Peru

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Peru

Basic Data
Official Country Name:	Republic of Peru
Region:	South America
Population:	27,012,899
Language(s):	Spanish, Quechua, Aymara
Literacy Rate:	88.7%
Number of Primary Schools:	33,017
Compulsory Schooling:	6 years
Public Expenditure on Education:	2.9%
Educational Enrollment:	Primary: 4,163,180
	Secondary: 1,969,501
	Higher: 657,586
Educational Enrollment Rate:	Primary: 123%
	Secondary: 70%
	Higher: 26%
Teachers:	Primary: 153,951
	Secondary: 106,614
	Higher: 45,443
Student-Teacher Ratio:	Primary: 27:1
	Secondary: 19:1
Female Enrollment Rate:	Primary: 121%
	Secondary: 67%

History & Background

Spanning a 2,400 mile length of the Pacific coast, Peru constitutes the third-largest country in South America at 1,285,216 square kilometers. At least as significant as the country's size, however, is its geographical and climatic diversity. The bulk of the nation's population of 22 million inhabits the arid but accessible coastal region west of the Andes, which creates a formidable barrier between the coast and the tropical rainforests that fill nearly 60 percent of Peru's land area east of the mountains. Since the time of Spanish colonization, the coastal region has enjoyed economic privilege over the inland areas, largely due to accessibility. The climate across the country ranges from tropical to glacial, with vast differences in the productivity of the soils and accessibility to transportation.

Peru's population has been historically split just as its geography, yet this division has been more fluid. After their sixteenth-century conquest of Peru, the Spanish placed themselves at the head of a strongly hierarchical existing population, subjugating the previously dominant Inca leaders but allowing them to retain a place of dominance over their subjects. Even after independence from Spain in 1825, race has continued to play a major role in Peruvian society. As in many other Latin American nations, a three-tiered hierarchy has emerged over time with those descended from the Spanish at the top, the native groups at the bottom, and mixed race or mestizaje, occupying a position of some respectability in between.

The formation of the contemporary Peruvian education system began with the arrival of significant numbers of Spaniards in the sixteenth century. The development of schools for the growing Spanish population was driven almost exclusively by the clergy, who gathered in greatest density at Lima, constituting as much as 15 percent of the capital city's population by the seventeenth century. Due to this concentration of clergy, Lima became established early in Peru's modern history as the center of education with many Spanish students migrating from outlying districts for their education. Eventually this migration extended to meztizos, those of mixed race, and most recently to the indigenous peoples of the nation. Only during the latter half of the twentieth century were provincial educational facilities developed that could compare with those in Lima. While education during the colonial period focused exclusively on those of the ruling class, the 1821 war of independence, led by San Martín, sought to enfranchise the entire population and opened educational opportunities to a wider segment of society. After three centuries of Spanish oppression, however, the Native Americans came to this opportunity largely illiterate, poor, and Monolingual; therefore, they were illprepared to advance into the higher levels of the new republic's society. Cultural biases in favor of the established educational centers and against the Native American and mestizo populations coupled with economic limitations to slow the expansion of the educational system. It took more than a century of slow progress to create an educational infrastructure that reached all the significant population centers across the nation. Secondary colegios were founded in Ayacucho and Huaráz in 1828, in Chiclayo in 1832, and in Trujillo in 1854. The effect of these and other provincial colegios was to reduce the need for educational migration to the major centers of Lima and Cuzco.

In the years following independence, the Peruvian governments that resulted from the series of 10 constitutions placed into effect between 1823 and 1993 have consistently accepted responsibility for universal education. In order to remedy the slow pace of progress in achieving this objective, governments initiated a series of significant and more or less successful reforms that marked the most important progress of the nation's first century. In 1855, a reform movement created the primary and secondary levels of the public schools. In 1866, the Prado government's Minister of Justice and Education, José Simeón Tejeda, worked to create the nation's first uniform secondary school curriculum, orienting studies more toward vocational training than toward the traditional college preparatory curriculum. At the same time, Tejeda labored toward gender equality, attempting to provide equal access to education for women and allowing women to teach in the nation's primary schools. An 1867 law called for a secondary school for each sex to be established in each provincial capital, although the full implementation of these reforms would only be accomplished many years later. Tejeda also worked to effect university reform, abolishing the colonial Colegio de San Marcos as an independent unit within the San Marcos University and creating faculties in sciences, letters, law, and theology. An 1875 movement introduced lycées modeled on the French system into the nation's secondary schools. Finally, in the first decade of the twentieth century, the administration and finance of the nation's schools were centralized under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. During that same period the ministry saw its budget doubled—to reach 17.2 percent of the national budget.

