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Uruguay Education under the Colorados, 1985-88
Shortly after entering office in March 1985,
Sanguinetti
passed a decree aimed at restoring greater autonomy to the
education system. Conae was replaced by the National
Administration of Public Education, which oversaw three
decentralized councils--one for primary, one for
secondary, and
one for technical education. Full autonomy was restored to
the
University of the Republic. Whereas total spending on
education
represented 7.4 percent of the national budget in 1984, by
1987
this had risen to 10.9 percent, equivalent to US$175
million.
From 1985 to 1988, the government agreed to rehire all
teachers and professors who had lost their jobs during the
political purges after 1973 (3,241 accepted the offer of
returning to their old jobs, but 1,520 took retirement
instead).
In many cases, the rehiring of former teachers led to
unnecessary
numbers of staff, as the government undertook not to fire
any of
the replacement teachers that had been taken on under the
military, although in some cases they lacked
qualifications.
Clashes between the education authorities and the
government
were common after 1985, given the existence of a
relatively
conservative government and far more liberal teachers.
Nevertheless, an element of balance between centralized
control
and decentralized initiative was successfully restored.
Relations
between the government and the University of the Republic
were
surprisingly smooth, and the latter's share of the
national
budget grew from 2.5 percent in 1984 to 4.3 percent (US$59
million) in 1988.
During the period of military rule, another phenomenon
began
to emerge--the establishment of private research
institutes.
These relied entirely on funds from foreign development
foundations, such as the Inter-American Foundation (a
United
States agency), the International Development Agency (a
Canadian
agency), and various West European equivalents
(see Political Forces and Interest Groups
, ch. 4). The new institutes
were
comparatively small, usually only hiring a dozen or so
full-time
staff, but they constituted an important haven for
academics who
had lost their jobs for political reasons. Without these
private
centers, even more academics would have been forced into
exile.
Among the new private research centers was the Latin
American
Center of Human Economy (Centro Latinoamericano de
Economía
Humana--CLAEH). By far the largest of the centers, the
CLAEH was
closely linked to the Christian Democrats. Apart from
carrying
out a broad range of sociological and economic research,
it also
conducted courses for university-level students and
published
what was for a time Uruguay's only social science journal.
Somewhat more to the left was the Economic Research Center
(Centro de Investigaciones Económicas--CINVE), which
specialized
in research on the economy, particularly that of the rural
sector
and the impact of the economic liberalization pursued
under the
military. Two other institutes with a more sociological
agenda of
research were the Center of Information and Studies of
Uruguay
(Centro de Informaciones y Estudios del Uruguay--CIESU)
and the
Interdisciplinary Center of Development Studies, Uruguay
(Centro
Interdisciplinario de Estudios del Desarrollo,
Uruguay--CIEDUR).
With the return to democracy in 1985, many of these
centers
found it hard to continue to win foreign grants to
undertake
their research, and most of their personnel attempted to
return
to their former jobs in higher education. Where possible,
however, the teachers tried to retain both positions.
Data as of December 1990
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