The Decline of the Social Sciences in Peru

...By the 1960s, similar trends in The crisis c higher education could be detected: from 15,919 stu- universit) dents in 1950 to 30,983 in 1960, and to 92,402 in 1969.1 in the dw The nine universities that of enro existed as of 1960 were unable to accommodate the increasing number of high school graduates seeking a university education...

...2, No...

...44 (1988), pp...

...See Table 2, p. 33.] This process has to do with what various analysts have begun calling the "elitization" of education both at the level of secondary school and in higher education...

...and Cayetano Heredia, known for its excellent medical faculty...

...Already meager resources in the public universities for investigative research and faculty enhancement have virtually disappeared...

...Indeed, there are desperate attempts to fill that void by followrom each discipline ing an exaggerated professional path-to the detritools inside a com- ment of a more creative way of conceptualizing the x," such that anyone social sciences and the role they can play in promoting r convenience, thus national development...

...Among the former are the University of Lima, well known for communication studies...

...Carlos Ivn Degregori, "La revoluci6n de los manuales," Revista peruana de ciencias sociales, Vol...

...The Shining Path's "hard core" and principal cadres emerged from the public, provincial University of Huamanga during the 1970s and 1980s, for example...

...free, state-funded education...

...But there is a downside to this, as it undermines the rich dialogue that historically occurred between the institutions that produce knowledge--the universities-and those that apply this knowledge in everyday life-the NGOs...

...For example, there was a huge ng sepa ration demand for anthropologists to work in the various state " theoretical agencies associated with the e universities Velasco agrarian reform pro- gram...

...Deans, 1999...

...3 (1990), pp...

...In contrast to earlier decades, the hegemony of the NGOs in the labor market imposes a pace and style of work that is radically different from the old research and development programs conducted from the universities...

...But NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 0 8 u 30REPORT ON THE CRISIS OF HIGHER EDUCATION from the 1950s onward, massive migration from the countryside to the cities-fundamentally Lima-radically transformed this panorama...

...46-63...

...During that decade, the majority of the public universities created and expanded the number of programs related to the social sciences...

...3. In the 1990s neoliberal reforms have been applied throughout the continent, but the most radical antistatist discourse is found in countries like Argentina and Peru, where the changes were much more drastic...

...At the same time, however, not all the private universities are equal...

...While a more secular and liberal emphasis was introduced in the nineteenth century after Peru gained independence, the universiCarlos Ivan Degregori is a senior researcher at the Institute for Peruvian Studies (IEP) and professor of anthropology at San Marcos National University in Lima...

...With no funds for maintenance or renovation, the university infrastructure has rapidly become obsolete, and the libraries are neglected and full of antiquated books...

...The Marxism of the public universities was fundamental in developing a discourse demanding the recognition of rights, but it also was the foundation of a discourse calling for the use of violence...

...n contrast to the majority of the public universities, many private universities project an image of academic excellence...

...This pattern was interrupted in the following decade by the military government put in place by General Juan Velasco (1968-1980...

...At the same time, there was an explosion of new nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Peru, responding to demands from below for training and technical assistance, and to the growing availability of international funds for development projects...

...Vol XXXIII, No 4 JAN/FEB 2000 33 0 0 Vol XXXIII, No 4 JAN/FeB 2000 33REPORT ON THE CRISIS OF HIGHER EDUCATION Social science courses in Peru-anthropology, sociology, archaeology and history-have developed primarily inside the walls of the public university...

...The effects on physical capital in the public universities has also been notable...

...These included universities that sought to establish and maintain the academic quality lost by the public institutions as well as universities whose primary motive was profitbased, and these quickly became diploma mills of mediocre quality...

...When the country returned to civilian rule in 1980, a second boom in the creation of universities took place...

...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS ama nversty, an 32REPORT ON THE CRISIS OF HIGHER EDUCATION A student march in downtown Lima against government intervention in the public universities, 1988...

