The Progress of Education in Latin America

Photograph: Manu Dias/AGECOM Bahia

Moving Latin American Education Forward

Latin Business Chronicle

February 15, 2012

By Gabriel Sanchez Zinny
Citation: http://tinyurl.com/7jahvuo

In the last few decades, Latin America has fared poorly in various international educationtesting assessments. The most well-known, the Program for International Student Assessment, administered by the OECD most recently in 2009, only included nine countries in the region, but the results were not encouraging, as these nine participants finished somewhere between 44th and 63rd place, out of 65 countries tested. Chile placed at the top of the region, with Uruguay close behind, but both countries still ranked well below average. However, there are encouraging signs of education reform in Latin America, and they provide a foundation for improving education throughout the region—a daunting but feasible and necessary task.

Article clipped; see link above for full version

Despite the low grades that Latin America has received on international education testing assessments, there has been a surge in funding for education throughout the region. In the past several years, Latin America nations have, individually, spent about $200 billion per year on education and as a region has received more than $5 billion from multi-lateral organizations. Their approach to education has also recently changed. Once focused on school attendance and retainment of students, ministries of education are now concentrating on investing in the quality of schools. Primarily they are beginning to follow the models of their fellow global nations like Singapore, Finland, and South Korea. Studies in these countries have shown that teachers are the essential school based factor that influences achievement rates of students.

As a result of the large amount of funds required to propel these ventures, Latin America have seen a new set of investors join the education scene. Business companies and other organization have stepped up in order to address these educational woes, providing support when public sectors do not have the resources or capital. Organizations like Argentina's EducAr 2050, Mexicanos Primeo, and Brazil's Todos Pela Educacao, are promoting the value of stronger curricula and effective teachers by integrating improved management skills and introducing technology into the classroom. It is the hope of these regional programs and initiatives to not only provide better support to the education system, but to also improve the learning conditions and quality of education for future generations.

When I initially read this article I was skeptical of Latin America's tactics to solve their problems with the quality of education in their respective countries. Immediately their intentions were good, to invest large sums of money in their education system. However their quick reactions only fulfilled their short term goals. When Latin American countries' focus shifted from short term to long term, they refined their approach and found global models that produced the results that they desired. Even then I was wary of their choice to have outside education systems be the model of achievement for their own. The last time I read an article about Latin America modeling other more "developed" nations' education systems, it ended in protesting on the streets in Chile (see my post Hidden Strife within Chile's Education System). However I was pleasantly surprised that, unlike the case of Chile, less government involvement and more private initiative seem to not only support the financial aspects of education reform, but also the personal side of education.

For me this article touched upon many of the same issues and concerns seen in Jaime's post The Case for Local Business Support for Education in Nicaragua. These companies took an interest in promoting education reform not just because it would improve the achievement of students, but that improving the quality of education now could lead to many other long lasting results. The benefits that society could reap from these investments could transcend present time and support the success of future generations. While this article focused more on national organizations rather than local ones, I feel that the concepts are very much similar. This sense of nationalism and pride propelled these organizations to take a calculated risk and invest in the future of their country's education system in hopes that the results generated would indeed produce an overall benefit to society and not just improve one set of achievement statistics.

New Model for Research Partnerships for Latin America

"Border-Crossing Research Lessens the Sting"
The Chronicle of Higher Education
February 23, 2012
By Steven Ambrus | Cuernavaca, Mexico
Citiation: http://bit.ly/Anascorp

Arizona, home to the dangerous bark scorpion, was about to use up the United States’ remaining supplies of scorpion antivenom when University of Arizona scientists traveled south of the border in search of a solution.  Lifesaving antivenom, Anascorp, developed by Mexican researchers is more potent and much safer than the unlicensed one previously produced in Arizona.  Anascorp is the first drug fully developed in Latin America to be approved by the FDA.


The tables are turning in the world of research.  In the article Leslie Boyer, pediatrician and toxicologist, states as a medical student at Harvard the conceit was that Americans invented the drugs and then tested them in the Third World. The development of the drug Anascorp did the exact opposite as it was created in Latin American and later tested in the U.S., reversing the preceding intellectual dependency model.  Arizona residents had the life-threatening problem and relied on Mexican researchers to solve their problem.  This particular research breakthrough changes the power dynamic between Arizona State University researchers and their Mexican counterparts.  The notion that the answers to the world’s most pressing problems will originate in the most “developed” parts of the world is losing traction and this case is one example. The fact that Anascorp is the first drug fully developed in Latin America to be approved by the FDA also provides more credibility to the Mexican researchers and their work.


