Higher Education 21: 103-119, 1991. �9 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Peruvian higher education: expansions amid economic crisis

DAVID POST School of Education, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, U.S.A.

Abstract. The development of the university system in Peru is ~lescribed and attention drawn to the periods of rapid expansion. The economic crisis of the 1980s led to some doubts about the wisdom of maintaining such a high growth rate. The fall in the number of university entrants in the period 1974 to 1978 is analyzed in the context of the educational reform program introduced by the military government. The new university law of 1983 followed the return in 1980 to civilian government. Future prospects for higher education in Peru are discussed.

Introduction

The 1980s brought Peru its worst modern recession, but also an expanding array of higher education institutions. Though burdened with Latin America's severest economic crisis, comparatively high proportions of Peruvians now participate in postsecondary programs. By the 1990s their options included national as well as private universities, teacher training colleges, public and private technical schools, entrepreneurial university preparatory academies, and numerous military and para- military institutes. This broad institutional array is the legacy of an equally wide variety of historical movements, colonial as well as contemporary. Today Peru is home to some of the oldest universities in the Americas as well as many of the newest. Yet, despite apparent continuities, there actually are very few constants in the history of Peruvian higher education. Vast differences, both in design and outcome, mark the nation's institutions over the past centuries and even the past thirty years. Today the intended and unintended consequences of higher education planning defy a simple taxonomy by international observers. Indeed, Peru's competing institutional types are one of the few constants of recent higher education.

Higher education in historical perspective

Despite the intentions of its more recent governments, it is doubtful whether Peru's higher education apparatus has ever warranted the label of 'system'. For nearly a century, its universities have been considered dysfunctional by their critics, who for many years seemed to herald their demise. One of the pioneers of Latin American social science, Joaquin Capelo, wrote in 1902 that Peru's universities thrive on the 'confusion between education and instruction, and the preference given to the latter.' He concluded his observations, contained in the classic Sociologia de Lima,

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arguing that this confusion 'has resulted in the occupation ["el officio"] of student, which is considered quite lucrative.' It 'creates numerous persons who live many years at the expense of their families as true parasites, producing nothing and consuming time and money. It is one of the occupations of the current age which most damages society and retards the progress of civilization' (Capelo 1902, 4:119). The Peruvian educator Manuel Vicente Villar~in complained even more bitterly that 'every father hopes his son becomes a lawyer, a scholar, office employee, writer or teacher. Knowledge is triumphant, the spoken and written word is in its glory, and if this evil is not corrected Peru will become like China: the promised land of bureaucrats and scholars' (Villar~in 1922, p. 9).

To appreciate the comments by Capelo and Villar/m, one must see implicit in them their heightened twentieth-century expectations for higher education. Prior to this century such a critique would have been out-of-place, for higher education was assumed to have a very limited social role. Peru's three colonial universities generated little knowledge, and certainly did not aim to diffuse knowledge beyond the aristocratic governors and power-brokers of the colony. It was the establishment of four institutions in the nineteenth century that first engendered in Peruvians an expectation that education might serve the broader interests of society, not just some of its members.

Enlightenment ideals of education arrived relatively late in Peru, but lasted into the twentieth century. The first proponents of public education in North America espoused a rhetoric of schooling as an instrument for the moral integration of immigrants, and the political integration of marginalized citizens. Although these enlightenment ideals failed to stimulate very much public sponsorship of education, in the nineteenth-century U.S. and Canada they were replaced by another rationale which emphasized education's economic benefit to the public. This idea, together with a progressive view of technological innovation, proved instrumental in the establishment of many North American universities. By contrast, perhaps due to the accepted role of the Church as an integrative moral institution, public schooling never acquired a sense of urgency in Peru. Nor, because of the comparatively slow emergence of a market economy, did the economic benefits so valued elsewhere appear very important until the end of the nineteenth-century, with the founding of the National Engineering University (UNI) and the National Agrarian University (La Molina). These last two Lima institutions, together with two enlightenment era universities in TrujiUo and Arequipa, would constitute the range of public higher education options for Peruvians until the 1960s.

