Bulmer-Thomas V., Coatsworth J., Cortes-Conde R. The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America: Volume 2, The Long Twentieth Century
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452 Fernando Reimers
100 percent in eight countries
44
(Chile, Cuba, Brazil, Uruguay, Costa Rica,
Panama, Paraguay, and Argentina) and 90 percent in an additional four
(Peru, Venezuela, Mexico, and Ecuador). Only Guatemala and Haiti had
lower rates, at 50 percent. By the end of the century, all countries but Haiti
had achieved gross enrollment rates of 100 percent and net enrollment rates
were close to or higher than 90 percent in all countries but Guatemala, El
Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua.
Table 11.3 shows that secondary education also expanded during the
twentieth century and from a much lower base than primary. However,
by the end of the century, only a handful of countries were enrolling at
least two thirds of the relevant age group at this level. These countries were
Cuba, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru, and Panama. In seven countries, fewer
than two of five children were enrolled at this level (Paraguay, Venezuela, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Bolivia, Haiti, and Honduras). The remaining coun-
tries enrolled between half and two thirds of the children in this age group.
Tw o factors constrained the expansion of secondary education. First,
expansion in access at the primary level was achieved with a number of
measures that reduced quality, such as reducing the duration of the school
day to accommodate multiple shifts in the same building, expanding the
workload of teachers to teach in multiple shifts, and reducing the quality
and quantity of instructional resources per student. As a result, many of
the children who gained access to primary school repeated grades multiple
times; thus, the number who eventually graduated from this level was
only a fraction of the number who gained initial access to primary school.
Second, expansion of access to secondary school was constrained by policy.
The emphasis during most of the century was on the universalization of
primary education and literacy, a minimalist version of the concept of
equal educational opportunity. Differences among countries at the end
of the twentieth century in access to secondary school were not just a
result of differences in economic resources or even of how much access had
been achieved by mid-century, but reflected policy priorities. For example,
Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay had the highest levels of access in 1950 and
1995; they were also among the countries with highest levels of income.
44
The gross enrollment rate is the ratio of the total number of children enrolled in a level relative
to the total number of children of school-going age. Because students enrolled can be younger or
older than the official school-going age, this rate can exceed 100 percent. This indicator is a proxy
for access and a measure of the capacity of the school system. Net enrollment rates include only
children of the official school-going age in the calculations – excluding children who are overage or
underage – and are therefore a better indicator of access to education. In Latin America, there are
many children who are retained in the same grade from one year to the next; these repeaters who
are overage explain the large discrepancy between gross and net enrollment rates.
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Education and Social Progress 453
Table 11.3. Gross enrollment rates in secondary education (in descending order by 2000
levels in Latin America and comparator countries)
Gross enr. rates Net
Gross national income
per capita
1950 1965 1970 1980 1990 2000 2000 2000/US$
Cuba 52322818981.89 79.65
Argentina 10 28 44 56 71 96.65 79.06 7,450
Chile 11 34 37 53 73 75.45 74.51 4,810
Uruguay 17 44 59 62 81 98.06 69.93 6,150
Bolivia 51825373779.63 68.13 990
Panama 9343961 6369.17 62.17 3,250
Peru 62531596780.77 61.49 2,060
Mexico 31723495375.31 59.66 5,100
Colombia 41723395069.84 56.54 2,020
Venezuela 3273521 3559.33 50.36 4,310
Ecuador 4172653 5557.44 48.06 1,070
Paraguay 21316273159.82 46.70 1,460
Costa Rica 62428474250.94 43.37 3,820
Dominican Republic 21221425159.46 40.20 2,120
Nicaragua 31417414053.99 35.52 370
Guatemala 288182337.00 26.21 1,690
Brazil 6162633 3856.00 3,630
Honduras 110133033 860
El Salvador 31722242654.19 2,000
Haiti 1561421 500
Canada 56 65 88 101 102.60 97.87 21,720
Belgium 75 81 91 103 25,070
Spain 38 56 87 104 115.64 93.73 14,760
France 56 74 85 99 107.76 92.36 23,990
Korea, Republic of 35 42 78 90 94.12 90.86 9,010
Italy 47 61 72 83 95.93 90.51 20,130
United States 84 91 93 95.16 88.13 34,370
Portugal 42 56 37 67 113.65 85.19 11,190
Philippines 41 46 64 73 77.29 52.63 1,020
Singapore 45 46 60 68 23,350
Thailand 14 17 29 30 81.93 2,020
Note: See footnote 44 for a definition of enrollment rates.
