Paraguay EDUCATION
A vocational arts secondary school in Limpio, Central
Department
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank
Education in the colonial era was largely limited to the upper
class. The wealthy either hired tutors or sent their children
abroad. Although there were a few private schools in operation
following the declaration of independence in 1811, they languished
throughout most of the nineteenth century. The only secondary
school closed in 1822. By the end of the War of the Triple
Alliance, perhaps as little as 14 percent of the populace was
literate.
Starting with the inauguration of the public secondary school
system in 1877, public education grew steadily in the decades
following the war. In 1889 the National University of Asunción was
founded, and in 1896 the first teacher-training school began
operation. By the eve of the Chaco War, there were several
teachers' colleges, a number of secondary schools, and a few
technical schools. The decades following the Chaco War were marked
by widespread expansion of the educational system. Between the end
of that war and the beginning of World War II, enrollments nearly
doubled. They continued to expand in subsequent decades.
Enrollments grew even faster at universities and secondary schools
than at the elementary level.
Paraguay had two universities: the National University and the
Catholic University. Both had branches in several interior cities.
In the mid-1980s, about 20,000 students were enrolled in the
National University and some 8,000 in the Catholic University. The
number of applicants for university admission grew because of the
growing numbers of students completing secondary school. In the
mid-1970s, both universities began offering a variety of short-term
degree programs in an effort to meet the increased demand for
admission. The programs were designed to reduce pressure on
traditional professional courses of study such as engineering, law,
and medicine.
Formal education was under the direction of the Ministry of
Education and Worship. The six-year cycle of primary school was
free and compulsory for children from ages seven to fourteen.
Secondary education consisted of two three-year programs, each
leading to a baccalaureate degree. The diversified program
emphasized training in the humanities and was preparatory to study
at a university or teacher- training institute. The technical
program was designed for students entering any of a number of
postsecondary schools offering training in commerce, industry, or
agriculture.
Schools were financed by the government and a variety of user
sources. The Ministry of Education and Worship's budget represented
slightly less than 15 percent of the government budget in the early
1980s. Virtually all of the costs of rural primary schools and
nearly 90 percent of the costs of urban primary schools were
covered by government funds. Public secondary schools received from
half to three-quarters of their budget for current expenditures
from the national government.
There was a perennial shortage of adequately trained teachers;
this was especially true of rural teachers, who were often
uncertified. Primary school teachers were required to complete a
two-year postsecondary school training program. Secondary teachers
were supposed to have an additional two years of specialized
training. Curricula changes demanded extensive upgrading of
teachers' skills. There were retraining programs available through
the Higher Institute of Education and several regional centers.
Reforms in the 1980s attempted to make the educational system
more responsive to the needs of the population. Rural Paraguayans
had long faced a lack of educational facilities, materials, and
teachers. The reforms attempted to meet some of these needs through
multigrade programs designed to achieve a more efficient allocation
of scarce resources. By the early 1980s, there were about 2,000
multigrade programs reaching more than 55,000 students.
Student enrollments increased at all levels during the 1970s and
early 1980s. Overall enrollment grew nearly 6 percent per year in
the late 1970s. The number of students enrolled in the basic cycle
of secondary school grew from 49,000 in 1975 to 76,000 in 1980. The
number of students attending primary school increased by roughly
one-quarter during this period; rural school children, who
historically had had very limited access to education, represented
most of the increase. The number of rural children attending
primary school increased by more than one-third between 1972 and
1981.
Despite the growth of school enrollments, the proportion of
school-age children enrolled in classes actually remained constant
or declined between 1965 and 1985. Only in higher education did
enrollments grow faster than the school-age population (see
table 4, Appendix).
In the mid-1980s, the official literacy rate was above 80
percent. More males than females were able to read and write,
although literacy was increasing faster among females. About 90
percent of city dwellers could read; rural Paraguayans lagged
behind their urban counterparts by about 10 percent.
Critics charged that the official literacy figures greatly
overestimated the numbers who could actually read and write. They
argued that the government counted as literate anyone who attended
primary school--a dubious assumption given the large number of
monolingual Guaraní speakers who entered but failed to complete
elementary school. Such speakers represented an estimated 90
percent of the children entering rural primary schools. Many men
who entered the armed forces as conscripts first learned to read
during their military service.
In the early 1970s, less than 5 percent of those entering rural
elementary schools finished this course of study, as compared to 30
percent of urban youngsters. Only 1 percent of rural children
finished secondary school; the figure for city children was 10
percent. Rural schools also were plagued with high rates of student
absenteeism and grade repetition. A 1980 survey showed a
substantial improvement in the percentage of children completing
the elementary school cycle. The figure for who completed their
course of privacy school studies had risen to 38 percent. Although
the completion rate for rural students climbed to 25 percent, this
figure was substantially below that for urban youngsters.
In the late 1970s, the Ministry of Education and Worship
attempted to deal with the crisis in rural education by developing
a bilingual program for monolingual Guaraní. The program was
designed to develop basic oral skills in Guaraní and oral and
written skills in Spanish. Guaraní literature also was available at
the secondary and university levels.
Data as of December 1988
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