The base of Peru's educational pyramid was even more restricted until the latter half of the twentieth-century. In 1898 Joaquin Capelo estimated that of the 20,000 persons in Lima between ages five and twenty, there were 1,300 secondary students, and 700 students in San Marcos University. Outside of Lima, and its coastal criollo culture, opportunities for schooling were practically non-existent. It was not until 1901 that Peru had its first national law governing education. This legislation recognized the three already existing levels of instruction as a single system. Only in 1935 did Peru have its first Ministry of Education, and only in 1941 was legislation passed making free education a public responsibility (Ley Org~inica de Educacirn

105

Publica 9351). It was not until 1948 that an educational fund was established to finance public instruction. Even this latter effort sought no new source of state income, deriving funding instead from 38 existent laws.

Nevertheless, the intended outcomes of universities changed as a result of larger social conflicts and mobilizations. Representing Peru in the 1908 All-American Student Congress in Montevideo, Victor A. Belaunde there lamented the prevailing functions of his country's universities. 'Our university serves professional interests and a certain scientific snobbism, but it has not been an instrument of education nor has it created a national conscience... It is out of contact with our national reality, with the life of society, with the needs and aspirations of our society' (Belaunde 1919, p. 3). As the result of progressive demands by Belaunde and others, women were first admitted into Peruvian universities in 1908. Students followed the lead of Argentine activists in Cordova in 1917, creating the Federation of Peruvian Students (FEP). This movement allied itself with Lima's industrial workers during the 1918-19 strike for the eight hour work day. Above and beyond the victory of the alliance in this strike, the coalition of students and workers proved to have a fateful outcome for higher education. The FEP launched the political career of Victor Rafil Haya de la Torre, who with the FEP initiated a chain of People's Universities for the benefit of workers and farmers (Klaiber 1975). Haya's experience with these mass institutions lay the groundwork for many of the principles he would use in establishing the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), the populist movement founded after he was exiled to Mexico by President Leguia in 1925. Moreover, mass participation in the FEP's 'universities' in the 1920s and 1930s helped diffuse a populist ideal regarding the function of higher education. For the first time, the opportunity for political empowerment and social mobility that universities offered succeeded in tapping a well-spring of populist sentiment to expand higher education participation. Authoritarian rule by Presidents Leguia, Sanchez Cerro, and Odria met with continued conflict by university students, with the result that on several occasions San Marcos University was closed by the government. During the governments of Benavides and of Manuel Prado (1933-45), the absence of organized political opposition minimized the constraints on the government, since many of Peru's most effective Socialist or Aprista leaders were then in exile. As one scholar of higher education politics comments, 'the State acted as an instrument of social control, of police repression, and maintained the established order' in education as in all spheres, with the result that 'there was no possibility to deepen the awareness or participation of the popular sectors' (Bernales 174, p. 34). The expansion of higher education, and schooling generally, occurred only after the reemergence of competing political factions in 1956, and with the beginning of open activism by APRA, the Christian Democrats, Popular Action, and Social Progressives.

Contemporary growth and diversification

At the end of the 1950s, Peru maintained seven publicly supported universities: three

106

colonial institutions, two universities in Trujillo and Arequipa dating to the independence period; and two technical universities of engineering and agriculture in Lima. In addition, following the student movement of the 1917-18 period, conservative intellectuals banded together to form, in Lima, the country's first private institution, the Catholic University. The restricted institutional growth matched the narrowly confined access to general schooling in the population. As can be seen in Figure 1, by the time of the 1961 census only 7.5% of Peruvians aged 20-24 had completed secondary school. Significantly, however, of this select few who finished secondary studies, nearly one half continued to post-secondary studies. There was little demand for basic skills in an economy characterized by extreme dualisms between modern and traditional sectors. On closer examination, it in fact turns out that most of the Peruvians who concluded their studies with secondary school in 1961 were female: until recent years Peruvian women were unlikely to have been motivated by the labor market consequences of education. Over time, greater proportions of Peruvians completed secondary school and transited to tertiary educational programs. By 1981, 37.5% of the 20-24 year old cohort finished secondary school. Moreover, 15.6% of the cohort had continued to higher education: 9.5% in universities and 6.1% in other postsecondary programs. In the 1960s, then, Peruvian higher education took off in terms of participation rates as well as student numbers.

