrett (Eds.), Adult education in Caribbean universities (pp. 249–271). UNESCO. World Bank. (1995). Trinidad and Tobago: Poverty and unemployment in an oil based economy. Report No. 14382-TR. Country Department III. Country Operations II Latin America and the Caribbean Region. Washington, DC: Author.

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Contents 1 Historical and Social Foundations of Education in Trinidad and Tobago . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 General History of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Early Childhood Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Personnel Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 ICT in Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 Emerging Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Discussion of Recent Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Critical Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Summary/Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The education system in Trinidad and Tobago can best be understood by first examining it from a historical and social perspective. The current population mix of mainly Africans and East Indians dates back to the nineteenth and twentieth century when Africans were enslaved to work the sugarcane S. Abdul-Majied (*) Faculty of Humanities and Education, School of Education, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_48

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plantations, and East Indians later immigrated to work as indentured laborers following the emancipation of African slaves in 1834. This importation of peoples also brought a variety of non-Christian religions and cultures which added to the dominant Christian faiths of the colonial ruling class. Providing for faith-based differences has led to controversy surrounding access to the few high-demand denominational schools versus attending the lower-ranked state schools, particularly at the secondary level. It has also contributed to inequality in access to quality education. While there has been a commendable expansion of the education system including early education since independence, mostly funded from petroleum revenues, some problems persist. These include fluctuations in oil revenue, inequality in schooling, lack of legislation to formalize the early childhood sector, and inadequate infrastructure to accommodate acquisition of twenty-first-century skills needed for sustainable development. The purpose of this chapter is to present a brief historical overview of education, to trace the development of the education system highlighting achievements and persistent problems, and to identify emerging issues which need to be addressed for providing a high-quality education system in Trinidad and Tobago. Keywords

Caribbean education · Education history of Trinidad and Tobago · Early childhood education in Trinidad · Sustainable development · Caribbean schooling

1

Historical and Social Foundations of Education in Trinidad and Tobago

1.1

General Historical Background

1.1.1 Introduction Trinidad and Tobago is a twin island republic located in the West Indies. The islands are the southernmost in the Caribbean island chain situated northeast of Venezuela and northwest of Guyana in South America. It is also located southeast of the North American mainland. Trinidad and Tobago has a population of 1.4 million. It belongs to the Anglophone Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which shares a history of over 300 years of British colonization. This region of developing countries comprises 15 member states including Jamaica and Barbados and five associate member states which include the British Virgin Islands (CARICOM 2021). This geographical setting situates the twin island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, which is the subject of this discourse focusing on the current education system. The chapter sheds light on the historical and social foundations of education in Trinidad and Tobago post-World War II (from 1945) insofar as the past continues to impact on current offerings in education. To contextualize the local education system and current realities, it is necessary to identify key

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historical events, which continue to influence the structure of the education system, even though some occurred in the nineteenth century prior to the period of study. Further, relevant aspects of the political, economic, and cultural contexts and conditions are described and social conditions which continue to impact the provision of education are explained. Progress and problems faced by the early education sector are discussed. Additionally, the transition to the labor market is also accounted for and recent local developments in education are identified. Finally, a critique of the findings follows before the chapter concludes with a summary.

2

Historical and Social Foundations

Trinidad and Tobago has a very diverse population with a variety of races, religions, and cultures. This diversity can mostly be attributed to the history of peoples who settled on the islands. Indigenous peoples inhabited the islands for centuries before Columbus arrived in 1498, and claimed Trinidad as a colony for the Spanish Empire. Trinidad continued to change rulership several times among the Spanish and French before becoming a British colony in 1797. Other European settlers also acquired property during the colonial era. A plantation economy developed to produce sugar from sugarcane using free forced labor from large numbers of enslaved Africans. After the enslaved Africans were emancipated in 1838, many refused to continue working on the plantations. When a severe agricultural labor shortage resulted, the British filled the gap by introducing an indentureship system which recruited Indian, Chinese, and Portuguese agricultural laborers. The majority of indentured workers who arrived to work on sugarcane plantations between 1845 and 1917 were East Indians (Watts et al. 2021). Hence today, the two main ethnic groups on the island are descendants of African enslaved persons and East Indian indentured immigrants. When slavery was abolished in 1834, the population of Trinidad consisted of White colonizers (Spanish, French, and English), free Black slaves that formed the majority, and Indigenous peoples, the minority (Trinidad and Tobago Independence Celebration Committee n.d.). The British government and denominational Christian bodies established schools for children of freed slaves. By the mid-nineteenth century only denominational bodies, mainly Catholic and Anglicans, remained in education, supported by the state. Apart from religious differences, the business of education became more complex when the non-Christian, non-English speaking, East Indian indentured immigrants started arriving in 1845. A similar transition of colonial power took place in Tobago although Tobago changed hands among the Spanish, British, French, Dutch, and Courlander colonists more frequently than any other Caribbean island. Under the Treaty of Amiens, Tobago ceded to Britain in 1802 and became a separate state. Trinidad and Tobago reunited in 1889 and obtained independence in 1962. In 1976, the twin island state became the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

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General History of Education

British colonial policies determined how the school system in Trinidad and Tobago and indeed throughout the British West Indian colonies were established (Campbell 1996). Further, cultural, historical, and geographical factors affected the way education was implemented in Trinidad. Though the Caribbean islands share similarities as former colonial territories, Trinidad has some peculiarities due to the various nationalities, cultures, religions, and languages emerging from the peoples who historically settled on the island. Also, there is a resulting difference in how the unique cultural mix of inhabitants cut across classes. Following the Emancipation Act of 1834, for the first time, mass education was financed by the colonial government for the general population of mainly former slaves in British colonies. Prior to that education was only available to the children of the landowners either by private teachers or denominational schools established by various Christian groups (Quamina-Aiyejina et al. 1999). The Roman Catholics had set up the St Joseph Convent finishing school for ladies of class in 1836 and the St. Mary’s College for boys in 1863. This put them in the lead for controlling education, a leadership that has been retained and which has established a tradition of privileged education for the elites in society (Trinidad and Tobago Independence Celebration Committee n.d.). Additionally, from 1870–1900 there was a new immigrant Indian population which had arrived as indentured laborers to work on the sugarcane plantations following the emancipation of the African slaves. This East Indian community included Hindus and Muslims who were non-English speaking and non-Christian. Their different needs were initially not accommodated by the state or the existing Christian schools. As a consequence, the Canadian Presbyterian Mission committed to Christianizing and educating the East Indians (Campbell 1996, 48). In 1946, the Educational Policy contained in the Development Program Council Paper No. 27 of 1946 included significant features (Trinidad and Tobago Independence Celebration Committee n.d.). Some key features were: provision for free primary education for children 5–12 years; provision of Central Schools for children 12–15 years who did not gain entry to secondary schools; facilities for religious instruction at all government schools; and enactment of the Marriott-Mahew recommendation on teacher training. By 1951, a 100 years after the first educational policy was implemented, there were 18 secondary schools serving 6074 students 12–18 years old. There were also 312 primary schools including 8 intermediate schools for children 5–12 years. Eighty-five percent of the school age population, that is, 120,845 pupils were enrolled. Handicraft centers and domestic science centers attached to some primary schools, served students from clusters of primary schools (Trinidad and Tobago Independence Celebration Committee n.d.). Christian religious groups including the Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, Mico Charity, Presbyterians, and Wesleyans, along with the colonial government, contributed to shaping the development of education at all levels of the society. Several religious groups built schools for the education of children of African

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descent, called at that time “Negro Education,” receiving government subsidy to cover costs. There was also a progressive increase in the number of primary and secondary schools, as well as school types. As sugar revenues declined after emancipation, the local middle class increased and lower-level white-collar jobs became more available for non-Whites. The value of education gained importance. With religious groups becoming more involved in education alongside the state, a dual system emerged consisting of government schools and denominational schools also known as “assisted” schools. An important development occurred in 1960 when the Government of Trinidad and Tobago signed the Concordat, an agreement with religious bodies. It was an assurance for the preservation of the character of denominational schools. Denominational boards also secured the right to select 20% of the new students to enter their secondary schools, even though their scores may be lower than students of other faiths. The agreement guarantees the interest of the churches and their denominational boards to administrate education at their schools. Under this dual system, government schools are fully funded by the state. Government-assisted schools are owned by religious bodies, administered jointly by the Ministry of Education and the respective denominational church boards and receive financial assistance from the government. Cultural differences in Trinidad contributed to the continuation of the dual control of education by church and state which exists to today (Campbell 1996). This system has led to conflicts over the amount of government grants received and rivalry at different levels (Campbell 1996). In spite of the structural problems, the education system in Trinidad and Tobago has evolved to the stage where it now offers free universal education for all citizens. There is an over 95% enrolment in primary education and education continues to receive the highest budget allocation in 2020/2021 ahead of health and national security. Access to tertiary education has been supported by a robust primary and secondary education system and students’ access to government grants to access tertiary education (Oxford Business Group 2020). Since 2017, the Government Assistance for Tuition Expenses (GATE) program has offered financial assistance for all students at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels based on means testing. The investment in education has led to increased enrolment over the past 15 years. It also aligns with the country’s Vision 2030 plan to build a knowledge-based economy and to diversify the economy beyond petroleum.

3.1

Early Childhood Education

Early childhood education for children in Trinidad and Tobago developed in a similar manner to education in other Caribbean countries which shared a colonial past. During the early twentieth century, there were economic and social changes which propelled the need for child care services outside of the home. The extended family structure could no longer meet the family needs in an era of rapid industrialization, as both mothers and fathers from the working class were seeking employment outside of the home. Initially, private individuals, the church, and organizations

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like the Child Welfare League offered custodial care for young children. In Trinidad and Tobago, the first private nursery school was opened in 1934 (Davies 1997, 2). By the mid-1950s, there was a demand for early childhood facilities to offer more than custodial child care. Child development and learning research from developed countries influenced beliefs about the benefits of quality ECCE (Early Childhood Care and Education) to later school success, especially for the disadvantaged child. Educational reforms increased the demand for higher-level educational programs. Middle-class and upper-class parents understood the benefits of preschool education for providing their children with the right foundation that would ensure later benefit from the expanded educational opportunities. These ideas soon trickled down to the masses. UNICEF and the Bernard Van Leer Foundation (BVLF) were among the first international funding organizations to meaningfully assist the region in ECCE services which was previously almost totally dominated by the local private sector. Trinidad and Tobago became a signatory to the 1990 United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Education for All (EFA) initiative launched in Jomtien (Thailand) which recognizes the right of every citizen in every society to benefit from a quality education. Guided by this agreement and other agreements, the government took loans to build schools, provide equitable access, and improve the quality of early childhood care and education (ECCE). In 2006, the government undertook a massive construction of government ECCE centers, the development of a draft ECCE curriculum guide, and increased funding for staff training in the sector. ECCE in Trinidad and Tobago is organized and regulated by the Education Act Chapter 39:01 of the Laws of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Even though it is classified under the nonformal sector, the Minister of Education still directs the management of ECCE schools. The schools are categorized as either public or private. Public schools include government schools, owned and funded by the government, and also denominational schools owned by religious groups but partially funded by the government. A third category, private schools, are owned and funded by private individuals or organizations. At present steps are being taken to formalize the sector. In Trinidad and Tobago, ECCE covers the period from birth to 8 years old and takes place in different settings, see Table 1 (Davies 1997, 2). A preschool unit was established to manage the ECCE subsector in 1974. This was replaced by an ECCE division established within the Ministry of Education since 2007. In the 1980s, the focus was on improving the quality of preschool experiences for children. To this end, curricula for teaching young children and teacher training programs were developed or improved. Teachers were soon required Table 1 Age groups and ECCE settings

Age group 0–2 years 3–4 years 5–6 years 7–8 years

ECCE setting Nurseries or day care centers ECCE centers or preschools Primary school: infant 1 and infant 2 classes Primary school: standards 1 and 2 classes

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to and started to receive ECCE degree training by accessing the same programs as primary school teachers but with ECCE specialization. As the ECCE sector has expanded, the current entry requirement for the position of ECCE teacher is a Bachelor of Education Degree (B. Ed). Student teachers can access government funding to pursue their degree at the University of the West Indies or another approved local university. ECCE teachers are largely contract employees. Contrary to this, primary school teachers with similar qualifications, however, are permanent employees with more attractive terms and conditions of work and salary scales (Thornhill 2014, 2). There is hope that this will be corrected when the legislature is passed to incorporate the nonformal ECCE sector into the formal education sector.

4

Political, Economic, and Cultural Contexts and Conditions

Soon after World War II ended in 1945, the decolonization process started in the West Indies. Two key factors influenced the process, i.e., reduced funding from the British crown after the war and a growing desire for individual Caribbean states to secure independence. The decolonization process resulted in changes to the student population, as children of landowners returned to Britain and more children of African and Indian heritage got access to schools. Trinidad and Tobago stands out as one of the leading countries in the region due to its economic growth and stable government (McCollin 2016). This can be partly attributed to its revenue being derived from lucrative oil and natural gas and not agriculture and tourism like other Caribbean countries. Tobago is more dependent on tourism as the manufacturing sector is limited. The mainstay of the Trinidad and Tobago economy began to change in the 1850s with the discovery of oil. The commercialization of the petroleum sector occurred during the early twentieth century. Previously, the island had been mainly a sugar producer, with large sugarcane plantations established mainly on the fertile central plains. Oil soon replaced agriculture and by the 1950s accounted for around 30% of gross domestic product (Nations Encyclopedia n.d.). Trinidad and Tobago’s economy has had to endure the booms and declines in the prices of oil worldwide. During the 1970s, there was an economically favorable period when international oil prices soared. The government invested newly found revenue in infrastructure, gas production, and other state-controlled industries. When oil prices fell from 1982, the country went through a rough recession. A shrinking economy, unemployment, poverty, and emigration were some of the negative consequences. Although Trinidad and Tobago remains vulnerable to fluctuations in world oil prices, much effort has been put toward diversifying the economy (Nations Encyclopedia n.d.). Trinidad and Tobago achieved independence from the UK in 1962 and became a republic in 1976. The country has a diverse cultural and religious composition that includes African, Indian, Caucasians, Syrian Lebanese, and mixed races. Culturally Carnival celebrations attract a lot of foreign visitors annually. Tourists visit the home of the steelpan, where the only acoustic musical instrument of the twenty-first

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century was invented. The culture reflects a mix of art forms representing the diversity in music and art including calypso, steel band, The Tobago Heritage Festival, and food (Pemberton et al. 2018, vii).

5

Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of Population

Trinidad and Tobago has had a stable democracy since independence in 1962, even though there were a few political upheavals over the almost 60-year period. When in 1958 the West Indies Federation – a union of British colonies which was formed to achieve joint independence from Britain, failed, Trinidad and Tobago secured its own independence as a sovereign nation. The country has generally enjoyed decades of economic growth fueled primarily by its energy sector. The economic profit from oil as well as the government’s commitment to poverty eradication, education, and health has translated into favorable social conditions for the population. A Trinidad and Tobago Country Report 2020 shows moderate poverty and inequality. The Human Development Index (HDI) value was stagnant when reviewed, however the HDI still represents the sixth highest in the region at 0.784 in 2017 (BTI Transformation Index 2020). Since 2015, Trinidad and Tobago has experienced an influx of over 40,000 migrants from Venezuela. Having signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, young migrant children are entitled to education. However, families face obstacles accessing schooling and social services (UNICEF EC 2019). The evidence suggests that even though there is massive government spending in the education sector, and curricula and standards are being established to guide improvement, policies and legislation not yet in place are affecting the quality of service available for local children and by extension refugees. Additionally, overdependence on revenue from oil has affected national revenue since 1978/1979 when there was a relative decline in the contribution of the petroleum sector to the economy. Vision 2030 reports that the economy has had eight consecutive budget deficits since 2009. Further, due to a major fall in energy prices in 2014 combined with lower production, government’s 2015/2016 energy revenues declined by approximately TT$12 billion (or USD 1.77 billion) from the previous year. These shortfalls affect the social conditions of the most vulnerable as there is a threat to the vulnerable in the society when national revenue and expenditure declines (Ministry of Social Development and Family Services 2018, 17). The government therefore recognizes the need to diversify the economy away from its dependence on oil revenues.

6

Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support

Following the oil boom of 1973–1981 there was a period of rapid development and industrialization. The state sector as well as social welfare programs were expanded using the new wealth earned from petroleum profits. Much investment was

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undertaken particularly in tourism, petrochemicals, and natural gas. The private sector also expanded rapidly. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Trinidad and Tobago has continued its rapid pace of industrial development, which included building liquefied natural gas plants and steel smelters. The state-owned sugar producing company, Caroni Ltd., was closed down in 2003. Some independent cane farmers continued while others shifted to cultivating alternative crops such as cassava and fruits (Brereton 2021). Following independence in 1962, the state intervened in the voluntary labor relations inherited from the British system. Legislation was introduced to legally define and delineate the workings of the labor relations system. This led to a mixture of voluntary and compulsory actions (Goolsarran 2006, 6). In this model, governed by collective bargaining laws, workers and employers negotiate and mutually agree on terms and conditions of employment. When this process fails to resolve disputes, compulsory arbitration mechanisms are used to secure resolutions. State employees include civil servants, teachers, and members of the protective services (fire, police, and prison services). The employment relationship between the state and its employees is governed generally by legislation, which makes provisions for terms and conditions of employment including recruitment, hours of work, leave entitlements, payment of remuneration, pensions, allowances, and other benefits. There is legislation which deals specifically with each group, such as the Education Act, Chapter 39:01 for teachers.

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Institutional and Organizational Principles

7.1

General Principles

Trinidad and Tobago’s multiethnic makeup along with its British colonial history has shaped all aspects of the education system. In an effort to ensure that all graduates are equipped with the skills and tools to succeed, the Ministry of Education has embarked on a number of changes toward improving and modernizing the education system. Its policies have been guided toward achieving three strategic goals: (1) effective governance and administration of the education system, (2) access to education opportunities by all learners, and (3) quality education provided at all levels. These goals were used as guiding principles in developing a policy paper that has guided education policies in Trinidad and Tobago from 2015 and will continue to guide until 2022.

7.2

Education Administration and Governance

Developing from its colonial history, education in Trinidad and Tobago is governed and administered according to a top-down approach run by the central body, the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Education with its 21,000 staff members

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oversees and administers all education levels from early childhood through primary, secondary, technical, and vocational and tertiary, which cater to approximately 280,000 students. As of 2015, the executive of the ministry consists of the Minister of Education, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Education, two permanent secretaries (PS), a chief education officer (CEO), and three deputy permanent secretaries (DPS). The ministry’s structure provides for a central administration and seven education district offices (EDOs) in Trinidad. In Tobago, there is the Division of Education Innovation and Energy, which operates under the purview of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA), which is governed by the THA Act. The composition of the executive is dynamic and changes depending on determined need. In September 2015, the former Ministry of Education was merged with ministries and entities with responsibility for the tertiary sector, which resulted in a newly realigned Ministry of Education comprising 27 core divisions and units and seven support division along with two state enterprises and thirteen statutory boards (Ministry of Education 2017). There are eight educational districts throughout the twin island state. A school supervisor 3 (SS3), assisted by school supervisor 2 s are responsible for secondary schools, and school supervisors 1 s are responsible for primary schools. They oversee the districts and they all report directly to the Ministry of Education. There are 484 primary schools that form part of the public system, 30% of which are nonreligious schools operated by the ministry and 70% are government-funded schools but managed by denominational boards representing the diverse religious makeup of the country. Regardless of religious affiliation, a parent can send his/her child to any school in his/her educational district. However, admittance is based on available spaces, especially at schools in higher demand. Usually students of the same faith are given preference (Brown and Conrad 2007). Local school boards, appointed for 2 years based on recommendation by the Ministry of Education, are established in all government schools. This is a move toward the decentralization of the school management system and an effort to better engage with stakeholders by making them an integral part of the decision-making process. These boards are made up of members of the school’s administration, the parent teachers association, and student and teacher representatives, along with community members (Ministry of Education 2021). In an effort to address the identified systematic deficiencies, the Ministry of Education has embarked on a plan to integrate homeschoolers and unregistered private schools to bring them under the unified umbrella of the ministry’s governing structure (Ministry of Education 2021).

7.3

Personnel Supply

The personnel supply of Trinidad and Tobago’s education system has seen significant changes over the course of the last 200 years. In the mid-1800s, the majority of teachers were imported to the islands from England. Religious missionaries were stationed at either Jamaica or Antigua and later hired out to schools on the smaller

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islands which included Trinidad. Their training and focus was mainly theological and the most desirable outcome for students was less focused on academic proficiency and more aimed at religious piety (Trinidad and Tobago Independence Celebration Committee n.d.). However, this approach was later amended in order to improve academic ability. With this goal in mind, teacher training became the most obvious tool in creating successful students. Teacher training has always been valued due to the nature of the student teacher relationship. Students will immediately benefit from a teacher’s efficiency. While initially teacher training was limited, the current system encourages intensive vocation in varying styles of pedagogy and theories pertaining to best practices. By the mid-1900s, the majority of teachers in Trinidad and Tobago were no longer imported. In order to begin molding more academically successful students, the objective in the West Indies has always been to create a central training college geared toward the development of suitable educators. This project was started and abandoned numerous times. Instead multiple training colleges were established across the nation of Trinidad and Tobago to teach qualified individuals how to teach. However, it was still common to teach in primary school after receiving a diploma in secondary school and completing certifying examinations. When the number of untrained teachers began to grow, the emergency training course was established between 1958 and 1962 (Steinbach 2012). This course lasted only one year and sought to reduce the number of untrained educators in the profession. This was later replaced by 2-year programs which some teachers were able to complete while working at an institution. These were very useful in creating competent teachers through certification and 2-year programs (Quamina-Aiyejina et al. 1999). Upon the completed construction of the Mausica Teachers College in 1963, Trinidad and Tobago’s first central college for teacher training, the notion of preservice training was introduced. This meant that prospective teachers were expected to have completed five O-level passes and receive a score of 66% or more on the entrance examination to receive instruction at the institute. Also, they would not be allowed to teach until after graduation from the school. The current system allows teachers to receive degrees in four-year university degree programs, master degree programs, and even doctorate programs.

8

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

8.1

Inequality

The government recognizes that inequality exists in the education system of Trinidad and Tobago. The Draft Education Policy Paper 2017–2022 first of all acknowledges that inequality is a problem to be addressed at the ECCE, primary, and secondary levels of the education system. To this end, in 2015, the government adopted the United Nation’s (UN’s) Sustainable Development 2030 Agenda. Goal 4 aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education. In alignment with this goal, and the CARICOM Regional Education and Human Resource Development (HRD) 2030

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Strategy and Action Plan, the Draft Education Policy Paper 2017–2022 outlines a comprehensive list of concerns related to inequality in education in the country. It also contains policies developed to address the problems. Equity and inclusive education concerns raised include: • Inequality in the standard of education delivered across public schools throughout Trinidad and Tobago • Lack of inclusivity, equity, and learning for special needs education and gifted students • Inadequate collaboration between stakeholders in addressing students’ special education needs • Use of discriminatory practices in the enrollment of students A wide range of policy recommendations have been identified to address these problems. They include: • Standardizing the delivery of primary education throughout the school system in terms of facilities, teachers, administration, remediation, and supervision • Developing and instituting a protocol to govern the placement of students with special education needs • Ensuring that teachers are trained to identify and meet the needs of the range of physical and intellectual abilities from special needs to gifted students • Providing parents with support and information so that they can be empowered to manage their children’s education appropriately • Ensuring that teachers are trained to identify and meet the needs of gifted students • Promoting the use of external resources to facilitate the teaching and learning needs of gifted students (Ministry of Education 2017, 63)

8.2

ICT in Education

The year 2003–2008 marked the inception of National Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Planning in Trinidad and Tobago. It was aligned to the Vision 2020 national development plan. The ICT Plan focused on a “connectivity agenda” reflecting the emphasis to connect communities, schools, and government, an agenda which was substantially achieved in the expected time period. Later, a new National ICT Plan was developed in 2014, titled smarTT. This focused in its first phase (2014–2018) on the government’s plan to increase ICT uptake and usage within the public and private sectors and among the nation in general. The development of the third National ICT Plan was started in 2016 with the aim of ensuring alignment with Vision 2030, the National Development Strategy of the government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Consistent with the earlier ICT planning documents, the current plan intends to contribute to national strategic priorities by supporting ICT expansion, guided by ICT enabling policy and digital technologies. These strategic objectives are in

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sync with the aspirations and objectives of Vision 2030. The national vision is that ICT will play a fundamental role as both an enabler of national development as well as a sector for economic diversification (Ministry of Public Administration 2018, 4). In seeking to fulfil its mandate, the Ministry of Education is aware that it has to respond to challenges in innovative ways and at varying levels, to enable the staff and students to adapt to change, inspire creativity and innovation, and enhance their ability to apply knowledge and solve problems. ICT is critical to this developmental evolution and clearly articulated policy directives are imperative. In this regard, the Ministry of Education has developed its ICT policy to provide overarching guidance on information and communication technology usage to all stakeholders in the education sector. For a long time, Trinidad and Tobago has been challenged with inefficient government services. These inefficiencies affect every aspect of services that are offered or overseen by the government, including the education system. A simple application to become a teacher could in some cases take years to be approved. A large part of these inefficiencies is due to outdated manual processes that still rely on physical paper forms and manual approvals from key individuals. Recognizing the inherent inefficiencies that exist across the spectrum of government ministries and services, in 2020, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago took a vital step toward fully digitizing its services and putting the country on the path of becoming a fully digital economy. This was done through the establishment of a new government ministry named the Ministry of Public Administration and Digital Transformation (Trinidad and Tobago Guardian 2020). The stated mission of the new ministry is “Building a best in class public service by developing our ICT sector and utilising innovative service improvement, human resource management, property management, public administration solutions” (Ministry of Public Administration and Digital Transformation 2021). The need for improved ICT usage and access in the Trinidad and Tobago education system has been acknowledged by the country’s Ministry of Education. To this end, in 2018 the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago outlined a five-year ICT Plan for the National ICT Agenda, and builds on the country’s past performance in ICT. It also declares an ambitious vision of a future that is transformed through ICT and characterized by: empowered people, competitive businesses, and transformational government (Trinidad and Tobago’s National ICT Plan ICT Blueprint 2018– 2022 2018). The National ICT Plan is meant to support the National Development Strategy 2016–2030. The plan is also designed to meet the country’s anticipated social and economic needs. Its vision is based on five strategic ideas, i.e.: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Improving connectivity Increasing human capacity Digital government Fostering economic development Advancing the environment for societal benefit

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STEM Subjects

In recognition of education as a main driver of sustainable development, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is viewed as important for meeting sustainable development goals. There is however a low enrolment in STEM subjects at secondary schools. In the OECD’s 2015 PISA assessment, Trinidad and Tobago scored below the global average of around 490 points in reading, mathematics, and science, with mean scores of 427, 417, and 425, respectively. Recently there has been government investment aimed at encouraging STEM studies. In 2019 TT$300,000 (US $44,300) was allocated to a “Teach Me” – program at the National Institute of Higher Education Research Science and Technology, which conducts teacher training in STEM subjects (Oxford Business Group 2020). The focus of STEM initiatives is on improving teacher skills in teaching STEM subjects and also improving learning outcomes in those subject areas. A critical goal is for students to build and sustain twenty-first-century skills like critical thinking, innovation, and problem-solving. Public/private partnerships have also been established to promote STEM subjects in Trinidad and Tobago, by oil and gas companies as well as financial service providers who recognize the benefit of investing in STEM partnerships in developing Caribbean countries. One such partnership exists between the oil and gas company Shell and the National Institute of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology (NIHERST). This partnership has resulted in the creation of events such as science fairs where students of primary and secondary age get hands-on experiences with different STEM projects. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, these events have shifted focus from in-person gatherings to virtual online events (NIHERST 2021). Partnerships provide needed funding to promote STEM subjects to students at different levels of the education system. Students may benefit from academic and technical training programs and bursaries. Teacher training and secondary school lab upgrades may also result. Even as Trinidad and Tobago benefits from access to STEM study initiatives, partner sponsors also gain access to a larger pool of STEM graduates from which to secure cost-effective local labor for their industries. Sponsors also get the opportunity to improve public perception of their companies and to secure opportunities to market their products. These initiatives help to meet the government’s goals for sustainable development, which includes developing a more diversified, knowledge-intensive economy, utilizing native skills and creativity (Trinidad and Tobago STEM Program 2018, 1).

8.4

Emerging Issues

Several issues emerge as being critical for the twenty-first-century functioning of a small developing Caribbean nation in a globalized environment. The first are those related to inequality in education and access to ICT and STEM education. There are

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also emerging issues related to the social problem created by refugee arrivals from Venezuela as well as the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Achieving quality education by 2030, Goal number 4 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is seen as an important target for education in Trinidad and Tobago. The government has identified inequality in education as a major problem and started strategic planning to address this issue. These initiatives must go beyond written plans for meaningful changes to occur. Policymakers have to commit to addressing disparities in access, and educational outcomes by intentionally channeling resources such as qualified and experienced teachers, books, and technologies to socially excluded communities. They have to ensure that all students have access to quality learning environments and educational opportunities at all levels of the education system. Research and data collection are needed to guide planning using empirical evidence. In examining inclusiveness and lifelong learning, it was noted that although access to higher education has expanded significantly, some sectors of the community continue to remain underserved and disadvantaged. Factors identified include geographical, sociocultural, and gender-based issues. The exact causes for their persistence need to be uncovered so that they can be strategically addressed to meaningfully reduce inequality. Another key issue is progress in the use of ICT in education. The World Economic Forum’s “Global Competitiveness Report 2019” ranked Trinidad and Tobago 67th out of 141 countries for the ICT skill sets of graduates, and 92nd in digital skills among the active population. This suggests limited use and understanding of digitalized processes. The country however placed 61st in ICT adoption, which demonstrated a positive shift toward improving ICT use. One of the main difficulties identified is the lack of investment in technology in schools. While there is a need for investment in basic school infrastructure, ICT is often overlooked. Vision 2030 attempts to rectify this problem over a 10-year period through increased budgetary allocations for ICT. Today, most universities, both public and private, offer enrolment, course registration, grade posting, and fee payment services online. Students can use mobile applications to access paperless resources remotely. The government’s Vision 2030 includes a National Broadband Strategy to enhance the broadband infrastructure, improve access to ICT services, integrate ICT policies, and improve regulation. To this end, the government’s National ICT Plan 2018–2022 seeks to have 85% broadband coverage at the minimum download speed by 2022. Additionally, one goal is to increase jobs in the sector to 30,000. There is a need to provide adequate ICT education for students nationwide. Teacher training in ICT therefore becomes important. Over 700 teachers received Ministry of Education technology education training between April and June 2019 from a total of 2810 to date. This reflects the government’s drive to improve ICT teacher training. The program needs to be evaluated to gauge its effectiveness and to revise future programs. The final trend to be discussed is the status of STEM subjects and how well positioned the education sector is to meet national STEM needs. With the onset of

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COVID-19 and the rapid shift to emergency online teaching, the critical role of STEM subjects to twenty-first-century functioning has been underscored. In Trinidad and Tobago STEM subjects are gradually being promoted through national initiatives and partnerships with corporate companies. Shell Trinidad and Tobago Limited has partnered to sponsor STEM teacher training and student programs because they understand the benefits of producing highly skilled engineers and technologically minded staff for their companies. With the support of corporate sponsorship, students in Trinidad and Tobago have been exposed to STEM-based learning programs from an early age (Trinidad and Tobago STEM Program, 1). The STEM programs provide an opportunity to heighten student awareness, interest, and competence in STEM subjects and careers. The programs are designed to enhance students’ critical thinking, problem-solving, and innovation within the education system (Trinidad and Tobago STEM Program 2018, 1). Another STEM initiative has been a 2-year professional development opportunity provided by the Inter-American Teacher Fellowship Network (ITEN) under the Organization of American States (OAS). The program provided professional development to two early childhood STEM teachers from Trinidad among a group of 30 internationally, to improve their instructional practice, leadership, and to contribute to the international education policy discourse. Over the period 2019–2021, early childhood educators who are committed to integrating STEM content and practices into their instruction, and upper secondary physics and physical science teachers participated (OAS ITEN 2021). While there have been earlier STEM initiatives such as the UWI BGTT STEM Children’s Conference held in 2014 and Robotics Programs supported by the Ministry of Education, a more comprehensive approach for integrating STEM education into the curriculum seems to be needed to ensure that international and local goals for sustainable STEM education are met.

9

Discussion of Recent Developments

Education has made a significant contribution to the development of Trinidad and Tobago, its progress toward achieving Independence in 1962 (Trinidad and Tobago Independence Celebration Committee, 26), and republican status in 1976. It continues to be the driving force for meeting the needs of twenty-first-century learners and advancing the economy (Ministry of Education 2017). Trinidad and Tobago’s education sector gets the highest annual budgetary allocation and has been able to rapidly develop holistically, such that it now offers free universal education in a variety of core subject areas (Oxford Business Group 2020). There has also been a significant increase in enrollment at universities and vocational institutions over the last decade. It is positive too that the country continues to develop strategic educational plans that align with UN goals for sustainable development and regional targets. Commendable too are initiatives to expand education through increased preschool places

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and government grants to access tertiary education. While these are some of the positive outcomes, there are a number of issues to be addressed. The Strategic Plan 2018–2023 has to be operationalized in a challenging operating environment which includes recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and adjusting to accommodate refugees from Venezuela. We need to develop our capacity for research and datadriven decision-making to identify and target the source of the problems, eliminate wastage, and increase efficiency. Innovations should similarly be guided by research. Educational planners should ensure that all have access to quality education that meets current and projected needs. There is also the need for legislation to ensure that the legal framework for operations is in place.

10

Critical Remarks

The education system in Trinidad and Tobago has evolved from the nineteenth century when the best schooling that was available for the masses were boarding schools at the primary level, and just a few students could access limited secondary school places. Today there is universal access to all levels of the education system. This expansion was possible due to a fairly stable government, the benefits of an oil boom, and careful educational planning. This has resulted in a highly literate and educated population poised to embrace contemporary initiatives like ICT and STEM education. As Trinidad and Tobago plan for sustainability in achieving educational goals by 2030, several problems, some rooted in the colonial system inherited, need to be addressed. A persistent problem is the process for selecting students for secondary schools. The Concordat agreement between the state and denominational bodies guarantees a quota of places in prestigious schools for children belonging to the school’s faith, ahead of students from different faiths. Since schools are subsidized by taxpayers’ funds, this is viewed as unjust and a problem to be fixed. Unequal access to quality schools based on geographical location, special needs, gender, or poverty is another enduring problem to be addressed. Evidence-based decisions that are in the best interest of citizens and the national good should be taken. There is the need to change attitudes to correct problems which help to legitimize unequal treatments of students perceived to be different or less deserving. Comprehensive, well-financed plans with suitably qualified teachers need to be enacted to deliver ICT and STEM innovations in order for curriculum reform efforts to be more successful. Research and robust management and leadership are also needed to achieve educational goals. Dependence on petroleum revenues needs to shift as we diversify following guidelines already fleshed out in documents. At the ECCE level, the sector needs to be formalized such that teachers at all levels of the education system receive the same remuneration and benefits. This regularization would improve professionalism and help to achieve the high-quality education for all toward which we aspire. Policies and legislation are needed in several areas. Finally, new developments like Venezuelan immigrants and our commitment to the Convention on the Rights of the Child agreements ratified, that need to

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be addressed for meeting the educational needs of migrant children. Also emerging from the 2020/2021 COVID-19 lockdown measures, the recovery support and cost for in-person education to resume needs to be prioritized, and planning undertaken for educational continuity if faced with future national disasters.

11

Summary/Conclusion

This chapter explored the education system of Trinidad and Tobago by examining the historical and social context to better understand current structures and practices that have evolved in the post-World War II era. Contemporary practices and innovations needed for twenty-first-century functioning were discussed as well as persistent problems which need to be addressed in order for educational reforms to be successful. In the process political, economic, and cultural issues were discussed and social issues examined to better understand persistent problems like inequality in education. Barriers to the successful implementation of innovations were discussed, such as the development of an early childhood sector without legislation in place and attempts to focus on STEM education without centralized planning and financing. An account of the historical background leading up to the transition to the labor market was also presented. Finally, recent local developments in education and changing situations which impact education are identified before the key findings are summarized.

References Brereton, B. (2021). History of Trinidad and Tobago colonial period. Accessed April 9, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/place/Trinidad-and-Tobago/History Brown, L., & Conrad, D. (2007). School leadership in Trinidad and Tobago: The challenge of context. Accessed May 15, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/512021 BTI Transformation Index. (2020). Trinidad and Tobago country report 2020. Accessed June 1, 2021. https://www.bti-project.org/en/reports/country-dashboard-TTO.html Campbell, C. (1996). Colony and nation. A short history of education in Trinidad and Tobago 1834–1986. Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. CARICOM. (2021). Member states and associate members. Accessed June 1, 2021. https://caricom. org/member-states-and-associate-members/ Davies, R. (1997). A historical review of the evolution of early childhood care and education in the Caribbean. In: Second Caribbean conference on early childhood education, Barbados, April 1–5, 1997. Accessed on June 1, 2021. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED411937.pdf Goolsarran, S. J. (2006). An overview of industrial relations within the context of labour administration. In S. J. Goolsarran (Ed.), Industrial relations in the Caribbean issues and perspectives. Port of Spain: International Labour Organization. McCollin, D. (2016). In the fires of hope. Volume 2: Essays on the modern history of Trinidad and Tobago. Kingston: Ian Randle. Ministry of Education. (2017). Draft education policy paper 2017–2022. Accessed June 12, 2021. https://www.moe.gov.tt/education-policy-paper-2017-2022/

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Ministry of Public Administration. (2018). Trinidad and Tobago’s national ICT plan ICT blueprint 2018–2022. Accessed June 9, 2021. https://mpadt.gov.tt/sites/default/files/file_upload/publica tions/NICT%20Plan%202018-2022%20-%20August%202018.pdf Ministry of Public Administration and Digital Transformation. (2021). Accessed April 10, 2021. https://mpadt.gov.tt/about%20mpa Ministry of Social Development and Family Services. (2018). Strategic plan 2018–2023. Accessed June 12, 2021. http://www.social.gov.tt/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/MSDFS-Strategic-Plan2018-2023-1.pdf Nations Encyclopedia. (n.d.). Trinidad and Tobago – Overview of economy. Accessed June 1, 2021. https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Americas/Trinidad-and-Tobago-OVER VIEW-OF-ECONOMY.html#ixzz6y0cO9B8N NIHERST. (2021). Shell STREAM programme powered by NIHERST. Accessed June 1, 2021. http://www.niherst.gov.tt/scipop/Shell-STEM-programme.html). OAS ITEN. (2021). ITEN teacher fellows 2019–2021. Accessed June 12, 2021. https://www.oas. org/en/iten/default.asp?pagename¼fellows Oxford Business Group. (2020). The report: Trinidad & Tobago 2020. Health & education chapter. Accessed June 12, 2021. https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/overview/sustainability-challengerapid-expansion-creates-need-diversification-higher-levels Pemberton, R., McCollin, D., Matthews, G., & Toussaint, M. (2018). Historical dictionary of Trinidad and Tobago. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Quamina-Aiyejina, L., Mohammed, J., Rampaul, B., George, J., Kallon, M., Keller, C., & Lochan, S. (1999). A baseline study of the teacher education system in Trinidad and Tobago. Accessed June 2, 2021. http://lst-iiep.iiep-unesco.org/cgi-bin/wwwi32.exe/[in¼epidoc1.in]/? t2000¼026396/(100) Steinbach, M. (2012). Obstacles to change in teacher education in Trinidad and Tobago. The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, 11(1), 69–81. https://files.eric.ed. gov/fulltext/EJ1003828.pdf. Thornhill, A. R. (2014). National report on teachers for early childhood education: Trinidad and Tobago. Santiago: UNESCO. Accessed on June 1, 2021. http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/ MULTIMEDIA/FIELD/Santiago/pdf/Informe-Trinidad-Tobago-politicas-formacion-carreradoce.pdf. Trinidad and Tobago Guardian. (2020, October 5). Imbert: T&T to become a digital economy. Accessed June 1, 2021. https://www.guardian.co.tt/news/imbert-tt-to-become-a-digital-econ omy-6.2.1229742.a449ea41f5 Trinidad and Tobago Independence Celebration Committee. (n.d.). Education 1800–1962: Historical development of education in Trinidad and Tobago. Accessed June 9, 2021. https://ufdc.ufl. edu/AA00010880/00001/1j Trinidad and Tobago STEM Programme. (2018). Accessed May 6, 2021. https://sacodaserv.com/ wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Trinidad-and-Tobago-STEM-Programme-Overview-FAQs.pdf Trinidad and Tobago’s National ICT Plan ICT Blueprint 2018–2022. (2018). Accessed May 6, 2021. https://mpadt.gov.tt/sites/default/files/file_upload/publications/NICT%20Plan% 202018-2022%20-%20August%202018.pdf UNICEF EC. (2019). Making friendly spaces for Venezuelan children. Accessed September 14, 2019. https://www.unicef.org/easterncaribbean/media_39482.html Watts, D., Brereton, B. M. & Robinson, A. N. R., (2021). Trinidad and Tobago. In: Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed June 1, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/place/Trinidad-and-Tobago

The Education System of the United States of America: Overview and Foundations

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations: Variation in Interpretation of Educational History . . . 2.1 General Historical Background: Key Periods of US Education Reform and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Federal and National Valences in the Shaping of US Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of Education According to ISCED Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 The Supply of Instructional Expertise Across Schooling Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Prevailing discourse in the USA about the country’s teachers, educational institutions, and instructional approaches is a conversation that is national in character. Yet the structures and the administrative and governance apparatuses themselves are strikingly local in character across the USA. Public understanding and debate about education can be distorted in light of divergence between the country’s educational aspirations and the vehicles in place for pursuing those aims. In addressing its purpose as a survey of US education, the following chapter interrogates this apparent contradiction, first discussing historical and social factors that help account for a social construction of the USA as singular and national system. Discussion then moves to a descriptive analysis of education in the USA as institutionalized at the numerous levels – aspects that often reflect P. R. Fossum (*) College of Education, Health, and Human Services, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_14

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local prerogative and difference more so than a uniform national character. The chapter concludes with summary points regarding US federalism as embodied in the country’s oversight and conduct of formal education. Keywords

Education system · Educational history · Education reform · Teacher supply · USA

1

Introduction

In the USA, a simple connotation of “system” is widespread in popular discourse about education. Discussion in the USA about the direction of the country’s schools is national in character. And common reference is thus to a singular American education system, as contemporary editorial commentary demonstrates (see Yin 2017, discussing “inequalities in America’s education system”; Lynch 2018, listing factors explaining why “the US education system is failing”; Schneider 2016, commenting on “America’s not-so-broken education system”). One annual survey asks respondents to evaluate “the nation’s [primary and secondary] schools” (Phi Delta Kappa 2019, K-22) – thus both validating and reinforcing a social construction of the nation’s educational enterprise as monolithic. Yet direct federal-level authority over education is purposefully restrained in the USA, and the structuring and oversight of the country’s education institutions is accordingly immensely diffuse, as this chapter will illustrate. Formal responsibility for primary and secondary education resides with the several states, and routine direction and conduct of schooling rests with localities to which the states have traditionally delegated these responsibilities. This reality regarding the local nature of US education animates periodic complaints that federal actions, deemed improperly constraining or directive, constitute instances of “federal overreach” – a mode of grievance illustrated during the preceding century in the southern states’ sluggish compliance with court orders to dismantle racially discriminatory schools and practices, for instance, and demonstrated in more recent antagonism toward curricular standardization efforts. This chapter explores how historical patterns of action have helped produce a public conception in the USA of its educational system as unitary in character – even as history and circumstance have combined to yield localized structures and practices. It examines US education’s historical and social foundations, noting how central authorities have facilitated the establishment of institutionalized education under the more local authority of states and how communities themselves have adapted in meeting these obligations. Discussion will also show that the steering of the nation’s educational undertakings has been a frequent and prominent subject of federal action and a focus too of various organizations and constituencies that – independent from government, proper – have further shaped nationwide dialogue and a national identity regarding education in the country. The chapter then provides detailed description of US education across the multiple instructional levels, reflecting considerable heterogeneity owing to decentralization, local adaptation,

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and the diffusion of governance authority characterizing the system. Concluding remarks offer summary observations, also introducing this volume’s additional chapters on US education, which address STEM education (▶ Chap. 42, “The Education System of the United States of America: STEM Education – Progress without a Plan”), information technologies and digitization (▶ Chap. 41, “The Education System of the United States of America: ICT and Digitalization”), and educational equity and access (▶ Chap. 40, “The Education System of the United States of America: Equity in K-12 and Higher Education”).

2

Historical and Social Foundations: Variation in Interpretation of Educational History

A commonality across historical overviews of education in the USA concerns their attention to the country’s preoccupation with a continuing project of education reform. Across differing schools of historical interpretation, four reform phases or eras receive consistent attention – the Common School era or movement, the Progressive Education era, the Civil Rights era, and the still-influential Accountability movement. The Western-centric skew apparent in these emphases warrants acknowledgement (Spring 1994). Euro-Americans, whose ideas have most sharply shaped educational institutions and practices in the country and are emphasized here, were of course not the original inhabitants of the territory now known as the USA. Yet the educational foundations and approaches of the US aboriginal inhabitants have been subject to far less frequent and sustained scholarly attention. (Acknowledging and partially addressing this need, Urban, Wagoner, and Gaither (2019) identified practices central in Native American cultures – the prominence of communal praise and discipline in the fostering of the young among American Indian peoples, youths’ acquisition of critical subsistence skills, and the passing on of traditional understandings about the human relationship with natural environments.) Among the prevailing schools of interpretation of US education’s history, two outlooks differ in their emphases and conclusions regarding US educational reform. Some (see, for instance, Curti 1943; Cremin 1957, 1961, 1988; Ravitch 1977, 1983; Gutek 2013) have emphasized progress that, while often incremental and imperfect in character, constitutes a story of increasing access to and participation in education and a maturing conception of the purposes of schooling. This perspective finds a salutary tension in the nation’s reconciling of the abstract goals of access on the one hand with changing notions of quality on the other. Acknowledging that the country’s periods of educational reform have often been contested, this functional view toward US education sees in the country’s educational history a stabilizing press toward compromise within a culturally diversifying US society. Meanwhile, a more circumspect revisionist framing of the nation’s educational history (see, for example, Katz 1968; Spring 1994, 2013; McLaren 2015) articulates skepticism as to the motives and the mechanics of educational change in the USA, seeing educational institutions as instruments for preserving the ascendancy of advantaged groups. The following section begins with a brief review of each of the historical periods of US

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educational reform, noted above, providing context for discussion of major influences shaping the conduct of education in the country.

2.1

General Historical Background: Key Periods of US Education Reform and Development

The Common School era of the mid-nineteenth century through about the turn of the twentieth century represents for many (e.g., see Barber’s 1993 essay) a coming-tofruition of Jeffersonian appeals for the broadened availability of education as a means of replacing entrenched notions of aristocratic privilege and for the production of a citizenry well educated enough to sustain democracy. Opposition to the Common School idea was significant. Revolutionary, for instance, in its calls for funding of schools through public taxation to replace per-child tuition assessments borne by the parents of the schoolchildren themselves, the Common School proposal for a tax-paying public to sponsor the education of other peoples’ children met with substantial resistance (Kaestle 1983). Additional opposition, though, came from others who saw Common School structures and ideals as vehicles for social control during a period in which economic activity shifted in response to the Industrial Revolution (Katz 1968). In spite of significant opposition to the Common School idea, its emergence and ultimate acceptance initially in the New England region was not coincidental. Pre-federal edicts of colonial New England’s Protestant leadership hierarchy had obligated communities of significant size to formalize education. It is difficult to underestimate the championing role of Massachusetts legislator Horace Mann together with the advocacy of a few likeminded leaders (Messerli 1971). And relative homogeneity in New England in terms of ethnicity and religion contributed to earlier acceptance of Common Schools there. Consensus came harder where cultural diversity was more pronounced (Lannie 1968), and cultural and religious difference across regions influenced the rate and extent to which Common School ideas took hold elsewhere – comparatively readily in territories of the midwestern region, more fitfully in the diverse mid-Atlantic seaboard, for instance (Pulliam and Van Patten 2013). Historical castings of the Common School movement have generally framed it as the birthing of the contemporary public school system – as the building and emergence of social and political consensus that systemized schooling constitutes a necessary part of a comprehensive societal infrastructure. Its purpose was to enable common access, common and mutual funding, and provision of common or shared educational experiences. The Progressive Education era, which propelled educational change in the USA during the first half of the twentieth century, accompanied a broader progressive political movement in the wake of major late nineteenth-century technological transformations. This progressive outlook was characterized by a confidence that human capacities – pursuit of scientific discovery and harnessing of innovation, development and focusing of expertise, and general marshalling of society’s resources – could spur improvement in the social world just as advancement in technical sciences had yielded modernization in the material realm during the

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Industrial Revolution. In the early twentieth century, the USA faced considerable social change: a shift from an agricultural to an industrial economic footing, overall population growth, population displacement from rural to urban settings, and widening cultural and linguistic diversity. Progressive reformers saw education as a principal instrument for addressing these challenges. Embracing education as a source of stability in the face of profound change, the Progressive era witnessed significant investment in formal education (see Fig. 1). To tap students’ natural curiosity and develop their inventiveness, the instructional focus moved from the instructor to the learner, and conceptions of the purposes of school shifted via curricular expansion to suit emerging needs in a changing world. Within the academy, the social sciences crystalized as disciplines (Ross 1991), reflecting progressivism’s impetus toward the channeling of scientific progress toward social ends. Improving access to educational institutions and equalizing opportunity within them were the overriding concerns during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. In its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, the US Supreme Court had overturned a doctrine of “separate but equal” that it had sustained via its earlier Plessy v. Fergusson decision (1896) – a ruling that had perversely sanctioned the de jure segregation of African-American and white citizens as satisfactorily equitable policy. Yet fully a decade after Brown, practically no progress had ensued in undoing segregation within the southern states – a consequence in part of a deficient federal musculature for policing and sustaining the Supreme Court’s Brown mandate (Gerstle 2015). Finally, endorsing the Supreme Court’s Brown decision and validating civil rights activism, Congress’ 1964 Civil Rights Act banned racial segregation in all public places, forbade discrimination in hiring and treatment of employees by employers, and proscribed the use of federal funds for any program deemed inequitable. These legislated threats might again have been inconsequential without the enabling and incentivizing influence of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Originally passed in 1965, the ESEA provided congressional leverage in the enforcement of federal policy by providing an influx of federal funding: “Comply with Brown or forego significant federal investment now available for your schools” was in effect the legislated message to a recalcitrant South. The Civil Rights movement’s success in achieving the racial integration of schools provided a template to other aggrieved constituencies, resulting in broader improvement of educational access. A Bilingual Education Act (1967) required schools to accommodate the unique needs of school children having limited proficiency in English and provided increased funding for that purpose. Title IX, passed in 1972, addressed the grievances of women and girls regarding barriers to equitable participation. And the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1975) required that the country’s educational institutions provide instruction that conforms appropriately to each disabled child’s specific needs, ultimately supporting the practice – required in contemporary public school classrooms – of inclusive education or simply inclusion: educating developmentally disabled students in regular instructional settings to the fullest possible extent. In 1983, a report titled A Nation at Risk abruptly redirected the US collective attention regarding education. The report – widely acknowledged as having initiated

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Fig. 1 This post card’s published caption documents the Detroit community’s expansion of the facility pictured, Detroit’s first public high school. It pointedly notes the city’s considerable “investment” in the building – signaling a public support for education that in contemporary context can be hard won. The card’s addresser seems to convey a corresponding pride in the edifice and in the opportunity to study there. The addressee resided in Howell, situated in the countryside about 55 miles (circa 90 km) from Detroit. The correspondent’s message thus hints at the rural-to-urban population shifts and the urban growth that accompanied the US economy’s move from an agricultural to an industrial footing during the Progressive era. (Courtesy Archives of Michigan)

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the Accountability movement – introduced a reform impetus whose assumptions and valences remain influential. Then-sitting US President Ronald Reagan enumerated several hallmarks of the country’s expansion of educational access during the prior decades but cast them under negative light, remarking that US schools had been “charged by the federal courts with leading in the correction of longstanding injustices in our society: racial segregation, sex discrimination, lack of opportunities for the handicapped” (Williams 1983, A-2, quoting Reagan). “Perhaps there was too much to do in too little time,” Reagan continued (Williams 1983, A-2), thus inviting a turn away from tangible investment in educational access and opportunity and toward the politically malleable concept of educational excellence. Significant critique had called the Nation at Risk report into question (e.g., Carson et al. 1993; Berliner and Biddle 1995), marshalling evidence of general progress in student knowledge, rising rates of high school completion, and robust participation in postsecondary education – gains that were especially creditable, such critics argued, in light of the broadened educational participation that decades of civil rights struggle had produced. But among elected officials, the political usefulness of negative rhetoric about education (see Berliner 2011) eclipsed any sustained attention toward this countervailing narrative. The Accountability mindset that the Nation at Risk report introduced and that remains ascendant has produced a policy climate characterized by federal cajoling of states and state cajoling of districts to restore academic rigor that had putatively eroded. Two major prongs of Accountability – drives toward standardization and toward increased school choice – proceed from an implication that public funding of education is vulnerable to waste and misuse. Standardization, in the prevailing mindset of Accountability advocates (see, e.g., Finn et al. 2006), stands as a necessary means of facilitating measurability in and progress toward attainment of identified goals. Funding under this rationale should be withdrawn, thus injecting a negative repercussion for those manifesting less measured (i.e., tested) success. Proponents of school choice focus their criticism on traditional district structures on grounds that they constitute public monopolies that preempt the improvement and variety that consumer choice and competition spur in a marketplace of goods and services.

2.2

Federal and National Valences in the Shaping of US Education

Centralizing forces steering education in the USA have often been federal in provenance, but national entities lying outside government spheres have asserted significant such influence. In this section, review of federal legislative and judicial action and of intercession by non-federal but still national entities reflects the influence of these impulses in the emergence of a singular US education “system” in the public imagination.

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A pattern of authoritative delegation of responsibility for education to local levels is pronounced in the history and colonial prehistory of education in the USA. Rulings of central authorities have required local compliance but generally deferred to localities as executers of policy. For example, precedents mandating formal instruction in literacy obligated communities of substantial size to provide for the education of the town’s youths, establishing early precedent for compulsory school attendance and constituting a nascent publically funded school system. Significantly, these colonial edicts delineated education as a collective community responsibility rather than as a service to be provided by either the mandating authority on the one hand or strictly parentally on the other, thus foreshadowing the concept of the local school district. In the early post-colonial period, additional instances of centralized and authoritative directives were accompanied by resources that enabled US localities in their establishment and provisioning of educational infrastructures for a new nation (Kaestle 1988). The Northwest Ordinance of 1785, for instance, reserved a portion of each 36-square mile “township” across newly settled territories for the funding and, typically, the location of a schoolhouse. A second use of this “land grant” mechanism, the Morrill Act of 1862, ceded federal territory to each state to provide for the creation of a postsecondary institution specializing in higher learning primarily in the areas of mechanical and agricultural pursuits. Like the Northwest Ordinances, the Morrill Acts enacted critical central support for educational expansion, serving also to reinforce the view that education should serve practical and productive ends. Yet it bred substantial decentralized heterogeneity as states adapted through implementation independently and in local context. (A second Morrill Act in 1890 permitted the creation of separate but equal land grant institutions in the southern states, reflecting deference to locality – in that instance to the states of the former Confederacy during the early post-Reconstruction era (Gutek 2013).) As the USA industrialized, Congress’ Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 incentivized instructional connections to trade, industry, and agriculture, further endorsing and reinforcing American society’s willingness to recognize and legitimize “national” educational aims related to economic activity. Once again, the legislation produced heterogeneity upon local uptake. And comprising an additional example of federal legislative reach into US primary and secondary schooling, the initial ESEA – together with its periodic reauthorizations – have constituted an instrument for the recurring projection of federal legislative and administrative priorities. (The ESEA’s 2002 reauthorization, for instance, made the states’ continued receipt of federal funds contingent upon their development of standards and on annualized standardized testing in most primary and lower secondary grades, thus reflecting the Accountability era’s climate of scrutiny toward those staffing the nation’s schools. With the 2015 reauthorization, responding to local appeals for more flexibility in testing parameters, the federal government retained testing requirements while relaxing the stringency of its mandates.) These instances of federal legislative intercession illustrate how the US Congress – possessing little in the way of direct authority over the conduct of education per se – has effectively repurposed facilitative powers that it does possess (Gerstle 2015): through its role in marshalling and

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allocating federal financial resources, that is, Congress has fabricated, then leveraged, significant influence in the public policy arena of education. Rulings of the nation’s courts have also projected federal influence into the realm of education. Notwithstanding the US Constitution’s nominal silence regarding education and the state prerogative that thus pertains, the nation’s courts have affirmed that neither students nor educators “shed their constitutional rights. . .at the schoolhouse gate” (Schimmel et al. 2015, quoting a 1969 US Supreme Court decision). Thus, federal courts have broadened freedom of access and equalization of opportunity, for instance, ruling in 1974 that the Constitution’s equal protection clause obligates schools to accommodate students having limited English comprehension (Lau v. Nichols 1974). Lending definition to the societal roles of religiously affiliated schools, the US Supreme Court ruled in 1925 that instruction in private and religiously affiliated schools justly satisfies states’ compulsory education requirements (LaMorte 2012, citing Pierce v. Society of Sisters 1925). And US courts have supported the basic rights of parents to educate their own children at home, leaving it to states to prescribe conditions under which homeschooling may occur (United States Department of Education 2009). US courts have thus accommodated private and home schools – including those with religious affiliation – legitimizing these alternatives as integral within the nation’s educational system in toto. And in sum, judicial findings have been influential in bridling states’ prerogative in education. Public debate about education’s use as a tool in service of national economic development and prosperity has been recurrent in the country’s history, illustrating nationwide influence of non-federal impetuses. In 1909, for instance, on grounds that institutionally separate vocational and academic institutions would be undemocratic and discriminatory, John Dewey (1916) rejected proposals favoring such a structuring (Lazerson and Grubb 1974; Beck 1990; Labaree 2010). A competing position, however, enjoyed significant support from both organized labor and from manufacturer and trade advocacy organizations (Hyslop-Margison 1999). And the National Education Association, one of the two main US educator unions (the other being AFL-CIO-affiliated American Federation of teachers), worked in additional instances to steer public discourse regarding the optimal structure and emphasis of US education. In 1892, the Report of the Committee of Ten sought specifically to undertake the question of how best to educate two groups of high school-aged youths: those who intended to go to college and those who did not. The Committee of Ten’s recommendations rejected claims that structurally differentiated institutions were the desirable response to the growing diversity of the US population (Urban et al. 2019). A second NEA report, The Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education (1918), further influenced the structuring of upper secondary institutions in the USA. The Principles, while endorsing the single-school concept that the Committee of Ten had promoted, articulated the view that schools and their curricula should respond to students’ differing abilities and interests (Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education 1918). The Principles, rather than supplying concrete direction via objectives for secondary instruction, offered instead a set of flexible “dispositions” supposedly anchored to the notion of democratization (health, “worthy” use of leisure, and ethical character, for instance) – in effect charging the nation’s high

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schools with the socialization of maturing students. Rejecting the formation of separate schools based on academic versus vocational emphases, the Principles maintained that a single school would best provide social experiences and relationships required to enable informed student decision-making about their further education or vocational direction – thus articulating a foundational rationale for the comprehensive high school model that remains ubiquitous in US upper secondary schools. Contemporarily, an initiative supporting nationwide adoption of instructional standards in math and literacy illustrates the continuing prominence of national non-federal entities as shapers of educational policy. The Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI), co-developed under the informal auspices of national consortia of state education superintendents and of state governors, was further supported through a non-profit organization, Achieve, which served to initiate and referee standard development and to guide public uptake (Hartong 2016). The CCSSI’s self-identification as a “state” initiative reflects the movement’s effort to affirm the standards as non-federal in political origin and, so, as satisfactorily aligned with the valued US tradition of local educational control. Yet the visibility that this effort garnered reflects how non-governmental agents have projected their influence on a national stage, further reinforcing a public conception of US schools as national in character.