Despite these and other less celebrated efforts, the goal of universal, equal education suffered due to the strict social stratification still prevalent throughout the country and enforced by conservative cultural, political, and religious forces. Only in the post-World War II period was significant progress achieved in spreading education to the majority of school-age children in Peru. During the years of 1944 through 1962, a joint organization of educators from Peru and the United States created and funded the Servicio Cooperativo Peruano-Norteamericano de Educación (SECPANE), which aimed to increase educational access for Peru's Andean Native Americans. During its 18 years of existence, SECPANE instituted many initiatives, including the creation of central resource schools, well-provided with both equipment and staff, which served as hubs for a network of smaller schools. Despite the gains, however, upon SECPANE's termination in 1962, much of the progress was lost. The demise of SECPANE has been ascribed to various forces, including a lack of understanding of Peruvian social dynamics on the part of the administrators and teachers from the United States and their failure to more integrally involve Peruvian educators and administrators in the reforms so as to make the process more self-replicating.

A more successful reform came in 1972 when the Ministry of Education resolved to use education to prepare citizens for the workplace in ways that would help develop society, effect structural reforms in the culture, and make Peru more powerful and independent within the international community. This reform, which included a revival of many of the techniques used during the SECPANE years, was accompanied by a significant increase in educational funding and a renewed commitment to provide free and equal education for students from the primary schools through the university. During the 1960s and 1970s, considerable progress was attained in extending the reach of the educational system, with those termed "uneducated" by the government reduced from 32.8 percent to 13.5 percent between 1961 and 1981.

An economic crisis that culminated in 1990 with Peru having the world's highest inflation rate (7000 percent), an effective unemployment rate of 94 percent in Lima, and a nationwide poverty rate of 50 percent resulted in dramatic cut-backs in real-dollar funding for Peruvian education and a consequent deterioration of the school system. The succeeding government committed itself to a restoration and eventual expansion of education funding. At about the time that funding rose above pre-crisis levels, the Ministry of Education moved to reorganize and reform the entire educational system through a series of structural and curricular initiatives beginning in 1997 and aiming for complete implementation by 2007.

An understanding of Peru's educational culture cannot be complete without an awareness of the ethnic and social divisions within the nation. Historically, Peruvian society has been structured in such a way as to reinforce the existing hierarchy that placed Europeans at the top. Education has been seen, in the earliest days and, to a less obvious degree, up to the present as a tool for the maintenance of this hierarchy. Education has thus followed a two-fold philosophical program in effecting this maintenance, serving to underscore the innate superiority of the privileged classes while at the same time serving to assimilate indigenous people into the thought patterns and values of conformity. From a practical standpoint, cultural indoctrination has followed a three-part strategy for assimilation and control. First, religious instruction was used as a main goal of the education system, and the efforts to bring Catholicism to the indigenous people held strong for many years after the conquest. Second, education was called upon to train clergy and bureaucrats from among the lower classes, creating collaborators in their practice of assimilation. Third, education aimed to train the lower classes in the economic and social standards of the ruling class so that they might take their place as functioning, productive members of the society. Peru, in 1997, began a 10-year process of modernization and restructuring of the educational system, aimed at addressing many of the inequities of the past and better preparing students for the future.

Besides ethnic divisions, Peru has a long-standing division between urban and rural residents. The 1990 census located more than 70 percent of Peruvians as urban dwellers with a full 30 percent residing in the capital, Lima. Virtually all quality-of-life statistics, including income, literacy, and educational achievement demonstrate the relative advantage that urban dwellers hold over their rural counterparts. Of the improvements in educational performance between 1961 and 1981, most were sited in the urban areas. Language divisions persist despite long-standing attempts, only recently abandoned, to enforce Spanish as the universal language. Indigenous languages are spoken by approximately 25 percent of inhabitants, with Quechua being the primary language of some 80 percent of this group. Spanish remains the official language with Quechua and Aymara granted a semiofficial status in some regions. During the twentieth century, Peru's already complex population became complicated by a large number of immigrants, especially Japanese immigrants, who arrived mostly as farm workers. The most prominent of these Nikkeijin, as the descendents of these Japanese immigrants are called, Alberto Fujimori, served as Peruvian President from 1990 through 2000.

Constitutional & Legal Foundations

Peru's 1993 constitution devotes several articles to the topic of education. In article 13, education is presented as a core factor in personal development to be protected by the state and encouraged by the family. The specific provisions that follow this affirmation provide for academic freedom; academic professionalism; limited local control of education; compulsory preprimary, primary, and secondary education; university freedom and autonomy; and assorted other educational rights. The education articles of the constitution also establish the authority of the national government, specifically the Ministry of Education, over curricular and administrative matters of education nationwide. While the constitution includes important provisions for higher education, most of these rights were stated earlier and more completely in the 1982 General Law of Education Year. This law was followed in 1983 by the University Law, which further established the rights of the institutions, academics, and higher education students. The 1995 higher education law, provides for the establishment of the Consejo Nacional para la Autorización de Funcionamiento de Universidades (CONAFU), which serves as a coordinating council for the nation's growing number of higher education institutions.

The 1997 reform documents the dramatic change in educational philosophy that Peru has planned for the years 1997 through 2007 when it suggests that the existing concepts of education were designed to function in a learning environment diametrically opposed to that actually in existence. The old educational philosophy is typified as the acquisition of a list of concepts and acts while that which the Ministry of Education seeks to create is presented by way of four areas: learn to be, learn to coexist, learn to become, and learn to learn.