Higher education took off, as well, in terms of institutional diversification and

Q.

some primary school

primary school completed

some secondary school

secondary school completed

I~1 1972

c e n s u s y e a r

Fig. 1. Educational attainment of Peruvians aged 20-24. Source: INE, Censos Nacionales 1961, 1972, 1981.

non-university higher education university studies

1981

107

expansion, though here the pattern becomes a good deal more complex. The return to partisan politics under Prado in the late 1950s coincided with strong economic growth, led by exports from the extractive industries and fishing. State income consistently exceeded expenditures until 1964, when the social programs of the Belaunde government created a deficit (Thorp and Bertram 1978, p. 290). The greatest annual growth in educational spending occurred in 1965 (Pacheco 1990, p. 20), though it was financed at a deficit and with increased foreign borrowing. The political transition to multi-party politics also coincided with increasing populations of school-age youth, and increased attention from international organizations to education as a motor for further development. APRA was one beneficiary of larger national budgets and the arrival of modernization theories of development. It had lost control of the Peruvian Students Federation in 1959, forcing the party to seek out new bases of higher education support. This search led directly to the founding of at least two institutions, the national universities of the Center, and of Federico Villarreal. Sorting out the separate dimensions affecting higher educational expansion and differentiation is difficult due to the complexity of the relationships between state wealth, demographic growth, and political pluralism. Government earnings and international aid programs probably legitimized and encouraged political actors in their efforts to found provincial public universities.

In any case, the rate of institutional proliferation was dramatic: in the five year period, 1959-1964, the number of Peruvian universities tripled. University found- ings continued throughout the administration of Fernando Belaunde, a U.S.- trained architect. The number of universities reached a temporary plateau with the military coup of 1968, and the initiation of rule under a junta led first by General Juan Velasco and, after 1975, by General Francisco Morales. Toward the end of the 1970s and the military regime, a new wave of university foundings occurred, although this time many of the new universities were private. With the return of Belaunde as civilian president, in 1980, yet more universities appeared. In total, more than 45 foundings occurred just between 1959 and 1988. By the end of the 1980s, however, Peru entered the worst economic crisis in its history. Having subsidized its domestic spending for several years with its meager reserves, the nation seemed to teeter on the edge of bankruptcy. No more public universities appeared likely in the near future.

In Latin America there is wide speculation regarding the causes and consequences of so many new universities in such a short period of time. It is generally doubted that the disproportionate growth of higher education is explained in terms of its increasing social returns. Jose Joaquin Brunner noted that 'the explosion of higher education.., was not rational from the viewpoint of the economy' (Brunner 1985, p. 22). And Germ~in Rama, concluded: 'Social demand, rather than planning regulated by development goals, seems to be the factor that accounted for the emergence of an educational structure out of keeping with the precedents set by what are today the developed countries' (Rama 1983, p. 9).

To explore the relationship between the demand for higher education and its supply, we need to consider the pool of potential postsecondary students. Table 1 presents data useful for interpreting demographic trends relating to the govern-

108

Table 1. Trends in Peruvian university transitions

Estimated Secondary Total public and private university 18-year-old school

Year cohort size graduates Applications Entrants Graduates

1960 191,000 14,665 5,429 900 1961 192,200 16,762 7,060 1,010 1962 194,600 19,990 8,577 1,256 1963 197,800 26,568 24,561 9,719 1,316 1964 202,000 29,209 28,312 8,648 1,494 1965 207,000 35,173 34,349 15,766 2,137 1966 213,000 41,251 43,804 17,105 2,170 1967 219,600 47,584 52,720 19,499 2,528 1968 226,600 53,605 57,858 22,268 2,417 1969 234,400 57,056 60,400 21,118 2,728 1970 242,400 63,289 64,312 23,914 5,034 1971 251,200 69,168 74,669 24,152 5,386 1972 260,600 75,629 79,495 29,489 7,480 1973 270,000 82,459 102,539 35,428 7,959 1974 280,000 89,200 124,547 39,295 7,114 1975 290,000 99,500 142,949 42,083 8,312 1976 300,000 107,800 140,643 35,545 8,952 1977 310,500 119,200 172,069 36,224 9,594 1978 320,500 138,900 ! 72,595 38,950 15,049 1979 331,000 143,300 204,889 45,684 13,127 1980 341,000 147,000 239,485 58,744 13,869 1981 351,000 160,600 257,115 65,884 16,045 1982 360,800 166,400 274,086 68,164 17,209 1983 370,400 ! 69,700 274,620 68,623 16,467 1984 379,500 178,752 235,547 63,224 18,373 1985 388,400 197,549 208,588 60,775 14,565 1986 396,500 192,847 310,692 60,650 17,845 1987 404,200 199,392 1988 411,400 207,484

