World Bank Education Policy: Market Liberalism Meets Ideological Conservatism
Puiggros, Adriana
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...
...Nor do people struggling to make ends meet have the time or energy to run schools...
...It is based on a short-term cost-benefit analysis...
...Private groups are not able or willing to take on the task of providing primary education to millions of children...
...They argue that members of local school boards should be democratically elected...
...countries...
...Since the independence era, Latin American democrats have linked decentralization with participation...
...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...
...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...
...They have to raise funds to pay for their own water, electricity and telephone...
...Only educational spending that is immediately profitable is considered justifiable...
...The new laws also allow the onduras...
...Professors' activities have become subject to rigid discipline...
...The professor can receive another $1,000 in incentive pay depending on how his or her work fits within the norms of efficiency...
...Far from acknowledging the need for more teachers, the Bank recommends cutting back the number of primary school teachers as well as government-funded teachertraining and education programs...
...Statistics from Pedagogical Alternatives and Educational Prospects in Latin America (APPEAL) of the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, University of Buenos Aires, 1996...
...presidents were extolling the importance of education, most of their administrations were chopping away at their public education systems...
...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...
...According to neoliberal pedagogical theory, parents and students can "freely" choose among the different options offered in the educational marketplace: they can foot their children's tuition fees if they have the money, they can go into debt, or they can give up altogether on educating their children...
...Today, they have moved to the forefront 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 system are at stake...
...These unions have been fundamental players in the struggle to maintain unity in public education systems...
...4 The same argument in favor of a focus on primary schooling is also made on the grounds of economic efficiency...
...The 22 heads of state who were present at the gathering painted an imaginary portrait of progress and good pedagogical intentions towards the region's excluded majorities...
...even though teachers have always been underpaid...
...Subsidies for hot lunches and transportation for students and teachers have been eliminated...
...They reflected on the need to improve the quality and effectiveness of education, and to make primary schooling universally available...
...In nearly all countries, teachers earn only about as much as unskilled workers...
...16.See Anuario Estadistico de America Latina y el Caribe (Santiago de Chile: CEPAL, 1993...
...I The World Bank advocates reducing all investment in education that does not generate direct income or cannot be recouped right away...
...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...
...Some paid with their lives for this act of liberty...
...Bernardo Kugler, Argentina: Reallocating Resources for the Improvement of Education...
...With these instruments, the neoliberal model is comNACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 30REPORT ON SOCIAL POLICY plete: the state pulls out of education entirely and the market takes its place...
...investments in the region...
...Making matters worse, neoliberal governments have started handing schools over to local governments and private interests at a time of economic catastrophe...
...Today, the bottom line is most important...
...Translated from the Spanish by Mark Fried...
...Its arguments are simple and direct...
...Quite a few children will likely be left without schools to attend, or be stuck in overcrowded classrooms...
...Where these fees have been imposed, large sectors of Argentina's impoverished middle class have been pushed out of the post-secondary education system...
...10...
...Following the World Bank's advice, President 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 municipality...
...The quality and availability of public education varies considerably between different regions and countries, and also within each country...
...This concept of "profitability" needs to be scrutinized...
...Martin Carnoy and Carlos Torres, Educational Change, p. 41...
...3. World Bank, El financiamiento de la educacidn en los paises en desarrollo (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1986), p. 19...
...state to transfer school facilities to teachers, parents and religious institutions among others...
...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 recently, "What we try to measure is how well the training provided by each school fits the needs of production and the labor market...
...This kind of rigid control over professors' time and activities has led to disinterest, apathy and deterioration 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...
...They favor statefinanced education because it guarantees the continuity of education programs, is much more stable than private support, and has universal reach...
...The Bank does not take into account, however, the relative weakness of the private sector in Latin America...
...The Bank recognizes that its plan will meet with fierce opposition from the many people who will be hurt by this redistribution of scarce funds...
...The Bank favors running education on the model of the free market under the premise that competition will stimulate better-quality schooling...