Educational System—Overview

The Peruvian educational system serves young people from shortly after birth until the completion of university studies, although many limitations and exclusions make this system far from universal. A developmental preprimary system attempts to prepare students for primary education during their first six years of life. According to the legal standards of the nation, Peruvian children have access to equal and compulsory primary education from the ages of 6 to 11. Upon completion of primary education, students proceed to a unified two-year program of secondary education in a general secondary school from ages 12 to 14. At the end of the general secondary program, students are divided into two tracks for a three-year program from ages 14 to 16. The more academic of these tracks is the Ciclo Diversificado Científico-Humanista, which awards a Bachillerato Academico upon completion. The second track, the technical secondary school, awards its completing students a Bachillerato Técnico. Aside from the three-tiered program of traditional education, the nation also provides special education services for nearly 300,000 students annually. These students include those with cognitive and physical disabilities as well as emotional instability. Education in Peru is compulsory from the ages of 6 through 16. The academic year runs from April to December for 38 school weeks each year. In the secondary schools, each week includes 36 class periods.

Peru in 1999 supported 56,671 schools and 284,511 classrooms nationwide, serving a total of 7,553,011 students. The 2000 statistics showed an increase to 7.8 million students, of whom 6.7 million attended free state-funded schools. Of these students, slightly more than half (50.5 percent) are male. Of the nation's 351,441 teachers, females outnumbered males by a rate of 57 to 43. Ministry of Education statistics estimate that 96.9 percent of primary-age children and 85.9 percent of secondary-age children were enrolled in school in 1999, up from 88.0 percent and 79.4 percent respectively in 1993. Throughout all levels of education, students in rural schools were considerably more apt to be older than the prescribed age for their current level of school, reflecting the relative weakness of the early-childhood programs in rural areas. Similarly, rural students are much more likely to receive scholastic assistance than their urban counterparts.

Although slightly underrepresented in the primary and secondary schools, the status of women in Peruvian education has improved dramatically since the Tejeda Ministry of Education began opening the way to full participation for women. The inclusion of minorities, most notably Native Americans, in the education system remains a work in progress. The history of Peruvian education can be outlined using the series of initiatives attempted since independence at integrating the Native Americans into the system. In the 1960s, the government instituted a new basic education law, which dictated that any community building its own schoolhouse would be assigned a teacher by the government. In the wake of this, hundreds of peasant communities worked together to bring a school into their midst. The Ministry of Education made good on the promise of teachers, greatly raising the enrollment rates of eligible students. Although recent reforms and practices suggest that the educational system is moving toward a less assimilationist attitude, historically, Native American students were viewed and were encouraged to view themselves as distinctively and defectively "other." Many indigenous people viewed the educational system as a means toward reducing this difference, thus forcing them to blend with the dominant culture. Education has, even in recent years, taken an active role in disparaging Native American culture, including encouraging students to discard their traditional clothing and not to speak the vernacular language.

In 1990, a total of 72 percent of the population reported speaking only Spanish, compared with 60 percent in 1961. Roughly 18 percent of the total population is bilingual in Spanish and a native language, while around 10 percent report being monolingual in a native language. This number, while only 50 percent of the non-Spanishspeaking population reported in 1960, still represents a significant portion of the nation's potential students. Although Spanish remains both the official language of the nation and the primary language of instruction, earlier efforts at suppressing native tongues have ended. In recent decades, the government has reversed its Spanish-only policies, processing through a period of neutrality, to current promotion and support for both bilingual education, mostly Spanish-Quechua and Spanish-Aymara, and study and preservation of various native languages. Recent initiatives utilizing bilingual education in the Andean and Amazon regions of the nation have resulted in pronounced progress in literacy and educational achievement among those peoples. Despite efforts at linguistic inclusion within the government at large and the education establishment in particular, literacy and fluency in Spanish remain a virtual requirement for participating within the national life and exercising rights as a citizen.

Between 1950 and 1990, the number of students enrolled in private schools declined from 34 percent to 14 percent. This decline can be traced to two conflicting forces. First, the overall rate of matriculation among all eligible students increased significantly over this period. With virtually all of these new students moving into the public schools, the private schools' proportion of the total student population declined without an actual decline in headcount. Second, the economic crisis of the 1980s caused a slight reduction in enrollments in private schools, although this force was by far the less significant of the two.

All private schools operate on a non-profit basis with state oversight and regulation. Private schools are generally self-funding, although some receive a subsidy from the government that assists in the payment of teacher salaries. Fees levied by private schools are set by a fees and scholarships committee within the individual school, composed of the school's director, its principal (or a designated representative), a member of the faculty, and a representative of the parents. The fees assessed range from $15 to $300 monthly. Roughly 25 percent of private-school students attend schools provided by religious bodies.