...This often means that NGOs lose sight of the intimate link between practice and theory, and between applied development projects and academic reflection in the universities...

...It is increasingly common that two NGO professionals from different disciplines have a greater affinity with each other than with their colleagues in their respective university departments...

...6 To this day, many public universities are controlled by government-appointed reorganizing commissions, which are charged with updating the curriculum and improving the university infrastructure, but which have not addressed the issue of the budget allotted to the universities by the government...

...These universities-the Peruvian University of Applied Sciences (UPC), founded in 1994, and the University of Saint Ignatius de Loyola (USIL), founded in 1995-had an open neoliberal orientation and sought to compete with the best universities of the first and second generations for academic prestige and the pool of upper-class students...

...4 With a few important exceptions, in general the public universities were staffed by professors who had little time to update their knowledge and conduct serious scientific research, and students were attended to in a Vol XXXIII, No 4 JAN/FEB 2000 31REPORT ON THE CRISIS OF HIGHER EDUCATION uniform, routine and deficient manner...

...Only four new universities were created during this period, all of them public and all of them located in the provinces...

...Gonzalo Portocarrero, ed., Crisis y desafios: La enseianza de las ciencias sociales en el Per6 (Lima: Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, 1996...

...In Peru, the separation between NGOs and universities tends to be greater in the state universities than in the private ones, and more so in the provinces than in Lima...

...Many of the best faculty simply left the public universities in favor of teaching at private universities, where they found better salaries and more optimal work conditions...

...This time, however, the pattern was the inverse: These universities were for the most part private, and most were located in the provinces...

...The core of NGO work is their projects, which by definition seek to have an impact on very specific sectors of the population, are measured according to specific indicators, and calculate progress in the short term...

...Unfortunately, even as the public university was opening its doors to the less privileged sectors of society, it failed to devise mechanisms to assure high academic standards, resulting in what sociologist Nicolis Lynch has called "massification without a project...

...This was partly linked to the growing demand on the part of the state for social science professionals, which it employed for various programs in "social engineering...

...Except for the isolated effort of the Pontifical Catholic University, the other private universities-and particularly the most recent generation-are uninterested in these professions because they are "unprofitable...

...In addition, the majority of public university students came out of the public education system, which is deficient in many ways and clearly inferior to the private primary and secondary schools where the middle and upper classes send their children to study, and no real programs were devised to meet the deficiencies in preparation these students brought with them...

...In addition, many NGOs have ceased to engage in research at all, and now dedicate themselves exclusively to hands-on development projects...

...The crisis of the public university is evident in the dwindling rate of enrollment at state-funded institutions, particularly in comparison to the growing enrollments at private universities...

...from diverse social sectors, in Peru the tendency is toward an ever-growing social differentiation reproduced inside-and by-the university system itself, in the shadow of the current ideological hegemony of neoliberalism...

...These factors contributed to the conversion of the public university into a center of political militancy...

...In this period in particular, there was a growing radicalization of university youth, who were influenced, like their peers throughout the continent, by historic events such as the Cuban Revolution...

...Unlike other countries-especially the developed ones-where the university is a predominantly public institution, 2 in Peru the trend is toward the fomenting of private universities...

...And as if this were not enough, one must add the problems arising from general administrative chaos and from the climate of violence and ingovernability caused by the terrorism of the Shining Path and the armed forces, which culminated in the militarization of the principal public universities of the country...

...Or can they...

...On the contrary, it was actually an era of consolidation, growth and expansion...

...He is co-editor of The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke, 1995) and author of Ayacucho 1969-1979: El surgimiento de Sendero Luminoso (IEP, 1990...

...4. NicolBs Lynch, Los j6venes rojos de San Marcos: El radicalismo universitario de los ahos setenta (Lima: El zorro de abajo ediciones, 1990...

...The dominant pattern of the 1990s is a reflection of the neoliberal reforms that have been adopted by the government of Alberto Fujimori (1990- ). State support for the creation of universities has been withdrawn completely, and the task of creating new centers of higher education has been yielded completely to the private sector...

