Inclusive social development: The next generation of policies for overcoming poverty and reducing inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean

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Inclusive social development: the next generation of policies for overcoming poverty... education available must also be of high quality and geared towards the development of life skills and competences and towards the new demands of globalized societies. In recent decades, Latin America and the Caribbean have made significant progress in expanding the coverage of education and improving access to it (ECLAC, 2010b, 2008 and 2014a). In particular, between 1990 and 2013, the percentage of young people between the ages of 15 and 19 who had concluded primary education rose from 60.5% to 94.4% (figure I.18). Significant progress was made between 2002 and 2013, when an increase of 27.7 percentage points in that indicator brought most of the region’s countries close to attaining universal coverage of obligatory primary schooling. Figure I.18 Latin America (18 countries): proportion of people aged 15 to 29 with complete primary, secondary and tertiary education, by age group, 1990, 2002 and 2013 (Percentages) 100 94.4 60.5 66.7 60.5 34.8 25.8 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 4.4 6.5 1990 2002 2013 10.6 Young people aged 15-19 with complete primary education Young people aged 25-29 with complete tertiary education Young people aged 20-24 with complete secondary education Source: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), on the basis of special tabulations of data from household surveys conducted in the countries, and ECLAC, Social Panorama of Latin America 2014 (LC/G.2635-P), Santiago, 2014. Regarding progress made towards universal primary education, the region has taken another notable step forward: a reduction in illiteracy rates among adults and young adults. One key aim of the education system is to ensure the literacy levels that people require for inclusion in the social, political and economic processes that affect them, so they can truly exercise their citizenship. 26 Literacy rates in the region (with the exception of Haiti) have increased notably over the past 20 years, from an average of 86% to an average of 90%, which compares positively to the other developing regions of the world (Martínez, Trucco and Palma, 2014). Leaving aside the progress made with primary education in the region, ECLAC has repeatedly said that the completion of secondary school is the minimum education threshold for avoiding poverty and achieving a higher standard of living. The completion of this level of education is crucial in the region, not only for students to acquire the basic skills required in a democratic and globalized world, but also for poor people to attain the levels of well-being needed to escape the intergenerational cycle of poverty. Similarly, in order to have a good chance of entering the labour market in a way that ensures a minimum level of well-being for their future, students must complete 12 years of formal schooling (or 11, depending on the country) (ECLAC, 2010b). The region has also made considerable progress in that regard. Between 1990 and 2013, the percentage of young people aged from 20 to 24 completing secondary education rose from 25.8% to 60.5%, as can be seen in the same figure. Swifter progress was made between 2002 and 2013, when an increase of 25.7 percentage points was recorded. However, those achievements are significantly lower than those attained in primary education, and the situation varies from one country to the next. At this stage of schooling, the education gap grows and socioeconomic inequalities by geographical area or ethnic or racial origin are heightened. At the same time, the share of young people completing tertiary education is still very low in the region: although the proportion of 26 The concept of illiteracy has evolved from exclusively being associated with the inability to read and write and, at the same time, so have the methods used to approach the phenomenon. In spite of the different types of illiteracy that are now recognized, however, “absolute” illiteracy remains a key starting point for preparing the maps and indices that illustrate the magnitude of the problem. Chapter I 49
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) those aged between 25 and 29 with a complete tertiary education has also doubled over the past two decades, only 10.6% of young people on average have completed this cycle (ECLAC, 2014a). Figure I.19 Latin America (18 countries): population aged 20-24 with complete upper secondary education, by extreme income quintiles, 2013 a (Percentages) 100 90 80 80 70 60 50 40 30 34 20 10 0 Nicaragua Guatemala Honduras Dominican Rep. Uruguay El Salvador Chapter I Mexico Bolivia (Plur. State of) Quintile I Paraguay Panama Argentina Venezuela (Bol. Rep. of) Quintile V Costa Rica Brazil Ecuador Colombia Chile Peru Latin America Source: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), on the basis of special tabulations of data from household surveys conducted in the countries. a Countries are ordered by the average percentage completion. The figure for Latin America is a simple average for 18 countries. The figure for Argentina refers to urban areas. But in some countries, even completing the upper secondary cycle is now insufficient to provide access to jobs that pay enough to lift people out of poverty. As Latin America and the Caribbean have moved closer to attaining universal primary coverage, the intergenerational transmission of inequalities has been displaced to secondary education and, increasingly, to higher education. While a number of countries are a long way from universalizing complete primary education, in others it is low education quality and the social inequalities that operate in this area, at both the primary and secondary levels, that have become the main stumbling blocks to progress towards greater effective equality (ECLAC, 2010b). Finally, additional progress has also been made in gender equality. Women, in general, have benefited the most from mass access to the education system, not only because their starting point was lower, but also because they have outperformed men in various ways. Over the past decade, school attendance rates at all educational levels have been higher among women than men in most of the region’s countries. This advantage can be partly explained because women enjoy a better progression through the different cycles of schooling: repeating years is a significant factor in dropout rates. This becomes more notable in the upper secondary cycle, which then translates into the feminization of post-secondary education seen in most of the region’s countries. However, the situation is not uniform and some countries have only recently embarked on the process of expanding education. Furthermore, the higher academic achievements of adolescent women are not reflected or recognized, during their youth and adulthood, in their school results or, primarily, in their incorporation into the world of work, because they suffer discrimination compared to their male peers (Rico and Trucco, 2014). Similarly, in spite of major improvements in recent decades in the coverage of different educational cycles and in ensuring access to them, the region has failed to transform the system education into a mechanism for reducing social inequalities. Education systems do not succeed in disassociating people’s social origins —or the other factors described above— from how their lives develop, and therefore family factors continue to determine differences in students’ academic results. Gaps still exist in terms of educational quality and achievement between different income levels and ethnic or racial groups, and these tend to perpetuate inequalities from one generation to the next, as well as among social groups and between urban and rural areas (ECLAC, 2006). Transforming the education system into a mechanism for reducing social inequalities poses major challenges. Notably, schools replicate socioeconomic stratification, which can be seen in several areas, including academic cycle completion rates. Thus, while an average of 80% of young people between the ages of 20 and 24 in the highest 50
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Inclusive social development: The next generation of policies for overcoming poverty and reducing inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean

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