The World Bank 2010 Human Opportunity Report for Latin America and the Caribbean puts the Andean region second only to Mexico in terms of achieving universal provision of basic education, which it measures on the basis of two criteria: timely completion of sixth grade (13 years old) and school attendance for ages 10-14. The World Bank expects Mexico to universalize basic education services by 2017 followed by the Andean countries in 2023 (although Bolivia was excluded from the analysis due to lack of representative data). Brazil and Central America are set to achieve this target by 2037 and the Southern Cone by 2048.
The Unesco report points to discrepancies within the sub-region with regard to progress in specific indicators. As regards basic adult literacy, only Venezuela and Colombia beat the 92% Latin American average in the period surveyed (2005-2008), with rates of 95% and 93% respectively. Bolivia - which received the most of any Latin American country in total aid disbursement for basic education (US$47m of US$303m) in 2008 - registered 91% literacy over the same period. This was an increase on the 80% recorded in the previous period cited by the report (1985-1995), eclipsing both Peru (90%) and Ecuador (84%) - the latter notably saw its rate worsen, from 88% in the previous period.
Aside from receiving the most foreign aid, Bolivia stood apart from its Andean neighbours with regard to another indicator considered crucial to progress in education: government expenditure on education as a percentage of Gross National Product (GNP). While the Latin American average for 2008 was 4% of GNP (down from 4.5% in 1999), Bolivia spent 5.8% of GNP according to the latest available data (2006). In line with the rest of Latin America, the other Andean countries failed to record any real improvement while Colombia and Peru registered drops - the former spent 4.1% of GNP on education in 2008 compared to 4.5% in 1999 and the latter, 2.9% in 2008 down from 3.4% in 1999.
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