The implications of the reversal of intellectual dependency might be disconcerting to developed nation’s who have secured their influence and power by providing aid, drugs, ideas, and curriculum to the underdeveloped.  The idea that the Global North might have to begin depending on countries in the Global South to solve their own domestic problems would undoubtedly change foreign policy. Questions of life and death can be at stake in regard to research breakthroughs and development.  Over time more cases like Anascorp could generate negotiating power for countries in the Global South.  In light of their aggressive stance on immigration Arizona should consider changing their ideology of Mexico and Mexicans considering Mexicans are the ones who solved a problem inherent to the state of Arizona. Do Arizonians realize they are now dependent on Mexicans to save their lives?

Tradition vs. Modernity in Mexico

Mayan Descendents Struggling to Cope in Modern World

By Alastair Leithead

BBC

15 February 2012

Citation: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17051131

The Mayan civilisation may have died out centuries ago, but people descended from them still live in Central America and southern Mexico.

They are among the poorest in the region, and attempts to alleviate their poverty have relied on modernisation and development - but the results are far from ideal.

Alastair Leithead reports from the Mexican state of Chiapas.

(Article clipped, see link for video)

This video illustrates how indigenous Mayans in Mexico are being impacted by globalization. The segment begins with a Mayan Curandero (healer) performing a ceremony to cure a disease that he believes doctors, with all their modern gadgets cannot cure: fear. He believes that "doctors cannot cure the sickness of the soul." However, despite the prevalence of these medicinal traditions and others, like the Saint's Day festival, globalization is insidiously altering these people's traditional ways. Mayans are among the poorest indigenous people in Mexico, and constantly face pressures from the Mexican government to modernize. The video illustrated the government's latest attempt to bring the Mayans to terms of modernity: a rural city, complete with a hospital to combat infant mortality, to help lessen poverty among Mayans. However, the city is a ghost town; few Mayans have moved in, and those who did had to deal with shoddy construction of houses and buildings that failed to meet Mayan traditional cooking needs. The video ends with a segment from the Mexican government official who helped design the city, who expressed his confidence that more Mayans would move in. In ending the segment, the reporter closed with the cryptic phrase: "there is no escaping the modern world."

The theme of this video is clear: Mayans need to modernize. Globalization does make this a fact, and I agree that to some degree there is no escaping modernity. However, I feel strongly that this perhaps was an unwise approach to development in this Mexican community. For example, the rural city that was built did not serve the needs of the community. One of the Mayan women who lived in the complex remarked that the house had already started falling apart, that there was no water, and that she actually had to construct a separate kitchen to cook in because Mayans cook over wood fires, and the floor of these houses was also wood! Seems to me that these houses are just a waste of time. It was clear that the Mexican government had a mission: to reduce poverty, infant mortality, and bring this isolated community "closer to social services." These are all noble goals, but their approach was way off. Where are the Mayan voices in all of this? What do they think they need in order to combat these challenges in their community? This reminds me greatly of the work of Amayrta Sen (if you haven't read Development as Freedom then you definitely should!), particularly his belief in a "capabilities approach" to development (ie: what are people capable of?). Like the belief that by educating women, they will all make similar choices (to have children later etc), this rural town was built on the belief that if you build modern buildings and hospitals, people will use them. However, both of these approaches deny people their own agency in the matter, and group people together assuming that they will all make the same decision. The Mexican government official who constructed the city remarked that "it was difficult to deal with the culture and customs of the indigenous Mayans." This phrase in itself indicates a certain devaluation of the Mayan people in my opinion. It is clear that the Mexican government officials were not looking to create a partnership with Mayans; rather, they simply wanted to supplant a modern way of life on these very traditional people. In cases like this, agency is extremely vital, and should be encouraged. Development in this sense should be about creating collaborative partnerships between locals and national officials to better the community as the community sees fit.