2.3

Summary

Formal education inevitably reflects values of the society in which it is formed. Taking some distance from the history briefly reviewed above, overarching features come into view regarding education in the USA. First, the Common School movement initiated progress toward consensus as to the necessity of a public infrastructure for the education of the country’s citizenry. Though progress toward this goal has been gradual and remains incomplete, education is seen as fundamental in the USA – as something that should be broadly available across the country. Second, the Progressive Education era – with its responsiveness to learner interests but also to mobilizing and channeling learner capacities efficiently and toward social ends – reflects a national conviction that what is learned in the country’s educational institutions must be relevant and well-suited to the aspirations of each individual but also to national need. Third, education has been at the forefront of the country’s continuing quest for social equity. It is not coincidental that the Civil Rights movement found its greatest momentum in pursuit of the Brown v. Board decision’s vision – equality in terms of access and of opportunity. In sum, as foregoing discussion has also shown, considerable precedent reflects federal-level action to shape education’s institutionalization in the USA. In this light, contemporary expressions of concern regarding continuing federal action in the steering of education – as instances of federal “intrusion” (e.g., for example, see Newman 2013) or even as a “power grab” (Malkin 2013) – seem ignorant of a more nuanced heritage. In addition, history reflects how non-federal actors, working

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sometimes in tandem with federal agencies, have also contributed significantly in shaping the country’s education system as a system – quite in line with the federalist architecture of shared central and local authority. And yet education as formalized in the USA is inescapably local in character owing to adaptation within myriad social and political contexts. Discussion in the following major section elaborates educational structures in place in the USA, pursuing generalization as the chapter’s intent requires while illustrating local idiosyncrasy – an additional hallmark of the US system of education, whose description this chapter’s purpose also necessitates.

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

The US Constitution, via its tenth amendment, defers to the individual states in addressing governmental functions and services that – like education – are not overtly defined as federal responsibilities. Diffusion of formal authority across 50 states thus produces substantial variety in educational structures, even as homogenizing influences – standardization efforts, standardized tests administered across the country, and the nationwide marketing of curricular materials, for instance – assert countervailing pressures (Spring 2013). Providing additional organizational variation and complexity, though, the 50 US states have themselves deferred to jurisdictions that are even more local in character – dominions of the states’ creation: school districts. A patchwork of over 13,000 such public school districts (National Center for Education Statistics 2017c) thus undertakes the daily and essential on-the-ground work of education within US primary and secondary institutions – providing instruction but also staffing schools, procuring curricular materials, transporting school children, provisioning for them, and so forth. State-centered control of early childhood and of tertiary education contributes additional complexity to educational governance terrain. And private institutions – also partially subject to state requirements – compound this complexity further. The first of four major sections that follow offers commentary on themes that characterize the function of the US school system. The three additional sections then move to discussion, respectively, of administrative and governance features and aspects, institutional structure at each ISCED level, and an overview of the supply of instructional staff by level.

3.1

General Principles

Three overarching themes characterize the US educational enterprise as a whole. First, although marked decentralization typifies the institutional, governance, and administrative structuring of US education, this apparently diffuse educational oversight has – even before the Common School era – been tempered through the ongoing influence of central forces having both governmental and non-governmental origin. Second, a comparatively expansive view of the curriculum and more

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generally of the purposes of formal education is characteristic. The Progressive Education era tapped and reinforced a notion that schools can and should serve as vehicles for both national advancement and individual development. Third, history reflects a national expectation that education institutions should assume socially ameliorative functions (Reitman 1992). Schools in the USA have served as instruments for workforce supply and engines of national economic progress, but also as a means for equalizing opportunity and for leveling prosperity across society. These imperatives are reflected in the governance, administrative, and institutional structuring of education in the USA.

3.2

Education Administration and Governance

The administration and governance of public primary and secondary schools is the focus of this section’s first subsection. Because of variance across the US 50 state jurisdictions in the structuring and oversight of education at the primary level, differences across states in terms of the naming and definition of school levels generate corresponding differences at preprimary/early childhood levels. And in administrative terms, early childhood education falls outside the purview of publically controlled institutions; meanwhile, in some but not all states, preprimary instruction in kindergarten is situated alongside primary grades. A second subsection looks at governance of nontraditional public schools and of private institutions. Administrative and governance structures in higher education comprise the focus of the third subsection that follows.

3.2.1

Administration and Governance of Traditional Public Primary and Secondary Schools Misapprehensions regarding the capacities and the motives of federal educational actors have sometimes distorted public interpretations of events and skewed contemporary debate about education across the country. A federal bureaucracy called the US Department of Education does exist, overseen by a cabinet-level presidential appointee called the US Secretary of Education. The US Secretary and Department of Education serve to promote the educational agenda of the sitting US president. But the power of the US Department of Education is constitutionally constrained, and prerogative of the US Secretary of Education – like that of the president – limited. The federal Department of Education has thus served in roles that are supporting and enabling rather than directive in kind: collecting data on school performance, confirming compliance Civil Rights protections (e.g., those requiring nondiscriminatory access to and opportunity in education), and monitoring distribution of funds such as those that the US Congress makes available in support of current educational priorities. The federal share of the overall burden to fund education is remarkably limited in the USA – less than 9 percent according to the National Center for Education Statistics (2018a). A statewide board of education and a chief school officer oversee an agency for primary and secondary education in each state. These state bureaus monitor teacher

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preparation and the licensure, oversee services for students with special needs, ensure alignment with instructional standards, and perform additional essential functions. In spite of similarity across states in terms of the parallel existence of these entities, variation distinguishes their basic structure and operations. For example, a chief state school officer may be seated by various means and to terms of service that also vary. In the seating and conduct of the major governance apparatuses, then, the channeling of democratic influence among states’ respective citizenries differs markedly. Local school districts exist as state-created jurisdictions charged with the administration of public primary and secondary instruction in line with curricular frameworks generally articulated at the state level. Local school districts in the USA can vary considerably in terms of their territorial overlap with and their political relationship to other polities – their jurisdictions sometimes coinciding with those of semilocalized counties, for instance. A local district or school board may have authority over ISCED level 5 (short cycle tertiary) education – generally in the form of institutions most commonly referred to in the USA as community colleges. Or occasionally separate districts may undertake primary and secondary oversight independently within a single geographic territory. Traditional public school districts in the USA are commonly overseen by elected district boards of education working in tandem with a top district administrator usually known as the district superintendent. The superintendent is normally appointed by the district board and presides over a central district office and is usually assisted by a cabinet of deputies specializing in areas like facilities, human resources/personnel, special education, general curriculum oversight, and the like. Within a local public school district, boundaries also traditionally define the territory each neighborhood school will serve. These neighborhood schools, regardless of level – primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary – are usually headed by a building level chief known as the school principal. In the USA, those serving as administrators at either the district or the building level must generally possess a state-issued administrative credential; a teaching credential alone will not normally qualify a person for an administrative role. The funding of public primary and secondary education in the USA is a responsibility shared by federal, state, and local government levels. As noted, the percentage of funding from federal sources is limited – about 8%, a percentage that seems disproportionately small given the intensity of attention that primary and secondary education often garners among federal policy-makers (Henig 2013). In all states, then, the funding of primary and secondary schooling is a burden that is more substantially shared by state and local government. Proportions of local versus state level funding and specific means of collecting and allocating such funds once again are subject to considerable state-to-state variation. Taxation of residents’ property, however, remains a key method by which US public primary and secondary schools are built and maintained and the activities within them supported. This method of funding primary and secondary public schools accounts for some persistent problems. The value of property corresponds markedly to locale – with regard to proximity to robust economic activity and access to materiel resources, for example. School facilities, as well as their provisioning and staffing – and thus, inevitably,

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the relative quality of the institutions – are therefore by tradition linked to property valuation in the USA. Pronounced socioeconomic stratification characterizes the demography of many US metropolitan areas as a result. (See ▶ Chap. 40, “The Education System of the United States of America: Equity in K-12 and Higher Education,” by Hill and Burke (in this Volume) for a discussion regarding entrenched class divides in Detroit.) These circumstances draw into often poignant view school conditions – particularly in inner cities – that Kozol (1991) called “savage” in terms of the conspicuousness and the results of their inequity. Local districts maintain their own independent financial operations to include staff payrolls, and teacher salaries tend to be higher in US districts in which property values are higher and residents more affluent. The US penchant favoring local control over education and its funding, some argue (e.g., Darling-Hammond 2010), preempts alternatives that might better incentivize work in schools in which need for teaching expertise and talent is most pronounced.

3.2.2

Nontraditional Public Schools/Parochial and Private Primary and Secondary Schools Existing alongside regular public schools overseen within local districts, as noted, a robust “school choice” movement in the USA has given rise to the establishment of a large and growing number of primary and secondary charter schools – institutions that are publically funded yet whose operation is insulated from the public authority of regular local school districts. These “public school academies,” as charter schools are sometimes called, serve around 6% of the country’s total primary and secondary school population (National Center for Education Statistics 2019c). (Two additional general strategies for introducing such market forces in education are employed in varying degrees across the states. Open enrollment introduces permeable boundaries within or between school districts. And voucher policies enable parents to use public allocations at a school of their choosing, sometimes including religiously affiliated schools, making them controversial on grounds they abridge provisions of the US Constitution that maintain separation between church and state affairs. An additional choice strategy, magnet schools, generally used to provide within-district options, emphasizes a curricular or pedagogical focus to attract students from neighboring areas beyond its own locality and is discussed in this volume (see ▶ Chap. 40, “The Education System of the United States of America: Equity in K-12 and Higher Education,” by Hill and Burke). ) Privately funded non-sectarian and sectarian schools, also tending to emphasize building-level control, exist across the USA in substantial number – over 30,000 such institutions according to recent data (National Center for Education Statistics 2017b). 3.2.3

Administration and Governance of Postsecondary and Tertiary Education Postsecondary education occupies a sphere that is by tradition substantially independent from primary and secondary instruction and is itself comprised of multiple arrangements of short-cycle “2-year” institutions, colleges, and universities having differing structures, oversight, and funding. In each realm, institutions may be public or private. As with institutionalized education at earlier levels, public postsecondary

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education is subject mainly to state jurisdiction, although certain municipally governed and funded tertiary institutions exist. Excluding a relative handful of postsecondary institutions linked primarily to the military, the federal government does not exercise a direct role in the governance and administration of higher education in the USA. A few important modes of federal influence regarding the nation’s postsecondary institutions nonetheless warrant mention. First, payment of tuition for postsecondary education in the USA is borne by students, and around 70% of those attending tertiary institutions in the USA receive some form of federal financial aid (National Center for Educational Statistics 2018b). (The annual cost of tuition in public 4-year institutions – inclusive of books plus room and board – is nearly $20,000 (National Center for Education Statistics 2019d). For state residents, tuition rates in public 4year institutions are typically around half as much as for out-of-state students attending those institutions.) The 1944 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (aka the “G. I. Bill”) substantially covered tuition costs of qualifying members of the country’s armed forces – resulting also in markedly expanded participation in higher education nationwide (Newfield 2008). A Guaranteed Student Loan program launched in 1965 extended federal financial support for postsecondary taxation to most other citizens. This aid has become more essential for students due to falling state allocations to public postsecondary institutions and rising tuition rates that have resulted (Newfield 2008). And because the US tertiary institutions must adhere to federal guidelines to accept federal financial aid dollars awarded to their students, federal leverage in the realm of postsecondary education has increased accordingly (Lattuca and Stark 2011). Accreditation – periodic peer evaluation of institutional quality – is in addition required of institutions accepting federal student financial aid (Office of Postsecondary Education 2017). Second, federal agencies such as the Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation serve as vital sources of research funding for the nation’s postsecondary institutions, thus influencing tertiary institutions’ research emphases considerably (Brubacher and Rudy 1997; Lattuca and Stark 2011). In terms of formal governance, the US 2-year community, junior, and technical institutions commonly have governing boards comprised of members that may be elected or appointed. Some such institutions are linked to super-municipal jurisdictions – county level, for instance – while others have tighter linkage to a single municipality and may sometimes be governed by the same body overseeing primary and secondary education in the jurisdiction. Additional 2-year institutions – level 5 short-cycle tertiary institutions, offering programs, for instance, in building trades such as carpentry and plumbing and in maintenance specialties – are often associated with industry organizations or trade unions. Most public 4-year colleges and universities identify strongly as state institutions, with operations relying to a significant degree on state funding allocations in spite of growing reliance on student tuition as a revenue source. Governance of states’ overall systems of public postsecondary education varies substantially. In 19 states, no single coordinating entity exists (Fulton 2019), while in the remainder, the complexity of governance structures is contingent on factors such

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as numbers of institutions and state size, meaning that in states with the most decentralized approaches, each public university retains its own governing board. Members of governing boards may be elected or be seated through appointment, for example, by the state governor or legislature. Similarly, governing boards seated by appointment or alumni selection are also fixtures in most private colleges and universities. Specific roles of governing boards vary but usually include approval of presidential hiring and/or compensation, formal conferral of degrees and credentials based on recommendations of institutional faculties they formally empower, setting of faculty and personnel policies, approval of faculty promotions, consent for facility expansion, and approval of tuition rates based on administrative recommendations (Fulton 2019). In both public and private postsecondary institutions, a strong tradition of faculty governance is characteristic in the USA, with faculties empowered not only to develop curricula, make evaluative judgements regarding students, and recommend conferral of degrees but also to select new faculty members and recommend certain leadership appointments. A principle of primus inter pares usually pertains regarding those selected for administrative leadership positions, with leaders of postsecondary institutions and academic units within them holding simultaneous faculty appointments.

3.3

Structure of Education According to ISCED Classification

Because of the extent to which education governance is decentralized in the USA, variation is notable in the ways institutions are structured from one subnational jurisdiction to the next, and generalization is difficult. The following discussion nonetheless seeks to survey the major institutional features of formal education in the USA, offering descriptive commentary on institutional organization at each educational level from early childhood through tertiary levels (ISCED levels 0 through 8).

3.3.1 Preprimary and Primary Education (ISCED Levels 0 and 1) Regarding public preprimary early childhood education in the USA (ISCED level 0), the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s provision of federal funding for education beginning at the preprimary level (kindergarten or “grade K” in the vernacular) broadened the availability of publically funded kindergarten instruction across the USA (National Center for Education Statistics 2017a, 2019b) and provided movement toward some state-to-state similarity nationally. Even still, significant state-to-state differences are notable beginning with whether kindergarten attendance is compulsory as it is in 17 states and whether its availability is statutorily required of public school districts as in all but 8 US states. School-day duration requirements for grade K also vary. Of the 42 states that do require at least the availability of a grade K option, 27 require this to be for half-day programs, and the remaining 15 require that all-day kindergarten be accessible in the public schools to parents desiring it. Laws stipulating when young children register for and begin

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kindergarten also vary – most commonly at age 6 as in 26 states but with age of entry coming as early as age 5 and as late as age 8 (Diffey 2018). Turning to earlier preprimary levels of education in the USA – learning targeting children age 4 and younger – such programs are not generally provided in public institutions. However, attention to this level has intensified in public discourse in the USA, and, indeed, according to data from the National Center for Educational Statistics (2017a), 68% of 4-year-olds nationwide attended preschool. Data further reflects that whether children do or do not attend preschool correlates with the educational attainment of their parents, suggesting linkage between economic privilege and an early start in school (National Center for Educational Statistics 2019b). To address such disparities, various governmental programs are available to citizens demonstrating need. For example, the federal Head Start program, launched in 1965, offers services aimed at improving readiness for and success in the primary grades; additional state programs sometimes augment these efforts to improve access to preprimary education among disadvantaged groups (e.g., homeless children, children of migrant agricultural workers, American Indian/Alaska Native populations, children from families with economic need). Whereas preprimary instruction features longer and more frequent periods of play and may be characterized by shorter instructional days, primary level classrooms in the USA (grades 1 through 5 for children aged about 6 through 10 years) introduce a stricter and more disciplinarily defined instructional routine emphasizing basic literacy and numeracy skills. As in preprimary instruction, however, primary classrooms in the USA usually operate within self-contained classrooms – settings in which a single learning space and under the instructional supervision of a solitary home room teacher are emphasized in order to accommodate younger learners’ responsiveness to familiarity and routine.

3.3.2 Secondary Education, Lower and Upper (ISCED Levels 2 and 3) The structure of earlier secondary schooling in the USA (ISCED level 2) is heterogeneous in terms of its organization across communities, with structural difference often revolving around contrasting responses to the needs of early adolescent students. Proposals as to the need for a “transitional institution” emerged in the USA in the early 1900s with calls for the instruction of students in grades 7 and 8 (alternately, grades 7 through 9) in a newly independent setting. This then-novel junior high school was conceived as philosophically and structurally separate from both the elementary school (common vernacular in the USA for “primary” level instruction per the ISCED) that at the time typically placed grades 1 through 8 together in a single school facility and from the upper secondary level high school for grades 9 through 12. Accommodation of the developmental and emotional needs and capacities of early adolescents justified this structuring, advocates of the junior high school approach held. A contrasting middle school philosophy for organizing and steering instruction in the country’s lower secondary schools emerged in the mid-twentieth century, also promoting special attention to the developmental needs of the lower-secondary-aged student while arriving at different conclusions as to how this transitional schooling experience could be optimized in light of those needs

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(Schaefer et al. 2016). Specifically, middle school advocates argued that a preferable transitional education should retain some of the more nurturing traits of the primary school in response to cognitive development requirements and the interpersonal tentativeness characteristic of the early adolescent. Thus, while the junior high school had emphasized a forward-looking initiation into the rhythms of the high school and had adopted several high school routines and traits, hallmarks of the US middle school approach include grouping of students with familiar teachers and peers for lengthened portions of the instructional day – reminiscent of elementary configurations. Student exposure to a rotation of “exploratory” courses (e.g., music, languages, etc.) is intended to accommodate middle schoolers’ experimentation and to promote their self-discovery. These differing ideas about how best to accommodate the needs of students of lower secondary ages are thus reflected in the variety of transitional institutions found across the USA, with institutions called “middle schools” and “junior high schools” both easy to find across the USA. It would be difficult, however, to underestimate the additional influence that local economic and political exigencies exert upon the institutional configuration of primary and secondary schools within a given US school district, and this is particularly true with regard to the structuring of instruction for lower-secondary transitional students. Whether a transitional school is dubbed a middle school or a junior high, what grade levels populate such schools regardless of name, and indeed whether a separate transitional school exists at all in a given community is subject not solely – or sometimes even mainly – to questions about how best to educate early adolescent students. Rather, issues of how best to optimize use of existing facilities often prevail. Turning to upper secondary institutions (ISCED level 3), US high schools, once often comprising instruction at the 10th through 12th grade levels as a counterpart to the junior high school, now more typically consist of four grade levels to include students in grade 9. Some contemporary high schools continue to bear reference to their identities as “senior” high schools in their names – a vestige of an earlier era in which overt distinction from a community’s “junior high school” seemed fitting. As is true regarding the patterns by which primary and lower secondary schooling is institutionalized in the USA, public and private institutions together comprise the country’s upper secondary subsystem of high schools. (See ▶ Chap. 42, “The Education System of the United States of America: STEM Education – Progress without a Plan,” by Reimann (in this volume) for additional detail regarding routines, practices, and structures common in US secondary institutions.) The US high school has been noted for the range of its curricular offerings in core academic subjects and in the broad compliment of available electives – in visual and performing arts, health and physical education, and occupationally oriented exploratory courses, for instance (see United States National Commission on Excellence in Education 1983; Hu 2008). Among the most defining traits of US upper secondary level education is the comprehensive high school model. This configuration, which calls for the instruction of all students within a single facility regardless of prior academic performance or of career objective, traces to the influence of the Committee of Ten and Cardinal Principles reports, both of which had grappled with the

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negative socioeconomic potential of structuring models that channel students based on assumptions about their occupational trajectories. Critical analyses have concluded that students tend nonetheless to be tracked occupationally – sorted within such institutions rather than via their placement in separate schools having distinct occupational direction (Oakes 1985) – and indeed following educator presumptions as to their students’ occupational interests and capabilities, thus institutionalizing biases about less advantaged students, stunting their potential for economic advancement, and maintaining rather than undoing entrenched societal inequity (Oakes 1985). In spite of an occupational thrust that increasingly shapes the US high school curriculum, a concurrent overlay of college preparatory emphasis is also readily apparent, with expressions of the need for the country’s high school graduates to leave school both “career and college ready” prevalent in contemporary discourse. Students in the four grades typically situated within US high schools, grades 9 through 12, are commonly nicknamed the “freshman,” “sophomore,” “junior,” and “senior” classes – adopting traditional names for the classes of US postsecondary institutions. And, in keeping with the prominence of the symbolic linkage of secondary to postsecondary schooling, a common reference to high schools in everyday US vernacular is as “prep” institutions – functioning, that is, to prepare leavers for college-level education. High schools accommodate and amplify this conception of their mission as a college preparatory in purpose via their provision of “advanced placement” classes that are then transferrable for college credit. And US high schools often monitor and publicize their own students’ rates of acceptance for postsecondary study especially at selective and high-status universities.

3.3.3

Postsecondary and Tertiary Education (ISCED Levels 4 Through 8) The US complex of postsecondary institutions is vast, consisting of 737 4-year publics and over twice as many (1581) non-profit 4-year institutions (National Center for Education Statistics 2018c). An additional 886 public 2-year institutions and 101 private non-profit 2-year institutions further expand that number. (Rates of tuition for attendance at private institutions vary widely but on average are over double that of the average public university tuition (National Center for Education Statistics 2019d).) In recent years, the for-profit sector has grown to include over 540 2-year institutions. Numerous private 2-year colleges – many of them occupationspecific ISCED level 5 institutions (short-cycle tertiary) – prepare students for work in areas such as culinary arts, hospitality management, and building trades. A forprofit 4-year sector in the USA, consisting of over 500 institutions (National Center for Education Statistics 2018c), has drawn negative attention due to high profile failures among for-profit tertiaries (see, e.g., Crowley and Green 2019, documenting this phenomenon); a number of institutions in this sector have sought to bolster their legitimacy, pursuing the endorsements of respected accrediting authorities, for instance. Two-year community and technical colleges commonly offer educational and vocational training programs in technical fields but also furnish opportunities for

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students to pursue coursework for later transfer to 4-year colleges and universities. Such transfer programs are often formalized through articulation agreements, which stipulate courses and content to be earned in the 2-year schools for guaranteed acceptance into partnering 4-year institutions. Educational programs in 2-year institutions commonly result in the attainment of an associate’s degree, although declining contemporary taxpayer support for 4-year postsecondary education and a resulting rise at tuition in public tertiary institutions in the USA have produced political pressure to permit 2-year institutions to grant certain bachelor’s degrees – heretofore an exclusive domain of 4-year colleges and universities (see Povich 2018). Taking stock of US private and public 4-year institutions together, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s classification system for US postsecondary institutions parse the US 4-year tertiary institutions in terms of instructional mission. Carnegie identifies over 580 “baccalaureate colleges” in the USA (ISCED level 6) emphasizing bachelor’s degree programs (Center for Postsecondary Research 2019). Among these and meriting specific note, 32 accredited tribal colleges and universities located around the country jointly pursue aims of enhancing educational opportunities for American Indians/Alaska Natives and their shared work to “maintain, preserve, and restore. . .[their] cultural traditions” (White House Initiative on Indian and Alaska Native Education 2019). The US over 740 “master’s institutions” (equating to level 7 in the ISCED system) augment their undergraduate programming with robust master’s level offerings but do not have the research profiles or instructional missions characteristic of doctoral institutions. Across those over 420 US Carnegie “doctoral institutions” (ISCED level 8), the classifications distinguish among three levels: over 130 “Research 1” institutions (commonly called simply “R-1 s”) have demonstrated research expenditures of over $5 million per annum and consist generally of the nation’s most prestigious institutions; a similar number of “R-2” doctoral universities have slightly less research activity and somewhat less breadth in variety of doctoral emphases per the classifications; and around 160 “professional” doctoral institutions focus primarily on production of “professional” doctoral degrees rather than on research activity.

3.4

The Supply of Instructional Expertise Across Schooling Levels

The following subsections discuss the production and qualification of the instructional workforce in place in the US educational institutions, beginning with teachers for early childhood and moving to primary and secondary level teachers and finally to faculty members for the nation’s postsecondary and tertiary institutions.

3.4.1 Supply of Early Childhood Teachers As is true of institutional oversight of US early childhood education, the formation and supply of early childhood teachers has traditionally fallen outside the scope of state mediation that pertains concerning primary and secondary preparation and credentialing. Recent publicity as to the merits of early education, however, has

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spurred advocacy for the enhancement of the country’s early childhood educator preparation (Herman et al. 2013). Calls for such improvements often emphasize tighter and more rigorous policies regarding the pedagogical training and the credentialing of educators at the early childhood level. Such advocacy naturally implicates more active state governmental roles. Indeed, with unevenness characterizing patterns of instruction at the lower primary end, the supply of early childhood educators in the US context has been subject to variance owing to state policies on compulsory education age spans. A National Institute of Early Education Research (NIEER) report noted that publically backed preschool programs enroll over a third of the nation’s 3- and 4-year-olds (Friedman-Krauss et al. 2019). But it documented substantial state-to-state difference in terms of access and participation as well as program quality and funding. As a result, inconsistency also characterizes states’ requirements regarding those teaching at the preschool level, with some states calling for attainment of the bachelor’s degree, others requiring a 2-year associate’s degree, and others still no postsecondary degree at all. Low remuneration for preschool level teachers contributes to staffing shortages in much of the nation, with only four states requiring compensation for preschool teachers to be commensurate with the income levels of teachers at primary and secondary levels (Friedman-Krauss et al. 2019). Reforms aimed at addressing these issues often focus on elevating the status of preschool teaching. Efforts to formalize and sanction preprimary teaching programs – drawing them in line with preparation processes that apply for teachers at other levels – are, for instance, evident in some states (Miller 2017). (Confounding these impetuses, special allocations such as federal Head Start funding often flow through state welfare/human services agencies, meaning that extant ties between state governments and early childhood education providers have not generally been with the states’ respective agencies in charge of education.)

3.4.2 Supply of Primary and Secondary Teachers With teacher supply at the primary and secondary levels the prerogative of each US state, entry into the profession requires formal approval through a process commonly referred to as state teacher certification or licensure. State issuance of a valid teaching certificate or license calls for the recommendation of the faculty of an approved teacher preparation program. Such programs, which must align with state requirement, are usually housed in schools, colleges, and departments of education within public and private postsecondary institutions located within the respective states. Requirements regarding such things as the nature and duration of the courses of study, numbers and characteristics of clinical internship experiences, and means of verifying candidate readiness are generally articulated by elected or appointed state boards of education working in tandem with state bureaus, which monitor program compliance. State boards often delegate committees comprised of experts (e.g., experienced teachers or teacher educators) or stakeholders (e.g., parents of school-aged children, representatives of business and industry), or both (Stewart 2012) to develop educational standards including those regarding teacher preparation. Through the engagement both of political/democratic and expert

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constituencies, the processes and institutions involved in the authorization of primary and secondary staff in the USA reflect a hybridized process of legitimization. In addition to completion of a qualified teacher preparation program, states generally also require aspiring primary and secondary level teachers to pass one or more examinations on subject area content or pedagogical method or both, with some states requiring passage of nationally available tests (e.g., the Educational Testing Service’s PRAXIS test being the most common) and others mandating passage of examinations that are particular to the respective state alone. States vary with regard to the number and definition of certification levels – many states differentiating between elementary and secondary level licensure and others also defining a middle grade (i.e., lower secondary) licensure level. And states generally obligate approved teachers to maintain their licenses’ validity through participation in continuing education activities that vary in substantive focus and in intensity. As a result, then, primary and secondary teacher supply nationwide is clearly made more complex in the USA by the sheer profusion of jurisdictions at play: without satisfying special requirements that can be intricate, a teacher certified to teach in a given specialty and at a given level in one state is not normally deemed qualified to fill a similar opening in a different state. States sometimes pursue mechanisms to address teacher supply problems that the US state-centered credentialing system begets. Emergency certification, for example, refers to a state’s relaxation of the requirements a prospective teacher must normally satisfy in order to obtain state licensure; such exceptions may be implemented as states seek to address shortages either in certain instructional specialty areas or in regions or localities encountering a more generalized need for instructors. Alternative certification refers to processes whereby steps toward receiving state permission to teach are reduced on account of certain qualifying experiences. “Troops to Teachers,” for example, simplifies teacher certification for former armed forces members on the assumption that abilities these people have accrued via military service constitute relevant preparation for the classroom. Reciprocity agreements, meanwhile, are bilateral or multi-state agreements that enable recognition – or, more often, partial recognition – of the credentials of a licensed teacher within jurisdictions of other signatory states. Also seeking to address issues of teacher mobility, national and regional consortia (e.g., the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification) have emerged as vehicles for information exchange and for networking and negotiation among states on matters of teacher supply. Finally, the efforts of a nongovernmental organization known as the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards has sought to promote a form of certification that might command nationwide recognition. NBPTS certification – a voluntary process that relies on candidate testing, peer review of candidate-submitted instructional artifacts, and significant self-analyses – has gained some traction. Districts sometimes provide higher pay to those completing NBPTS’s board certification regimen, for instance, or offer teacher leadership roles to those so certified. Yet the NBPTS certification initiative has progressed slowly toward achieving the nationwide recognition to which it has aspired. And in sum, in spite of considerable work to enhance stateto-state portability of primary and secondary teaching credentials in the USA, states

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have remained protective of their power to approve their primary and secondary educators.

3.4.3 Supply of Postsecondary/Tertiary Instructional Staff Turning finally to the postsecondary level, the preparation and supply of instructional faculty for the US tertiary institutions contrasts markedly with circumstances prevailing at other instructional levels. With credentialing for postsecondary teaching substantially independent of direct mediation by state government, determinations as to the qualifications of faculty members in these institutions are a prerogative maintained by those institutions themselves. In the USA, a prospective faculty member’s hiring is thus based on peer judgments as to educational attainment and scholarly potential together with perceptions as to fit between the candidate’s particular strengths and the hiring institution’s specific needs. Attainment of the terminal or highest available degree (usually the doctorate) in a target discipline is a practical requirement for hiring into professorships in the US 4-year colleges and universities; in 2-year postsecondary institutions such as community colleges, a master’s degree is more commonly sufficient. Higher education institutions in the USA have long maintained different tiers across their faculties, based largely on particular functions. Tenure track faculty serve in positions that are salaried and are secure following a period of probation. Clinical faculty may oversee practical experiences in professional schools. Research faculty tend to serve in positions that are grant dependent rather than salaried. Adjunct faculty are generally part time. Specific attributes may differ from one institution to the next, and the supply of faculty for these echelons is in any case tempered by institution-specific qualifications. But a status hierarchy apparent within US higher education institutions places tenure track appointments at the top. Two additional forms of stratification interact with faculty supply in US postsecondary institutions. First, although the number of institutions at this level is profuse, a strikingly limited number of them supply a marked majority of the faculty across the country’s tertiary system (Clauset et al. 2015). As Oprisko (2012) noted, with institutional prestige rather than candidate merit driving faculty supply in the US academy, this status quo forecloses competition. Second, a growing proportion of the overall instructional staff in the US consists of those holding part-time appointments (National Center for Education Statistics 2019a) – a development that has generally coincided with declining funding for the country’s public institutions (Henig 2013; Hemelt and Marcotte 2016). As a result, in spite of the independence of US public postsecondary institutions from a direct governmental role in mediating faculty credentialing and hiring, some legislative intercession is apparent, and legislatures’ increasing scrutiny of the practice of tenure in higher education has additional potential impact on the supply patterns for US public tertiary institutions (see, e.g., Flaherty 2017; Fischer 2019 for news stories documenting this phenomenon). Since tenure’s intent is to protect academic freedom through the provision of some buffer from politicized vulnerabilities, threats to its removal could, in addition to eroding an important social mechanism, diminish overall interest among those considering faculty work.

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Conclusion

Federalism as embodied in the realm of US education reveals a certain restlessness because of tensions and ambiguities it exposes. In terms of educational purposes, a dominant expectation is that the nation’s educational institutions should be geared toward productive, and, so, often quite tangibly toward occupational pursuits. Accordingly, a prevailing insistence in the USA that formal education be “practical” has been spurred by federal policy cajoling and also by long-standing national attribution to schools of a role as principal vehicles for national economic prosperity. This expectation accounts for zealous contemporary interest in STEM education, the focus discussed at length within Christopher Reimann’s contribution to this volume (▶ Chap. 42, “The Education System of the United States of America: STEM Education – Progress without a Plan”). While an investment mindset is heralded as an enabler of innovation in other spheres, US educational institutions are at present not beneficiaries of robust public investment. The current lack of widespread public support for schools contributes to a focus in US educational institutions on basic survival and to their general turn away from progress and innovation. Dara Hill and Christopher Burke, in their chapter for this volume, trace in local context the deleterious consequences of declining public investment (▶ Chap. 40, “The Education System of the United States of America: Equity in K-12 and Higher Education”). Reviewing technology and digitization in the context US teaching, Mesut Duran (▶ Chap. 41, “The Education System of the United States of America: ICT and Digitalization”) notes in his contribution to this volume that the integration of technology into instruction can be a wicked problem in that effective integration of the most up-to-date technology is vulnerable to practically instant outdatedness. In a similar vein, due to the rapidity of change and the complexity of global social and economic intercourse in today’s world, the expectation that US education should be obliged to position all of its students for productive roles in the emerging economy has often been illusory in terms of its implications as to how education ought to be shaped on the ground: what, after all, are the “jobs of the future” for which schools and colleges should be preparing their young charges? This press toward occupational practicality is at further odds with a concern palpable among US parents – namely, that teachers and curricular emphases alike should steer clear of preempting career alternatives and occupational choices for their children. The country has accordingly rejected models common in other developed economies that more overtly channel primary level school leavers into differing lower secondary pathways and that thus provide more defined and tailored instruction in occupational terms. While pursuit of occupational readiness will in other countries be reflected in emphasis on focused learning in preparation for productive roles – as an instructional opening of a doorway, as it were, to a specific occupation – such educational channeling tends in US cultural context to be perceived instead as a closing of metaphorical doorways to alternative occupational opportunities. In addition, anxiousness for improved coherence through standardization – envisioned as a means of propelling students toward a shared national prosperity –

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implies a quest for better educational consistency of direction, calling inevitably for a clearer and more assertive central role. Yet the US habit and preference, on the other hand, is toward decentralization and an embrace of a conception of democratic access in terms of response to local need – need that decentralization is assumed to optimize. Contemporary demands for the reform of public education in the USA are thus loud but inconsistent – clamoring simultaneously for the rigor that standardization promises and thus for at least some degree of centralization but calling as well for alternative “schools of choice” that pull inevitably in a direction of heterogeneity and local difference. Acknowledgments Funding from the University of Michigan’s Horace Rackham Graduate School and the UM’s Life Sciences Values and Society Program supported archival research and reproduction contributing to this work.

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Lynch, M. (2018). 10 (more) reasons why the U.S. education system is failing. Education Week, January 26. https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/01/29/10-more-reasons-why-the-us-edu cation.html. Last accessed 18 June 2020. Malkin, M. (2013). Lessons from Texas and the revolt against Common Core power grab. Noozhawk, March 3. https://www.noozhawk.com/article/030313_michelle_malkin_texas_com mon_core_education_standards. Last accessed June 18, 2020. McLaren, P. (2015). Life in schools: An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education (6th ed.). New York: Routledge. Messerli, J. (1971). Horace Mann: A biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Miller, C. C. (2017). Do Preschool Teachers Really Need to Be College Graduates? (April 7). https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/upshot/dopreschool-teachers-really-need-to-be-collegegraduates.html. National Center for Education Statistics. (2017a). Table 202.20, Percentage of 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children enrolled in preprimary programs, by level of program, attendance status, and selected child and family characteristics: 2017. Digest of Education Statistics. Institute of Education Sciences. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_202.20.asp. Last accessed 15 Jan 2019. National Center for Education Statistics. (2017b). Table 205.10, Private elementary and secondary school enrollment and private enrollment as a percentage of total enrollment in public and private schools, by region and grade level: Selected years, fall 1995 through fall 2015. Digest of Education Statistics. Institute of Education Sciences. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/ tables/dt17_205.10.asp. Last accessed 29 Jan 2019. National Center for Education Statistics. (2017c). Table 214.10, Number of public school districts and public and private elementary and secondary schools: Selected years, 1869–70 through 2015–16. Digest of Education Statistics. Institute of Education Sciences. https://nces.ed.gov/ programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_214.10.asp. Last accessed 21 Jan 2019. National Center for Education Statistics. (2018a). NCES Blog: National spending for public schools increases for third consecutive year in school year, 2015–16. https://nces.ed.gov/blogs/nces/ post/national-spending-for-public-schools-increases-for-third-consecutive-year-in-school-year2015-16. Last accessed 7 Jan 2019. National Center for Education Statistics. (2018b). National postsecondary student aid study: Student financial aid estimates for 2015–16. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018466.pdf. Last accessed 7 Nov 2019. National Center for Education Statistics. (2018c). Number of educational institutions, by level and control of institution: Selected years, 1980–81 through 2016–17. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/ digest/d18/tables/dt18_105.50.asp. Last accessed 7 Nov 2019. National Center for Education Statistics. (2019a). Characteristics of postsecondary faculty. The condition of education: letter from the commissioner. Institute of Education Sciences. https:// nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_csc.asp. Last accessed 20 June 2019. National Center for Education Statistics. (2019b). The condition of education: Preschool and Kindergarten enrollment. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cfa.asp. Last accessed 21 Jan 2019. National Center for Education Statistics. (2019c). The condition of education: Public charter school enrollment. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgb.asp. Last accessed 20 June 2019. National Center for Education Statistics. (2019d). Digest of Education Statistics, 2017 (NCES 2018-070), Chapter 3. U.S. Department of Education. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/ ch_3.asp. Last accessed 20 Nov 2019. Newman, A. (2013). Common core: A scheme to rewrite education. New American, August 8. Retrieved 20 Sept 2019, from https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/16192common-core-a-scheme-to-rewrite-education. Last accessed 20 Sept 2019. Newfield, C. (2008). Unmaking the public university: The forty-year assault on the middle class. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Oakes, J. (1985). Keeping track: How schools structure inequality. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Office of Postsecondary Education. (2017). Institutional eligibility. In 2017–18 Federal student aid handbook (Vol. 2). Washington, DC: United States Department of Education. https://ifap.ed. gov/ifap/byAwardYear.jsp?type¼fsahandbook&awardyear¼2017-2018 Oprisko, R. (2012). Superpowers: The American academic elite. Georgetown Public Policy Review, December 3. http://gppreview.com/2012/12/03/superpowers-the-american-academic-elite/ Phi Delta Kappa. (2019). Fifty-first annual poll of the public’s attitudes toward the public schools. Arlington: PDK International. https://pdkpoll.org/ Povich, E. S. (2018). More community colleges are offering bachelor’s degrees – and four-year universities aren’t happy about it. Stateline, April 26. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/researchand-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/04/26/more-community-colleges-are-offering-bachelorsdegrees Pulliam, J. D., & Van Patten, J. J. (2013). History and social foundations of education (10th ed.). New York: Pearson. Ravitch, D. (1977). The revisionists revised: A critique on the radical attack on the schools. New York: Basic Books. Ravitch, D. (1983). The troubled crusade: American education, 1945–1980. New York: Basic Books. Reitman, S. W. (1992). The educational messiah complex: American faith in the culturally redemptive power of schooling. Sacramento: Caddo Gap Press. Ross, D. (1991). The origins of American social science. New York: Cambridge University Press. Schaefer, M. B., Malu, K. F., & Yoon, B. (2016). An historical overview of the middle school movement, 1963–2015. Research on Middle Level Education Online, 39(5), 1–27. Schneider, J. K. (2016). America’s not-so-broken education system: Do U.S. schools really need to be disrupted? The Atlantic.com, June 22. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/ 06/everything-in-american-education-is-broken/488189/ Schimmel, D., Stellman, L., Conlon, C. K., & Fischer, L. (2015). Teachers and the law (9th ed.). New York: Pearson. Spring, J. H. (1994). Deculturalization and the struggle for equality: A brief history of the education of dominated cultures of the United States. New York: McGraw Hill. Spring, J. H. (2013). The American school, a global context: From the puritans to the Obama administration (9th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill. Stewart, K. (2012). The good news club: The Christian right’s stealth assault on America’s children. New York: Public Affairs. United States Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement. (2009). State regulation of private schools. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. https:// www2.ed.gov/admins/comm/choice/regprivschl/regprivschl.pdf United States National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. A report to the Nation and the Secretary of Education, United States Department of Education. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Urban, W. J., Wagoner, J. L., Jr., & Gaither, M. (2019). American education: A history (6th ed.). New York: Routledge. White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education. (2019). Tribal colleges and universities, U.S. Department of Education. https://sites.ed.gov/whiaiane/tribes-tcus/tribalcolleges-and-universities/ Williams, J. (1983). Reagan blames courts for education decline. Washington Post, June 30. A-2. Yin, A. (2017). Education by the numbers: Statistics show just how profound the inequalities in America’s education system have become. New York Times Magazine, September 8. https:// www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/magazine/education-by-the-numbers.html

The Education System of the United States of America: Equity in K-12 and Higher Education

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Kirsten Dara Hill and Christopher Burke

Contents 1 Democracy and Capitalism: The Educational Equality Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Equity and Education in the USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Residential Patterns and Access to Educational Equality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 The Civil Rights Movement’s Influence on Desegregation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Race and Cultural Capital in Urban Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Who’s Included in the Curriculum? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 School Reform Efforts Entrench Inequity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 NCLB: Who Controls Schools and the Purpose of Education? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Continuation of Disparities on the Basis of Race, Class, and Language . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Navigating Policy That Reinforces Equity and Inequity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Expanding College Access and Promoting Equity: Progress and Continued Disparities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

This chapter examines the tension that exists within the American educational system as it promotes equity in the service of democracy while reinscribing social inequity in the service of capitalism. While issues of equity in education are impacted by issues of race, class, disability, and gender, the primary focus in this chapter will be the basis on which race shapes American curriculum and schools.

K. D. Hill (*) College of Education, Health and Human Services, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA e-mail: [email protected] C. Burke Department of Education, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_23

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The chapter will review the social structures within communities and schools that serve to maintain inequality, particularly the Detroit context as a microcosm of housing segregation in the USA that has served to keep schools unequal on the basis of race. Furthermore, this chapter will examine attempted remedies embedded in equity-based efforts, standardization, and educational programs that have emerged from residential mobility trends. Examined are trends stemming from the traditional neighborhood public school model in Detroit and its surrounding suburbs, beginning from the Civil Rights era, continuing into the decades that followed, until the school of choice movement in the present day. Inequity in American schools is deeply intertwined with issues of inequity in society. Economic and social inequality across community boundaries are often reinforced in schools and inequitable policies in schools and maintain segregation by race. These issues extend from the quality and availability of preschool programs to schools of choice programs, competitive college access, and vocational training. This chapter will conclude by examining some of the movements and means in which schools and education continue to serve as spaces of resistance and locations to challenge social inequity. Keywords

The education system of the USA: Equity in US K-12 and higher education · Equity · Educational opportunity · School (De)segregation · NCLB · USA

1

Democracy and Capitalism: The Educational Equality Debate

The field of education and K-12 in the USA are politically contested spaces. Schools are caught in a larger social debate about equity, access, and resource allocation, which reflects tensions between democracy and capitalism (Giroux 2016). The purpose of schools is to prepare students for meaningful participation in the workforce and in a democratic society, which encompasses ideas of equality, in which every person has an equal voice in the governance of society while idealizing a meritocracy that rewards hard work. These views manifest themselves in the curriculum and its implementation in schools. Education has long been viewed as a critical tool in historic grassroots and institutionalized fights for equality, including the Civil Rights Movement, War on Poverty, Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954), and Tinker v. Des Moines (1969). In his 1965 commencement address to Howard University President Johnson proclaimed: Freedom is not enough. . .You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘you are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. (Johnson 1965)

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In that speech, he identified education, jobs, homes, welfare, and healthcare as part of the solution to poverty and inequality. While education is widely heralded as a tool of emancipation, this is not the only purpose for schooling. School has reinscribed the current inequitable class structure through the hidden curriculum of work. Equality of opportunity may be seen as a goal, when the purpose of school is seen as providing workers for the economy, but necessitates inequitable outcomes to maintain the capitalist system in the USA (Giroux 2016). While preparing students for a democratic citizenry has been part of education discourse, in practice the policies that have shaped school practices since the publication of A Nation at Risk (1983) and Why Johnny Can’t Read (1986) have focused on standards, social efficiency, and workforce preparation. School policies have often resulted in reinforcing inequitable tracking, locking students into their parents’ social class. This practice happens in two ways: 1. Decisions about what is included and excluded from the curriculum 2. Differential implementation of educational experiences through the hidden curriculum We will examine tensions within the American educational system that promote equity in the service of democracy while reinscribing social inequity in the service of capitalism. While equity issues in education are impacted by issues of race, class, disability, and gender, we focus on race in this chapter. We have chosen this focus because while race and class are separate issues, they are deeply connected in American society (Powell 2007; West 2017), and racism profoundly shapes the American curriculum and schools. Thus, schools are shaped by the inequity that exists within larger social structures and maintain inequities. We will review the school structures that maintain inequality and social structures, particularly Detroit as a microcosm of housing segregation in the USA that keeps schools unequal. The Detroit context was selected for this chapter because Detroit Public Schools set the standard for excellence in the early twentieth century and were heralded for providing innovative educational and vocational programs (Mirel 1993). Detroit offers the best perspective on the interaction between the rise of industrial capitalism and politics of race and class. The fall of industrial capitalism, disinvestment in the city, and clashes over access to resources in schools based on race and residency boundaries have rendered overwhelmingly separate and unequal schools, contributing to the downturn of public schools. The strength of the African-American community offers a unique context for exploring race and its influence on access to schools (Mirel 1993). The focus on Detroit as an example of how issues of equity impact the American education system acknowledges that race is the primary driver of institutional inequity in schools. While class plays an important role in the discussion of issues of equity, addressing it outside the context of race is beyond the scope of what we can address in this chapter. This chapter examines attempted remedies embedded in equity-based efforts, standardization, and educational programs emerging from residential trends starting from the Civil Rights era to today, the school choice movement, its impact on

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residential trends, and the weakened connection between housing choices and neighborhood schools. Economic and social inequality are often reinforced in schools, and inequitable educational policies maintain segregated, inequitable communities. These issues extend from the availability of special K-12 programming to competitive college access and vocational training. We conclude by examining movements where schools and education continue to serve as spaces of resistance and locations to challenge social inequity.

2

Equity and Education in the USA

The belief that a well-educated citizenry is necessary for democracy has been a founding principle of the USA; however, democracy has not been inclusive of everyone. When the nation was founded, women were excluded from public education. Disabled Americans have been historically institutionalized and excluded from participation in educational processes. Slave owners used fear and laws to ensure that African-Americans were not educated, believing that literate and educated slaves would likely be disobedient and resist enslavement. Refusing to allow slaves access to education is evidence that education has emancipatory power. Education was one of the early tools to define inclusion and exclusion as a citizen. For those granted access to education, Jefferson advocated a two-tiered system that stratified the rest of the population into the “laborers and the learned.” The ideal of an inclusive society where everyone is seen as equal is identified in American history, but that ideal has not been achieved or consistently strived for. Following the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, many barriers to education were removed for freed slaves. Segregated schools were created to educate African-Americans across the country. While segregation was legally enforced in the South, it was prevalent in the North without the legal requirement. The Plessy vs. Ferguson decision (1896) supported the legality of separate but equal schools. Segregated schools were funded through local property taxes. Black neighborhoods tended to be poorer, less resourced, teachers who were paid less, and facilities were not maintained. However, Black students tended to be taught by Black teachers who saw their job as working for and with Black students to ensure they reached their intellectual potential. By doing so they were uplifting the race (Hooks 2015). Black teachers in segregated Black schools contextualized education in a historical family experience that connected students’ learning to their family and community.

2.1

Residential Patterns and Access to Educational Equality

Where people live and attend school poses consequences for their life outcomes, ability to obtain educational equality, access to jobs, and upward mobility (Sugrue 2008; Lareau and Goyette 2014). Race in the educational sector is deeply linked with the treatment of students, expectations held for students, and opportunities for educational attainment. For poor and minority students, the concentration of poverty

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in school predicts educational inequality (Orfield and Lee 2005; Anyon 1997, 2014). The educational divide is punctuated by racial prejudice (Kozol 1991). Educational inequality in the USA is rooted within residential considerations, defined by a family’s ability to buy a house in a good school district. Residential segregation in Detroit and across the USA has been the result of “separation by class” on the basis of “individual choices about where to live” (Sugrue 2008, 207). Until the 1970s racially explicit policies on behalf of federal, state, and local governments intentionally segregated Whites and African-Americans in every metropolitan region in the USA (Rothstein 2017). Residential patterns and educational policies in Detroit and its surrounding suburbs during the late 1960s foreshadowed the racially based educational landscape and political alignment that persists in the USA in the present day (Mirel 1993) and poses implications for access across boundaries of race and class to high-quality K-12 and postsecondary opportunities. As recently as the fall of 2019, St. George, a suburb of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, voted to secede and form an independent school district that would be segregated from the predominantly Black school district of Baton Rouge and predominantly White (Rojas 2019).

2.2

The Civil Rights Movement’s Influence on Desegregation

The Civil Rights Movement marked a period of sustained effort to address racial and economic inequity in the USA. School desegregation was a central struggle in the Civil Rights Movement. While this struggle had a beneficial impact on the educational experiences of many African-American students, it also spurred backlash that undermined the gains brought by desegregation.

2.2.1 School Desegregation and Neighborhood Segregation Pervasive segregation was legally enforced in the South, but was not initially the case in northern cities like Detroit. The first large migration of Blacks came to Detroit from 1910 to 1930 to work in the growing auto industry. The city’s racial composition transformed, as the African-American population increased from 1% to 3.5% of Michigan’s population by 1930. The majority lived in Detroit. During this first migration, there were no legal residency restrictions on African-Americans, but due to rapid population growth and because landlords restricted access to housing, African-Americans became concentrated in overcrowded communities. In the 1930s and 1940s, the second great migration doubled Detroit’s African-American population. In the postwar boom, this rapid growth led to the development of a vibrant African-American middle-class and strong African-American commercial and business communities. Black schools in central cities across the nation were characterized by Black teachers who knew and cared for Black students. Students experienced belonging and lived in the same communities as their teachers. They benefited from exposure to Black professionals and thriving neighborhood commercial corridors (Ladson-Billings 1995; Edwards 2016). The end of World War II increased competition in the labor and housing markets and increased social tension. Historically

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Black neighborhoods with thriving commercial corridors in Detroit, Denver, Seattle, and Portland (Cooperman 2014) were razed for urban renewal purposes and federal development projects including freeways, leading to White flight and middle-class Black flight exacerbating segregation (Sugrue 2008; Cooperman 2014; Rothstein 2017). The process of ending legal segregation began in 1954, and many schools were compulsorily integrated. While Black students were moved to White schools, most Black teachers lost their jobs, and Black students were taught by White teachers. Landmark court cases in the educational and residential sector, the razing of historically Black neighborhoods, and residential mobility patterns negatively impacted poor Blacks, as they experienced the loss of community and remained in racially segregated, poorly funded, and resourced schools where their teachers were outsiders to the community (Ladson-Billings 1995; Sugrue 2008; Edwards 2016). Through the 1950s and 1960s, White prejudice shaped the urban landscape (Sugrue 2008); the perception that Blacks living in White neighborhoods diminished the quality of life, increased crime, and lowered property values (Farley et al. 1979; Sugrue 2008; Rothstein 2017) became self-fulfilling. Property values declined because of redlining practices, a process where local realtors assessed the conditions of houses and the surrounding neighborhood to inform refinancing decisions (Rothstein 2017). Assessments were based on the racial composition of the neighborhood. Realtors were required by national ethics codes to maintain segregated neighborhoods and created color-coded maps for every neighborhood in the nation (Rothstein 2017). White neighborhoods were coded green, indicating low-risk refinancing loans to maintain property. Black neighborhoods were coded red, indicating high risk, resulting in limited refinancing options. Like many cities, the neighborhood public schools were impacted by segregated neighborhoods in Detroit and its surrounding suburbs in the 1960s (Mirel 1993). The Shelley vs. Kraemer case ruled restrictive housing covenants illegal in St. Louis, Detroit, and Washington and began the battle against housing segregation nationwide (Sugrue 2008; Rothstein 2017). Consequently, upper middle-class and upwardly mobile Blacks relocated from the segregated inner city to better housing in White city or suburban neighborhoods (Sugrue 2008; Rothstein 2017). Although the ending of restrictive covenants offered upward mobility, racially segregated housing persisted due to institutional barriers enacted by banks, realtors preventing Blacks from purchasing homes in traditionally White neighborhoods, and acts of White resistance when Blacks crossed color lines (Mirel 1993; Sugrue 1996, 2008; Rothstein 2017). In Chicago and Philadelphia, Blacks attempting to cross neighborhood color lines were confronted with mobs of angry White residents and often endured physical attacks (Sugrue 2008). Black newcomers to White neighborhoods in nearly every major northern city from 1920 to 1960 experienced “cross burnings, arson, window breakings, and mobs” (Sugrue 2008, 205). During the 1960s, homogeneous residency boundaries in Detroit and other major cities shaped and sustained the racial composition and segregation of schools within the city and its suburbs.

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The 1960s was an era of coalitions advocating for educational equality for Black students, against the societal backdrop of culture clashes between White teachers and students and economic disinvestment in the city. Many White families resisted attempts to integrate neighborhood public schools, which prompted gradual enrollment decline among young middle-class families who were the political backbone of public education (Mirel 1993). Demographic transformations during the Civil Rights era led to a diminishing tax base undercutting revenue to support the schools in Detroit (Mirel 1993). In addition, economic transformations, as corporations moved to the suburbs, further reduced the resources available for Detroit Public Schools. Tax revenues, jobs, and most of Detroit’s middle class moved to the suburban ring (Mirel 1993; Sugrue 1996, 2008; Farley et al. 2002). Detroit Public School’s enrollment peaked in 1966 at 299,962 students. Although the racial composition districtwide was equally divided between White and Black students, the racial composition of students in neighborhood schools was overwhelmingly segregated based on residency boundaries (Mirel 1993). In an effort to integrate schools and promote educational equality, courts mandated busing, bringing Black students to White schools, which accelerated enrollment decline, as many White families resisted integration efforts in favor of attending racially homogeneous schools (Grover and van der Velde 2015). White flight to the suburbs to avoid integration, notably in the South, enabled a consolidation of power in the suburbs to shape policies that contributed to de facto segregation (Lareau and Goyette 2014). In the North, suburbs were politically and fiscally separate from central cities; the Detroit metropolitan area had 83 school districts with significant resource disparities, due to the racial and political nature of urban and suburban boundaries (Sugrue 2008). Suburban communities implemented policies that restricted housing choices, including multifamily dwellings that attracted low-income and minority families (Sugrue 2008; Lareau and Goyette 2014). As middle-class Detroit families moved to neighboring suburbs, similar to other major cities in the USA, the selection of a house was linked to the selection of well-resourced schools and consequently increased racial segregation and educational inequality across urban and suburban boundaries (Lareau and Goyette 2014). The trend of moving to the perceived best neighborhood and school promotes educational inequality in the USA (Lareau and Goyette 2014). Consequently, populations in economically homogeneous neighborhoods within the city and between the city and its surrounding suburbs perpetuated economic inequality, racial segregation, and disparities in educational resources, educational attainment, and upward mobility.