Sources: Cohort size estimated from data in census of 1961, 1972, 1981; Secondary graduates estimated from data provided by Ministry of Education through TAREA/TINKUY; all other data from Asamblea Nacional de Rectores, Boletin Estadistica No. 10.

ment 's provision of higher education. The exponential growth of the relevant cohort size is seen in the first column. F rom 1960-69 the number of Peruvians age 18 increased annually by an average of 4,500. But f rom 1980-1989, the average annual increase was 9,500. In the second column one finds the estimated number of secondary school graduates, which have increased over the 1963-88 period by about 7,800 students each year. The number of university applications is presented in the next column, but there is no way of knowing how many universities each applicant has sought to enter. With growing numbers of institutions it became easier over time for each student to apply to more universities. Despite this limitation, we can observe that the number o f university applications grew at merely the rate of

109

secondary school graduation from 1960 until 1972. By contrast, during these twelve years the number of universities tripled. Another indicator of the demand for higher education is the number of university entrants, presented in the next column. From 1960 to 1975 the number of university entrants grew steadily, increasing each year by an average of 2,500 students. Since 1975 a cyclical, non-linear tendency in university entrance has occurred, as can be appreciated in Figure 2.

Figure 2 shows the growth in secondary graduation and university entrance rates as proportions of the relevant cohort size. In addition, it presents university entrance as a proportion of the number of secondary school graduates. We can observe that the proportion of 18-year-olds graduating secondary school was merely 0.15 in 1963. By 1988, however, over half of all persons in the cohort graduated, although there are some indications that the steepest increases in this curve are already past. One sees after 1965 a marked increase in the proportion of 18-year-olds going to university. Secondary school graduation increased each year, both in terms of actual numbers of graduates and in the proportion of the cohort which finished. University entrance has not increased so Consistently. There have been at least two periods of decline, both in the numbers and the rates of university entrance. The obvious corollary of steady growth in secondary graduation and periodic declines in university entrance is that there have been periods of especially rapid decline in the

u) r'- ._o 1= 0 0.. P CL

0.50

0.45

0.40

0.35"

0.30"

0.25"

0.20"

0.15"

0.10'

0 .05

/ o,

~ - - entenng a university

0.00~ & �9 ~ �9 - , ~ - & ~ . - ~ - ~ . . . . . .

Fig. 2. Proportions of 18-year-olds graduating secondary school and entering university. Source: Table 1.

110

proportion of secondary graduates continuing to university. From 1974 through 1978, the rate at which secondary school graduates went on to university fell by a third, from 45 to 30 out of every 100 graduates. Following 1978 this rate increased again until the year 1983, when it again fell sharply. The net result of these fluctuations is that by the late 1980s secondary school graduates were less likely to attend university than their counterparts of the 1960s, which is the natural consequence of decreasing selectivity in the secondary school population, as the base of the pyramid expanded.

Public policy and higher education reform

Why did university entrance decline from 1974 to 1978? Undoubtedly, the major factor in this decline was the education reform program of Peru's military government, one of the most widely studied and well-documented education reforms in the third world. It is necessary to understand this reform in order to make sense of the pattern of university foundings, which halted its rapid growth following the 1968 military coup. With the junta freed from the pressures of political parties, there followed a period of increased state autonomy. Government planners were able to enter a national and international consultation and promulgate laws affecting every level of education: not only programs in the Ministry of Education, but also the universities, which had traditionally enjoyed complete independence and autonomy in making policies regarding their own degree programs, and admissions. But, in 1969, law number 17437 was issued by decree. The first article of the law stated, 'The Peruvian University is the sum total of all the universities of the country, integrated in a university system.' Article 2, in part, stated that 'as a system it is autonomous in its academics, administration, and economy, within the constitution and laws of the republic.' By integrating all universities into one system and granting autonomy only to the system as a whole, the military government forced higher educators for the first time to engage in planning deliberations under the control of a national commission, CONUP (Consejo Nacional de Universidades Peruanas). At the same time that university administration was rationalized, the government made its first serious effort to promote technical education as an alternative to universities. The Escuelas Superiores de Educaci6n Profesional (ESEP) were designed to meet Peru's growing need for expertise in agriculture and industry.

