LATAM-EDUCATION: Neo-liberalism Blamed for Educational Ills

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Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Feb 18 1997 (IPS) - Demonizing neoliberalism as the cause of all evil would not solve problems affecting educational systems within the Latin American region, an international conference on education heard here.

“In order to overcome the serious lag which afflicts Latin American education, it is necessary to understand and to use current global economic realities since they dominate the rules of the game, and, for the moment, seem irreversible,” delegates from Chile and the United States declared.

They spoke at a gathering of teachers and education experts from 24 Latin American countries held over the weekend. A majority of discussion groups at the “International Education Summit” blamed “neoliberalism” for the poor state of education along with illiteracy, low teacher salaries and sparse public investment in education.

But in the opinion of James Wilkie, a researcher from the University of California, it was necessary to overcome “the myth” that neoliberalism – in conjunction with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund “are evil organizations that are secretly taking over the world.”

“What ought to be done is to improve the quality of education through creativity and with a minimum of prejudicial judgments,” he said, adding that “economic obstacles are an irreversible reality.”

Manuel Garreton, from the University of Chile, noted that globalization and industrialization are “neither good nor bad in themselves, but merely are a model for development within which people must find their way.”

Garreton added that to “think that neoliberalism is the culprit, is sparring with ghosts. We shouldn’t crown neoliberalism with laurels it has not earned.” The Chilean professor pointed out that Latin America’s education problems had developed during times of State economic intervention.

Participants at the conference, convened by the Confederation of American Educators – a group numbering three and-a-half million teachers – concluded that it is impossible to realize proposed educational alternatives within the current neoliberal scheme.

After 30 hours of discussion, participants from nine different workshops and more than 100 breakout sessions opined larger budgets should be demanded from their governments. They also agreed to fight any attempt to counter the current, secular, tuition-free approach to education.

Edgar Ilch, the director of Ecuadoran teachers, considered it “urgent” to oppose “neoliberal hegemony” by emphasizing the democratic and unifying values built into the current educational system.

Uruguayan researchers, Ivonne Passada and Alicia Mesa, argued that neoliberalism views education as a service and not a right. They pointed out that in contemporary schools, the principal assumes a managerial role, while parents disappear from the scene and students are viewed as workers who are preparing themselves for the marketplace.

Beyond the criticism made of current economic models and how to confront the region’s instructional lag, all participants expressed common accord that in Latin America and the Caribbean (where illiteracy averages 15 percent) it is urgently necessary to improve education in order to overcome underdevelopment.

Regional rates for students repeating grade-level work were among the highest in the world, since, according to Jeffery Puryer, director of the Washimngton-based NGO “International Dialogue” it takes a typical student seven years to achieve a fifth grade education.

The annual cost of re-educating failed students amounts to 2 and a half billion dollars, almost a quarter of Latin America’s educational budget. Furthermore, Puryer pointed out that this failure rate impedes the development of well-prepared professionals able to compete in the marketplace.

At least two-thirds of total budgetary allotment for education is dedicated to the salaries of teachers and other personnel, while scarcely two percent is invested in instructional materials.

Mary Futrell, president of the International Education Board, maintained that Latin America’s educational lag contributes to the economic, social and political gaps so evident between nations.

According to Luis Yarzabal, regional coordinator for the United Nations Organization for Science Education and Culture – sponsor of the Mexico conference – the educational lag can be measured by the low proportion of young people who pursue studies in centers of higher learning.

Yarzabal pointed out that while 70 percent of young people in northern industrialized countries have the opportunity to embark a college career, in Latin American only 15 percent of all youngsters have this option.