The theme of the Fifth Ibero-American Summit, held in the Argentine resort of Bariloche last October, was "Education and Development." The 22 heads of state who were present at the gathering painted an imaginary portrait of progress and good ped- agogical intentions towards the region's excluded majorities. They reflected on the need to improve the quality and effectiveness of education, and to make pri- mary schooling universally available. The whole event had a strangely surreal air. At the same time that the Adriana Puiggros is a professor at the University of Buenos Aires, and is a representative of the Confederation of Educational Workers of the Argentine Republic (CTERA). Her most recent book is Volver a educar: el desafio de la ensenanza argentina a finales del siglo XX (Ariel, 1995). Translated from the Spanish by Mark Fried. presidents were extolling the importance of education, most of their administrations were chopping away at their public education systems. The region's governments are taking their cue from the World Bank, which has been in the vanguard in defining social policy in the neoliberal era. The Bank recommends drastically reducing public investment in education through privatizing and breaking up school systems, and nullifying teachers' contracts. Such a restructuring of the education system is part of a larger effort to wipe out the remnants of the region's so-called "paternalistic" states. The Bank's education policy has an exclusively eco- nomic logic. It is based on a short-term cost-benefit analysis. As a researcher from the Fundaci6n Mediterrdnea, a think tank affiliated with Argentina's NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON SOCIAL POLICY Minister of Economics Domingo Cavallo, put it recent- ly, "What we try to measure is how well the training provided by each school fits the needs of production and the labor market."I The World Bank advocates reducing all investment in education that does not gen- erate direct income or cannot be recouped right away. Only educational spending that is immediately prof- itable is considered justifiable. Disciplines like anthro- pology and cultural studies, for example, are consid- ered irrelevant. This concept of "profitability" needs to be scruti- nized. In the 1960s and 1970s, economists tried hard to come up with a formula for measuring the value which education contributes to labor, and education's role in the rate of return on investment. They never found a mathematical formula that worked, much less anything capable of becoming the basis for a universally applicable model. The reason for that failure is The World Bai rooted in the fact that the privatizing ar logic of economic dis- course is different from national publi the logic of pedagogic discourse. To educate, as part of a you have to be looking toward the future and believe in a better world. of the regi4 Better worlds, however, aren't necessarily prof- "paternal itable in the short term. The World Bank's cur- rent education policy is the reverse of the traditional liberal thinking that char- acterized U.S. education policy with respect to Latin America since the end of the Second World War. Liberalism and "development theory" encouraged investment in public education so that Latin America's citizens would become productive participants in the institutions of capitalism. U.S. policy makers viewed public education in Latin America as a key component of the social peace which was needed to guarantee the security of U.S. investments in the region. Today, the bottom line is most important. The Bank's education policy is part and parcel of a larger neoliber- al economic program whose overarching goal is to reduce state spending so that governments are able to continue making payments on their foreign debt. oped quite unevenly over the past century. The quality and availability of public education varies considerably between different regions and countries, and also within each country. Because of the concen- tration of poverty in the countryside and the con- n n( centration of economic and political power in the urban centers, public school systems have traditionally been highly centralized with a top-down pyramidal structure. School curricula generated by central-government offices have rarely reflected the diversity and vitality of popular cultures. 2 The World Bank has taken up these real concerns, criticizing the traditional education systems' bureaucra- cy, excessive centralization, poor quality, and uneven development. In terms of solutions, the Bank rightly recognizes that "it's impossible to come up with uni- versal formulas, since the steps to be taken must be adapted to the situation of each country." No single model of a school system can be universally applicable in a region as socially and culturally diverse as Latin America. Yet the Bank adds that there is "a group of general policies that could be useful basic guides for all coun- k recommends tries." 