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Education in Latin America: Schooling Levels Are Up, but So Are Drop-out Rates One of the purposes of the UNESCO report was to evaluate changes in the educational sector during the 1990s, using a variety of indicators to measure progress. An important statistic was the length of time children spent in the educational system. This worked out to 9 years on average, compared to 7.5 two decades ago, the study found. The report looked at 19 countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela. It focused on the 1998-1999 academic year, using statistics supplied by each country or the UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). It included demographic, economic and social factors, student access to and participation in education, and statistics on teaching staff and educational spending. The demographic portion of the study estimated annual population growth in the region at 1.5%, meaning that the school-age population will stabilize by 2010 and even decline by the middle of this century. This trend, the authors suggest, provides governments "with a unique opportunity to focus on the quality of instruction without necessarily having to increase the education budget." Nevertheless, the study points out, the rural poor and indigenous communities continue to lag behind in terms of education. Two out of every five rural children do not complete primary school (compared to one out of every six in urban areas), or do so two years behind schedule. Only Chile, Mexico and Honduras have succeeded in narrowing the gap between rural and urban areas in the last two decades. The study found a clear correlation between the economic and educational levels of individual countries, leading the authors to lament that "the present situation whereby children's life chances are so heavily dependent on their parents' socioeconomic status is one conducive to hereditary poverty." Some positive findings do emerge from the research. In all of the countries included in the study, at least 80% of children of elementary school age are enrolled in the educational system. Seven countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru) have universal elementary education, and three more (Costa Rica, Uruguay and Venezuela) are about to introduce it. Elementary school education lasts an average of six years in Latin America, but drop out rates and repeated grades are still a problem, according to the study. In Nicaragua and El Salvador, for example, only 55% of elementary-school students reach the fifth grade. Other countries fared much better, among them Mexico (89%), Bolivia (85%), Guatemala (82%) and Paraguay (78%). Secondary school levels are much lower. Despite some improvements in the last decades, the study reported, only 54% of students stay in school this long. This translates into 20 million young people who are not in class or who are stuck behind in elementary school. The study calls higher education one of the region's "greatest educational challenges." Although enrollment increased during the 1990s, only 9.5 million students in Latin America and the Caribbean attended colleges and universities in 1998. Of these, half were women and 60% were concentrated in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. The programs enrolling the most students were in the social sciences, business and law. (The exception was Cuba, where education and health were the top fields of study). The humanities and the arts, along with agricultural sciences and services, were the sectors attracting the least number of students. In a region with a total population of 484 million, there were 6.5 million teachers and 143 million students in 1998. This works out to 1330 teachers for every 100,000 inhabitants. The countries with the most teachers were Argentina and Cuba, with more than 1700 per 100,000 inhabitants. Across the region, women accounted for the overwhelming majority of teachers. Only nine countries presented the necessary data for calculating their levels of spending on education. The study estimates it as accounting for more than 10% of government spending on average. Paraguay and Peru were above the norm, spending 20% and 22%, respectively. The UNESCO study is strong evidence that despite the different levels of development among countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the region's governments are committed to the modernization and reform of their educational systems. At the same time, however, an enormous amount remains to be done in the coming years to allow the region to meet its minimum collective goal of universal access to education. As the reports' authors conclude, "education is a fundamental determinant of quality of life." Despite their efforts, Latin American governments have yet to achieve adequate levels of education for their citizens. Without this tool, it will be difficult to meet one of the great challenges facing the region in this century: building and consolidating democracy. For the full text of the UNESCO report, see www.uis.unesco.org/en/pub/pub0.htm.
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