...It needs to occur as part of broader development initiatives that have widespread popular support...
...They envision unified national school systems which are nonetheless sensitive to local demands and proposals...
...Neoliberal economists do not address this problem because fair wages for teachers would require permanent increases in school budgets...
...Despite all their problems, public school systems are the most important public arena in which a unified national culture can be constructed and passed from generation to generation...
...Not surprisingly, the debate over decentralization is intimately linked to the issue of nationbuilding...
...26-7...
...A World Bank Study (Washington, DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 1989...
...Yet the Bank adds that there is "a group of general policies that could be useful basic guides for all coun- k recommends tries...
...Because of the concentration of poverty in the countryside and the conn 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...
...afloat...
...9 The push for privatization reflects the Bank's belief that national governments should not have to provide permanent support for education...
...The Bank's education policy is part and parcel of a larger neoliberal economic program whose overarching goal is to reduce state spending so that governments are able to continue making payments on their foreign debt...
...You can't train these teachers in isolation, without raising the educational and professional levels of the entire society...
...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...
...Adriana Puiggros, Volver a educar: el desafio de la ensenanza argentina a finales del siglo XX (Buenos Aires: Ariel, 1995...
...Decentralization is not good in and of itself, or under any circumstances...
...Finally, they believe that responsibility for financing education rests primarily on governments, though state resources can be complemented by private contributions...
...Nicaragua offers a preview of what this new educational marketplace will look like...
...The World Bank agreed to provide loans to several countries to cover the administrative expenses of the transfer itself...
...8 Nicaragua's public high schools now have obligatory tuition payments, and the elementary schools have "voluntary" ones...
...Such an initiative would entail paying the salaries of thousands of teachers as well as providing proper equipment to the schools...
...And the teachers' union in Brazil is one of the main unions affiliated with the Workers' Party (PT...
...They never found a mathematical formula that worked, much less anything capable of becoming the basis for a universally applicable model...
...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 educational components in Argentina's Social Plan and Mexico's Solidarity Program...
...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...
...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...
...In fact, that discussion, which has never been definitively resolved, began at the end of the nineteenth century...
...But Latin American civil society, which is weak to begin with, has been hit hard by the recent economic crisis...
...education policy with respect to Latin America since the end of the Second World War...
...The Confederation of Educational Workers of the Argentine Republic (CTERA) leads the unions opposed to the Menem government...
...As schools are passed from hand to hand, the transfer process results in further closings and the deterioration of school infrastructure...
...2 The World Bank has taken up these real concerns, criticizing the traditional education systems' bureaucracy, excessive centralization, poor quality, and uneven development...
...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...
...To achieve this goal, the Bank does not recommend increasing public spending on education...
...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...
...These indexes force them to interrupt their research in order to pursue topics which will produce immediately applicable results that will provide universities with additional income...
...15.Angel Barriga Diaz, Empleadores de universitarios: un estudio de sus opiniones (Mexico: CESU, UNAM, 1995...
...The public should also play a role in shaping the process...
...Instituto Nacional de Estadlsticas y Censos (INDEC), Encuesta permanente de hogares...
...Instead, the Bank recommends paring down teachers' already measly salaries...
...World Bank, El financiamiento de la educaci6n, p. 43...
...Her most recent book is Volver a educar: el desafio de la ensenanza argentina a finales del siglo XX (Ariel, 1995...
...The World Bank's current education policy is the reverse of the traditional liberal thinking that characterized U.S...
...Ley de Mejoramiento de la Calidad y Ampliaci6n de la Cobertura de la Educaci6n Peruana, El Peruano (Lima), December 27, 1992, pp...
...Disciplines like anthropology and cultural studies, for example, are considered irrelevant...
...Illiteracy is making a comeback in countries such as Argentina and Uruguay whose literacy rates were traditionally as high as those of developed countries...
...Market liberalism meets ideological conservatism...
...Teachers' unions have always worked in defense of democratic educational principles and national public education systems...
...1 For decentralization to flourish, there have to be social groupings able to take advantage of the new opportunities and responsibilities...