All curricular materials, syllabi, and course outlines are created and provided by the Ministry of Education. These materials, once created, are required by law to remain in place for at least six years before revisions can be effected. Local control is allowed for decisions concerning the details of content delivery and teaching methodologies in order to provide flexibility in accommodating the variations in language. While the first years of primary curriculum are tightly scripted by the Ministry of Education, teachers in grades five and six are given relatively more freedom in allocating time dedicated to the required classes. In the lower grades, teachers are restricted to variations in the actual delivery but are given very little flexibility in terms of content. Teachers are required to prepare an annual plan, before the beginning of the school year, through which they coordinate their proposed pedagogy with the personal and regional needs found in their classes. While content is tightly controlled by the government, teaching methods are largely left up to the individual teachers, who are encouraged to take into account the maturity levels and learning habits of their students, their own particular teaching styles and strengths, and the resources available in and around the school.

From the beginning of the republic to the present, Peruvian leaders have seen education as a vital force in economic development. The nation's ability to effect recovery from the economic crisis of the 1980s can be traced not just to sound economic policies on the part of the government but to the expansion of both the educational infrastructure and the proportion of highly educated people within the society. Economic development in the Amazon and trans-Andean regions have followed closely behind the establishment and expansion of education services in those areas.

Aside from its role in economic development, education has been a major force in political and social development. Early reformers like San Martín saw education as a means toward guaranteeing the survival of an independent state. The nation's history of military dictatorship and government corruption can be traced to some degree to the failure of a century-long series of initiatives toward universal education. Conversely, the nation's recent relative political stability, especially in the light of such potentially devastating forces as economic disasters, political corruption, and the Shining Path movement, suggests that progress toward the expansion and improvement of the education system have begun to fulfill San Martín's hopes.

A final area in which education fosters development is in national identity. In the wake of the devastating War of the Pacific, which resulted in Peru losing wealth, prestige, and territory, education became the primary means by which the government inculcated a nationalistic vision within students. Although the curricula of the 1997 reform seems headed away from this tendency, textbooks and classroom objectives in the schools have traditionally been laden with nationalistic and sometimes jingoistic materials, which laud the heroes of the past and at the same time vilify two long-time enemies, Chile and Ecuador.

Preprimary & Primary Education

The existence of a primary school and teacher in a village is seen as the first step out of poverty and disrespect by most poor and rural citizens. Preparatory education begins as early as the child's first year of life and continues up the point at which the student enters primary school at age six. The first four of these preparatory years focus on involving the parent in the development of the child, while the final two years constitute a kindergarten program with the aim of preparing the child for the more structured primary curriculum. Among the goals of the preparatory education system is the early diagnosis of learning disabilities, as well as family education regarding standards of hygiene, nutrition, and other environmental factors that predict student success. One of the most important goals for the Ministry of Education is to reach all four- and five-year-old children with preparatory education services. In 1999, the Ministry estimated a coverage of 63 percent of four-year-olds and 82.4 percent of five-year-olds, up significantly from 56.6 percent and 78.5 percent, respectively, in 1993 but still considerably below a level of coverage that might be termed universal.

Primary education serves students from ages 6 through 11 and is divided into two portions. The first of these portions lasts four years followed by a two-year second portion. The goals stated by the Ministry of Education for the primary years include the fostering of an independent and critical mind in the student along with basic education in the areas of science, the humanities, and technology; citizenship development; and vocational readiness. Toward that end, the government prescribes a curriculum including the study of mathematics, language, social studies, science, physical education, art, religion, and practical arts. Primary school enrollment in 1999 was reported at 3.3 million.

In 1998, the Ministry of Education presented a new curriculum for basic education, which was to be put into effect in 2000. This curriculum, while not a drastic departure from the curricula of the past, presented objectives and methods in a more consistent and competencyoriented manner. The basic education curriculum has been divided into five major areas: communication, including oral, written, and visual; mathematics and logic; personal and social studies; science and environmental studies; and religion. For each of these areas the curriculum provides fundamental disciplinary assumptions, specific competencies, and suggested methods for achieving these competencies.

The curriculum and educational objectives of the primary schools for both traditional and non-traditional students are established by the Ministry of Education. Completion is based on the mastery of objectives, not on time, although this flexibility does have limits. Students are evaluated four times each year using a progressive evaluation instrument. A cumulative evaluation is performed at the conclusion of the academic year in order to determine the readiness for promotion of the student. This instrument is aimed at an overall measurement of the facts, processes, and activities included in the previous year's work. The examination is graded on a scale from 0 to 20. An average in all areas of 11 with passing grades in both language and mathematics is required for promotion to the next grade. Those students failing are allowed to retest in March, a month before the beginning of the school year, in order to remain at their appropriate age-grade level.

Students failing to achieve either the overall score on the annual examination or failing the mathematics or language component are not allowed to advance to the next grade in the primary sequence. Also, students who are absent for 30 or more days during the school year will be required to repeat the grade level. For those students aged 15 and older who have not already completed the basic education requirements of the primary school, the schools provide a separate but parallel program of study in the evenings, allowing these students to work while completing their studies. Since the 1970s, the government has expanded such non-traditional study programs by funding vocational training centers for students who have not excelled in academic settings. These centers, often working in partnership with private industry, strive to adapt instruction to the particular needs of the learner.

