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).
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