Sources: Data for 1950 are from Nassif, Rama, and Tedesco, El sistema educativo en Am
´
erica Latina.Data for
1965 are from World Bank, Social Indicators of Development Database.Data for 1990 are from UNESCO, World
Education Report. The Right to Education (Paris, 2000). All other data are from the UNESCO Statistical Database.
Data for Gross National Income per Capita are from World Bank, World Development Indicators Database,
http://devdata.worldbank.org/data-query/, accessed June 19, 2003.Gross enrollment data for Brazil in 2000 and
for 1995,from UNESCO, WorldEducation Report. This is because in 2000,Brazil changed the way it defined
the duration of primary and secondary education for the purposes of reporting to UNESCO, lowering the first
level ISCED1 from six to four years, and consequently making it impossible to compare appropriately the 2000
enrollment rates – inflated because of this definitional change – with data from previous years.
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454 Fernando Reimers
At the other extreme of the distribution, Guatemala, Haiti, and Honduras
were at the low end of access and income in the 1950s and also at the end of
the century. By contrast, Costa Rica, with higher enrollment rates in 1950
and a level of income comparable to Colombia, Ecuador, the Dominican
Republic, Mexico, and Nicaragua, had lower enrollment rates than these
countries in 1997. Another example that education policy priorities, and
not just initial conditions or income, influenced expansion of enrollment
rates is the difference between Brazil and Peru. Both started with enrollment
rates of 6 percent in 1950, but enrollment expanded significantly more in
Peru,inspite of lower levels of income.
The policies affecting primary and secondary school expansion had a
significant and direct impact on the number of years of schooling attained
by the population and, consequently, on literacy rates and the knowledge
and skills of the labor force. Women gained significantly more than men
with this expansion.
As a result of the expansion of compulsory schooling toward the end
of the century, those aged fifteen to twenty-four living in urban areas in
most countries had attained nine to ten years of schooling on average, as
seen in Table 11.4.Inrural areas, people had three years less of schooling
on average than in urban areas. Women had more years of schooling than
men in all countries in urban areas except in Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico,
and Paraguay. In these four countries, the differences were very small, and
were largest in Bolivia. The same was true in rural areas, except in Bolivia,
Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru.
Comparing the average years of schooling attained by all groups among
those aged fifteen to twenty-four with those aged twenty-five to fifty-nine,
it is clear that educational attainment grew most for women and it grew
more for women and men in rural areas than in urban areas. Education
levels for urban men, the group with the highest levels of education among
those aged twenty-five to fifty-nine, were similar to the education profile
of men aged fifteen to twenty-four. For urban women, in contrast, the
younger group had, on average, 0.7 more years of school. Young rural
males had, on average, 1.4 more years of schooling, whereas young urban
women had, on average, more than two years more schooling than their
older counterparts.
The ability of the state to support increases in the educational attainment
of the population makes more blatant the persistent exclusion of some chil-
dren from an education of quality that would allow them the opportunity to
complete the levels that most mattered for economic and social mobility.
Still, at the end of the twentieth century in Latin America, among the
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Education and Social Progress 455
Table 11.4. Average number of years of school attained by different population
groups circa 2000
Population 15 to 24 years of age Population 25 to 59 years of age
Urban Rural Urban Rural
Males Females Males Females Males Females Males Females
Argentina 2000 9.710.510.210.3
Bolivia 2000 10.39.96.95.710.68.85.02.9
Brazil 1999 7.27.94.45.46.97.13.23.4
Chile 2000 10.610.78.79.211.010.66.76.8
Colombia 1999 9.09.36.26.88.98.44.74.9
Costa Rica 2000 8.48.86.87.19.19.06.46.3
Ecuador 2000 9.710.07.07.29.99.65.75.3
El Salvador 2000 9.19.15.75.78.97.83.72.9
Guatemala 1998 7.67.54.13.17.25.82.41.4
Honduras 1999 7.37.84.75.17.67.13.53.6
Mexico 2000 9.89.77.67.49.58.65.65.0
Nicaragua 1998 7.27.83.84.67.46.63.23.2
Panama 1999 9.810.37.68.410.410.56.97.2
Paraguay 1999 9.59.46.46.59.69.05.04.5
Peru 1999 10.210.27.56.910.99.55.73.6
Dominican
Republic 2000
8.89.96.37.28.98.95.25.0
Uruguay 2000 9.09.99.09.4
Venezuela 2000 8.29.38.18.5
Sources: Household surveys conducted in the respective countries and processed by Economic
Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Social Panorama 2001–2002 (Santiago,
2002), Tables 30 and 31.Data for Argentina are only for greater Buenos Aires. Data for urban
Paraguay include only Asunci
´
on.
people aged fifteen to nineteen years, 3 percent had never attended school,
13 percent dropped out of school in elementary school, 8 percent dropped
out upon completing elementary education (typically six years), and 9 per-
cent dropped out during secondary education.