Secondary Education

Secondary education covers the 5 years from the ages of 12 through 16 and is divided into two phases. The first phase comprises two years of general studies followed by the second phase, which includes three years of specialization. In this second phase, each pupil may choose between academic and vocational options. The academic students are allowed to sub-specialize in either liberal arts or science, while the vocational students choose between commercial, industrial, and agricultural courses of study. Upon successful completion of the second cycle, pupils are awarded with a certificado for the specialization they have studied. After receiving their certificado, students before the 1997 reforms were eligible to sit for the university entrance examination immediately, although most have opted to engage in a one-year preparatory course of study before taking the examination. The 1997 reforms, reacting to this need, established a new level of education, two years in duration, to be placed post certificado and post-compulsory education. This study leads to the achievement of the bachillerato, and is considered indispensable for success in higher education and for the accomplishment of the three stated goals of secondary education: To prepare the student to exercise the rights and responsibilities of a citizen in a democratic nation, to prepare the student to effectively enter the working world, and to equip the student with a skills sufficient for successful entrance and pursuit of higher education. Secondary enrollment was reported at 2.3 million students in 1999.

The 1997 reforms organized the secondary education curriculum into five areas of emphasis: science (including mathematics) and technology, communications, economics and management, human development (including philosophy and history), and professional development. This curriculum is designed to be interconnected with the subject matter in each discipline reinforcing the lessons learned in the others. The grading system is generally on a 20-point scale with 11 as the passing point. The average age at which students leave the public secondary schools was 16.8 years in 1996, with an average of 16.7 in private schools. With the imposition of the 1997 reforms, this number has risen and become much closer to the average age of university entrance. At the completion of the bachillerato course of study, students may sit for the nation-wide Bachillerato examination, which provides a standardized entrance examination for all institutions of higher education that opt in the system.

Like the primary schools, Peru's secondary schools test students several times each year in order to ensure adequate progress. Annually, students take a cumulative examination focused on the year's studies. The examination is graded on a scale from 0 to 20 with an 11 required for passage. A failing score in either mathematics or language is a secondary grounds for failure on the examination and for repetition of the grade level. More than 500,000 students of primary schools, or nearly 15 percent of the total student population, failed to achieve the necessary credentials for advancement and were required to repeat a grade level in 1998. Approximately 17 percent of students in urban areas have repeated at least one grade level, and this figure rises to 26 percent among students in rural areas; this high rate of failure is attributed to a low number of hours effectively dedicated to core subjects in many schools. Studies have suggested that on average, urban students spend 450 hours annually in such studies compared with only 226 hours per year among rural students. These numbers compare most unfavorably with the average of 1,000 hours of studies for Chilean students. Besides the problem of grade-level repetition, Peru is experiencing an increased level of school drop outs. An April 2000 report, although presenting promising numbers regarding overall matriculation, noted a growing rate of premature school leaving on the part of, especially, secondary students. The exact number of drop outs is not obtainable from government statistics as these statistics reflect many students who have been officially enrolled but who have stopped attending classes. One study suggested that as many as 200,000 students, both from primary and secondary schools, abandon their education mid-year but are still counted in the government statistics.

Given Peru's hierarchical heritage, which has emphasized the education of the privileged class and others who could fare well in a competitive academic setting, vocational training became a national educational priority rather late. Since the early 1970s, increased attention has been placed on this area of education, especially in the area of technology. In the intervening decades, local governments have joined the national government in opening a series of vocational training institutions, although the quality of these new schools has been uneven. Along with the efforts to provide sites for vocational education have come attempts to make this training accessible for citizens from the poorer and traditionally less well-educated segments of the society. Along with the secondary-level vocational educational facilities, the nation has created several higher-level training sites, including the Higher Technological Institute and the Peruvian Institute of Business Administration. These institutions not only provide more advanced instruction to their population but provide training and resources for lower-level vocational schools.

Higher Education

The year 2001 marked the 450th anniversary of the founding of Peru's oldest and most prestigious university, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Universidad del Perú (UNAM). At the other extreme, the nation has recently created universities both in the depths of the Amazon region and in urban areas in an attempt to broaden the availability of higher education to all citizens. These foundational stories describe the past and present of Peruvian higher education. Despite a history of economic and political difficulties, the proportion of the population that attain any given level of higher education compares favorably with the nations of Western Europe and considerably outstrips many nations with a stronger educational infrastructure.

University enrollment in 1900 totaled only 1,000 students; by 1970 that number had risen to 128,000. The period from 1960 to the present reflects enormous growth in the higher education system. In 1962, only seven universities served the nation—liberal arts schools at Trujillo, Cuzco, and Arequipa, as well as the venerable San Marcos in Lima; an engineering school; an agricultural school; and the Pontifical Catholic University of Lima. The need for new institutions brought about a quadrupling of the number of schools during the mid-1960s. With the establishment of new universities and increasing enrollments, the higher education student population of the nation doubled between 1961 and 1965. By 1970 the number of universities had been increased to 34, with an increase to 51 in 1990. Much of this growth came initially in Lima in the form of private universities but, under the demands of a greatly increased population of secondary graduates, the government began to found new institutions in provincial cities, including an agricultural college at Tingo María on the eastern side of the Andes and a university in the Amazonian city of Iquitos.