3 In the end, the d breaking up World Bank has a single prescription for all c school systems larger effort the remnants on's so-called istic" states. countries. One of the principal recommendations of the World Bank's education policy is that govern- ments focus on improv- ing primary education. To achieve this goal, the Bank does not recom- mend increasing public spending on education; rather, it proposes diverting money that used to go toward financing high schools and universities in order to expand access to primary schooling. The Bank rec- ognizes that its plan will meet with fierce opposition from the many people who will be hurt by this redistri- bution of scarce funds. So for marketing purposes, the Bank makes highly dubious use of terms like "equity." Its arguments are simple and direct. "Although public spending on primary education generally benefits the poor," one Bank report claims, "total public spending on education in low- and middle-income countries often favors the affluent." 4 The same argument in favor of a focus on primary schooling is also made on the grounds of economic efficiency. "The high rates of return estimated for basic education in most developing countries," says the same report, "strongly suggest that investments to improve enrollments and retention in basic education should generally have the highest pri- ority." 5 There is no question that some groups are more in need of state-sponsored education than others, and compensatory programs must exist. But the word "equity" has been manipulated to cover up the attempt Vol XXIX, No 6 MAY/JUNE 1996 27REPORT ON SOCIAL POLICY to eliminate free public schooling beyond the primary level. The Bank's rhetoric about the need to distribute free services more "equitably" deflates when we take into account that these services are administered at the whim of corrupt functionaries as part of broader struc- tural-adjustment programs that impoverish the popula- tion as a whole. Members of the Menem administration parroted the World Bank's claims during Argentina's National Constituent Assembly in 1994, when they defended the neoliberal reform of the constitutional provisions for education on the grounds that the government wanted to distribute free educational services more equitably. In practice, the reform restricted guaranteed access to free An adult literacy class near San Pedro Sula in H( education to the primary level. The student movement is currently fighting the government's attempt to impose university tuition fees in the wake of the reform. Where these fees have been imposed, large sectors of Argentina's impoverished middle class have been pushed out of the post-secondary education system. It is open to question whether primary education real- ly is a priority of the World Bank. Shifting funds from one level to another won't do the job. You can't broad- en access to primary education unless you have enough teachers trained to teach primary school. You can't train these teachers in isolation, without raising the educa- tional and professional levels of the entire society. Far from acknowledging the need for more teachers, the Bank recommends cutting back the number of primary school teachers as well as government-funded teacher- training and education programs. Universal access to primary education will only be achieved if more money is invested in educating rural, indigenous and poor urban children, as well as adults who never attended school. Such programs, however, would raise the average cost per student, which is con- tradictory to the goals of structural adjustment. 6 Since neoliberal governments are loath to spend a penny more on education, educational services for the poor get reduced to a few small-scale efforts such as the educa- tional components in Argentina's Social Plan and Mexico's Solidarity Program. Both of these social-invest- ment funds were designed in concert with structural- adjustment programs. Aside from redistributing educational funds, the World Bank also calls for the privatization of the school system under the guise of decentralization and modern- ization. In Peru, the national government is handing ele- mentary schools over to local jurisdictions as part of its larg- er efforts to shrink the purview of the state. Following the World Bank's advice, Pres- ident Alberto Fujimori passed a series of new laws which regulate the transfer of control of schools from the national government to Community Boards of Education that have been set up in each municipal- ity. These boards have legal standing as private entities. Only some of them receive state financing to cover part or all of their monthly expenses. The new laws also allow the onduras. state to transfer school facili- ties to teachers, parents and religious institutions among others. 