The Plurinational State of Bolivia has recently experienced several positive and negative developments. The KOF Swiss Economic Institute highlighted in 2019[i] that Bolivia kept an average rate of 4.9% growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), primarily due to its export of natural resources such as gold, zinc, silver, copper, and natural gas reserves. However, with a GDP of $3,117 per capita – significantly lower than its neighbours – Bolivia remains the poorest state in South America. The World Bank’s GINI coefficient index highlighted the high rate of income inequality: Bolivia scored 44.6 out of 100 in 2016 in income equality.
These developmental ups and downs are noticeable in several spheres, including the educational one. As Andersen et al. (2020)[ii] note, Bolivian education lacks statistical data because, in the last twenty years, the country has not participated in the major educational assessments usually conducted by international organisations like the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) or the IEA’s Trends in International Mathematics & Science Study (TIMSS). This largely leaves researchers and policymakers clueless about what the main educational challenges are and which solutions can improve access to quality education for Bolivia to achieve timeously the fourth Sustainable Development Goal: to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’.[iii] To get a more accurate picture of the state of education in Bolivia and the likelihood of those graduating from suitable and higher levels of education meeting labour market demands, information must be gathered from various yet credible sources.
Historical barriers to education
The Borgen Project, which aims to reduce global poverty through U.S. foreign policy, noted in 2015[iv] that approximately one in seven students in Bolivia do not finish their education. This leads to a majority of them not commencing secondary education. Albeit reducing the overall rate of illiteracy from 36.21% in 1976 to 7.54% by 2015[v], over a million Bolivians aged 15 and above remain illiterate. There are four reasons suggested for these issues: [vi]
- Although the majority of students come from indigenous backgrounds and speak Quechua or Aymara at home, classes are normally taught in Spanish;
- There remains a wide gap between rural and urban dwellers. Students in rural areas only complete an average 4.2 years of education before dropping out to support their families financially. In contrast, students in urban areas complete an average of 9.4 years of schooling;
- Education remains outside the purview of the state, which results in a lack of resources to create an environment conducive to students pursuing a good quality education; and
- In conjunction with the previous point, teachers continue to receive low wages and often go on strike, leaving students without access to education for days or weeks.
Some of the above issues stem from the historical development of education in Bolivia. Redin (2020)[vii] explains that, following the end of the military dictatorship, the neoliberal reforms between 1980 and 1990 increased support for ethnic diversity but reduced the state’s interference and social spending. This greatly impacted enrolment into public schools. The state was unsuccessful in its attempts to boost such enrolment by lifting rural families out of poverty and encouraging them to send their children to school. This failure inspired indigenous movements, such as the Native Peoples’ Educational Councils (CEPOS), as well as parents, to create their foundations to take matters into their own hands by empowering schools and teachers to deliver better quality education, considering and duly incorporating indigenous culture and language. Education thus developed into a privatised institution managed by society rather than by the state due to a ‘maldistribution process’ where civil political rights were being strengthened in exchange for reduced efforts towards social rights.[viii]
Access to education and accessibility
Another feature of Bolivia’s education system, noted by the qualitative study of Muyor-Rodriguez et al, (2021),[ix] is that public universities have failed to meet the educational needs of students with disabilities. Despite public universities’ commitments to provide access to education for all students under equal conditions, the participants of group discussions argued that there is a lack of equal value in the education received by students with disabilities in favour of ethnic or sexual diversity, which has excluded or stereotyped some disabilities.[x] Although Resolution No. 9/09 of 2009 exempted students with disabilities from taking admission tests to enter public universities, the degree of autonomy resulting from the co-governance-like system that exists between teachers and students, meant that some universities did not implement the policy.[xi] Participants also discussed the discrimination they experienced by professors who did not distinguish between the educational requirements for students with disabilities and those students without disabilities, and the prejudice resulting from a lack of resources for university personnel to meet their needs. The cumulative effect is the ineffective long-term management of the impact that campaigns from inclusivity bring.[xii]
Education since Evo Morales
With the election of Evo Morales as President in 2005, new efforts in the field of education aimed to decolonise the Bolivian curriculum from a ‘science-centred blanco-mestizo project’ of nationhood and instead shift towards an ‘equal space to science and ancestral knowledge’.[xiii] The government sought to establish an equilibrium that remains focused on developing scientific skills whilst continuing the intra-culturality of 1994 that retains the indigenous culture(s), history, and knowledge of Bolivian society. These changes have left teachers burdened with having to find creative methods to balance providing an education that will give learners the skills necessary to move to higher levels of education and giving them the required skillset to be absorbed by the labour market.[xiv]
Education does not meet labour market demands
Andersen et al. (2020) noted the mismatch between education and the labour skills demanded by the labour market, which resulted in many graduates failing to reap the rewards of their education between 2007 and 2017.[xv] Their analysis points out that those particularly affected by the systemic educational flaws are non-indigenous urban males, who remained without suitable income distribution throughout the first 15 years of education. KOF’s factbook establishes that large portions of Bolivia’s employed population operate in the primary sectors of agriculture, hunting, forestry, and fishing, as well as the secondary sectors of manufacturing, construction, mining, and industrial activities, standing at 27.4% and 22.6% respectively.[xvi] This is the consequence of what is referred to as the ‘Commodity Super Cycle’, which increased the demand for Bolivia’s primary export commodities, mentioned above, resulting in young men dropping out of school to take advantage of profits in these industries. Furthermore, it triggered what is known as ‘Dutch Disease’ in the construction sector.[xvii] This has created a vicious cycle of high commodity prices, leading to more land development that, in turn, requires more labour workers, who rely on on-the-job training rather than the attainment of particular levels of education. Thus, a labour market requiring equipped workers is created, preferring hands-on experience as opposed to theoretical knowledge.[xviii] A major concern of this mismatch is the increased rate of brain drain in Bolivia. By 2015, 799 605 Bolivians (roughly 7.5% of the national population), had emigrated, either to pursue higher levels of education or to reap the benefits of the education they have already received. As a result, Bolivia loses the benefits of the knowledge and skills attained by its students.[xix]
The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic serves as a force multiplier on these existing issues. As reported in the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) 2020 Country Report,[xx] a total of 2.9 million children have been left without access to education and the nutrition support systems that their schools provide. The pandemic has also highlighted the digital divide between urban and rural populations since having a stable internet connection is vital to access virtual educational services.