2.2.2 School Resources and Educational Opportunity Segregation has characterized the racial composition of schools for over a century (Lareau and Goyette 2014; Rothstein 2017). In 1964, 99% of Blacks in the South attended all-Black schools (Reardon et al. 2012). The Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision ruled that de jure segregation was unconstitutional, based on the argument that schools separated by race were unequal and could not provide equal resources (Lareau and Goyette 2014). In spite of the ruling and subsequent

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efforts to desegregate schools, most schools remain segregated due to patterns of resistance. With the exceptions of sending National Guard troops to protect Black children attending formerly White schools, the federal government has been unable to enforce school integration (Lareau and Goyette 2014). Concerns about educational inequality for Black students in Detroit Public Schools led to advocacy efforts on behalf of a variety of coalitions, including the liberal-labor-black-coalition and the Inner City Black parents coalition (Mirel 1993). Similar efforts emerged in Newark, New Jersey (Phillips 1973). These coalitions maintained that the main sources of educational problems for Black children in Detroit and other cities included cultural disadvantages, segregation of teachers and students, and unequal funding. They proposed structural solutions including the Great Cities compensatory program, calling for school integration and additional resources. City and school disinvestment weakened the coalition, leading to changes in the economic politics in the late 1960s, further weakened by the 1967 Detroit Rebellion (Mirel 1993). Inner City Black parents formed other coalitions that argued for curricular changes to promote educational equality, transferring most White teachers out of Black schools, removing racially biased texts and materials and providing an Afro-centered curriculum. While a minority of Black organizations argued from a militant position, most Black organizations maintained an integrationist position, advocating for new school buildings, less crowded classrooms, and improved curriculum materials (Phillips 1973). As the 1960s progressed, cultural conflicts emerged between Black students and their White teachers, as teachers employed racially charged language and maintained low expectations for students. The shifting racial composition of formerly White schools led to a disinvestment in programming and resources. Jefferson Intermediate School was an example of inequality and discrimination that ensued in middle schools (Mirel 1993). Similar patterns of inequality and discrimination in secondary schools emerged at Northern High School, which represented the poor conditions of other largely Black high schools in Detroit and nationwide. Recognized as the outstanding high school from the 1920s through the 1940s, the racial composition at Northern changed dramatically during the postwar years and became underresourced, largely Black and overwhelmingly poor. Students staged a walkout in protest of the lack of adequate college preparatory classes, low academic standards, and disproportionate placement in general track programs. During the late 1960s, Mumford and Cooley High Schools were racially integrated, but students staged walkouts because of racial clashes (Mirel 1993). The role of curriculum in reinscribing inequity took on new significance 10 years following Brown v. Board in the face of concerted efforts to desegregate schools, as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed and norm-referenced tests became widespread across the country. In spite of culture clashes and declining resources that coincided with demographic shifts, the era aimed to address inequality and prompted progress in equalization and access in the 1970s. Addressing student performance with a norm-referenced test aimed to address educational inequality, as funding for compensatory programs was provided to high-performing school

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districts. To evaluate student performance across the state, the Michigan Education Assessment Program (MEAP) was introduced in 1969 as a norm-referenced test, a socioeconomic scaling system that was used to compare individual test results of students’ representative of the student population. The implementation of the MEAP test was a legislative attempt to measure achievement of students attending Michigan’s schools (Reed and Gifford 2001). Concerns about implementing a sociometric scaling system to compare student achievement on the basis of inequality across urban and suburban districts led to changes in how student achievement was measured in the 1970s.

2.3

Race and Cultural Capital in Urban Centers

By 1970, school desegregation efforts continued, but neighborhood segregation undermined this effort. Detroit experienced the greatest percentage increase of African-Americans in any northern city, as 64% of students in Detroit schools were Black, 35% were White, and 1% were Hispanic (Mirel 1993). This era led to continued racially charged clashes in response to attempts to integrate schools to promote educational equality or sustain segregated schools based on groups pursuing their self-interests and sustaining educational inequality. The trend of selecting the perceived best neighborhood and school continued to promote racially homogeneous neighborhoods and educational inequality.

2.3.1 District Boundaries a Fight for Exclusion The increasing population of African-Americans led to clashes between different stakeholders. Three major positions emerged, including the position of Black power, entitled The Black Plan, which demanded the board restructure of regional boundaries maximizing Black voting strength to guarantee Black control of Black schools. By 1973 half of Detroit schools were over 90% Black, which reflected children who resided in predominantly Black Detroit neighborhoods and attended neighborhood schools. The second position advocated segregated neighborhood schools through decentralization, supported by many White Detroiters. Decentralization established boundaries with existing administrative regions and protected communities from integration. In 1973, restructuring of boundaries sustaining the composition of White neighborhoods led to 27 schools where the racial composition was 90% White. An additional 46 schools were 65–80% White, which reflected children who lived in predominantly White Detroit neighborhoods. The third position called for desegregation advocating for an integrative redistricting plan known as the metropolitan remedy (Mirel 1993; Sugrue 1996). In 1971 Justice Roth ruled in Milliken vs. Bradley that schools in Michigan were still segregated in spite of school integration efforts. Roth ruled the state contributed to the segregation of Detroit schools, leading to an order calling for busing both centralcity Black children and suburban White children (Farley et al. 2002). The order included 3 counties and 780,000 students in 52 suburban school districts and Detroit.

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The Supreme Court struck down the metropolitan remedy in 1974, declaring that suburban districts did not cause the segregation of Detroit schools and should therefore not correct the violation. Debates about busing and school desegregation accelerated White flight and financial problems for urban schools (Armor 1989; Mirel 1993; Sugrue 1996). Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall responded to the decision with disdain and claimed that while those in favor were satisfied with the conditions of segregation and polarization during the time of the ruling, future generations in the region would suffer and regret the outcome (Mirel 1993). In 1974, civic leaders and the NAACP feared that an order for schools to have a racial composition that reflected the whole district would yield White students attending majority Black schools and prompt more White flight. These leaders stressed better education and funding instead of busing policies they regarded as token desegregation (Mirel 1993). Court decisions near the end of the decade were affected by documentation of White flight caused by mandatory busing, leading to the approval of voluntary choice plans that provided families an opportunity to attend a school when they did not live in the district, in lieu of mandatory busing (Armor 1989). Voluntary choice plans posed an integrative effect and offered longterm desegregation plans.

2.3.2

Choice and Magnet Schools: The Beginning of the End for Neighborhood Schools Mandatory busing programs of the 1970s had an impact on educational reform but ignored pedagogy and curricula and did not improve the academic performance of minority students (Armor 1989). Magnet schools and school choice programs focusing on curriculum and racial composition that emerged in the 1980s were more successful at integrating schools and creating more equitable outcomes (Armor 1989; Cuban 1993). Magnet schools retained academically talented White students in urban schools who would otherwise move to the suburbs (Lareau and Goyette 2014). While Detroit Public Schools were underperforming and under-resourced as a whole (Kozol 1991), citywide magnet-based application schools offered more resources and educational opportunities, regarded as pockets of excellence. In Detroit, magnet schools sustained middle-class Black families in the city. Attending integrated schools positively influences of the outcomes of minority students (Mickelson 2011). Magnet schools proliferated across the nation in the 1980s as integration efforts expanded (Armor 1989; Archbald 2004; Lareau and Goyette 2014). Citywide magnet-based schools of choice in Detroit were application schools, which offered more resources and equitable educational opportunities and specialty programs and schools. Such programs attracted middle- class families who sustained residency in the city and preferred residing in affluent, racially integrated neighborhoods and sending their children to racially integrated schools. Non-neighborhood application schools additionally provided equity for low-income families in less affluent neighborhoods. Consequently, citywide, racially and economically integrated K-8 schools provided educational equity and a pathway to college preparatory high schools. Burton International School, Golightly, and Bates Academy were examples of

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K-8 schools, where high-performing students could apply to application high schools, including Cass Technical High School, Renaissance High School, and Martin Luther King, Jr. High School. Magnet-based schools of choice sustained residency in affluent Detroit neighborhoods for middle- and upper-class Detroiters who chose to stay and advocate for its city schools. San Diego initiated a successful choice program in the 1960s to promote integration and then expanded by court order in 1978 (Armor 1989). While all students were assigned to neighborhood schools, any student could opt into 1 of 40 specialized magnet schools, which yielded integrated efforts, evidenced by 10% of White enrollment in magnet programs in minority schools. Additional magnet programs thrived in Los Angeles, Dade County, Buffalo, Cincinnati, and Savannah (Armor 1989). Particularly salient was Savannah, in which nearly 1000 White students returned to public schools from private schools after a magnet plan replaced a mandatory busing plan.

2.3.3

Standardization, Economic Imperative, and the Advent of Choice Efforts to desegregate schools during the Civil Rights Movement largely failed at creating more equitable educational outcomes. In the 1970s and 1980s, efforts to promote equity shifted to focus on curriculum changes. In 1977, Milliken vs. Bradley II addressed prior failed desegregation efforts and endeavored to narrow the equity gap between urban and suburban schools (Mirel 1993; Sugrue 1996). The Supreme Court ruled that the state was obligated to contribute to the metropolitan remedy because its policies contributed to segregating Detroit’s schools. Judge DeMascio ordered major changes to be funded by the state, including quality education with substantial curricular changes primarily focused on developing a standardized curriculum. Curricular changes coincided with the back-to-basics movement and push for national standards, reflected in criterion-referenced standardized tests at the state level. Criterion-referenced tests could measure student performance against the state curriculum. The public was informed that teachers could use the test results as a diagnostic tool to adjust their teaching methods and curricular practices (Reed and Gifford 2001). Starting in the 1970s, funding for compensatory programs became tied to performance on standardized tests, including the MEAP (Andeln and Naismith 1987). In 1983, A Nation At Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform was a landmark report by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, formed by Secretary of Education Ted Bell. The report raised awareness about the eroding educational foundations in US schools on the basis of numerous factors, including high illiteracy rates among youth and concern that the USA was not internationally competitive. The report demanded education reform, as President Reagan and 50 governors announced goals for schools across the nation (Cuban 1993). Demands for reform to improve the economy through better schools set a precedent for an era of accountability that has informed a succession of reform efforts. A Nation at Risk called for rigorous standards, implementation of state and local tests, and stronger

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graduation standards. The report additionally demanded financial resources to improve facilities and supplies; curricular changes to ensure basic skills were met, along with including art and computer science. School spending increased as corporate leaders invested in school reform efforts, and foundations offered resources to school reformers. Reform vocabulary informed different curricular goals (Cuban 1993), including effective schools, critical thinking, cooperative learning, and curricular alignment. The MEAP became more rigorous and measured progress of Michigan students against the state standards adopted by the state board of education in English, Math, Social Studies, and Science in grades 4, 7, and 10. By 1985, English Learners and special education students were required to take the MEAP test (Andeln and Naismith 1987) to sustain accountability and measure performance of ELs and special education students against state standards.

2.4

Who’s Included in the Curriculum?

Any examination of the curriculum must recognize that it is a contested political space and represents a continual effort to exert hegemonic cultural control (Apple 2012; Giroux 2016). The textbook, and whose knowledge is represented within its pages, defines whose knowledge is valued. “Textbooks, for better or worse dominate what students learn” (Down 1988). In the 1980s, there was a renewed focus on pushing for a national curriculum that reflected what Michael Bennett, the Secretary of Education under Ronald Regan, identified as “what truly matters: mastering the basics, insisting on high standards. . .” (Bennett 1988, 10). For Bennett, these standards were defined by conservative scholars in works like E.D. Hirsch’s Cultural Literacy and Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. These texts reflect a Eurocentric male perspective of what counts as knowledge. The work of Michael Apple (1993, 2017) examines how the dominant White culture is represented in the curriculum, specifically in the textbook, and marginalizes and delegitimizes the experiences and knowledge of students of color, women, and working-class people. Textbooks represent someone’s vision of legitimate knowledge and culture; the process of selecting this knowledge and culture is the process of legitimizing one group’s cultural capital and disenfranchising another’s. Legitimizing one perspective is manifest in different ways in different subject areas. An examination of the science curriculum presented in major science textbooks and in Harding’s (1998) examination of science history suggests that the science curriculum portrays science as a European endeavor. Science textbooks present a narrative about who does science alongside the presentation of science content. These narratives start with references to the Greeks and Romans through stories including Archimedes’ use of displacement and Plato’s early discussion of the particulate nature of matter. Then the history of science in most textbooks goes silent for 500 years, corresponding with the Middle Ages in Europe. With the advent of the Renaissance, science is rediscovered, and a string of European men lead us through the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and into the modern era. This

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framing of science history privileges the experiences of White men and marginalizes the experiences of women and people of color. Harding (1998) documents the absence of the role of Arab and Persian cultures in the development of mathematics, including algebra. Harding (1998) documents the absence of the role of Arab and Persian cultures in the development of mathematics, including algebra, and the role and importance of sub-Saharan African cultures in studying astronomy, navigation at sea, and agriculture. This science narrative yields students who internalize images of scientists as elderly White men (Finson 2002). They also internalize ideas about objectivity and reductionism that communicate that science is neutral and acultural, when in fact it reflects a Eurocentric bias. Consequently, the lack of representation of students’ history and heritage in the science curriculum makes it harder for students to connect with the curriculum. This process of ignoring the discourse patterns and ways of knowing also excludes the social and cultural discourse patterns of women and communities of color who may rely on relational, holistic perspectives instead of discrete analysis and reductive knowledge. Not having their heritage reflected in the curriculum teaches students of color and women that their experiences are less valuable (Ogbu 1987). When students do not see people who look like them and have experiences like theirs as part of the curriculum, it reinscribes inequitable representation of identity, voice, and experience that contributes to harmful stereotyping (Apple 2012; Hooks 2015; Emdin 2016). Further, exclusive representation of knowledge and experts that marginalize groups contributes to the devaluing and subjugation of groups and individual’s inaccurate self-efficacy and self-worth. Delpit’s (2006) and Ladson-Billings’ (1995) work identified literacy as another area where students’ experiences outside of school are marginalized when they are not part of the dominant culture. Literacy is often framed as nonpolitical, serving to provide paths for upward mobility. However, a growing emphasis on English and specifically Standard Academic English (SAE) reflects a White middle-class discourse pattern. Students who speak a different language or communicate in nonstandard English are marginalized by this standardization (Smitherman 1998; Delpit 2006; Apple 2012; Gee 2012). Reaser, Adger, Wolfram, and Christian (2017) identified that grammatical and phonological features of African-American English (AAE) in student writing reflect communicative norms of a student’s dialect, which are commonly interpreted at school as errors to be corrected. Reaser et al. (2017) cautioned that treating communicative norms as errors causes students to infer that his or her writing skills are inadequate and they should avoid writing verbal expressions that reflect how they speak. To promote more equitable and inclusive practices, a teacher should seek an appropriate balance between formal and informal contexts for writing and speaking rather than deeming nonstandard or informal usage as errors (Godley et al. 2006; Wheeler and Swords 2006; Reaser et al. 2017). In 1979, the Ann Arbor King Case thrust language discrimination as a barrier to academic achievement into the national spotlight, as the families of five students, speakers of AAE sued the district because teachers were not employing the students’ home language to support the acquisition of literacy skills (Fiske 1981; Smitherman

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1998). Judge Joiner’s decision in favor of the plaintiff ruled that teachers must account for the students’ home language to support the acquisition of literacy skills and to bring speakers of AAE into mainstream society (Fiske 1981). In spite of the ruling and platform to legitimize AAE in schools, little changed in Ann Arbor or elsewhere, in support of speakers of AAE toward the mastery of literacy skills. Standardized literacy practices serve as a gatekeeper to refined culture (Delpit 2006). Code-switching pedagogies in classrooms emerged in response to issues like those raised in the King Case and stressed facilitating home language as a foundation for incorporating informal and formal contexts for writing and speaking (LadsonBillings 1995; Adger et al. 1999; Purcell-Gates et al. 2002; Wheeler and Swords 2006; Reaser et al. 2017). Thus, code-switching pedagogies encompassed a balance of formal and informal language registers. While they showed promise for creating more inclusive classrooms, they were not widely adopted in schools across the nation (Yellin 1980; Smitherman and Baugh 2002). While middle-class students in magnet schools acquired standardized literacy practices necessary for access to education at the postsecondary level, such opportunities were not as accessible to working-class Black students whose primary language was AAE in traditional urban public schools. Faced with the experience of having to learn these standardized literacy practices with teachers unprepared and unsupported to facilitate code-switching pedagogies, learning to code-switch was a barrier. Challenges included a lost connection with their home language or failure to learn SAE. Failing to learn SAE relegated them to the lower end of the labor market. Learning SAE often dislocates students in their home community and communicates to them that their family and their culture are less valuable (Delpit 2006; Gee 2012).

2.5

School Reform Efforts Entrench Inequity

In the 1990s efforts to standardize the curriculum foundered in political debates focused on limiting the role of the federal government in education. Conservative and liberal political groups challenged the standards and conservative organizations advocated for market competition in education promoting charter schools that were exempted from state regulations and schools of choice that allowed parents to enroll their students in schools outside of their district of residence.

2.5.1

Choice, Local Curriculum, Local Funding, and the End of Neighborhood Schools In the 1990s citywide magnet schools thrived as pockets of excellence that emerged in schools and were documented in the literature, evidenced by high-performing schools in high-poverty neighborhoods. Gompers Elementary reflected schools where all teachers maintain high expectations for all students, regardless of conditions of poverty. Teachers were supported in negotiating curricular constraints and implementing authentic practices relevant to the students’ interests (Hill 2012). Rose (1996) documented high expectations held by teachers in a variety of

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high-performing high-poverty schools across the nation. Ladson-Billings (1995) documented characteristics of teachers of Black students as teachers who facilitated culturally relevant pedagogies where instruction reflects students’ cultural, imaginative, and linguistic capital. At the same time, these practices emerged in states, including Michigan, that implemented policies that created further inequity. In the 1990s Michigan pushed charter schools as a mechanism for promoting greater equity. Fourteen charter schools opened in 1995, and an average of 7 new charter schools have opened annually ever since (Grover and van der Velde 2015). Enrollment declined in Detroit Public Schools in alignment with the growth of charter schools. Other states followed Michigan in promoting charter schools as a mechanism of school reform. From 1991 to 2009, more than 200 medium- and large-sized school districts were released from court-ordered desegregation. Reardon et al. (2012) documented that school segregation increased faster after the release of the court order, relative to the segregation trends of districts that remained under court order. Michigan’s schools are funded primarily through local property taxes, with additional funds from the state, which has allocated substantially higher per-pupil funding and resources for students in property-rich school districts than their counterparts in poor districts. In 1993 Proposal A was passed as an effort to reduce perpupil funding inequality, increasing per-pupil funding in lower revenue districts, while slowing revenue growth in more affluent districts. Proposition A shifted the reliance on local property taxes to fund schools to state revenue (Tinsley 2018). Complex rules and exceptions in the law undermined the effort to equalize funding across the state. School districts were still allowed to levy property taxes to help fund schools but only up to 18 mills. In addition, the legislature decided to “hold harmless” districts, in which the new funding model would lower per-pupil allocations, allowing some affluent districts to maintain higher funding rates. Although poor districts could levy an additional tax or apply for grants to make up the difference, funding could only be spent on programs specified in the grant. Despite Proposition A, funding between property-rich and poor districts continues to be unequal. Fights over funding and the allocation of resources for schools became increasingly political especially in Michigan. In 1999, Governor Engler signed into law Public Act 10, the first state takeover in an attempt to restore the budget and improve performance. The Detroit Public School board was replaced by a 6-member reform board appointed by Mayor Archer, with the 7th member serving as the state superintendent of public instruction. Critics argued that the district had a 100 million positive fund balance and mid-range test scores (Guyette 2015). According to critics, the real reason behind the controversial state takeover was to have control over the 1.2 billion remaining from the 1.5 billion bond approved by voters in 1994 (Bellant 2011). Either way, local control over the management and curriculum of Detroit Public Schools was taken by state agencies. Centralized control of schools often led to a more scripted curriculum that was less connected to students’ home language and community experiences.

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2.5.2 Local Curriculum Inequitable Outcomes The Ebonics resolution in Oakland, California, resurfaced issues around literacy instruction raised by the Ann Arbor King Case. The resolution called for taking into account the students’ home language to facilitate the acquisition of literacy skills (Adger et al. 1999); a media firestorm emerged as the resolution was misinterpreted as teaching students how to speak Ebonics and reinforced Ebonics as a stigmatized dialect in the dominant culture. Carrie Secret was a recognized teacher in this context who employed code-switching pedagogies, as part of the district’s Standard English Proficiency (SEP) program (Miner 1998). During that time, she acknowledged her students’ home language by making distinctions between spoken sounds and grammatical features embedded in home language and Standard English. Instead of assuming a corrective approach, Secret identified her students’ display of confidence as writers, upon being able to distinguish between appropriate contexts for formal and informal English. Secret read aloud literature situated in the African-American linguistic tradition and balanced with literature featuring Standard English features. She additionally provided formal and informal contexts for writing and speaking. While efforts to localize the curriculum in ways that incorporated students’ home language reflect efforts to make the curriculum more equitable, the structure and organization within schools often serves to reinscribe existing inequity in American society. In his study of classrooms, Philip Jackson (1990) articulated that what is taught and learned in schools goes beyond the formal curriculum. He argued that students learned how to behave, their place in society and the economy, and the rules for social interaction through the hidden curriculum. The hidden curriculum is taught through the structure and social interaction within schools. Schools are organized around basic routines that socialize students. Classrooms, ordered in neat rows with the teacher at the front of the room and regulated by bells, teach students to wait quietly, exercise restraint, be punctual, and show respect for those in authority. The organization of lessons around recitation of material in books teaches students to keep busy, complete their work, be neat, and follow instructions. Promotion of school identity and loyalty helps students learn to cooperate in structured ways and to show allegiance to both teachers and peers (Anyon 1980). There are important differences in the way the hidden curriculum varies in conjunction with differences in the race and class of schools and the way that it prepares students for the world of work (Anyon 1980). More importantly, she documented how the hidden curriculum varied by class and commonly by race serving to prepare students for their economic status in a capitalist society, with three distinct social structures that indoctrinated students in specific roles. Students in working-class schools experienced a curriculum focused on control. Assignments require students to follow a sequence of steps. Teachers present information as a set of facts to be remembered. There is an emphasis on following rules, staying on task, and remaining quiet so as not to disturb other students’ work. Classroom practices and assessment focus on ensuring that all students reach a correct answer and that the work product is uniform across the class. Students in affluent professional schools, which are predominantly White, allow for greater autonomy. Student’s work tends to be creative and carried out

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independently. Students are expected to express concepts and illustrate ideas in multiple forms and across disciplines. In affluent schools, students are allowed to be outside the classroom and are encouraged to work in groups and on extended projects. Teachers maintain classroom control through constant negotiation where students are encouraged to think about the consequences of their behavior for both themselves and their community. Teachers expect that students will be able to selfregulate if they understand the consequences. Teachers and students in wealthy executive schools are continually engaged in dialog, and the focus of classes is on students’ ability to reason effectively. Teachers emphasize helping students identify multiple ways of finding solutions to problems in executive classes. The management of classroom behavior is shared by students and teachers, and students often have an equal voice in shaping the classroom’s goals and objectives. In each of these cases, the classroom structure and the hidden curriculum help enculturate students into their relationship with work, among people, and to ownership of the means of production. Anyon (1980) used these three relationships to identify an individuals’ social class. The hidden curriculum is not limited to formal school structures or the behaviors of teachers and students. It reinscribes the social and cultural capital that exists in the community. In an examination of students engaged in place-based education projects, it was clear how the hidden curriculum positions students differently in relationships to their communities and their ability to exert their own agency. Each class of students selected a set of environmental issues to study and take action on within their community. The more affluent school studied the presence of industrial water pollution that threatened to contaminate the drinking water of the community. Student reports explored the history of the company that caused the pollution, presented a summary of the chemistry, and made policy recommendations that the city government and the state should enact to clean up the spill. There was no discussion about how the pollution affected the local community or how the students were directly impacted. The less affluent school presented work monitoring air pollution from a local refinery in their neighborhood. The students examined the long history of pollution in the neighborhood; they discussed and presented the technical aspects of how their air quality monitor worked and how they determined where to locate it. They also shared plans to have a flag they could raise at the school to warn local residents when the air pollution was too high to be outdoors. During their presentation, students shared stories about friends and family they knew who suffered from asthma and other respiratory diseases. The action that they took was local and directly impacted the students and their family. It didn’t rise to the level of policy or advocacy for addressing the persistent pollution. These two examples illustrate how the hidden curriculum uniquely impacts inquiry in different contexts. Similar educational experiences addressing environmental health concerns teach different lessons about students’ social and political position in society. More affluent students were encouraged to think in terms of policy and mitigation, because their families already had the agency to ensure that they were not personally at risk. Their action to resolve the issue connected them

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with political systems and the power to address the root causes. Students living in the high-poverty community were taught to take direct action to protect themselves and their family. They were not connected to systems of power and learned that they did not have the political power to address the root causes of the environmental disaster. Even in examples where teachers engage students in activities that empower them, the school systems and their location in the larger society marginalize students from higher-poverty communities. Schools often do not serve as agencies of social mobility. Instead they often reproduce the existing class structure, teaching students in subtle but powerful ways their intellectual ability, personal traits, and their appropriate place in society through the hidden curriculum (Bowles and Gintis 2011).

3

NCLB: Who Controls Schools and the Purpose of Education?

In 2001 with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), a national curriculum was coupled with high-stakes tests. By the early 2000s, all states adopted standards and developed a definition of proficiency. Michigan adopted Grade Level Content Expectations, which informed the MEAP. This combination of a national standardized curriculum combined with high-stakes tests served as a hegemonic tool imposing a Eurocentric male perspective on education and as a result served to marginalize and oppress students of color, women, and less affluent students (Au 2014). The enrollment declined to 162,693 in Detroit Public Schools in 2000, as charter school enrollment grew to 19,000 (Grover and van der Velde 2015). Closures of several Detroit Public Schools were a consequence of the proliferation of charter schools, declining enrollment, and failure to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), a measurement defined by NCLB, requiring 70% of students in a school to achieve proficiency on a criterion-referenced test. Concerns about meeting AYP and the threat of school closures led to teaching practices informed by fidelity to paced curriculum for many teachers in the region and across the nation, not by innovative practices and teacher autonomy. Research examining the impact of these policies on urban populations noted that policy makers who know the least about education and students’ circumstances often have the most impact on the curriculum (Noguera 2003; Burke and Adler 2013). From 2000 to 2003, Detroit Public Schools closed and merged 15 schools, prompting more students to leave the district or move to charter or magnet schools (Grover and van der Velde 2015). A new school board elected in 2005 replaced the state appointed school board and was faced with managing enrollment declines and addressing the 200-million-dollar deficit the state appointed board left (Guyette 2015). This pattern of schools struggling to manage enrollment and funding as control shifted back and forth from local control to state control with continued external interference from politicians and policy makers shaped school policy in the age of NCLB. Treating schools as a political football further segregated schools,

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reducing resources at schools that serve students of color and making the curriculum more standardized and less relevant to the students in these schools. More affluent communities were not exposed to these inconsistencies in leadership. Within the city, public school closures led to charter school growth. By 2013, enrollment was over 51,000, surpassing enrollment in Detroit Public Schools that fell below 50,000 (Grover and van der Velde 2015). In addition to charter schools, policies promoting school choice were enacted in conjunction with NCLB and resulted in urban students enrolling in better-resourced schools in neighboring suburbs. In 2001, 3082 students left DPS, and by 2015 over 25,000 Detroit students were attending schools of choice (Grover and van der Velde 2015). Schools of choice are often located in more affluent suburban districts and are well resourced and offer specialty programming on the basis of high property tax values, with experienced teachers who share middle-class values and sustain high test scores. Conversely, the underperforming neighboring urban schools, with the exception of a few magnet programs, are under-resourced because of diminished property tax values, which offer gaps in specialty programming, with teachers who are not supported or experienced to manage the demands of overcrowded classrooms and working-class students who endure conditions of concentrated poverty (Noguera 2003; Orfield and Lee 2005). Many teachers in districts experience this influx of students from urban schools and were unprepared for the influx of working-class African-American students and consequent cultural mismatch. They noted concerns about behavioral issues, underachieving students, and overcrowded classrooms (Hill 2009). The enrollment of low-performing transfer students also led to concerns about compromising MEAP scores, which could reduce funding. Parents also resisted integration caused by shifting populations. In one case parents signed a petition to ensure all students were enrolled legally. There was evidence that some teachers maintained high expectations and facilitated equitable, culturally relevant practices (Hill 2009). Teachers across the nation were constrained by paced curriculum in an era of accountability (Kersten and Pardo 2007). While teachers were pressured to teach to the state test, Burke and Adler (2013), Kersten and Pardo (2007), and Hill (2012) documented teachers in Michigan who satisfied curricular requirements while also negotiating curricular innovations and facilitating practices in the best interests of their students. Teachers who served poor children well involved students in the process of identifying sources of oppression in their communities and conceptualizing strategies for community betterment in high-poverty high-performing schools (Noguera 2003). Unfortunately, these teachers often acted independently and without the support of their administration (Burke and Adler 2013). The second state takeover of Detroit Public Schools occurred in 2009 leading to a succession of emergency financial managers, continued school closures, deficits, and declining enrollment. Similar oversight exists in approximately 20 states (Bosman and Davey 2016), where an appointed manager advises struggling districts, while appointed school boards and local residents do not have a voice. The Philadelphia and Newark Public Schools are still under state control in 2020, Camden, New

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Jersey, was under state control until 2010, and Central Falls, Rhode Island, went into receivership before declaring bankruptcy in 2011.

3.1

Continuation of Disparities on the Basis of Race, Class, and Language

In 2010, the push for national curriculum standards returned with the adoption of the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards with the goal of developing common proficiency goals in grades 3–8 and high school and to specify what students should be able to do to be college and career ready. To reach these goals, educational policy often advocated giving families a choice through charter schools and schools of choice. At the same time, local districts, primarily high-poverty, predominantly African-American schools, were taken over by the state.

3.2

Navigating Policy That Reinforces Equity and Inequity

Detroit experienced the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the USA and a housing foreclosure crisis in 2010. Decreasing housing costs led to an increase of middle-class families moving to the city due to housing affordability. The proliferation of school choice led to families who pursued housing preferences without regard for the quality of the neighborhood school but on the availability of select urban, non-neighborhood public and charter schools (Lareau and Goyette 2014). A weakened connection between selecting a neighborhood on the basis of perceived school quality emerged. With a saturated market place of both high- and low-performing schools, parent networks and nonprofit organizations emerged to help parents navigate the bewildering process of researching schools (Mason and Arsen 2014). Similar to trends across the nation (Lareau and Goyette 2014; Posey-Maddox 2014), a parent network in Detroit formed to research and advocate for the city’s top schools. Members organized school visits and shared reports evaluating Detroit schools using a variety of categories, including test scores, school safety, building, classroom, and grounds maintenance. They released a list of Detroit’s top 31 schools, a vital resource for parents selecting a school. While instruction in many schools was dominated by teaching through the test, parent network families challenged this trend and advocated for inquiry and projectbased practices. Parents researching schools became strong advocates for addressing some of the worst inequities among schools. The Gary B. vs. Snyder case made headlines when the families of seven Detroit students in charter, public, and EAA schools sued over the deplorable conditions of the school buildings in which they were enrolled and the lack of books and qualified teachers impeding their access to literacy skills needed to prepare them for postsecondary educational opportunities (Cha and Walz 2016). The plaintiff sought acceptable conditions, updated textbooks,

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and research-based literacy instruction. The ability of the parent network to pursue schools they determined was high quality, and the stark contrast of the conditions of the schools serving poor urban youth whose parents lack the resources or ability to research and advocate for the selection of a school outside their neighborhood highlights the disparities and unequal access to quality education and resources within city boundaries. While schools of choice and charter schools created opportunities for some urban families, they did not alleviate segregation and educational inequity. Instead of moving to the suburbs upon their children reaching school age, parent network families began enrolling their children in non-neighborhood public and charter schools, similar to nationwide trends documented by Lareau and Goyette (2014). The increase of perceived high-quality school alternatives weakened the connection between residency and school quality. Posey-Maddox (2014) documented parental involvement strategies among middle-class families in Northern California that unintentionally marginalized longtime low-income families unable to provide the same resources and time, leading to tensions between middleclass and working-class families. Ongoing research in Detroit has revealed more inclusive parental involvement strategies and families who desire a K-12 school pipeline that provides pathways to selective universities (Hill 2018). Middle-class families in Detroit have selected 15 area schools across public, private, and charter entities; they are contributing time and resources, having an integrative effect and driving educational equality.

4

Expanding College Access and Promoting Equity: Progress and Continued Disparities

The presence of urban magnet schools, schools of choice, and high-performing highpoverty schools present pathways to examination high schools and ultimately to admission to selective universities. These relationships reflect the ways that college access has been part of addressing equity in education. However, as with the K-12 system, equitable access is not the same as equality. Equality in higher education has largely focused on three issues: admissions, preparation, and affordability. Affirmative action programs in higher education emerged after the Civil Rights Act as an attempt to remedy a history of inequitable access for underrepresented groups (Allen et al. 2018). On-the-spot admissions programs at competitive high schools increased enrollment. Competitive high schools sustained strong academic profiles and relationships with the universities and improved access and opportunity for underrepresented groups. In 1995 the impact of these programs on greater equity of access was seen when Black student enrollment reached a peak of 8.9% at the University of Michigan in 1995. Participation in the Bridge Program declined when Proposition 2 ended race-based admissions policies in 2001, banning affirmative action in Michigan. As a result, enrollment of African-American students declined to less than 7% by 2006.

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The declining enrollment of African-American students at the University of Michigan is indicative of selective public institutions that are contested spaces on the basis of whether race-conscious admissions policies are constitutional (Allen et al. 2018). Race-neutral criteria for admissions at selective 4-year institutions include grade point average, standardized test scores, and course requirements (Allen et al. 2018). However, as was discussed earlier, racial and residential disparities persist despite reforms and shifting school enrollment demographics. These race-neutral admission requirements fail to recognize the well-documented inequities in the K-12 system (Ladson-Billings 1998; Tatum 2017). While access was framed as a critical issue, there were also concerns about the academic preparation of students from marginalized communities and their acceptance on college campuses. In the late 1960s, African-American students organized protests nationwide, demanding equality in enrollment, retention, degree completion, and resources (Allen et al. 2018), which were reflected in the Black Action Movement (BAM) at the University of Michigan (Berrey 2015). Additional concerns included a hostile campus climate and underrepresentation of AfricanAmerican faculty. In response, many universities like the University of Michigan began bridge programs, providing youth from underrepresented communities support in developing academic skills and acclimating to campus. While these programs had limited success, participation in them declined with the declining enrollment of students of color with the passage of anti-affirmative action legislation. The cost of college was also seen as another barrier to higher education. In 2005 the Kalamazoo Promise started a trend to try to address equality of access to college by funding college tuition for students in specific communities (Carmody 2019). The Kalamazoo Promise paid the tuition for all graduates of Kalamazoo Public Schools at Michigan state universities. Since the Kalamazoo Promise was created, other organizations have worked to address inequality in access in similar ways, including the Detroit College Access Network and the Detroit Promise and Wolverine Pathways (Stafford 2017). Since 2005 over 300 college promise programs have been created nationwide (Carmody 2019). While there is evidence that these programs have increased enrollment, they have not had as big an impact on college completion. In spite of efforts to bolster enrollment and sustain students, antiblack sentiments continue to be drivers of inequality in enrollment and degree completion (Allen et al. 2018). “Antiblackness refers to the antagonistic relationship between blackness and humanity” (Dumas and Ross 2016, 429). Protests at 90 campuses nationwide in 2015 raised awareness about hostile racial climates and unequal access to resources and discrimination that persists for African-American students (Tatum 2017). In addition, policies and practices since the 1968 Kerner report have sustained a higher education system that continues to be separate and unequal, as African-Americans are severely underrepresented at selective 4-year institutions (Allen et al. 2018), reflected in African-American students who represent 11% of enrollment nationwide at selective public 4-year institutions and 16% at selective private 4-year institutions. Disparities are evident as African-American students make up 14% of enrollment at public 2-year institutions and more than 50% of African-American students are

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enrolled in community colleges. African-Americans are overrepresented in for-profit institutions where tuition rates are higher, default rates on student loans are higher, and graduation rates are lower (Iloh and Toldson 2013). African-American students are additionally underrepresented at Wayne State University, a Black Serving Institution (BSI) in Detroit. BSIs are known for serving first-generation, low-income, academically underprepared college students. The 12% African-American enrollment rate for first-time degree students at Wayne State University reported in 2009 suggests the trend of fewer resources to support more students than flagship institutions (Shapiro 2017). In addition, a negative racial climate persists, in spite of achieving BSI status (Allen et al. 2018).

5

Conclusion

This chapter demonstrates how residential and educational inequality are inextricably linked and how various policy decisions in both areas served to challenge inequality and reinscribe it. The history of Detroit is examined as a microcosm of nationwide trends, within the realm of residential and educational discrimination in the 1960s, the decades that followed, and the consequences for today’s racially based educational landscape. Educational inequality is rooted in educational politics and policy decisions within residential considerations. A family’s ability to buy a house in connection with the best resources is a determinant for their child’s life chances toward educational attainment, college access, and career trajectory. Residential patterns by separation of race and class influence a family’s ability to acquire home ownership and sustain educational inequality. Policy decisions that inform residential considerations have historically provided middle- and working-class White families the advantage and financial ability to buy a house in connection with the best school their resources will allow while imposing restrictions and barriers for working- and middle-class non-White families, which, with few exceptions, has yielded residential segregation and educational inequality. Consequent court-ordered remedies implemented to desegregate schools have prompted continued residential flight and inequality. Desegregation efforts reshaped local communities and transformed neighborhood schools into schools of choice, charter schools, and magnet schools. Similar political fights occurred over curriculum debates. Standardized curriculum and high-stakes testing essentialized a privileged, Eurocentric, male view of important skills and knowledge. While reform efforts connected curricula to local community assets and culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies, these reforms were often marginalized by state and federal policies. At the same time, the organization and structure of schools embody a hidden curriculum that reflects and reinscribes class disparities. Within the broader system characterized by capitalism and educational inequality on the basis of race, class, and language discrimination, equality is evidenced by varied factors, including countywide school districts, schools of choice, and language policy shifts. States with countywide school districts fund schools more equitably than schools in states with multiple districts where funding is informed

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by property taxes. Furthermore, urban magnet schools of choice that provide special programming and parent networks have attracted families across boundaries of race and class and promoted educational equality, regardless of residence. Thus, an integrative effect is a result of specialized programming and curricula, beyond the intent of court-ordered busing, mandated solely on desegregation, without a focus on curriculum. An integrative effect yields educational equality and parental involvement that contribute time and resources to schools. In addition, this chapter documents instances when educational equality is present in suburban schools of choice and select high-performing high-poverty schools. Moreover, the acceptance of code-switching and emergence of code-meshing pedagogies aim to sustain access to SAE, provide access to the culture of power, and challenge commonly held perceptions that AAE is a stigmatized dialect. While this chapter demonstrates evidence of educational equality, racially isolated and poor communities continue to have separate and unequal resources, as students attend schools with deplorable conditions and endure low expectations that would be unacceptable for middle-class children across urban and suburban boundaries. Thus, under-resourced urban schools persist, which yields limited opportunities for educational attainment, college access, and intergenerational poverty and yields a separate and unequal system of higher education. State takeovers increased standardized curricula and testing, and emergency financial manager appointments that have endeavored to increase performance in the lowest-performing schools have done little to improve performance and conditions in the schools they were tasked to improve. Instead, they have reinforced the hidden curriculum designated by race and class and served to prepare students for their stratified economic status in a capitalist society.

6

Discussion

While educational inequality has historically been linked to where people live and perpetuates the hidden curriculum that varies by race and class, more recent school of choice reform efforts and parent networks have led to a weakened connection between residency and educational equality. Families enrolling in magnet schools and specialized programming in cities and suburbs have promoted educational equality and racially integrated school populations. In addition, high-performing high-poverty schools have demonstrated the possibility that high expectations and care can influence educational equality in areas of concentrated poverty. The populations such schools serve resemble their underperforming counterpart schools. The lowest-performing schools, located in disproportionately Black and poor communities, have persisted in spite of state takeovers, emergency financial managers, standardized reform efforts, and in Detroit, the failed implementation of the Education Achievement Authority. The lowest-performing schools are deemed unacceptable for middle-class families and are unacceptable to the communities they serve. Conditions in the lowest-performing schools and policies and practices since the 1968 Kerner report have sustained a separate and unequal higher education

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system, reflected in the underrepresentation of African-Americans at selective 4-year institutions and overrepresented at for-profit institutions and community colleges. Systemic efforts must reclaim the care and knowing the characterized Black schools in central cities prior to Brown v. Board and the lifting of restrictive covenants. Great care, educational equality, and high expectations must be held for all youth in order to increase achievement levels, college access, and retention, regardless of residency, race, and class. Recommendations include designating resources to renovate school buildings with deplorable conditions to ensure that students are confident and feel a sense of belonging and self-worth at school. Professional development must be provided for teachers toward maintaining high expectations for all students regardless of their circumstances. Students in conditions of poverty must be supported by their teachers to navigate the educational system, to obtain educational attainment, upward mobility, and improving their life chances. High-performing high-poverty schools must serve as mentor schools and resources for their underperforming counterparts in their respective school districts. Patterns of low performance on standardized assessments are a call for continuing to invest in universal early childhood programs, as students scoring proficient have benefited from enrolling in early childhood education programs.

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The Education System of the United States of America: ICT and Digitalization

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Contents 1 Introduction: “Technology is an Experience” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 What Is Technology Integration and What Isn’t? A Theoretical and Historical Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 What Is Not Technology Integration? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Where Does Technology Integration Happen? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 What Is Successful Technology Integration? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Current Trends in the USA to Address Technology Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Issues Related to Technology Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Why Is Technology Integration Important? Perceptions and Realities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Impact on Differentiated Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Impact on Student Engagement and Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Impact on Academic Achievement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Impact on Twenty-First Century Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Emerging Technologies in Education: New Technologies, Old Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Important Developments in Emerging Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Current Trends Affecting Decision-Making in Emerging Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Issues Related to Emerging Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Funding for Technology and “Digital Divide”: A Vicious Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Funding for Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Digital Divide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Prospects for Bridge Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Conclusion: Never Ending Dilemma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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M. Duran (*) College of Education, Health, and Human Services, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_16

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Abstract

This chapter aims at assisting and guiding educators, researchers, and policymakers who are interested in learning about Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and digitization in education in the United States (USA). With a historical context covering the past 20 years, the chapter provides an overview of research, trends, and issues related to ICT and digitization in K-12 school settings. It presents a wide range of developments in ICT and digitization impacting the field of public education, exploring and analyzing the following four key issues: what technology integration is and what isn’t; why technology integration is important; emerging technologies in education; and funding for technology and the “digital divide.” The chapter ends describing the most recent stage on the key issues discussed and the implications for policy and practice these issues introduce. Keywords

Technology integration · Emerging technologies · Funding for technology · Digital divide

1

Introduction: “Technology is an Experience”

The literature includes multiple terms to describe digital technology use in education such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT), educational technology, instructional technology, and learning technologies. Even though there might be some nuances in details, for the purpose of this chapter, these terms are used interchangeably, all describing digital technologies that are used to enhance the teaching, learning, and “creative inquiry.” This chapter provides an overview of research, trends, and issues related to ICT and digitization in K-12 school settings and with emphasis on the past 20 years. The chapter presents a wide range of developments in ICT and digitization impacting the field of public education, exploring and analyzing the following aspects: what technology integration is and what isn’t; why technology integration is important; emerging technologies in education; and funding for technology and “digital divide.” The chapter ends describing the key contemporary issues and their implications for policy and practice. Considering ICT and digitization in the US education, there are other trends and issues that should be discussed but were beyond the scope of writing in this chapter given the space permitted. These issues include but are not limited to the legal and ethical issues of educational technology, online learning, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), open education, and digital citizenship. In addition, ICT and digitization in higher education institutions is another important issue, but was not fully covered in this present chapter. These topics warrant and will receive significant attention among active scholars in the immediate future.

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Three main resources guided the discussions in this chapter. First, extensive literature review pursued the chapter’s central focus – ICT and digitization in the United States – and included studies published over the last two decades and accessed via multiple databases, online journals, and available web resources. Also informing the chapter’s discussion, second, are the author’s reflections on 20 years of professional teaching experience focused on educational technology and conducted at a comprehensive US research university; significant prior published scholarship regarding technology integration in teacher preparation programs and regarding trends and issues pertinent to educational technology augments this expert perspective further. And third, viewpoints and comments of participants in a three credithour graduate level online course called Research, Trends, and Issues in Educational Technology enrich the chapter’s discussion of key developments in ICT in the USA from the vital viewpoint of practicing teachers, extending to range of changes affecting their schools and their work within them. In sum, As Lynch (2016) put it aptly, “technology is an experience,” arguing that, for better or for worse, “technology is not just about exciting new gadgets and apps. Each major new development leads to new experiences and unchartered territory.” Aligned with this notion, this chapter is all about sharing ICT experiences in the context of a particular country, the USA, from a particular writer, the author, and from a particular perspective, educator, which should enable new insights among readers.

2

What Is Technology Integration and What Isn’t? A Theoretical and Historical Perspective

A prevailing expectation of contemporary US education is that instruction in the nation’s schools should be enriched through the meaningful integration of technology (U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Technology 2017). A common misconception is that educators know what constitutes technology integration in instruction and what doesn’t qualify. However, in general, although they are often expected to integrate technology, they often lack an effective working definition of the concept (Dias 1999). The following section aims at providing some clarification on that question. Referencing the research literature, the section first presents different perspectives on the issue: (a) what technology integration is not, (b) where technology integration happens, and (c) what successful technology integration is. Discussion later in the section then highlights current trends in the USA to address technology integration. The section ends with discussing issues related to effective technology integration.

2.1

What Is Not Technology Integration?

In general, pertinent literature provides a consistent view regarding what should not be considered technology integration. In an early contribution to an extended scholarly dialogue regarding effective use of instructional technology, Morton

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(1996) suggested that technology integration is more than seeing the computer as a “tool,” arguing from that standpoint, the computer becomes a mere “add-on”– an understanding that he stressed could mislead instructional designers by implying that computer technology was akin to any other classroom tool, such as the blackboard or overhead projector, for example, that may thus similarly require little in the way of training to be properly used. In addition, Morton (1996) maintained that the “computer as tool” model allows curriculum developers to continue creating traditional, lecture-based learning designs, in which “the computer environment remains peripheral, an add-on in space and time” (p. 417). Following Morton’s arguments, another writer from the late 1990s, Dias (1999) added that “taking the students to the computer lab once a week for 40 minutes is not necessarily integration, and neither is using the computer as an electronic worksheet or reward station for students who are finished with their other assignments” (p. 11). Fast forward to the first decade of the new millennium, where schools are becoming more equipped with technological devices like computers, iPads, classroom Chromebook sets, etc., Hertz (2011) concurred with those earlier views, pointing out that technology integration should focus on content learning and on presenting students with an understanding of learned content, not just on their expertise with a tool. Echoing Hertz’s understanding, Blair (2012) pointed out that for the twenty-first century learner, simply being a passive consumer of technology such as watching videos during class, playing drill and practice games, or even taking turns at a SmartBoard is no longer enough to be considered successful technology integration. In other words, Blair argued (2012), just because students are receiving screen time does not necessarily mean that the technology is being integrated properly. In sum, the educational technology community has in large part been clear on the notion that integrating technology is not about technology. Based on even early discourse in the field of instructional technology, a “technocentric” understanding of technology integration – resting as it does on an assumption that the main focus for student learning should be on how to use technology tools – has been rejected as a coherent viewpoint as to effective technology integration.

2.2

Where Does Technology Integration Happen?

In answering the question of where technology integration happens, contrasting perspectives have aligned with the aspect of infrastructural availability. Some would argue that it happens in the classroom, yet those who do not have readily available technology in their classrooms would say that it happens in computer labs elsewhere in their facilities. Others still, particularly those with wireless Internet access, would support the idea that technology integration takes place anytime, anywhere. All these varying answers are justifiable depending on context. However, a common understanding established early in the literature is that “technology integration does not happen in a particular location but [rather] in a specific type of learning environment” (Dias 1999, 11) – in particular, in a learner-centered

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environment in which the instructor acts as a facilitator. Citing Jonassen (1995), Dias (1999) maintained that this type of environment has multiple aspects that make learning meaningful where the environment is “active, constructive, collaborative, intentional, conversational, contextual, and reflective” (11, 12).

2.3

What Is Successful Technology Integration?

Integration by definition means that one thing is combined with another such that a new and a discrete whole result: thus, where technology integration is concerned, technology and teaching combine to produce a new synthesis – technology integrated instruction. Dias (1999) described “seamless” integration as technology that is integrated in a seamless manner in support of curriculum goals and to engage students in the instructional process. Shortly after Dias’s writing, Earle (2002) described technology integration in the following way: Integrating technology is not about technology – it is primarily about content and effective instructional practices. Technology involves the tools with which we deliver content and implement practices in better ways. Its focus must be on curriculum and learning. Integration is defined not by the amount or type of technology used, but by how and why it is used. (p. 7)

Edutopia (2007) expanded on earlier definitions and indicated that effective technology integration happens “when the use of technology is routine and transparent, accessible and readily available for the task at hand,” supports “curricular goals,” and helps the students “effectively reach their goals.” The article further argued that “when technology integration is at its best, a child or teacher doesn’t stop to think that he or she is using a technology tool—it is second nature.” Around this time Mishra and Koehler (2006) introduced a Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, arguing that technology integration is “interplay” among three main components of learning environment: content, pedagogy, and technology. The authors further explained that there is no single technological solution that fits every situation. Effective instruction is achieved when a nuanced understanding is developed between technology, content, and pedagogy, and when the understanding is then used to create context-specific learning strategies. Most practicing teachers would agree with the discussions in the literature presented above regarding effective technology integration. Even though it is a small subset, some of the K-12 teachers who have taken the graduate level Research, Trends, and Issues in Educational Technology course in the fall 2018 expressed their understanding of successful technology integration in the following ways: . . .to have students in engaged and meaningful learning; . . .to accomplish tasks that are not necessarily feasible without [technology integration]; . . .don’t think of it as integration, think of it as genuine learning; . . .routine and transparent, accessible and readily available for the task hand, supporting the curricular goals. . .; . . .to have an understanding of what they teach, how to teach it, and how technology is integrated appropriately; . . .intentional. . .

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In sum, as the US-based International Society for Technology in Education’s (ISTE) latest published Educational Technology Standards for Students (ISTE 2016) emphasized, the primary focus for technology integration is “squarely on learning, not tools.” ISTE further argued that students still need to learn essential technology skills, though not as an end, but rather as a means to an end where students use technology as applicable to enhance their learning.

2.4

Current Trends in the USA to Address Technology Integration

Considering a broad historical context, current trends in the USA that address technology integration in K-12 education can be discussed under three critical junctions: initiatives in preservice teacher preparation programs, professional development in in-service teacher education, and revisions in national educational technology standards for students over the years.

2.4.1 Initiatives in Preservice Teacher Preparation Programs As K-12 schools in the USA acquired more sophisticated computer technologies in early 1990s, the first reaction of preservice teacher preparation institutions was to add a required educational technology course to teacher certification programs in order to address technology integration in the teaching and learning process. Yet while a large and growing proportion of the nation’s postsecondary teacher preparation programs require core course work in educational technology, a federal study in 1999 reported that 80% of the teachers in the USA felt unprepared to effectively use technology in the classroom (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics 1999). Around the same time, another national survey revealed that technology infrastructure in K-12 schools increased more quickly than did the teacher preparation programs in their intended work of fully preparing new teachers – including in their effective use of technologies in their professional practice (Moursung and Bielefeldt 1999). The findings discussed above were a wakeup call for higher education institutions and policy makers across the USA. To build the nation’s capacity with technology proficient educators, the US Department of Education launched a program titled Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3). The PT3 initiative eventually provided about $400 million for 466 grants that were awarded in the years 1999 through 2001 (Rhine and Bailey 2005). The program provided the education community with the opportunity to explore and develop a variety of approaches for addressing technology integration into teacher preparation. An overarching theme among the PT3 projects was that in order to increase the future teachers’ technological proficiency, teacher preparation institutions must improve the level of technology integration in their programs. This would ensure that instructional technology was integrated into the day to day teaching practice rather than being limited to standalone technology courses. Three critical components were identified in this process: required core course work, effective faculty modeling, and technology-enhanced field experiences (Duran 2000; Moursung and

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Bielefeldt 1999). The PT3 projects offered varying responses to this undertaking, such as establishing learning communities, developing faculty support systems, and enhancing field experiences. To date, the PT3 program has been the largest US initiative for preparing future teachers to address effective technology integration in the teaching and learning process (Rhine and Bailey 2005). Among the abundance of ideas recommended by PT3 research, one still seems to pertain regarding American preservice teacher preparation today: a comprehensive program is needed to prepare a technology-proficient teaching force, one which combined core coursework, faculty modeling, and technology-enriched field experiences. Following the PT3 initiative, teacher preparation institutions in the USA, in large part, have focused on implementing the ideas generated during the PT3 program (effective practices) rather than investing in developing new integration methods. For instance, since the PT3 program, there have been no new federal initiatives on this scale addressing the strategies of effective technology integration in teacher certification programs. However, implementation grants, such as the Teacher Quality Partnership Grant Program funded by the US Department of Education, have been made available in order to stimulate simultaneous research in effective implementation practices (U S Department of Education Office of Educational Technology 2016). In addition, particularly since the beginning of the new millennium, considerable momentum that science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines captured drew away the national interest and investment in the USA from the technology integration preoccupation of the earlier 2000s (see Chris Reimann’s ▶ Chap. 42, “The Education System of the United States of America: STEM Education – Progress without a Plan” in this The Education Systems of the Americas (TESA) volume for additional detail on the current state of the STEM movement in the USA).

2.4.2 Professional Development in In-Service Teacher Education As with historical developments in preservice teacher preparation in the USA, in-service teacher education in the realm of technology integration has evolved. Earlier efforts were focused more on learning about technology rather than teaching with the technology (Moursung and Bielefeldt 1999) resulting in lack of essential skills to use technology effectively in the instructional process (Russell et al. 2003; Schrum 1999). Later studies suggested changing this course and focusing instead on helping teachers develop skills and knowledge specific to teaching with technology (Koehler and Mishra 2009; Margerum-Leys and Marx 2004). The structure of professional development offerings in the USA also evolved over the years. It was discovered very early that traditional “sit-and-get training sessions” or “one-time-only workshops” were not sufficient enough for teachers to gain the competence and confidence they needed to integrate technology into their classroom effectively (Rodriguez and Knuth 2000). Instead, deliberate, ongoing professional development initiatives that are linked to the instructional goals, designed with builtin evaluation, and supported with sufficient financial and technical support were found essential for effective professional development in technology use (Duran et al. 2012). How can schools and districts provide an effective professional development for in-service teachers as described above? Even though there is no one single response

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to answer this question, one current trend in the USA suggests the use of technology integration “coaches.” In general, these specified coaches are certificated teachers who are well-versed in using technology effectively in specific content areas such as literacy, mathematics, science, etc. They are assigned to help their peers in using technology effectively for student learning and providing ongoing support for their colleagues and their students (Foltos 2014; Gann 2014; ISTE 2011).

2.4.3

Revisions in National Educational Technology Standards for Students Similar to the developments in preservice and in-service teacher education discussed above, national educational technology standards in the USA have evolved over the years. As a nonprofit organization, International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) serves education community members who are interested in the use of ICT in teaching and learning. The institution has been instrumental in the development of nation-wide standards for students and to provide a framework for the use of technology in teaching and learning. In general, the standards emphasize the knowledge and skills technology proficient students need in order to be successful in a connected, digital world. Targeting student in all K-12 grade levels, the standards are designed for use by teachers across the curriculum in order to spur the integration of these skills throughout a student’s academic experiences. The original standards were developed in 1998, revised for a first time in 2007, and then again revised in 2016. As discussed in the latest version of the standards (ISTE 2016), when the initial standards were developed, the primary focus was on how students should be using technology tools. When the standards were revised in 2007, this underlying assumption had changed, with the emphasis shifting to the importance of cognitive and learning skills and creativity and innovation. However, basic technology skills were still the focal point of one particular standard. With the latest revisions in 2016 underlying assumptions had changed once again. ISTE argues that in the current standards, the focus is squarely on learning, not tools. Aligned with this notion, the current standards list skills and attitudes expected of students, with targeted dispositions that include empowered learner, digital citizen, knowledge constructor, innovative designer, computational thinker, creative communicator, and global collaborator rather than addressing the educational uses of particular technologies.

