Education in Perú 2013

June 11, 2013 / Posted in  Education, Perú

American College (a Kindergarten) in Chiclayo, Perú

The nation of Perú has the worst education in the world today (2012-2013), as it has had in the past. Perú’s primary schools (some even delight in calling their centers “colleges” rather than colegios) are  as bad as the secondary schools and “pre-university” institutes. Perú’s universities are not even recognized in the top 400 universities in the world.¹ The only two nations with an overall score lower than Perú are Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.  The greatest loss to Perú is that less than 1% of all students were performing at the highest level, even with foreign investment (World Bank, primarily) and volunteer teachers from around the world.²

Perú statistics on education do not match those compiled internationally. The Pontifical University and San Marcus, both in Lima, have tied for first place, but there is a struggle between two in Lambayeque Province: Universidad César Vallejo (UCV) that outranks Universidad Nacional Pedro Ruiz Gallo (24 to 27) on international lists, while UNPRG (Universidad Nacional Pedro Ruiz Gallo) claims it is a better and more acclaimed school. UCV ranks in 2013 at 5792 in world universities.³  The National University of Pedro Ruiz Gallo (UNPRG) ranks on the world scale of universities for 2013 at 6460. Generally the private universities fared better than the national universities that were frequently the sport of game-players in Congress and vested interests, rather than guided by what is best for the students who attend them.⁴.  For many wealthy owners of schools and universities, the goal of the institutions is to produce a profit or propel the owner into politics, rather than do what is best for Perú and the students enrolled.

While these statistics are based on a composite picture of each university, the universities have also been ranked by department, specialties and other criteria. The least effective schools at nearly all Perú universities have, historically, been the School/Department of Education.

Perú secondary students unable to answer simple questions

What has dragged down Perú, regularly, is the perception of corruption: not just in politics, but especially in the field of education where students have an average of 2 to 5 points out of 20 points in all areas of academic study. Many times, especially in my own classes, the low grades are earned even when the student cheats using a cell phone to text for an answer. Many papers are the result of cut-and-paste by students so desperate for a passing grade that ethics are ignored and those who are able to obtain a grade fraudulently are applauded as being highly intelligent.⁵  At present, Perú is ranked 80 out of 182 studied, and the majority of Perú students find it difficult, to impossible, to enter any foreign university for initial studies or advanced education. Most find it imperative to study with a tutor to pass GMAT, or various other examinations required for admission.

Perú education 2013

Education is not just classroom exposure and experience–it is a plethora of things ranging from gender ratio, library holdings, teacher preparation, teacher publication records, research, and student retention. Perú has the lowest rate of percentages of women to men in the area of literacy, school life expectancy, public spending per school, teachers as percentage of the workforce, etc.⁶ Civil and political liberties are weak ⁷ with corruption common in the Congress of the nation that has the worst record of funding education nationwide.  Perú’s public and private spending on education has gone down every year from 20.7 (2008) to 19.2 (2009), 17.1 (2010), with a modest rise to 18.1 (2011).  Perú is ranked 80^th in the world for public corruption; that figure is less than one-half of that in the United States of America and represents fewer conflicts than among state legislators in Iowa, North and South Dakota, Texas and the southern tier of states where ethics is a slogan and seldom applied to stopping the push of state funds into legislators’ pockets.⁸.

While both the USA and Perú wastefully shovel money into the bloated bellies of its respective militaries,⁹ Perú that spends little time and even fewer soles on education¹⁰ the USA spends substantially more on weapons than even the military asks for and ignores full-funding for education despite its high drop-out rate of students: 7000 every day.¹¹

Perú laptop program

Perú, during the second presidency of Alan Garcia Perez (he had fled to Costa Rica during his first term in disgrace, resigned the presidency, then fled to France before returning to Peru to run a second time and win a second term), initiated the program “one laptop for every child” (Una Laptop por Niño program),¹² statistics shows that the program did nothing to advance education in the nation.¹³   More time was spent playing online games or chatting on Facebook or other social sites, or viewing a variety of photographs, than doing any serious research or other scholarly pursuit by children in Lima, but few children had computer access in the mountains or jungles of Perú.

Many Peruvian students (62%) are addicted to computers,¹⁴ matching the 14,000 ninth graders in Germany who are addicted¹⁵ as with mainland Communist China students (approximately 200 million Internet users between the ages of 15 and 35, many suffering from ADHD and lacking self-control, with 5000 yearly going to addict recovery centers¹⁶),  to play games—where addiction is so strong that rehabilitation centers are created to curb computer addiction.¹⁷  Only 13% of all seven-year-olds were at the required level in mathematics, and only 30% in reading, not just because of poor to non-existent study habits among the students,¹⁸ but because of an increasing ignorance among the teachers who are more interested in methodology, teaching strategies, didactics and pedagogy more so than in curriculum, curriculum development, and the mastery of subject matter.¹⁹

Laptops in schools in Perú

The One Laptop per Student program is not advancing education in Peru.²⁰ Laptops are used for everything but for education.  Teenagers are still counting on their fingers to attempt to figure out mathematical answers; cellular telephones are used to get answers from friends; fraud is at an all-time high as passing a course even with a minimum grade is considered more important than knowing the subject: there is no focus on education, only on the alleged pleasures of pedagogy and methodology.  As one professional teacher noted, textbooks in the USA, and as I confirm in Perú, are “a mile-wide, inch deep” skimming issues with no in-depth coverage.  Everything has to be computerized, not particularized.²¹

Some teachers tell students to turn on their computers and copy what is written on the black/whiteboards—using computers as expensive notebooks, according to Lily Miranda, who runs a computer lab at a state school in San Borja in a middle-class area of Lima.  In the provinces of Perú, computer abuse, addiction and intellectual property theft is more common, faster, and without limits as most professors do not care or engage in plagiarism themselves.²².

