How Public is Uruguay’s Public Education?
How Public is Uruguay’s Public Education?
by Adriana Marrero, University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay, and Member of ISA Research
Committees on Sociology of Education (RC04), Sociological Theory (RC16) and Women and Society
(RC32), and Leandro Pereira, University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay
There is a country, Uruguay, where between 80 and 90% of students of all ages attend public education.
Yes, public. Private education represents no more than about 15% – a rate that has varied little historically.
Public education is totally free, from preschool to university, including at the master’s and doctoral levels. In
addition to being free, university education is open-access, without exclusionary exams or quotas, so any
high-school graduate may enroll. Furthermore, despite Latin American religiosity, Uruguayan public
education has been secular since 1917 – and even in the nineteenth century, religious education was an
option parents could refuse. In addition, in Uruguay, women have surpassed men in educational
achievement since the beginning of the twentieth century; today, they have higher average levels of
education than men. Women also represent almost three quarters of university and tertiary enrollment and an
even higher percentage of graduates. This educational “paradise” was the first country in the world to adopt
the MIT program “One laptop per child,” through which every student and teacher in every school –
currently through secondary education – receives a laptop computer with Internet access from the state. In
honor of the national flower (the ceibo) the “CEIBAL Plan” enables even the poorest to take the laptops
home, where they can use them to learn, share, and play.
We might suppose that a system with these characteristics – public, free, and open, in a country with low
population growth (0.19% per year) and where only 22% of the population is under 15 years old, in an area
with a temperate climate and without geographical or cultural barriers – would be able to provide inclusive
education and equitable educational results. But it does not.
According to the 2012 PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) Report for Uruguay, “Uruguay
continues to show a very pronounced inequality in sociocultural development. While 89% of students who
attend educational institutions in ‘very unfavorable’ sociocultural contexts rank below Level 2, only 13% of
students in the ‘most favorable’ contexts fall below this rank. The gap between the two extremes is as wide
as 170 on the Mathematics exam, making Uruguay a country of high educational inequality. This result has
been a constant throughout the four cycles of PISA exams in which the country has participated.”
To put it simply, the most advantaged children, on average, score higher than the averages in Norway (489)
or the United States (481), while the poorest score much lower than those of Qatar (376), Indonesia (375) or
Peru (368). What’s more, of the students scoring the highest, 75% attend private schools.
If the results of the PISA exam are not convincing to the reader – indeed, there may be justified objections to
the international comparisons, even if there are fewer against the internal comparisons the instrument allows
– we can also draw on information generated internally within the country. In Uruguay, at higher levels of
education, the poorest students are progressively stripped away – primarily due to high rates of school
dropout and grade repetition. According to official data from the National Statistics Institute’s Household
Survey (2012), 95.3% of children aged 6-11 attend primary school, 73.8% of those aged 12-14 attend
secondary school, and only 51.4% of those aged 15-17 attend high school. Finally, only 23.7% of young
pàg. 2
people aged 18 to 24 attend university. Inequality between quintiles based on household income points in
the same direction: at age 3, in the highest quintile, nine of every ten children attend school, while in the
lowest quintile the rate is only one out of two. By age 22, 57% of young people in the highest quintile attend
university, compared to only 9% in the lowest.
So, what is wrong here? How is it possible that an educational system based on principles that sought to
ensure inclusion and equality could have such unequal and exclusive results?
We believe the problem can be located in the meaning of “public.” The education that Uruguay calls
“public” really has very little connection to the notion of “public” as it is understood in democratic and
pluralistic societies. All formal education, from preschool to university, is managed by two autonomous
entities: the National Administration of Public Education (ANEP) and the University of the Republic – both
of which are separated from the sphere of formal politics. Although there is a Ministry of Education
included in the Executive Branch, it has practically no say over educational affairs. Even though the
Constitution states that “Sovereignty resides in the Nation,” as expressed by ballots in obligatory elections
every five years, the will of the Uruguayan people regarding education policy cannot find expression, either
through the bicameral legislature or through the Executive Branch – where the Ministry of Education has its
hands tied.
