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Special Report - Education 2011 (ISSN 17414474)
The Brain Gain: Education in Latin America
Education is an issue that is surging up the political agenda across the region. In Chile and Colombia there are major debates over the role for-profit higher education institutions should play in the national education system. In Mexico, Elba Esther Gordillo, the leader of the teachers’ union, who effectively has run the country’s poor national education system for the past 20 years, is (finally) facing a challenge to her deleterious authority. Ambitious governments across the region now recognise that educational attainment is a crucial element in sustaining economic growth. No government in the region has anything to boast about over its education system. Cuba, which appears to score highest on UN figures, had all but abolished illiteracy before the 1959 Revolution. Since then education standards have done little more than stagnate, even though Cuba spends far more (13.8% of its annual GDP) on education than any other country in the region. The next highest spenders, according to figures from the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America (Eclac) are Costa Rica and countries from the English speaking Caribbean, which all devote over 6% of their GDP to education. Brazil and Mexico spend 5% and Chile 4%.