...The second factor is linked to the weakness of the academic institution per se, due largely to the rapid massification of the universities that inhibited a more organic process of growth and development...

...fact that a growing number of Back, and no students went to the university with the goal of bringing on and debate about the revolution, and found in the social sciences a theoretical hospitable intellectual home...

...In notable contrast to the public university, the student population consists almost entirely of young people from the upper and middle classes...

...17-32...

...See Table 1, p. 32.] Five of these universities were located in provinces, while four were in Lima...

...In effect, when the NGOs present their projects to financiers, the word "research" is increasingly off limits...

...With the fall of the Velasco regime and the dismantling of the principal reforms of his government, employment opportunities for social scientists dried up quickly...

...The university that makes entrepreneurs" is the slogan of the UPC and the USIL...

...curriculum reform...

...103-126...

...A few numbers serve to illustrate this: From a handful of NGOs existing at the beginning of the 1980s, there were 218 by 1988, and over 900 by 1996.12 This opened the door for an expansion of the job market for social science careers throughout a good part of the 1980s, but after a peak in the early 1990s, the growing scarcity of international funding has led to a sharp reduction of NGO jobs...

...The issue is that while corporate calls for quality training in careers geared toward business are legitimate, these are not the only needs of the country, nor can they be the only motivation for science and thought...

...and better outreach programs linking the university to the society at large...

...era of fundamentalist neoliberalism, when the effect on the social Fujimori government has explicitly threatened to simiplinary modes of ply terminate many existing social science programs, his process...

...According to Rocio sities with the best academic standing and the highest tuition-the Catholic University, Pacific University, University of Lima, UPC and USIL-represent only 23% of student enrollment in private universities at the national level...

...1 0 In effect, There is a grox one of the most serious problems is the persistent gap between "pu between the content of the reflection in 1 courses offered-in which an uncritical Marxism still holds and the p sway-and the recent developments in social sciences, "applied" wo which involve an emphasis on There is no fei theoretical pluralism, critical analysis, and the need for mutual discuss applied research...

...In the case of many public universities, especially in the provinces, there is an excessive--and often poorly understood-emphasis on the professional orientation, such that coursework is geared toward training students to test against President Fujimori's government...

...8. The university with the highest student population is San Martin de Porres, with approximately 40,000 students...

...With a rapidly growing student body, many social science departments hired faculty members in impromptu fashion and proved unable to develop more solid academic programs...

...The first generation is represented by the solitary presence of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, which was founded in 1917 and is now considered the best university in the country, both in the sciences and the humanities...

...Translated from the Spanish by Eric Fichtl...

...For those who have opted to stay in the public university, moonlighting has become an essential survival strategy...

...university autonomy vis-A-vis the state and other societal institutions...

...As one can see from the majors offered by the USIL-business, engineering, hotel and tourism, communications-private business is not principally interested in the study of philosophy, art, literature or history, not to mention social sciences...

...The public universities were increasingly left adrift, and the numbers of students and professors in the social sciences began to decline...

...In just a decade, secondary school enrollment grew exponentially, from 75,526 students in 1950 to 198,259 in 9Yo0-a L 270Vo increase...

...ractical...

...ties retained much of their colonial character until the early twentieth century, when the pioneering experience of the university reform movement of C6rdoba of 1918 helped propagate a series of principles and proposals among university-aged youths throughout Latin America advocating radical changes in the way universities operated...

...At least four "generations" can be distinguished among them...

...The quality of instruction, the impressive faculty, the prestige of the institution, as well as the use of sophisticated technology in teaching are some of the common characteristics found at the private universities...

...Private universities of lesser quality include Garcilaso de la Vega University, Ricardo D - T _ -- A source: iNatonat Assemnoy OI LJeans, 1 yu...

...The answer to this question must begin by pointing out the absolute indifference on the part of the state to employing professionals with social NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 34REPORT ON THE CRISIS OF HIGHER EDUCATION science backgrounds, and the corresponding lack of interest in investing in improving the training of such professionals...