Meanwhile, in the entities that govern education – which have immense autonomy enshrined by the
Constitution – corporate interests have taken over. The ANEP, which is responsible for mandatory education
and teacher training, is ruled by mechanisms that together contribute to lowering the quality of teaching and
lock the system into a self-referential and complacent bubble. On the one hand, teacher training still follows
the model of the traditional school, without being informed by research. On the other hand, promotions are
made on the basis of simple seniority without any evaluations of teacher development or competitiveness.
The hiring of new teachers remains closed by the very people who run ANEP which expressly exclude
teacher credentialing by universities. As if this were not enough, teachers are almost impossible to fire.
In secondary education – the true bottleneck of the educational system – more than a third of classes are
missed due to teacher absences, and as many as 40% of students end up repeating grades. Primary education,
where there is less teacher absenteeism, has high rates of grade repetition as well. In 2013, the struggle for
higher salaries – which have grown steeply since the Leftist government took office in 2005, to the point
that the starting salary for a teacher today is more than double that of a university professor – has left the
poorest children without classes for more than a month in total. This does not include other strikes that
opposed attempts at reform, proposed by successive governments in the post-dictatorship period, including
those of the left. Private schools, which are less lenient about teacher absences even though they pay lower
salaries than the public schools, have not suffered from this type of corporate onslaught. From this
perspective, there is little “public” about Uruguayan education.
Aware of the Uruguayan attachment to the public as a sphere that mediates between society and state power
and of the strong importance of public education in shaping the Uruguayan identity – and also of citizens’
distrust of market mechanisms, teachers’ unions have contributed to what we can call a “refeudalization.”
With cries of war, brandishing the banner of “public education,” they have claimed the right to sustain,
without compromise, their corporate interests – expressed in privileges and perks that foster irresponsibility
in the face of educational inequality and violate the right to education of the children who need it most.
Claiming for themselves the right to make decisions about education without a single concession, the unions
deny other citizens the right to critique, debate, and to make proposals. Thus, Uruguay may tout its public
education, but it is not quite as public as it sounds.
Marrero Adriana , Pereira Leandro Uruguay , Volume 4, Issue 1
http://isa-global-dialogue.net/
pàg. 2
ESTUDIANTES:
BEITTONE, Melissa / RODRIGUEZ, Grisell.
by Adriana Marrero, University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay, and Member of ISA Research
Committees on Sociology of Education (RC04), Sociological Theory (RC16) and Women and Society
(RC32), and Leandro Pereira, University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay
There is a country, Uruguay, where between 80 and 90% of students of all ages attend public education.
Yes, public. Private education represents no more than about 15% – a rate that has varied little historically.
Public education is totally free, from preschool to university, including at the master’s and doctoral levels. In
addition to being free, university education is open-access, without exclusionary exams or quotas, so any
high-school graduate may enroll. Furthermore, despite Latin American religiosity, Uruguayan public
education has been secular since 1917 – and even in the nineteenth century, religious education was an
option parents could refuse. In addition, in Uruguay, women have surpassed men in educational
achievement since the beginning of the twentieth century; today, they have higher average levels of
education than men. Women also represent almost three quarters of university and tertiary enrollment and an
even higher percentage of graduates. This educational “paradise” was the first country in the world to adopt
the MIT program “One laptop per child,” through which every student and teacher in every school –
currently through secondary education – receives a laptop computer with Internet access from the state. In
honor of the national flower (the ceibo) the “CEIBAL Plan” enables even the poorest to take the laptops
home, where they can use them to learn, share, and play.
We might suppose that a system with these characteristics – public, free, and open, in a country with low
population growth (0.19% per year) and where only 22% of the population is under 15 years old, in an area
with a temperate climate and without geographical or cultural barriers – would be able to provide inclusive
education and equitable educational results. But it does not.
According to the 2012 PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) Report for Uruguay, “Uruguay
continues to show a very pronounced inequality in sociocultural development. While 89% of students who
attend educational institutions in ‘very unfavorable’ sociocultural contexts rank below Level 2, only 13% of
students in the ‘most favorable’ contexts fall below this rank. The gap between the two extremes is as wide
as 170 on the Mathematics exam, making Uruguay a country of high educational inequality. This result has
been a constant throughout the four cycles of PISA exams in which the country has participated.”