7 Decentralization of primary school systems without accompanying state financial support is producing greater inequality in educational services. While a hand- ful of provinces and municipalities may be able to assume this new economic burden, other localities sim- ply will not be able to sustain an elementary-school sys- tem on their own. The Bank recommends eliminating poorly functioning schools altogether, which will make the system even more elitist. As schools are passed from hand to hand, the transfer process results in further clos- ings and the deterioration of school infrastructure. Making matters worse, neoliberal governments have started handing schools over to local governments and private interests at a time of economic catastrophe. The World Bank agreed to provide loans to several countries to cover the administrative expenses of the transfer itself. But loans-which are always limited and tempo- rary-will not make up the shortfall in educational NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON SOCIAL POLICY spending that already exists and has simply been passed from the national government to local municipalities. The Bank favors running education on the model of the free market under the premise that competition will stimulate better-quality schooling. According to neolib- eral pedagogical theory, parents and students can "freely" choose among the different options offered in the educational marketplace: they can foot their chil- dren's tuition fees if they have the money, they can go into debt, or they can give up altogether on educating their children. Nicaragua offers a preview of what this new educa- tional marketplace will look like. In a letter dated October 8, 1992, the Nicaraguan finance minister promised the president of the World Bank "to contin- ue promoting the private provision of educational ser- vices at the primary and secondary levels" and "to remove restrictions on licenses and tuition charges." 8 Nicaragua's public high schools now have obligatory tuition payments, and the elementary schools have "voluntary" ones. Schools charge rent on required textbooks. They have to raise funds to pay for their own water, electricity and telephone. Subsidies for hot lunches and transportation for students and teach- ers have been eliminated. The Nicaraguan teachers' union has also criticized the closing of rural schools, and the handing over of school buildings to private interests. 9 The push for privatization reflects the Bank's belief that national governments should not have to provide permanent support for education. The Bank does not take into account, however, the relative weakness of the private sector in Latin America. Private groups are not able or willing to take on the task of providing primary education to millions of children. Such an initiative would entail paying the salaries of thousands of teach- ers as well as providing proper equipment to the schools. Not even the Catholic Church, which has tra- ditionally been the largest supplier of private education, could take on more than a small portion of the total number of students in need of education. As governments in countries such as Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Chile began to decentralize their school systems in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a private educational market did grow at first. It soon, however, began to flounder. Business lost interest in investing in education, as shrinking real wages caused the pool of potential private-school pupils to dimin- ish.10 In 1995, for example, a hundred private schools closed in Buenos Aires alone. This year, the demand for public elementary education in Argentina has mush- roomed as many middle-class parents are no longer able to afford private-school tuition fees. Quite a few children will likely be left without schools to attend, or be stuck in overcrowded classrooms." 1 For decentralization to flourish, there have to be social groupings able to take advantage of the new opportunities and responsibilities. But Latin American civil society, which is weak to begin with, has been hit hard by the recent economic crisis. The Bank argues that "decentralization of education and support to com- munity and private schools will generate additional resources for education from families and other local sources."' 2 Since regional economies are bankrupt, peo- ple cannot pay higher local taxes or make the direct contributions needed to keep these transferred schools The large teachers' unions have been fundamental players in the struggle to maintain unity in public education systems. afloat. Nor do people struggling to make ends meet have the time or energy to run schools. The debate about whether Latin Ame- rica's school systems should be decentral- ized or centralized is not a new one. In fact, that discussion, which has never been defini- tively resolved, began at the end of the nine- teenth century. Not surprisingly, the debate over decentralization is intimately linked to the issue of nation- building. Despite all their problems, public school systems are the most important public arena in which a unified national cul- ture can be constructed and passed from generation to generation. Since the independence era, Latin American demo- crats have linked decentralization with participation. They envision unified national school systems which are nonetheless sensitive to local demands and propos- als. They argue that members of local school boards should be democratically elected. Finally, they believe that responsibility for financing education rests primar- ily on governments, though state resources can be com- plemented by private contributions. They favor state- financed education because it guarantees the continuity of education programs, is much more stable than pri- vate support, and has universal reach. Decentralization is not good in and of itself, or under any circumstances. It needs to occur as part of broader development initiatives that have widespread popular support. To be effective, decentralization should take place during moments of regional economic growth when money as well as responsibility can be passed to the local level. The public should also play a role in shaping the process. As one Bank report declares, "If secondary education is to be decentralized, all parties agree that it should be done with prior consultation between the parties involved...."13 Nevertheless, in practice, the World Bank has allowed countries to carry out decentralization without consulting the people affected. Neoliberal economists insist that their reforms will increase the efficiency and quality of edu- cation. 