2.5

Issues Related to Technology Integration

The scholarly literature on technology highlights several issues related to technology integration such as vision, access, time, assessment, and professional development. However, three conceptual issues that still remain unsettled are perhaps the most important ones: “technocentrism,” “pedagogical dogmatism,” and technology integration as a “wicked problem” – all of which reflect the maturation of instructional technology in contemporary instruction in the USA, and each of which receives some elaboration below.

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2.5.1 Technocentrism and Pedagogical Dogmatism Harris (2005) argued that the educational technology discussion demonstrates a basic confusion between technology integration (effective use of ICT for purposes of learning and teaching) and technocentrism (embracing the next new gadget). Harris further suggested that educators must focus on how to best assist student learning instead of seeking educational uses of particular technologies. She asserted that “the distinction is more than semantic, and its import may well point to one of two primary reasons why many – if not most – large-scale technology integration efforts are perceived to have failed” (p. 116). Reflecting on Harris’s arguments a decade later, Cuban (2015) indicated that many practitioners understand that technology integration is about learning. Yet, he pointed out, “those who buy and deploy new technologies–note that most teachers are seldom involved in such decisions– continue to seek ‘educational uses’ for the electronic devices.” Thus, Cuban concluded that, in such cases, technocentrism prevails regarding the ongoing work of technology integration into mainstream US education. Harris (2005) also argued that among academics and many educators, there is a decided tilt toward using technology as a vehicle of educational reform – pedagogical dogmatism. In this view, the author argues, effective technology integration is seen to be only that which reflects this reformed vision of education – technology as “Trojan horse” for educational reform. Harris further contended that educational technology leaders have advocated student-centered, authentic, and project-based applications of instructional technologies more than others. In such cases, she pointed out, roles assigned for teachers and students change dramatically advocating “student-centered” and “teacher-facilitated” approaches. And Harris added that this purpose of technology integration reflects “reformed vision of education.” These reform-driven efforts, Harris (2005) and later Cuban (2015) argued, leads to the judgment that some forms of technology integration are better than others. Cuban (2012) thus argued that those reformers who believe that technology-integrated lessons should put students at the center are promoting what he called “rightminded” use of technology. Teachers who use technology to improve their teacher-centered lessons are “wrong-minded” from the perspective of those championing student-centered learning, Cuban (2012) continued. For Cuban, this “unacknowledged bias” about “good” teaching is “wrong-headed” because there is no one best way of teaching and learning. 2.5.2 Technology Integration as a Wicked Problem American academics and authorities, Koehler and Mishra (2008) have described technology integration as a “wicked problem” highlighting that there is a multitude of contextual issues to consider when we integrate technology into the instructional process. As Borko et al. (2009) maintained, the fast growth of educational technologies, along with the complexity of classroom life, boosts not just the possible “transformative power” of instructional technologies but also the challenges associated with integrating technology in instruction. Koehler and Mishra (2008) argue that when we consider technology integration into the teaching and learning process, it is important to understand that most digital

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technologies are biased including specific affordances and constraints. While some of these are built-in in the technologies, others are introduced by the contexts in which they are used (Borko et al. 2009; Koehler and Mishra 2008). The authors further argued that advanced technologies also present multiple applications that complicate their integration into instruction. Among others, they pointed out, is the issue of “instability” due to the rapid pace at which new technologies are developed and disseminated. This situation challenges educators where the knowledge and skills required to use emerging technologies are “never fixed.” As a result, the authors conclude, the “never-ending process” of learning new technologies in the classroom becomes ambiguous and frustrating. This complexity regarding technology integration defines the very wickedness of the problem. In sum, scholarly work in the field of instructional technology has emphasized that recognition of what technology integration is – as well as what it isn’t – and where it happens all comprises a necessary beginning of the journey down the integration path – but only a beginning. Recognizing the current trends and issues along and understanding complexities that surround the technology integration process are equally important goals. Creating a common vision of what technology integration is and making educators aware of the answer comprise, from the standpoint of scholars in the field of instructional technology community, crucial next steps in the effective use of digital technologies in education. In the context of US experiences over the last 20 years, much has been learned about the fact that a technocentric understanding of technology integration is insufficient and misguided. Educators, educational technology organizations, and policy makers seem to come to the consensus that integrating technology is squarely on learning, not tools. The educational technology community is now also more aware of the contextual issues that surround technology integration. The rapid growth of digital technologies and the complexities of classroom life are better understood. We have grasped that there is no single technological solution that applies to every single situation, and we have concluded that effective teaching requires understanding and the application of appropriate, context-specific strategies (Koehler and Mishra 2008). Thus, we now agree, constructive technology integration in instruction must consider content, pedagogy, and technology not in silos, rather within complex relationships (Chen and McPheeters 2012).

3

Why Is Technology Integration Important? Perceptions and Realities

As part of the Research, Trends, & Issues in Educational Technology course that the author of this chapter regularly teaches, participating students are challenged to write a position paper describing why technology integration is important in their classroom. The following sample statement from a Kindergarten teacher is a prevailing perception among most of her peers:

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Technology integration in the classroom is important to help increase the engagement of students, prepare and give them skills as a 21st century citizen, and to improve learning.

Responding to the same question, the following is a sample answer written by a scholar in the ICT field: Promising examples of research studies examining the effectiveness of particular technology-enhanced instructional strategies do exist, though their numbers are disappointingly small at present. (Harris 2005).

Though both reflections above acknowledge the importance of technology integration in instructional processes, the contrast is striking regarding the perceptions about the impact of technology in education. This leads naturally into the earlier discussion of the wicked problem that varying contextual issues impact the outcome of technology integration and perhaps limiting to provide an overall statement about the impact of technology integration in general. The following section aims at addressing the seemingly easy question of why technology integration is seen as important in the USA in varying educational circumstances and settings. The section first presents the impact of technology integration on (a) differentiated instruction, (b) student engagement and motivation, (c) academic achievement, and (d) twenty-first century skills. The section then highlights current trends and issues related to the impact of technology integration or lack thereof in the US context.

3.1

Impact on Differentiated Instruction

The founder of Khan Academy, Sal Khan, argues that when used correctly, technology can empower teachers to create personalized instruction, space for social and emotional learning, apply technology-based assessment, and reach more students in more places (Khan 2015). Similarly, some other studies (see Windschitl and Sahl 2002; Edutopia 2007) addressed the matter of how technology integration can impact independent learning. These studies highlight the fact that educators focus so much on the planning and implementation of a lesson they often forget to allow students to find themselves and become independent individuals. Technology integration seems to make this task relatively easy to accomplish. Particularly, Edutopia’s article highlights that through technology integration, students discover all sorts of functions of the technology as the learning process unfolds, and become independent learners as they take responsibility for their learning outcomes (2007). But perhaps in no other constellation of applications has this press toward the use of technology as a vehicle for personalization of instruction been clearer than in addressing the unique needs of special needs students. Addressing the use of technology with general education students in middle school level, Dils (1999) highlighted that technology integration helps diversify the learning activities in social studies and history. Examples of the learning activities Dils cited

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include having students use technology to “increase voter turnout, construct presidential trivia websites, and engage in authentic station work” (p. 2). In addition, the author argues that the use of multimedia in the teaching of these subject areas can effectively reach “verbal, kinesthetic, and visual learners” (p. 1). Focusing on English language learners (ELLs), Brozek and Duckworth (2011) have highlighted the impact of technology integration on differentiated instruction, pointing out that ELLs benefit from the technology through using multimedia like pictures, graphics, and video to express themselves in another way as they transition to a second language. Supporting the argument put forward by those authors, Knutson (2018) also stressed the availability of multiple online tools and apps with built-in features that support ELLs, including but not limited to variable reading levels in multiple languages, translated versions of certain activities, and adapted websites such as Simple English Wikipedia. In particular cases, assistive technologies are needed in order to reach full potential of special needs students, and in the context of US education system, assistive technology refers in general to any type of assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices designed for students with disabilities and intended to improve their functional capabilities. The purpose and use of assistive technology changes shifts according to the type of special need the student manifests. Assistive technology devices can also be divided into several categories based on the amount of technology needed to utilize them ranging from no-tech technologies such as wheelchairs for arranging alternative seating arrangements to high-tech assistive technologies like the Dynavox, which allows students more control over their communication with others (Bouck 2017). Regardless of its mode, Bouck has argued, the affordances of assistive technologies are helpful for students with special needs. Agreeing with Bouck, Netherton and Deal (2006) added that using assistive technology can work to equalize the learning potential of students with disabilities.

3.2

Impact on Student Engagement and Motivation

Engaging students in the classroom is a constant struggle for teachers at any level. Referencing Gallup’s 2013 State of America’s Schools report, Wardlow (2016) pointed out that only little over half of the US K-12 students (55%) are engaged in the learning process. The rest are either not engaged (28%) or actively disengaged (17%). The author argued that technology may have a role in increasing student engagement in the US classrooms. Literature provides multiple studies where the impact of technology integration on student motivation was investigated (e.g., Prensky 2005; Lynch 2015). In an earlier study, Prensky (2005) reflected on “what today’s learners demand” (p. 60), indicating that even the most effective traditional teacher in the world will not be able to capture most of their students’ attention the old way. Prensky continues to discuss that those current students challenging us, their educators, to engage them with what they engage with more – technology. Fast forward to 2015, where research finds the benefits of mobile technologies on student motivation. As reported in

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Lynch (2015), two research projects that separately followed upper elementary and upper middle school students in two different studies were found them more motivated to finish lessons where mobile devices are integrated compared to traditional textbooks and workbooks use (see Nagel 2013; Mareco 2014).

3.3

Impact on Academic Achievement

Impact of technology integration on student achievement has been studied from the early years of computer-based instruction in the US schools. Schacter (1999) published a report analyzing five largest studies of educational technology of the time and three other innovative smaller projects. The report highlighted that in general these studies present positive gain in achievement on standardized tests when students have access to computer-assisted instruction. The report also pointed out that some of these studies were inconclusive when the instructional objectives are less clear and the focus of the technology use was “diffuse.” With the advance in technology since 1990s, the improvement in student achievement today could be even greater given the increased availability of technology for students in the US schools along with plethora of mobile technologies, educational games, and various apps. In 2007, reporting from the Center for Applied Research in Educational Technology project, Smith and Throne highlighted that when the application supports instructional objectives, it provides opportunities for student collaboration. The authors further argued that learning technologies impact academic achievement in content areas, promote higher-order thinking, and ready students for the twenty-first century workforce. Around the same time, another study highlighted the benefits of technology integration for student achievement through “multi-user virtual environments” (MUVE). Neulight et al. (2007) reported that, in a science class, MUVE technology was effectively integrated to virtually present naturally occurring infectious diseases. The study discussed that the large scale afforded by the MUVE allowed for a greater application and understanding of the topic than would have been possible in a traditional classroom simulation. The authors concluded that effective technology integration affects student learning. Recounting a longitudinal study conducted in Ohio, Lei and Zhao (2007) reported on the way of technology uses that are effective for increasing student academic achievement. The finding suggested that without ensuring that the integration of technology is done well and is of the highest quality, poorly used technology can actually be damaging to the students. The authors argued that “the quantity of technology use alone is not critical to student learning.” As the authors stated: “. . .when the quality of technology use is not ensured, more time on computers and other devices may cause more harm than benefit” (p. 284). Supporting the argument provided by Lei and Zhao (2007) above, Richtel (2011) provided a case where stagnated test scores were observed despite the Kyrene School District in Tempe, Arizona, having made a large investment in educational technology. In this particular case, since the investment in 2005, scores in reading

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and math have stagnated in the district, even though statewide scores have risen. The study recognized that test scores can go up and down for many reasons but it appears that there was little proof that the investment in technology improves basic learning. The spokesperson for the research group who conducted the study commended on the findings stating that “Rather than being a cure-all or silver bullet. . .Good teachers can make good use of computers, while bad teachers won’t, and they and their students could wind up becoming distracted by the technology.” A recent state-wide study conducted in Florida by Liu et al. (2017) summarized extant literature well concerning the impact of technology integration on academic achievement, noting that there are multiple variables that impact the outcome of technology integration such as the teacher’s experience with technology, access to technology in classrooms, and readily available technical support. As well, the authors concluded that a teacher’s frequent use of technology and his or her confidence and competence using technology were mediators for instructional technology use.

3.4

Impact on Twenty-First Century Skills

In addition to educational applications, technology integration is pursued as a way to help students acquire important “twenty-first century skills,” which became known as the “four Cs”: creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration (National Education Association n.d.). These skills are more frequently highlighted now as the skill sets that separate individuals who are well prepared for the complex personal and professional life environments in the current time, and those who are not. Kuntz (2012) argued that technological literacy is a valuable skill; therefore, students should be equipped with such skill sets. For instance, accessing electronic resources and analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing them are now a critical aspect of work places. Students should have opportunities at school to gain these skills and be prepared for future workforce. Expressing the importance of twenty-first century skills, Mallon and Bernsten (2015) highlighted that collaborative groups who are using technology-enhanced strategies for idea generation and brainstorming seem to experience more participation among the group members, and less “social loafing” where a member would present if he or she would be working alone. Agreeing with the above discussions, Jackson (2013) highlighted that as much as we see technology as a teaching tool, we must also think of it as a resource that allows us complete access to the world. Jackson argued that those teachers who are forwardthinking integrate use of technology to promote teamwork and collaborative activities, preparing their students to engage with others around the globe. However, the author argues, installing such skills are challenging to acquire in a traditional learning environment where students are isolated by desk and the instruction is lecture-oriented. Focusing on digital workforce and workplace of future, Colbert et al. (2016) explored the ways that the increasing presence of technology influences the workforce and work places. The authors argued that future employers expect that K-12 schools and higher education prepare students with digital competencies because that is how the workplaces function now.

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In conclusion of this particular section, Why Technology Integration is Important, for many years, educators and policymakers have been looking for strategies to provide effective learning environments for students, increase their engagement and motivation, close the achievement gap among particular groups, and prepare them for the future workforce. In the context of the US experience, using technology to support these types of educational interventions seems to bring mixed results (Darling-Hammond et al. 2014). If used effectively, technology can be proven to enhance students’ educational learning experiences and open up a whole new world of possibility to students. However, it appears that multiple contextual issues impact the outcome of technology initiatives in education such as access to technology, teacher preparation, confidence and competence, and technical support. The founder of Khan Academy, Sal Khan (2015) said it best: To be clear, people are the most important part of any classroom. If given the choice between a great teacher and the world’s most advanced education technology, I’d pick the teacher any day for my own children. Fortunately, we don’t have to choose between teachers and technology. Technology is best used when it empowers teachers and students to create personalized, accessible, creative learning experiences. We just have to be careful to view it as a means to this end, rather than an end unto itself.

4

Emerging Technologies in Education: New Technologies, Old Challenges

As part of the class discussion about emerging technologies in education, one of the students in the Research, Trends, & Issues in Educational Technology course posted the following commentary: I’ve found myself wondering about the direction in which education is heading. It was encouraging for myself as an educator in that I will teach coding to my 3–5 graders, STEM design challenges for 3–8, and robotics using LEGO-NXT for 6–8 elective, since these are the beginnings of the shifts this [NMC Horizon] report discussed. However, this is specifically my job and not necessarily that of all educators in my building. While I would say it’s a good start, we will have to continually work toward making this more realistic in all classes. As I’ve mentioned before, my school is in the midst of construction of a 21st century school that is set to employ flexible grouping and student-centered learning. While I am glad to see we’re on course with this, it is certainly not going to be easy, particularly with regards to teachers relinquishing their control as the “sage of the stage.” It will require some discomfort and compromise.

The sample passage above summarizes the feeling of many educators concerning emerging technologies in education and highlights multiple discussion points. First, it presents a particular feeling of the unknown along with admiration. Then, it recognizes the curricular changes underway. And finally, it highlights the possible challenges associated with the anticipated shift, particularly in teacher training. The following sections mimic the reflections presented in the above short extract from a

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class discussion – excitement coupled with challenges associated with important developments in emerging technologies. For more than a decade, EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit educational organization based in the USA, has partnered with the New Media Consortium (NMC) to publish the annual Horizon Report K-12 Edition series. The annual reports highlight the important developments in educational technology along with trends and issues on the 5-year horizon for K-12 schools. Extending the sample class discussion presented above and in line with the latest Horizon Report’s structure (Freeman et al. 2017), the following discussion in this section is presented in order to highlight emerging technologies in the US K-12 schools. The section starts by underlining the important developments in educational technology for K-12 settings. Later in the section, emphasis moves to trends and issues regarding emerging technologies that appear likely to have substantial educational impact.

4.1

Important Developments in Emerging Technologies

Freeman et al. (2017) have highlighted multiple developments in educational technology in their NMC/CoSN Horizon Report > 2017 K-12 Edition, contending that these developments will impact technology planning and decisions in the next couple of years and are likely to have direct influence in most US K-12 schools within the coming 5 years.

4.1.1 Makerspaces Makerspaces are workshop environments in which students get opportunities for hands-on learning and creating projects of their own choice and often involving emerging technologies such as 3D printers, laser cutters, and animation software. At makerspaces, students focus on self-directed learning and are encouraged to develop higher-order skills such as problem-solving and creativity. As Fleming and Krakower (2016) articulated, makerspaces are places in which students pursue their own interests, learn to use tools and materials both physical and digital, and develop innovative projects. Freeman et al. (2017) anticipate that school and district technology plans will adopt makerspaces in 1 year or less. Fleming and Krakower (2016) also argue that makerspaces have the potential to provide inclusive learning experiences to students including special needs students and ESL students and at all educational levels. These students come to the classroom with a different perspective and different abilities, and makerspaces comprise outlets that alleviate barriers to entry. This means that students, regardless of their abilities, are able to take charge and participate in these spaces without prior skills or knowledge. Lynch (2017a) noted that an additional benefit of makerspaces, stressing that integrating a makerspace mentality into classrooms forces students to recognize that failure is regularly accompanied by opportunities for improvement and success. The author argues that “schools teach a lot of valuable lessons, but one thing students need to learn (and usually don’t learn in school) is that failure is not something to

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fear. Through failure, some of the best minds in the world have learned a better way to do something.” In the last 10 years, makerspaces have grown exponentially, and, as of 2016, about 1400 makerspaces are active or planned around the world – 14 times more than a decade ago – of which, about 35% are in the USA (Freeman et al. 2017). They added, however, that girls and students of color are not fully represented in the K–12 maker movement compared to their counterparts.

4.1.2 Robotics Robotics, which includes the design, development, and application of automated machines comprises an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and science that promotes progress in STEM subjects and that fosters hands-on learning. Freeman et al. (2017) expect that, like makerspaces, school and district technology plans will adopt robotics in 1 year or less. And indeed, in the USA, schools are introducing robotics to students – often, for example, during after school programs – considering that introducing robotics to students from an early age has value in developing twenty-first century skills that learners can apply to many fields later on. Other benefits include learning problem solving, resilience, patience, team work, and the ability to assess risks (Vukovic 2016). Robotics competitions, which allow students to apply their robotics skills in order to develop solutions to defined tasks, are great examples in this direction, providing students with varying opportunities to explore STEM challenges and apply twenty-first century skills (Conley 2017). Some teachers have also started using robotics applications to promote student engagement and enhance classroom instruction. 4.1.3 Learning Analytics Analytic technologies include multiple tools and applications to discover, interpret, and communicate meaningful patterns in data and use those patterns in decisionmaking. The focus of using data to improve educators’ ability to measure learning is not new to schools and school districts in the USA. A wide variety of technology tools such as student information systems (SIS) or learning management systems (LMS) are currently used to evaluate academic readiness, academic progress, academic achievement, and skills acquisition. Such measurement tools allow administrators and educators to make informed decisions about students and their educational progress. Learning analytics is another way of data collection, analysis, and reporting of data about students and their context. When paired with formative assessment and used effectively, learning analytics can help to better understand student progress toward learning. Freeman et al. (2017) predict that school and district technology plans will adopt learning analytics in 2–3 year time frame. Long and Mott (2017) anticipate that the next generation student information and learning management systems will include real-time learner analytics dashboards for students, teachers, administrators, and parents allowing alternative pathways for immediate feedback, individualized learning programs, and automated guidance; thus, improving the teaching and learning process. Khan Academy is a good example of the use of learning analytics in instructional settings, with Walsh

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(2012) noting that, as students use the tutorial videos offered through the site and as data is collected and made available for students and teachers via graphic reports and other interactive visual tools, users are compelled to review their learning progress and make necessary adjustments in improving their understandings. Learning analytics technologies, as they are developed and improved, support teachers in their instructional decision-making and enable them to consider how they might in turn better support learners.

4.1.4 Virtual Reality (VR) Virtual reality, a computer-generated experience that occurs in a digitally simulated environment incorporating auditory and visual feedback, has been used in medical and military fields for several years. Schools in the USA are also increasingly interested in pursuing virtual reality for educational purposes. Freeman et al. (2017) anticipate that similar to the learning analytics, school and district technology plans will adopt virtual reality in 2–3 year time frame. Stone (2016) has argued that the main feature of virtual reality experience is that we can be somewhere without “being there” or “handle objects without touching them,” emphasizing that some of the applications of virtual reality in instruction could include visiting locations that are not easy to reach (geography and culture); observing abstract concepts such as how hurricanes are formed or blood moves through veins (science); and listening to concerts or viewing art pieces in context (the arts). Concurring with Stone’s arguments, Reynalds (2017) has noted that virtual reality technologies not only provide individual experiences but also allows group simultaneous experiences – for instance, enabling students to access the same virtual reality experiences from different locations, thus allowing interaction and collaboration on projects and activities through shared learning environments that are not otherwise feasible. Given these possibilities, some anticipate that virtual reality applications will be a “game changer,” and promising study results are emerging from recent research. For instance, Merchant et al. (2014) conducted a meta-analysis synthesizing results as to the overall effectiveness and impact of VR technology-based instruction and concluded that such instructional strategies were effective in improving learning outcomes in K-12 education. 4.1.5 Artificial Intelligence (AI) A current focus in the field of computer science deals with the development of machine “intelligence” that approaches certain mental capacities of humans – thus dubbed artificial intelligence. Examples include speech recognition, learning, planning, and problem solving. With AI currently used in multiple industries such as health care and financial services, and with virtual assistants such Apple Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google Home are already entered in our daily life. Freeman et al. (2017) predict that US school and district technology plans will adopt artificial intelligence in 4–5 years’ time frame. While full implications for students’ social development, intellectual, and emotional developments are still in investigation, some of the promising examples of AI use in education include virtual assistance facilitating classroom discussions (Luckin et al. 2016), assessing

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learning process (Roepke 2017), and handling some administrative tasks such as grading (Lynch 2017b). Schaffhauser (2018) warned, though, that AI will impact human effectiveness but that it comes with issues such as personal “autonomy, agency and capabilities.” He further argued that some others are not fully convinced of the efficacy of AI in education, contending that that most AI use in education by the year 2030 “will be of middling quality.”

4.1.6 The Internet of Things (IoT) IoT is a system of interconnected digital devices with unique identifiers and ability to transfer data without human interference. A growing number IoT applications are now present through products alike smart watches, smart cars, and smart homes. Ravipati (2017) reported that in the next 2–3 years, IoT technologies are expected to include more than half of the connected device sphere, and Freeman et al. (2017) have added that school and district technology plans are likely adopt IoT technologies widely within 4–5-years. Experts in the learning technologies field predict that schools will adopt IoT technologies initially to change some of their traditional practices. For instance, Leigh Brown (2017) reported that “smart schools” are using IoT to track school buses, conduct automatic attendance, and check student ID cards, among other applications. The author quotes one of the leading experts in the field and writes that “the big potential for IoT is making the physical digital.” But eventually, Leigh Brown stresses IoT applications are expected to involve advanced instructional features such as monitoring student interaction and engagement. Yet, she notes, that in the absence of leeway for exceptions built in to policies regarding the use of this type of change, security and personal privacy issues will arise as the potential IoT applications get adopted in schools.

4.2

Current Trends Affecting Decision-Making in Emerging Technologies

Freeman et al. (2017) point out multiple “movement-related” trends that have been affecting decision-making in technology planning and will likely continue to be important in the coming years, classifying these trends as “short-term,” “mid-term,” and “long-term.” The following section summarizes these each.

4.2.1 Short-Term Trends Freeman et al. (2017) argue that “coding as literacy” and the “rise of STEAM learning” (p. 11) are two main short-term trends that will impact emerging technology integration in K–12 education for the next 1–2 years. The following section provides some discussions about these anticipated short-term trends. Freeman et al. (2017) summarized a belief common among many educators in the USA that coding helps students understand how digital technologies work, improves their computational thinking skills, and prepares them for the digital workplace. Multiple studies also report that computer science is a driving force for growth and

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innovation in the US economy (Bienkowski and Snow 2013; code.org n.d.). As highlighted in the aforementioned reports, computing jobs are the number one source of all new income in America and make up over 50% of all projected new jobs in STEM fields, making CS one of the most needed college degrees. To address the need implicated, an increasing number of educational leaders and policy makers are supporting the integration of coding into K–12 curricula, emphasizing the need to prepare students from early ages. In the last decade, the K-12 schools in the USA have been showing a growing emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning. STEM fields are widely considered as vehicles to boost innovation and strengthen the nation’s economy. Freeman et al. (2017) point out that in recent years educators are presenting a strong voice to integrate the arts, design, and humanities into STEM curricula as an essential component to build critical and creative skills. This argument is increasingly well-received by educational decision-makers and promoted the STEAM learning movement, where the A stands for “art+.” Advocates of the STEAM approach to learning argue that “STEAM takes STEM to the next level” (Riley 2018) allowing students to connect their STEM learning areas together with design thinking and creativity, which are essential ingredients for innovation (Gunn 2017).

4.2.2 Mid-Term Trends Freeman et al. (2017) have claimed that “growing focus on measuring learning” and “redesigning learning spaces” are two main mid-term trends that will impact emerging technology integration in K–12 education for the next 3–5 years (p. 10, 11), pointing out that emerging technologies are introducing positive changes in the classroom. For example, the authors argue that learning analytics has been a breakthrough in measuring student learning in K-12 education. Jo Madda (2016) has noted that assessment tools like PearDuck, EdPuzzle, and Think Through Math that are now used to capture how students are learning in real time. Another example of this trend involves ways in which educators can better detect and track soft skill development such as creativity and collaboration. Emerging technologies are forcing educators to rethink where learning happens. While traditional learning environments mainly include physical spaces such as schools and classrooms where knowledge transfer happens mostly through teacher-student interaction, Freeman et al. (2017) have argued that as curricular content becomes more “dynamic,” “flexible,” and “accessible” to a large number of students, educators are revisiting basic assumptions about how that content should be delivered and what kind of changes need to be made in the design of learning spaces. Makerspaces and online learning environments are prominent examples in this direction. 4.2.3 Long-Term Trends Two main long-term trends that will impact emerging technology integration in K–12 education for the next 5 or more years according to Freeman et al. (2017) include the “advancing culture of innovation” and what they call “deeper learning

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approaches” (10). Schools are exploring a paradigm shift in which students learn critical skill sets to become creative and innovative. In other words, schools are focusing on facilitating activities such project-based learning, collaboration, creativity, and entrepreneurship where the next Steve Jobs is expected to emerge: “[E] very big idea has to start somewhere” as Freeman et al. have maintained (2017, 12). Focusing on school culture – their creation of what might be called a climate of innovation – is a key component of this long-term trend. Along with these discussions related to the advancement of a culture of innovation, growing interest in deeper learning approaches for K-12 education, in which students engage in “critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and selfdirected learning” (Freeman et al. 2017, 10) is apparent in the US equipping students with these types of higher-order thinking skills requires a shift from passive learning strategies to active learning methods such as “problem-based learning, project-based learning, inquiry-based learning, and challenge-based learning” (p. 10), according to Freeman et al. (2017) in which learning technologies support problem solving and developing solutions.

4.3

Issues Related to Emerging Technologies

Multiple challenges will be very likely to impede the adoption of emerging technologies-issues that Freeman et al. (2017) classify as “solvable” issues, “difficult” issues, and “wicked” issues. The following section describes these issues, as defined by the authors. For Freeman et al. (2017), solvable issues include how to solve such as “authentic learning experiences” and “improving digital literacy” (p. 3). The authors argue that preparing students for real-work environments requires that pupils receive authentic learning experiences throughout their school years. Although these types of learning opportunities are scattered in K-12 schools, educators are trying to bridge the gap between theory and practical applications, establishing partnerships with local organizations and industries through internships, co-ops, and community-based projects. Similarly, digital literacy is another challenge that schools face due to the ever-growing technology environment around students (Freeman et al. 2017). Yet, there is still major work to do with regards to teaching students about their digital rights and responsibilities as they engage in more and more blended and online learning. In some cases, school leaders are also challenged to obtain institution-wide buy-ins and to support all stakeholders in developing digital competencies. Freeman et al. (2017) include “rethinking the roles of teachers” and “teaching computational thinking” (p. 24, 25) in the area of difficult issues-problems that are relatively easy to recognize and understand as such but for which solutions are ambiguous. The authors describe that teachers are increasingly expected to use learning technology in their daily practice and adopt their role as they progress into new roles and responsibilities. It appears that teachers’ transition to their new roles is more progressive where supportive and collaborative professional learning circles are established (Freeman et al. 2017). For others, this is still a challenging

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task. In addition, preservice teacher preparation programs vary in their responses to prepare future teachers who are equipped with the new roles that are expected of them. Freeman et al. (2017) argue that along with adopting new roles, teachers are also challenged with new curriculum areas such as teaching computational thinking. The authors highlights that as we still try to define computational thinking and prepare relevant curricular activities, both preservice and in-service teacher educations are struggling with receiving adequate training. Yet policymakers are increasingly supporting initiatives to integrate computational thinking in K-12 education due to anticipated future workforce in the computer science area. In the final category of issues related to emerging technologies, wicked challenges, Freeman et al. (2017) include “the achievement gap” and “sustaining innovation through leadership changes” (p. 25). The authors argue that these challenges are complex and not easy to address. The achievement gap in academic performance between student groups with varying socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, or gender is still existent in the USA. Freeman et al. (2017) further argued that even though policy makers are implementing initiatives to address disparities among these groups contributing factors such as geographic inequities, disparate access to educational opportunities, and tax-based funding structure for schools are still a challenge to close the gap. Implementing emerging technology-enhanced strategies as these disparities in existence would be difficult for some and perhaps would be another factor to widen the gap. According to Freeman et al. (2017), as it is the case for the achievement gap, frequent leadership vacancies and transitions in educational institutions present another wicked challenge for emerging technology implementations. The authors argue that effective implementation of innovative technologies required investment in multiple areas including personnel. Turnover in the leadership of educational institutions can results in project delays and hinders important initiatives. In other words, in most cases, sustaining innovation through leadership changes becomes challenging. In conclusion to this particular section, Emerging Technologies in Education, one would argue that while many of the emerging technologies like those listed above were not initially developed for educational purposes, they have clear applications in K-12 settings. For instance, artificial intelligence, adaptive learning, and virtual, augmented, and mixed reality have the potential to profoundly impact teaching and learning and student engagement in beneficial ways. The benefit of continuously stimulating young minds to achieve educational outcomes is undeniable and emerging technology can act as a conduit to maintain the interest and excitement of students. Yet bringing technology into schools is only step one – using them effectively requires far more than the act of purchasing the equipment. Without proper curricular changes and professional development, many educators would not understand the potential or the challenge that emerging technologies offers. Elliot Soloway, a prominent US expert in the field, argued that technology has benefited multiple

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industries like retail and entertainment because these areas redesigned themselves to benefit from technology. . . but integrating technology into an existing curriculum will not bring similar results (Tynan-Wood 2016). As we adopt emerging technologies, we should be thoughtful and deliberate in our technology integration to avoid previous mistakes that we have seen in the past – particularly that of technocentrism and pedagogical dogmatism.

5

Funding for Technology and “Digital Divide”: A Vicious Cycle

Public school funding in the USA comes from federal, state, and local sources. In their operational budgets, fiscal managers consider all of these funding sources for technology initiatives. In a majority of states, about 50% of the funding for public schools in the USA comes from local taxes, with local taxation prominent in the others. This creates disparity between wealthy and impoverished communities (Biddle and Berliner 2002). One would argue that inequities in funding for education in the USA is the main factor attributing to the “digital divide” among varying states, school districts, and schools. This section first briefly describes USA school funding with specific emphasis on technology. The section later provides discussion on the issue digital divide. The section then ends by identifying issues related to funding for technology and in light of the so-called digital divide introduced early in the chapter.

5.1

Funding for Technology

At the federal level, varying leadership has committed significant resources extending US students’ access to high-quality technology and Internet. For instance, in 1996, US President Bill Clinton advocated for the placement of high-quality computers in and the provision of Internet access for every K-12 institution in the United States by the year 2000, and his budget included $2 billion over 5 years for the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund to help states implement the envisioned technology upgrades and Internet connections. (US Department of Education 1997). Similarly, fast forward, in 2013, President Barack Obama announced the ConnectED initiative, aimed to help with digital learning in schools. The initiative targeted broadband connection across the country and empowering teachers with best technology and training available (US Department of Education Office of Educational Technology 2013). More recently, federal funding for technology is addressed in the National Education Technology Plan (US Department of Education Office of Educational Technology 2017). In general, the plan highlights that federal funds made available to states and school districts under certain initiatives and laws (e.g., Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) may be used for digital teaching and learning. Various federal agencies also regularly support educational technology initiatives through grants and contracts. Eligible schools and organizations can apply for and

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might receive federal grants for specific funding opportunities including but not limited to ICT. In the USA, a federal site, www.grants.gov, provides a hub for grant funding opportunities. State and local grant opportunities are often issued by states’ legislative offices and local school jurisdictions. Funding for technology at the state-level reflects degrees of commitment that vary, and sometimes markedly, of course. Some states, such as Maine, Delaware, and Idaho have made substantial state-level commitments and provided numerous devices and connectivity boosts directly. Other states, such as Oklahoma and Indiana, have required particular levels of digital access, such as for assessment, relying primarily on local districts to determine strategies to reach identified goals (US Department of Education Office of Educational Technology n.d.). In the context of the US education system, generally local funds are the most flexible with regard to technology funding, under which allowable uses can often include supply and equipment allocations in the area of technology resources. Varying forms of local funding are used for educational technology. Proposals for increased local technology-related spending in schools are sometimes placed on ballots are contingent on voter approval. In addition to federal, state, and local sources, often corporate donors like Gates Foundation (Bill and Melinda), Cisco Systems Inc., and Microsoft Corporation are willing to fund technology projects whose impact they can be directly observed. In addition, micro-funding through school- and classroom-specific grants comprise another funding source. Such crowdfunding organizations like GoFundMe, Donors Choose, Class Wish, and Adopt-a-Classroom facilitate individual donations that are utilized by teachers in order to get classroom materials including but not limited to technology tools (EdSurge n.d.).

5.2

Digital Divide

As early as 1992, a “growing gap between the underprivileged members of society, especially the poor, rural, elderly, and handicapped portion of the population who do not have access to computers or the Internet; and the wealthy, middle-class, and young Americans living in urban and suburban areas who have access” (Stanford University 1992) has received persistent attention among scholars, educators, policy makers, and other observers. As technology changed and evolved over the years and became a significant part of how we live, work, and study, others highlighted that the digital divide is deeper than the simple access issue; it is a social issue referring to the differences in resources and capabilities to access and effectively utilize information and communication technologies. Nielsen (2006), for instance, discussed “the three stages” of the digital divide: “economic divide,” “usability divide,” and “empowerment divide.” Nielsen has argued that the digital divide is currently most clearly reflected in the “fact that certain parts of the population have substantially better opportunities to benefit from the new economy than other parts of the population.” Nielsen (2006) argued that, while the economic divide may be shrinking in many instances,

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continuing usability and empowerment divides still alienate a large group of the population who miss out on the educational potential that digital tools provide.

5.2.1 Economic Divide Nielsen (2006) argued that in “its simplest form, the digital divide presents itself in the way that some people can’t afford to buy a computer or Internet connection.” However, the cost of technology purchases is becoming a less pronounced issue and the cost of computers and Internet connection becoming affordable to most in the USA. Yet according to a 2013 study by the Pew Research Center, over five million families in the USA with school-aged children do not have access to high-speed Internet services. This means that 31.4% of all families with an annual income under $50,000 lack a high-speed connection at home (Horrigan 2015). The study also shows that as annual income increases, the percentage with high-speed Internet at home greatly increases. Another aspect of this general disparity pertains to race and ethnicity, as African American and Hispanic households, having higher proportions of children living within lower-income ranges have less access to high speed Internet by about 10% points compared to white households with children within the same income range. Asian Americans with children, by contrast, exceed the other groups in household broadband access, regardless of income level (Horrigan 2015). According to an Obama-era Issue Brief from the Council of Economic Advisors (2015), data show that the lowest rates of Internet adoption occur in areas that are either located in the South, in rural areas, or in inner-city circumstances – areas that, not coincidentally, are statistically more likely to be affected by poverty, thus areas in which ability to acquire technology is diminished. In contrast, the western and northeastern United States possess the highest rates of Internet access given their status as statistically more affluent regions, according to the Brief. Clearly, then, it appears that there is a positive correlation between household income and Internet usage and access, highlighting the first type of issue faced within the digital divide discussed here: the economic divide. Lower-income households quite simply do not tend to have the expendable income that exists in more affluent households for the purchase of technology. In the USA, the average household income was $59,039 in 2016 (US Census Bureau 2017). Even though as lower-income Americans have made gains in technology adoption in recent years, income still remains the most comprehensible rationale for not being able to afford digital technology or having Internet access at home. Anderson (2017) compared households with different incomes and their technology usage and highlights that about 30% adults with family incomes below $30,000 a year do not own a smartphone. Nearly half do not have high-speed Internet access at home or a desktop computer. And a majority of lower-income Americans do not own tablets. However, many of these technologies are present for families whose yearly earning meet or exceeds the $100,000 threshold. 5.2.2 Usability Divide Nielsen (2006) argued that a second aspect of the digital divide is a usability divide, asserting that this problem is more critical than the economic divide because

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complicated technologies prevent easy use even if individuals can afford access. Many simply cannot achieve the digital world’s full benefits in light of this issue. Nielsen (2006) stressed that “lower literacy is the web’s biggest accessibility problem,” arguing that most websites including even government sites do not follow the guidelines to properly serve low-literacy users (about 40% of the population). Understanding the text written on most websites requires a university-level comprehension. Nielsen further highlights that senior citizens face the second-biggest accessibility problem; websites are not made amenable for older users as they are, in contrast, for younger generations.

5.2.3 Empowerment Divide According to Nielsen (2006), while there are clear ways in order to solve the first two stages of the digital divide, stage three, a so-called empowerment divide provides the largest challenge, since empowerment goes beyond just using and feeling comfortable with technology, encompassing in addition the use of each piece of technology to its fullest potential. Nielsen maintained that “participation inequality is one exponent of the empowerment divide that has held constant throughout all the years of Internet growth: in social networks and community systems, about 90% of users don’t contribute, 9% contribute sporadically, and a tiny minority of 1% accounts for most contributions.” Nielsen also noted that many people do not understand how to use search engines effectively. Therefore, that author asserted, many users do not understand the difference between the “information” they obtain from the web and the underlying “knowledge” the web enables – a processed from of available information.

5.3

Prospects for Bridge Building

As discussed in an Issue Brief from the Council of Economic Advisors (2015), “closing the gap-between those who experience these social and economic benefits from Internet use, and those who do not-will require further efforts to reduce barriers in affordability, relevance, and computer literacy” (p. 9). Upgrading connectivity infrastructure, training teachers, and building on private-sector innovation are other prospects to address digital divide. Vega (2011) stated that “without access to digital technology, one in five children are far less likely to develop the digital literacy skills necessary for surviving in the modern economy, and for participating in a globallynetworked information society.” Educators and policy makers confront a stubbornly persistent need to close this divide across the country. Funding for technology in schools, increasing connectivity for students both at school and home, and augmenting attention to digital literacy for students in the classroom comprise major vehicles for addressing this continuing need. US Department of Education Office of Educational Technology (n.d.) recommends that “to provide the best access to students and educators, leading states and districts must think comprehensively about all funding and support.” In addition to federal, state, and local funding, other opportunities, according to the same

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reference, include but are not limited to grants, public-private partnerships, device refurbishment, and “bring your own device” methods. Teachers, schools, and districts are also encouraged to make use of their potential connections within the community and parental organizations. In summarizing contemporary perspective on and attention to the digital divide, funding for technology lies at the heart of most avenues for solving the problems the divide presents. Inequity in funding for education in the USA is considered the main factor attributing to the “digital divide” among states, school districts, and individual schools. If not addressed, the digital divide interrupts the educational quality that at-risk students receive, putting them at an even more disadvantage, where the vicious cycle continues. Still, the digital divide manifests itself in several forms – the easy to solve economic divide, the more complicated usability divide, and the puzzling empowerment divide. While overcoming these divides will not happen overnight, actions can be taken to provide technological access to everyone who needs it. Focusing on members of society with lower levels of education, living in a low-income households, or even those affected by demographic difference, together create capacity that can make change possible.

6

Conclusion: Never Ending Dilemma

Reflections posted in a Research, Trends, and Issues in Educational Technology course discussion by a high-school science teacher during the fall 2018 semester capture key arguments presented in this chapter: Looking back twenty years at where we’ve been, and seeing how my students (constant creators and consumers of content) teach me to navigate my learning management systems, use social media in educational ways- looking forward to how technology will continue to integrate into education is exciting! The line “The future lines of development are literally inconceivable” (Burbules and Callister 2000, 5) really stands out. There have been, and continue to be, so many incredible innovations (VR, AI, Google Glass, etc.) that it’s hard to cast a vision to the future. My hope is that we are thoughtful and deliberate in our tech [nology] integration to avoid some previous mistakes that we’ve seen in the technology integration of the past 20 years as we reinvent the classroom for our future learners.

The comment above presents, first, a particular recognition that student and teacher roles have changed in the past 20 years and perhaps will continue to change. Second, it highlights a recognition and excitement about continuing integration of emerging technologies in education. Third and finally, it cautions us not to repeat the same mistakes we made in the past. Defining technology integration properly is a crucial first step towards using ICT effectively in education. In this direction, recognizing the evolution of the ISTE Standards for Students (ISTE 2016) over the years provides a valuable perspective: 1998 emphasizing “learning to use technology”; 2007 highlighting “using technology to learn,” and 2016 with its thrust toward “transformative learning with technology.” The changes reflected in this arc indicate that in the context of US

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experiences, a primary focus for technology integration is remained mainly upon learning, not tools. Equally important is recognition of the complexities of the technology integration process. As Mishra and Koehler (2006) described it, effective ICT integration requires interplay between and among content, pedagogy, and technology. Creating effective learning environment for students is the main purpose of any educational institution. In this direction, numerous strategies have been initiated and tested. Using technology to support these types of educational interventions in the USA seems to have brought a mixed set of results (Darling-Hammond et al. 2014). There is evidence that if used effectively, learning technologies can enhance students’ educational learning experiences. However, the literature also supports the conclusion that multiple contextual issues continue to impact the outcome of technology initiatives in the US education such as access to technology, teacher preparation, technical support, or lack thereof. As Lynch (2016) pointed out, “technology is an experience. . .each major new development leads to new experiences and unchartered territory.” There are clear indications that emerging technologies will continue to impact the field of education both within K-12 and post-secondary levels (Freeman et al. 2017). Among them, learning analytics, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality have the potential to enhance teaching and learning process. Yet bringing emerging technologies into schools is only the initial step. Using them effectively will require structural changes, those of which include curriculum adaptation and teacher professional development. Otherwise, many educators would fail to understand the potential or the challenge emerging technologies offer. In other words, while we embrace emerging technologies, we should simultaneously try to avoid those technocentric understandings that we have observed in the past. Educators would prefer seeing research-based evidences that clearly demonstrate the impact of learning technologies in the classroom. Yet in the context of the US experience, there seems to be an urgency to push technology into the classroom without validating its value. The following paragraph captures what might be dubbed “the never-ending dilemma of ICT in education”: In 1997, a science and technology committee assembled by President Clinton issued an urgent call about the need to equip schools with technology. If such spending was not increased by billions of dollars, American competitiveness could suffer. . .While acknowledging that the research on technology’s impact was inadequate, the committee urged schools to adopt it anyhow. The report’s final sentence read: “The panel does not, however, recommend that the deployment of technology within America’s schools be deferred pending the completion of such research. (Richtel 2011)

Along with the positive aspect of ICT integration in education, major issues come to the schools. As we have seen among others, multiple aspects make the digital divide a continuing major concern for many educators and policy makers, with funding disparity among the US public schools a major contributor to the economic, usability, and empowerment divides now so evident in the arena of ICT for the US education. In general, pertinent literature highlights that the digital divide is

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impacting the quality of educational experiences that at-risk students need most and is putting them at an even greater disadvantage. It is a long-term process, but if necessary, actions are taken to bridge the divide, legitimate change is possible. Special attention shall be given to students who are living in low-income, low-education households, and those affected by demographic differences. In sum, two major concepts must be highlighted regarding the impact of ICT in teaching and learning: first, that technology integration by itself does not guarantee effective instruction, and second, that there is no replacement for good teaching. Educators must focus on how best to assist students’ learning rather than seeking instructional uses for particular technologies. Integrating technology is, critically, not about technology – it is about learning.

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The Education System of the United States of America: STEM Education – Progress without a Plan

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 STEM in the Context of the US Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 STEM Instruction by Grade Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Science and Mathematics at the Primary Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Technology and Engineering at the Primary Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 STEM Education at the Secondary Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Science in Alpha Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Mathematics at the Secondary Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Technology at the Secondary Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 STEM Education at the Tertiary Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Recent Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 The Role of the Internet in the Diffusion of Curricular Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 The Proliferation of Alternative Teacher Preparation Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 The Growing Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Synergistic Effects Even within Competing Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 The Future of US STEM Education Is Spelled N-G-O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Given the highly decentralized nature of education in the United States, it is not surprising that STEM education in the United States has no uniformly embraced set of goals for STEM education nor strategies to attain them. A long history of local control over schools, including curriculum and instruction, means that most decisions concerning education are made by elected, volunteer members of the community who serve on more than ten thousand school boards across the country. When everyone is in charge, no one is in charge. This decentralization results in a disjointed policy and instructional environment with which efforts to C. Reimann (*) CREATE for STEM Institute, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_24

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improve STEM education must contend, including more recently a fixation on reading and mathematics at the elementary level, and more generally a legitimate questioning of the focus on STEM at the cost of other subjects that contribute to well-rounded students. Extensive opportunities for students to learn about STEM exist throughout the system, although these opportunities are not evenly distributed. For all of its limitations, decentralization may actually allow progress in STEM education to take place, in that it provides opportunities for new voices to be heard, new coalitions to form, and new approaches to be introduced and gain traction. Keywords

The Education System of the United States: STEM Education in the United States – Progress without a Plan: STEM Education, Science Education · Mathematics Teaching · Teacher Preparation · USA

1

Introduction

Around the world, STEM education, that is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), has become an important issue for educators and policymakers alike (Holmlund et al. 2018). In spite of this global focus, this chapter argues that STEM education in the United States can best be understood as a steady change amid seemingly bewildering incoherence – in short, progress without a plan. Novelist William Gibson once told an interviewer that “the future is already here – it’s just unevenly distributed.” The same can be said for STEM education in the United States of America, circa 2020 – the future of the teaching and learning of STEM is already here. In this sense, STEM education in the United States is making progress. At the same time, that progress is unevenly distributed throughout the system, suggesting that there is no plan for bringing that future to the nation as a whole. This chapter begins with a brief outline of the context in which STEM education exists in the country, to explain the apparent lack of effective planning at the national level. It then provides a general description of STEM education at the three major education levels – primary, secondary, and tertiary. The chapter concludes with a description of recent developments in STEM education in the United States that hold the promise of significant advances in the coming years – if these developments catch hold sufficiently. First, an acknowledgement: STEM, when referring to the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, is an invented and relatively recent term. As recently as 2004, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) was funding a teacher enhancement initiative “to broaden and deepen the content and pedagogical knowledge of teachers of science, mathematics, and technology (SMT)” (National Science Foundation 2004). Some trace the rise of the term “STEM” – in the United States at least – to 2005, when two members of the US Congress established a “Science Technology Engineering and Math, or STEM, caucus” (Heitin 2015).

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As a term, STEM refers less to specific domains of knowledge (Ogan-Bekiroglu and Caner 2018) than it does to a particular sector of the economy (Davies 2014). Mathematics is arguably a single discipline; engineering is less so (think civil engineering versus biomedical engineering), and science is a generic term that encompasses biology, chemistry, physics, geology, and many other fields of study that are considered disciplines in their own right. Is technology a field of study, or an application of science or engineering? Is technology a specific science, such as physics, or a cognate of it? Is science a body of knowledge, or an approach to making sense of the natural world? On the other hand, STEM is seemingly well understood shorthand both in the United States and internationally when referring to workforce shortages, teacher shortages, or economic trends (Goldhaber et al. 2015). Desire for strong growth in the STEM sectors of the economy, and a concern about a lack of qualified workers to drive that growth (Noonan 2017), are nearly ubiquitous in the frequent calls for stronger STEM education. Even so, some scholars argue that this “poorly defined acronym” makes for poor education and workforce development policy decisions (Oleson et al. 2014). The term STEM has captured the attention of educators and educational policymakers to the extent that there is even a growing effort on the part of teachers of the humanities to expand STEM to STEAM by including the arts as an equally important component of the student experience and even integral to a deep grounding in STEM.

1.1

STEM in the Context of the US Education System

Any discussion of STEM education in the United States needs to account for the larger context of education in the United States generally. As laid out by Fossum (▶ Chap. 39, “The Education System of the United States of America: Overview and Foundations,” in this Volume), education in the United Statesss is radically decentralized. This decentralization results in dramatic variation in the inputs, processes, and outcomes of schooling across the country. For example, operational funding for schools, measured as the per pupil amount spent on instruction, is decentralized and so varies dramatically from state to state, and even within a state at the local level. As a result, the students in some schools have access to up-to-date curricula and textbooks, and their teachers are well prepared to provide them with high-quality STEM teaching. Students in other schools have fewer resources and are taught by teachers who are less well prepared. The same is true of capital expenditures in education: the very buildings in which instruction takes place can be either dilapidated or palatial, either overcrowded or spacious. Jonathan Kozol (1991) examined this disparity and its consequences nearly 30 years ago in his expose, Savage Inequalities. Little has changed since then in how school facilities in the United States are funded. This variation among states and districts in educational inputs extends to its outputs as well – the methods and instruments used to measure status and progress, as well as the progress itself. As a result, a common, coherent dataset containing information about many of the key characteristics of interest to policy-makers – or readers of this volume – does not exist at the national level in the United States.

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In fact, relatively little common data is collected at the national level, and much of that is self-reported data about the most basic conditions within the system. For instance, the US Department of Education (USDOE) National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) periodically surveys teachers and school principals about their backgrounds and teaching conditions. These Schools and Staffing Surveys (SASS) were conducted seven times from 1987 to 2011 (USDOE n.d.-a). A redesigned version of the SASS, the National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), has been conducted once, in 2015–2016. Similarly, the only national assessment of student achievement is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a periodic sampling of student responses to questions in mathematics, reading, science, and social studies. Student achievement in science has only been sampled four times since 2000 (USDOE n.d.-b). No longitudinal student-level achievement data is collected at the national level. This apparent lack of coherence is intentional, and a defining characteristic of the national culture, a deep-seated and long-standing mistrust of organizations generally and of government in particular. US President Ronald Reagan once told an audience that “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’” (reaganfoundation.org n.d.). US culture is often romanticized as a spirit of independence and self-reliance – its many social safety nets notwithstanding – in opposition to collective effort directed by and for others outside the family or local community. This fierce independence makes aggregating or retrieving information about STEM education at the national level very difficult. It also makes large-scale, national commitment to a common goal, such as a lunar landing, a rare exception in US policy or culture. Thus, generalizations about the state of STEM education in the United States have large margins of error and many exceptions. At the same time, one could argue that the commonalities in the nation’s approach to schooling make generalization all too easy. For the most part, students attend the grade levels of the appropriate public schools closest to their homes. They are taught in whole group settings by teachers, most of whom have been prepared by stateapproved teacher training programs and who have passed a state licensing test of basic skills and content knowledge. These public schools are governed by volunteer boards of citizens elected by the local community. Historically, K-12 schools were funded locally, primarily through property taxes, although increasingly the funding for school operations is being collected and distributed by state governments. As noted in Fossum’s ▶ Chap. 39, “The Education System of the United States of America: Overview and Foundations,” in this volume, federal support for education is relatively modest – about 8% of total spending (USDOE n.d.-c) – and, again, is variably distributed. In the context of this highly decentralized education system, the federal government has established neither national education standards nor a national curriculum in science, mathematics, or any other individual subject area, let alone across STEM subjects. In fact, the US Congress currently prohibits the federal Department of Education from encouraging states or local districts to adopt multistate – let alone national – standards (ESSA 2015). On the other hand, market forces have a strong homogenizing effect on schools and their operations, particularly on classroom

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curricular resources. Capitalism plays an important role in the quality and variation in US education generally and STEM education in particular. In this decentralized system, states and local school boards make their own decisions about which instructional materials to purchase for use in classrooms. In fact, only 15 states have approved lists of textbooks from which local districts must choose. The Association of American Publishers refers to the other 35 states as “open territory, meaning they allow local agencies or individual schools to adopt materials” (Association of American Publishers 2019). Textbook publishing is a lucrative if precarious business in the United States. It is lucrative in the sense that it is a huge, largely unregulated market for expensive products with reliable expiration dates. There are over 50 million students in public schools in the United States (USDOE n.d.-d), and almost all of them will use several textbooks during the school year. Some states with large student enrollments, such as California and Texas, restrict textbook adoption to a list of state-approved texts (California Department of Education n.d.; Texas Educational Agency n.d.). As a result, publishers focus on developing materials most likely to be approved in these states where sales might be greatest. As a result, the wants or needs of less populous states are of secondary importance. These market forces have the effect of homogenizing instructional materials nationally without direct oversight by the federal government. Publishing is precarious in the sense that there are significant up-front expenses related to textbook development without assurance of sales. Furthermore, because state or local school boards are elected positions (or appointed by elected officials), textbook adoption can be a highly politicized process. Professional educator associations, such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics or the National Science Teaching Association, take an active interest in textbook adoption, as do teacher unions, and so have some influence on which textbook series are recommended by state boards. For the most part, textbook adoption is a local decision, with local teachers serving on their district’s textbook adoption committees on top of their regular teaching assignments. Publishers must convince not just a state board of education but thousands of local textbook adoption committees as well. Another reason for its precarious nature is the growing movement toward open educational resources, developed to be freely used without purchase, as will be described at the end of this chapter. Virtually all students in the United States complete primary education, and roughly 85% complete secondary education (USDOE n.d.-e). Of those high school graduates, about half continue into tertiary education at a 4-year institution, and another quarter enroll at a 2-year institution. Slightly more than half of all tertiary students complete a baccalaureate degree (USDOE n.d.-f), meaning about 35% of US adults have a college degree. STEM majors comprise about 18% of undergraduate majors (USDOE n.d.-g).