45
As a result, one in three
persons did not complete a high school education.
School dropouts are disproportionately from the poorer households,
first because most of them live in villages, where people are poorer, and
second because, in cities, it is the poorer children who tend to drop
out. There are sharp differences in the opportunities to proceed in school
45
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Social Panorama 2001–2002 (Santiago,
2002).
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456 Fernando Reimers
between urban and rural areas. In rural areas, the odds of never entering
school are 3.5 times greater than in urban areas (6% vs. 1.7%), the odds
of dropping out in elementary education are 2.3 times greater (23% vs.
11%), the odds of discontinuing school upon completion of elementary
education are 1.9 times greater (13% vs. 7%), and those of dropping out of
secondary school are the same (9%ineach setting). As a result of the cumu-
lative impact of these divides, the odds of never completing a secondary
education are 89 percent greater for children in villages than for those
who live in cities.
46
These rates are based on household survey data con-
ducted in eighteen countries in the region circa 2000: Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay,
Peru,Uruguay, and Venezuela. Among those living in cities, 43 percent of
the school dropouts belong to the poorest income quartile.
47
As a result of high school dropout rates resulting from poverty and poor
education quality, the levels of educational attainment of the population
are low, and there are large gaps in the educational attainment of different
social groups. These gaps further economic divisions – because most income
inequality relates to educational inequality – as well as social and cultural
gaps. Among those aged twenty-five to fifty-nine years old, the average years
of schooling attained by those living in cities versus those living in rural
areas was, respectively, ten and four in Bolivia, seven and three in Brazil,
eleven and seven in Chile, nine and five in Colombia, nine and six in Costa
Rica, ten and six in Ecuador, eight and three in El Salvador, seven and two
in Guatemala, seven and four in Honduras, nine and five in Mexico, seven
and three in Nicaragua, ten and seven in Panama, nine and five in Paraguay,
ten and five in Peru, nine and five in the Dominican Republic, and eight
and five in Venezuela.
48
Consequent with the increase in the years of education completion, lit-
eracy rates grew significantly. Whereas by the end of the twentieth century
there were still nine countries in the region where more than 10 percent
of the population declared itself illiterate, Haiti, Guatemala, Nicaragua,
Honduras, and El Salvador had rates in excess of 20 percent. This progress
was impressive relative to the levels of illiteracy at the beginning of the cen-
tury, but less so relative to the levels of illiteracy in other countries. Among
the comparator countries presented in Table 11.5, only two (Singapore and
46
Ibid., 25.
47
Ibid., 114.
48
Ibid., 251–52.
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Education and Social Progress 457
Table 11.5. Illiteracy rate for countries in Latin America and selected
comparator countries by descending order in 2000
Illiteracy rate, total (% of population age 15+)
1900 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 Males Females
Haiti 90 79 47 50.248.052.2
Nicaragua 62 43 13 33.533.833.3
Guatemala 71 62 54 45 31.524.038.9
Honduras 67 65 55 27 25.025.125.0
El Salvador 60 51 43 33 27 21.318.523.9
Dominican
Republic
57 36 33 17 16.316.316.3
Bolivia 68 23 14.68.120.8
Brazil 65 51 39 34 26 19 13.113.013.2
Peru 39 28 18 15 10.15.314.8
Mexico 77 35 35 26 17 13 8.86.710.9
Ecuador 44 33 24 14 8.46.810.1
Colombia 58 38 27 19 14 13 8.48.48.4
Panama 30 23 22 14 8.17.58.8
Portugal 73 44 29 21 15 7.85.310.1
Singapore 54 31 18 7.73.811.7
Venezuela 48 24 15 8 7.57.08.0
Paraguay 34 25 20 10 6.75.67.8
Philippines 51 40 17 17 5.14.95.2
Thailand 48 21 12 4.52.96.1
Costa Rica 20 16 12 7 4.44.54.4
Chile 50 20 16 15 7 4.24.14.4
Cuba 57 24 6 3.33.23.4
Argentina 53 14 9 7 6 5 3.23.23.2
Uruguay 10 6 4 2.42.92.0
Spain 59 18 10 7 5 2.41.53.2
Korea,
Republic of
12 7 4 2.20.93.6
Italy 48 19 5 4 2 2.0
Belgium 20 3
Canada 17 4
France 17 3
United States 11 3
Sources: Data for 1950 and 1960 are from Nassif, Rama, and Tedesco, El sistema educativo
en america latina. All other data are from the UNESCO Statistical Database.