To put it simply, the most advantaged children, on average, score higher than the averages in Norway (489)
or the United States (481), while the poorest score much lower than those of Qatar (376), Indonesia (375) or
Peru (368). What’s more, of the students scoring the highest, 75% attend private schools.
If the results of the PISA exam are not convincing to the reader – indeed, there may be justified objections to
the international comparisons, even if there are fewer against the internal comparisons the instrument allows
– we can also draw on information generated internally within the country. In Uruguay, at higher levels of
education, the poorest students are progressively stripped away – primarily due to high rates of school
dropout and grade repetition. According to official data from the National Statistics Institute’s Household
Survey (2012), 95.3% of children aged 6-11 attend primary school, 73.8% of those aged 12-14 attend
secondary school, and only 51.4% of those aged 15-17 attend high school. Finally, only 23.7% of young
pàg. 2
people aged 18 to 24 attend university. Inequality between quintiles based on household income points in
the same direction: at age 3, in the highest quintile, nine of every ten children attend school, while in the
lowest quintile the rate is only one out of two. By age 22, 57% of young people in the highest quintile attend
university, compared to only 9% in the lowest.
So, what is wrong here? How is it possible that an educational system based on principles that sought to
ensure inclusion and equality could have such unequal and exclusive results?
We believe the problem can be located in the meaning of “public.” The education that Uruguay calls
“public” really has very little connection to the notion of “public” as it is understood in democratic and
pluralistic societies. All formal education, from preschool to university, is managed by two autonomous
entities: the National Administration of Public Education (ANEP) and the University of the Republic – both
of which are separated from the sphere of formal politics. Although there is a Ministry of Education
included in the Executive Branch, it has practically no say over educational affairs. Even though the
Constitution states that “Sovereignty resides in the Nation,” as expressed by ballots in obligatory elections
every five years, the will of the Uruguayan people regarding education policy cannot find expression, either
through the bicameral legislature or through the Executive Branch – where the Ministry of Education has its
hands tied.
Meanwhile, in the entities that govern education – which have immense autonomy enshrined by the
Constitution – corporate interests have taken over. The ANEP, which is responsible for mandatory education
and teacher training, is ruled by mechanisms that together contribute to lowering the quality of teaching and
lock the system into a self-referential and complacent bubble. On the one hand, teacher training still follows
the model of the traditional school, without being informed by research. On the other hand, promotions are
made on the basis of simple seniority without any evaluations of teacher development or competitiveness.
The hiring of new teachers remains closed by the very people who run ANEP which expressly exclude
teacher credentialing by universities. As if this were not enough, teachers are almost impossible to fire.
In secondary education – the true bottleneck of the educational system – more than a third of classes are
missed due to teacher absences, and as many as 40% of students end up repeating grades. Primary education,
where there is less teacher absenteeism, has high rates of grade repetition as well. In 2013, the struggle for
higher salaries – which have grown steeply since the Leftist government took office in 2005, to the point
that the starting salary for a teacher today is more than double that of a university professor – has left the
poorest children without classes for more than a month in total. This does not include other strikes that
opposed attempts at reform, proposed by successive governments in the post-dictatorship period, including
those of the left. Private schools, which are less lenient about teacher absences even though they pay lower
salaries than the public schools, have not suffered from this type of corporate onslaught. From this
perspective, there is little “public” about Uruguayan education.
Aware of the Uruguayan attachment to the public as a sphere that mediates between society and state power
and of the strong importance of public education in shaping the Uruguayan identity – and also of citizens’
distrust of market mechanisms, teachers’ unions have contributed to what we can call a “refeudalization.”
With cries of war, brandishing the banner of “public education,” they have claimed the right to sustain,
without compromise, their corporate interests – expressed in privileges and perks that foster irresponsibility
in the face of educational inequality and violate the right to education of the children who need it most.
Claiming for themselves the right to make decisions about education without a single concession, the unions
deny other citizens the right to critique, debate, and to make proposals. Thus, Uruguay may tout its public
education, but it is not quite as public as it sounds.
Marrero Adriana , Pereira Leandro Uruguay , Volume 4, Issue 1
http://isa-global-dialogue.net/
pàg. 2
ESTUDIANTES:
BEITTONE, Melissa / RODRIGUEZ, Grisell.
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