...Javier Avila Molero, a historian and anthropologist, holds a Rockefeller fellowship at IEPl where he is a research assistant in the anthropology department...

...In recent years, various universities have held conferences and open forums to debate the status and future of the social sciences...

...and Abelardo Sbnchez Le6n, Los desafios de la cooperaci6n (Lima: Center for the Study and Promotion of Development (DESCO), 1996...

...This boom followed a clear pattern: While the new f y i in Ilr state-funded and in the " of education, level of secon and in higher universities formed in Lima were private, those in the provinces were public...

...Portocarrero, ed., Crisis y desafios...

...The signs of the crisis of the social sciences in Peru are widespread: few books published and sold, a smaller number of students majoring in anthropology and sociology, uncertainty over the conceptual frameworks that form the basis of the disciplines, and a shrinking job market...

...99 (1996), pp...

...This is partly the result of a conceptual ying social science and theoretical vacuum that took hold with the onset of themselves more in the crisis of Marxism, which was so dominant-if nder or the environ- dogmatic--in the public universities in Peru.1 4 In this original disciplines...

...1 While the process by which between th the social sciences became and the identified at many universities with a drastically simplified Marxism is complex, at least three key elements can be identified...

...103 (1996), pp...

...This trend is sustained by the long-standing deterioration of the public university, a process that is fomented by the sustained lack of public and private sector support...

...9. Rocio Silva Santisteban and Jos4 Carlos Requena, "El que quiere celeste...

...Finally, there were a number of serious obstacles to promote conceptual renovation and faculty enhancement, including perpetually low salaries, the virtual absence of incentives, pitiful library resources, the primacy of political activism, which often undermined a commitment to dialogue and debate essential to any rvi rE h re rk ed ;ic e p academic environment, and the weakness of university institutions themselves...

...The expansion of the )fessional social sciences in this period was also linked to the simple of the NGOs...

...Pacific University, which excels in public administration and economics...

...146 (November/December 1996...

...7. HernBn Burgos, "Universidad peruana: El desafio de la calidad acad4mica," Quehacer, No...

...re is a more intense work in NGOs...

...As a result, salaries of professors and university faculty have sharply declined, and many can no longer afford to consider the university career as a sole and viable work option...

...1 3 There is no feedback, no mutual discussion and debate between the theoretical and the practical...

...Political debate, democracy, administrative necessities and the academic quality of the university became secondary concerns to politics...

...In contrast to other countries dary school where the public university is "a meeting place of students education...

...This emerging urban sector had a new set of social demands, and education was among the most important...

...The number of youths who are able to gain access to universities of high academic quality-like the Pacific University-is very small...

...He is currently directing a research project on culture and identity in the Andes under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation...

...This has the effect of erasing the boundaries between spe- University students prot cific disciplines within the social sciences...

...ine lack of sustained the public elite and state support for the public university system has, s evident in effect, created a dual sys- tem of higher education in dling rate Peru: the private universities, nent at which are very well funded and which service primarily institutions the rich and well-to-do...

...The final generation of private universities sprang up in Lima in the 1990s...

...First, in a country so marked by exclusions as Peru in the 1960s and 1970s-where servile relations continued to exist on the haciendas in parts of rural Peru, for example-radical ideologies found fertile soil in which to take root...

...In other words, the social divisions within the country are reflected in large measure within the Peruvian university system iseli...

...In the first half of the twentieth century, there were a handful of students at the nine existing universities, all of which were public except for one-the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, which was created in 1917...

...That said, it is also important to note how the social fact that major social scientists are now employed by NGOs has had a significant impact on the structure and content of the social sciences in Peru today...

...Diverse groups on the left, especially those of Maoist orientation, used the public university as a sort of training ground for the formation of party cadres, turning the university into little more than a pretext to engage in confrontational politics with the state and other political groups...

...For more than 50 years, student movements throughout the continent have advocated an agenda for radical university reform based on this experience, including: student representation in university government...