1.1.1 A Multiple Entry System An important general characteristic of US education with implications for STEM education is the principle of opportunity. There are relatively few ways to fail in

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school in the United States; in fact, there are many paths to success and almost unlimited opportunities to try them. Compared to systems in other nations, education in the United States is a remarkably low-risk proposition for students. Students have few or no examinations at any level of schooling that stand between them and the next level. Until the age of 18 or so, most state constitutions grant every student the right to a free public primary and secondary education – that is, provided essentially without cost to the family. Students who do poorly on the few assessments imposed by their local school district or the state education agency are either advanced nonetheless or have the opportunity to repeat that year of schooling free of charge, even more than once. There are, of course, social and emotional costs when students repeat a grade, which can serve as disincentives to do so, both for the student and the school district alike. Recently, a few states have started to use third grade reading achievement scores to determine advancement to fourth grade (National Conference of State Legislatures 2019) and to use student achievement examinations as requirements for graduation and diplomas at the secondary level; however, the thresholds of these exams are relatively modest, and students who fail them are given remediation and additional opportunities to pass. Moreover, students who consistently fail or who drop out of public school before finishing have additional opportunities to continue their education if and when they so choose. They can prepare for and pass an alternative examination to earn a General Equivalency Development (GED) degree in lieu of a high school diploma. Even without a high school diploma or GED, students can enroll in a public 2-year college at relatively low cost or enroll in a variety of private institutions and technical or trade schools at significantly higher cost. In fact, high school diplomas have relatively little value in the US education system or the US economy. Indeed, in 2004, a concerted effort – the American Diploma Project – was initiated by a group of state education and business leaders to strengthen state and local graduation requirements in order to provide students with a sense of accomplishment for attaining a degree and employers with some assurance that applicants had attained a set of basic skills (Achieve 2004). Achieve, the nongovernmental organization that manages the project, advocates that “all students deserve the opportunity to take courses that prepare them to enter the workforce, the military, or postsecondary education.” Thirteen states committed to the diploma project in 2005; by 2011 that number had increased to 35 states and covered, according to Achieve, 85% of students in the nation. Still, as will be discussed below, the content of the courses required for graduation vary significantly by state. Certainly, completing a local primary and secondary program and obtaining a high school diploma can improve the life opportunities of a student, making it easier to enroll in tertiary education or enter the workforce. However, it is in no way a requirement. Employment prospects are driven by the needs and organizational cultures of the many industries seeking labor; in economic cycles and sectors when and where available labor exceeds employer needs, a diploma represents a convenient screening mechanism, whereas at other times and labor markets looking for workers, employers focus on more pragmatic qualifications such as driver

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licenses or lack of criminal records. This may be because most employers have traditionally expected to provide employees with the specific skills they need to perform jobs, even as they lobby policy-makers to focus public education more on workforce readiness. The rapid expansion of computer-related sectors of the economy has resulted in a growing need for employees with science, engineering, and technology skills (Rothwell 2013). These skills, in turn, benefit from a solid foundation in mathematics, but, as will be shown below, the number and rigor of mathematics and science courses required for graduation in each state vary significantly. About 27% of 4-year HE institutions in the United States are nonselective, meaning they accept virtually all applicants who apply (USDOE n.d.-h). Another 29% of 4-year institutions accept 75% of the applicants who meet their relatively modest thresholds (NCES n.d.-h). The more selective 4-year colleges and universities (only 14% of the total number of institutions) accept fewer than half of their applicants, and require for admission a high school diploma, some record of accomplishment in secondary coursework, such as which courses applicants took and how they did in them, and ACT or SAT scores at or above a cut score set by the institution. It should be noted that for the most part institutions are free to set their own thresholds, such as which courses secondary students take and how well they do in them. Almost all colleges and universities give diagnostic exams in mathematics and English language arts to incoming students to test readiness for tertiary coursework, often requiring poorly prepared incoming students to take remedial, noncredit bearing classes to prepare them to continue. Underprepared students represent a serious issue for the tertiary education sector, because their persistence and ultimate graduation rates are much lower than better prepared students (Bettinger and Long 2009). Students who do not meet these requirements or face other barriers (often financial) to postsecondary education still have options for pursuing tertiary education. State and local governments also support public 2-year community colleges (formerly known as junior colleges) with essentially open admission policies. Students who attend and complete coursework at community colleges can apply to 4-year colleges and universities as transfer students. Students with poor or lackluster secondary school records can prove themselves by succeeding in community college courses. It is important to note that students continue their academic careers beyond secondary school for a variety of reasons and that opportunities to do so are plentiful in the United States. Besides the public postsecondary systems, in the United States there are an even greater number of private 2- and 4-year colleges and universities (USDOE n.d.-i), including online colleges and universities, and a wide array of technical and trade schools and programs. Community colleges charge tuition for course credits, but rates are typically much lower than those charged by 4-year colleges and universities, often for similar introductory coursework. This makes transfer an important option for students and families with modest resources. This can create tension between community colleges and universities over which will capture those introductory course tuition dollars. It also recapitulates the

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challenge for 4-year institutions of evaluating the readiness of transfer applicants, because each community college sets its own standards in assessing student achievement. Another important note is that, for the most part, education systems at every level in the United States are self-regulating. Public school systems in the United States – the great majority of the primary and secondary schools – are regulated by the states in which they are located, but state regulation largely focuses on issues related to safety, finance, and civil rights, not instructional excellence. Secondary schools and colleges and universities have their own regional accreditation systems that typically have them follow a 5–10 cycle of self-reflection and peer review (see Hegji 2017). Education does not appear in the US constitution, and until the 1960s, the federal government had little interest and arguably no standing to influence whether or how states or local education officials provided educational opportunities to students in their jurisdictions. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent federal court rulings gave students and families tools to advocate for more and fairer access to quality education. In their chapter, Hudson and Borke provide a rich description of the challenges of inequality in US education both from a historical and a contemporary perspective. Nevertheless, most federal regulation in education concerns basic civil rights and student safety. The period of 2001–2015, known as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era, represented the most active period of federal attempts to encourage improvement in student achievement at the primary and secondary levels. See Fossum for more on NCLB. The successor legislation to NCLB, the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, has ceded much authority back to states in determining what educational goals to set and how to reach them (Alliance for Excellent Education n.d.).

1.1.2 Private, Magnet, and Charter Schools A final note on variation and so the difficulty of making generalizations about STEM in the US education system concerns alternative forms of schooling in the United States. About 10% of primary and secondary students in the United States attend independent – private – schools (USDOE n.d.-j). Because they do not receive public support, private schools are largely exempt from most state and federal education policies (but not safety or civil rights policies), including statewide assessments of student achievement or other reporting requirements. (Note: the NAEP does include a sampling of independent schools in its analysis [USDOE n.d.-b].) In private schools, curricular standards, assessment policies, and teacher qualifications, including licensure, are exempt from state or federal control. Magnet schools, on the other hand, are specialized public schools. Magnet schools represent attempts by public education policy-makers to increase student engagement and retention. Magnet schools disrupt traditional patterns of students enrolling in the school nearest to them by attracting students and families interested in a particular topic or approach to schooling. Magnet schools are typically organized around specific curricula, such as STEM, technical trades, or performing arts, or around a pedagogical approach, such as language immersion. They can have selected enrollment criteria. Typically, magnet schools were existing (and often

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underperforming) public schools that have been repurposed by their local education agency as a way to rebrand the school to make it more attractive to families in the district. Charter schools are another type of alternative public school option and the newest development in US public school governance. While a local school board represents a geographic community, a charter school is a newly created school district largely untethered to a specific place for enrollment. Instead, a new school board receives a charter from an authorizer, such as the state department of education or a public university, to establish what is in essence a new district to compete with existing districts for students. These charter schools must comply with the same regulations as traditional schools but are also encouraged to differentiate themselves from preexisting schools by extending the school day or school year or by promoting a distinctive culture through school uniforms, specific codes of conduct, or alternative instructional approaches. They represent alternatives to existing public schools but are subject to the same reporting and teacher licensing policies. The alternatives to typical public schools complicate descriptions of how STEM education takes place in the United States.

2

STEM Instruction by Grade Level

A challenge in describing the nature and status of instruction across the distinct components of STEM is that the nature and status of each component are as distinct as the components themselves. Not surprisingly, for example, technology education receives the least attention and arguably is the least developed of the four components, whereas mathematics education is the most coherent and receives the greatest focus. For that reason, the status of each component will be described at each grade level.

2.1

Science and Mathematics at the Primary Level

A common term in the history of education in the United States was reference to “the 3 Rs,” the core of every student’s primary school experience: reading, (w)riting, and (a)rithmetic – a phrase which in itself illustrates the unschooled state of early US nationhood. This three-part curriculum represented a basic education in the agrarian, pre-industrial United States in which primary education was as much as many residents could expect. Fast-forward to today, and US education finds itself in the surprising position of an even narrower focus on two of the Rs, reading and mathematics (‘rithmetic’). To be sure, the standards of what it means to be proficient in these two subject areas have significantly increased. Nevertheless, modern US education policy focuses on these two proficiencies at the primary level. This means that other subjects, such as science, history, and the arts, have lower (sometimes effectively no) priority. In fact, the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act (2001–2015) identified reading and mathematics as the first two subject areas for

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which states, districts, and schools receiving federal funds under the act would be held accountable for what NCLB defined as “adequate yearly progress.” This marked the first time that the federal government mandated assessments of student achievement at the national level. However, the test themselves and how they were scaled were left to the individual states to establish, another example of radical decentralization resulting in no national plan for measuring progress in a key aspect of STEM. Science was later introduced for testing at three specific grade levels – lower primary, upper primary/middle school, and high school – but only reading and mathematics are tested every year in grades 3–8. As a consequence, meaningful instruction in science has been largely marginalized or even ignored in the elementary grades. Thus, a significant unintended consequence of the federal No Child Left Behind policy has been a significant narrowing of what gets taught when in primary and secondary schools. Because of the yearly testing, teachers and building administrators feel pressured and are increasingly evaluated on student achievement in these two areas. Understandably, teachers often focus instructional time on topics covered by the tests for which they will be held accountable. Teachers who teach other subjects report feeling marginalized, arguing that this test-driven narrowing of the curriculum neglects other essential aspects of a student’s education (Zakaria 2015). Primary education for the most part is structured as whole group instruction that has 20–40 students receiving instruction in all subjects from a single teacher in one classroom. Differentiation within a classroom by perceived student ability in reading and mathematics often takes place, typically at the primary level. As stated previously, primary teachers are licensed to teach all subjects, typically at any primary grade 1–6 (ages 6–11 years). This is referred to as a general education license. In some states, teacher candidates are required to take and pass a course devoted to the theory and pedagogy of reading (Education Commission of the States 2015). No similar requirements for preparation in mathematics or science exist. Instead, the state licensing process typically requires elementary teacher candidates to pass a test of basic skills. As a result, science and mathematics at the primary level are taught by a general education teacher, as opposed to a subject matter specialist. International assessment scholar William Schmidt and his colleagues in the US National Center of the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) have contributed two important ideas to mathematics instruction in the United States. The first is the “mile-wide, inch-deep” curriculum (Schmidt et al. 2002). Schmidt’s team argues that most mathematics instruction in US schools lacks coherence and rigor, choosing to cover many topics at a superficial level over the course of each school year. This is known as a spiral curriculum, in which mathematics topics are revisited several times over several grades rather than advancing thoughtfully through a smaller number of topics and building deeper understanding. The second important idea addresses opportunity to learn. Schmidt and colleagues have shown that there is greater variation in student achievement in mathematics within schools than between schools (Schmidt et al. 2012). Analysis of

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TIMSS data allows them to argue that differences in individual teacher practices, including what content to cover at what depth, accounts for much of this variation. Schmidt and colleagues argue that lack of student achievement is less about student ability than lack of access to the content that assessments cover. Other researchers have focused on inequitable distribution of effective teachers to account for racial disparities in student achievement (Hahnel and Jackson 2012). Another reason for variation in student achievement in STEM subjects may be that although almost all elementary teachers have taken at least one course in mathematics content for elementary teachers, only 3 percent have degrees in mathematics or mathematics education, and fewer than half of them have taken more than two of the five preparation courses recommended by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (Malzahn 2019). As students and the curriculum progress, the backgrounds of their teachers barely improve: only 31% of eighth grade students are taught by a teacher who majored in mathematics, and only 48% by a teacher who majored in science, according to the Education Commission of the States (Education Commission of the States). Here the variation in school resources has important equity issues, because nonwhite students are less likely to have teachers with subject matter majors. For all this focus on the two Rs, US students perform at mediocre levels on international assessments of student progress in math or reading such as TIMSS or the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) (OECD 2011).

2.2

Technology and Engineering at the Primary Level

It is optimistic to argue that technology is integrated into other subject areas at the primary level as proposed by the National Research Council in A Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council 2012). In truth, most of what elementary students know about technology is learnt outside the classroom. This is because modern technology is relatively sparse in most US classrooms, in spite of decades of heavy spending on information technology hardware, and many elementary teachers are, at best, “digital immigrants” (Prensky 2001, 1) – having grown up before the invention of the internet or smart devices – while their students are digital natives. See Duran’s ▶ Chap. 41, “The Education System of the United States of America: ICT and Digitalization,” for more information on information technology in US schools. Concepts related to technology are equally sparse in the primary curriculum. Few primary teachers have any training in the role or history of technology in society. In truth, students and teachers are surrounded by countless examples of technology, both in and outside of school, but are largely oblivious to it. If engineering refers to the use of science and technology to design solutions to problems in the material world, STEM education in the United States can best be described as an engineering problem in want of a solution. Very little instruction at the elementary level involves having students use engineering concepts to solve problems. As will be expanded upon below, recent developments in science education, prompted by the development and diffusion of the Next Generation Science

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Standards, deliberately encourage the integration of engineering practices into the teaching and learning of science (NGSS 2013). The incorporation of science and engineering practices into these science standards represents real progress toward improving STEM education across the primary and secondary grades, but the voluntary nature of their adoption in schools and states suggests a lack of planning on the parts of federal and state education policy-makers.

3

STEM Education at the Secondary Level

At the secondary level, instruction is provided by teachers who are subject area specialists, with students moving from classroom to classroom during the day. This allows for greater differentiation by student ability and interest. This differentiation also means that students have hundreds of paths to graduation and so highly variable experiences and preparation during their secondary schooling. This variability was one of the issues that prompted the advent of the American Diploma Project. Secondary students who intend to pursue tertiary education typically complete some version of a college preparatory program and take one of two private achievement assessments, the SAT (formerly the Scholastic Aptitude Test) or the ACT (formerly the American College Test). Both tests have mathematics and science components. For more than half a century, these two assessments have attempted to provide college admissions offices with a way to compare the potential for college success of students from different school systems and from different states. Given the decentralized nature of secondary education, these tests have never been curriculum specific. The SAT and ACT had and continue to have significant shortcomings, from cultural biases to low correlation between performance on the test and eventual success in college. They do, however, highlight the recognized variation in the quality and quantity of educational opportunities provided throughout the US primary and secondary systems and the difficulty of comparing records of student preparation and achievement even at the state and local level. As stated above, primary students typically receive instruction from general education teachers who are licensed to teach all subject areas, although instructional time is heavily skewed toward reading and mathematics. At the secondary level (grades 6 or 7 to 12, which correspond to ages 11 to 18, depending on school configurations), students receive instruction from teachers licensed to teach specific subjects, including mathematics and science – in principle. The federal No Child Left Behind Act charged states with insuring that students receive instruction from highly qualified teachers. Although each state was allowed to define for itself the term highly qualified, this typically meant a licensed teacher who had majored in the subject taught or who had earned an additional endorsement in that subject (perhaps through a college minor). However, staffing every class according to the highly qualified requirements has proven very difficult in practice. According to the US Department of Education, in 2016, 42 of 50 states reported teacher shortages in science, and 45 states reported teacher shortages in mathematics (US Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education 2016). Teacher candidates who major or even minor in

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mathematics or a science have been historically underrepresented in teacher preparation programs. The law therefore allows teachers to provide instruction outside their endorsement subject as long as the majority of their teaching load falls within their endorsement. For example, mathematics teachers can be assigned to teach chemistry, as long as more than half their course load is in mathematics. A physics teacher can teach mathematics or biology, as long as most of his or her classes are physics. The National Science Teaching Association reports that “out of area” teaching assignments in secondary schools range from 12% in biology to 18% in physics (National Science Teaching Association n.d.). A 2012 National Science Foundation-sponsored report from the Physics Teacher Education Coalition paints a bleaker picture. It states that only 47% of physics classes are taught by a teacher with a degree in the subject. Another study revealed that, of the 3100 teachers who are new to teaching physics each year, only 35% have a degree in physics or physics education (Meltzer et al. 2012). As a result, 40% of the nation’s high schools do not offer physics, according to an analysis of data from the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (Heitin 2016).

3.1

Science in Alpha Order

At the secondary level, the mainstays of science learning opportunities for students are biology, chemistry, and physics, typically in that order. Until recently, course requirements for graduation from high school were set at the local district level. As late as the mid-1980s, for example, the only courses required by one industrial state for graduation from high school were a year of physical education and a semester of civics education. Clearly, local districts usually had much higher standards, including some number of years of English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. Even today, however, requirements in these “core subjects” vary by state. According to the Education Commission of the States, as of 2016, only 39 states require even 2 years of science, and 6 states require fewer than 2 years of mathematics (Macdonald et al. 2019). Several states further specify a sequence of mathematics that includes 2 years of algebra and 1 year of geometry, but the majority do not. Some states specify at least 1 year of a “lab science,” meaning a course that includes hands-on science activities. Only five states require 4 years of science; 17 states now require 4 years of mathematics, although several states allow students to study Algebra 2 over 2 years, counting as two course credits. Moreover, so strong is the resistance to federal or state control over education decisions that legislatures in 19 states have established “lower-level options” for graduation available to students and their families, meaning families can actually request lower graduation standards for their children, such as exemption from mathematics or science requirements. Even at these graduation requirement levels, significant variation exists in instructional opportunities and requirements. In some districts, the first year of algebra is split into 2 years for some students, ostensibly to help students who struggle in mathematics but also to more easily satisfy graduation requirements and boost graduation rates.

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Similarly, most school districts offer versions of science and mathematics courses at different levels of difficulty: general education, college preparatory, and gifted and talented or advanced placement sections. Students are tracked into sections based on previous performance and teacher recommendations. ▶ Chapter 40, “The Education System of the United States of America: Equity in K-12 and Higher Education,” by Hill and Burke (in this volume) touch on the inequities such practices perpetuate. As for science offerings, a typical course sequence for average students would be biology in either ninth or tenth grade, followed by chemistry and possibly physics. To mediate the dearth of physics teachers, some districts allow students to take physics at a local college or university; others have established online opportunities to study physics. Stronger science students may take other science courses if available, including anatomy, astronomy, forensic sciences, geology, oceanography, or zoology or advanced placement versions of biology, chemistry, or physics. Weaker students might take earth science or an integrated science course. Computer science is sometimes offered and accepted as a science credit toward graduation. However, computer science teachers are harder to find than physics teachers. What does all this variation in opportunity to learn mean for US student achievement in science? The National Assessment of Educational Progress reports that in 2015, only 29% of white students in grade 12 were proficient in science; another 43% had attained basic skills, and 28% fell below a “basic” skill level. For AfricanAmerican students, only 6% were proficient and 30% basic; Hispanic students fared slightly better, with 9% proficient and 44% at or above “basic.” These scores suggest that one quarter of white students, half of all Hispanic students, and two-thirds of all African American students failed to reach a basic level of understanding of science. These results should shock any nation espousing excellence and equity as national education goals and say much about the United States as a culture.

3.2

Mathematics at the Secondary Level

Mathematics is one of the core subjects taught in US public schools. At the secondary level, mathematics is typically taught by subject area specialists who have been licensed by the state in which they teach. This means that either teachers have an endorsement (license) in mathematics or that they have a secondary endorsement in math. By this definition, about 80% of US students receive instruction in mathematics from a highly qualified teacher, although mathematics, like science, is considered to be a hard-to-staff assignment, meaning shortages in qualified math teachers are common, particularly in low-income communities. A typical course sequence in secondary mathematics begins with Algebra I, followed by Geometry, Algebra II, Trigonometry or pre-Calculus, and Calculus or, if qualified teachers are available, Advanced Placement (AP) Calculus. Students with lower achievement might take pre-Algebra before a 1- or 2-year algebra course; other less rigorous courses include General Math or Business Math. Thus, there is great variation in the possible opportunities different students may have to study mathematics – even in the same high school.

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Technology at the Secondary Level

Technology is not considered a subject area per se in United States education at any level, although some tertiary institutions have engineering technology programs, and many 2-year institutions offer applied technology programs and certificates in medical, computer, and manufacturing technology. As technology devices become commonplace in schools, even in the primary grades, the use of technology as a learning support tends to be integrated into other curricula, such as mathematics, science, and even English language arts. Twenty years of significant investment in computing hardware has inflated the ratio of computers to students such that local school districts boasting one-to-one computing (a device for every student) are not uncommon, although not ubiquitous. Whether the use of those devices adds value to student learning is a different issue. A different question is whether using technology for learning is the same as learning about technology. For example, in the second half of the twenty century, comprehensive high schools used to offer typing and shorthand as electives for students (mostly girls) destined for clerical work. Today, keyboarding – twenty-firstcentury typing – is offered at most high schools and is a common graduation requirement for all students. Few would argue, however, that such basic skills represent meaningful instruction in technology. Many secondary schools offer an introductory course in computer science; in some states, this can fulfill a graduation requirement in science. There are efforts to promote coding as a technology skill in some states, but it is likely that a lack of qualified teachers is a major deterrent to these efforts. For decades, students who were not planning to attend college or were not considered suitable candidates for postsecondary education were tracked into workforce preparation programs that emphasized industrial technology. Industrial arts programs for boys included instruction in skills such as wood and metal working, auto mechanics, and drafting. Girls were encouraged to take typing, stenography, cooking and clothes making, often referred to as home economics. These industrial arts have now become career and technical education programs that offer twentyfirst-century versions of the mechanical trades, as well as health sciences, computer programming, database management, and web design. However, these various technology offerings are typically alternatives to college preparatory coursework. The quality of student learning depends significantly on the quality of their teachers generally; this is equally true for STEM subjects. Concerns about the quality and quantity of candidates entering the teaching profession, the so-called teacher pipeline, have been voiced for more than half a century. Historians of US education have pointed to broad social changes such as the expansion of civil rights as a cause for declining talent in the teaching workforce. As women and people of color began entering professions previously reserved for white men, one argument goes, those with greater talent gravitated to higher-paying professions in law, medicine, and business. As a consequence, the teaching force in the United States has become overwhelmingly white, even as the white students now make up less than half of the US student population (USDOE n.d.-d). Efforts to increase the

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diversity of the teaching force have confronted the vicious circle that nonwhite, traditionally underserved, and so underperforming students are at higher risk to become less qualified teacher candidates. A recent report by a teacher quality advocacy group makes the arresting if non sequitur comparison that pass rates on the licensure exam to become a lawyer in the United States are higher than the pass rates for candidates of color on teacher licensing exams (National Council on Teacher Quality 2019). Of course, the standards by which students and candidates are still measured were defined by a white majority culture and largely reflect many outdated notions of teaching and learning. See ▶ Chap. 40, “The Education System of the United States of America: Equity in K-12 and Higher Education,” by Hill and Burke (in this volume) for more on this conundrum. The shift in terminology from industrial arts to career and technical education (CTE) reflects both the evolution of the content taught in these courses and an acknowledgement by proponents of these programs that policy-makers have become increasingly focused on workforce development in an economy that continues to incorporate technology into more and more work tasks. As new standards have been developed and embraced, CTE advocates have worked to incorporate new, more rigorous content standards into their curricula and to lobby policy-makers about the enduring relevance of these courses. During the past decade, the rhetoric in education policy has shifted from preparing students for college to preparing them to be “career and college ready,” and the careers most often touted are in the STEM sectors. At the same time, state and local policy-makers have increasingly embraced the concept of linked learning in an attempt to make school more relevant to students and to build support for schools in the local business community. In linked learning environments, students choose exploratory pathways in STEM and other broad career areas such as health services, business and finance, hospitality, aerospace, or agriculture (Linked Learning Alliance n.d.). Teacher leaders identify opportunities within the local business community and work collaboratively with business owners or their representatives to design meaningful opportunities to connect academics with work. Critics have argued that establishing such school-business collaborations is difficult and time-consuming, that neither teachers nor business people have much training or expertise in designing meaningful work experiences for students, and that placing every student requires a sufficient economic base that not every community can support. Another point of criticism is that students are being prepared for lowerskill jobs in positions that through automation and fluctuating global markets may cease to exist when they graduate.

4

STEM Education at the Tertiary Level

Decentralization in US STEM education is even more striking at the college and university level. Approximately 90% of elementary and secondary students attend public schools, but 28% of those who pursue postsecondary education enroll at private institutions (USDOE n.d.-h). Each of the 50 states has its own public university system – that is, one or more universities supported primarily by a

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combination of (steadily declining) state revenues and (ever increasing) tuition paid by enrolled students. These institutions are overseen by governing boards that are usually appointed by a state’s governor, the top elected official in the state. State universities range from small undergraduate-focused institutions to large researchintensive universities. On the other hand, every state also has a number of private colleges. Of those private colleges, an increasing number are for-profit institutions (USDOE n.d.-f). Some of these private institutions specialize in preparing students for careers in STEM fields, primarily in technology jobs. Almost all US colleges and universities offer some form of STEM education when defined as the opportunity to study or major in at least one of the sciences, engineering, or mathematics. Most colleges and universities require students to take coursework outside a student’s major field of study, often in the form of introductory or survey courses. This is how most students in non-STEM majors experience college-level STEM education. Some institutions differentiate undergraduate science and mathematics courses between those intended for majors and those designed for nonmajors. In addition, many 2- and 4-year institutions offer degree programs in engineering or engineering technology. Nationally, more than 600,000 students study some form of engineering as undergraduates, primarily mechanical, civil, chemical, or biomedical engineering; 90% of these students are US residents (USDOE n.d.-g). Another 200,000 college students study engineering as graduate students, but only 44% of these students are residents, meaning more than half of the graduate engineering students are international students. More than 75% of engineering students are male, and two-thirds are white. Of those earning doctoral degrees in STEM subjects, 43% are non-US citizens (USDOE n.d.-g). Thus, at the highest levels of education, STEM education in the United States actually has a significant international dimension. Four-year colleges and universities are not the only opportunities for STEM education beyond the secondary level. As mentioned above, 2-year community colleges exist, typically supported at the local or regional level. These institutions typically serve a wider range of student interests than the 4-year institutions. They often offer a variety of trade-specific certificate programs, many of which are STEM related, in fields such as health care, advanced manufacturing, construction, and information technology and communications. Many students pursue these opportunities for employment reasons, either to enter a job market or advance in it or to switch occupations, with or without necessarily completing the 2-year associates degree. Others use these introductory STEM courses to prepare to transfer to 4-year institutions. Beyond the 2- and 4-year programs, an increasing number of private, for-profit training institutions offer what are essentially workforce training opportunities (USDOE n.d.-g). Many of these are in STEM fields. As private businesses, data from these for-profit institutions on their effectiveness is scarce. Ongoing investigations into their misuse of federal student loan programs cast uncertainty on their quality (Ivory et al. 2018). Another source of opportunity for STEM education for US high school graduates is the US military. Appealing largely to recent high school graduates, the armed services train qualified recruits in several STEM-related areas. These military

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occupational specialties include advanced training in health, engineering, information technology, cyber security, and other fields. Not surprisingly, public access to information about types and levels of training opportunities in the military is limited. There are approximately two million active and reserve duty members of the US armed forces. Many of these roles require training in engineering, technology, and other STEM-related skills. Recruitment efforts highlight the value and transferability of these skills to life in the civilian economy after military service is complete (e.g., US Army n.d.).

5

Recent Developments

Against the background of the current landscape of STEM education in the United States, a brief description of four developing trends will be given that, although not new in themselves, are intersecting in new ways that have the potential for significant impact on STEM education in the United States beyond their individual trajectories. The four trends include new national standards in science and mathematics, the role of the Internet in the diffusion of open education (curricular) resources, the proliferation of alternative teacher training programs, and the growing influence of nongovernmental organizations on education policy and practice. National Standards. In 2012 the National Research Council within the National Academies of Science published A Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council 2012). The Framework built upon and supersedes earlier versions of recommended science standards such as the NRC’s earlier National Science Education Standards and the Benchmarks for Science Literacy from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The vision put forth in the Framework shifts the focus of teaching and learning of science from students learning about science to students learning by doing science in order to gain useable knowledge to explain natural phenomena and design solutions to problems in the natural and manufactured world. The Framework describes three dimensions of student learning. One dimension is crosscutting concepts, the big ideas of science that transcend individual disciplines, such as cause and effect, scale, and proportion, or form and function. A second dimension is that of disciplinary core ideas in the physical, life, and earth and space sciences, the fundamentals of which every student should be aware. The third dimension refers to the science and engineering practices, those processes and habits of mind that characterize scientific and engineering endeavors, such as posing questions or identifying problems, designing rigorous ways to gather and analyze data, and constructing and revising models that can explain or predict phenomena. The Framework recommended new standards be developed for K-12 science education that combine these three dimensions into performance expectations (PEs) for what students should be able to demonstrate at each grade level. The three dimensions provide both progression and coherence to the student experience. In 2013, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were published. The NGSS describe PEs in science for students in each grade from kindergarten through

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grade five. The PEs are then grouped by grade band for grades 6–8 and 9–12 to account for variation across states in student grouping, and in course requirements and sequences. The NGSS joined national standards originally developed in mathematics (by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) in 1989 and revised in the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics in 2010. All of these standards were developed collaboratively over many months with input from scientists and mathematicians, teacher educators and education researchers, curriculum developers, classroom teachers, state policy-makers, and others. Notably, they were not developed or guided by the federal government. The Common Core standards were quickly adopted by many states but ran into political opposition that portrayed them as federal intrusion into local decisionmaking, not without some reason. During the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2008, the Obama administration had established a competitive funding program for large-scale education improvement efforts and gave preference to states that adopted the Common Core State Standards. It also made funds available to two different consortia of states willing to work together to develop new assessments for the standards. In the backlash, several states not funded by the program rescinded their adoption of the Common Core (at least in name). Coming several years later, the NGSS have avoided most (but not all) of that controversy. These new standards in science and mathematics challenge the tremendous inertia in US culture around the goals and pedagogical strategies of schooling. The standards encourage teachers, administrators, parents, community members, and policymakers to question and in some cases abandon long-standing educational ideas, values, and self-interests. The new standards have prompted the development of new teaching and learning materials and practices, and new forms of assessment, both formative and summative.

5.1

The Role of the Internet in the Diffusion of Curricular Resources

Access to high-quality teaching and learning materials is essential to student success, for reasons of both equity and excellence. The Internet has enabled teachers to do more efficiently and on a much larger scale what they have always done – share lesson plans, activities, readings, ideas, and feedback with one another. Today that ability to share has been multiplied exponentially by the Internet. Not only can teachers share individually with other teachers they know; today there are dozens of online sharing platforms and networks of learning communities that allow teachers to share ideas with tens of thousands of other teachers. Teacher2Teacher, for example, is an online platform that provides a community of over 1.5 million educators almost countless opportunities to share with and learn from one another (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation n.d.). Another powerful source of diffusion is the open educational resource (OER) movement. Just as the Internet itself has expanded through the free and open exchange of the software coding that supports it, STEM curriculum developers – and those who fund them – are increasingly embracing the

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idea that knowledge and tools developed for the common good (and often funded by taxpayers or philanthropic support) should be freely available to all. At least 20 states have established online portals where curriculum developers can provide access to materials for teachers to see and download (Michigan Department of Education OER protal n.d.; U.S. Department of Education Office of Technology n.d.). In important ways, the OER movement reflects the challenges of education reform in a democratic, capitalist culture. The Encyclopedia Britannica has been replaced by Wikipedia; the curated expertise of a designated few is now the crowdsourced expertise of the anonymous many. In theory, this allows the contest of ideas to play out in the widest possible arena – the Internet. In practice, it places upon each individual consumer of information or knowledge the enormous burden of filtering and evaluating claims and evidence across a vast spectrum of increasingly complex topics. In such a vast intellectual marketplace, decision fatigue (Danziger et al. 2011) can at times favor not the best ideas but the most effective promoters of ideas.

5.2

The Proliferation of Alternative Teacher Preparation Programs

Questions and concerns about whether the United States has or will have the necessary number and quality of teachers are long-standing. Like many aspects of schooling in the United States, teachers and teaching quality as a resource are unevenly distributed (Hahnel and Jackson 2012). Teacher staffing in urban schools that serve poor and nonwhite students is a perennial problem in the United States. Less visible but also a challenge is finding qualified teachers for the rural districts that serve about one-third of the US student population. Neither the federal government nor individual state governments have overcome these challenges. Nontraditional approaches to solving teacher pipeline issues began as experiments and have matured into established options. Teach for America, for instance, recruits top students from highly selective colleges and universities to commit to 2 years of teaching in under-resourced rural and urban schools before going on to complete graduate or professional degrees. For several years now, colleges and universities with undergraduate teacher preparation programs have offered so-called fifth year programs for college graduates that truncate the traditional preparation program. These programs offer candidates the opportunity to capitalize on the subject matter expertise gained from an undergraduate major or from work experience in a previous career and focus on providing supervised teaching experiences and any specific coursework required for state certification. The US military also has a program to help soldiers muster out of the armed services and into schools as teachers (Defense Activities for Non-Traditional Education Support n.d.). Several states have passed laws that enable accomplished professionals to teach in their areas of expertise without completing a traditional teacher preparation program. The latest development along these lines is for urban districts to recruit and prepare their own teacher candidates (Muniz 2018).

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The argument behind most of these initiatives is that the archaic bureaucracies of teacher preparation programs and state teacher licensing policies keep otherwise talented candidates out of the classroom. The response from the teacher preparation establishment is that there is much more to quality teaching than being smart or knowing the content of a discipline. What is clear is that the current system has been unable and has no realistic plans to meet the demand for qualified teachers, particularly in STEM subjects.

5.3

The Growing Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) exist and operate at the edges of government and can perform useful functions that official governments cannot or choose not to perform. Professional educator associations, such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), or the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA), serve both to inform their members of developments within their respective fields, and also to represent their members on matters of educational policy. Two national teacher unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, also provide these services to their members. The NCTM, NSTA, and other national STEM-related organizations often have state affiliates that help create an elaborate infrastructure that supports each particular community of interest. Specific disciplines, such as chemistry, biology, physics, and earth science, also have national associations. Classroom teachers, particularly at the secondary level, often belong to more than one of these associations. Many of these associations have been strong advocates for the adoption of national standards in mathematics and science at the state and local levels. Another type of NGO is the special interest group. Distinct from professional associations, to which members typically pay dues, special interest groups include advocacy groups that focus on a particular issue, such as new standards; ideological think tanks that espouse a particular perspective across issues, such as local control; and coalitions that bring otherwise independent groups together to work toward a particular goal, such as strengthening graduation requirements or increasing the diversity of STEM students and professionals. Special interest groups marshal resources, especially outside funding and membership lists, to influence policymakers at national, state, and even local levels who are often more responsive to arguments from organizations claiming to represent large numbers of people. Special interest groups often serve to maintain attention and momentum for a particular issue in what is typically a crowded, distracting policy environment. In the United States, the growth of charter schools and efforts to institute (or restore) English-only instruction (Padilla 1991) are examples of enduring special interest issues. A third type of NGO, the philanthropic foundation, has a long history of supporting social and educational change. Several of these foundations were established by earlier tycoons such as Carnegie, Ford, Rockefeller, and Sage, while others represent twenty-first-century tycoons such as Broad, Gates, Lucas, and Packard. Increasingly, these foundations have been engaged in STEM education

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initiatives and education policy. There are also foundations within large corporations that contribute significant resources to particular STEM projects, but these efforts primarily promote goodwill for a corporation within a local community in which the corporation has a presence, such as a manufacturing plant or a distribution center. These billionaires and their foundations fund research and development projects often based on the founder’s particular vision of education and society. This form of “philanthrocapitalism” (Economist 2006) extends the concept of philanthropy from simple charity to investment in a particular vision of a better world. The influence of these mega donors has grown to the extent that some observers have begun to ask, “Is the ‘new’ education philanthropy good for schools?” (American Enterprise Institute 2015). In the absence of any coherent national plan for STEM education, these NGOs have come to play an important role. The power of an NGO is its ability to marshal resources, in the form of ideas, people, money, and attention to achieve particular ends. Professional educator associations have been particularly effective in the promulgation of standards in mathematics and science. They have achieved this both by informing their members of new developments in the teaching and learning of STEM subjects and by mobilizing and representing their memberships in the creation of new STEM policies at the state level, such as the adoption of NGSS and the Common Core. That some states have resisted or rescinded adoption illustrates the effectiveness of other NGOs, such as advocacy groups and think tanks in marshaling resources in opposition to adoption. Some philanthropic foundations have funded the development of open educational resources and platforms; others fund the advocacy and ideological groups that attempt to shift education policy decisions at the state and federal levels in other directions.

5.4

Synergistic Effects Even within Competing Goals

Not surprisingly in the highly decentralized US education system, efforts along these multiple dimensions – the development of new standards in STEM, the diffusion of open educational resources, the search for alternative options to teacher supply in hard-to-staff schools and districts, and the influence of nongovernmental organizations – sometimes work together, sometimes against each other. Philanthropic foundations helped fund the development of the new standards, in which the professional associations played an important role, including the diffusion of information and resources related to their implementation. Advocacy groups have worked for or against the adoption of the standards; several of these groups receive funding from one of more philanthropic foundations. Professional associations and their individual members use what are now established and robust online platforms to help disseminate open education resources to teachers and other educators from coast to coast, including districts that are developing their own cadres of teachers.

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The Future of US STEM Education Is Spelled N-G-O

Financial services providers in the United States are required to point out in their advertising that, when it comes to money management, “past performance is no guarantee” of future performance (US Securities and Exchange Commission n.d.). The same caution applies to predictions about the future of STEM education. It seems, however, that the US political system is unlikely to plan or support any large-scale, coordinated – i.e., governmental – efforts to move STEM education in any particular direction. Indeed, it is possibly incapable of doing so, given the strong adherence to the cultural value of independent, local decision-making. The progress in STEM education in the United States has come at the local level and largely from outside its governmental structures. If anything, government policies have come in response to action and pressure from practitioners and other NGOs. It is also worth noting that recent is a relative term in describing the developments mentioned above. In many cases, the developments are actually the latest phase of trends with significant histories. The role of private think tanks and specially appointed commissions in formulating and promoting particular education policy options goes back at least 40 years to A Nation at Risk, a commissioned report that portrayed the nation’s education system as so inadequate that, in the words of the report, “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war” (National Commission on Excellence in Education 1983). Since then, overall federal funding in education has increased significantly, but primarily to address issues of equity, not the preparation of STEM-literate citizens. Similarly, the call for improvement in STEM education in the United States is not new (witness the US Space Race during the 1950s and 1960s) and has long been a regular part of the US educational policy discussion. But such calls have accelerated as the United States has evolved from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge economy that is increasingly technology driven, in a world in which the environmental and security challenges facing the United States require citizens and workers who can access and make intelligent use of increasing amounts of data and information. The federal government has long supported basic research in STEM through its National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the armed forces, the US Departments of Agriculture and Energy, and the other federal agencies (National Science and Technology Council, Committee on STEM Education (2013). Most of these agencies include programs that support the improvement of STEM education. However, given the US cultural aversion to strong, active government intervention in education policy, much of the call for improvement – and a small but increasing amount of financial support – has come from the private sector, often voiced through a nongovernmental organization.

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Concluding Remarks

Like the entire education system, STEM education in the United States is highly decentralized and quite variable in its efforts and effects. With 50 different states setting their own policies on teacher preparation, the selection of curriculum, requirements for student advancement and graduation, and funding mechanisms for the operation of schools, a coherent picture of STEM education is difficult to describe. The focus at the elementary level of schooling is on reading and mathematics, largely sidelining science and technology to the secondary grades. Many teachers at the elementary level are generally ill-equipped to teach STEM well, and things are only slightly better in the secondary grades, with great disparities in student experiences by state, district, and even classroom. Most non-STEM major college students take only introductory STEM courses, and graduate preparation in STEM goes increasingly to international students. At every level, institutions generally set their own achievement expectations for students. Nothing in this chapter should be construed as an argument that there is no federal influence on education in the United States generally or on the trajectory of STEM education in particular. Still, given the size and importance of the task at hand and the enormous resources available at the federal level, it would be hard to argue that STEM education is a priority for the US federal government. This suggests that the future of STEM education in the United States rests largely upon the shoulders of educators and the communities they serve. Educators often forget that their efforts are as much about the values they espouse as the knowledge they hope to develop in their students. This is true even when it comes to STEM education. Indeed, a central value of the scientific enterprise is the clash of ideas and an unceasing questioning of what is commonly accepted to be true. Scientists pride themselves that their process relies upon the collection and accurate interpretation of observable, measurable, replicable data, and the development of parsimonious explanations and predictions based on that data. At the same time, the history of science provides regular examples (e.g., Galileo, eugenics) of how cultural values influenced how even scientists made sense of the world surrounding them. STEM education in the United States seems to be making progress, although without a coherent, unifying plan – recapitulating education reform in the nation as a whole. Perhaps this presents the scientific process in its truest form, if not at its best.

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U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.-g). Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. Indicator 26: STEM degrees. Available at https://nces.ed.gov/programs/ raceindicators/indicator_REG.asp#info. Last accessed 1 Apr 2020. U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.-h). Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics. Acceptance rates; number of applications, admissions, and enrollees; and enrollees’ SAT and ACT scores for degree-granting postsecondary institutions with first-year undergraduates, by control and level of institution: 2017–18. Available at https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_305.40.asp. Last accessed 1 Apr 2020. U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.-i). Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics. Number of degree-granting postsecondary institutions and enrollment in these institutions, by enrollment size, control, and classification of institution: Fall 2017. Available at https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_317. 40.asp. Last accessed 1 Apr 2020. U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.-j). Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. Public and private school comparison. Available at https://nces.ed.gov/ fastfacts/display.asp?id¼55. Last accessed 1 Apr 2020. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). (n.d.). 2015 Fourth-Grade Science Assessment; 2015 Eighth-Grade Science Assessment. Available at https://www. nationsreportcard.gov/math_2017/nation/scores?grade¼4. Last accessed 1 Apr 2020. U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). (n.d.). 2017. Mathematics Assessments. Available at https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/. Last accessed 1 Apr 2020. U.S. Department of Education. Office of Educational Technology. (n.d.). #GoOpenStates. Available at https://tech.ed.gov/open/states/. Last accessed 14 Apr 2019. U.S. Department of Education. Office of Postsecondary Education. (2016). Teacher shortage areas nationwide listing 1990–1991 through 2016–2017. Available at https://www2.ed.gov/about/ offices/list/ope/pol/tsa.pdf. Last accessed 4 Aug 2019. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (n.d.). Fast answers. Available at https://www.sec.gov/ fast-answers/answersmperfhtm.html. Last accessed 5 Aug 2019. Zakaria, F. (2015). In defense of a liberal education. New York: W.W. Norton &.

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The Education System of Uruguay Tabare´ Ferna´ndez Aguerre, Santiago Cardozo Politi, and Agustina Marques Hill

Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Introduction: Signposting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Political and Cultural Contexts of Educational Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of the Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Transition to the Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Introduction: Signposting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED-Classification (2011) . . . 3.5 Personnel Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Introduction: Signposting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Inequality: Incidence and Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Uruguay’s Educational Achievements and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Emerging Issues: The COVID-19 Pandemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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T. Fernández Aguerre (*) · S. Cardozo Politi Deparment of Sociology, Faculty of Social Science, University of Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay A. Marques Hill Department Skill Formation and Labor Markets, Berlin Social Science Center (WZB), Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_43

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Abstract

The Uruguayan educational system has exhibited through its history significant and early in time features that have made Uruguay an educative developed country with solid institutions. Nevertheless, Uruguay presents today persistent problems in education inequality and a low graduation proportion of secondary education. This is of an even greater concern when considering its good social and economic position in the region. The aim of this chapter is to present the main features of the Uruguayan educational system in terms of its history and social origins; its institutions and governance; and its trends in access, attendance, graduation, and learning achievements of the population of the educative system, with a special focus on inequality. All in all, the Uruguayan educational system is considered highly developed in the Latin American context. This is the result both of historical and of more recent salient achievements. Some of them are high educational coverage, including pre-primary education since the 1990s, lowersecondary education since approximately the turning of the century, also ranks within the top countries in Latin America in international comparative standardized tests, such as PISA and ERCE. These educational past and present important improvements coexist still with persistent difficulties. Keywords

Uruguay, Educational Institutions · Educational Governance · Trends · Achievement gaps

1

Introduction

Uruguay is the second smallest nation in South America with a land area of 176,220 square kilometers and a population of 3.4 million inhabitants. Nearly half of the population lives in the Metropolitan area of Montevideo, the capital city. The Uruguayan educative system has exhibited through its history significant and early in time features that have made Uruguay an educative developed country, and even today its education is outstanding in some aspects. Nevertheless, Uruguay presents today severe problems in education inequality and a low graduation proportion of secondary education. This is of an even greater concern when considering its good social and economic position in the region. This chapter has three main sections. First a brief historical background of the Uruguayan education system that, in addition to a political, economic, and cultural description, makes a useful context to interpret the educational trends of this country. The second section describes the institutional and organizational principles in all educative levels, and the third section analyses access, attendance, graduation, and learning achievements of the population of the educative system, with a special focus on inequality. Moreover, this section describes different policies and programs held by the Uruguayan state to deal with inequality as well as specific programs for ICT and digitalization. Closing this chapter, the reader will find final considerations and emerging issues that attempt to synthetize the principal aspects of the Uruguayan educative system.

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Historical and Social Foundations

2.1

Introduction: Signposting

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Uruguay is located in the Southern Hemisphere, bounded on the west by Argentina, on the North and Northeast by Brazil and on the Southeast by the Atlantic Ocean. To the South, it fronts the Río de la Plata, a broad estuary that opens out into the South Atlantic. Uruguay is the second smallest nation in South America with a land area of 176,220 square kilometers and a population of 3.4 million inhabitants. Nearly half of the population lives in the Metropolitan area of Montevideo, the capital city. Only two cities have more than 100 thousand inhabitants, Paysandú and Salto, both of which are 400 kilometers away from Montevideo. At the Northeast, the border with Brazil had generated for more than 300 years a very distinctive region, characterized both by a mixed culture and a special variant of Portuguese language: the “Portuñol.” Geographically, most of Uruguay is mainly a gently rolling plain. The country has an important system of rivers that drain the land. Uruguay is generally described as a small country, mainly because of its large neighbors – considering its territory it is bigger than several European countries and with a very rich and cultivable land (Vanger et al. 2019). In 2018, Uruguay had an overall enrollment of 984,047 students in all levels of Education (Pre-Primary, Primary, Lower and Upper Secondary, Tertiary Technological, and University). The public sector shared an overall enrollment of 85%, oscillating from 76% in Pre-primary to 90% at the university level. Early achievements, in particular regarding schooling expansion and illiteracy reduction, have historically positioned the Uruguayan educational system as a comparatively developed one in Latin America. At the same time, and in spite of the country’s good performance in several educational indicators, Uruguay faces an array of persisting structural problems, first diagnosed in 1965, that still need to be dealt with.

2.2 2.2.1

General Historical Background

Social and Political Origins of the Educational System in the Nineteenth Century Historically, the University of Uruguay preceded the consolidation of a national system of primary education. The University of the Republic (Universidad de la República, thereafter, UDELAR) was established in 1834 as a public and statefunded institution. To date, several laws organize its governance, the structure of faculties, the appointment and resignation of professors, the academic degrees that are offered, and budget decisions. A collegiate model was adopted since the Organic Law of 1890. Complete political autonomy was conferred by the Organic Law of 1958. Since 1912, UDELAR has not charged fees for registration, tuition, or degree completion (Oddone and Paris 1971). Successive constitutional reforms, starting in 1917, reserved the monopoly of university education to UDELAR. The first private

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university – The Catholic University of Uruguay – was authorized as late as 1984, at the end of the military dictatorship period (1973–1985). Thirty years after the foundation of the UDELAR, the Chief of the State, Colonel Latorre, a military dictator, took the task to develop a vigorous public policy on primary education. It was oriented by the ideas of José Pedro Varela and had the objective to “civilize the society” (Varela 1874). Latorre ordered and financed the foundation of schools across the country, particularly in rural areas and more especially on the border with Brazil. To provide for qualified teachers, the first “Normal Institute” (Instituto Normal) was established in 1880 in Montevideo, followed by one in each department capital city in the provinces. Varela’s concepts were then extensively adopted as a national consensus, both by the following military governments and also by the political parties. Once democracy was reestablished in 1890, the successive Governments transformed the original Varela’s objective into a strategic one: primary school was seen as a means to mitigate illiteracy, create solid citizenship conditions, and sustain the democracy. In this particular sense, a universal and public primary education became one of the main instruments for the modernization of the country (MEC-DE 2014). At the beginning of the twentieth Century, the two presidencies of José Batlle y Ordóñez (1903–1907 and 1911–1915) set the basis for the first social democrat welfare regime in America. Secondary education was one of Batlle y Ordóñez’s concerns. General secondary education had begun as a College inside UDELAR. Outside Montevideo, there were a few private schools in certain cities as Salto, Mercedes, or Colonia. In 1912, the Government promoted a Law which settled public secondary schools in each capital city outside Montevideo. It also founded the first secondary school for women (in Montevideo) and in 1916, the School of Arts and Crafts was created. The Constitution of 1917 established social rights, including the right to free and lay education (Rama 2004).

2.2.2 Public Education, Public Policy, and Institutions until the 1960s Until the 1970s, Public policy was strictly consistent with education as a social right (Solari 1966; Oddone and Paris 1971; Rama 2004). For decades, the investment in education was kept high relative to other areas of public policy. Schools were built in the whole Uruguayan territory. The State delivered texts and other school supplies. Rural areas and immigrants were compelled to enroll. The State controlled and sanctioned families that did not send their children to school. Since 1917, the Constitutional regime has established the institutional design of educational governance, based upon decentralized and autonomous entities. The Council of primary education was established in 1918 (instead of a General Director subordinated to the President) and the Council of Secondary (General) Education gained independence from the University of the Republic in 1935. In 1942, postelementary vocational and arts education was transformed in an autonomous Council called the “University of Work” (Universidad del Trabajo, hereafter, UTU, for its Spanish acronym). As mentioned before, UDELAR, established in 1833 and until 1984 the only university in the country, became autonomous with the Organic Law of 1958.

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While primary education was a strategic policy in the modernization of the country and for the country’s social integration, secondary education was only accessible for a reduced elite until the middle of the twentieth Century. The universalization of the lower secondary level was a distant objective to achieve, even 80 years after the Varela Reform had begun. Although enrollment fees had been abolished, until 1943 primary schools graduates had to take an examination in order to access secondary schools. Castro (1949, 4) estimated that by the beginning of the 1940s, less than 15% of the corresponding age cohort attended secondary education. Besides, it was a known fact that at least a third of students failed their courses in high school (Castro 1949, 9). By the time of Castro’s study, the problems involved in the transition between primary and secondary education were not on the policy agenda, and universalization of secondary school was not a national purpose: from 1929 to 1959, the state created only 46 new secondary schools, averaging six in each presidential term. The Constitutions of 1934, 1942, and 1952 did not change the educational system in terms of institutional design, neither did they promote mechanisms for a stronger coordination between the three autonomous organisms. Instead, a highly decentralized and autonomous regime for educational entities was maintained. In this institutional scheme, the Ministry of Education had very little (formal) competence both in the design and in the coordination of educational policies.

2.2.3 The 1965 Diagnosis of the CIDE The census of 1963 informed that 12% of people aged 18 or older were illiterate, but for ages 10 to 17, the illiteracy rate had decreased to 1.7%. Uruguay had built a free and universal primary education system and, by that time, showed an early and significant coverage of general secondary education, and a good quality of higher education (Mancebo 2007). These three levels were offered for free, by public non-confessional institutions. Between 1940 and the beginning of 1950, the middle school system reflected the transformations of the Uruguayan society: industrialization, urbanization, growth of middle and lower classes, and a better distribution of wealth and general welfare. These transformations were reflected in a growing demand for secondary education, both in its general – predominant – track and with a lower though persistent impulse, in its vocational, technological track. From 1912 up to 1968, enrollment in general secondary education grew by more than 700% (Apezechea 1977), while the country’s population grew by 250%. This increase was particularly important after the 1950s. However, just as early as in 1965, the State Commission for Investments and Development (Comisión de Inversiones y Desarrollo Económico, CIDE) “Report on the Situation of Education” detected several pitfalls and inequalities and recommended several structural reforms. The report argued that the evolution of enrollment in upper secondary education showed that a Baccalaureate degree had become a legitimate purpose beyond the choice of whether to continue or not in university education (CIDE 1965, 110).

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The increase in enrollments came with a feminization of general secondary education and the university. This was also an early achievement of Uruguay, in comparative terms, reflecting the progress of women’s rights in the country since the early twentieth Century. Yet, by the end of the 1940s, it was made clear that further expansion and universalization of secondary education depended on structural transformations, at the pedagogical, institutional, and functional levels, which, among other things, involved leaving its original ethos, as an elitist preparation for University, behind (Nahum 2008). During the 1960s, several social and economic diagnostics were made in Uruguay, with an explicit purpose of improvement, in a context of an imminent economic and social crisis. Studies reported the country had achieved universal access to primary school. They also called attention to preschool access differentials – one out of three 5-year-old children attended school by that time, with strong gaps between social strata (CIDE 1965). Regarding general secondary education, the CIDE Report showed that, despite its early development, the Uruguayan educational system had remained mainly unchanged through time, with a notorious bias towards the aim of preparing students for university. The initial institutional and curricular basis of the secondary education system – designed after the French original system – would soon prove obsolete and inefficient, once secondary education began expanding to middle and lower social strata and post-primary schooling gradually became an autonomous goal independent from pursuing higher education (Rama, La evolución de la educación secundaria en Uruguay, Rama 2004). By this time, Uruguay already showed what would turn out to be one of its main educational problems, even to the present day. Attendance rates at ages 14 and 15 fell below 64% and 39%, respectively, as compared to 95% in primary school (CIDE 1965). According to the CIDE Report, these rates, although far from expectations, were among the highest in Latin America at the time. However, attendance was overestimated, as a consequence of the extended use of grade repetition as a mechanism to face learning problems, particularly for socially disadvantaged students – grade retention was already a critical issue in the 1960s, both in primary and secondary education. Coverage rates also varied strongly for different regions of the country. Particularly, great inequalities existed in secondary education attendance between big cities, small cities, and rural areas. By that time, upper secondary education was only offered in Montevideo and in the provinces’ capital and bigger cities (CIDE 1965). The vocational or technical education imparted in Uruguay by the UTU was not legally recognized as an equivalent track to general secondary education until 1974. First created as a post-elementary education for delinquents and illiterate boys (Nahum 2008), its stigma as “the last chance to educate the “unwilling’, ‘academically underprepared,’ or ‘deviant’ teens survived a long time” (Heugerot 2015; Lorenzo 2013; Marques 2018). In 1965, females accounted for 42% of Technical Education students (CIDE 1965). As mentioned, higher education was imparted only by UDELAR, the one university in the country at the time of the CIDE Report. UDELAR enrollment in the 1960s was considered high relative to the country’s population, with a proportion of

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students similar to one of the most developed countries in the world, and just below Argentina in South America. Again, the number of actual students was overestimated due to the fact that it took a great proportion of them extra time to complete their degrees. By the 1960s, 2 out of 5 university students were women (CIDE 1965). Teacher education was offered in two branchess: primary teacher education and secondary teacher education. The first was accessible in each department capital city and in three other cities in the provinces. The second type was offered only in Montevideo, in the Artigas’ Institute, established in 1949 following the model of the “École Normale Superieur” of France. Neither of the two types of teacher education had equivalence to a university degree, and as a result, graduates could not pursue postgraduate education. Based upon this diagnostic, the CIDE designed a National Plan for Education for the decade starting in 1965. The economic and social crisis at the end of the 1960s, and the political crisis that followed since the beginning of the 1970s, interrupted the political debate on educational reforms, although the need for a great educational transformation gained consensus across several social and political actors.

2.2.4

The 1973–1985 Military Dictatorship and the Lost Decade for Education One of the first CIDE recommendations was established in the Constitution of 1967: Secondary education (up to tenth grade) became compulsory. Middle school was no longer an elite education but needed to be universal. However, the political and economic crises left this law to be accomplished (Rama, La evolución de la educación secundaria en Uruguay, Rama 2004). In 1973, shortly before the civicmilitary dictatorship began, another CIDE recommendation was enacted by law: the centralization of the government of primary, secondary, and technical education in an autonomous and unified Board: the CONAE (Consejo Nacional de Educación). The dictatorship drastically disrupted the consensus on public education transformations. The educational budget was reduced to one of the lowest in Latin America. A large number of teachers were removed for political reasons and enrollment in secondary school decreased, after decades of expansion. Only a few new schools were built during this period, and old buildings became gradually ruined. Private schools increasingly became an appealing option for middle-class families worried about the decadence of the public provision and the climate of intolerance and political persecution (Rama 2004). As far as educational transformations were concerned, the military period was a lost decade: with few exceptions, CIDE recommendations for structural changes were put aside or mostly forgotten. One of the exceptions was the decision to equate the lower cycle of technical education with the lower cycle of general secondary education. Almost at the end of the dictatorship, in 1984, the government authorized the creation of the first private university, which initiated two decades of accelerated “metamorphosis of higher education,” in (Fernández 2014) expression. Teacher education, both for primary and secondary levels, remained tertiary, non-university.

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2.2.5

The Democratic Restoration of Educational Institutions (1985– 1990) Democratic authorities took office in 1985. The educational system governance was legitimated not only by the constitutional dispositions but also with a new Education Act (n
15,739). The educational system went back to the previous institutional scheme, although the central board, with supervision and coordination faculties, was maintained. Technical and general lower secondary levels were formally equated by the new law, which recognized both tracks as ways to meet the social and political mandate for a universal basic education. After the dictatorship period, enrollments to middle school returned to increase by 26% in the first 5 years, a very high number considering demographically the country was not growing and a lot of people had emigrated because of the economic and political crisis. This expansion was registered both in lower and upper middle schools, and reflected an increasing demand for post-primary education from lower socioeconomic sectors and from small and rural areas outside Montevideo. (Rama 2004). In this period, a unified basic lower middle school program (CBU) was implemented, not without difficulties, in an attempt to comply with the mandatory 9 years of compulsory schooling established by 1973 law. The pedagogical concept of compensatory education for students that fell behind was also introduced (1986 plan). Overall, the period was mainly marked by the efforts of restoration of the educational system that had been utterly damaged by the de facto regime. An emergency education law was also sanctioned (Mancebo 2007). 2.2.6

The New Diagnosis and German Rama’s Educational Reform (1990–2000) In 1990, the Economic Commission for Latin America’s Office in Montevideo, led by the sociologist German Rama (one of the main specialists of the CIDE’s team), carried out an extensive diagnosis of primary and secondary education (Rama 1991; CEPAL 1992). Based on these diagnostics and several recommendations, Rama, who was appointed as the President of the ANEP (Administración Nacional de Educación Pública), started in 1995 an Educational Reform of pre-primary, primary, lower secondary, technical, and teacher education. The pre-primary level was strongly expanded, with the explicit purpose of universalization of enrollments for children aged 4 and 5. A new institutional full-time model was implemented, focusing on more disadvantaged contexts. A new common lower secondary education curriculum was introduced, applying both to general and technical schools. Upper technical secondary education was reformed, creating the technical baccalaureate in the UTU, which allowed students to pursue higher education. Finally, seven new public institutions were created outside Montevideo for teacher training (Mancebo 2007; ANEP 2005). Rama finished his term in 1999 and the new government elected that year continued with the reforms, although with growing criticism, both from political parties or fractions and from the teachers’ unions (Mancebo 2007; Da Silveira 2009). Besides the extended consensus initially gained by the reform, the public budget in

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education did not grow consistently with the transformation requirements. New expenditures were financed mainly by international loans of the World Bank and the InterAmerican Bank. The domestic economy began a period of severe deterioration after the Real crisis in Brazil in 1999, and with the Argentinian crisis of 2001. The national economic crisis peaked in 2002 and the government canceled several investments and developments, including one of the last programmatic reforms of the period: a new model for upper secondary education schools.

