March 2001

SEMINAR: SECONDARY EDUCATION REFORM ALTERNATIVES

IDB EXHORTS LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN TO FACE NEXT CHALLENGES TO THEIR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS

Goal: a better education for millions of new students

The new century’s great challenge to the Latin American countries is that of bringing a high quality education to millions of new students who will be incorporated into secondary education systems that are already under pressure.

This will be the central issue of a seminar organized by the Education Unit of the Sustainable Development Department of the Inter-American Development Bank in Santiago, Chile, on March 17, prior to the IDB’s Annual Meeting.

Among those invited to the seminar at the Mapocho Station Cultural Center are the education ministers of Latin American and Caribbean countries. It is anticipated that the ministers of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic and Mexico will address the gathering. Also speaking will be experts from UNESCO and ECLAC; scholars from the United States, Latin America and Europe; leaders from the fields of labor and civil society; and high officials from Latin American countries that have undertaken or implemented profound reforms in their secondary education systems.

According to seminar coordinator Germán W. Rama, the Latin American educational systems will face a double challenge: to incorporate a much larger number of students than at present, and to improve quality instruction. These twin demands are made within the context of a labor market that requires higher and higher educational levels from those who are called to fill positions needing greater mental agility and knowledge of information technology.

Rama, as president of the National Public Education Administration in Uruguay, carried out a secondary education modernization program over the past five years. He said that one of the goals that the countries will have to reach in the new century is to make secondary education universal. In brief, they have to extend the compulsory education cycle from an average of eight years to a total of 12.

It is worth noting that it took Latin America half a century to extend primary education access to all the population, partly because of the enormous demographic growth over the last half of the last century.

One of the keys to success in this endeavor will be recruiting and training of a large enough number of teachers to satisfy the anticipated strong growth in the demand for education. To do so, the Latin American countries will have to resort to tools such as large-scale, long-distance training. Simultaneously, they will have to improve the quality of teaching in order to close the gap that today exists between the education of rich and poor children and youth.

The seminar, which will be inaugurated by Chilean Education Minister Mariana Aylwin, will be organized in three panels that will examine the different challenges the region faces in education. The first panel, to be moderated by Colombian Education Minister Francisco Lloreda, will analyze the reforms

made in secondary education in the developed countries, especially the United States, Germany and France.

The second panel, which will be moderated by the State Secretary for Education of the Dominican Republic, Milagros Ortiz Bosch, will analyze the issue of education and equity in Latin America and the Caribbean. One of the problems of Latin American education is that it produces very unequal results for the poor and the rich. This often widens the gap between their social and economic conditions. In terms of gender, although in most countries girls receive as much or more education than boys, wide gaps persist in Guatemala and the rural areas of Bolivia and Mexico.

The last panel, which would be moderated by Mexican Public Education Secretary Reyes Tamez Guerra, will examine the experiences of reform in Latin America. Costa Rican First Vice President Astrid Fischel, and high officials of the educational systems of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Jamaica, will make presentations at this panel.

Brazilian Education Minister Paulo Renato Souza and IDB President Enrique V. Iglesias will close the seminar.