“I don’t know if education can save us, but I don’t know of anything better”
‒ Jorge Luis Borges.
Listen to this note:
It seems that it is only when the results of the annual international evaluation tests are revealed - which constantly conclude the poor level of Peruvian education - that our concern for the problem of our education reappears. At the same time, the government, social leaders and authorities, due to the same circumstances, also begin to brandish some projects for change with certain populist and short-term reforms to amend or only mitigate, somewhat, the discomfort caused by the uncomfortable situation.
Going back and re-examining our history, we can see that the course of education in Peru has been contaminated for millennia by the stain of exclusion, a perverse bias based on discrimination based on race, ethnicity, social class or gender.
In pre-Hispanic times, education in the Inca and pre-Inca civilizations was not seen as an important element in the development of the people since it was almost exclusively directed towards the aristocratic sector of the population.
Education, therefore, was almost exclusively directed towards a military, religious or courtly elite. Later, during the times of the viceroyalty, a new culture was designed with a clear affinity with the new political-colonial organization that was being imposed, an education also in line with the elitist character, rejecting absolutely all development of indigenous knowledge and thus denying their intellectual capacity.
Later, during the first years of the republic, education continued to be directed, this time, towards the Creole elites, with inequality and lack of inclusion persisting. From then on, the same pattern continued for most of the republican era without a long-term national education program, without a coherent educational policy and all this accompanied by a weak democratic system and the absence of a real separation of powers that further exacerbated the already existing problems.
At this time, the government, through the legislative power, which has reached a historic record in popular disapproval, has reversed the advances in education that had been achieved in recent years. One of them was the “Teacher Reform Law” which brought a series of changes to raise the level of teachers, one of which was that teachers would have to undergo a series of tests and evaluations in order to continue teaching and which had the purpose of ensuring that all professionals in charge of educating minors were fit for the position.
At the same time, the University Reform is also being undermined by leaving behind the advances that had been achieved in higher education, cutting the powers of the National Superintendence of Education (Sunedu) and weakening its university accreditation system for the licensing of universities and opening the doors to the creation of universities without adequate infrastructure and with low educational quality.
All these setbacks are being directed, it has been proven, by a kind of congressional mafias, many of them directly linked to the owners of lower-class higher institutes and universities, as well as by teachers' unions - most of whom - have failed evaluation exams.
Part of the solution, I think, begins with us getting more involved and putting into practice direct action to finally achieve an increase in the participation of the organized population and legitimate institutions, committing ourselves to promoting a better level of education by exercising our freedom, living together and dialoguing in a democratic, equitable, egalitarian and inclusive society, which ensures environmental sustainability and respect for diversity.
More from the author: Peru, pending problem, introduction