2.2.7 The New General Education Act (2008) In 2005 a wide social debate on education began, led by the Ministry of Education and Culture, and accompanied by ANEP, UDELAR, the Private Schools’ Associations, and teachers’ unions. The so-called Educational Debate aimed at discussing and generating a new general education law (No. 18437) to replace the 1985 Education Act (Cardozo 2008). Among other things, the Act recognized education as a human right; extended compulsory education to upper secondary; gave full recognition to technical (vocational) secondary education; created several community participation instances at the school level, both for parents and for students; established the decentralization and coordination of education policies at the subnational levels, creating multi-institutional councils in each department of the country (Marques 2018). The Education Act introduced some important structural transformations in the institutional design of the educational system that were never implemented. Two of the most important were the merger of all lower secondary public schools – general and technical – in a unique new format, called “Basic Middle Education,” and the creation of a new university of education which would absorb teacher education. The Education Act also mandated the constitution of a new higher education technological Institution, which finally became the Technological University (Universidad Tecnológica, UTEC) in 2012 (Law no. 19043) and created the National Institution of Educational Evaluation (Instituto Nacional de Evaluación Educativa, INEEd) which has the objective to generate specific studies of the quality of national education.

2.3

Political and Cultural Contexts of Educational Policies

2.3.1 Democracy, Political Parties, and Educational Consensus Uruguay has been considered a pioneer among Latin American nations to modernize its state, its politics, and its policies. Uruguay has a strong rectorate State which has been built since the late nineteenth century step by step, starting with the secularization of private life (cemeteries and weddings), the institution of a lay, free and compulsory public education, extended labor regulations and the divorce law, and the Constitutional separation of Church and State in 1917. In the twenty-first century, it still stands out in its progressive rights agenda by legalizing abortion, same-sex marriage, liberalization and access to marijuana, and increasing protection to women’s rights in different areas of the society (Decresci 2015).

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According to the classic Theory of Democracy of Robert Dahl (1959), the political regime could be classified as a polyarchy since 1915, the year of the first (men) universal election to conform to the Constitutional Convention which then wrote the Constitution of 1917. A fundamental aspect that has to be pointed out in the country’s governance history is its strong political system, conformed until 1970 by the “Colorado” (liberal) and “Nacional” (conservative) parties, and from 1971, also by the “Frente Amplio” Party (a leftist coalition), as well as for other minor parties with representation in the national Parliament. Political parties existed before the nation itself and they survived the military dictatorship effort to diminish their influence in the society. The democratic restoration process of 1982–1984 established the return of political parties to the public life (Bielous and Petito 1996). In the last two decades, Uruguayan parties have experienced a realignment within the party system, from traditional bipartism to moderate multipartism (Lanzaro 2007). As has been said, the role and prominence of public education in society has been at the core of political consensus for decades, although discrepancies exist. Since the CEPAL diagnostics of 1990, also the need for educational reform has been part of the political agenda of the parties, but in the last decades, differences in objectives and strategies became clearer, especially after the beginning of Rama’s educational reform. Both the Colorado and Frente Amplio parties have fought for the revitalization of the public sector and the strengthening of a rectorate role of the State. The “Nacional” party has been more open to giving greater participation of the private sector in education, at all levels, to the reduction of the presence of the state, in the granting of subsidies to Catholic schools, and currently, to the flexibility of the compulsory status of primary and secondary education. This has been the contemporary political orientation given by the current Minister of Education (Da Silveira 1995, 2009). For decades, the private sector in the education field has been relatively weak in leadership, modest in investment and to some extent dependent on the State subsidies. Private schools were the choice of wealthy or religious families. In the last 40 years, there have been growing changes in this social and institutional position of private education. The private sector emerged stronger after the military dictatorship thanks to the increasing enrollment in Private Secondary Schools and the establishment of the first private university. In the 1990s, four other private universities were founded, and a growing number of new private schools were authorized each year. At the pre-primary level, the presidency of Lacalle Herrera (1990–1995) launched a program of centers for families and infants called CAIF (Centro de Atención a la Infancia y a la Familia) which contracts private associations to provide free day-care, meals, and specialist guidance for disadvantaged children under 5 year olds. The Program was legitimated by all political parties, including the leftist Frente Amplio. In 2000, the Catholic Church opened a new secondary school which subsidizes the enrollment of poor children. Today there are at least 10 of this type of school. Private enrollment in primary and secondary schools grew up to 15% and 10% of annually new students in higher education belongs to private universities. After two decades, the leading cast of political parties has changed. Lacalle Pou (2020–2025) is the first Uruguayan President who was completely educated in the private sector.

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2.3.2

The Cultural Contexts: Colonial Legacy, Official Language, Religion As stated, Varela’s primary education reform had the objective to civilize the society and to construct the literacy bases of a sustainable long-term democracy. Since the last years of the nineteenth century, schooling expansion was accompanied by the processes of secularization, urbanization, and industrialization. The Census of 1908 reported that 17.4% of the country’s population had been born outside Uruguay and six out of ten were not Spanish speakers. The consequences of massive European immigration experienced between 1890 and 1914 had created problems for social integration and cultural reproduction of the national traditions, values, and language. Particularly in the Northeast border, in the Departments of Artigas, Rivera, and Cerro Largo, Brazilians accounted for 10% to 19% of inhabitants. A way of generating integration (socially and politically) was through the mobilization of these people through political parties: It spread widely the faith in democracy and the values related to it (Solari 1966). But the most important way to integrate this diversity of nationalities was through public school. First and most importantlly, spreading Spanish as the official language, and forbidding other languages at school, especially the “Portuñol” (Oroño 2014). The imposition of the Spanish language at schools played a crucial political role in the consolidation of the national state. The monolinguistic educational policy was in force until the General Education Act of 2008 (Fernández et al. 2016). Another building block of the constitution of the national culture was the process of separation of the church and the state, finished in 1917. At the beginning of the twenty-first Century, Uruguay still presents the lowest percentage of declared Catholics in the region and the highest percentage of non-affiliated believers (Caetano 2014).

2.4

Social Conditions: Provision/Coverage of the Population

2.4.1 The Socio-Economical Context for Education Uruguay stands out in Latin America for being an egalitarian society, its comparatively high per capita income, and its lower levels of economic inequality and poverty. Proportionally, it has the biggest middle class in the region. The country also ranks within the top positions in Latin America in the Human Development Index, the Human Opportunity Index, and the Index of Economic Freedom. In 2013 the World Bank classified Uruguay as a high-income country (Mordecki 2018). 2.4.2 Geographical Distribution of Enrollments In 2018, Uruguay had an overall enrollment of 984,047 students in all levels of Education (pre-primary, primary, lower and upper secondary, tertiary technological, and university). The public sector shared overall 85%, ranging from 76% in pre-primary to 90% at the university level. At pre-university Levels of Education, approximately two-thirds of the enrollment is located outside the capital city, Montevideo. The ANEP is the entity in

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charge of administration of public education for these levels; it has developed a large but superposed territorialized organizational structure to supervise schools and allocate resources. In consequence, more than 650,000 students depend upon a highly centralized public administration, located in Montevideo. At the university level, 90% of the enrollment takes place in Montevideo’s institutions, particularly in UDELAR which accounts for 89% of university enrollments (MEC-DE. 2019). This unequal geographic distribution has long been criticized and was subject to special policies to decentralize higher education.

2.4.3 Demographic Evolution Demographic variables have been very stable in Uruguay since the mid-1920s. Uruguay has the profile of a developed society characterized by an early Second Transition: a birth rate which is below the replacement level, and a high life expectancy (over 74 year old). This profile puts a high amount of pressure on the social security system (Bengochea et al. 2013). In the last census in 2011 Uruguay had 3.286.314 habitants. Twenty percent of the population was 5 to 17 years old. And 7.8% auto declared afro or black and 4.8% declared to have an indigenous ancestry (INE 2014). Its low density was established since its origin, with extensive livestock farming, which did not take a lot of workers. In this land, there was originally a small nomad indigenous population compared with other Latin American countries. During the Colony, the Jesuits established their “Missions” in the north border of the country, in the south of Brazil, the northeast of Argentina, and in the south of Paraguay. But, after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 by Charles III, the indigenous populations of the Missions spread over those territories and started a process of miscegenation with the black people and the Hispanics. Just in the early years of the Republic, the State committed genocide with one of the latest indigenous tribes (1833), so for the beginning of the twentieth Century, no one original culture remained. Since the 1850s and the beginning of the twenties, Uruguay received increasingly and massive immigration from Europe (Vidart and Pi-Hugarte 1970). In the 1908 Population Census, 17.4% were born in other country and it has been estimated that at least other proportions of the like were alien first-generation in the country. In 1963, the Census registered only 6.2% of persons born outside Uruguay. Uruguay had a demographic transition that started earlier than other Latin American countries and was largely different from the other countries of the region (Nahum 2008). Uruguay presents a low birth rate, below the replacement level, high life expectancy. It is today facing the problems of the European countries are facing regarding the pressure of the social system (Bengochea et al. 2013). In the last decades, Uruguay started receiving more migration, especially from other countries of Latin America. The new laws and regulations of the last decades, in addition to its welfare system, make Uruguay a desirable country for migrants (Prieto and Márquez 2019). Due to the low birth rate, total enrollment in primary education has decreased in the last decades and this trend is expected to continue for some time. Although smaller cohorts are already reaching secondary school level ages, it is not clear how

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enrollments for this educational level will evolve, since coverage is still not 100% and other factors, like high-grade repetition, multiple dropouts, and readmissions, impact enrollments in different directions.

2.4.4

Gender and Multi-Ethnic Characteristics of the Educational System In the last decades, gender gaps in educational achievement in Uruguay have grown, in favor of women. This is mainly due to the massive incorporation of females into university studies. Women outperform men at all levels of education (primary, secondary, and higher education) in terms of school attendance and cycle completion, school marks, and grade promotion, regardless of income quintile. Academic performance in standardized tests is similar for males and females in mathematics and basic sciences, while women consistently obtain better reading scores than their male counterparts (Batthyany et al. 2016). There are no significant differences in males and females as to performance in science subjects, but the latter express less confidence in their scientific abilities. This seems to translate into horizontal differences in educational choices in upper secondary and higher education. Males choose to a greater extent the scientific orientation (17.6% vs. 11.1%) and females the biological, humanistic, and artistic options. Similar patterns have been reported for college studies. The technological options, taken as a whole, also appear to be a relatively male-dominated: almost one out of every four men who began the baccalaureate took one of the following courses baccalaureates were enrolled in a vocational (CETP Consejo de Educación Técnico Profesional – UTU) program (22.8%), as compared to 13.4% of females (22.8%) (Cardozo 2016). One of the problems identified concerning education and gender is the number of young people who drop out of education institutions and do not enter the labor market, which represent between 20 and 25% of the total number of young people between 15 and 29 years of age. This specific population has been called “Ni Ni” “Ni en educación ni en trabajo” in Spanish and NEET in the Anglo-Saxon studies: “Not in Education, Employment, or Training.” This proportion has remained stable in Uruguay over the last years. Women are overrepresented among this group of young people, but half of them say that they are in this situation because they are engaged in their dedication to household chores (Batthyany et al. 2016). Another important education coverage inequality in Uruguay has to do with ethnicity. As it was stated, the afro population in Uruguay in the last census was almost 8%. Uruguay presents inequalities in the educational system towards afro population. The average years spent in education have increased over the period 2006 and 2018 with a peak-to-peak increase of about 1 year in all households – both Afro and non-Afro. Nevertheless, a gap of 1.5 years of formal education persists between Afro- and non-Afro-descendant households. If we consider the maximum levels of education of Afro and non-Afro heads of households with children, the biggest differences can be found in primary education with 28,9% of non-Afro and 40,6% of Afro heads of households and in the University percentage with 15,3% of

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non-Afro heads of households and 5,7% of the Afro heads of household, with children (Sánchez-Laguardia and Tenenbaum 2020). In 2018, 4.746 immigrant students were enrolled in the initial and primary levels. This represents 1.4% of primary enrollment. They came from a total of 63 countries, 8 of which account for 87% of all of immigrant students: Spain (967), Argentina (886), Venezuela (720), Brazil (656), USA (467), Cuba (199), Dominican Republic (141), and Peru (115). They can be grouped into three large groups: “Traditional origins,” which includes Argentina and Brazil; “Return origin” (Spain and the US), and “new Latin American origins,” which include all the Latin American countries other than Argentina and Brazil. These three groups are distributed equally in thirds and the rest 6.3% responds to other origins (ANEP 2018).

2.5 2.5.1

Transition to the Labor Market: Organization and Support

Type of Labor Market Organization (E.g., Occupational Vs. Organizational) The Uruguayan labor market presents mostly elements of an organizational type (Internal Labor Market) mainly by three fundamental aspects. The first one has to do with the bigger percentage of the population that chooses the general middle school education, which does not specifically prepare for the labor market. The proportion of youngsters choosing vocational education is growing but the preeminence of general education contributes to an organizational labor market. Secondly, there is a wide heterogeneity of typical transitions to labor market which suggests virtually no regulation for this transition. Thirdly, studies show the accumulation of qualifications in the first jobs for an important percentage of youngsters. Achieving job qualifications is related to an organizational system, as it shows weak matching between educational credentials and skills needed demanded by the job market. Additionally, vocational education has in Uruguay a protector effect in the labor market but it does not have a major “skill premium” that contributes to classify Uruguay’s labor market as organizational (Fernández and Marques 2017). It is also relevant to consider that Uruguay shows an incidence of informal work, a feature that has been deeply studied in Latin America, especially for youth. Uruguay is different from the region owing to its high percentage of formal labor. There is a low incidence of child and under-aged work, even in moments of crisis, which shows a labor market that is highly protective (Fernández and Marques 2017). Transition to the labor market in Uruguay shows gender inequalities, both by inequality in the sexual division of household and care chores, as well as females’ higher percentage of occupation in low-pay sectors. In other words, it is especially harder for women to conciliate maternity and labor. While there is only a small gender gap at the beginning of the transition to the labor market, women gradually present other fewer quality trajectories and in some cases exit the labor market (Fernández and Marques 2017). Vocational or technical education in Uruguay, as well as in most countries, has had multiple changes due to the perception of the relevance and role of this type of

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education in societies. Technological upper middle school shows an important correspondence between the courses followed in this level and the occupation accessed and fewer unemployment rates (Cardozo 2008). Vocational education in Uruguay especially in upper-middle school shows changes that allowed it to be less socially segmented but it still shows this differentiation. Also, there appears not to be a “credential” effect in vocational technological education that would correspond better to Internal Labour Market or organizational labor markets because finishing the course or not does not seem to affect significantly the labor trajectories (Fernández et al. 2018).

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

3.1

Introduction: Signposting

The education system in Uruguay is organized into five levels: pre-primary (ages 3, 4, and 5-year-olds); primary (ages 6 up to 11-year-olds); lower secondary (12 to 14-year-olds); upper secondary (15 to 18-year-olds); and tertiary education (at least 2 years). Three organic laws are currently in force: the University of the Republic (UDELAR)‘s Organic Law of 1958, The Technological University Organic Law of 2012, and the General Education Act of 2008 (substantially reformed in 2020). The Act organizes the structure and functioning of the public sector at all pre-university levels in only one administration called the ANEP (Administración Nacional de Educación Pública). Five main institutions historically have been regulating the functioning and decision-making of the public sector: laicism, free education, political autonomy from the Presidency, collegiate government, and the competitive selection process (concurso docente). Since 2008, education assistance is compulsory until 18 year olds and Upper Secondary Education is the last mandatory level. In this section, we will refer to the current status at the five levels, emphasizing primary and secondary (both general and technical or vocational) lower and upper education.

3.2

General Principles

3.2.1 Access, Compulsory Education, School Zoning/Choice Primary education has been compulsory for ages 6 through 14 since the Varela’s Reform of 1877. Lower secondary education has been compulsory since the constitutional reform of 1967. Since the General Education Act 2008, upper secondary education has been compulsory, also. Access to a public school is a right to every child in the country, regardless of citizenship. However, schools must accept any application for enrollment on the condition that the family resides in the area of the school’s jurisdiction. Families do

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not have the right to choose the public school of their preferences. The allocation of students is a bit different regarding the branch of technical secondary education. After finishing primary education, the child may decide to apply to go to a technical school instead of going to a general secondary school, either for lower or upper secondary. Public primary education is free of any charges since Varela’s Reform. Public Technical education was always free, and general public secondary education became free in 1912. The state also prints and delivers books for primary and lower secondary students. Primary public School supplies breakfast and lunch for students with smaller financial resources.

3.2.2 Promotion, Examination, Certification There is a national curriculum for primary and secondary education, which all public schools must develop. Private schools could develop another curriculum (for example, the International Baccalaureate at upper secondary level) but at the cost of not obtaining “the authorization” title from the ANEP. Since 1943, graduates from public primary schools have not had to take an examination to access secondary schools. Private graduates received the same recognition a decade later. At the end of each grade in primary and lower secondary, a student could be promoted, sent to the exam, or sanctioned with the repetition of the grade. General and Technical Education were not equivalent until 1986 following the CBU (Ciclo Básico Unificado) Reform. In 1997, the ANEP extended equal recognition to General and Technical Baccalaureates. In 2011, the UDELAR and other universities changed their entrance requirements, and generally, accept the upper secondary degree of vocational UTU (Universidad del Trabajo) to enroll in the undergraduate programs. For almost a century and a half, only the UDELAR has had the competency to extend university degrees. Since 1995, these are issued by each university (public or private) recognized by the Ministry of Education. Foreign degrees should obtain recognition from the UDELAR, the only entity that legally has this competency in Uruguay.

3.3

Education Administration and Governance

In 1918 a Law organized the administration of all Primary schools in a new entity, The National Board of Primary Education, which was segregated from the Ministry of Education, acquiring political autonomy from the Presidency. The same institutional design was adopted for secondary education. Between 1935 and 1942, both the general and technical branches were established and organized as politically autonomous Boards (thereafter, CES and UTU respectively).

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3.3.1 The General Governance of Public Education Public education has been politically autonomous since the 1917 constitution. Each education authority is autonomous from the President and the Cabinet, except in the general budget allocations. The Ministry of Education has to regulate early childhood education and private tertiary education only. So, the two most important education authorities in policy matters are the President of the ANEP and the Rector of the UDELAR. The government adopted a collegiate model. Top educational authorities in Uruguay are councils or boards. This institutional arrangement has had big detractors and big partisans over the last five decades. The famous report on the state of education published in 1965 (CIDE 1965), alleged inefficiency, and fragmentation in the design and coordination of educational policies, especially regarding student trajectory (and shifts) starting from primary until upper secondary. One of the recommendations was to unify the three councils in a new public entity. This new organism was created by the General Law of Education in 1973, maintained by the education laws of 1985 and 2008. Its name is the National Administration of Public Education (Administración Nacional de Educación Pública, thereafter ANEP). The three existing councils of primary (Consejo de Educación Primaria CEP), secondary (Consejo de Educación Secundaria CES), and technical education (Consejo de Educación Técnico Profesional CETP UTU) were unified in the ANEP with a central council, but maintaining their original field of competencies. They are still called councils. With the General Education Act 2008, they have retained substantive autonomy. Decisions about salaries, schedules, and budgets are legally assigned by the Central Council of the ANEP, whereas teachers are appointed and removed by the councils of primary, general secondary, or technical education divisions of the ANEP. Also, curriculum decisions (study plans, student evaluation regulations, official textbooks, and subject programs) are a matter of each council. This institutional design of Public Education has had constitutional rank since the constitution of 1918, both for the ANEP and for the UDELAR. This institutional design has been kept until a recent reform was passed in 2020. In July 2020, the Parliament passed a new educational reform suppressing those councils and creating a General Director in each division, and a centralized curriculum decided in the Central Council. This new reform was supported in analogous arguments as given by the 1965 CIDE Report. Public education is highly centralized despite the also widespread of the schools in the territory. Law attributed all the decisions about curriculum, teachers, and budget are to the top of each entity (the Central Board of the ANEP, or the Central Board of the UDELAR). Students are evaluated in the classroom by teachers who design tests. General guidance approved by primary, secondary, or technical education councils is adapted to the school by teachers advised by the corresponding subject inspector. Teachers are evaluated in their competencies by the subject inspector who visits and observes at least one class throughout the academic year. School directors can evaluate teachers but this is not frequently done.

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3.3.2 Financing of the Education System Since the restoration of democracy in 1985 the main instrument of educational policy is the quinquennial project that ANEP presents to the Parliament at the beginning of each governmental period. There, the authority formulates the general objectives, strategies, and budget for each level under its responsibility. Constitutionally, the Ministry of Education does not have any competency over these decisions. However, the Presidency could send an alternative overall budget project, especially with the determination of maximum incomes and expenses, generating by this procedure, an array of sensitive differences with the ANEP budget project. Parliament must choose between the two projects, without generating a fiscal deficit, at least greater than that established for that item by the Presidency (Constitution articles 214, 215, 217, and 220). The two public universities, UDELAR and UTEC, are regulated by the same norms. As a consequence of this institutional process, in the last 30 years, the public expenditure in public education at all levels was significantly lower than that determined as needed by the authorities. After each approved budget, the administration of public education ANEP had to reformulate its objectives and strategies according to the final financial/economic resources allocated by the Parliament and the Presidency. Public funding for education has increased significantly in recent years. Between 2004 and 2018 (Fig. 1). This reflects the growing importance of education as an area of public investment and a clear commitment by national authorities to increase resources. Today the budget percentage allocated to education is 5.1% (2018). However, despite recent measures, public spending on education remains considerably below the OECD average and below the equivalent spending in other Latin American countries (OCDE 2017; MEC 2018). Reference OECD? Not OCDE?

3.4

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCEDClassification (2011)

The General Education Act (no. 18437) defined in its article no. 22 six levels in “formal education.” The norm was reformed by law in 2020 with substantial changes in several aspects, both organic and programmatic. Formal education starts at level 0 “pre-primary education” for 3, 4, and 5-yearolds. Primary goes from ages 6 to 11 years olds (level 1) and level 2 is lower secondary education extended between grades 7–9. The upper secondary is level 3 and comprises grades 10–12. The 2020 reform suppressed the distinction between general, technical, and vocational orientation. The most important reform made to the 2008 Law was at level 4 which comprises levels 5 and 6 of the International Classification of Education (2011). “Tertiary education” had three branches: (a) technical and technological higher education; (b) teacher education at the university level; and (c) university degrees. Finally, level 5 of the system was adjudicated to post-graduate programs.

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Fig. 1 Demographic evolution of Uruguayan population (1852–2011)

The 2020 reform reserves level 4 for “tertiary non-university” programs, without any kind of differences, and level 5 for university degrees and post-graduate programs. The change is not merely a nominal issue. It is a consequence of the abandonment of the objective of transforming public teacher education into a pedagogical university. In Fig. 2 the Uruguayan Education System with all its levels is shown. From 0 to 3 years old is the early childhood education. It is not mandatory in the country and corresponds to ISCED 01. Levels four and five are called Initial education; it is the first mandatory level ISCED 02. Primary education is the next level, corresponds to ages 6–12, and is ISCED 1. “Educación Media” corresponds to secondary education and goes normatively from age 12 to 17-year-olds. It is subdivided into two levels, basic and superior that correspond to the levels commonly called lower and upper secondary school. Secondary education has two different tracks; general and technical or vocational. Lower secondary education corresponds to ISCED 2. Upper secondary education normatively goes from 15 to 17-year-olds and corresponds to ISCED3. Technical (vocational) education in Uruguay offers concomitantly programs of ISCED 2, ISCED 3, ISCED 4, and ISCED 5. The first two are part of the secondary level offer and are equivalent to secondary general or academic education. The programs of ISCED 4 level are called Post-secondary non-tertiary education. At the Tertiary level, Uruguay offers ISCED5 to 8 programs in the level that is called tertiary education.

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Fig. 2 Joined evolution of public spending on education as a percentage of the GDP and as a percentage of the total spent by the government from 2004 to 2018. (Source: Panorama del gasto público en educación y del PIB MEC 2018)

3.5

Personnel Supply

As stated, elementary education was conceived in Uruguay in 1875 as a powerful tool of national integration, its major aim was to universalize education to the whole population. This was reflected in its methodology and teacher education. Institutes for primary teacher education have existed since 1880 in each department capital outside Montevideo. Nearly 100% of primary Teachers graduate from these public normal institutes. Nevertheless, secondary education was not planned to be universalized, at least until the 1960s. Its purpose was elitist and selective (Rama, La evolución de la educación secundaria en Uruguay, Rama 2004), during the first decades had a very low coverage in comparison to Primary Education, and schools were concentrated in Montevideo and department capitals; so this kind of institutionalization did not need a big teacher corpus. As a consequence, teacher education was circumscribed to three different types of organizations and institutional logics: 21 Normal Institutes for Primary Education; The Artigas Institute for General Secondary Education; and the Normal Institute for Technical Education, the last two located in Montevideo. Each type of higher education institute reproduced and acquired its legitimacy from the institutionalized myths and symbols of the field of reference, in the sense of the Neo-Institucionalism Theory (Meyer and Rowan 1977). Each field has different institutions in respect of the Teacher Education. Primary teacher’s education constructed the myth to be updated to the mainstream pedagogics and didactic discussion in France between the twenties up to the fifties; in the USA from the

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sixties up to the seventies; and since the eighties in Spain and Latin America. Secondary teachers’ education reproduced the myth of academic disciplines, particularly to the movement of science specialization that guided the introduction of particular didactics and great barriers to the development of an interdisciplinary perspective in education (Rama 2004; Viera 2014) (Mancebo and Fernández (2015) proposed that this traditional institutions were five: the “State as a Teacher,” “the efficiency of centralist organization,” the “common school”; “teacher guarantees”; and the “bureaucratic control of teaching.”). These institutes were ascribed to each of the Councils of Education until 1973. Since then, the ANEP has implemented different policies of convergence to unify the at least basic disciplines of the curricula. However, this policy had meager practical results during the next two decades. At the beginning of the 1990s, less than half of general secondary teachers had a degree (a teacher’s degree or any university degree). The shortage was greater in certain domains, such as Mathematics, Physics Sciences, Arts, and Chemistry. In 1997, as a part of Rama’s reform, 1997, six regional secondary teacher institutes were established (Mancebo 2004). Also, a policy of teaching updating was promoted in cooperation with the UDELAR to improve the quality of learning, especially in biology, chemistry, physics, mathematic, and social sciences. Today, there is still a shortage of secondary teachers and in certain regions of the country (like in the northeast region, the border with Brazil) and schools located in small villages or poor neighborhoods (Cardozo et al. 2020; Petit Pivel 2019). The percentage of graduate secondary teachers of general education was in 2015 67%, which shows this large growth but it is still low, especially compared with the 100% of graduate primary teachers. For the technical (vocational) secondary teachers, the percentage is much lower, only 40% (Table 1). The 2008 general Education Act unified all teacher education in a new council, and launched a new unified curricula, but kept the distinctions among institutes for each level and orientation. Today, and after a decade of great discussion about generalities and particularities of teacher education, the council has approved three specific curricula (Consulted on 3/31/2021. Planes vigentes para Magisterio (cfe.edu.uy); Plan 2008 – Profesor de Educación Media (cfe.edu.uy)). Graduation demands four regular years of coursetaking and practice. Teachers’ degrees are still not recognized as university degrees. So, graduates have to follow a university career from the beginning if they plan to apply for postgraduate studies. Just a little proportion of them pursues a bachelor’s in education science, Psychology, Social Work, or Sociology, usually at the University of Uruguay. Secondary teachers specialized in History benefit from a special Table 1 Percentage of graduate public teachers and professors by year Year 1995 2007 2015

CEIP Primary – 100 100

CES Secondary 31 59 67

CETP Technical (Vocational) – 44 41

Source: Made by INEED with ANEP and the National Teacher Survey 2015

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arrangement to enroll in specific programs in Economic and Political programs. Catholic University has been admitting teachers restricted to its postgraduate education program since 1996.

3.5.1 Teacher Regime of Work and Salaries There are two different work regimes for primary and secondary teachers, presented in Fig. 3. As it can be seen, these work conditions have the unintended consequence of a high annual rotation rate of teachers from one school to another. In 2018, it was reported that only half of the teachers had been in their school for at least 3 years and one-third were in their first year at their current school. Sixty-eight percent of secondary teachers work in at least two schools and have a contract in one school, so it has been very difficult to consolidate school teams and school projects. This is a structural problem largely postponed in the last 30 years of education reforms launched in Uruguay (Fernández and Bentancur 2008, 121) (Fig. 4). For teachers at lower and upper middle schools, the legal regime regulates the life and career regarding their entry, tenure, mobility, and retirement. In Latin American countries such as Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica, and Chile, teaching careers have been regulated since the mid-twentieth century, when teachers and professors were recognized as workers protected by public state law. Therefore, they took the form of bureaucratic, long-term careers, characterized by job stability, vertical stability, vertical promotion based on seniority, rather than a performance-related approach. In the mid-1990s, some countries in the region (such as Chile, Colombia, and Peru) made progress in systemic changes in the teaching career, incorporating the evaluation of knowledge and performance, which reduced the weight of seniority and encouraged promotion through competitive examinations and professional further training. Uruguay has, nevertheless, not undertaken any reform of teaching careers in recent decades. The structure is hierarchical, organized by levels and sublevels. The salaries are associated fundamentally with a promotion in a profession marked by seniority and the most significant increases occur after 20 years of career. The main mechanism of promotion continues to be the change of grade every 4 years (INEED 2019).

4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

4.1

Introduction: Signposting

To date, there is a broad body of evidence on Uruguayan’s present educational situation and past trends including regular statistics on enrollment, transitions, and graduation, students’ achievement at different school levels, public investment, schools and teacher provision, among others. Most statistics on the educational situation is provided by the educational system itself – ANEP, MEC, UDELAR – and the National Institute for Educational Evaluation (Instituto Nacional de Evaluación Educativa INEEd). Uruguayan Continuous Household Survey (Encuesta Contínua de Hogares ECH – Instituto Nacional de Estadística INE (INE is the

Ages 4-5

Ages 0-3

Ages 6-11

Primary

Types of school: Urbana Común Rural Común TC Especial Aprender Prácca

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th

PRIMARY EDUCATION

Technical vocaonal

NON-FORMAL EDUCATION

Ages 12-14

Lower Secondary

General (incl. 7th 8th and 9th rural)

1st 2nd 3rd

Ages 15-17

Upper UpperSecon Secondary Technical dary Technical Technical -vocaonal vocaonal

General General

1st 2nd 3rd

Technical- vocaonal training (FPT)

SECONDARY EDUCATION

Ages 18 -

Other post secondary (ISCED 5B)

Teacher Educaon (ISCED 5B)

University (ISCED 5A)

TERTIARY EDUCATION

The Education System of Uruguay

Fig. 3 Outline of the Uruguayan education system. (Source: Panorama Educativo MEC, 2016 own translation)

Kinder Garten

5

Early childhood educaon

4

KINDER GARTEN

COMPULSORY EDUCATION

LABOR MARKET

43 1155

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Primary and Pre-Primary Education Academic Degree

Primary Teacher

Requisites to apply for a position

a teacher degree

Contract Evaluation

At least 20 hours a week in a specific school Director of the School Inspector

General Secondary and Technical Secondary Education Secondary Teacher, specialized in a specific subject No requisites Graduates have priorities By hours Subject Inspector

Allocation in a school

Each year

Each year

Career

Promotions according to seniority

Promotions according to seniority

Salary

Fig. 4 Characteristics of the teachers’ system for Primary and Secondary level. (Source: the authors themselves)

acronym for the National Institute of Statistics. Conducted since 1968, Uruguay’s Continuous Household Survey (Encuesta Contínua de Hogares ECH) collects reliable information on demographic, social, and economic aspects of the country and its people. The ECH is performed through direct interviews of household representatives throughout the country.)) provides a complementary regular source of information for educational monitoring, especially regarding school attendance, educational attainment, and inequality of access and persistence. Uruguay has also an important tradition on large-scale standardized assessments. First experiences of this sort go back to the early 1990s and were gradually extended until a more comprehensive and regular system was consolidated (Ravela et al. 2000; Fernández 2010). To date, this system involves two main institutions, ANEP-DIEE (ANEP-DIEE (División de Investigación, Evaluación y Estadística) is ANEP’s Direction for Student Assessment, Educational Research and Educational Statistics.) and INEEd, and combines different projects, mainly: formative evaluations (ANEP’s SEA and SEA+ (See: https://sea.anep.edu.uy)); summative assessments at the end of grades 3, 6, and 9 (INEEd’s ARISTAS (See: https://www.INEEd.edu.uy/nuestrotrabajo/aristas.html)), school readiness assessments for pre-primary pupils aged 3–5 (ANEP’s adaptation of the Early Years Evaluation – EIT (See: http://www.anep.edu. uy/eit/) – until 2017 and Udelar’s INDI (See: https://indi.psico.edu.uy/) since then on). Uruguay also takes part in UNESCO/LLECE’s ERCE study since 2006 and in OECD’s PISA since 2003. Standardized assessments for higher education, on the other hand, are rare and limited to specific university services or college careers. This body of evidence has provided the main empirical grounds for several national education reports, covering topics from formal education attendance, school progression and learning to dropout, graduation, and educational attainment. Inequality of educational opportunities and outcomes across different social strata – especially, but not restricted to, socioeconomic background – and across time, has traditionally been a major source of concern in Uruguay and thus has occupied a significant place in national educational diagnostics. Together with valuable academic research, these reports have shaped a clear image of the country’s educational

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trends, its most salient achievements, and challenges that still need to be dealt with (CEPAL 1990; CEPAL 1992; ANEP 2005; Fernández and Bentancur 2008; Cardozo 2008; INEEd 2014, 2019; ANEP 2020). Five major aspects arise from this body of research.

4.1.1 Access and Attendance: The Demand Side Uruguay has long achieved universal access to Primary and Secondary education. In the last decades, it has successfully extended compulsory schooling to children aged 4 and 5 and significantly increased 3-year-olds’ enrollment rates. The expansion of formal education –that is, more people getting more schooling in each new generation – began historically early in Uruguay, as compared to most Latin American countries. By the year 2000, Uruguay had also reached almost universal access to preschool education for children aged 5. From then on, pre-primary schooling provision continued its expansion. This was the result of a broad social and political consensus over the idea that investment in universal preschool attendance is one of the most effective ways in the mid-run to improve overall academic outcomes and to reduce inequality of educational opportunity. According to the National Household Survey of 2019, 99% of 5-year-old children, 94% of 4-year-old children, and 76% of 3-year-old children were enrolled in a pre-primary school. Enrolment is virtually 100% between ages 6 and 11, slightly declines from ages 12 to 15 and drops more steeply after age 16 (Graph 1) (Fig. 5). 4.1.2 Public Underinvestment and a Lagged Supply Public investment in education has notably lagged behind the growing social demand, particularly for secondary and higher education. Besides the existing debate over the allocation and the efficiency of the use of public resources (Castro and Llambí 2015), our point here is the trend in the amount of public expenditure in education as a proportion of the Gross National Product (GNP). We state that public 100.0 90.0 99.4 98.9 99.6 99.8 99.6 98.9 98.9 98.4 98.7 96.8 94.8 94.2 80.0 90.0 83.2 70.0 75.8 60.0 64.2 50.0 57.6 40.0 46.8 30.0 20.0 10.0 0.0 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Age Fig. 5 Attendance by age. Uruguay, 2019. (Source: estimations by author using Household survey of 2018)

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investment is, in part, a consequence of institutional design. As was explained before, the Presidency has the constitutional faculty “to adjust” financial resources demanded by the Educational Authority in the quinquennial budget. Intense negotiations occur in the Parliament and the final educational programs funded usually depend on the support gained among political representatives, not necessarily its strategic role. This has been the case with all governments since Democratic Restauration in 1984. The economic crisis of 1982 and Dictatorship policies of ideological control over teachers and curriculum represented a “lost decade” in Education. The Dictatorship period ended on an overall expenditure of 2.4% of the nation’s GNP. Although the First Presidency of Julio Sanguinetti (1985–1999) assigned an important budget to public education both for the ANEP and for the UDELAR, that growth was insufficient to recover from years of salary drops, deterioration of buildings, and after more than 15 years of growing unmet social demand. The next alternation of neoliberal and centrist orientations in the government between 1985 and 2004 explains that Gross National Product (GNP) spent in education has been oscillating on an average of 2.5% during four Presidential terms, declining on the Presidency of Lacalle-Herrera (1990–1995) or Battle-Ibañez (2000–2005), and growing during Sanguinetti’s second Presidency (1995–2000) (Grau 2000). Just in 2005, the leftist Tabaré Vazquez and the “Frente Amplio” party won the Presidency with the support of a broad social movement that included the teachers’ unions and a majority part of the national academy. The compromise was to increase the Educational and Science Budget up to 5% of GNP. It took 15 years and three presidential terms to achieve the first objective. However, investment in science did not reach 1%. (Data available at https://mirador.INEEd.edu.uy/indicadores/gastopublico-en-educacion-como-porcentaje-del-producto-interno-bruto-51-1.html Accesed on 31th march, 2021.) In real terms, public spending on education grew at an average annual rate of 10% between 2004 and 2013. This reflects the growing importance of education as an area of public investment and a clear commitment of national authorities to improve resourcing in education. However, despite the recent efforts, public expenditure on education remains considerably below the OECD average and below the equivalent expenditure in other Latin American countries. (Santiago et al. 2016)

An expression that exemplifies the public underinvestment is the lagged supply in secondary education provision. As we have stated before, this educational level was not a priority on the public agenda until the launch of the CIDE report in the 1960s. So, Uruguay suffered from a delay in public policies for Primary and Secondary levels. The expansion of primary schooling since the beginning of the twentieth century led to a growing increase in the demand for post-primary education, especially from lower and middle social strata. President Batlle’s Law of 1912 was a first step to meet this social demand, but enrollments did not begin to increase in substantial terms until the late 1920s (Bralich 2008, 34–35) and then again since the 1940s-entrance examinations to secondary education were abolished in 1943. Until the 1960s, the supply (basically, new schools located in middle-class neighborhoods

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Table 2 Period of the establishment of new Secondary Schools in Uruguay until 2018, by Presidential term (See List of presidents of Uruguay – Wikipedia) Period Before 1912 1911– 1914 1915– 1929 1930– 1958 1959– 1972 1973– 1984 1985– 1989 1990– 2004 2005– 2018 Total

Presidency of:

Number of Secondary Schools 2

Percentage 0.6

Jose Battle y Ordoñez

17

5.3

Viera, Brum, Campistegy & Serrato presidency Terra, Baldomir, Amézaga, Berreta, Martinez, Batlle-Berres Etchegoyen, Fernández-Crespo, Gestido, Pacheco Military dictatorship

6

1.9

46

14.2

49

15.1

30

9.3

Sanguinetti

39

12.0

Lacalle-Herrera, Sanguinetti, Batlle-Ibañez

71

21.9

Vázquez, Mujica, Vázquez

64

19.8

324

100

Source: authors from data of ANEP-DIEE and Nahum 2009

and small cities outside Montevideo) grew at lower levels than the demand. After the political de facto period, successive governments attempted to close this gap by an aggressive policy of founding public secondary schools, on average 6 per year: 54% of today’s Uruguayan Public Secondary Schools were founded between 1985 and 2018 (see Table 2).

4.1.3 Academic Achievement Three decades of students’ assessments in Uruguay show mixed results. Trend analysis from any of these studies exhibits a rather flat curve, meaning average students’ achievement did not improve, nor decrease, substantially in the last decades, although there is partial evidence of a slight decline in overall results for primary students in some areas of study (INEEd 2017; UNESCO-LLECE 2015). Comparative studies, such as PISA and ERCE, show this stability pattern is common to most educational systems in the region. It needs to be mentioned that, in those school levels for which enrollment rates are still increasing due to educational expansion, in particular in secondary education, the progressive inclusion of lower social strata pushes the average results down. In this scenario, performance stability has been interpreted as a sign of improvement in the countries’ overall educational outcomes in terms of the quality and equity tradeoff. In Latin America, Chile stands out as a successful case in this regard, improving

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both educational coverage and academic average achievement simultaneously (UNESCO-LLECE 2015; OCDE 2019). At the end of the second decade in the twenty-first Century, Uruguay ranks within the top Latin American countries in PISA and ERCE – together with other countries like Chile and Costa Rica, depending on the specific study/area – in terms of average academic achievement in Mathematics, Reading or Science (see Table 3). Trends in academic achievement in the last two decades generated a strong debate between the leftist government that ruled the country between 2005 and 2019 and the opposition parties, in particular, at the light of the increase in resources allocated to education during that period. A similar picture emerges for Primary Education. In comparative terms, Uruguay performed relatively well on average in UNESCO’s Second and Third Regional Studies. In 2006, Uruguay was only outperformed by Cuba in the Math test. In 2013, Uruguay showed average achievements similar to Mexico and was outperformed only by Chile (UNESCO-LLECE 2008, 2015). Although Uruguay’s good performance in relative terms, both international and national assessments have repeatedly shown that, in substantial terms, a significant proportion of Uruguayan students fail to achieve basic academic abilities in school, that is, perform below the minimum proficiency levels expected for their age/school grade in key instrumental areas. This is a main issue of concern both for academics and policy-makers. Nearly half of the students assessed by PISA perform below PISA’s Proficiency Level 2 in the three tests (Mathematics, Reading and Science), so they can be considered “PISA illiterates.” As PISA longitudinal studies of 2003 and 2009, and SERCE (Segundo Estudio Regional Comparativo y Explicativo, UNESCO), longitudinal study have repeatedly shown, low achievement at early school stages is a huge risk for further learning achievement and strongly predicts future school progression problems, high dropout probabilities, and low graduation chances (Boado and Fernández 2010; De Melo et al. 2015; Cardozo 2016, 2018; De Melo and Machado 2016; ANEP-DIEE 2020). For example, according to the Uruguayan TERCE (Tercer Estudio Regional Comparativo y Explicativo, UNESCO), Follow-up Study, 22% of students assessed at grade 6 in 2013 performing at level 1 in the Math test were already out of formal education in 2016 and only 44% had progressed across the first three secondary Table 3 Trends in PISA Math test by selected Latin American countries

Uruguay Argentina Brazil Chile Costa Rica Colombia Mexico

2006 427 381 370 411 370 406

2009 427 388 386 421 409 381 419

2012 409 388 389 423 407 376 413

2015 418 NP 377 423 400 390 408

2018 418 379 384 417 402 391 409

Source: PISA 2018 country-specific overviews, OECD (2020)

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Table 4 Probability of being enrolled between 2014 and 2016 at Secondary Education and to be “on the expected grade” each year by TERCE proficiency level (PL) in Reading and Mathematics. Uruguayan TERCE Longitudinal Study

All MATH test Proficiency level “I” (lowest) PL II PL III Proficiency level “IV” (highest) READING test Proficiency level “I” (lowest) PL II PL III Proficiency level “IV” (highest)

Enrolled 2014 2015 0.95 0.85

2016 0.78

In-time progression 2014 2015 2016 0.95 0.56 0.44

0.95 0.98 1.00 1.00

0.85 0.95 0.97 0.98

0.78 0.89 0.95 1.00

0.95 0.98 1.00 1.00

0.56 0.78 0.90 0.94

0.44 0.67 0.84 0.93

0.94 0.98 0.98 1.00

0.75 0.93 0.96 1.00

0.70 0.87 0.95 0.99

0.94 0.98 0.98 1.00

0.51 0.70 0.88 0.98

0.41 0.58 0.80 0.95

Source: ANEP-DIEE 2020, 63

school grades in that same period, as compared, respectively, to 0.1% and 93% of those who performed at level 4 (Table 4). The first Uruguayan PISA Longitudinal Study (PISA-L 2003) showed similar results. PISA 2003 students that performed below level 2 in Math had 5 times lower probabilities to access higher education by age 20 than students in levels 4, 5, or 6: respectively, 0.15 and 0.75 (Boado and Fernández 2010, 90). PISA-L studies also show that academic competencies strongly predict noneducational outcomes, e.g., in the labor market. For instance, PISA 2003 Math illiterates had a higher probability to transit to the labor force before age 18, to persist in a nonformal job or to be employed in a lower-skilled occupation up to 25 year olds.

4.1.4 Grade Retention, School Trajectories, and Graduation Rates Uruguay’s grade retention rates at primary and secondary school have been historically high, even as compared to other Latin American countries with poorer academic results and lower social development. In the last decade and a half, approximately, primary school retention rates have steadily decreased. Still, one out of four students, nowadays, is held back at least once during Primary school, mostly in grades 1 and 2 (Méndez 2015). Follow-up longitudinal studies in Uruguay have shown that grade retention, together with below-expected academic skills, is a major predictor of future school failure. For example, only 62% of TERCE 2013 grade 6 students with grade retention experiences in primary education were still attending formal education in 2016 and only half of them had managed to progress through school grades in low-secondary school (see Table 5). Grade retention sharply increases after the transition to post-primary education, both in lower and in Upper Secondary. For instance, the percentage of Uruguayan 15-year-old students who have repeated a grade during primary, lower secondary, or upper secondary school was one of the highest among PISA 2018 participating

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Table 5 Proportion of Uruguayan TERCE-2013 grade 6 students that were enrolled and have progressed in time across grades after primary-secondary school transition by grade retention experiences in elementary (primary) school (2013–2016)

All Grade retention experiences None At least one

Enrolled 2014 0.978

2015 0.926

2016 0.885

In-time progression 2014 2015 0.978 0.768

2016 0.676

0.995 0.923

0.978 0.758

0.966 0.623

0.995 0.923

0.798 0.287

0.882 0.406

Source: ANEP 2020, 63

countries – Uruguay ranked fifth within 75. Grade retention, together with temporary or definitive dropout trajectories, which are far from exceptional at this educational level, directly results in a high proportion of students deviating from a normative trajectory in terms of grade progression and in a high percentage of students leaving secondary school before graduation, both in substantial and in comparative terms (Fernández et al. 2010; Cardozo 2016). According to the 2019 National Household Survey, only 34.6% of people between 18 and 20 year olds had completed high school in Uruguay. This percentage rises to 43.3% and to 44.7% at ages 21 to 23 and 24 to 29, as a result of students that need extra time to finish their studies, due to grade retention or transitory school drop-out experiences. Although high school completion is a major concern in almost every Latin American country, the argument can be made for a national-specific problem, as it was first stated in the CIDE report in 1965. Uruguay’s graduation rates stand well below Latin American’s average (see Table 6) and are far from expectations given its comparatively high social and economic welfare level within the region, its relatively mature educational system and its comparatively good learning achievement results. Most concerning, graduation rates have only slightly improved over the last three decades, during which Uruguay has actually fallen behind its neighbors in relative terms (De Armas and Retamoso 2010; Aristimuño and De Armas 2012; INEEd 2019). Finally, higher education in Uruguay has shown an important expansion in the last decades, although access rates are still strongly dependent on social background, in spite of the fact that tertiary careers in the public sector – which is by far predominant – are free of charge and have no admission requirements, other than high school completion. Graduation from secondary education is actually the main bottleneck for tertiary education access. Beyond that, longitudinal research on educational trajectories in UDELAR has evidenced a high percentage of students face important difficulties to progress across their college careers and/or drop out before graduation, leading to very low completion rates (Fernández 2009, Fernández 2014; Boado 2011; Figueroa 2018; Marques 2018; Marques 2015).

4.2

Inequality: Incidence and Policies

As in almost all educational systems, educational inequalities are a major source of concern in Uruguay. Although universal and free access is granted by the public

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Table 6 Percentage of the population aged 20 to 24 that have completed upper-secondary school in selected Latin American countries País Latinamerica’s average Uruguaya Argentinab Bolivia Brasil Chile Colombia Costa Rica Ecuador El Salvador Honduras México Panamá Paraguay Perú Rep. Dominicana

2000 41,8 28,2 57,1 46,1 ... 66,7 ... 35,6 ... 35,3 ... 32,6 49,9 ... 65,1 38,1

2005 49,7 32,7 64,8 58,7 55,3 ... 59,4 41,1 48,3 39,8 23,5 ... 52,6 43,5 69,9 47,7

2010 56,0 34,4 63,4 ... ... ... 63,4 49,0 58,7 41,5 36,1 46,5 ... 50,9 77,1 55,7

2015 60,5 36,7 ... 70,3 70,3 86,2 71,4 56,5 65,1 46,8 43,8 ... 61,4 62,5 81,5 60,4

2016 61,5 36,6 66,2 72,8 72,0 ... 73,2 58,1 67,0 40,3 44,6 53,5 62,7 61,4 82,1 63,2

2017 62,3 39,2 69,8 74,3 71,8 86,6 74,1 58,2 68,6 40,2 ... ... 64,9 63,2 85,0 62,8

2018 41,1 71,2 76,2 73,6 ... 74,5 59,4 72,8 41,7 41,4 57,6 65,7 62,7 85,4 62,9

Source: CEPAL – CEPALSTAT a Urban regions until 2005 b Urban regions

sector, attendance is still an issue of concern, especially for secondary and tertiary educational levels, in part as a consequence of weak incentives and in part because of pitfalls in the institutional design and, in general, regarding supply (schools, programs, textbooks, tests). In this section we present the state of the art circumscribed to compulsory education and with two main foci: attendance gaps and achievement gaps. We then review specific policies designed to mitigate inequality.

4.2.1 Inequality Trends in Schooling Evidence exhibits two different trends regarding inequalities in schooling. While social differentials in attendance have been reduced in the last decade, educational attainment gaps still constitute a major issue. Since the ANEP’s policy of expansion of pre-primary education, access gaps (among social classes, levels of income, and place of residence) have been reduced substantially. Figures in pre-primary enrolment are nearly exceptional within Latin America. Gaps in access to formal schooling between 4- and 5-year-old children from the poorest and the richest families – first and fifth quintile of the household income distribution, respectively – have practically been closed. On the other hand, there are still substantial, although declining, gaps in schooling for children aged 3, as is shown in Fig. 2. Gaps have also decreased at ages 15–18. The attendance rate ratio between the richest and the poorest (quintiles 5 and 1 of the household income distribution) between 1991 and 2019 decreased from 1.4 to 1.1, from 1.7 to 1.1, from 1.8 to 1.3,

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and from 2.4 to 1.7, at ages 15 to 18 respectively. (We do not report gaps for ages 6 to 14, since, as stated before, school attendance is virtually universal at that ages.) In spite of this trend, gaps are still important at the end of the compulsory age of schooling. Only half of the 18-year-old students from the lowest income quintile, as compared to 90% in the richest, attended school in 2019 (Figs. 6 and 7). Inequalities are particularly remarkable regarding upper secondary school graduation rates (Fig. 3). In 2019, only two out of ten students (18.5%) from the lowest 120.0

98.1

91.9

100.0

98.1 95.2 97.3 93.0 81.2

89.5

80.0 71.4 71.3 66.1

60.0

96.8 96.8 97.5 100.0 98.9 95.7 85.9 64.0

63.8

50.2 40.0 20.0 13.3

27.5

19.5

0.0 1991 2002 2010 2019

1991 2002 2010 2019

3 years old

1991 2002 2010 2019

4 years old

lower income quintil

5 years old

Upper income quintil

Fig. 6 Attendance rate evolution in Uruguay for 3- to 5-year-old children 1991–2019. Urban country (%). (Source: Observatorio de la educación de ANEP from INE-ECH. https://observatorio. anep.edu.uy/acceso/cobertura)

120.0

97.5

96.5 98.9

99.4 96.5

97.4 93.5

97.5

98.4

94.2

91.9

87.6

100.0 80.0

90.0

60.0

84.0

91.0

90.2 68.8

77.3

69.1

40.0

99.0

53.9

52.5

49.4

20.0

28.8

13 years old 14 years old 15 years old 16 years old 17 years old lower income quintil

1991 2002 2010 2019

1991 2002 2010 2019

1991 2002 2010 2019

1991 2002 2010 2019

1991 2002 2010 2019

1991 2002 2010 2019

0.0

18 years old

Upper income quintil

Fig. 7 Attendance rate evolution in Uruguay for 13- to 18-year-old children 1991–2019. Urban country (%). (Source: Observatorio de la educación de ANEP from INE-ECH. https://observatorio. anep.edu.uy/acceso/cobertura)

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Table 7 Upper secondary education completion by household income (quintiles 1 and 5) in Uruguay. 2006, 2010, 2015, 2019

2006 2010 2015 2019

Q1–20% Poorest 9.5 11.3 15.6 18.5

Q5–20% richest 75.1 76.3 77.0 81.9

Abs. difference 65.6 65.0 61.5 63.3

Ratio Q5 to Q1 7.9 6.7 4.9 4.4

Odds Ratio 28.7 25.2 18.2 19.9

Source: authors based on INE-ECH

quintile of the household income distribution had completed high school, as compared to 8 out of ten (81.9%) in the upper quintile, a gap of 63% (see Table 7). This means graduation was 4.4 times less likely for the former. Trends since 2006 suggest inequalities on high school completion have slightly decreased, both in absolute and in relative terms, although they still remain at quite high levels, particularly considering upper secondary school has been compulsory since 2008.

4.2.2 Inequality Trends in Achievements PISA cycles provide helpful indicators of inequality both in terms of national trends and in comparative terms. The socioeconomic achievement gradient and the R2 statistic are two straight indicators of inequality in achievement. They express the strength of the association between students’ socioeconomic status and their PISA test scores and the proportion of the differences in achievement that are accounted for by differences in students’ socioeconomic status. (Technically, this implies regressing PISA plausible values test scores on students’ ESCS index.) PISA cycles 2009 to 2018 in Uruguay show almost no changes in these two inequality indicators (see Table 8). On average, one standard deviation in PISA Economic, Social and Cultural status index (ESCS) is associated with between 30 and 35 score points in the Math test -roughly, 1/3 of a standard deviation in the PISA test metric. Overall, ESCS accounts for 18% to 22% of the differences in students’ achievement. Table 8 suggests ESCS inequality in Uruguayan 15-year-old students’ achievement has not risen nor declined in substantial terms over the last decade. Both ESCS slopes and R2 are slightly lower in 2018 as compared to 2009, but differences seem too small to jump to strong conclusions. Previous analyses have shown socioeconomic gradients in Uruguay are close to those found, on average, in the OECD countries, while the R2 coefficient is consistently higher, suggesting a bigger part of students’ achievement in Uruguay is explained by socioeconomic status (ANEP 2012). Figure 8 presents average scores in Math for the three main Uruguayan institutional sectors (general public, technical, and private secondary schools). As expected, differences are substantial. Uruguayan students at private schools perform steadily near the OECD average, between 75 and 95 PISA score points above public school students and between 100 and 125 points above technical school average. These gaps in achievement, yet, mostly reflect the social segmentation of the

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1166 Table 8 Socioeconomic slopes and determination coefficient (R2) for PISA Math Test in Uruguay. Cycles 2009 to 2018a

PISA cycle 2009 2012 2015 2018

R2 0.22 0.22 0.18 0.18

Socioeconomic Slope 35.0 36.6 33.3 30.8

Source: authors, based on Uruguayan PISA datasets Socioeconomic slopes are the Beta coefficients of a linear regression of PISA plausible values test scores on students’ economic, social and cultural index. R2 is the proportion of variance that is accounted for by the model

a

550

550 500

494

500

494

492

477

450

450 419

419 400

500

415

408 398

394 375

392

400 374

369

350

350

300

300 2006

2009 Gen. Public

2012 Technical

2015 Private

2018 National mean

Fig. 8 PISA average Mathematic scores by school sector. Cycles 2009 to 2018. (Source: ANEPPISA)

country’s educational system, mainly, the upward selectivity of the private sector and the downward selectivity of technical schools. (As stated in previous sections, the technical schools themselves have been instruments of social policy aimed at young people from low-income households, the urgency to enter the labor market or with a weak development of academic skills during primary education. Although to a lesser degree, strong differences also exist between general public schools and privates schools in terms of average socioeconomic indicators.) National PISA reports have found no statistical differences between private and public general schools’ average achievement, once students and schools’ socioeconomic background and previous educational trajectory – mainly, grade retention experiences – are accounted for.