Perú Congress mandated all teachers be tested for competency. 151 passed.

The other problem, as several authors and authorities noted, in 2007, of more than 180,000 Peruvian teachers tested for competency, 62% did not reach reading comprehension levels compatible with elementary school PISA level 3.  Ninety-two percent (92%) did not reach an acceptable performance level in math.²³  The final statistics show that out of the 180,000 teachers in Perú who took the test mandated, only 151 passed.

Simply put: the teachers in Perú are increasingly more ignorant and universities that put out new teachers taught by the teachers who have no competence in subject matter become the new illiterate furthering the ignorance of Perú students.²⁴.

GDP and spending in Perú

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been consistently rising, but education has been left behind, with fewer PEN (soles nuevos) set aside for better textbooks, better trained teachers, better classrooms, and aid to students that would change the face of Perú from a nation of impoverished, undereducated, and depressed people into a thriving and vibrant community of producers, consumers, and contented citizenry.

School in Perú’s jungles

Too many schools need refurbishing, refinishing, refining, and are in desperate need of libraries.  The rural areas, the mountain people and those who live in the jungles deserve an equal opportunity with those in urban areas. If this does not change immediately, Perú has no hope, no future, and no education; it will take strong leadership to force through new curriculum, new courses, new directions and rid schools of inferior to totally-inadequate teachers at all levels—but then the question is, where from will the new teachers come?

Perú home access chart for urban youth

The only logical solution is to pay teachers more and require additional hours—not like most educational institutes that use teachers on a part time basis so that the institutions do not have to pay higher wages or offer benefits.  It is past time that Perú schools, institutes and university become true learning centers that realize that the institution realizes what it wants by paying a real wage and are able to attract strong, highly knowledgeable subject matter experts, build respectable libraries, and higher and rank teachers not only for possessing a degree but by evaluating the degree based on from what university it was taken, what was the overall and also the specific specialty grade average, what has the teacher published, and what is the potential of the teacher to investigate, research and publish.

Peru’s New Media Household access Chart

No real teacher thinks that his or her education stops when he or she has completed a degree; the diploma represents only what has been done and an indication of what can be done and must be done.  Education is a life-long learning process for the teacher and genuine educator.²⁵  Reading is a daily delight, writing mandated not only by the school but from within the educator, and presentation of material is seen as not a methodology, pedagogy, strategy or technique, but as the real use of facts over fantasies, and the unending quest for truth.  No rubric, ritual, rite, or pontification has standing in the war against ignorance, for knowledge is forever unfolding and the armaments are not shields or weapons of destruction but the light to burn away the cobwebs of ignorance.

World education scores

When hopes seems like a mirage, a flame flickering in an angry breeze where no one seems to care about anyone else; when there is little else awaiting the sojourner in this life but who is faced only with the continuance of a mundane existence with little merit or hope; when the winds of change seem fluid around everyone but the self, there is little cause for celebration or rejoicing and ethics becomes meaningless. All that seems real is to sustain life without purpose or merit, to eek out an existence that is not worth living,  and personal gain acquires prominence and prefect form no matter what toil or task is necessary, no matter how much the self is prostituted for the moment of repose and respite.  This leads those who are denied basics in food, drink, education, and hope turn to other avenues to travel to gain what is needed regardless of the cost and all the calls by the religious are hollow against the wind of want. If there is to be any ethics in Perú, the people must have a better education with better trained and the best educated teachers possible (not just foreign imports but home-grown Peruanos trained in the arts and the sciences who feel a strong bond with the land and wish to stay, not to disappear to a foreign land where they are but one of many and cannot make the difference that each Peruano with a solid education can make in Perú), boasting better books and new authors who can enliven children and adults in well-lighted and airy classrooms, having the opportunity of fulfilling a dream in Perú without having to escape the poverty of Perú.  It is time to make Perú great once again, far greater than when it was under Inkarey or any other king, but to create a world class culture with academic institutions that herald a new beginning and not dwell upon a sorry sordid past fostered by the greed of the few against the needs of the many.

Ethics is the base for all people to have the essentials that give each individual dignity, identity, self-worth and ultimately self-actualization that cannot, alone, be canonized, crystalized or created with a paper reading diploma or degree but is buttressed by education as medieval cathedral were buttressed by flying wings of brick and rock.  Education is a right–it is not a luxury nor a privilege, as to deny basic education is to deny the soul its own warmth, wonderment, and Weltanschauung.²⁶