...This year, the demand for public elementary education in Argentina has mushroomed as many middle-class parents are no longer able to afford private-school tuition fees...
...1 4 The indicators they use, however, are often far removed from issues of pedagogical practice...
...In Peru, the national government is handing elementary schools over to local jurisdictions as part of its larger efforts to shrink the purview of the state...
...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 recommends eliminating poorly functioning schools altogether, which will make the system even more elitist...
...Primary-school teachers in Latin America earn between $100 and $400 a month in countries where the minimum wage is between $80 and $120...
...Casi el 18% de los estudiantes secundarios repitieron el alo," Clarin (Buenos Aires), February 24, 1996...
...For example, in Mexico, half of researchers' salaries is paid according to efficiency indexes...
...You can't broaden access to primary education unless you have enough teachers trained to teach primary school...
...In practice, the reform restricted guaranteed access to free An adult literacy class near San Pedro Sula in H( education to the primary level...
...But loans-which are always limited and temporary-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...
...2 0 The large teachers' unions have also come under attack...
...of the regi4 Better worlds, however, aren't necessarily prof- "paternal itable in the short term...
...Whatever the criteria used-whether economic indicators, test scores, or people's right to education-Latin America's school systems score poorly...
...after relaxing economic controls, ideological controls are strengthened...
...Only some of them receive state financing to cover part or all of their monthly expenses...
...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 priority...
...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...
...Eduardo Castro Silva, "Riesgos y promesas del curriculum de colaboraci6n en contextos de descentralizaci6n administrativa," in Revista Iberoamericana de Educaci6n, No...
...and Antonia Gallard, The Diversification of the Education Field, International Institute for Educational Planning, Paris...
...Aside from redistributing educational funds, the World Bank also calls for the privatization of the school system under the guise of decentralization and modernization...
...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...
...13 Nevertheless, in practice, the World Bank has allowed countries to carry out decentralization without consulting the people affected...
...The student movement is currently fighting the government's attempt to impose university tuition fees in the wake of the reform...
...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...
...1 9 In Argentina, a national evaluation survey was carried out in 1994, five years after Carlos Menem took office and began to institute sweeping neoliberal reforms...
...It is open to question whether primary education really is a priority of the World Bank...
...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...
...The Bank recommends drastically reducing public investment in education through privatizing and breaking up school systems, and nullifying teachers' contracts...
...7 Decentralization of primary school systems without accompanying state financial support is producing greater inequality in educational services...
...In terms of solutions, the Bank rightly recognizes that "it's impossible to come up with universal formulas, since the steps to be taken must be adapted to the situation of each country...
...Compensation is now often tied to particular performance indicators...
...In a letter dated October 8, 1992, the Nicaraguan finance minister promised the president of the World Bank "to continue promoting the private provision of educational services at the primary and secondary levels" and "to remove restrictions on licenses and tuition charges...
...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...
...Following this logic, Minister of Economics Domingo Cavallo blamed Argentina's 20% unemployment rate on the poor quality of the education system...
...2 Since regional economies are bankrupt, people 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...
...To educate, as part of a you have to be looking toward the future and believe in a better world...
...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...
...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...
...Nearly 20% of all secondaryschool 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...
...CEPAL-UNESCO, Educaci6n y conocimiento: Eje de la Transformacion Productiva con Equidad (Santiago de Chile: Centro Nacional de Informaci6n Educativa, 1992), pp...
...Shifting funds from one level to another won't do the job...
...The Bank argues that "decentralization of education and support to community and private schools will generate additional resources for education from families and other local sources...
...1 5 For example, economists measure the efficiency of a school's staff by comparing the hours worked to the number of teachers on salary...
...Instead he pointed the finger at teachers...
...2. Education, however, was not entirely homogeneous as programs were reinterpreted by teachers in each locality and region...
...The Bank's education policy has an exclusively economic logic...
...Elementary-school students scored an average of 5.50 out of 10...
