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 Editorials | June 2006 
Smart Answers to a Big Problem
 NYTimes
| | Countries with more money — like Mexico and Brazil — have increased attendance through payments to families whose children go to school. |
Across the developing world, primary education is too often a privilege and not a right. A hundred million children worldwide do not go to school, kept at home by school fees, teacher shortages, their family's need for their labor or simply a lack of understanding of the benefits of educating children, especially girls. Reaching universal primary school completion by 2015 is one of the United Nations' most important Millennium Development Goals, and most poor nations will fall far short.
But not in Latin America. Currently, 88 percent of children ages 15 to 19 have completed primary school, and by 2015 that figure is expected to rise to 93 percent. Much progress has been made in the past two decades, in large part because governments made primary education a priority.
Countries with more money — like Mexico and Brazil — have increased attendance through payments to families whose children go to school. But even poor countries, like Bolivia and Ecuador, have seen gains. Before the 1990's, only 65 percent of Bolivia's children of primary school age were in school. Now 95 percent are. And more than 84 percent of children entering primary school will finish the fifth grade, up from 50 percent 10 years ago. Bolivia achieved this with educational reform that focused on rural girls. It provided payments to families who kept their girls in school, provided more teachers who spoke indigenous languages and timed school vacations to coincide with the harvest season.
Over the next few years, demographic changes will reduce the number of school-age children in the region, allowing governments to spend less to reach them. The money saved should be used to meet the next big challenge: improving school quality. In too many places, schooling means rote memorization, teachers are poorly trained, books and materials are scarce, and preschool programs don't exist.
Latin America's achievements are notable, but the worldwide goal is modest — getting students to fifth grade. The good news in Latin America underscores the dimensions of the disaster elsewhere. |
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