4.2.3

Policies, Programs, Initiatives, Developments to Tackle Inequality Since 1995, successive governments have developed more than 20 different types of public programs to tackle inequality problems in education (Fernández 2018). These

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include institutional actions aiming to impact the school supply side, both through universal policies and through policies targeted at vulnerable populations, and grant programs, some of which combine financial and pedagogical support. Only some of these policies have been sustained over time, including the CAIF Plan (Centro de Atención a la Infancia y a la Familia) for infant children (launched in 1992), the pre-primary Education universalization policy, and the full-time school program in public primary education. A short list of the most important policies and programs to tackle educational inequality in Uruguay in the last decades should include, at least, the following (See: https://pcentrales.anep.edu.uy/dispositivos). Programs Based upon Educational Supply • Pre-primary education universalization program. Launched in 1995 at the beginning with the so-called Rama Reform, it has become one of the most salient national educational strategies towards quality and equity improvement. In the last years, the focus has turned to 3 year olds, given that schooling rates are already almost universal for ages 4 and 5. • all-day primary schools. Designed and launched by Rama’s Reform, it has targeted lowest household income children in the country. Besides the extension of the school day from 4 to 7.5 h, the program required new infrastructure to establish 228 all-day schools up to 2019 (25% of Public urban schools). The program also instituted other important innovations, such as the inclusion of new curricular areas, additional nutritional and health care support, among others. More recently, Uruguay has developed a similar program for secondary schools (all-day or extended), although its expansion was severely limited by budget restrictions. • Summer schools. In the early 1990s, Uruguay created the summer school program (Programa Educativo de Verano) for pre-primary and primary students. The program has a social-care purpose – including the continuity of nutrition support during school recess – and a pedagogical goal, which aims at reducing the summer learning loss – also referred to as the summer gap effect – especially for socially disadvantaged children. • Compensatory funding through school type differentiation and extra resources provision. Besides all-day and extended-time programs, Uruguay has attempted to tackle educational inequality by allocating more financial and human resources to schools that serve a more disadvantaged population – e.g., “Aprender” primary elementary schools – including salary incentives for teachers and the provision of extra staff, such as social workers, support and community teachers, among others – for those schools facing the most challenging socioeconomic contexts. Experiences of this kind in Uruguay have a long tradition for the primary educational level, but are much less extended in secondary education. The program for the universalization of lower-secondary education (Programa de Impulso a la Universalización del Ciclo Básico PIU), which is now discontinued, was one of the most ambitious compensatory policy for that educational level in the last years. Its explicit purpose was to tackle school failure and learning inequalities and to improve grade retention and lower-secondary graduation rates. The program allocated specific resources to public secondary schools

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with poorer educational results, including extra hours for students tutoring, supporting staff – e.g., psychologists and social workers – and specific economic resources for nutritional aid and students’ school material provision (Santiago et al. 2016). • Rural Secondary schools. Rural educational policy in Uruguay goes back to the early twentieth century and has been a major instrument to tackle geographical inequalities in the access to elementary school. Rural secondary schools, on the other hand, are much less extended. The two first secondary schools located in rural areas were established in 1987 in the northeast of the country. For the next 6 years, 10 other schools of this kind were created but this initiative was stopped afterwards and substituted by a new project, that consisted of rural primary schools delivering low-level secondary education, grades 7 to 9. To date, 56 rural elementary schools are part of this program. • Reengagement programs. Since 2005, several programs have been introduced to secondary education to reengage teenagers that have dropped out from school. These programs include broadly a set of instruments, both educational and noneducational. A first group of programs, for example, the “community classroom program” (“Programa de Aulas Comunitarias” PAC (https://www.ces.edu. uy/index.php/pac)), provided nonstandard courses for seventh grade (lower secondary), mentoring and fellowships for young people aged 13 to 17 who have failed in the transition to Secondary education. Its explicit and distinctive purpose was to help them reengage, after 1 year, to regular secondary school. A second group of policies implied the creation of alternative school tracks/programs for completing lower secondary education. Two such programs are “Rumbo” and “FPB” (Formación Profesional Básica), both of which enable students to pursue upper secondary education (Fernández 2018). The PAC was canceled in 2020, and FPB was discontinued in 2021. • Program of protection of trajectory. Since 2015, Uruguay developed a new approach to keep vulnerable teenagers in secondary schools adopting the perspective of “protecting students’ school trajectories.” These programs focused on critical transitions, e.g., from Kindergarten to Primary School and from Primary to Secondary school. An innovative aspect of these policies is that they are targeted directly at at-risk students and their educational trajectories over time, shifting the traditional focus from schools to students. EIT (Evaluación Infantil Temprana), a national adaptation of The Learning Bar’s Early Years Evaluation (Borba et al. 2018; Willms et al. 2006) was one of these programs. It consisted of a standardized assessment of pre-primary pupils’ developmental achievement and readiness for school, conducted by teachers in the classroom, followed by a pedagogical intervention protocol designed to help teachers support their students’ specific educational needs. EIT was universalized for all public pre-primary groups in 2017, and substituted since then with the Inventory of Children Development (INDI, Inventario de Desarrollo Infantil). The rationale behind these programs is that pre-school attendance, by itself, is a necessary but not-sufficient condition to ensure all children are ready for primary school cognitive and social demands, and that early and individualized educational

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intervention is both more effective and more cost-efficient than remedial policies. The Educational Trajectories Protection System (SPTE, Sistema de Protección de Trayectorias Educativas) is another program of this kind. It involves three complementary components: transition policies, specifically between primary and secondary education and between lower and upper secondary education; at-risk individual students educational support during their school trajectories; supporting technical staff in the territory. SPTE was developed upon the basis of several previous programs, including “Enlace (Interciclos),” “Tránsito Educativo,” “Compromiso Educativo,” among others, and strongly relies on the development of educational information systems (Croce 2020) (ANEP 2019). Programs Totally or Partially Focused on Supporting the Demand Finally, Uruguay has a set of educational grant programs provided by different public institutions, as depicted in Table 9 (MEC 2019) (See https://www.gub.uy/ ministerio-educacion-cultura/politicas-y-gestion/becas). All of them are nonrefundable, and their main purpose is to subsidize indirect educational costs for students that meet certain criteria – e.g., low-income background. In some cases, for example in “Compromiso Educativo,” financial aid is one component of a broader strategy, which also includes some sort of educational support, like teacher tutorials or Table 9 Public educational grants, 2018 by target population, educational level, and the main purpose of the program

Name Fondo de Solidaridad (UDELAR, UTU, UTEC) Uruguay Estudia (MEC) Compromiso Educativo (MEC) Bienestar Universitario (UDELAR) Becas de Apoyo Económico del MEC Consejo de Formación en Educación (ANEP) Becas de inclusión Socioeducativa (MIDES) Carlos Quijano (MEC) Source: MEC 2019

Number of beneficiaries 8,582

Target Population Youth & adults

7,617

Teenagers & adults Teenagers & adults Adults

6,391 5,010

4,263

The target level of Education University and Tecnological non-university programs Primary, secondary & tertiary Primary, secondary & tertiary UDELAR’ students

The objective of the Program Persistence & graduation Graduation Persistence Persistence

Secondary\

Persistence

2,311

Teenagers & adults Adults

Teacher education

1,320

Infants

Pre-primary education

Persistence & graduation Persistence

11

Adults

Teacher education

Persistence

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between-students mentoring for school exams. In other cases, like “Bienestar Universitario,” subsidies are in species: the program’s beneficiaries access lowercost meals, “student-prices” in transport, or lower prices in housing.

4.2.4 Inclusion and Integration of Students with Special Needs According to the last National Population Census (2011), 5% of children aged 0 to 14 have some kind of disability. Uruguay has a long tradition of educational experiences for children with special needs that goes back to the early decades of the twentieth Century. Historically, this population was served in a specific type of educational institution, which in Uruguay are called special schools. According to national estimations (Da Rosa and Mas 2013), to date, roughly 60% of children with disabilities attend Special Schools. In the last decades, efforts have been made towards the integration -first- and the inclusion -then- of children with special needs in regular schools. These efforts imply complementary strategies, such as: inclusive classrooms in regular schools for kids with visual, auditive and motor special needs; supporting and itinerant teachers (so-called Maestros de apoyo and Maestros itinerantes); double schooling (“Escolaridad compartida”) in regular and Special Schools, among others (See: www.dgeip.edu.uy/educacion-especial). In particular, the Mandela Schools Network (“Red Mandela”), gathers a group of pre-primary, elementary, and -more recentlysecondary (general and technical) schools that include students with special needs in their classrooms. Besides ANEP, other agencies like Unicef, IIDI (IIDI is the Spanish acronym for Inter-American Institute on disability and inclusive development.), and Flacso-Uruguay participate in the Network. In spite of these actions, specialists have expressed serious concerns about the educational system readiness, in practice, to successfully include children with special needs in regular schools. The transition from primary to lower-middle education, in particular, has been pointed out as one of the major challenges the country still faces in this regard (Da Rosa and Mas 2013; ANEP 2020; Míguez 2014). 4.2.5 Balance of Policies’ Impact on Inequality With some exceptions, impact evaluations of educational policies, in particular, on inequality of outcomes, are scarce in Uruguay. Yet, all things considered, it can be stated that inequalities in outcomes have proved much harder to mitigate than inequalities in access, in spite of the country’s awareness and efforts towards educational equity. Both attainment and learning achievement, as captured respectively by the highest educational level completed and by standardized assessments, are still strongly correlated with ascribed circumstances, such as social background – family income, socioeconomic status, or occupational class position – ethnical condition, geographical location, or gender. Research has shown performance is also strongly dependent on a school’s average socioeconomic status as well as on the public/private sector divide, reflecting the country’s institutional segmentation. Moreover, specific research on middle-term trends has shown a pattern of persistent inequality in Uruguay, meaning relative – as opposed to absolute – gaps in

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attainment between social strata have remained stable across time, in spite of an overall educational expansion (Cardozo and Menese 2019). As noted before, high school completion, in particular, is still strongly associated with socioeconomic background. Although, as noted before, there has been a slight decline in graduation socioeconomic divides over the last years. Completing Upper-Secondary Education is still a very unlikely outcome for economically disadvantaged students. As long as this is the highest compulsory school level in Uruguay, graduation differentials reflect to a great extent the cumulative impact of inequalities throughout the whole school trajectory. As stated before, socioeconomic inequalities in students’ academic achievement, as captured by standardized assessments, have shown a stable pattern, suggesting policies have had no substantial impact in mitigating the extent to which socioeconomical circumstances, broadly speaking, condition learning opportunities.

4.3

ICT and Digitalization

The Uruguayan educational system approached comparatively early the new kind of equity divides derived from ICT technologies extensions. In December 2006, Miguel Brechner, director of the Technological Laboratory of Uruguay (LATU), presented to President Tabaré Vazquez, a universal access plan to ICT based on the computers devised by Nicolas Negroponte. The plan, called “CEIBAL”: Conectividad Educativa de Informática Básica para el Aprendizaje en Linea, was accepted and in April 2007 was launched at the primary school of Cardal, a very small village in the provinces. In 2009, all students in Primary Education had their own XO CEIBAL computer and in 2015 one million computers were delivered. (CEIBAL 2020). In 2018, 550 thousand devices were functioning in the hands of students and teachers, mainly of public primary and secondary schools. All of the 2931 public schools are connected by a Wi-Fi net. In 2019, 68% of the lower-income primary and secondary education students have only a CEIBAL computer at home (Data can be consulted in Plan CEIBAL – CEIBAL en cifras).

4.3.1

The CEIBAL Plan

Objectives and Phases of Development Plan CEIBAL (Spanish acronym for “Educational Connectivity of Basic Informatics for Online Learning”), an adaptation of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project devised by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been the most important ICT initiative in Uruguay. CEIBAL’s specific aims are threefold: to provide every child and teacher universal and free access to portable computers; promote equity by bridging communication and access to information gaps; develop new educational tools and learning environments to help widen children’s learning (Brun et al. 2011). It is assumed that the introduction of a device of this kind to the classrooms should have progressive impacts not only on connectivity but on teaching and learning as well.

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This ICT policy was developed in three phases, each one attempting to deepen the scope of the educational change that was pursued. Access to computers and connectivity were part of phase I of the plan, together with the development of a supportive system and technological assistance; Phase II “digital tools” for learning and Phase III “new pedagogies” for teachers, followed. Since 2011, five types of digital tools were created by CEIBAL: (i) mathematic platforms; (ii) CREA Platform; (iii) “Country Library,” (iv) “Artists in the Classroom,” (v) and “Scientist in the Classroom.” Each of these new digital tools allowed to launch specific innovations, like English throw CEIBAL, sponsored by the British Council, and a program of School Robotics. These two programs were designed to be available in every school of the country, regardless of the number of students of disadvantaged socioeconomic background, with the explicit objective of equalizing learning opportunities. Phase III aimed at deepening learning in three new directions: the Global Learning Network – “Red Global de Aprendizajes,” “Computational Thinking,” and “Digital Citizenship.” These three programs share the fundamental concept of using ICT technologies to accelerate and personalize learning (CEIBAL 2020, 17–18). CEIBAL Impacts on Learning CEIBAL has been under strict monitoring and assessment since it has been launched. Impacts were analyzed on computer access for poor households, connectivity both at schools and outside schools, computers used by children, and learning in curriculum main areas. Findings have been auspicious in the first types of targets and ambiguous regarding the last. In an early study of CEIBAL impacts, Pittaluga and Rivoir (2012) found evidence that CEIBAL was helping narrow the digital divide between the rich and the poor, in terms of access to computers and of Internet connectivity, both at home and at educational institutions. Based on a follow-up study of Uruguayan students assessed by SERCE 2013 at grade 6, De Melo et al. (2013) find no impacts of CEIBAL on reading and mathematics achievement in lower-secondary school. ICT educational policies have also allowed the development of stronger, more integrated systems of information, including students’ educational activity across school grades and levels, platforms for school-families interaction, alert systems for students who miss classes, among others. The development and expansion of on-line assessments, like SEA and SEA+, were also made possible by the availability of laptops and connectivity in every public school, allowing teachers to assess students’ progression through standardized, adaptive tests, and get immediate results, both for each child and for the whole group. CEIBAL’s educational platforms played a crucial role during the 2020 schools closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and were one of the most important ways for teachers to keep contact with their students and for students to keep track with schooling activities, especially in primary school (ANEP 2021) (Fig. 9).

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Fig. 9 Picture of three rural primary students showing their laptops “CEIBALitas.” Source: The Uruguayan “CEIBALita,” a national proud. Photo by CEIBAL, 2008

5

Conclusion

5.1

Uruguay’s Educational Achievements and Challenges

The Uruguayan educational system is considered a highly developed one in the Latin American context. This is the result both of historical and of more recent salient achievements. To date, the country stands out in the region for its high educational coverage, including pre-primary education since the 1990s – Uruguay was the first Latin American country to achieve universal coverage for children aged 5 and 4-, primary education since the 1950s, lower-secondary education since approximately the turn of the century and, although to a lesser degree, higher secondary education. Uruguay also ranks within the top countries in Latin America in international comparative standardized tests, such as PISA and ERCE. From a historical perspective, today’s Uruguayan educational system is far more expanded and more inclusive than in the past, which means more people get more education now than ever before. In the short term, educational trends show some important improvements, together with persistent difficulties. Currently, and despite its good performance in several indicators and of notable progress in some areas, the country is still facing an array of persisting structural educational challenges, most of which were diagnosed as early as 1965, as stated before. Among the most important, the following should be mentioned: (a) grade

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retention rates – both in primary and in secondary education – and dropout rates – after the transition to secondary education – are still high and far from expectations, in comparative terms, given other social and educational indicators; (b) lower and – most dramatically – higher secondary education completion rates are still substantially low, and far below those of other Latin American countries, including some with poorer social and economic development; (c) a significant proportion of Uruguayan students are failing to achieve the expected academic skills – e.g., in reading, mathematics or science – for their age/school grade. This is a critical educational problem in its own right, and also a strong predictor of future school failure; (d) inequality of educational opportunities and outcomes remains high in Uruguay. Improvements in this regard have been achieved in the past decades, mostly considering access to pre-primary and secondary school and persistence at this latter level. Yet, educational divides in grade promotion, in-time progression across grades and graduation, as well as in academic achievement have proved much more difficult to tackle through educational policies, and have either been reduced only moderately or not reduced at all. Uruguayan educational inequalities contrast with the country’s achievements in other areas, such as social security, health provision, maternal and infant mortality or income distribution, to mention just a few. Uruguay ranks within the top Latin American countries in terms of the Human Development Index, the Human Opportunity Index, or the Index of Economic Freedom, it has one of the highest per capita income in the region and one of the lowest levels of economic inequality and poverty. Yet, the country has faced severe difficulties transmitting its social overall welfare and relative egalitarian conditions to the educational field, in terms of equating children’s and adolescents’ opportunities to learn and progress in school. As argued before, most – though not all – of the present challenges affecting educational quality and educational inequality in Uruguay have roots in structural problems that have been long identified. In the last decades, several policies have been implemented to tackle educational inequality and quality difficulties. Some of them – like the all-day program for primary schools – have expanded at a slower rate than anticipated, or not expanded at all –like the all-day program for secondary schools, basically due to budget restrictions; others – like the PIU, a Program focused on the universalization of lower-secondary education – were not maintained long enough to evaluate their potential impacts; still others were successfully implemented and reached universal coverage, like the expansion of pre-school provision or the CEIBAL One-Laptop-Per-Child Program, but did not have the anticipated effects over educational inequality reduction and/or learning improvement.

5.2

Emerging Issues: The COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major threat to education. Although it is still early to make definitive assertions in this regard, there is a generalized concern in all countries, Uruguay included, that the ongoing sanitary situation and its most direct implication, the more or less temporary closure of educational institutions, may have

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irreversible impacts on students’ progress, especially in more socially disadvantaged contexts, and may end up broadening inequality-related structural problems. As most countries, Uruguay’s authorities declared the temporary closure of schools in 2020 due to the pandemic in March, a decision that was extended for about 3 to 4 months, on average. For the second half of the school year, a semipresent system was implemented in public schools, which combined face-to-face and virtual non-present educational instances. The upsurge and expansion of COVID-19 in Uruguay in the last months, which coincided with the beginning of the 2021 school term, has led educational authorities to – temporarily – close schools once again and has installed great uncertainty over what is to be expected. Through monitoring of the educational situation during the 2020 school closure and the posterior partial reopening in the Uruguayan public educational system, we can formulate three main preliminary conclusions: (i) Educational institutions managed to keep on with their main tasks and duties –although in a very disrupted, unconventional way – during the 2020 school term. This, to a great extent, was made possible by teachers and students’ efforts, in the first place, and also by expanded – although not total – schools and families’ access to electronic devices and connectivity, as well as by virtual educational platforms, such as CEIBAL’s CREA, among others. Virtual education is the second-best, given school closure, but does not substitute regular face-to-face schooling. In this particular sense, it is important to note that during the 2020 school term, public primary-school students – for which statistics are available – attended just 59 classes on average. This means they were exposed to 1/3 of the school time they have in a regular year (160 days); (ii) There is evidence of significant differences in students’ participation in virtual educational activities during 2020, and that these differences are strongly associated with schools’ socioeconomic environment. This result lights up a sign of alert, suggesting the pandemic situation may have potentially bigger educational impacts on socially disadvantaged students. To some extent, differences in students’ participation in virtual activities may be explained by connectivity problems at home, as well as for differences in the extent to which families were able to support their children in their educational tasks, both in terms of academic help and of motivation; (iii) Although there is no systematic analysis of the private/public educational divides associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, there are well-founded reasons to believe students attending the private sector were being less affected in educational terms. In 2020, private schools spent less time being closed on average than public institutions, and unlike the latter, were able to keep a fulltime, 5-day-a-week schedule, as a general rule, while open. Given that institutional segmentation in Uruguay strongly reflects differences in socioeconomic and cultural background, this last issue could end up exacerbating pre-existing inequalities in educational opportunities and outcomes.

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To date, there are still no systematic evaluations of the possible impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ learning progress and inequalities in academic achievement, nor regarding dropout problems, although serious concerns exist in that respect, especially regarding the hypothesis of a prolonged health crisis.

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The Education System of Venezuela Inequalities before, during and after the “Bolivarian Revolution”

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Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical and Social Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 General Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Venezuelan Education until the End of the Twentieth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Institutional and Organizational Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 General Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Education Administration and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED Classification . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Provision of Teaching Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 ICT and Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 STEM Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Emerging Issues: Structural Crisis, COVID-19 Pandemic, and Education . . . . . . . . . 5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the historical development of education policy as well as the current challenges to education in Venezuela, with an overview of education in Venezuela focusing on the connection between education and social inequalities. The chapter also includes an in-depth analysis of the education reform process during the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and

S. Peters (*) Fachbereich Rechtswissenschaft, Instituto CAPAZ, Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Giessen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5_15

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critically assesses recent policy changes. It closes with an analysis of the challenges posed by the country’s deep crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. Keywords

Venezuela · Education · Bolivarian Revolution · Inequalities · Crisis

1

Introduction

In recent years, Venezuela has frequently been in the headlines of the international media. The reason for this is, on the one hand, an ongoing power struggle between the government and the opposition. Following the death of Hugo Chávez in March 2013 – who proclaimed the so-called Bolivarian Revolution after having been elected President in December 1998 – the presidency of his successor Nicolas Maduro experienced this struggle in a context of “shrinking space” (see van den Borgh and Terwindt 2012) for civil society and any kind of opposition: the power struggle between the government and the opposition gradually intensified. This culminated in January 2019 with the self-proclamation of young opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president and with a failed coup d’état against the Maduro government in late April 2019. On the other hand, the disastrous economic and social situation is regularly covered by international news. What was once the richest country in Latin America is now an impoverished country, which has provoked massive migration to neighboring countries. Since the beginning of Hugo Chávez’s government in 1999, the political debate on the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela has taken shrill tones. The discussions of almost every topic related to the political, economic, or social situation in the country recall the discourse of the Cold War era. The strong polarization of debates about Venezuela is also present in academic discussions (Lander 2014, 10; Bitar Deeb and Isidoro Losada 2015). Combined with a situation of tenuous data as well as considerable challenges for field research in Venezuela, this results in passionate debates that are at best based on precarious empirical evidence. Educational research is no exception here, and this chapter has also faced the challenges of a lack of reliable data. The contribution is based on various long periods of field research in Venezuela between 2009 and 2017 as well as the evaluation of secondary literature, documents, and official statistical data. Regarding the latter, it seems necessary to consider this data as an approximation to reality rather than a sound expression of it (for a general debate see Jerven 2013). (On this basis, this chapter provides an overview of the historical development of education policy as well as the current challenges to education in Venezuela, focusing on the connection between education and social inequalities and the challenges posed by the country’s deep crisis.

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Historical and Social Foundations

2.1

General Historical Background

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Venezuela is a typical oil-based rentier society. Since the 1920s, oil has dominated the Venezuelan economy. Yet, oil is not just an economic issue. Venezuela’s social and political dynamics cannot be understood properly without taking into account the country’s oil dependence and the consequences of rentierism (Coronil 1997; Tinker Salas 2009; Peters 2019). Oil booms provided the material resources for a broadening (social) infrastructure and the strengthening of the state. Between the 1950s and 1970s, Venezuelan oil income turned the country into a powerful rentier state with important financial leeway. In this context, Venezuela experienced a period of relative welfare, widespread social upward mobility and an increasing middle class. However, oil-based prosperity cannot be taken for granted since oil prices are highly volatile. Times of declining oil prices almost immediately plunge the country into fierce crises. Oil brought important structural changes to Venezuela. The beginning of the Venezuelan petroleum age transformed the country within a short time from the 1920s onwards from the bitterly poor periphery of the periphery into a prosperous rentier society. Agriculture rapidly lost importance, while the exploitation and export of oil triggered an economic boom and enabled rapid urbanization. Political changes failed to materialize at first and the country continued to be brutally ruled by the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez (1908–1935). After a brief democratic intermezzo (1945–1948), the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1948–1958) focused on development and accelerated modernization. Based on increasing oil revenues, the dictatorship put major infrastructure projects into action. Nonetheless, it was the democratic transition in 1958 that turned the country into a noteworthy positive case in Latin America. Venezuela was a prosperous liberal-representative democracy and held exceptional status as a “privileged third-world nation” (Ellner and Tinker Salas 2007, 3). The country contrasted remarkably to most of its neighboring countries torn by civil wars or brutal dictatorships. Together with Mexico, Venezuela turned into a refuge for critical intellectuals from the region. Moreover, on the international level, Venezuela also became an important third-world voice. The country was one of the founding members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Venezuelan Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo was the first OPEC director. In the context of an important oil price increase, the Venezuelan government nationalized the oil industry in 1976, and with the oil boom, there seemed to be no financial limitations to an active development policy. Public spending increased rapidly and the state seemed to have “magical capabilities for modernizing everyday life in the cities” (Coronil 1997). There is no doubt that oil, at least since the late 1920s, constitutes the backbone of the Venezuelan economy and a powerful trigger for development. Nevertheless, oil extraction provides rather few jobs. At the beginning of the Venezuelan oil era,

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higher positions in the oil industry were mainly held by foreign expats (Tinker Salas 2009). Yet indirectly the oil boom created new jobs in public administration, service, commerce, construction and later, due to state-led industrialization policies, in the industrial sector (Di John 2009). These jobs were mainly located in the big cities mostly in the north of the country. Therefore, Venezuela experienced a fast urbanization process. The rate of the urban population increased from 53% in 1950 to nearly 93% in 2005. Today, Venezuela is one of the highest urbanized countries in Latin America (Peters 2015a). Urbanization was accompanied by new lifestyles and values, reflected in an embracement of modernization, the preference for Western consumption patterns, and an increased significance of education. Notwithstanding, the rural population and the urban slum dwellers hardly benefitted from oil wealth. This is especially true for the indigenous population. According to census data from 2011, 2.7% of the population is indigenous belonging, for example, to the Wayuu and Yanomami peoples who live in rural and remote areas. These indigenous peoples have suffered increasingly from the expansion of extractivism, for example, in the so-called Orinoco Mining Arc (Arco Minero del Orinoco) located in the South of the country. Oil turned out to be both a blessing and a curse for Venezuelan development. The vulnerability of the oil-based development model became apparent when oil prices on the world market collapsed. Since at least 1983, Venezuela has slid into a deep economic crisis. First, the crisis unraveled the country’s structural problems, formerly covered by the boom. Oil dependency implied low and fragile economic diversification. All other economic sectors depended on the influx of oil money. Second, social development gains were real but extreme social inequalities were not addressed and it was impossible to protect the majority against economic crisis. Third, the supposed Latin American model-democracy was based on a corruptionpromoting elite pact and offered the broad population hardly any effective channels of participation (Purroy 1986; Boeckh 1988; Rey 1991; Karl 1997). As a result, the economic downturn soon culminated in a social and political crisis. Poverty rates, unemployment, informal employment, and violent crime suffered sharp increases. When Carlos Andrés Pérez presented a neoliberal reform package shortly after taking on his second term of presidency in 1989, a popular uprising took place on February 27, 1989. The so-called Caracazo was brutally crushed by the government and, according to official figures, claimed around 400 lives, with a high number of unreported cases. Even after the Caracazo, Venezuelan politics remained in troubled waters. The economic and social crisis could not be overcome and various corruption scandals shook the remnants of trust in established politics. In 1992, the country experienced two failed coup d’état attempts. Six years later in 1998, Hugo Chávez Frías, one of the rebels of the February 1992 coup d’état, won the presidential election. He had started rallying for presidency as a political outsider willing to transform the political system. After taking office in 1999, he started to shape the country and region’s history. Chávez presented a leftwing nationalist program and proclaimed the so-called Bolivarian Revolution. A new Constitution giving commencement to the Fifth Republic symbolized the rupture with the past. The Chávez government also promoted further substantial

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political changes. Particularly, the government managed to regain state control of the state-owned but largely autonomous oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PdVSA) and increased the government take from the oil-income (Mommer 2003). This turn in oil policy provoked fierce resistance especially from middle and upper classes. The opposition even attempted a coup d’état. Chávez won the power struggle, consolidated his power, and thanks to the tailwind of the oil boom had substantial fiscal leeway to proceed with his transformative project. President Chávez proclaimed “twenty-first-century socialism” and became a symbolic figure for a large part of the Latin American and international left. Based on a particular mixture of populism, nationalism, socialism, militarism, and popular Catholicism, the so-called Chavista project consisted of strengthening municipal and alternative economic structures, paying off the “social debt” of neoliberalism, progressing towards a participatory and protagonist democracy and promoting an antineoliberal and antiimperialist Latin American cooperation. Education played a central role in each of these four areas, and thus undoubtedly was a key sector in the Bolivarian Revolution. Indeed, in the context of the oil boom, there was considerable fiscal leeway for far-reaching reforms and the influx of oil money allowed for economic and social success as well as an opening of democratic channels of participation (Azzellini 2016). However, the latter were soon sacrificed on the altar of retaining power, and with the end of the raw materials boom, the economy fell into crisis and the former social development successes were soon reverted. According to a recent study on the living conditions of the Venezuelan population, poverty rates reach record levels and also social inequality has skyrocketed (UCAB 2020a). Today, the country’s economic and social situation can only be described as catastrophic and an end to the crisis is not in sight (Bull and Rosales 2020; Peters 2020; van Roekel and de Theije 2020).

2.2

Venezuelan Education until the End of the Twentieth Century

The roots of the Venezuelan education system go back at least to colonial times. During the period of Spanish Colonial domination, education remained highly elitist and the vast majority of the population did not have any access to basic education. The Catholic Church was far more engaged in education than the colonial state and it was therefore predominant in the education system. This situation did not change after the declaration of independence on July 5th, 1811. Although the newly founded republic engaged in higher education and took over the two main universities of the country, basic education was clearly not a priority. In 1869, only 100 schools existed in Venezuela (Mundó 2000). Thus, access to education was impossible for the vast majority of Venezuelans. In fact, one can argue that there was no public concern for education policy before President Antonio Guzmán Blanco (1870–1877) took office. During his presidency, education became a political priority for the first time in Venezuelan history. Inspired by the Enlightenment, Guzmán Blanco was convinced that the state should educate its people.

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Based on this idea, the Estado Docente became the leitmotif of education policy. This represented a radical change as the state decided to become a central actor in education policy, thereby challenging the hegemony of the Catholic Church in education. During the presidency of Guzmán Blanco, the government stipulated an Education Law that included the notion of mandatory and free basic public education (Reimers 2002). The government’s engagement with education did not remain hypothetical and the education reforms enabled a first phase of education expansion in Venezuela: New schools were built and between 1869 and 1887 student numbers multiplied 40-fold (Mundó 2000). Nevertheless, in spite of these impressive numbers, a huge gap between the legal framework and reality remained. Universal public education was no more than a noble goal formulated by an enlightened political elite. The beginning of the oil era in the 1920s did not change this situation significantly. Although the economy underwent a profound transformation and oil exports increased the state’s budget, neither the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez (1908–1935) nor his successors showed much interest in expanding access to education. Rather than investing in education, the Gómez dictatorship made use of the new financial leeway for self-enrichment or to fund ambitious infrastructure projects and to appease the military. Education was rather seen as suspicious. Claims for democracy and social justice emerged in the universities and the discontent among young intellectuals gave rise to a students’ revolt (1928), led by several future political leaders of the country – the so-called generation of 1928. Secondary education was the privilege of a small white male elite. This elitist bias in Venezuelan education was the legacy of the Education Act of 1940 and the ideas of the liberal intellectual Arturo Uslar Pietri. (Uslar Prieti became famous as a young intellectual who stressed, as early as 1936, the importance of ‘sowing the oil’ in order to overcome natural resource dependency and progress towards a more sustainable development.) Even 50 years after leaving the Ministry of Education, Uslar Pietri did not hide his elitist ideas: If the archangel Gabriel appeared to me and told me that there were only two options: either to provide first-class education to a third of the population or to provide mediocre education to all, I would not hesitate for a second. I would choose a first-class education for one third of the population, because this third would bring the country forward. (Uslar Pietri 1991, 16)

Hence, compared to regional first movers, in 1950 the balance sheet of the Venezuelan education expansion was rather modest: Whereas in Chile or Uruguay basic education was nearly universal in the 1950s, in Venezuela approximately half of the population remained illiterate. A new phase of education expansion started in the late 1940s. In 1948, during a short democratic interval (1945–1948), the Minister of Education, Luis Beltrán Prieto Figueroa, designed a new education law that was passed in 1948 and aimed to broaden access to education and strengthen the Estado Docente. Already during the brutal development of the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1948–1958), education enrolment rates increased. Moreover, expansion of access to education surged after democratization in 1958 (see Table 1). Although in terms of discourse,

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Table 1 Expansion of access to education between 1950 and 1975. Enrolment ratio in %

Argentina Chile Uruguay Venezuela

Primary education 1950 1960 94.1 98.3 74.0 88.7 89.8 93.8 51.1 83.5

1975 98.1 90.0 90.6 84.5

Secondary education 1950 1960 1975 10.4 27.0 50.5 10.7 21.5 47.2 17.0 32.5 62.4 3.0 17.7 31.9

Higher education 1950 1960 5.2 11.3 1.6 4.0 5.7 7.7 1.3 4.3

1975 28.0 16.2 15.0 19.8

Peters (2013, 149)

Venezuelan governments at that time already addressed education quality, the education realpolitik focused on increasing enrolment. Education expansion was sustained by an important oil boom and the corresponding large increase of the state budget. However, education expansion is not a mere consequence of an increasing state budget: policy matters. There was a broad political consensus on the importance of public education in order to achieve the goals of economic development, social inclusion, and modernization. The expansion of access to education promoted upward social mobility for important parts of the population (Rojas and Mora García 2019). Accordingly, the education system ceased to be an exclusive privilege for the elite. Still, this does not necessarily mean a successful tackling of education inequalities and lasting education privileges. Yet, as all levels of the education system benefitted from the expansion, education inequalities remained starkly pronounced (Casanova 2008). The success of the traditional education elites to defend their privileges during this phase of expanding access to education (approximately 1950–1980) is reflected by the fact that expenditure for higher education has always exceeded the accumulated spending for primary and secondary education. Considering that because of admission tests, attending private secondary education was fundamental to access public universities, the elite and middle-class bias of this public spending becomes evident (Peters 2013). Moreover, between 1979 and 1990, the Fundayacucho, a well-funded scholarship program, enabled more than 15,000 university students to study abroad often at North American and European universities. Nonetheless, this was not combined with a coherent strategy to strengthen Research and Development in Venezuela and the number of researchers rather stagnated. Between 1969 and 1990, the number of researchers per 10,000 inhabitants merely increased from 2.5 to 2.8 (García Guadilla 1995). Furthermore, the end of the oil boom in the early 1980s resulted in a halt to the gains regarding access to education. The profound economic and social crisis also affected the education system: Education suffered from general public spending cuts (Rojas and Mora García 2019, 164). The phase of education expansion ended abruptly. Education policy focused on issues regarding education quality. However, at times of spending cuts, improvements in education quality turned out to be impossible. Moreover, financial constraints and neoliberal reforms paved the way towards the weakening of the state’s role in education, and the blossoming of private institutions. Low-fee private schools got financial support from the state. Therefore,

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the number of students enrolled in private schools increased between 1983 and 1995 by 68%. At the end of the twentieth century, 20% of Venezuelan students studied at private institutions (Arévalo and González 2002, 336; Peters 2013, 158). While the increasing privatization of education contributed to the fragmentation of the education system, it still did not manage to increase quality of education (Peters 2013). To conclude, the state of education at the end of the twentieth century was rather poor. Education policy did not manage to promote equality of educational opportunity. Although Venezuela achieved important gains regarding access to education, even at the primary level, the universalization of schooling remained incomplete. While the gender gap in education was successfully closed, in terms of access to education, the urban poor, rural, and indigenous population particularly faced great barriers to entering the education system (Rodríguez Trujillo 1996; Herrera and España 2006). Likewise, education quality remained comparatively low. Indeed, international comparative studies from the 1990s demonstrate that students’ learning output remained well below the Latin American average (Casanova 1999; Cassassus et al. 2000). Education quality was not only low but also extremely unequally distributed. Whereas (upper-)middle class and elite families sent their children to expensive and top-quality private schools, the vast majority of the children entered public educational institutions, which suffered from decreasing funding, low teacher salaries and poor teacher training, as well as the lack of adequate teaching materials. The poor and marginalized population did not even reach the education system or was expelled early. This situation contributed to the increasing hierarchical fragmentation of the education system. During the crisis in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a growing demand for private education. Especially middle-class households saw private education as the main channel to assure intergenerational transmission of privilege. But even poor households increasingly demanded private educational services (UNESCO 2009, 16). Additionally, decentralization contributed to a further fragmentation of the education system. Whereas enrolment in private schools grew, public education split between different administrations creating national, regional, and municipal schools. Altogether, this did not only create inequality in education quality between different schools, but it also contributed to an increase of differences regarding the social valuation of their credentials. Increasing hierarchical fragmentation of the education system exacerbated a tendency to evaluate quality of education based on the students’ social composition and thereby contributed to the reproduction or even to the increase of social inequalities within the education system, benefitting graduates from private schools or from the few prestigious public schools in the urban centers (Peters 2013). The 1998 presidential elections led to major changes in education policy. When Hugo Chávez (1999–2013) took office, he underlined that his government was committed to attacking the devastating social problems. Education became a key factor in Chávez’s social policy strategy and was also seen as a pillar for social and political transformation. Central objectives of the Chávez government’s education policy included the strengthening of public against private education, fostering social inclusion through the public school system, reducing educational inequalities

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and thus social inequalities, and contributing to endogenous development beyond oil dependency. This was subsequently complemented by the alignment of educational content to the socio-political objectives of the Bolivarian Revolution led by President Hugo Chávez. The Bolivarian Revolution marked a caesura in Venezuelan politics and therefore also implied major changes for education (Anselmi 2013; see third section of this chapter).

2.3

Transition to Labor Market: Organization and Support

In the international developmental policy debate, education is often regarded as a key factor to promote social development (reducing poverty, improving health, promoting gender equality, decreasing inequality) and economic development and to foster democratic values. Nevertheless, whether improvements in the situation of education can actually contribute to the above-mentioned effects often depends on many other factors. For example, for central development policy goals such as economic growth, poverty reduction, and the reduction of social inequalities, the structure of the labor market is of particular relevance (Burchardt and Groisman 2014). In the following, therefore, the specifics of the Venezuelan labor market will be elaborated in order to then discuss the possibilities and limits of current Venezuelan education policy. In general terms, the Venezuelan economy is characterized by low productivity. By far the largest share of employees works in the service sector. The service sector currently absorbs about 70% of the labor force, one fifth of employees work in the public sector and about two fifths in the informal sector. Venezuela is a posterchild for a “premature deindustrialization” due to low productivity and Dutch Disease effects (Di John 2009; Vera 2009). (“Dutch Disease” refers to a structural overvaluation of the national currency, which gives imported goods price advantages on the domestic market and makes it more difficult for Venezuelan products to compete on the world market due to high production costs. The consequence of this is that hardly any impulses for the diversification of the economy are set and the country remains dependent on the highly volatile development of the world market prices for oil.) The share of the gross domestic product (GDP) accounted for by manufacturing industry has declined; the number of people employed in industry has stagnated since 1997 and has even fallen compared to 1984. Recent years of economic crisis have further reduced the industrial workforce (Zuñiga Alvarez 2010, 360; UCAB 2020b, 10). The same is true for agriculture. During the Bolivarian Revolution, the government tried to foster endogenous development due to the promotion of the communal economy and cooperatives. These sectors received generous subsidies and absorbed part of the informal sector, but their economic results remained very poor (Álvarez 2013, 284). Considering the particular economic structure of the Venezuelan rentier society, education is not necessarily linked to productivity growth. The dominance of oil in the Venezuelan economy has a decisive influence on the structure of the country’s labor market in two aspects: It inhibits domestic production and favors labor market

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developments which – depending on the political orientation of the government – are characterized by the changing distribution of part of the rent income for the oil business. The structure of the labor market provides only few incentives for technical education and innovation. Good connections to the government used to be the best guarantee for economic success (Coronil 2008; Peters 2020). Higher than average formal employment wage in Venezuela can be read as evidence of the benefits of political connections (Pagés and Stampini 2009). Nevertheless, education is a central indicator for understanding wage differentials also in Venezuela and especially higher education offers benefits in terms of occupational quality (Martínez 2012). Yet, different studies have shown a tendency towards a declining skill premium in Venezuela (Psacharopoulos and Steier 1988; Fiszbein and Psacharopoulos 1993; Patrinos and Sakellariou 2006). Nevertheless, Patrinos and Sakellariou (2006) found that from the mid-1990s to 2002 skill premium, i.e. the wage differential between groups with few formal and those with high education level, increased. In light of an important increase in access to higher education, this tendency continued and even increased during the Bolivarian Revolution (González and Oyelere 2011, 1364). However, in the ongoing crisis (2017– today) that led to hyperinflation and a massive decline of real wages for the population, wage differentials seem to be more linked to connections to the government and access to foreign currency or employment, the latter highlighting language skills and social capital.

3

Institutional and Organizational Principles

3.1

General Principles

The guidelines for the regulation of the Venezuelan education system are codified by two crucial legal texts: the Venezuelan Constitution and the Organic Education Law. The Chavista government modified both legal frameworks and both transformations caused polemic debates. The new Venezuelan Constitution was approved by plebiscite in late 1999. In terms of education, the new Constitution underlined the right to education by highlighting education as a human right in article 102 and stressing compulsory education from early childhood education to upper secondary and free education including undergraduate tertiary education in article 103. In 2009, a new Organic Education Law was approved. The law confirmed the notion of education as a human right and further emphasized the right to education. It states compulsory education from preprimary to the end of secondary education and codifies free and secular public education. Moreover, the new Organic Education Law stipulates important advancements in terms of social rights, recognition of ethnic diversity, and protection of nature (Márquez Rojas 2014). In this vein, the new Organic Education Law became an important advancement in terms of social rights and recognition of diversity. Nevertheless, the new Organic Education Law (2009) also

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included problematic aspects such as the dissemination of militaristic issues. The law was especially controverted as the government had already undertaken several measures in order to politicize education (Anselmi 2013). Furthermore, in spite of the controversies regarding education, in general terms, even in revolutionary times, the guiding lines for the education system remained largely constant. The structures of the education system remained largely untouched and there was no open attack on private education. This is not to neglect the government’s objective to increase control over private education (Peters 2015b). However, the existence of a pluralist education system, including a large variety of faith-based education institutions, has never been put in question. In fact, many Chavista political leaders and members of the so-called boliburguesia send their children to private education institutions. The introduction of “Bolivarian Schools” drew upon former experiences from the 1990s with so-called Integral Schools in the context of the decentralization of education by the State of Mérida in order to improve education quality in primary public schools. The Integral Schools showed good results but did not overcome experimental status due to high costs (Bruni Celli 2004; Tovar 2005). Yet, the Chávez government presented Bolivarian Schools as a policy innovation and the major reform to tackle education exclusion. Education specialists from Venezuela welcomed the reform project consisting of all-day schooling. Extending the pedagogical time should give space for pedagogical projects (including more flexible curricula and interdisciplinary project learning), extracurricular activities (culture, sports, art), projects linking education to the local context, and social protection measures for students (MED 2004). Later the government extended the Bolivarian Schools from primary education to the whole education system. However, as a consequence of the high costs of the reform project, not all institutions adopted all parts of the reform project (Bruni Celli 2004; Rodríguez Trujillo 2008; Peters 2013). Nevertheless, a major change in education policy came with the introduction of educational missions in the context of the implementation of a parallel system of social policies called social missions (misiones sociales) from 2003 onwards. Financed largely by the volatile oil income, the Education Missions (misiones educativas) created a parallel education system from alphabetization to higher education, inspired by the work of Paulo Freire. Focused mostly on urban barrios and the countryside, the Misiones Educativas were to offer the socially disadvantaged youths and adults a second chance to satisfy their education needs, offering also small scholarships to some students. The system of the Education Missions consists of the Misión Robinson I (literacy program), the Misión Robinson II (primary education), the Misión Ribas (secondary education), the Misión Vuelvan Caras (vocational education), as well as the Misión Sucre and the Misión Alma Mater (Higher Education). The Education Missions represent a parallel public education system that has clearly contributed to increased access to education for the formerly excluded population (Mundó 2009; Hawkins et al. 2011; Peters 2013; Chiroleu and Marquina 2017; Duffy 2017; Langthaler 2020).

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Education Administration and Governance

In Venezuela, education governance is divided between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education. The Ministry of Education is one of the largest and most powerful ministries in the country and considered a bureaucratic tanker with limited steering efficiency. Public and private education coexist at all education levels from preprimary to university education. While Venezuelan education used to be “hyper-centralized” (de la Cruz 1999, 172), decentralization policies starting in 1989 divided public education into institutions depending on the national government, and others depending on the different federal states or municipalities. Furthermore, there are education institutions depending on state-owned enterprises, especially the national oil company PdVSA. In the course of the Bolivarian Revolution, education policy experienced an open politicization. Education was supposed to support socio-political changes, that is, social justice, solidarity, democratic participation. Nevertheless, the pace and content of education policy change was curbed by the traditionally low efficiency of the Education Ministry. High personnel instability at the senior level, frequent changes regarding prioritized programs, and a general lack of political coherence further reduced the ministry’s efficiency. However, staff changes at the middle level – as is generally the case – have remained the exception, and many representatives of the opposition can also be found among the teaching staff. Government attempts to increase the number of pro-Chavista teachers have not been very successful (Peters 2015b). Education soon became a major political battlefield between government and opposition reflecting the country’s political polarization. The conflict surrounding education was sparked by presidential decree 1.011 in October 2000, on the regulation of the exercise of the teaching profession. Through this decree, the government implemented a new regime of supervision of educational institutions, giving the Deputy Minister of Education the power to appoint itinerant supervisors (Official Gazette 31-10-2000). One objective of the decree was to address teacher absenteeism in schools, a problem widely recognized in the Venezuelan educational debate. Yet, the opposition perceived the decree as a threat of political control of educational institutions and an attempt to limit the autonomy of private education and even claimed the decree’s unconstitutionality for restricting freedom of education. On this basis, a largely middle-class antigovernment social movement came into being. The private education sector in particular protested against the Chávez government’s (educational) policy under the slogan “Don’t mess with my kids” (Con mis hijos, no te metas). They accused the government of an alleged “Cubanization of education” in Venezuela (Regnault 2003). The polarization on the issue of education increased when the government introduced further pedagogical and curricular reforms. The reform project especially emphasized the adaptation of teaching and learning content to the local context and the involvement of the community (Lanz 2004; Langthaler 2020). In 2007, a major curriculum reform took place, replacing the arguably outdated curriculum. Nonetheless, controversy arose particularly regarding new interpretations of national

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history and in general the political assumptions as reflected in textbooks. In the context of a general political polarization, the curriculum reform met with fierce resistance from the opposition, but also from the teaching staff, highlighting fears of ideologization (McCoy 2004, 282; Anselmi 2013; Peters 2015b; Abbott et al. 2017). Field research stresses the rather low impact the government’s curriculum reform had at the school level due to the teachers’ resistance (Griffiths and Williams 2009, 44; Pearson 2011; Peters 2013; Abbott et al. 2017). Government officials, oppositional researchers, and representatives from international NGOs pointed out different obstacles that restricted the transmission of the new interpretation of national history to students. Mariano Herrera highlighted the general lack of learning outcomes: “I wish ideologisation were the problem. [. . .] The problem is that children are not learning either ideology or mathematics.” (Interview with Mariano Herrera, 2nd March 2011, Caracas; fieldwork of the author). An official from the Education Ministry argued that the problem was the teachers’ neglect to assume the new education guidelines: "It's not easy, because there is a group of teachers who have this other paradigm, another vision and that many times the party element influences it, that I am not going to do this because this is not my function and I don't do it. But it is because there is a partisan clash." (Interview with official of the Ministry of Education, 9th September 2010, Caracas; fieldwork of the author). Conflicts concerning education did not cease. A further escalation came with the Organic Education Law introduced in 2009. A major point of controversy addressed the stipulated co-participation of Communal Councils in the governance of the schools. The Communal Councils are supposed to guarantee participatory democracy and citizen control at the local level. However, in practice they are broadly perceived as Chavista bulwarks (León Álvarez 2010). Although there are also oppositional and plural communal councils, generally speaking the majority of the local organizations tend to be sympathetic to the Chavista project and the Communal Councils use to depend on government funding. In the context of political polarization, this law generated polemical discussions regarding a supposed control of or even infiltration of the schools, leading to arguably harsh reactions. Especially in middle-class private schools, parents became organized in order to defend the institutions against feared Chavista appropriation (Peters 2015b). Furthermore, starting in 2014, university students have been engaged in (violent) protests against the government. Whereas issues regarding education have also been stressed, the main goal of the students’ movement has been a change of government.

3.3

Structure of the Educational System According to ISCED Classification

The Venezuelan education system is divided into preprimary, primary, secondary, and university education. A major shift has recently happened. Whereas the 1980 Education Law stipulated a nine-year basic education and 2 years of high school, the new framework changed this into 6 years of primary education and 5–6 years of secondary education. Today, compulsory education comprises all levels of basic

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education. These include preprimary, primary, and secondary education. Preprimary education includes nurseries for children between zero and three years old and kindergarten for the ages ranging from four to six. Subsequently children enter a six-year period of primary education. Secondary education also comprises 6 years but it is split between lower and upper levels of secondary education. Furthermore, in secondary education, the Venezuelan education system distinguishes between general education (liceo) and vocational education. The latter are practically oriented education institutions that offer a wide variety of specializations ranging from agriculture or manufacture to services, commerce, tourism, or arts. Generally speaking, liceos are far more prestigious and there are hardly any middle-class offspring attending the vocational branch of secondary education. Moreover, the Venezuelan education system also includes special education (Educación Especial). This area has seen important changes during the last decades leading to a proposal for a more inclusive education in 2012. Nonetheless, in general terms, special education remains separated and from a pedagogical perspective rather traditional (Rubiano Albornoz and Lozada 2015) Moreover, affirmative action policies have been strengthened to improve access to higher education for structurally disadvantaged social groups like indigenous people, disabled and the incarcerated population (Chiroleu and Marquina 2017, 149). Intercultural education was first introduced in Venezuela in 1979, yet education for indigenous populations has remained inadequate. The government has not given much importance to this part of the education system, and due to the lack of indigenous teachers, classes are given by teachers who often know neither the indigenous languages nor their cultures (Mosonyi 2004). The New Constitution of 1999 was meant to strengthen indigenous rights in article 121. The government promoted intercultural bilingual education while indigenous groups pressured towards reforms of the curricula and pedagogy guidelines. Nevertheless, according to Da Silva Barnabei (2018), the intercultural bilingual education continues to show a series of shortfalls and follows mainstream ideas of intercultural education. Regarding Venezuelan higher education, it was dominated by four and later five large public and autonomous universities until the 1960s and 1970s. These universities were: Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas, Universidad de los Andes in the Western parts of the country, Universidad del Zulia in Maracaibo, Universidad de Carabobo in Valencia, and the Universidad de Oriente in the East of the country. After democratization in 1958, the government decreed the autonomy of the universities and, with the booming economy, the demand for higher education increased. This led to the foundation of a large number of new public and private universities. As a result, the number of universities and institutions of higher education increased from 10 in 1969 to more than 100 in 2015 (Peters and Tarazona 2015). Today, official statistics show well over 100 universities. Again, a distinction is made between universities and university institutes and colleges (Institutos and Colegios Universitarios). The latter follow the French model and offer many short courses of study with technical or other vocational training. However, they are very heterogeneous in terms of the content of their courses and their quality standards. Although they officially have a research mandate, this is not implemented at many institutions

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(Tovar 2005). Essentially, therefore, these are teaching institutions of often inferior quality. Additionally, the Chavista government implemented the policy of the municipalization of higher education to provide free education to the poor. This includes bringing higher education to each of the 335 Venezuelan municipalities, including the most remote territories of the country and focusing on the regional needs and problems, thereby strengthening the social pertinence of higher education. Indeed, the Chavista government was able to open higher education institutions in 334 of the 335 Venezuela municipalities. This contributed to an important increase in the number of university students and to the promotion of higher education in impoverished and remote communities (McLaren and Cole 2015, 170). However, the rapid expansion of access to higher education sparked important doubts about the quality of the newly established universities (Pineda Olivieri 2017; Rojas and Mora García 2019). Moreover, the autonomous universities are stuck in a profound crisis due to lack of financial resources and a legal dead end that suspends the election of new authorities in the universities (Moreno Pérez 2019, 364).

3.4

Provision of Teaching Staff

The expansion of the Venezuelan education system since the beginning of the Chávez government has been accompanied by an impressive increase in the number of teachers. According to official data from the national statistics authority, the number of teachers rose from just under 250,000 in 2000 to 662,825 in the 2017/ 18 school year (Peters 2013; PROVEA 2020, 16). This included the recruitment of a large number of new teachers, often graduates from the new universities or Educational Missions. Although the exact figures must certainly be interpreted with great skepticism (PROVEA 2020), there can be no doubt about the general trend. Nonetheless, in the course of the economic crisis, not only did the number of students decrease, but the number of teachers also began to decline, affecting not only public but also private schools. The Jesuit school network Fe y Alegría, for example, which primarily offers private schools for the socially disadvantaged population, complains of an exodus of around 25% of teachers, and in view of this situation, parents or siblings sometimes take on the care of the pupils. The dramatic figures and reports must be seen as a consequence of the country’s deep crisis. Already before the beginning of the rapid economic downturn, Venezuelan teachers worked under extremely difficult conditions. Low wages met difficult contextual conditions. Whereas the government raised nominal salaries periodically by high percentages and used to announce this progress publicly, real wages – as in other areas of the private and public sectors – could not keep pace with inflation. Therefore, teachers faced impoverishment with monthly wages only reaching low double-digit dollar ranges. As a result, the attractiveness of the teaching profession has declined significantly in recent years. Many teachers are only irregularly in schools, have changed their profession, or have emigrated. Currently, there is a shortage of pedagogically trained staff and as a result, the working conditions for

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teachers are deteriorating further as they have to attend a larger number of students and public transport often fails. The situation is particularly dramatic at the universities, where the monthly salaries are in the range between 10 and 30 dollars. Moreover, according to estimates, about 50% of the university lecturers have left the country. Scholars try to get consultancies, classes, etc., paid by foreign institutions in order to make their living (Dairesky Linarez and Dubraska Linarez 2019).

4

Educational Trends and Highlighted Aspects

4.1

Inequality

There is no doubt education and inequalities have been key issues in the Bolivarian Revolution. Chávez had an ambitious educational agenda and beyond discourse, education policy gained prioritization as well. Right from the start of his presidency, the civil-military social emergency program “Plan Bolívar 2000” included the improvement of existing education infrastructure in poor areas. Moreover, the government began an important increase in education spending to expand access to education, to strengthen education quality, and once again foster the role of the state in education. A central objective of the Bolivarian Revolution was to utilize education to reduce social inequalities (RBV 2001, 93; MED 2004, 5; Herrera and España 2006; Uharte Pozos 2008). The education policy reforms will be analyzed below in order to evaluate their success during the Bolivarian Revolution. Therefore, a multidimensional framework is applied consisting of three analytical categories: access to education, education quality, and hierarchical fragmentation of the education system (Peters 2013, 2019). Until recently, the government’s balance sheet regarding access to education was very positive. Between 1999 and 2015, the number of students enrolled in the formal education system increased from 5.44 million to 7.12 million. Whereas expansion in primary education was rather modest, access to preprimary and secondary education increased significantly by 85% and 122%, respectively. Even more pronounced was the expansion of tertiary education. At this level, the number of students tripled (Peters 2019, 149). Moreover, the government was also relatively successful in addressing adults and even the elderly with the Education Missions. In summary, enrolment rates increased sharply. The extraordinary results in terms of enrolment rates even tempted the government to present Venezuela as the “world’s biggest classroom” (RBV 2014). The significant increase in student numbers permitted general education upgrading and the reduction of inequalities in access to education. This positive change was principally due to the government’s educational and socio-political measures. These included a major expansion of the education system’s size, especially through the restoration and, to a lesser degree, the construction of new schools as well as recruitment of new teaching staff. Other factors included the reduction of monetary and institutional barriers to educational access, for example, by waiving school fees and opening schools for children without ID cards or without money to

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buy school uniforms. Furthermore, the government increased incentives for school attendance by quasi-universalizing the school meal program in public primary schools (Wilpert 2007; Peters 2013). The growth of access to education did not occur only because of education policy measures. Rather, the general improvement of the socio-political conditions of disadvantaged social groups during the oil boom (2003–2013/14) has to be taken into account. During this period, poverty rates fell and this was surely an important precondition for increasing enrolment rates in secondary education. Still, although there is no doubt that access to education did significantly increase, the government never managed to effectively universalize access to education even at the primary level. Currently, in the context of an unpreceded economic, social, and political crisis, the total number of students enrolled in the education system has again started to decrease, especially in upper secondary education and higher education, and school attendance has become more irregular (UCAB 2020c). This is explained due to various factors related to the fierce economic and social crisis including socioeconomic problems that hamper access to education, the need to contribute to the family income, the lack of teachers, poor standards of the school meals program as well as violence. In addition to the focus on access to education and enrolment rates, the government also greatly focused on education quality. Nonetheless, assessments regarding the evolution of education quality are far more contested than data about access to education. Discussions are marked by fierce controversy of the notion of education quality (Peters 2015b). Consequently, proximity or distance to the current Maduro government frequently predetermines most assessments. Generally speaking, the current education reforms in Venezuela focus on quantitative parameters regarding expansions of access to education, with less attention paid to mainstream concerns of education quality as tested in the OECD’s PISA Study. Put differently, the Chavista government criticized the hegemonic approaches to quality based on standardized test results from international organizations like the OECD. Rather, the Chávez government declared equal access to education a central indicator for the quality of an education system. Furthermore, the government raised important questions related to the objectives of education by highlighting the trade-off between an excellent education for the few who generally will work in the private sector, or financing training programs that focus on preparing students for their work in difficult conditions in rural areas or marginalized urban neighborhoods: ‘First, we have to talk about education quality. Define what we understand by education quality. Yet, if quality means graduating 15 doctors [. . .] or 8,000 communitarian doctors who administer preventive care to people in the poor neighborhoods, then we talk about quality. And, secondly, they criticized us a lot for sacrificing quality for expansion. Ok: Long live expansion and death to quality! If this is the concept of quality. But if quality means reaching the highest number of compatriots with what they need for defending their lives. . .’ (Interview with government official, 8th September, 2010, Caracas; field work by the author). Even considering the skepticism about established indicators for education quality, there is little doubt that education quality in Venezuela continues to be

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problematic due to insufficient teacher training, lack of adequate learning materials, overcrowded classrooms, poor conditions of work, and low teacher salaries but also because of the students’ socio-economic conditions. Besides, the challenges to provide the preconditions for satisfying learning outcomes became more serious due to the focus on the expansion of access to education. Additionally, school infrastructure and teaching and learning materials remain volatile due in part to a deficient distribution of the available resources. Besides, some of the most innovative curriculum reforms were blocked by teachers and administrative staff of the Education Ministry. Therefore, despite its zeal for reform, even in times of plenty the government did not manage to increase educational quality nor did it contribute to the reduction of education inequalities (Ramírez et al. 2010; Pearson 2011; Peters 2013). In view of the current bleak socio-economic situation, the conditions for quality education have clearly deteriorated. This refers to social preconditions aligned with the serious problems of the school meal program and everyday conditions in the schools, such as lack of trained teachers and learning materials, decaying school infrastructure, and even water supply shortages. Universities face similar challenges and adverse conditions. As a consequence, higher education is in a profound crisis and does not offer conditions for a quality education. Likewise, the hierarchical fragmentation of the education system increased during the Bolivarian Revolution. Although the Chavista government aimed to strengthen the role of the state in education and therefore to promote public education, these efforts remained mostly in vain. During economic boom and increased income (2003–2013), large parts of the population mistrusted the quality of public education and preferred sending their children to private schools. In other words, the government has not managed to increase the population’s confidence in the public education system. Quite the contrary, after a decrease of the share of students in private schools between 1998–1999 and 2003–2004 from 19.6% to 17.1%, from 2004 onwards we can observe a continuous increase of this share. In 2014–2015, 24.1% of Venezuelan students attended private schools. (Data based on information from various Annual Reports (Memoria y Cuenta) of the Venezuelan Education Ministry.) This dynamic is especially noteworthy as, first, the massive expansion of access to education increased the participation of students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds and, second, the tendency towards a de facto privatization of education in Venezuela was reinforced at the beginning of the harsh economic and social crisis. Consequently, quantitative data suggest a middle-class move from public to private education. This interpretation is backed by qualitative data from fieldwork in Venezuela. Many parents are willing to pay higher fees than permitted by law, and in most private schools, demand significantly exceeds supply. This evidence confirms that the recognition attributed to qualifications of private education institutions has increased as public education has tended to become devalued (Peters 2015b). An additional factor that has contributed to the increased hierarchical fragmentation of the Venezuelan education system is the continued societal devaluation of the newly introduced education missions. Since the Misiones Educativas are perceived as a political project by the government to prop up its popularity and to spread the ideas

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of the Bolivarian Revolution, drawing on Collins (1979), one can argue that their qualifications have adopted the character of political credentials. This means that they are not principally regarded as guarantees of competence but as testimonies of sympathizing with the current government and may even have a stigmatizing effect in the labor market. As a result, hopes based on renewed education efforts often remain unfulfilled (Peters and Tarazona 2015). We can conclude that even during the oil-boom-induced short “golden age of the Bolivarian Revolution” – and contrary to its own reports of success, the Chávez government has not achieved its central education policy objective of reducing social inequalities, and in the current crisis, it has clearly deteriorated. Rather, Venezuela offers a particularly conspicuous example of a general reconfiguration of the reproduction of social inequalities in the education system: quantitative inequalities in access to education and years completed lose significance as unequal education qualities and increasing hierarchical fragmentation of the education systems gain in relevance for explaining education inequalities. While analyzing the education policies of Venezuela, the hierarchical fragmentation of the education system continues to be a crucial factor for understanding the poor social development outcomes of education reform in Venezuela. The underlying tendency to treat formally equal credentials differently according to the prestige of the education institution and the social composition of the student body becomes particularly salient in the transition from school to work. Also in Venezuela, education is a central indicator for understanding wage differentials. However, this general affirmation needs further inquiry. First, the lack of (secondary) education generally inhibits access to formal employment. Second, formal education credentials represent only a precondition to access to better employment and are often combined with the use of clientelistic networks. Third, education is not necessarily linked to productivity gains given the predominant economic structures: The Venezuelan rentier society does not need productivity gains, as economic well-being is assured by the continuous inflow of rent income. Therefore, unproductive jobs in the services sector can offer high salaries irrespective of labor productivity. Consequently, the quite idealized meritocratic idea that the most talented human capital will be perfectly allocated according to macroeconomic needs is misleading in Venezuela.

