Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Education, Europe, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean, Poverty & SDGs

PARAGUAY: Debt for Education

Natalia Ruiz Díaz

ASUNCIÓN, Apr 4 2009 (IPS) - The start of the new school year in Paraguay in March once again highlighted the serious shortcomings plaguing the educational system, like rundown school buildings and a shortage of classrooms. But an agreement to swap debt for education will help the government begin to address the problems.

The construction of classrooms for at least 36,000 schoolchildren who according to the Ministry of Education and Culture had nowhere to attend school last year is one of the first tasks to be undertaken as part of an agreement for the use of official development aid funds that Paraguay has owed Spain since the 1990s.

In 2007, the Spanish government approved a plan for up to 10 million dollars of the 30 million dollars in Paraguay’s debt to Spain to be used for educational projects.

Spain is the country that has swapped the most debt for education in Latin America, through agreements signed with Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru, as well as Paraguay.

According to the agreement on the debt for education swap with Paraguay, which was negotiated by the government of president Nicanor Duarte (2003-2008), Spain agreed to reduce the debt in exchange for a commitment by Paraguay to spend the amount negotiated on education.

The funds covered by the agreement were included in the 2009 budget of the Ministry of Education and Culture.

Under the initial agreement, one of the main priorities for the funds was the construction of 38 teaching resource centres and 55 computer labs in high schools and vocational institutes.

But the centre-left government of Fernando Lugo, a former Catholic bishop who took office in August 2008, says the most pressing need is to revamp and repair schools.

“We need to invest in projects that have a broad impact, with a high level of citizen participation,” Luis Alberto Riart, deputy minister for educational administration, told IPS.

He said the decision was reached by the Ministry of Education and Culture when it assessed the problems facing the educational system, shortly after the new government was sworn in.

“We have to upgrade the installations of around 1,700 educational institutions, and improve sanitation services and the provision of piped water,” he said.

Part of the funds from the debt for education swap with Spain will thus go towards the government’s planned 40 million dollar investment in educational infrastructure, he said, adding that “only five percent of schools are in adequate condition.”

Another portion of the funds will be used to finance three projects proposed by non-profit institutions.

The Paraguayan chapter of the Fe y Alegría “Movement for Integral Popular Education and Social Development” produced a study on swapping debt for education, to “provide more information on the issue, and to make statistics available for the public and for social organisations to use in their analysis of the situation,” the report’s author Mabel Villalba told IPS.

The report was drawn up in late 2008 as part of the Mercosur (Southern Common Market) educational platform, with which NGOs from the trade bloc’s full members – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – as well as associate members Bolivia and Chile are seeking to strengthen civil society’s participation in order to influence public policies.

The study reports that 1.6 million youngsters are in the educational system in this country of 6.8 million people

But 22 percent of five to 19-year-olds are not in school, and 60 percent of children who begin primary education end up dropping out of school by the age of 15.

The illiteracy rate stands at 6.5 percent of the population, but climbs to 39 percent among the country’s small indigenous minority, who number around 90,000 (most of the population is of mixed-race European and indigenous descent).

Another problem mentioned by the report is the shortage of training received by teachers: 29 percent of the country’s 96,000 high school teachers do not have the pedagogical training needed to teach at that level.

In addition, 13 of every 100 teachers work for free, because the state does not pay them a salary. In some cases, the community pitches in to pay them.

According to Villalba, spending on education began to shrink since the start of this decade, as the economy slowed down.

“The reduction in spending on education translates today into precarious infrastructure and insufficient quantities of teaching materials, principally in suburban and rural areas,” she said.

Father Oscar Martín, national director of Fe y Alegría Paraguay, said that above and beyond the debate that has been raised on the legitimacy of paying off the country’s foreign debt, it is important for civil society to understand what the debt for education swap means.

The origins of Paraguay’s foreign debt date back to the start of the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989), with the 1980s being the period of greatest indebtedness.

The debt stood at 2.23 billion dollars in early 2000 and at 2.17 billion in 2008.

Although the debt consists of credits granted for roads, health, housing and education, these are the areas that are lagging the most today in Paraguay.