1 4 The indicators they use, however, are often far removed from issues of pedagogical prac- tice. 1 5 For example, economists measure the efficien- cy of a school's staff by comparing the hours worked to the number of teachers on salary. For secondary, university and technical education, efficiency is mea- sured by the number of graduates who find jobs. Following this logic, Minister of Economics Domingo Cavallo blamed Argentina's 20% unemployment rate on the poor quality of the education system. Whatever the criteria used-whether economic indi- cators, test scores, or people's right to education-Latin America's school systems score poorly. In the 1990s- the era of neoliberalism-education levels across the region have declined. Illiteracy is making a comeback in countries such as Argentina and Uruguay whose lit- eracy rates were traditionally as high as those of devel- oped countries. The Argentine government will not release complete statistics, but several sources suggest that illiteracy is now 14% among Argentines over 15 years old, compared with 7.4% in 1970, and 6.1% in 1980. The drop-out rate in primary school currently averages 35% nationwide, although it approaches 70% in certain provinces. Nearly 20% of all secondary- school students in Argentina had to repeat their grade level in 1995.16 National exam results in many countries have declined significantly since the application of neoliberal policies. In Costa Rica, studies show that since struc- tural-adjustment measures were implemented in the 1980s, scholastic achievement levels have fallen in pri- mary and secondary schools, and more students are failing grades in high school. Between 1988 and 1990, over 40% of students flunked national exams in math, 13% flunked Spanish, 19% social studies, and 17% for- eign languages and science. 1 7 In order to improve those results-but never straying from the neoliberal mindset-the Bank is encouraging countries to establish common mandatory basic curricu- la in all public and private schools, as well as standard programs to evaluate teacher and student performance. With these instruments, the neoliberal model is com- NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 30REPORT ON SOCIAL POLICY plete: the state pulls out of education entirely and the market takes its place; after relaxing economic controls, ideological controls are strengthened. Market liberalism meets ideological conservatism. Professors' activities have become subject to rigid discipline. Compensation is now often tied to particu- lar performance indicators. For example, in Mexico, half of researchers' salaries is paid according to effi- ciency indexes. These indexes force them to interrupt their research in order to pursue topics which will pro- duce immediately applicable results that will provide universities with additional income. Teaching is dis- couraged as well since it is given less point value than research. Merit pay often amounts to two or three times the base salary of university pro- fessors. In Argentina, the monthly base salary of a full professor with 20 years seniority is US$1,500. The professor can receive another $1,000 in incen- tive pay depending on how his or her work fits within the norms of efficiency. This kind of rigid control over professors' time and activities has led to dis- interest, apathy and deteriora- tion in the quality of their work.18 The poor test scores have also been used as an excuse to cut back on the number of teachers and their working conditions. Salaries remain the biggest CTERA, the Argentine tea chunk of education budgets, reforms in Buenos Aires. even though teachers have always been underpaid. Primary-school teachers in Latin America earn between $100 and $400 a month in countries where the minimum wage is between $80 and $120. In nearly all countries, teachers earn only about as much as unskilled workers. Neoliberal economists do not address this problem because fair wages for teachers would require permanent increases in school budgets. Instead, the Bank recommends paring down teachers' already measly salaries. In Costa Rica, for example, salaries have been cut back, and teacher train- ing has deteriorated significantly. 1 9 In Argentina, a national evaluation survey was car- ried out in 1994, five years after Carlos Menem took office and began to institute sweeping neoliberal reforms. Elementary-school students scored an average of 5.50 out of 10. The publication of these results in the media provoked a national scandal. Menem denied that his education policies were to blame. Instead he point- ed the finger at teachers. Taking advantage of the uproar, he curried public support for more "flexibility" in teachers' contracts-which has translated into fewer posts, less job security, and deteriorating salaries and working conditions. 