...But in Peru, in contrast to the countries of the Southern Cone-Argentina and Chile, for example, where military regimes were primarily repressive-the reformist military regime of the 1970s did not signify a setback for the social sciences...

...6. During the 1980s the public universities were the stage of long strikes resulting in the loss of various academic years for students...

...As an institution it was fundamentally directed toward the training and education of priests and the colonial creole aristocracy, with professors holding static, life-long positions, poor support for students, and little in the way of solid scientific formation...

...See Adriana Puiggr6s, "Educaci6n neoliberal y quiebre educativo," Nueva Sociedad, No...

...As the state sought to meet this demand by creating more universities and by expanding enrollments at existing state institutions, elite private universities were established catering to the wealthy...

...and the public universities, under- elitization" funded and in a state of disreboth at the pair, which service the poor...

...San Martin de Porres University, which have a de facto open-admissions policy...

...While the expansion of the public university system was initially a response by the state to the demands of the growing urban middle class to higher education, the lower classes also began demanding a place at the table...

...This process was interrupted in 1968 by the Velasco military dictatorship, marking a definitive rupture between the elites and the public university...

...5. Although this occurred in most universities, the process was much more intense in the public schools than the private ones, and more so in the provinces...

...iCubnto cuesta estudiar en una universidad particular...

...There is a growing separation between "pure" theoretical reflection in the universities and the professional "applied" work of the NGOs, a division which has been exacerbated by a state that has abdicated its responsibility to invest in higher education for national development...

...The second generation appeared in Lima with the boom of the 1960s...

...At this time, Peru was still a primarily rural country...

...As such, it is not surprising that as the public university has sunk into a crisis mode over the past few decades, so too have the social sciences...

...Quehacer, No...

...7 The third generation of private universities was established in the 1980s, primarily in the provinces, and they too tended to be massive and of mediocre quality...

...8 On the other hand, those students who can afford the highest tuition brackets at the Pacific University could also afford Source: National Assembly of the tuition bills at the Universities of Illinois, Wisconsin, Santa Barbara in California, Florida, and Kansas, or those of Texas A&M or the College of William and Mary or Auburn-including food, housing, books and other living expenses...

...The Decline of the Social Sciences in Peru 1. Henry Pease Garcia, El movimiento estudiantil universitario en el Per6, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (IEP), 1977, mimeograph...

...In the NGOs, there mixture of professionals from var backgrounds who tend to define 1 terms of the topics they study-ge: ment, for example-than by their This may in fact have a salutary sciences, as interesting interdisc action and thought emerge from ti different theories and techniques f may increasingly be understood as mon and interdisciplinary "toolbox can use any of them at his or he making disciplinary borders less rigid...

...The result was a new urban population that began to have a decisive influence on national politics...

...48-56...

...9 In the newly created universities, the demands of the market determine the courses of study on offer...

...3 And in this context, the curriculum is leaning toward highly technical, business-oriented coursework, while traditional disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities are increasingly marginalized...

...In response to growing demand, 22 new universities were created in the 1960s, constituting the first "boom" in institutions of higher education...

...5 The quality of public education continued to decline from the 1980s onward as the state began to slash funds allotted to the public universities...

...The central dispute turns on whether the academy should adopt a more "professional" or more "academic" orientation...

...How have the changes detailed above affected the development of the social sciences in Peru...

...2. In many of these countries private universities are few in number, and often cannot compete with the academic quality and prestige of the public universities, which are supported by not only the state but also private firms...

...These commissions are characterized by a lack of transparency and an absence of dialogue with the group of other actors which make up the university environment...

...In both 1991 and 1992, for example 10,000 new students entered each of these universities...

...Mario Padr6n, "Los centros de promoci6n: Desafios al desarrollo no gubernamental," Socialismo y Participaci6n, No...

...Of the 12 new universities created between 1991 and 1997, all are private, and half are located in Lima and the other half in the provinces...