Peruvian higher education, provided by universities, both public and private; higher institutes; and postgraduate centers, is regulated by the 1993 Constitution, the General Law of Education of 1982, and the University Law of 1983. These laws provide for a good deal of latitude in the functioning of higher education. The funding for state universities comes from government sources, and government funds also subsidize the operations of private universities, teaching institutes, and technological institutes. Universities function autonomously, each one administered by an assembly composed of the rector, the vice-rectors, the deans of the faculties, the director of the graduate school, and representatives from teaching and student groups. This assembly holds the ultimate authority over university policy and practice, including the election of the rector and the vice-rectors. Although students are represented on these boards in significant numbers—four students for every three professors—many students feel that the combination of the complicated methods for selecting their representatives and the sweeping powers of the rector to ignore the decisions of the assembly combine to leave the assembly as an ineffective organ of government and the rector as a virtual academic dictator. The ongoing administration of the university falls to an executive committee composed of the vice-rectors, the deans, and a student body representative, and presided over by the rector. The nationwide community of universities is coordinated by a national assembly of rectors, which acts to provide the objectives of university activities, to ensure inter-school coordination, and to oversee university economic development. The Consejo Nacional para la Autorización de Funcionamiento de Universidades (CONUFA) was created in 1995 in order to oversee the creation of new and the continuation of existing universities, as well as to assist with the problems of private universities. CONUFA has charged Peru with the task of creating a new university dedicated to serving indigenous peoples of the Northern Amazon region, drawing on both public and private funding sources to offer programs especially aimed at the needs and life of the Amazon Basin, including forestry management and medicinal plants. In order to provide accessibility to indigenous students, the languages of instruction at the new school will include Aguarana, Ashaninka, and Shipbio-Conibo. The site for the new university will be the grounds of the Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Five types of higher education facilities serve the nation. The universidad pública (public university) is a government-funded comprehensive institution comparable to U.S. universities. The most prominent of these is UNAM, the National Autonomous University of San Marcos, which is also the oldest and most prestigious. The second category is the universidad privada (private university), also a comprehensive institution, which receives funding either from non-profit sources, such as the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, or strictly from student tuition. The instituto superior tecnológco (technical higher institute) offers specialized instruction in one or more technologies such as agriculture or engineering. The fourth category is the instituto superior pedagógico (higher pedagogical institute), which is a teacher training facility. Scores of these smaller institutions serve the nation. The final category is the centro superior de postgrado (higher postgraduate centre), a general higher education institution that might be compared with a university branch facility.

The average age of students entering public higher education is 19.7, while private schools average 19.6, reflecting the national tendency for students to take time between secondary and higher education. Admission to vocational training typically requires the student to hold at least the Bachillerator diploma, although some vocational students hold the Certificado de Educación secundaria común completa. Entering students have traditionally been required to sit for either the Concurso or Examen de Ingreso entrance exams. For admission to university level studies, the Certificado de Educación secundaria común completa is required, along with an entrance exam. Increasingly, since 1997 the national bachillerato examination has replaced the examinations provided by individual universities. The number of students failing these examinations each year typically stands at nearly 50 percent. Each university is permitted to determine a numerus clausus for their various departments. Peruvian students pay a maximum of $3,600 tuition for higher education. A 1996 survey indicated that 33.2 percent of students work while studying in the public universities. The number of working students in private universities is 28.1 percent.

Foreign students seeking to attend Peruvian universities must hold the secondary school completion credentials corresponding with their Peruvian counterparts. They are eligible to receive assistance in the form of scholarships and financial aid, as well as being granted employment on campus. Foreign students from countries with which Peru has established articulation agreements can obtain credit for their studies, degrees, and diplomas earned at home, while those from other countries must petition for such recognition. All foreign students are expected to be conversant in Spanish.

The lowest level certification given to students in Peruvian higher education, the Certificado de Educación Secundaria Común Completa, actually represents the completion of secondary schooling. Beyond that, students may earn a Diploma de Aptitud Profesional, which represents a short-term course, averaging one year in duration, focused almost exclusively on a particular professional skill. For more technical fields, the degree of Técnico is awarded. As mentioned, the Bachillerato designation represents a new level of secondary education designed to bridge the gap between secondary education and the university, a gap that has previously resulted in students taking from one to two years between those levels to prepare for the entrance examination. The universities grant the designation of Licenciatura denoting legal licensing in a controlled field. The title Profesor is reserved for those certified to teach in the nation's school system. The highest degrees granted by these universities are Maestría and Doctorado, which are equivalent with the Masters and Doctoral degrees of other countries.

The curriculum leading to these degrees is divided into several stages. The first level of study at the university is termed pregrado (undergraduate) and involves a two-year course of study devoted to general studies. Access to this course of study is based on the competitive entrance examination, either the institution-specific examination or the national Bachillerato examination. Students need to score at a prescribed level on this examination and follow this achievement during the pregrado studies by earning a prescribed number of credits to enter the faculty for their specialization. The period of specialization is two to five years and leads to the title of Bachiller, the equivalent of a bachelor's degree. Successful submission of a thesis, which normally takes six months to one year, leads to the Licenciatura or a professional title such as Ingeniero, Médico, Abogado, or Economista. Achievement of the licentura enables the student to enter professional life. Most of the courses building to the Licenciatura require about five years for completion.