4.2

ICT and Digitalization

Starting in 2000, the government promoted the introduction and the use of new information technologies through the Centros Bolivarianos de Informática y Telemática (CBIT). Each CBIT included 20 computers, a server, a television with DVD-Player, and a printer (MED 2004, 24). By 2009, 2246 CBITs had been installed throughout the country, with a rapid expansion of the program, particularly from 2005 onwards (MPPE 2010, 31). The CBITs are not aimed exclusively at pupils, but are also intended to enable the local population to use computers. Since 2009, the aim of improving skills in dealing with new information technologies has also been implemented through the introduction of the “Canaima Program,” which

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initially provides the students of public schools with a mini laptop or tablets and offers digital teaching services for free software. The Programa Canaima has long since replaced CBIT as the flagship of digitization and, according to official figures, 6,200,000 mini-laptops and almost one million tablets were distributed to students and another 240,000 devices to teachers by the 2017/2018 school year. In conspicuous contrast to the general debate on education policy, the program as a whole is assessed largely positively (Lescher et al. 2017). Only a few voices criticized the project as a demagogical measure. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the basic requirements for the use of the equipment are far from being met and currenty, for example, frequent power interruptions hinder the use of electronic devices. Moreover, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the need to turn to virtual education uncovered serious connectivity problems. As a result, large parts of the Venezuelan students were not being educated (Ramírez 2020).

4.3

STEM Subjects

Venezuelan education is traditionally characterized by low prioritization of technical professions. The Bolivarian Revolution sought to change this by strengthening vocational education and thereby laying the foundation for the urgently needed diversification of the economic structure and for promoting endogenous development. The educational policy drive to promote technical education found expression in the introduction of the Escuelas Tecnicas Robinsonianas (Technical Robinson Schools) within the Bolivarian education system and the Misión Vuelvan Caras as a component for technical training within the system of the government’s Misiones Sociales (Torres López et al. 2006). However, very soon there was a wide gap between the government’s claim to strengthen the technical training of the population and the educational policy results. The technical schools and also the Misión Vuelvan Caras always remained poorly equipped and could not thus become an attractive alternative in a society characterized by rentier social structures. As a consequence, the lack of success in technology transfer has to be noted, and the results of state support for research and development are sobering, especially in the area of technological developments and patent applications: All available indicators and statistics show that Venezuela has fallen back alarmingly in the area of scientific and technological development and the generation of innovations. This can be seen, for example, in the sharp decline in the publication of scientific articles and the registration of patents. Venezuela is now one of the most backward countries in Latin America and the Caribbean in the field of science and technology. In June 2014, the prestigious journal Nature wrote that “Venezuela was the only country in South America to experience a decline in scientific production between 2009 and 2013.” (Gutiérrez 2016, 166)

Low investment and a lack of innovation have resulted in a weak labor productivity performance. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates, output per hour worked in Venezuela has fallen sharply and is now well below

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the comparable values at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This is partly a direct consequence of the country’s severe economic crisis: When allocating foreign currency, the government is increasingly prioritizing the import of food and consumer goods, so that urgently needed inputs for production are not reliably available, which in turn has a negative impact on production (Aravena and Fuentes 2013, 12; Martínez and Ledermann 2016; Dachevsky and Kornblith 2017, 85f.).

4.4

Emerging Issues: Structural Crisis, COVID-19 Pandemic, and Education

Venezuela is caught in the deepest socio-economic and political crisis in its history. Economic relief is not in sight. Of course, the dramatic downturn also affects education. Lack of funding, decaying school infrastructure, and the increasing deficit of trained teachers seriously challenge the learning opportunities of a whole generation. The situation in higher education is not better: Venezuelan universities are not in a position to conduct research nor can they offer high-quality study programs. This situation is acerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. On the one hand, according to the United Nations, the country lacks testing capacity, and on the other hand, already before the pandemic the situation of the health system was alarming. As a consequence, the government has to take harsh measures to control the spread of the virus. However, this worsens the socio-economic situation even more. The United Nations Development Program has raised alarm that the already low GDP might contract another 10–28% in 2020 and lack of foreign currency might cause an even higher decrease in food supply (Barráez and Chirinos-Leañez 2020). Regarding education, there can be no doubt that the vast majority of students will lose probably nearly a whole year of schooling. It would be cynical to argue that this is not that worrying, as the education system cannot provide quality education even in normal conditions. In order to reduce spreading of the virus, the government ordered school closures and proceeded to virtual education. This important measure to curb the pandemic led to increasing inequalities in access to education and education quality due to the digital divide. Although the Ministry of Education rapidly launched its plan to adapt to the pandemic called “Cada familia una Escuela” (Each family a school) and started the transmission of distance education measures through public television and radio, severe problems remain (Morales Ceballos 2020). A recent study suggests that one third of the population faces daily power interruptions, whereas another third of the population has power interruptions once a week. Moreover, only 12% of the households from the lowest income quintile have access to internet at home, and only 17% own a computer (PROVEA 2020; Ramírez 2020; UCAB 2020a, 12; UCAB 2020d, 15). Summing up, we can state that in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, education inequalities will increase, as only the well-off receive a – also precarious – virtual education. Subsequently, we can conclude that the current situation negates educational opportunities for a whole generation and at the same time increases educational inequalities. Put differently, today the educational reality of the Bolivarian Revolution is anathema to the

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ambitious objectives that were formulated at the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution and repeated countlessly by Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro as well as by several ministers of education.

5

Conclusion

Education is a crucial topic in Venezuela and often gives reason for polemic public discussion. Moreover, Venezuelan education is highly linked to economic, social, and political conjunctures and especially to the volatile oil income. Oil money was crucial for important education gains. This includes the expansion of access to education, but also high-quality elite education and generous scholarships for studying abroad for the well-off. As a consequence, high education inequalities persisted. The Chavista government wanted to change this and introduced important reforms in order to achieve a less unequal education and to promote social justice. Indeed, access to education improved considerably during the Bolivarian Revolution. Yet, this was not accompanied by an improvement in education quality. Moreover, hierarchical fragmentation of the Venezuelan education system increased. As a consequence, even in the high times of the Bolivarian Revolution and in a highly polarized political climate that also affected education, education continued to be highly unequal and the government did not manage to promote social justice due to education reforms. The situation got worse with the beginning of the fierce economic crisis in 2015, and at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Venezuelan education system was not in a situation to provide the basic conditions for education. Scenarios for the future are rather bleak. The country needs to overcome the historical crisis, and afterward, education has to be a crucial issue in the recover strategy. This strategy should include the positive reforms introduced by the Bolivarian Revolution, and above all, it should focus on the decrease of inequalities and the promotion of social justice.

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Index

A Academic and Pedagogical Competencies Evaluation, 569 Academy for Art and Culture Education (AACE), 963 Accountability movement, 1021 Accreditation, 1029 Achievement gaps, education, 1163 Achievements, junior and senior comprehensive schools, 975 Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), 1060 Adjunct faculty, 1037 Adult education, 225, 374, 391 Affirmative action programs, 1063 African-American English (AAE), 1055, 1056 Alfaro, Eloy, 526, 527 Alimentación y Salud Escolar, 577 Alpha ’84 project, 965 Alternative certification, 1036 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 1122 American College Test (ACT), 1116 American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, 888 American Revolution, 94 A Nation at Risk, 1019 A Nation At Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform, 1053 Anderson, Benedict, 18, 19 Anti-Black racism, 322 Apple, Michael, 1054 Argentina economic crisis, 63 indigence and poverty rates, 65 poverty rate per age group, 66 Argentinian educational system, 60, 72, 86 access to ICT and digitalization, 84–85 decentralization, 70, 81

education administration and governance, 74–76 Education Funding Law, 71 elementary school, 66–67 enrolment ratios, 69 Federal Education Law, 70, 73 higher education, 68–69 inequality, 82–84 international and national assessments, 84–86 ISCED classification, 76–77 mass education system, 70 National Education Law, 71, 73 private institutions, enrolment in, 73 secondary education, 67–68 secondary technical education, 80 teacher training, 78, 79 Technical and Professional Education Law, 71 Artificiall intelligence, 1088 Arts component, 704 Assistive technology devices, 1082 Attendance gaps, education, 1163 Automated learning analytics, 45 Avellaneda law, 68, 70 Ayiti, 683

B Bachillerato, 829 Bahamas and cultural context, 99–101 and demographics, 101 and economic structure, 99 geographical locations, 93–94 and political system, 99 Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI), 102, 103, 107, 108

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Jornitz, M. Parreira do Amaral (eds.), The Education Systems of the Americas, Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41651-5

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1208 Bahamas educational system early educational development, 95–97 education administration and governance, 104 emerging issues, 113–115 historical perspective, 94–95 ISCED classification, 104–109 labor market, 101–102 post-World War II and post-independence educational developments, 97–99 sciences, technology, and mathematics subjects, 112–113 Special Services Unit, 110 10-year plan, 111, 112 Bahamas General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE), 114, 115 Bahamas Junior Certificate Examination, 105 Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, 93 Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute (BTVI), 102, 103, 107, 108 Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT), 98, 115 Bahamian law, 102 Barbados’s education system colonial Barbados, 122–124 education administration and governance, 132 emerging issues, 137–138 general principles, 131–132 geography and physical features, political system and economic structure, 125–127 ICT and digitalization, 136–137 inequality, 135–136 ISCED-classification, 132–134 labor market, 127–131 personnel supply, 134–135 post–World War II/post-independence period, 124–125 primary education participation rate, 128 secondary education participation rate, 129 social conditions, 127–130 STEM subjects, 137 tertiary education participation rate, 130 Basic education, 894 Basic Education Access and Management Support (BEAMS) program, 673 Basic Education Development Index (IDEB), 228 Basic Middle Education, 1141 Basic National Common Curriculum, 224 Basic Work Education, 894 Bennett, Michael, 1054

Index Bermuda, education system of academic achievement, 153–155 adult and continuing education, 162 agriculture and tourism, 147 formation of union, 148 free and non-free schools, 145–146 historical and social foundation, 143–146 ICT and digitalization, 167–168 institutional and organizational principles, 152–164 issues, 168–171 personnel supply, 163–164 political, economic and cultural landscape, 146–147 political context, 149 private and denominational schools, 160–162 secondary schools in black community, 157–160 segregation and educational opportunities, 165–167 social conditions, 150 structure of education system, 156–157 tertiary education, 163 transitions to labor market, 151 Bermuda Institute of Seventh Day Adventists, 161 Bernard Reform, 703 Bilingual Education Act, 1019 Bilingual education services, 923 Bilingualism, 28, 860 Black Action Movement (BAM), 1064 Black Code (Code noir), 586 Black Plan, 1051 Black Serving Institution (BSI), 1065 Bolivarian Revolution, 1182, 1184, 1189, 1192, 1196, 1198–1201 Bolivia colonial legacy, official languages, religion, 181 demographic characteristics, 182 demographic development, 182–183 economic structure, 180–181 geographical and physical characteristics, 180 military governments, 177–178 political system, 180 restoration and consolidation of democracy, 178–179 revolution of 1952, 177 Bolivian educational system, 211 access, compulsory education, zoning/ school choice, 190–191

Index administration levels, 193 adult education, 200–201 educational policy, curricular orientations, 186–187 education and vocational training, 197–200 emerging issues, 208–209 financing, 187–190 general education policy, 185–186 governance structure, 193–194 graduation, exam, certification, 191–193 guidance and support, 184 higher education, 197 human resources, 201–204 ICT and digitalization, 206–207 inequality, 204–206 labor market organization, 183 legislation and mandate for, 184–185 preschool, 194 primary education, 194–195 secondary education, 195–197 STEM subjects, 207 teacher training, 201–203 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 584 Brazil educational reconstruction in, 246 federalism in, 242, 244 Brazilian currency, 279 Brazilian education system adult education, as second chance education, 225 distance education, 226 education funding, 227 education reforms, military dictatorship, 217–219 elementary education, 222–223 evaluation of, 227–230 financing of education (see Financing of education, in Brazil) higher education, 225–226 historical development, 215–217 inequality in, 234–236 National Education Plan, 230–231 organization of, 221 pre-school sector, 221–222 pre-service and in-service teacher training, minimum national salary, 232–234 upper secondary education, 223–224 vocational education, at secondary education level, 224–225 Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), 236 Brazilian tax structure, 267 British North America Act, 292, 294, 295

1209 C Canada, 314, 315 multicultural education and Canada’s multiculturalism framework, 319–321 multicultural education, schooling practices and students’ performance, 321–322 social and historical context of multiculturalism, 316–319 Canadian Association of University Teachers, 305 Canadian education system catholic school system, 300, 301 consultations, 306 education administration and governance, 302–304, 334–336 educational institutions to labor market, 299 emerging issues, 308, 343–344 English first language school boards, 301 formal education, 292, 293 French immersion programs, 306 general historical background, 329–330 general principles, 301–302, 333 governing structure of, 27–28 history, 294–295 ICT and digitization, 339–341 indigenous people, 29–30 inequality, 307–308, 338–339 ISCED-classification, 304, 336–337 labor market, 332 minority language revitalization, 306 multiculturalism, 30 personnel supply, 305, 337–338 political, economic, and cultural contexts and conditions, 295–298, 330–331 public school system, 300, 301 revised curricula, 306 social conditions, 298–299, 331–332 special needs, 306 standardized assessment, 306 STEM subjects, 341–342 Canadian Journal of Education, 306 Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CSSE), 302 CANOPE Network, 602 Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), 477 Capitalism, 1044, 1045, 1065 Career Advancement Program (CAP), 715, 734 Career and technical education (CTE), 1120 Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) level, 670, 984 Caribbean agricultural economy, 586

1210 Caribbean Association of National Training Authorities (CANTA), 621 Caribbean Examination Council (CXC), 133, 608 Caribbean region, 121 Caribbean Sea, 685 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations, 136, 984 Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ), 726 Cayenne, 585 Cayman Islands Economic Development Plan, 356 Cayman Islands Education Data Report, 354 Cayman Islands’ education system, 352, 366 CAT4 assessment, 354 Cayman Islands Board of Education, 353 education administration and governance, 357–359 emerging issues, 365–366 ICT and digitalization, 363–364 inequality, 362–363 ISCED level 0, 359 ISCED level 1, 359 ISCED level 2, 359–360 ISCED level 3, 360 ISCED level 4, 360 ISCED level 5, 360–361 ISCED level 6, 361 ISCED level 7, 361 labor market, 356–357 personnel supply, 361–362 pre-primary, 354 primary and secondary, 354–355 social conditions, 355–356 STEM subjects, 364–365 tertiary, 355 Censual Student Evaluation, 906 Center for Enhancing Educational Performance (CEEP), 627 Centralization, 757 Centro Interactivo de Aprendizaje de Ciencias, 578 Certification, 931 Challenges, education system of Trinidad and Tobago, 983 Chilean economy, 382 Chilean education system, 370, 371, 385 authoritarian and neoliberal restructuring, 375–377 Chilean Educational Reform, 378 curriculum and assessment model, 389–390 Eduardo Frei Montalva Reform, 373–375 emerging issues, 396–397

Index employment market, 384–385 financing, 387–388 governance and financing of schools, 389 governance at tertiary level, 390 governance of early education, 389 ICT and digitalization, 394 ISCED-classification, 390–391 performance gap, 393–394 political, economic and cultural contexts and conditions, 381–383 Projects for the Improvement of Education, 378 provision of staff, 391–392 quasi-market, 378–379 900 Schools Program, 378 secondary education, 371 social conditions, 383–384 STEM subjects, 394–396 student mobilization, 386–387 targeted compensatory programs, 377 testing culture and results, 379–381 Chilean model, 375, 377 Citizen Constitution, 219 Citizenship, 425 Civic education, 24–26, 406, 414 Civil Rights Act of 1964, 1112 Civil Rights movement, 1019, 1024, 1047, 1053 Clientelism, 799 Clinical faculty, 1037 Coalition for Education Reform, 113 Code-switching pedagogies, 1056 College of Agriculture Science and Technology (CAST), 355 Colombian Declaration of Independence, 407 Colombian education system educational administration and governance, 415–416 emerging issues, 424–427 general historical background, 406–411 general principles, 413–415 human resources, allocation of, 417–420 ICT and digitalization, 423 inequality, 420–423 ISCED classification, 416–417 political, economic and cultural contexts and conditions, 411–412 provision/population participation, 412 STEM education, 423–424 transition to labor market, 412–413 Colonialism, 120, 126, 138 Colonial Parliament system, 149 Commercialization, 379

Index Commission for Educational Reform, 890 Common Core State Standards, 1062, 1123 Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI), 1024 Common Entrance Examination (CEE), 710 Communication media, 893 Compensation mechanism, 758 Competence-based education, 406, 425 Competitiveness, 729 Compulsory education, 945 Compulsory Education Policy, 715 Computer education programming, 167 Computer technology, 1074 Conectar Igualdad, 84 Congress of Cucuta, 407 ConnectED initiative, 1093 Consejo Consultivo, 78 Consejo Nacional para la Culture y el Arte (CONCULTURA), 565 Constitutional Education Law, 390 Costa Rican education system, 432 African heritage and education, 458 basic general education, 447 colonial period, 435 curricular transformation, 450–453 early childhood education, 455–456 Fundamental Law of Education, 440 general basic education, 447 general principles, 441–442 higher education governance, 444–446 highly centralized governance, 442–443 human resources, 448–450 indigenous heritage and education, 457–458 innovation and technologies, 459–461 institution of higher education, 435 lower secondary education, 447 period of independence and education, 436–438 pre-Columbian and colonial education, 434–435 Second Republic, 439 sustainable development, 456 technical education, 458–459 technical education governance, 443–444 in 20th century, 438 upper secondary education, 447 Cost of Initial Quality Education per Student (CAQi), 281–283 Council for Evaluation, Accreditation and Quality Assurance of Higher Education (CEAACES), 545 Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), 472

1211 Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), 27, 301, 306 COVID-19 pandemic, 910, 1174–1176 CEIBAL’s educational platforms rule, 1172 Venezuelan education system, 1201 Creole language, 689 Creole mestizo community, 589 Criterion-referenced standardized tests, 1053 Crown Colony Rule, 614 Cuban education system, 466–468, 472, 474, 479, 481, 486 adult education subsystem, 484 after Spanish-American War, 469 colonialism, 467 elementary system of preschool, 481 emerging issues, 490 equality in education, 485 graduate education, 484 physical education, 469 post-independence period, 470 primary education, 481 revolutionary government, 471 secondary education, 468 special education, 484 STEM subjects, 489 technical and vocational education system, 482 tertiary/university education, 483 upper secondary education, 482 Cuban Revolution, 466–468, 470, 473 Cultural diversity, 904 Cultural method, 885 Curricular policy, 453 Curricular transformation, 447, 450–453, 462 Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE), 665, 670

D Datafication, 45–46 Decade of Development, 671 De-centralization, 376, 742, 1051 Democracy, 904, 1044–1046 Demographic transition, 382 Department of Technical and Vocational Education, 505 Desegregation, 1051, 1065 Detroit College Access Network, 1064 Detroit Promise, 1064 Detroit Public Schools, 1045, 1049, 1050, 1052, 1057, 1060, 1061 Differentiated instruction, 1081–1082 Digital citizenship, 452

1212 Digital Hub, 846 Digitalization, 45, 46, 599 Digital literacy, 934 Digital versatile/video discs, 363 Dirección de Tecnología Educativa, 487 Disability, in Guatemala, 644, 645 Discrimination, 794, 818 Distance education, 226 Distance learning university, 577 Diversified education, 447 Diversity, 295, 296, 307, 309 Dominican Institute for Evaluation and Research on Educational Quality, 509 Dominican Republic’s education system education administration and governance, 507–509 emerging issues, 516–517 formal education, 497 general historical background, 497–501 general principles, 506–507 ICT and digitalization, 514–515 inequality, 513–514 ISCED-classification, 509–511 labor market transition, 503–506 personnel supply, 511–513 political, economic and cultural contexts and conditions, 501–502 provision/coverage of population, 502–503 STEM subjects, 515–516 Donation program for laptops, 576 Dualist education system, 665 Dual Technical Education, 459

E Early childhood care and education (ECCE), 1000, 1001 Early Childhood Commission Act, 712 Early childhood education, in Trinidad and Tobago, 999–1001 Ecole Fondamentale, 691, 703 école républicaine (Republican schooling), 591 Ecological awareness, 904 Economically active population (EAP), 746 Economic crisis, 898 Economic divide, 1095 Economic growth, 772, 773 Economic model, 888 Economic recession, 267 Economic Recovery Programme, 672 Ecuadorian education system challenges for higher education, 541

Index educational administration and governance, 534–535 ESD, in higher education, 547–552 general historical background, 524–529 general principles, 532–534 ICT and digitalization, in higher education, 543–546 inequality, in higher education, 542–543 ISCED classification, 535–538 political, economic and cultural contexts and conditions, 529–530 provision/population participation, 530–531 STEM education, 546–547 transition to labor market, 531–532 Ecuadorian Ministry of Education, 547 EdCan, 302 Educating for a new citizenry, 432, 451, 453 Education, 2, 6, 7, 9, 11 allowance, 268, 276, 285 council, 358 formal, 8 funding, 226–227 informal, 7 non-formal, 8 policy, 433, 447, 451, 455 programming, 504 quality, 497, 499, 501, 508, 512, 517 reform, 217–220, 500, 848, 882, 891–893, 897, 898, 900, 903, 911, 1017–1021 school instruction, 7 specific learning domains, 7 statistics, 41, 45 universalization of modern schooling, 8 Education Act, 96, 352, 711, 975 Educational Center Plan, 509 Educational governance, institutional design of, 1136 Educational inequality, 933–934 Educational planning, 410 Educational planning team (EPT), 155 Educational Quality Support Project, 509 Educational system, in Ecuador, see Ecuadorian education system Education for All, 466, 474, 477, 478, 491 Education for sustainable development (ESD), 547–552 Education Funding Law, 71 Education of Young People and Adults, 391 Education of youth and adults (EJA), 273 Education Plan 2017–2021, 813 Education Quality Assurance Agency, 388 Education Regulations, 711 Education system

Index Colombia (see Colombian education system) in Guatemala, 633, 640 Education system, in Haiti general principles, administration and governance, 690 grade 1 through grade 9, 693–694 higher education, 698–700 ICT, digitalization and STEM subjects, 703–704 language issues, 702–703 post-secondary non-tertiary education and short-cycle tertiary education, 696–698 preschools, 690–693 secondary education, 694–696 structure of education system, 690–700 tackling inequality, 700–702 Education system of Trinidad and Tobago access, compulsory education, school zoning/choice, 982–983 cultural context, 978 economic structure, 977–978 education adminstration and governance, 984–985 educational policies, 981–982 financing, 982 geographical and physical features, 976 ICT and digitalization, 988–989 inequalities, 987–988 institutional and organizational principles, 980–987 personnel supply, 986–987 political, economic and cultural contexts and conditions, 976–978 political system, 977 promotion, examination and certification, 983–984 social conditions, 979 STEM subjects, 989–990 structure of educational system, 985–986 transition to labor market, 979–980 Education systems, 30–32 Canada, 26–30 France, 22–26 imagined communities and positioning, national identity, 18–21 Education with Community Participation, 565 EDUCAUSE, 1086 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), 1019, 1030 Elementary education, 222–223 Elementary schools, 885

1213 El Salvador education system educational trends and highlighted aspects, 571–578 general historical background, 558–559 ICT and digitalization, 571–573 institutional and organizational principles, 563–571 political, economic and cultural contexts and conditions, 559 social conditions, 560–563 STEM subjects, 574–576 transition to labor market, 560–563 Emergency certification, 1036 Employment, 300, 709, 716, 718, 725, 728, 731 Empowerment divide, 1096 Enculturation, 32 Encyclopedia Britannica, 1124 Engineering, US education system, at primary level, 1115, 1116 English language learners (ELLs), 1082 Entrepreneurship, 424 Environmental and sustainability education, 406 Equality, 727 Equity, in US K-12 and higher education, see United States education system Escuelas de Iniciación Deportiva Escolar, 482 Escuelas Normales, 473 Eurocentric, 1065 European education, 48 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), 1112 Expreso, 893 Extended primary education (EPE), 944, 960

F Fast Track Initiative (FTI), 672, 674 Federal bureaucracy, 1026 1988 Federal Constitution, 266 Federal District (FD), 268, 272, 278 Federalism in Brazil, 242 in Brazilian education, 243–251 fiscal, 257–260 Ferry, Jules, 584 Financial Management Regulations, 712 Financing of education, in Brazil, 269 annual teachers' salaries, in public institutions, 270 cumulative expenditure per student, 272 expenditure per student, in basic education and funding policy, 277–281 federal expenditure, 273, 275

1214 Financing of education, in Brazil (cont.) FUNDEB and CAQi, 281–284 inequalities, 277 public enrollments, in basic education, 281 public expenditure, public education, 272, 276 public resources, 285–287 school enrollments, in basic education, 274 school enrollments, in in-person and distance higher education, 275 teachers’ remuneration, 284–285 total expenditure, 269 First National Indigenous Development Plan, 457 First Regional Comparative and Explicative Study, 513 Fiscal federalism, 256–260 FOCATEC, 575 FOMILENIO I, 574 FOMILENIO II, 574 Formal education, 8, 293, 455, 525, 1150 Formal schooling, 11 Franciscan missionaries, 525 Free Education Law, 387 Free Education Plan (FEP), 710, 711 Freire Model, 616 French education system, 31, 592, 594 civic education, 24–26 Education Act, 23 exclusion of religion and importance of secularism, 23–24 French Guiana, location, 584 French immersion programs, 306 French Revolution, 584 Fundamental Law of Education, 440 Fund for Excellence in Education and Research (FEEI) resources, 866 Fund for Maintenance and Development of the Fundamental Education and Valorization of Teaching (FUNDEF), 280 Fund for the Development of basic education and Appreciation of the Teaching Profession (FUNDEB), 278, 280 Fund for the Development of basic education and valorization of education professionals (FUNDEB), 272, 277, 279, 283, 284, 287

G Gender equality, 802, 903 Gender parity index (GPI), 133 General Education Act, 414, 417

Index General educational phase (GEP), 964 General Education Law, 815 General Equivalency Development (GED), 1110 General Law on Education, 564, 904 General secondary education (GSE), 961 General secondary school, 567 General Treasury of the Nation, 187 Generic competencies, 424 German reform, 372 Gibson, William, 1106 Gini coefficient, 272 Global assessment, 6 Global challenges, 21–30 Global citizenship, 452 Global education industry sector (GEI), 47 Global Information Technology Report (GITR), 545 Globalization, 21, 43, 44, 51 Government Assisted Tuition Expenses (GATE) program, 975 Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (GORTT), 982 Grade Six Achievement Examination (GSAT), 723 Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT), 710 Grandes Unidades Escolares (GSU), 887 Grenada Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (GCTVET), 620 Grenada education system religion administration/governance, 618 alternative/post-secondary education, 620, 621 British Nationalism, 610 emerging issues, 626 French Catholicism, 610 general principles, 617, 618 highlighted aspects, 623–626 history/context, 609 institutional/organization principles, 617 ISCED classification, 619 language, 627 national consiousnesses, 614–616 personal supply, 622, 623 pre-primary school, 619 primary/secondary education, 619 religious authority, 611–613 special education, 619 sugar plantation economy, 609 tertiary degree-granting, 621, 622 tri-island state, 608 Grenada National Training Agency (GNTA), 620

Index Guarani language, 857 Guaranteed Student Loan program, 1029 Guatemala bilingual education, 650 children and young migrants in, 648, 650 development of, 632 disabled population in, 644, 648 economic and cultural reality of, 641 education system in, 633, 640 education system of, 640, 651, 653 INITIATIVE for law 5125 of, 654, 655 literacy in, 633 population in, 632 Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM), 653, 654 Guyana educational trends, 671–676 education system, 661 foreign funding, 671–672 HIV/AIDS, 675–676 location, 660 modern education system structure, 666–667 political and economic contexts, 665–666 population, 661 post-secondary school, 670 post-socialist labor market, 666–667 poverty, 673–675 pre-primary school, 666–667 primary school, 668 scholastic historical background, 662–665 secondary school, 668–670 social conditions during colonialism, 661 STEM/ICT/digitalization, 671 teacher education evolution, 664–665 teacher quality, 672–673 teacher training, 670 Guyana Improving Teacher Education Project (GITEP), 673 H Haiti cultural context, 688–689 demography, 686 economy and labor market, 686–688 grography, 685 historical background, 683–685 political system, 686 Haitian Revolution, 683 Hall, Stuart, 18, 20 Head Start program, 1031 Higher education, 225–226, 577 in Ecuador, 542–552

1215 Higher Education Act, 527 Higher Education Council, 544 Higher education institutions (HEIs), 540, 541 Higher Education Loan Program (HELP), 976 Higher Education Progress Index, 423 Hindustani teachers, 949–950 Hispanicization, 886 Home economics education, 961 Houghton report, 158, 165 Human Development Index (HDI), 92, 501, 1002 Human Employment and Resource Training (HEART) Act, 712 Human Employment and Resource Training Trust/National Training Agency (HEART Trust/NTA), 718 Human resources, 569

I ICT and digitalization, 571–573 Illiteracy rate, 884, 909 Immigration, 296 Immigration Act, 296 Inca Plan, 897 Indigenous Code, 585 Indigenous education, 307, 308 Indigenous language, 298 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 1019 Industrial capitalism, 1045 Industrial development, 740 Industrial Revolution, 1019 Industry, 328, 331, 343, 345 Inequality, 82–84, 234–236, 420–423, 571, 842–845 Barbados’s education system, 135–136 Bolivian educational system, 204–206 Canadian education system, 338–339 Cayman Islands’ education system, 362–363 Dominican Republic’s education system, 513–514 Ecuadorian education system, 542–543 income, 793 Jamaican educational system, 727–729 Mexican education, 754–755 Somoza regime, 796 Trinidad and Tobago education system, 1005–1006 Informal education, 7 Information and Communications Technologies Sector (ICTs), 573

1216 Information and communications technology (ICT), 206, 207, 423, 543–546, 627, 729, 730 Barbados’s education, 136–137 Canadian education, 339–341 Chilean education, 394 Mexican education, 755–756 in Trinidad and Tobago, 1006–1007 Information and communication technology (ICT) and digitization in US artificial intelligence, 1088 developments in emerging technologies, 1086–1089 digital divide, 1094–1096 economic divide, 1095 empowerment divide, 1096 funding for technology, 1093–1094 impact on 21st century skills, 1084–1085 impact on academic achievement, 1083–1084 impact on differentiated instruction, 1081–1082 impact on student engagement and motivation, 1082–1083 initiatives in preservice teacher preparation programs, 1076–1077 internet of things, 1089 issues in emerging technologies, 1091–1093 learning analytics, 1087–1088 long-term trends, 1090–1091 makerspaces, 1086 mid-term trends, 1090 professional development in in-service teacher education, 1077–1078 prospects for bridge building, 1096–1097 revisions in national educational technology standards, 1078 robotics, 1087 short-term trends, 1089–1090 technocentrism and pedagogical dogmatism, 1079 usability divide, 1095 virtual reality, 1088 as wicked problem, 1079–1080 INFOTEP, 506 In-service learning, 986 Institute for Teacher Training (ITT), 962 Institutional stability, 370 Instituto de Formación Docente (IFD), 871 Instituto Nacional de Formación Docente (INFoD), 78 Instituto Salvadoreño de Formación Profesional (ISFP), 567

Index Instructional technology, 1073 Inter-American teacher Fellowship Network (ITEN), 1010 Interculturality, 883, 904, 905 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 902 International College of the Cayman Islands, 355 International Corporation of Education Development CIDE, 576 International education regime, 44 Internationalization, 43, 44 International Large-Scale Assessments (ILSA), 380 International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), 481, 682 Bahamas educational system, 104–109 Barbados’s education system, 132–134 Bolivian educational system, 194–201 Canadian education system, 336–337 Cayman Islands’ education system, 359–361 Chilean education system, 390–391 Colombian education system, 416–417 Dominican Republic’s education system, 509–511 Ecuadorian education system, 535–538 education structure in Haiti, 690–700 Jamaican educational system, 722–726 level 0, 690–693 level 1 and 2, 693–694 level 3, 694–696 level 4 and 5, 696–698 level 6, 7 and 8, 698–700 Mexican education system, 749–752 Internet of things, 1089 Irish legacy, 774 ISCED-classification, 594

J Jamaica Computer Society Education Foundation (JCSEF), 729 Jamaica Department of Education, 353 Jamaica Movement for the Advancement of Literacy (JAMAL), 718 Jamaican educational system colonial period, 709 economic disparities, 728 education administration and governance, 720–722 emancipation and education, 709–710 emerging issues, 732–733

Index general principles, 719–720 ICT and digitalization, 729–730 independence and era of structural adjustment, 710–711 organization and support, 717–719 pre-emancipation, 710 pre-primary, 710 primary education, 723 provision and coverage of population, 715–717 secondary education, 723–725 sex and gender, inequality issues in, 727 spatial inequalities, 728 standardized examination, inequality in, 727–728 STEM education, 731–732 students with disabilities, 728 teacher distribution and characteristics, 712 teacher salaries, 712–715 tertiary and non-tertiary education, 725 Jamaica Teachers Association (JTA), 712 Javouhey, Anne-Marie, 585 Job security, 590 Jones Act, 920 July Monarchy, 585

K Kalamazoo Promise, 1064 Kalamazoo Public Schools, 1064 K-12 education, 712, 715 Keenan Report of 1896, 663 Keynesian welfare national state (KWNS), 44 King Louis Philippe I, 585 King Louis XIV, 584 K-12 schools, 297

L Lainez law, 67 Latin-American education, 829 Leadership, 371 Learning analytics, 1087–1088 “Let´s go to school”, 571 Liberal democracy, 370 Liberalization, 376 Limited primary education (LPE), 950–951, 969 Literacy, 577 Literacy and Fundamental Education, 717 Lower educational attainment program (LEAP), 785

1217 M Mackau Law, 585 Macro-sociological explanation, 39 Magnet schools, 1052–1053, 1112 Maintenance and Development of Education (MDE), 267, 277 Makerspaces, 1086 Mandel decree-laws, 591 Market economy, 99 Market-oriented governance regime, 385, 386 Market-oriented restructuring reforms, 375 Massive open online course (MOOC), 545 Mathematics, US education system at primary level, 1113, 1115 at secondary level, 1118 MECE Program, 394 Method of imposition, 884 Methodological educationism, 4 Methodological nationalism, 4 Methodological statism, 4 Mexican education system early childhood education development, 749–750 education administration and governance, 748–749 general historical background, 738–743 general principles, 747–748 ICT and digitalization, 755–756 inequality, 754–755 labor market, 746–747 personnel supply, 752–754 political, economic and cultural contexts and conditions, 744 preprimary, primary and lower secondary, 750 social conditions, 745–746 STEM subjects, 756–757 tertiary education, 751 upper secondary education, 750–751 Michigan Education Assessment Program (MEAP), 1051, 1053, 1054, 1060, 1061 Mico Teacher Colleges, 664 Mi Escuela Primero programme, 848 Migration, 22, 890 Military coup, 69 MINED established directing boards, 566 Minimum Competency Test (MCT), 624 Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle (MENFP), 690 Ministry of Economy, Planning, and Development (MEPyD), 504

1218 Ministry of Education, 357–359, 361, 364–366, 388, 900, 901, 903 Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training (METI), 131 Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, 506, 512 Ministry of Public Education (MEP), 443, 444, 739 Minority language revitalization, 306 Mitacs, 300 Montserrat’s education system cultural contexts and conditions, 773–775 economic contexts and conditions, 771–773 historical and social foundations, 765–767 ICT and digitalization, 782 inequality, 781–782 institutional and organizational principles, 780–781 issues, 783 political contexts and conditions, 769–771 poverty and vulnerability, 775–776 social conditions, 775 STEM subjects, 782 transition to labor market organization and support, 776–779 More extended primary education (MEPE), 960 Morrill Act of 1862, 1022 Mt St Agnes (MSA), 162 Multicultural education, 315, 319–323 Multiculturalism, 295, 314, 315, 317, 319, 321–323 in Canada, 30 Multiculturalism Act, 30, 320 Multiculturalism Policy, 320 Multilateral Teachers’ Training Programme, 665 Multi-user virtual environments (MUVE), 1083

N National Accreditation and Equivalency Council (NAECOB), 107–109 National Accreditation Council, 388, 390 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 1127 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 1108, 1118 National Assessment Program (NAP), 710 National Basic Education Assessment System (SAEB), 227 National body for accreditation (NAB), 967 National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), 1031, 1108

Index National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health, 299 National Commission on Special Education (NCOSE), 110 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), 1125 National Council on Education Act, 711 National culture, 6 National Curricular Design for Secondary Education, 905 National Curricular Innovation and Renovation Team (NCIRT), 848 National Educational Bases and Guidelines Law, 267 National Educational Workers Syndicate, 740 National Education Association, 1023 National Education Council, 388, 506 National Education Law, 62, 71, 73 National Education Plan, 269, 281 National education policy, 889 National education system, 570 Brazilian, 247 construction of, 39–42 coordination of, 250 creation of, 251, 257 idea of, 242 implementation of, 242 proposal of, 250 territorial and topological construction in global digital times, 43–50 National Environmental Education Policy, 425 National Exam of Upper Secondary Education (ENEM), 228 National Fund for Public Investment and Development (FONACIDE) resources, 866 National Higher Education Assessment System, 229 National Industrial Training Board, 718 National In-Service Programme for Teachers Education (NISTEP), 616 National Institute for Culture, 964 National Institute for Educational Studies and Research (INEP), 220 National Institute for the Evaluation of Education (INEE), 749 National Institute of Culture, 893 National Institute of Early Education Research (NIEER), 1035 National Institute of Tele-education, 893 National Literacy and Educational Recovery Campaigns, 374 National Ministry of Education, 419

Index National Network MEGATEC, 575 National Plan for Good Living, 539 National Professional Minimum Wage, 234 National Program of Languages and Cultures in Education, 904 National Qualifications Framework, 504 National Science Teaching Association (NSTA), 1109, 1117, 1125 National Secondary Education Test, 277 National Standards Curriculum (NSC), 731 National Survey of Educational Institutions, 907 National System of Educational Supervision, 509 National System of Quality Assessment, 84 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), 1108 National Teacher Survey 2014, 907 Nation-building, 41 Nation-state, 16–18, 21, 22, 31 Natural disasters, 779 Negro Education Grant, 123, 662 Neo-liberalization, 899 Neoliberal reforms, 375 Net enrollment rates, 383 New Life Organization (NEWLO), 621 Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), 1062, 1122, 1123, 1126 Nicaragua education system, 794–802 equity and quality, 810–813 higher education, 809 location, 792 secondary education, 808–809 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), 1060, 1061, 1113, 1116 Non-formal education, 8 Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 1125, 1126 Non-profit organizations, 1062 Non-vested school, 144 Northwest Ordinance of 1785, 1022 Nouveau Secondaire, 695, 703 Núcleos Educativos Campesinos (NEC), 884

O OECD Brazil Report, 276 Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información, 480 Open educational resource (OER), 1123 Organic Law on Higher Education, 528, 548 Organization of American States (OAS), 1010

1219 Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), 602, 608 Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 299, 307

P Panama, education system in accreditation process, 849–850 Colombian era, 827 colonial period, 827 education adminstration and governance, 835 educational reforms, 848 emerging issues in, 847–850 higher education, 841 historical foundations, 827–829 ICT and digitalization, 845–846 inequality, 842–845 institutional and organizational principles, 834–842 middle education, 839 personnel supply, 842 policy, 848–849 political, economic, and cultural contexts and conditions, 829–830 pre-school and kindergarten education, 837 primary level education, 837 secondary education, 839–841 social conditions, 830–833 STEM subjects, 847 structure of educational system, 835–841 support, 849 tertiary education, 849 transition to labor market, 833 Panamá Bilingüe programme, 848 Paraguayan educational system bilingualism, 860 education funding, 865–866 historical foundation, 857–860 ICT and digitalization, 873–874 inequity and inequality, 872–873 issues, 874–876 labor market, 862 lower secondary education, 869 multiculturality, 861 participation in education and progression, 861 personnel supply, 870–871 political, economic and cultural contexts and conditions, 858–860 population, age distribution and poverty, 860

1220 Paraguayan educational system (cont.) pre-primary education, 867 primary education, 867 principles, 863 private vs. public sectors, 862 secondary education, 869 social conditions: provision/coverage of population, 860 STEM subjects, 874 structure of educational system, 867–871 tertiary education, 870 Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), 298 Participation inequality, 1096 Pedagogical-critical reform, 890–897 Penguins’ Revolution, 386 People’s Liberation Movement (PLM), 770 Peoples National Party (PNP), 710 People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG), 608 Permanent education, 894 Persia’s education, 40 Peru, 883 changes for Peruvian education, 885 colonial hierarchies, 883 creativity and innovation, 904 education budget, 903 education policy, 889 equality of opportunities in education, 904 ethical approach, 904 formal education, 889 GSU, 887 level of education, 898 NEC, 884 neo-liberalization, 899 pedagogical-critical reform, 890–897 Peruvian university education system, 908 PISA, 902 quality of teaching, 902 SIL, 887 structure of Peruvian education system, 907 Peruvian-North American Cooperative Service, 885 Peruvian Republic, 883 Phelps-Stokes Commission, 663 Physical force, 41 PLANCAD, 900 Plan Social Educativo, 574 Political alliance, 885 Political Constitution of Colombia, 414 Political independence, 766, 770 Post-Federation education, 767, 770 Postnational era, 43 Post-secondary education, 304, 305

Index Post-World War II education in Haiti, 684 increase in private schools, Haiti, 700 Poverty, Nicaraguans, 793 Preparing tomorrow’s teachers to use technology (PT3) initiative, 1076–1077 Pre-primary education, 567 Pre-school and integral education, 577 Pre-school education, 221, 222 Pre-vocational program (PVP), 784 Primary education, 568 Primary Education Curriculum Renewal Project (PECRP), 965 Primary school, 567 Primary teacher education, 1139 Primary technical education (PTE), 960 Privatization, 377, 379, 385 Pro-Calidad, 576 Pro-childhood, 222 Productive Socio-Communitarian Educational Model, 179 PROEDUCA, 576 Professional and Technical Education Act, 80 Professional educational phase (PEP), 964 Professional integration, 590 Professional training programs in Haiti, 687 Program Advancement through Health and Education (PATH), 717 Program for Adolescent Mothers (PAM), 621 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), 49, 86, 93, 271, 272, 308, 832 framework, 597 Programme de Scolarisation Universelle, Gratuite et Obligatoire (PSUGO), 701 Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA), 513 Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), 597 PROGRESAR programme, 64 Progressive Education era, 1018, 1024, 1026 Progressivist period, 526 Projecto de Curriculum de Centros de Educación (PCC), 566 Proposal for the Suriname Basic Education Improvement Project (BEIP), 966 Provinces, 292–295, 297, 299–306, 308, 309 Proyecto Educativo Institucional (PEI), 566 Public debt, 267 Public education, 883 Public Education Authority, 525 Public education policies formulation of, 255 World Bank in, 255

Index Public Online and Higher Education Distance Learning Programme, 544 Public-private partnerships (PPPs), 286 Public school system, 143, 154, 169, 1112 Puerto Rican education system education adminstration and governance, 928–929 historical background, 916–920 ICT and digitalization, 934–935 inequality, 933–934 institutional and organizational principles, 924–932 issues, 936 personnel supply, 930–932 political, economic and cultural contexts and conditions, 920–921 social conditions, 921–923 STEM subjects, 935–936 structure of, 929–930 transition to labor market, 923–924

Q Quality education, 524, 540, 541, 552 Quebec Act, 294, 295 Quisqueya, 683

R Racism, 170, 317, 319, 321–323 Radio-assisted instruction (RAI), 363 Rama, G., 1140 Reagan, Ronald, 1021, 1108 Redemocratization process, 266 1957 reform, 858 Regular primary education (RPE), 950, 957 Report of the Committee of Ten, 1023 Report on Planning and Development, 896 Research-based literacy instruction, 1063 Research faculty, 1037 1848 Revolution, 586 Robotics, 1087 Roman Catholic schools, 974 Rousseff, Dilma, 267

S Salvadoran Institute for Professional Training, 567 Sandinista government, 800 Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), 1116 School Curriculum Project, 566 School desegregation, 1047–1049

1221 School Discretionary Grant Act, 380 School Environmental Projects, 426 School Leaving Certificate (SLC), 620 School of Medicine, 963 School package, 576 Schools and Staffing Surveys (SASS), 1108 Schumpeterian workfare postnational regime (SWPR), 44 Science education, 1115, 1122 Science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET), 341 Science Technology Education and Math (STEM), 627 Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education Barbados’s education system, 137 in Bolivia, 207 Canadian education, 341–342 Chilean education system, 394–396 in Colombia, 423–424 in Ecuador, 546–547 in Jamaica, 730–732 Mexican education system, 756–757 Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, in United States, 1107, 1112, 1126–1128 charter schools, 1113 Internet, curricular resources, 1123, 1124 magnet schools, 1112 NGOs, 1125–1127 at primary level, 1113, 1116 private schools, 1112 at secondary level, 1116, 1120 teacher preparation programs, 1124, 1125 at tertiary level, 1120, 1122 Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning, 1090 Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects Cayman Islands’ education system, 364–365 Trinidad and Tobago education system, 1008 Science, US education system in alpha order, 1117, 1118 at primary level, 1113, 1115 Secondary education, 568 Secondary School Entrance Examination (SSEE), 668 Secondary technical education (STE), 960, 1139 Second Regional Comparative and Explicative Study (SERCE), 513

1222 Segregated schools, 1046 Segregation, 150, 160, 165–167 Sendero Luminoso (SL), 898 1944 Servicemen's Readjustment Act, 1029 Settler-colonialism, 316, 319 Shein’s approach to culture, 688 Sistema Nacional de Evaluación del Proceso Educativo (SNEPE), 875 Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, 1022 Social change, 893 Social inequality, 383 Social inequity, 1045 Social justice, 319 Social mobility, 886 Social oppression, 893 Social policy, 377 Social program, 576 Social transformation, 892 Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País, 468 Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SPCK), 95 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), 95 Socio-Productive Project, 208 Sole Union of Peruvian Education Workers, 897 Somoza Era, 795 Sovereignty, 4 Special education, 391 Special educational needs (SEN) program, 782 Standard Academic English (SAE), 1055 Standard English Proficiency (SEP) program, 1058 Standardization, 742, 1021 Standardized curriculum, 1053, 1060, 1065 State building, 41 STEAM education, 342 STEM subjects, 574–576, 601 STrEAM approach, 786 Stroessner’s government, 858 Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), 672 Student-centered approach, 1079 Student-centered education, 452 Student Loan Fund, 286 Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), 886, 896 Superintendency of School Education and Higher Education, 388 Support for Education Empowerment and Development (SEED), 625 Suriname education system, 943 AACE, 963 Alpha ’84 project, 965 BEIP project, 966

Index bushland education, 957 colonial rule, 943–944 complaints, 954 compulsory education, 945 curriculum development, 964 dessa schools, 951–952 digitalization, 970 establishment and abolition of coolie schools, 946–948 extended primary education, 960 general secondary education, 961 Hindustani teachers, 949–950 home economics education, 961 ICT, 968 ITT, 962 kindergarten education, 957 limited primary education, 950–951 literacy, 964 military regime, 965 more extended primary education, 960 National Institute for Culture, 964 post-colonial period, 954–963 primary special-needs education, 958 primary technical education, 960 reform, 955–957 regular primary education, 957 resistance, 948–949 school struggle, 952–954 secondary technical education, 960 teacher training, 961–962 trade school, 962 Trefossa Institute, 964 university education, 963 Suriname national training authority (SNTA), 967 Sustainable development, 1008, 1010 Système National de Formation Professionnelle, 696, 697 Systemic thinking, 9 Systems approach for better education results (SABER), 49

T Tax expenditure, 286 Teacher2Teacher, 1123 Teacher, 32 quality partnership grant program, 1077 Teacher-facilitated approach, 1079 Teacher Reform Law, 907 Teachers Law, 898 Teacher supply, US education early childhood teachers, 1034–1035

Index postsecondary/tertiary instructional staff, 1037 primary and secondary teachers, 1035–1036 Teacher training, 77, 419, 570 Teaching Career Law, 570 Technical and Professional Education Law, 71 Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), 621 Technical and vocational education training (TVET) programs, 981 Technical and vocational training (TVET), 365, 968 Technical Training Centers, 390 Technocentrism, 1079 Technological literacy, 1084 Technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) framework, 1075 Technology, US education system at primary level, 1115, 1116 at secondary level, 1119, 1120 Technology integration description, 1075 ICT and digitization in US (see Information and communication technology (ICT) and digitization in US) in learner-centered environment, 1075 Tenure track faculty, 1037 Tertiary education, 225, 1150 Tertiary (or higher) education, 568 Textbook publishing, 1109 The Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, 1023 The Education Act, 1141 The Moyne Report, 663 Third Regional Comparative and Explicative Study (TERCE), 513 Thorny trajectory, 684 Traditional education system, 894 Trefossa Institute, 964 Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), 1114, 1115 Trinidad and Tobago education system, 999, 1010–1012 British colonial policies, 998 early childhood education, 999–1001 education administration and governance, 1003–1004 emerging issues, 1008–1010 general principles, 1003 ICT, 1006–1007 inequality, 1005–1006 labor market, 1002–1003 personnel supply, 1004–1005

1223 political, economic and cultural contexts and conditions, 1001–1002 social conditions, 1002 STEM subjects, 1008 Truman Bodden Law School, 355 Tuning Latin America Project, 424

U Unemployment, 710 UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 363 United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), 548 United States education system, 1038 choice, local curriculum, local funding and neighborhood schools, 1056–1057 college access and promoting equity, 1063–1065 curriculum, 1054–1056 early childhood teachers, supply of, 1034–1035 education reform and development, 1018–1021 general principles, 1025–1026 local curriculum inequitable outcomes, 1058–1060 magnet schools, 1052–1053 national curriculum standards, 1062 national economic development and prosperity, 1023 nontraditional public schools/parochial and private primary and secondary schools, 1028 postsecondary/tertiary instructional staff, supply of, 1037 postsecondary and tertiary education, administration and governance of, 1028–1030 postsecondary and tertiary education, 1033–1034 pre-primary and primary education, 1030–1031 primary and secondary teachers, supply of, 1035–1037 race and cultural capital, in urban centers, 1051–1054 residential patterns and access to educational equality, 1046–1047 school desegregation and neighborhood segregation, 1047–1049 school resources and educational opportunity, 1049–1051

1224 United States education system (cont.) secondary education, lower and upper, 1031–1033 STEM education (see Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, in United States) traditional public primary and secondary schools, administration and governance of, 1026–1028 Universal educational access, 927 Universidad de Ciencias Informáticas, 476 University College of the Cayman Islands (UCCI), 355, 365 University Council of Jamaica Act, 712 University for All Program (ProUni), 220 University of Brasília (UnB), 235 University of the West Indies (UWI), 355, 975 University Selection Test, 380 UN Sustainable Development Goals, 2 Un vaso de leche, 576 Upper secondary education, 223–224 Urbanization, 740 Uruguayan educational system, 1135 academic achievement, 1159–1161 access and attendance, 1157 achievements, inequality trends in, 1165–1166 achievements and challenges, 1173–1174 CEIBAL plan, 1171–1173 CIDE Report, 1137–1139 civic-military dictatorship, 1139 compulsory education, 1147 and COVID-19 pandemic, 1174–1176 democratic restoration, 1140 demographic evolution, 1144–1145 education administration and governance, 1148–1150 educational grant programs, 1169 educational reform, 1140–1141 gender and multi-ethnic characteristics, 1145–1146 geographical distribution of enrollments, 1144 grade retention rates, 1161–1162 large-scale standardized assessments, 1156 personnel supply, 1151–1154 policies impact on inequality, 1170–1171 political and cultural contexts of policies, 1141–1143 programs based upon educational supply, 1167–1169 promotion, examination and certification, 1148

Index public education, policy, and institutions, 1136–1137 public school access, 1147–1148 public underinvestment and lagged supply, 1157–1159 schooling, inequality trends in, 1163–1165 school trajectories and graduation rates, 1161–1162 social and political origins in 19th century, 1135–1136 socio-economical context, 1143 structure, 1150–1151 students with special needs, 1170 tackling inequality problems, 1166 teacher work regimes and salaries, 1154 Uruguayan labor market, 1146 Usability divide, 1095 US Agency for International Development (USAID), 218 US Civil War, 95 U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), 1106 V Venezuelan education system COVID-19 pandemic, 1201 education administration and governance, 1191–1193 general historical background, 1183–1185 general principles, 1190–1191 ICT and digitalization, 1199–1200 inequalities, 1196–1199 provision of teaching staff, 1195–1196 STEM subjects, 1200–1201 structural crisis, 1201 structure of, 1193–1195 transition to labor market, 1189–1190 until end of 20th century, 1185–1189 Vested schools, 143 Virtual learning, 545 Virtual reality, 1088 Vision 2030 Jamaica, 719 Vocational education, in Uruguay, 1146, 1147 Vocational education, 224–225, 526 Vocational Training Development Institute (VTDI), 718, 725 Voluntary colonialism, 354 Voucher system, 376 W Warwick Academy (WA), 160 Wayne State University, 1065 West India Royal Commission, 353

Index Westminster model, 977 White Paper, 544 Wikipedia, 1124 Wolverine Pathways, 1064 World Atlas, 686 World Bank, 6

1225 World Bank-funded program, 378 World Bank Reform, 899–910

Y Youth Community Training Centers, 718