...Salaries remain the biggest CTERA, the Argentine tea chunk of education budgets, reforms in Buenos Aires...
...3 (SeptemberDecember 1993), p. 63-89...
...Angel Diaz Barriga (coordinator), Los academicos ante los programas de Merit Pay, estudio sobre estimulos en la UNAM y en la carrera magisterial, Informe preliminar (Mexico: CESU, UNAM, 1995...
...Neoliberal economists insist that their reforms will increase the efficiency and quality of education...
...In the 1990sthe era of neoliberalism-education levels across the region have declined...
...Schools charge rent on required textbooks...
...The reason for that failure is The World Bai rooted in the fact that the privatizing ar logic of economic discourse is different from national publi the logic of pedagogic discourse...
...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...
...In Argentina, the monthly base salary of a full professor with 20 years seniority is US$1,500...
...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...
...Not even the Catholic Church, which has traditionally 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...
...Both of these social-investment funds were designed in concert with structuraladjustment programs...
...The Nicaraguan teachers' union has also criticized the closing of rural schools, and the handing over of school buildings to private interests...
...World Bank Education Policy 1. Analia Roffo, "4La escuela prepara para el trabajo...
...entrevista a Silvia Montoya," in Clarin (Buenos Aires), January 28, 1996...
...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...
...111471-111486...
...Teaching is discouraged as well since it is given less point value than research...
...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...
...The debate about whether Latin America's school systems should be decentralized or centralized is not a new one...
...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 structural-adjustment programs that impoverish the population as a whole...
...Business lost interest in investing in education, as shrinking real wages caused the pool of potential private-school pupils to diminish.10 In 1995, for example, a hundred private schools closed in Buenos Aires alone...
...These boards have legal standing as private entities...
...oped quite unevenly over the past century...
...School curricula generated by central-government offices have rarely reflected the diversity and vitality of popular cultures...
...One of the principal recommendations of the World Bank's education policy is that governments focus on improving primary education...
...Susanna Torrado, Estructura social en la Argentina (1945-1983) (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Flor, 1992...
...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 curricula in all public and private schools, as well as standard programs to evaluate teacher and student performance...
...While a handful of provinces and municipalities may be able to assume this new economic burden, other localities simply will not be able to sustain an elementary-school system on their own...
...Liberalism and "development theory" encouraged investment in public education so that Latin America's citizens would become productive participants in the institutions of capitalism...
...The whole event had a strangely surreal air...
...In Costa Rica, for example, salaries have been cut back, and teacher training has deteriorated significantly...
...5 There is no question that some groups are more in need of state-sponsored education than others, and compensatory programs must exist...
...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...
...Ley de Financiamiento Educativo...
...The drop-out rate in primary school currently averages 35% nationwide, although it approaches 70% in certain provinces...
...Merit pay often amounts to two or three times the base salary of university professors...
...The publication of these results in the media provoked a national scandal...
...In Costa Rica, studies show that since structural-adjustment measures were implemented in the 1980s, scholastic achievement levels have fallen in primary and secondary schools, and more students are failing grades in high school...
...For secondary, university and technical education, efficiency is measured by the number of graduates who find jobs...
...Such programs, however, would raise the average cost per student, which is contradictory to the goals of structural adjustment...
...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 education system...
...So for marketing purposes, the Bank makes highly dubious use of terms like "equity...
...4. World Bank, Priorities and Strategies for Education: A World Bank Review (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1995), p. 62...
...Teachers' unions have also played a broader political role in many Latin American countries...
...9. ANDEN, "Privatizaci6n y defensa del servicio piblico...
...7. Ley de participaci6n comunal en la Gesti6n y Administraci6n Educativas...
...It soon, however, began to flounder...
...Menem denied that his education policies were to blame...
...No single model of a school system can be universally applicable in a region as socially and culturally diverse as Latin America...
...Between 1988 and 1990, over 40% of students flunked national exams in math, 13% flunked Spanish, 19% social studies, and 17% foreign languages and science...
Vol. 29 • May 1996 • No. 6