Initial evaluations of Peru's education reform, especially from the international community, were overwhelmingly positive (see, e.g., Bizot 1975; Churchill 1976). Churchill, writing on basic education under the reform, viewed its implementation as 'rigorous and logical; since the General Law reforms the whole of the education system within a single framework, the concept of basic education spills over and affects other parts of the system. Very rarely is one likely to encounter such a theoretically coherent statement of new objectives and functions of education...' (p. 21). Observers of Peruvian politics fully expected that educational reform would - along with agrarian reform - prove to be one of the lasting accomplishments by the

111

military government (see, e.g., Cleaves 1977; Stepan 1979). Those who actually participated in the education reform, however, have been more critical in their evaluations (see, e.g., Delgado 1981; Stromquist 1986). Non-university study in the ESEP was intended to provide alternatives for students finishing the third cycle of 'basic' education. By the late 1970s, however, that the program was not working was already apparent to Peruvian educators. Dasso (1981) surveyed students finishing 'basic' studies and found that only a tiny proportion of respondents sought to do anything other than study in a university.

It can not be concluded that the reform was entirely unsuccessful, since from Figure 1 we observe that more youth received non-university training in 1981 than in 1972 (6% as compared with 1%). But neither can it be concluded that these programs functioned as alternatives to university education. Instead, it might be the case that they drew students who would otherwise have entered the labor market or teachers colleges. Another possibility is that students entered the ESEP purely as a first step to university admission. This was the conclusion of Peru's only survey of ESEP graduates (Sanyal et ai. 1981). A very small proportion of graduates actually entered the job market and, of those who d/d, more than one third could not find jobs.

The limits of educational reform

The decline in secondary graduates going to university, seen in Figure 2, was due to the implementation of higher educational reform. Likewise, the tightened control over university autonomy led to the moratorium in university foundings. What is much more difficult to account for is the end of this period of state/society control when in 1979, despite the best attempts by planners, university entrance bounded upward. Soon after, there was a second wave of university foundings. In part, the low private returns to technical education may explain these trends. A national household survey in 1985 permitted the calculations of wage regressions for Peruvian men in both the private sector and for workers employed by the government (Stelcner, Arriagada, and Moock 1988, p. 25). The effect of non- university higher education on men's wages was insignificant in the private sector (although its effect in the public sector was nearly as large as was the effect of university education). If graduates from technical programs found insignificant returns to their higher education, then it is little wonder so many technical graduates have used it merely as a stepping stone to university, as found by Sanyal et al. (1981). Eventually, the population of secondary graduates would realize the relative economic rewards to the two postsecondary paths, and would increase their demand for university admission. This may have occurred from 1977 through 1981.

The growth in popular demand for university probably accounts for the increasing number of university foundings toward the end of the 1970s. In one widely repeated anecdote of the way that the military tried to placate the public, General Francisco Morales is described as delivering a speech in the mountain town of Huaraz. Although his topic was not specifically higher education, it is said that

112

militant students and parents interrupted the general's delivery repeatedly, insisting that a university be built in Huaraz, In mid-course, the general is reported to have revised his text, promising indeed to found a university. The next year the National University Santiago Anttinez de Mayolo was instituted, the first Peruvian university founding in six years.

Following Peru's return to civilian government in 1980, Fernando Belaunde again assumed the presidency. Most of the military's educational reform languished when it was not directly overturned, as it was in the case of university governance. A new law of the university was approved in 1983, and it remains in effect today. Law Number 23733 states in its first article that 'The Peruvian universities are made up of professors, students, and graduates. They are dedicated to study, research, education, and the diffusion of knowledge and culture, and their extension to society. They have autonomy in their academics, economy, and administrative norms within the law.' Conspicuously absent from the 1983 law was any mention of 'the Peruvian University' or a 'system', which would have autonomy but only as a single, coordinated entity. Compounding the problem was the fact that Belaunde's 1982 law on general education (Number 23384), was vague in its characterization of non-university higher education. And it was silent on the articulation between non-university and university planning.

To examine the relationship of university participation with university foundings, it is possible to compare the timing of foundings with the growth curves of university entrance and secondary school graduation. This is presented as Figure 3. In this

0"50 t 045J 0.40[

0"351 0.301 0.25 0.20 0.15 0.10

,f ~ m ~ l

, I ." 10'06 ~

._~ [0.04 i [ 0"02

. . . . . . . . . . secondary gracluation ... . . university entrance Fig. 3. Cumulative university foundings, rates of secondary graduation, and rates of university entrance. Sources: Asamblea Nacional de Rectores, Boletin Estadistica no. 10; Table 1.