The future of education in Bolivia
The Bolivian government has made efforts to improve the state of education, as exemplified by the following:[xxi]
- It closed the enrolment between primary and secondary education based on income, gender, or ethnicity by 2017;
- It tripled the availability of teachers between 2000 and 2017. Now there is a fully qualified teacher for every 24 schoolchildren;
- 39% of all Bolivians were invested in some form of formal education by 2017; and
- UNESCO’s education indicator database explains that the government has invested an average of 7% of its GDP into education. This shows the government’s commitment to ensuring access to a free and public education of prime quality that accounts for diversity and provides equal opportunities and benefits without discrimination.
Bolivian students are preparing for changes in the external factors that govern the commodity cycle in Bolivia. As Andersen et al. stated, ‘it certainly seems better to err on the side of too much education rather than too little’.[xxii]
The Bolivian government must harmonise its resources with the private sector and other domestic stakeholders to improve the quality of education received and the returns necessary from the labour market that promotes an educational system that adds value and, in turn, creates value for the state and Bolivians at large. This positive cycle of development would also aid Bolivia in meeting its other SDG targets, including ending all forms of poverty, creating decent work opportunities, promoting economic growth that is sustainable and inclusive, and reducing levels of inequality alongside other states.[xxiii]
Written by Karl Baldacchino
Edited by Farai Chikwanha and Olga Ruiz Pilato
Endnotes
[i] KOF Swiss Economic Institute (2019) ‘KOF Education System Factbook: Bolivia’. KOF Education System Factbooks: Zurich, 1st Ed., pp. 3-5.
[ii] Andersen, L. E. et al. (2020) ‘Occasional Paper Series No. 63 – A Country at Risk of Being Left Behind: Bolivia’s Quest for Quality Education’. Southern Voices, p. 11.
[iii] United Nations Department of Economic & Social Affairs. ‘Goal 4’. Available online from: https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal4 [Accessed on 28/02/2022].
[iv] Binns, M. (2015) ‘Top 4 Reasons Education in Bolivia Lags’. The Borgen Project. Available online from: https://borgenproject.org/top-4-reasons-education-in-boliva-lags/ [Accessed on 28/02/2022].
[v] Muyor-Rodriguez, J. et al. (2021) ‘Inclusive University Education in Bolivia: The Actors and Their Discourses’. Sustainability, Vol. 13. Available online from: https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910818 [Accessed on 28/02/2022], p. 2.
[vi] ‘Top 4 Reasons Education in Bolivia Lags’.
[vii] Redin, M. C. B. (2020) ‘Dilemmas of Justice in the Post-Neoliberal Educational Policies of Ecuador and Bolivia’. Policy Futures in Education, Vol. 18(1), pp. 53-56.
[viii] Ibid., p.58.
[ix] ‘Inclusive University Education in Bolivia’, p. 3.
[x] Ibid., pp. 8-10.
[xi] Ibid., pp. 4 & 9-10 & 12.
[xii] Ibid., pp. 13-14.
[xiii] Ibid., pp. 58-59.
[xiv] Ibid., p. 61.
[xv] ‘A Country at Risk of Being Left Behind’, pp. 15-16.
[xvi] ‘KOF Factbooks’, p. 4.
[xvii] ‘A Country at Risk of Being Left Behind’, pp. 19-20.
[xviii] Ibid., p. 27.
[xix] Ibid., p. 21.
[xx] United Nations Children’s Fund (2020) ‘Country Office Annual Report 2020 – Bolivia, Plurinational State of’, p. 1.
[xxi] ‘A Country at Risk of Being Left Behind’, pp. 27-29.
[xxii] Ibid., p. 29.
[xxiii] Ibid., pp. 22-26.
Cover image taken from https://www.magisamericas.org/educating-for-transformation-through-community-partnership/