2 0 The large teachers' unions have also come under attack. These unions have been fundamental players in the struggle to maintain unity in public education sys- tems. For example, the National Education Workers Union (SNTE) in Mexico, despite its links to the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has been an important bulwark for defending the Mexican educa- tion system. Teachers' unions have also played a broad- er political role in many Latin American countries. The achers' union, leads a protest against government education National Association of Salvadoran Educators (ANDES) was one of the sources of activists for the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). The Confederation of Educational Workers of the Argentine Republic (CTERA) leads the unions opposed to the Menem government. And the teachers' union in Brazil is one of the main unions affiliated with the Workers' Party (PT). The type of decentralization that has been carried out under the tutelage of the World Bank has dispersed teachers' demands, eliminated collective bargaining agreements, and de-linked union activism and politics. Teachers' unions have always worked in defense of democratic educational principles and national public education systems. Today, they have moved to the fore- front of opposition to the education reforms tailored by the World Bank because they believe the very survival of the teaching profession and the public education sys- tem are at stake. World Bank Education Policy 1. Analia Roffo, "4La escuela prepara para el trabajo? entrevista a Silvia Montoya," in Clarin (Buenos Aires), January 28, 1996. 2. Education, however, was not entirely homogeneous as programs were reinterpreted by teachers in each locality and region. During the military dictatorships in Argentina and Uruguay in the 1970s, for example, many teachers taught a very different cur- riculum than what was imposed by the governments. Some paid with their lives for this act of liberty. 3. World Bank, El financiamiento de la educacidn en los paises en desarrollo (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1986), p. 19. 4. World Bank, Priorities and Strategies for Education: A World Bank Review (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1995), p. 62. 5. World Bank, Priorities and Strategies, p. 9. 6. Jos6 Luis Coraggio, Economia y Educaci6n en Ambrica Latina (Chile: Grupo de Trabajo de Economla y Educaci6n de CEPAL, 1992). 7. Ley de participaci6n comunal en la Gesti6n y Administraci6n Educativas; Ley de Financiamiento Educativo; Ley de Mejoramiento de la Calidad y Ampliaci6n de la Cobertura de la Educaci6n Peruana, El Peruano (Lima), December 27, 1992, pp. 111471-111486. 8. National Association of Educators of Nicaragua (ANDEN), "Privatizaci6n y defensa del servicio piblico de la educaci6n en America Latina," First Latin American Conference on Education in Managua. 9. ANDEN, "Privatizaci6n y defensa del servicio piblico." 10. CEPAL-UNESCO, Educaci6n y conocimiento: Eje de la Transformacion Productiva con Equidad (Santiago de Chile: Centro Nacional de Informaci6n Educativa, 1992), pp. 26-7. 11. Statistics from Pedagogical Alternatives and Educational Prospects in Latin America (APPEAL) of the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, University of Buenos Aires, 1996. 12. World Bank, El financiamiento de la educaci6n, p. 43. 13. Bernardo Kugler, Argentina: Reallocating Resources for the Improvement of Education. A World Bank Study (Washington, DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 1989). 14. Eduardo Castro Silva, "Riesgos y promesas del curriculum de colaboraci6n en contextos de descentralizaci6n administrativa," in Revista Iberoamericana de Educaci6n, No. 3 (September- December 1993), p. 63-89. 15.Angel Barriga Diaz, Empleadores de universitarios: un estudio de sus opiniones (Mexico: CESU, UNAM, 1995). 16.See Anuario Estadistico de America Latina y el Caribe (Santiago de Chile: CEPAL, 1993); Instituto Nacional de Estadlsticas y Censos (INDEC), Encuesta permanente de hogares; "Casi el 18% de los estudiantes secundarios repitieron el alo," Clarin (Buenos Aires), February 24, 1996; Susanna Torrado, Estructura social en la Argentina (1945-1983) (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Flor, 1992); and Antonia Gallard, The Diversification of the Education Field, International Institute for Educational Planning, Paris. 17. Martin Carnoy and Carlos Torres, Educational Change and Structural Adjustment: A Case Study of Costa Rica (Paris: UNESCO, Bureau for Coordination of Operational Activities, 1992), p. 45. 18. Angel Diaz Barriga (coordinator), Los academicos ante los pro- gramas de Merit Pay, estudio sobre estimulos en la UNAM y en la carrera magisterial, Informe preliminar (Mexico: CESU, UNAM, 1995). 19. Martin Carnoy and Carlos Torres, Educational Change, p. 41. 20. Adriana Puiggros, Volver a educar: el desafio de la ensenanza argentina a finales del siglo XX (Buenos Aires: Ariel, 1995).