113

histogram, 'university foundings' refers not to a legal charter but to the actual initiation of instruction (in Peru there is frequently a great difference in the timing of the two events). It can be seen that the founding of sixteen universities in 1961, 62, and 63 was accomplished at a time when the demand for entrance increased at a comparatively modest rate. Growing rates of university entrance from 1960 to 1975 then may have been a response to the greater supply of university places. The same may be said for growing rates of secondary school completion, though this conclusion is more tentative given the fact that other reasons exist to complete secondary school than merely to go to university. This direction of causality after 1977 was probably quite the reverse. While the number of universities under the military did not increase apart from the single exception in Huaraz, noted above, the rate of entrance to existing universities bounded upward. Social demand forces were creating an environment in which university creation was expedient for public officials and lucrative for entrepreneurs. Thus, since 1977, Figure 3 suggests that the growing number of universities was the result of increased university participation.

Effects of the 'crisis'

By the mid-1980s there was an incipient feeling that the cart had indeed been put before the horse, and that university growth ought to be planned and not haphazard. Peru, said one academician, 'has three great problems: hunger, tuberculosis, and the 42 universities' (Luis Jaime Cisneros, quoted in Debate 1986). Though planners and academics expressed their reservations, populist fervor for higher education reached a surrealistic pitch in 1985. When Pope John Paul II came to Peru in that year he visted one of the most destitute squatter settlements on the continent, Villa El Salvador. Following a mass there, the Pope left the shanty town with a donation of US$ 50,000; his request was that the money be used in whatever way the community thought most useful. Although ultimately not successful, a debate arose over the desirability of constructing a university in Villa El Salvador. Given the popular image of universities as mechanisms for social development, it is little wonder that Alan Garcia's 1985 APRA government - despite its distinct orientation and opposition to Fernando Belaunde's laissez-faire policies - would encounter serious obstacles in the arena of education. Under the leadership of Alan Garcia, planned reforms to higher education were stymied by social protest. Just prior to his inauguration the first APRA Minister of Education, Grover Pango, flatly stated that 'there must not be any more universities, and there must be no rise in the number of university openings... Until this country determines the demand for professions it would be absurd to increase their number' (personal interview, 7/85). And yet, partly because of his combative stance toward social demand, Pango was soon replaced by a more traditionally-minded cabinet member. The following year two new private universities were instituted in the cities of Trujillo and Lima.

In Figure 3 there are after 1983 signs of a drop - this time unplanned - in rates of university entrance. The reasons for this probably have to do with the severe economic recession that has gripped Peru and all of Latin America since 1983. But

114

how would the 'crisis' have affected entrance rates, since universities did not close their doors or shut out students? (Quite the contrary: competition for students by private universities began to intensify.) The answer may lie in a parallel phenome- non, i.e., the devaluation of university education as the by-product of expansion. Since the number of university-educated persons grew at a rate faster than the number of jobs classified as 'professional' by the Ministry of Labor, it was to be expected that the returns to university education would decline. Stelcner et al. (1988) found the private rate-of-return for post-secondary study to be 0.11 overall, a figure they note as being lower than for any other Latin American country (p. 38). What is more, the rate was significantly lower for younger than for older cohorts. Many university students have in the past not been overly concerned with the monetary returns of their education. Until recently, non-market benefits have been more important for women (who traditionally did not participate in the labor force). Until the crisis, non-market returns probably were also the major concern for all of the highly selected secondary graduates from rural areas: these highly selected individuals would be unlikely to finish secondary school unless they were from families to whom university was important as a symbol of status. Only among boys in urban areas does one find clear evidence that students base their postsecondary plans on their calculations of the monetary returns to university (Post 1990). However, one effect of the crisis is undoubtedly that it makes every household member more deliberative as an economic actor. Women participate more than ever in the labor force: by choice - no doubt - but also as a result of faUing individual wages, and the need for extra incomes in the family. As more secondary school graduates deliberate about the relative benefits from university versus employment, it may be that persons who in more prosperous times would consider university education as a consumption good, a status symbol, or for its non-market benefits, have become increasingly concerned with the monetary returns to education. Given a declining rate-of-return, this new anxiety about returns to university education may finally succeed in what the military government could not accomplish: a permanent decline in the proportion of Peruvians attending university.