The second level of course work in the university is postgrado (postgraduate). The minimum duration of studies leading to postgraduate degrees is four semesters for the Maestría and an additional four semesters for the Doctorado. Candidates for either degree are required to complete and defend original research work. Maestría candidates must demonstrate proficiency in one foreign language while Doctorado candidates must show proficiency with two. In the Faculty of Law, the professional title is awarded after the completion of three years of study after the Bachiller, while medical students must complete five years of study before earning their degree. Universities also award professional titles of Segunda and Ulterior Especialización.

Higher technical and vocational education is offered in the institutos superiores tecnológicos, which focus on technological courses of study, and the institutos superiores pedagógicos, which provide the bulk of the nation's teacher training. Other education is offered through national schools in various disciplines. As of 2000, the nation had established a National School for Public Health, a National School for Public Administration, and the Diplomatic Academy, as well as separate Academies of Fine Arts and Music. These institutions do not enjoy the autonomy of the universities and are responsible to the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education, as well as to the relevant ministries of their subject area. They offer professional training requiring three, four, or five years for completion. Upon completion, the student is awarded the professional qualifications of Técnico and Experto in the appropriate field.

Administration, Finance, & Educational Research

Oversight of Peruvian education is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education and Culture, which is based in Lima. The Ministry's mission is to provide education through the nation's public schools and to provide oversight to private schools and those under the jurisdiction of other agencies. This mission comprises two major responsibilities: the development of standards and curricula for all schools and the direct administration of those schools under the ministry's jurisdiction. While educational policy created in Lima is in force across the entire country, each of the nation's regions or departments maintains its own budget authority and directs its own administration to provide primary, secondary, and technical education to its students. The Ministry of Education is headed by an appointed minister. Beneath the minister are two vice-ministers. The vice-minister of educational management oversees national directors for initial (preprimary) and primary education, secondary and technical education, teacher training, and adult education and literacy. The vice-minister of institutional management oversees offices of educational quality, administrative support, educational infrastructure, and international cooperation. Universities do not fall under the direct control of the Ministry of Education. Each university and other institution of higher education (excluding the teacher training institutions) retains considerable autonomy within the context of the series of laws controlling higher education. The universities coordinate through but do not yield control to a representative body, the Asemblea Nacional de Rectores (Rectors National Assembly), which is composed of the rectors from all the member universities. This group serves to coordinate university activities, as well as to oversee and facilitate their economic development.

The national constitution dictates that education should receive no less than 20 percent of the overall government budget. National educational expenditures have varied considerably under the various administrations of recent decades. As a percentage of GNP, education expenditures amounted to 3.82 percent in 1970, but had fallen to 2.93 percent in 1980 and 2.21 percent by 1989. In 1997 dollars, total expenditures between 1968 and 1990 ranged from a high of more than $1.5 billion in 1987 to a low of $750 million in 1990, the year in which Alberto Fujimori took office. Under Fujimori's administration, the trend in education budgets was dramatically positive, reaching more than $1.8 billion dollars by the end of the decade—a figure that represented a $255 expenditure per student, an increase in real dollars of 39 percent over the early 1990s. Perhaps more significantly, capital expenditures during the 1990s averaged 12.6 percent of the overall budget, dramatically outstripping the 3 to 5 percent capital outlays of previous decades. Even during budgetary crises during the mid-1990s when the overall budget declined slightly, capital investment continued strongly. Of the 87.4 percent of the budget dedicated to current expenditures, 45 percent went to primary education, 28 percent to secondary, 15 percent to universities, 8 percent to preprimary, and 3 percent to non-university higher education.

Nonformal Education

Accompanying the nation's resurgent interest in education during the 1990s has come an expansion in nonformal education directed at the adult population. Lifelong learning courses in a wide variety of topics are organized to provide less structured vocational training for the workforce and to provide basic education and cultural enrichment to the community. A Certificado de Asistencia is awarded upon the successful completion of each course. Vocational training—especially that focused on an industry with significant, concentrated employment, such as business administration, commerce, and industrial production—is frequently a collaborative effort between the education system and the industry. Trade training is offered to the industries through such arrangements, allowing employees to improve job skills while maintaining a work schedule. Part-time education is offered in both day and evening classes to establish or enhance competencies in the areas of teaching, accountancy, law, computer science, and economics. Adult education authorities also take responsibility for the provision of in-service courses to teachers. Finally, summer classes provide regular students with the opportunity to earn additional educational credits during the summer, while January and February classes provide the same opportunity for teachers.

Teaching Profession

Teachers enjoy considerable privileges in the culture of Peru, especially in the areas farther away from the major population centers where a teacher is likely to be the only person with postsecondary education within an area. Traditionally, teachers fulfill a role as educators and town advisers in the smaller centers of population. Because of their great influence, teachers were, until recent years, prohibited from holding public office due to the belief that they, like a priest, might hold excessive power within the community. Because of the opportunities for advancement afforded by a career in teaching, many have sought this path, especially those from the lower and middle classes who find in teaching a richer opportunity for achievement than might be found elsewhere. Given Peru's limited career opportunities for women, it is not surprising to find that teaching has proven an especially attractive path for women, a fact that is reflected in their representation within the profession.

