EDUCATION IN LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN

PROGRESS IN EDUCATION
Families who struggle in poverty often have little opportunity to educate their children. They may live in communities which lack properly-equipped schools with trained teachers. Or they may be so poor that the children need to work to make ends meet for the family. This is the dilemma for millions of people in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) Nevertheless, many more people in the region over the past few years have had the benefit of quality education. Governments, which have long understood that job skills are the key to economic growth and ultimately to reducing poverty, have taken decisive action to provide better schooling to more children. 

Source: Millennium Development Goals

• Across Latin America, enrollment in secondary education has doubled since 1970. 
• Some 97 per cent of children in LAC countries now enter elementary school. In the 1970s, that figure was only 65 to 75 percent.
• In countries such as Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, and Jamaica, more than 75 per cent of children complete six years of schooling.
• During the 1990s illiteracy for males aged over 14 declined from 14 to 11 percent for the region as a whole.

See more education indicators 

Source: Millennium Development Goals

CHALLENGES AHEAD
Despite the impressive progress over the last three decades, the Latin American and Caribbean region still lags behind the developed world in terms of education. This gap is growing wider in a global economy where literacy, knowledge and specific skills are more crucial than ever to making a living wage.

The long lead times between primary education and adult achievements leave governments in the region with no time to lose in their efforts to catch up. If Latin American and Caribbean countries fail to increase the average level of education among their citizens, they will risk losing investment and job opportunities to countries with more educated workforces.

On average, Latin American and Caribbean countries invest less in education than other developing regions such as East Asia, let alone the OECD countries. Efforts to provide quality schooling for all children began later and for some years were pursued less vigorously than in other emerging regions. As a result, LAC countries are now falling behind their economic competitors in other low-to-middle-income regions.

For example:

EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT
The World Bank is strongly motivated by the fact that education, alongside health, food security, water and sanitation, is fundamental to a society's economic development. Countries which invest sufficiently in education, in turn, gain a large pool of workers who can be trained for skilled trades and professions, people able to generate goods and services, set up businesses, pay taxes, increase consumer spending and thus contribute to economic growth.

Investment, development projects and reforms in areas such as administration, infrastructure and the environment will take root more easily if the people affected understand the benefits of these schemes and are able to maintain and improve on them over time.

EDUCATION AND INEQUALITY
In addition to reducing poverty and boosting economic growth, education also creates opportunities for a better life, thus reducing inequalities in society.

Children with access to a quality primary education gain the basic literacy skills and cognitive abilities for personal advancement that will put them in a position to move on to secondary and higher education, develop their local economies and forge advantageous links with the outside world.

EDUCATION AND HEALTH
As the gap between rich and poor in LAC countries continues to grow wider, bringing the benefits of education to the most disadvantaged children becomes progressively more difficult. Children from extremely poor families are at a disadvantage from the start, and rapidly fall further behind. Often undernourished, they are prone to develop more slowly.

Many of the region's poorest children come to school ill, hungry and thus unprepared for learning. Education cannot be effective if children in the region do not have access to adequate health care, good nutrition and live in a stable home environment.

To tackle these difficulties, the World Bank typically includes health, nutrition and early childhood development schemes within its education projects. Some projects also provide incentives such as scholarships to make it easier for poor families to keep their children in school and for those children to progress to advanced and vocational courses.

EDUCATION AND THE MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
As part of its mission to eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable development, the World Bank is committed to helping countries achieve theMillennium Development Goals. In addition, the World Bank aims to ensure that all children in the region have access to elementary school, as well as early childhood education up to the age of five. Other key markers of success are increasing the percentage of children who complete primary school, attend regularly, perform well enough to advance to the next grade without repeating a year, enroll in, and ultimately complete, secondary school.

Typical World Bank education projects focus on equipping poor children with the social and cognitive skills to start school, enrolling more of them in schools, providing incentives for their parents to keep them in education, improving teaching and thus test scores, delivering books and other learning materials, reducing repetition and drop-out rates, and encouraging parents and local communities to participate in the work of schools.

Honduras
More children in every age group are enrolled in schools, with preschool coverage of four to six year olds increased from 30 percent in 1995 to 39 percent in 1999. Academic achievement in elementary schools has showed significant improvement, with 19 percent higher scores for third-graders and 11 percent for sixth-graders in mathematics. (Basic Education Project 1995-2001)

With improved basic health care for more of the country's poorest people, the percentage of children aged up to five years dying of diarrhea fell from 20 percent in 1992 to 7 percent in 2000, while infant mortality decreased from 39 to 34 per 1,000 live births. (Nutrition and Health Project 1993-2001).

Brazil
The quality of teaching in disadvantaged schools has been improved substantially, inspiring more children to complete primary school with better skills and enhanced self-esteem. A total of 31,000 students in 943 schools have benefited.

Colombia
Poor families have received cash assistance in return for keeping their children in school and bringing pre-schoolers to clinics for basic health care. Over one million children aged up to 13 are set to benefit from the program (Human Capital Protection Project 2001-2004).

Ecuador
With better prenatal care and child health care, including immunizations, infant mortality fell from 40 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to less than 30 per 1,000 in 1999, boosting life expectancy from 60 years to 70. (Social Development II Health and Nutrition Project 1993-2001)

Peru
Enrollment of children under five in preschools increased to 82 percent in 1999 from 78 percent in 1993. (Primary Education Quality Project 1996-2001)

Grenada
The quality of schooling improved, with more children passing texts in the four core areas: mathematics, language, social studies and science.) Repetition rates in secondary schools fell from 11.6 percent to 1.3 percent between 1994/5 and 2000/2001, while the rate for primary schools more than halved. (Basic Education Reform Project 1996-2001)

Mexico
Substantial improvements were seen in the standards and efficiency of early and elementary education (up to age 11) in the most disadvantaged communities in 14 of Mexico's poorest states. Completion rates increased from 66 percent of 1994-95 to 80 percent in 2000-2001. Low-income families received guidance that enabled them to rear and stimulate their children more effectively; this benefited some 1.8 million children up to the age of 4. (Primary Education II Project)