Future prospects for higher education

For the present, predictions of the demise of the Peruvian university are premature. Nevertheless, although higher education is still monopolized by the institutional type represented by the university, it has also become less dominated by state- controlled institutions. The increasing privatization of universities seen in Peru is a tendency widespread in Latin America (Levy 1986). Figure 4 presents the total higher education enrollments in Peru for the 1968-88 period, including three non-university programs that are sponsored by the Ministry of Education. Enrollments in the national academies of music, dance, and other arts programs have been fairly constant for the twenty year period, and as a result they now represent but a tiny fraction of total higher education. The enrollments in postsecondary technical programs and in the normal schools for teacher training

115

E

"O " I

t r

O (,9

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O t-

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5~o Technical 500. Programs

Normal 450. Schools

4oo. ~ Pdvate 350" I Universities

300'

250'

2 0 0

150

i s s s s t . ~ l s / s s s

J J i s s s s � 9 1 4 9 1 4 9 1 4 9

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , ' , ' Universities 100 ~ s ~ t � 9 1 4 9 1 4 9

0 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988

Fig. 4. Enrollments in Peruvian higher education. Sources: Asamblea Nacional de Rectores Informe No. 11; Ministerio de Educacion, Dirrecion de Estadistica; TAREA/TINKUY).

follow a peculiar pattern. Starting in about 1974, it can be seen that the numbers of normal school students decreased just as the numbers of technical students increased. It may be that the increasing enrollments in the ESEPs, following the military government's education reform, were achieved as a result of shifting enrollments from normal schools, not from universities. It is difficult to be certain of this, because at this same time universities also began to train teachers, attracting those who otherwise might have attended normal school. Private universities today are expanding, in part meeting existent demand by secondary graduates (by making up for restrictions in state sponsorship), and in part creating their own demand. In 1960, merely 11% of all university students were in private institutions. By 1988 the share in private universities had increased to 33 percent. There is one conclusion from Figure 4 that is fairly certain. One observes there a two year 'bump' in total higher education enrollments after 1976. Total enrollments briefly leveled off, a consequence that was unintended by education planners at the time. Reformers in the military government hoped that by restricting university growth they would shift students to other non-university programs, not halt higher education expansion.

The rates of graduation, in either public or private universities, are low. Many Peruvians would continue to agree with Capelo's complaint of 1902, that admission to a university provides young people with a position rather than an education, that

Tab

le 2

. Pub

lic ed

ucat

ion

spen

ding

in c

urre

nt in

tis (a

nnua

l per

cent

age)

Leve

l and

pro

gram

19

80

1981

19

82

1983

19

84

1985

19

86

1987

19

88

Prim

ary

educ

atio

n 76

,477

1

14

,11

3

17

1,1

63

3

11

,43

2

64

0,8

55

2,

070,

708

3,10

3,68

0 7,

314,

555

n.d.

(4

9%)

(43%

) (3

9%)

(41%

) (4

0%)

(42%

) (3

7%)

(38%

) Se

cond

ary e

duca

tion

27,7

08

72,2

93

10

9,9

35

1

97

,10

7

40

3,5

59

1,

308,

288

1,98

7,95

2 4,

806,

347'

n.

d.

(18%

) (2

7%)

(25%

) (2

6%)

(25%

) (2

6%)

(24%

) (2

5%)

Post

seco

ndar

y pro

gram

s 5~

208

6,97

4 14

,804

15

,919

36

,878

1

93

,78

4

24

3,1

79

60

7,48

8 n.

d.

of M

.O.E

. (3

%)

(3%

) (3

%)

(2%

) (2

%)

(4%

) (3

%)

(3%

) O

ther

Min

istr

y of

Edu

catio

n 14

,752

18

,556

43

,051

67

,598

1

60

,70

6

57

2,6

33

8

84

,47

3

2,08

8,93

2 n.

d.

prog

ram

s (9

%)

(7%

) (1

0%)

(9%

) (1

0%)

(12%

) (1

1%)

(11%

) T

otal

spe

ndin

g by

publ

ic

31,2

11

54,6

69

94,4

40

16

7,5

19

3

41

,71

2

81

0,4

81

2,

129,

131

4,65

8,33

9 19

,602

,449

un

iver

sitie

s (2

0%)

(21%

) (2

2%)

(22%

) (2

2%)

(16%

) (2

6%)