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458 Fernando Reimers
Portugal) had illiteracy rates as high as 8 percent. The Philippines and
Thailand, for example, which in 1950 had illiteracy rates as high as Ecuador,
Mexico, and Colombia and slightly lower than Brazil, had reduced illiteracy
more effectively than these countries by the end of the century. In the
countries with high illiteracy rates, there were more illiterate women than
men. Given the fact that educational attainment on average increased more
for women than for men, this suggests that the most educationally mobile
women were not the most marginalized.
In spite of the expansion in educational enrollments during the twentieth
century, in 1999, levels of education for those twenty-five to sixty-four years
old were still very low in Latin America relative to OECD countries. In
Brazil, 63 percent of the population had only a primary education or less,
with an additional 13 percent having some lower secondary education. In
Chile, 31 percent had primary or less and 26 percent, lower secondary
education. In Mexico, the respective figures were 59 and 21 percent; in
Peru, 47 and 7 percent; and in Uruguay, 53 and 16 percent. These figures
compare with averages for the OECD of 16 percent with primary or less and
20 percent secondary or less. In Canada, the figures were 7 and 13 percent,
and in the United States, 5 and 8 percent. In other words, on average,
three in five persons in the OECD countries have attained at least upper
secondary education, and in Canada and the United States, four in five
persons have done so. This compares with one in five persons in Mexico
and Brazil, 1.5 in five in Uruguay, and two in five in Chile and Peru.
49
Furthermore, the average levels of educational attainment mask deep
disparities in educational opportunities of various income groups. Table 11.6
shows the different probabilities of ever enrolling in school, to be enrolled
at the age of twelve, and to have completed grades six and nine at the age of
between fifteen and nineteen for the richest 20 percent, the next 40 percent,
and the poorest 40 percent in several countries in Latin America. Although
there are disparities in the opportunity to ever enroll in school and to be
enrolled at the age of twelve, the greater disparities are in the probability to
have completed sixth grade or to have completed ninth grade from the age
of fifteen to nineteen, suggesting how different structures of opportunity
lead different income groups to have differing education profiles.
Different ethnic groups also have varying opportunities to attain higher
levels of schooling. In Brazil, for example, twenty-five- to sixty-year-old
49
OECD, Education at a Glance. OECD Indicators (Paris, 2001), 43.
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Education and Social Progress 459
Table 11.6. Probabilities of enrollment at various levels and of attaining sixth
and ninth grade by income group
Country Richest 20%Middle 40%Poorest 40% Richest/Poorest
Ever enrolled in school (12-year-olds)
Bolivia (1997) 0.99 0.99 0.99 100%
Brazil (1996) 0.99 0.99 0.92 108%
Colombia (2000) 0.99 0.99 0.96 103%
Dominican Republic
(1996)
0.99 0.97 0.88 113%
Guatemala (1999) 10.97 0.87 115%
Haiti (1995) 0.90.93 0.69 130%
Nicaragua (1998) 0.99 0.96 0.79 125%
Peru (2000) 110.99 101%
Enrolled in school at the age of 12
Bolivia (1997) 0.98 0.98 0.85 115%
Brazil (1996) 0.99 0.99 0.92 108%
Colombia (2000) 0.99 0.95 0.83 119%
Dominican Republic
(1996)
10.98 0.92 109%
Guatemala (1999) 0.78 0.99 0.85 92%
Haiti (1995) 0.87 0.91 0.65 134%
Nicaragua (1998) 0.97 0.91 0.72 135%
Peru (2000) 0.99 0.99 0.94 105%
Completed grade six (15 to 19)
Bolivia (1997) 0.93 0.89 0.55 169%
Brazil (1996) 0.81 0.69 0.33 245%
Colombia (2000) 0.92 0.88 0.52 177%
Dominican Republic
(1996)
0.88 0.76 0.47 187%
Guatemala (1999) 0.91 0.60.22 414%
Haiti (1995) 0.60.36 0.1600%
Nicaragua (1998) 0.90.73 0.32 281%
Peru (2000) 0.98 0.96 0.77 127%
Completed grade nine (15 to 19)
Bolivia (1997) 0.55 0.46 0.21 262%
Brazil (1996) 0.38 0.28 0.08 475%
Colombia (2000) 0.73 0.61 0.25 292%
Dominican Republic
(1996)
0.64 0.40.14 457%
Guatemala (1999) 0.65 0.21 0.03 2167%
Haiti (1995) 0.31 0.11 0.02 1550%
Nicaragua (1998) 0.55 0.28 0.06 917%
Peru (2000) 0.85 0.71 0.32 266%
Source: World Bank, Educational Attainment and Enrollment Around the World, http://www.
worldbank.org/research/projects/edattain/edattain.htm, accessed June 11, 2002.
