Good Practices in

Basic Education in

Latin America

Alberto PfeiferThe Business Council of Latin America

International Coordinator

“Social Outcomes of Learning”OECD Conference

Istanbul, TurkeyJune 28, 2007

Latin AmericaLatin America

• 600 million people• 20 countries (CEAL + Cuba + Haiti)• 21 million km2 (2x Europe)• GDP: 2.26 Trillion (exchange rate)

$4.5 Trillion (purchasing power parity)

• High income and social inequalityHigh income and social inequalityNicaragua 43.1- Bolivia 60.1; Turkey 38; USA 40.8; HDI: #1 Norway 25.8

#176 Sierra Leone 62.9; Brazil 58, Colombia 58.6, Mexico 49.6

CountryGNI[8] GNI per capita[9] GNI (PPP) per capita[9] GDP (PPP)[13] Income equality[12] HDI

million USD USD USD million USD Gini index

 Argentina 173,020 4,470 13,920 621,070 52.8 0.863

 Bolivia 9,271 1,010 2,740 27,957 60.1 0.692

 Brazil 644,133 3,460 8,230 1,701,183 58 0.792

 Chile 145,205 8,864 12,983 212,671 57.1 0.859

 Colombia 104,520 2,290 7,420 378,435 58.6 0.790

 Costa Rica 19,867 4,590 9,680 51,089 49.9 0.841

 Cuba[14] n.a. n.a. n.a. 44,540 n.a. 0.826

 Dominican Republic 21,080 2,370 7,150 76,573 51.7 0.751

 Ecuador 34,759 2,630 4,070 64,671 43.7 0.765

 El Salvador 16,832 2,450 5,120 38,617 52.4 0.729

 Guatemala 30,259 2,400 4,410 60,766 55.1 0.673

 Haiti 3,876 450 1,840 15,554 59.2 0.482

 Honduras 8,586 1,190 2,900 23,183 53.8 0.683

 Mexico 753,394 7,310 10,030 1,171,506 49.5 0.821

 Nicaragua 4,968 910 3,650 22,723 43.1 0.698

 Panama 14,951 4,630 7,310 27,551 56.4 0.809

 Paraguay 7,854 1,180 4,970 31,213 57.8 0.757

 Peru 73,045 2,610 5,830 185,591 54.6 0.767

 Uruguay 15,096 4,360 9,810 37,267 44.9 0.851

 Venezuela 127,799 4,810 6,440 193,196 44.1 0.784

Gross National Income/Gross National Product (GNI/GNP), per capita income in nominal terms and adjusted to purchasing power p60arity (PPP), Gross Domestic Product in PPP, a measurement of inequality through the Gini index (the higher the index the more unequal the income distribution is), and the Human Development Index (HDI). GNI statistics: World Bank, 2005. GDP statistics come from the International Monetary Fund, 2006. Gini index and HDI: UN Development Program.

• What is progress?

• Wealth or quality of life?

• How do we measure happiness?

OECD Istanbul 2007

Basic Education in Latin AmericaBasic Education in Latin America

• Mediocre world standards (PISA)

Basic Education in Latin AmericaBasic Education in Latin America• Quantity without Quality: universal coverage

• Generational lag: parents poorly educated

• Public budget is ok & rising: but expenditure is not efficient and inequitable

• Structural and systemic barriers: bureaucracy, unions, lack of transparency

• Teacher capability: formation & training

• School management & leadership: training of directors and administrators; community participation

PREAL, 2005. Report Card on Basic Education in Latin America.

Public education should be more public

• Structural public good: poor education causes the worst kind of externality

• it’s cheaper to invest than not to!

• Once in a lifetime investment• One-generation change – perennial

residual effectCitizens (democracy), Consumers (market), Workers (producers), Beings (environment)

Buenas Prácticas

Basic Education is so much important to be left solely in the

hands of governments

Good practices call for coalitions (PPP) to overcome barriers raised by

bureaucratic inertia, by vested interests in educational systems and

by the lack of communitarian participation

What can business do?

• At national and regional scale

• Beyond philanthropy

• No substitute for the State!

• Political and Social pressure – set targets (national)

• Best Practices – what has worked well and can be replicated (regional)

Buenas Prácticas

CEAL + ILCE (Latin American Institute for Educational Communication)

Public-Private PartnershipsReplicability

+200 cases: >=10/country28 researchers from 10+ countries

50+ people actively engaged

18 countries x 3 = 54 “bp”

Good Practices in Basic Education in Latin America

Methodological Note

• Solid and diverse bank of case studies• Best practices: replicable (context adapted)• Context, Input, Process, Product (Stufflebeam and

Shinkfield, 1987)

=> Basic education in schools=> Observable effects or consequences=> Systematic and replicable

Good Practices in Basic Education in Latin America

Buenas Prácticas

1. Quality in Basic Education

2. Promotion of Equity and Social Justice by

schooling

3. Improving management of schools

4. National evaluation systems

5. Efficacy with scarce resources

6. Formation and actualization of teachers

7. Innovation with ICTs in learning

8. Social inclusion with non-formal education

Kinds of PPP in Basic EducationKinds of PPP in Basic Education

Buenas Prácticas

Closed within themselves

Avoid creative dialogue with the “outer world”

Predominantly endogamic

Refractory to evaluation systems, particularly external evaluation

Educational systems in Latin America are…

Public education should be more public

• Transparency, Standards, Targets

• Good management

• Stable leadership

• Dialogue and Joint Action with Civil Society

• Free from Unions’ influence, vested interests, political and electoral moods

Buenas Prácticas

Public Basic Education should be more public and less governmental.

Educational policies can’t be a monopoly of the Ministry of Education and of teacher’s unions.

Social participation and societal pressure is increasing.

Best practices in basic education usually bring together governments (local, national) and other social actors (businesses, IOs, ONGs, local communities) working at the same level.

• Alliances between society and governments for Basic Education became a historical urgency for Latin America

Public education should be more public

OECD Istanbul 2007

• What is progress? • A well educated person can achieve social and

economic progress by herself

• Wealth or quality of life?• Wealthier people and higher standards of life are

positively correlated with more and better education

• Happiness???• Poor kids in good schools do better in life

Shantytown in Cartagena, Colombia

Business Initiatives

• CEAL: http://ceal.ilce.edu.mx/• ILCE: http://www.ilce.edu.mx/• PREAL: www.preal.org• Colombia: www.fundacionexe.org.co• Brazil: www.todospelaeducacao.org.br • www.fundacaolemann.org.br/conferencia/default_ing.asp• Mexico: ExEb – Empresarios por la Educación Básica

(Businessmen for Basic Education)