(24%

) T

otal

edu

catio

n sp

endi

ng in

15

5,35

6 2

66

,60

5

43

3,3

93

7

59

,57

6

1,58

3,71

i 4,

955,

893

8,34

8,41

4 19

,475

,661

n.

d.

curr

ent i

ntis

(1

00%

) (1

00%

) (1

00%

) (1

00%

) (1

00%

) (1

00%

) (1

00%

) (1

00%

)

p..

p

..,

Tot

al e

duca

tion

spen

ding

85

,832

79

,347

78

,656

69

,750

69

,798

81

,592

73

,880

86

,945

n.

d.

in in

tis o

f 197

9

Sour

ces:

Min

iste

rio

de E

duca

tion,

Dir

rect

ion

de P

resu

pues

to; T

AR

EA

/TIN

KU

Y; A

sam

blea

Nac

iona

l de

Rec

tore

s, In

form

e E

stad

istic

o N

o. 1

.

117

it offers only a holding pattern and not a bridge to the labor market. The peak in graduation rates for both public and private universities was reached for students entering university in 1978, when about 45% graduated after four years. For more recent cohorts, the graduation rate has been closer to 28%.

The costs of private higher education are not readily available. But Table 2 presents the recurrent spending in several public programs and levels. In this table, comparisons over time are problematic, due to Peru's hyperinflation. What can be compared, however, is the annual percentage of spending in each level and program. In relative terms, postsecondary programs of the Ministry of Education received an infusion of support from the entering APRA government in 1985. The share spent by universities also fell in that year, as the share spent by other programs grew. By the next year, however, university spending had outpaced that of other programs, and public universities were in a relatively better position than at any time since the military government.

But, as Figure 5 illustrates, 'relatively better' is not the same as better. Figure 5 deflates the sums presented in Table 2, and then calculates spending per pupil. This

160"

150"

140"

130"

120'

110'

100'

~ 90

"~ ao

70

60

50"

,1.0"

30"

20"

10"

rsity

Fig. 5. Per pupil spending in constant 1979 intis. Sources: for 1970-79, recalculations from Moock and Bellew (1988); for university 1980-88, calculations from A.N.R. (1989); for all other figures, calculations from data provided by Ministerio de Educacion, Dirrection de Presupuesto and TAREA/TINKUY).

118

figure seems to confirm, unfortunately, the worst fears of higher education advocates in Peru. In universities, per pupil spending has decreased to less than half the levels of the early 1970s. Non-university higher education has fared at least as badly, and probably worse. During the peak of interest in university alternatives, from 1973 to 1978, per pupil spending in non-university programs roughly equaled that being spent in universities. Following 1978, however, non-university higher education declined to a point when it received only slightly more resources than did secondary school.

It should be noted that secondary and primary school spending, having hit 'bottom' in some sense, did not decline to the same extent as higher education spending. The bulk of primary and secondary spending is for the salaries of teachers, who are represented by a well-organized union. Since teachers' salaries have in recent years brushed them very close to absolute poverty (hovering at US$ 600 annually), it would be politically difficult to make any further cuts. At the same time, the physical capacities of most classrooms have already been exceeded, and so further economizing through additonal overcrowding would also be difficult. In this context, the relative costs of the four types of public education have narrowed over the years. Some observers point with concern to the wide gap separating per pupil expenditures in primary and higher education in the third world. In these pages, Mingat and Tan (1986) reported that less developed countries spend an average of 26 times more for each university student than they do for each student in primary school. The situation in Peru is quite distinct, due in part to the leveling influence of the fiscal crisis. By the late 1980s, university students received only about six times more than primary students.

Conclusion

By electing Alberto Fujimori as President, in June 1990, Peruvians chose a personality popularly regarded as technocratic and pragmatic rather than ideolo- gical. Peruvians voted fearing the reductions in state services promised by the opposition and the economic 'shock' it warned would be necessary in order to bring Peru back from the verge of bankruptcy. In choosing Fujimori, the rector of the National Agrarian University and a former president of the Peruvian rectors' association, voters may have also found the progressive image of the educator appealing, for Fujimori often traveled to his speaking engagements by tractor. Whether or not there are soon jobs for the graduates of Peru's universities, the populist appeal of education is far from spent as a political ideology. The question for the future, however, is whether Peru's economy will ever again motivate large proportions of individuals to seek postsecondary education, and thus sustain Peru's high rates of participation.

119

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