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460 Fernando Reimers
whites have, on average, seven years of schooling, compared with just over
four for Afro-Brazilians. In Guatemala, indigenous people have two years
of schooling, compared with more than five for nonindigenous. In Peru,
indigenous people have less than six years of schooling, compared with
more than nine for nonindigenous. In Bolivia, indigenous people have
four years of schooling, compared with nine for nonindigenous.
50
A 1998 survey administered to adults in Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico
found significant differences in educational attainment by skin color.
Table 11.7 shows how the gaps are greater in Mexico, followed by Chile, and
are less pronounced in Costa Rica. In Mexico, morenos are 64 percent more
likely than whites to have completed only primary education, and mulatos
are two and a half times as likely as whites to have only an elementary
education. Conversely, morenos are 59 percent as likely as whites to have a
college education, and mulatos only 27 percent as likely as whites to have
reached college. There are corresponding similar gaps in income by color
associated with these differences in educational attainment.
Along with gaps in educational attainment between the population in
Latin America and those in other countries, and the equity divides in edu-
cational attainment, Latin American education systems failed to provide
opportunities to learn at high levels to most students. International com-
parisons suggested that the quality of education in Latin America was low
in literacy, math, science, and civic education.
In spite of the improvement in self-reported literacy rates, by the end of
the twentieth century, the actual reading ability of Latin America students
was significantly lower than that of students in other OECD and other
middle-income countries. A survey of the knowledge and skills of fifteen
year olds in the principal industrialized and middle-income countries con-
ducted in 2000 and 2001 assessed to what extent students near the end
of compulsory education had acquired some of the knowledge and skills
that are essential for full participation in society. On average, the perfor-
mance of Argentinean, Brazilian, Chilean, Mexican, and Peruvian students
in reading, mathematical, and scientific literacy was at the very bottom of
the achievement levels of students in all of the forty-seven countries par-
ticipating in the study.
51
Tw enty-three percent of the students in Argentina
50
Inter American Development Bank, Measuring Social Exclusion: Results from Four Countries (2001),
cited in PREAL. Qued
´
andonos atr
´
as. Un informe del progresoeducativo en Am
´
erica Latina (Washington,
DC, 2001), 10.
51
OECD-PISA, The OECD Program for Student Assessment, http://www.pisa.oecd.org/ acce-
ssed June11, 2002, also http://www.pisa.oecd.org/Docs/Download/ExecutiveSummaryPISAplus.pdf,
accessed July 21, 2003.
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Education and Social Progress 461
Table 11.7. Percentage of adults by highest level of education completed by
color in 1998
Ratio
White Moreno Mulato Moreno/White Mulato/White
Mexico Education
Primary 22 36 53 1.64 2.41
Secondary 32 38 30 1.19 0.94
Higher 41 24 11 0.59 0.27
Costa Rica Education
Primary 50 54 54 1.08 1.08
Secondary 26 22 23 0.85 0.88
Higher 18 10 7 0.56 0.39
Chile Education
Primary 35 38 50 1.09 1.43
Secondary 38 38 40 1.00 1.05
Higher 26 24 9 0.92 0.35
Source: Miguel Basanez and Pablo Paras, “Color and Democracy in Latin America,” in
Roderic Ai Camp, ed., Citizen Views of Democracy in Latin America (Pittsburgh, PA,
2001), 145.
and Brazil, 20 percent of students in Chile, 16 percent in Mexico, and 54
percent in Peru could not complete the simplest reading tasks, involving
just reading words fluently, locating a single piece of information, iden-
tifying the main theme of a text, or making a simple connection. This
compares with 6 percent on average for all OECD countries, and 2 per-
cent in Canada, 4 percent in Spain, and 6 percent in the United States
who could not complete the simplest reading tasks. Furthermore, only
2 percent of students in Argentina, 1 percent of students in Chile and
Mexico, 0.6 percent of Brazilian students, and 0.1 percent of Peruvians are
capable of completing sophisticated reading tasks. This compares with 10
percent of the students on average for the OECD countries, 17 percent in
Canada, and 12 percent in the United States.
52
There are similarly large dif-
ferences in mathematic and scientific literacy, with Brazilian and Mexican
students scoring way below students in the remaining countries in those
tests.
52
OECD-PISA, The OECD Program for Student Assessment, Table 2.1a.