One of the challenges facing the education system has been the recruitment of sufficient numbers of qualified teachers. Of 110,000 candidates presenting themselves for entrance into the profession in 1999, a total of 29,256 were selected for consideration, yet only17,000 of these candidates passed the test. Only 1 percent of those passing the test managed to score a 14 or higher on the 20-point scale where 11 is the lowest possible passing grade.

Eighty-five pedagogical institutions and more than 50 university education programs provide the initial and continuing training for Peru's 350,000 teachers. While the pedagogical institutions provide a very consistent program of instruction, the university programs vary widely. The training of both initial (preprimary) and primary school teachers is a responsibility of both the nation's universities and non-university institutions. This training typically consists of a course of study spanning 10 academic semesters. Secondary school teachers (professores ) receive their training through the Institutos Superiores Pedagógicos through a five-year course of study. Some secondary teachers are also trained in the universities. Secondary teacher studies culminate with the granting of the professional qualification of Profesor. This certification also includes the mention of the teacher's educational level and disciplinary specialization. Teachers serving the institutions of technical education receive their training at the Institutos Superiores Tecnológicos, completing a three-year course of study before being granted the title of Profesional técnico (technical professional).

The training of teachers for the nation's institutions of higher education is conducted by the universities. Candidates advance through a series of categories of teaching and learning in their given discipline. Educational councils operating independently within each university appoint qualified teachers to one of the professional categories, making their selections through open competitions. The time required for the granting of tenure in each category and the requirements for promotion to a higher level varies both between departments and between universities. The most common model of teacher assessment is for an academic evaluation to be conducted every three years for auxiliary professors, every four years for associate professors, and every six years for principal professors.

Most Peruvian teachers are represented by the Sindicato único de Trabajadores de la Enseñanza del Perú (SUTEP), the Trade Union of Education Workers of Peru. Serving 280,000 teachers of initial, primary, secondary, adult, and special education, SUTEP is governed by a national executive committee composed of 24 members elected at the biannual National Congress. The union was founded in 1972, unifying in the process a wide group of different unions serving different levels of education and diverse geographic territories. In the intervening years, SUTEP has experienced persecution and lack of legal recognition by various governments. In recent years the union's most important objective has been the resistance of a move proposed by various government representatives to privatize education. SUTEP also successfully fought a proposal in 1992 to fire all teachers and rehire them to temporary contracts. Membership in the union is voluntary.

Summary

The recovery and advances in the educational system of Peru between the years 1990 and 2000 were remarkable, not only in terms of budgetary outlays but also in curricular and school quality programs. One of the primary challenges for current and future governments will be to be continue the trajectory of progress begun during the Fujimori years. Where success in meeting that challenge depends largely on economic prosperity coupled with political will, success in other areas presents more complex obstacles. Historically, the most significant impediment to universal quality education in Peru has come from the deep social divisions that have existed for centuries along racial, geographic, economic, and linguistic lines. Although progress has been achieved in addressing these divisions, creating an education system far more fair and open than existed a half century ago, considerable progress remains to be made to allow each student the opportunity to fully explore his or her potential.

According to the Ministry of Education, one of its principal obligations is to develop an ability to respond to new situations in a useful and relevant manner. Progress on the ten-year reformation of education started in 1997 has been a significant attempt to develop that ability; however, more progress is needed to achieve the Ministry's goals. Among those goals are the extension of preprimary education to all children aged 4 and 5, and the elimination of illiteracy among all Peruvians under the age of 40. Despite the progress suggested by curricular changes, centuries-old cultural impediments continue to challenge the education system. In 1999, UNESCO recognized Peru's efforts in the area of literacy, noting their achievement in dropping the rate of illiteracy from 13 percent in 1993 to 6 percent in 1999. Also in the area of illiteracy, a 1999 study by the National Institute of Statistics and Information placed the number of illiterate Peruvians older than the age of 15 at more than 1.9 million, more than 10 percent of the adult population. Of this number, three times as many were women, with the preponderance coming from lower social classes and traditionally deprived regions of the country, illustrating the power and persistence of some of the cultural impediments to equality.

The dream of universal and equal education can only be realized if barriers between races and classes can be breached. Perhaps the most intractable of these barriers is that between the Spanish-speaking majority and the significant indigenous-language-speaking minority found mostly in the Amazonian area east of the Andes. Although progress has been achieved in reaching this population, this challenge promises to remain for many years to come.

Bibliography

Azcueta, Michel, et. al. Aportes para una historia de la educación popular en el Perú, Lima: Tarea, 1990.

Balance de una década: educación para todos en el Perú. Lima: El Foro, 2000.

Gorritti, Luis Carlos, Arturo Miranda, and Gonzalo Pacheco. Cuánto cuesta una educación básica de calidad en el Perú. Lima: Foro Educativo: PREAL, 2000.