The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean would have to earmark an additional 150 billion US dollar over the next 11 years to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in education, according to two United Nations agencies.
In a recent joint study the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean,( ECLAC) and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, (UNESCO) recommend a better use of resources and a search for new forms of financing to complement the traditional sources.
– Even if the poorest countries in the region steadily increased their public spending on education, they would not meet the objectives established by international accords, Arturo León, a regional expert with ECLACs social development division, told Inter Press Service (IPS).
The study “Investing better to invest more. Financing and managing education in Latin America and the Caribbean”, was produced by ECLAC and UNESCO and released just over a week ago in Santiago, Chile, where ECLAC is based.
The four goals set for 2015, which are discussed in the 100-page report, are achieving universal preschool education for three to five-year-olds; ensuring that all children in the region complete primary school; raising secondary school coverage to 75 percent; and eradicating adult illiteracy.
These targets form part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed at a United Nations summit of world leaders in September 2000.
The MDGs also include cutting the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day, suffering from hunger, or lacking sustainable access to safe drinking water to half the 1990 levels by 2015.
Other objectives adopted by the 189 countries that belonged to the U.N. at the time focus on promoting gender equality, reducing infant mortality, improving maternal health, guaranteeing environmental sustainability, and combating devastating diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria.
The study by the two UN agencies estimates that 13,56 billion dollar more per year must be spent on education in order to meet the targets accepted by the countries of Latin America at the Millennium summit and, previously, in the World Declaration on Education for All adopted in Jomtiem, Thailand in 1990.
This figure, multiplied by 10 (the years left to the 2015 deadline) represents around 7,5 percent of the 2000 gross domestic product (GDP) of the 22 countries in the region whose statistics were used as the basis for the study.
Public spending on education in the region totalled 81,9 billion dollar in 2000, and the additional financial effort would amount to 16,6 percent of that.
León said the countries that are farthest behind in education are many of those in Central America and the Caribbean, especially Haiti, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. However, two other countries in that area, Costa Rica and Cuba, are strong performers.
Also facing serious problems on that front are rural and predominantly indigenous areas in Andean countries like Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, as well as southern Mexico and northeastern Brazil.
More favourable conditions are found in the Southern Cone countries of Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, which however still face pending challenges in terms of both quality and equity in education.
That is demonstrated by evaluations of educational performance among children in the region, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2000, in which five Latin American nations, including Chile, took part. Students in the five countries were generally found to be well behind those of the middle to upper-income countries studied.
The other countries covered by the ECLAC and UNESCO report are Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela.
Ana María Corbalán, a consultant to UNESCOs Regional Bureau for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean, told IPS that the study proposes two mechanisms for addressing the pressing problems faced by the region in the field of education.
– On one hand it is necessary to improve the use of resources, because significant inefficiencies have been found in the educational systems of every country, and on the other, complementary forms of financing should be found to ease the deficit in funds, she said.
The study explores different alternatives for that, such as contributions from the private sector and civil society, international cooperation, and swapping debt servicing for investment in human capital.
Although the report recognises the enormous financial efforts made in the region to improve the quality of education, it also states that the reforms have not brought the hoped-for results.
– The countries have followed a mistaken formula, because the reforms have been undertaken in two stages: focusing on expanding coverage first, and leaving the question of quality for later, said León.
The study says the region must now evaluate the path taken so far by the reforms, recognise their shortcomings and successes, and rectify the “paradigm” followed in order to optimise the impact of the additional resources, in terms of performance, quality, and equity.
According to León, although all four targets in question are important and urgent, and should be tackled in an integral manner by each country in the region, special attention should be put on achieving quality universal preschool education, he added.
Corbalán concurred: – Reaching universal preschool education, instead of the current regional average of 50 percent coverage, would require more investment by the governments, and would be decisive in achieving positive long-term effects.”
The study by the two U.N. agencies estimates that an additional 64,6 billion dollars – just over 42 percent of what is required to meet all four goals – would be needed to attain universal preschool coverage.
Quality preschool education reduces the number of years necessary to complete primary and secondary education, improves nutritional levels among children, and makes it possible for mothers to work, which in turn brings about a reduction in poverty, the report states.
Meanwhile, an additional 21,5 billion dollars would be required, or 14,4 percent of the total, to guarantee universal completion of primary school. While enrolment currently averages 93 percent in the region, completion of primary school is actually lower than that – below 80 percent in some countries, says the report.
In 2000, net enrolment in secondary school (ages 13 to 18) averaged 62 percent in the region, and expanding that to 75 percent would demand 59,3 billion dollars, or 39,8 percent of the overall total needed to meet the four MDGs in education.
In both primary and secondary education, the most pressing problems are the high levels of grade repetition and dropout.
With respect to the last goal, 6,9 billion dollars would be needed to eradicate adult illiteracy, which affects 39 million people in the region, by 2015.
In 10 of the 22 countries studied, the illiteracy rate stands at or above 10 percent, and in five it is higher than 20 percent.
The role of teachers in the effort to live up to the four goals is also amply addressed by the report, and should be analysed from various angles, said Corbalán.
– The capacity of educators to promote changes in the classroom has to do with their training, with the evaluation of their work, with the pay they receive, with the labour conditions in which they work, and with the number of hours a year that are lost because of strikes, she said.
The study states that all social actors must support the educational process: the government, civil society organisations, the private sector, schools and universities, teachers and professors, families and even children and adolescents themselves.
– So far, countries in the region have tended to place the entire burden of education on the public sector, but that focus must be modified, by actively incorporating the private sector into the educational reforms and adopting the concept of “social responsibility for education”, she argued.
UNESCO is calling for a regional forum on financing for education, in which a broad range of sectors would participate, to be held every two years.
Kilder: Inter Press Service og The Push Journal
