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Making Education a Catalyst for Progress: The Contribution of the Inter-American Development Bank
(04/98, En, Es)
A Time for Education Reform
This is education's moment in Latin America and the Caribbean. There is a growing regional consensus on the need for reform and its urgency. Education reform is driven by growth, productivity and global competitiveness concerns, as well as concerns for social equity.
After more than a decade of market-oriented economic reforms, the low level of educational achievement of most of the workforce, and the large disparities in social and economic opportunities among citizens continue to undermine the region's development potential. Despite substantial gains in reducing illiteracy, improving gender equality and providing access to primary education, much remains to be done.
- Learning in schools remains strikingly deficient in all but a few elite institutions. The region's educational institutions are among the worst rated by international leaders and the investment community. Teachers are inadequately trained and work in poor conditions.
- Citizenship and civic education show important deficits among the population of emerging or consolidating democracies. In a modern society, a good education not only includes learning the usual school subjects, but also an increased awareness of the basic rules of citizenship.
- Equity: Large income gaps translate into disparities in educational opportunities. As a result, education becomes a factor that reinforces inequities rather than reducing them.
- Attainment: Young workers enter the labor force ill-prepared compared to their counterparts in South East Asia, and the gap is widening. The percentage of children who fail to complete the primary cycle is almost twice what would be expected given the region's level of income.
Today, these accumulated deficits are mobilizing growing constituencies that include parents, students, teachers, businesses and nongovernmental organizations and government authorities. These groups are demanding more resources, new policies and better decisions for the education sector. This is happening because education is increasingly being perceived, and correctly so, as a pivotal factor in promoting economic development, and reducing poverty and income inequality. Beyond this, it is the natural incubator and safeguard of contemporary citizenship and democratic values.
After years of lack of innovation and poor quality, change is now brewing. And it is systemic change, hence the emphasis on the idea of reform rather than just adding resources to institutions or practices already in place. In Latin America and the Caribbean, education is not only becoming a real budgetary priority; it is also becoming a priority in the minds, words and actions of leaders who are investing substantial political influence and technical ability to revamp education systems and upgrade performance levels. Education is increasingly seen as the most important catalyst for development.
Education reform is particularly challenging given the many factors that affect it. Social, cultural, organizational and political elements strongly influence the nature of reform. There is, at the same time, a varying set of conditions in the region. Differences exist not only between countries but also among regions in some countries. To add complexity, education reform can take place across several dimensions--it is by no means predetermined in terms of content or sequencing. Yet, after decades of increases in quantity, reform is today focusing on quality. To the extent that expansion represents a challenge for some countries, quality access (rather than just access) is being put forward as the proper goal of reform.
The IDB shares with its borrowing member countries a long trajectory of educational development and, more recently, reform. During three decades, and particularly in the nineties, the Bank's involvement in the education sector has partially evolved from top-down methods of program preparation and implementation to more participatory approaches to service delivery. It has also moved from an almost exclusive focus on construction and infrastructure to an explicit concern for other aspects of educational policy such as managerial and pedagogic issues. Support for expansion and coverage has shifted to greater concern for quality improvement. Centralized control and monitoring have given way to school-centered, community-based, decentralized approaches.
These changes in the Bank's actions support similar shifts in educational priorities and policies in member countries. Several countries are pursuing the organizational and financial challenges of systemic reform, beginning to address developing secondary education now that student flows are better established in primary education, and are turning to training and vocational education as a result of the economic restructuring taking place in the region.
Yet, many challenges remain. This document reviews some of the most important challenges and provides illustrations of the ways in which the IDB is seeking to support the region's efforts to address them. Five major cross-cutting issues are:
- institutions
- information
- teachers
- technology, and
- finance
Each of the above is directly connected to one or several of the major objectives of improving quality, equity and educational attainment.
The right incentives and management arrangements are a requirement of effective schools, accountable to the communities in which they operate. Accountability, however, will hardly be possible in the absence of clear, reliable and timely information about how educational institutions are producing learning and at what costs. Teachers are clearly key to whatever reform is implemented since, in the end, they will be the ones operating in classrooms. By necessity, they must be put in a position to deliver the best possible performance, be it through training, incentives, school environment or pedagogic support.
Teaching, in turn, cannot be thought of exclusively along the traditional lines of classroom resources: distance education, through radio and television-supported learning processes, plus the still unchartered potential of interconnectivity and computers are already becoming an important part of the educational landscape of the region. Substantial resources will be needed for this: not only additional resources, but also decisive improvements in the efficient use of already available resources that are often trapped in systems with little inclination to be cost-conscious or efficient.
Finally, reform will not happen without effective leadership and widespread social involvement. Policy dialogue and stakeholder development will have to be deliberately built into reform processes as a requirement of political feasibility and long-term sustainability. The IDB is active in all these fronts, and it will continue to be present in supporting the governments of the region in changing educational systems for the better.
Last updated: 01/16/07
