Integral Education: Strategic Challenges & Road-Map ahead (III). Education-the current context (Part B).
“One sample doesn´t fit everyone, but if we want to understand the education context at developing nations, let´s use one sample: El Salvador”.
The education context in the emerging markets is beyond a World Bank, United Nations system or UNESCO report. Why? Because each country has its own particularities. It is very difficult to give you a paintbrush about this specific context applying it to all countries realities.
On our last post, we were introducing the Education Current Context, by sharing questions in relation to how to start drafting it. We listed several questions… as a prelude to making us think about this theme. But we don´t have all the time to prepare for all emerging markets (medium-income or low-income markets) we wish to scrutinize. Furthermore, to give you all the “clean” not “fake” information and formulation of truth about the topic, it will take me a mandate of at least a year to realize it. Probably the World Bank Education division would like to hire me for this consulting mandate, if you know about a consulting opportunity, please tell me as soon as possible to apply for it. In addition, emerging markets are a group of many countries. Please see the graph below:
My annotations about this first sub-topic are going to be an approximation to reality, and we will try to give you some kind of feeling of what is going on, by using an indicative nation, a point of reference, using a low-income developing country as mine. Consider it as an indication only.
In December 2017, we shared the current status of the world in relation to the different generations who live in the world. Please read the following link:
We all Live in a yellow submarine-generational clash
Each advanced economy, emerging country or developing nation (low-income or medium-income) in the world has a demographic segmentation of the population, which belongs to Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Baby Boomers, and Silent or Greatest Generation. In the USA, we have the following graph:
As you can see above, in the USA, by the year 2014, around 22% of the American population was born after the year 2000. If we extrapolate this data to the year 2018, this percentage has grown to approximately 29%. Close to one-third of the American Inhabitants belongs to Generation Z.
In El Salvador, my local context, Generation Z represents 35% of the population and has between 0 to 18 years (this country has a higher birth rate in comparison to the USA). According to Jimmy Vasquez from UNICEF and the Salvadoran Advisory Council for Childhood, at this moment of time, 70% of the total Salvadoran population has dropped secondary school at some point before finishing it. Likewise, only 5.6% of the population have had the opportunity to enroll at a University. And maybe between 1 to 2% finish to study their undergraduate degree. El Salvador total population is 6.3 Million of inhabitants, and the current productive force is 2.9 Million. 70% of the current Salvadoran Generation Z is not going to finish high-school, and those who will, are not receiving good quality of education, not even updated, neither at the Industry 4.0 standards required. Do you understand why I recommend to slow down the entrance to Industry 4.0? We need to educate people about the basics. El Salvador is an indication of many developing and emerging markets economies.
Source: “Invertir en nuestros niños: el norte común. Una propuesta de políticas transformadoras centrada en la infancia”. UNICEF, sept 2018.
With so poor levels of education, the big issue doesn´t stop with statistics. The school standards and the quality of education are affected by gangs structural violence, lack of excellent standards in quality professors and extreme poverty. The education provided at the public level, particularly, is not giving the expected results. The Average of the PAES test at our national level is 5.3/10.0 (PAES is the equivalent SAT test of the Americans).
The same study has put into words: “Salvadoran public schools are not safe environments for children. Of the 1,500 centers that register school violence, 60% report cases of psychological violence, 38.7% of physical abuse and 23.1% of bullying. 47% of centers national level receive children who perform some work to help their parents”.
And if we continue digging in the education context of El Salvador, let´s pick only early childhood for the time being: the public investments to develop children brains represents only 0.03% of our GDP, and you can see it in the following graph below:
Today the investments related to the early care of girls and boys between 0 and 3 years old, is of around 0.03% of GDP (2017). Source: “Invertir en nuestros niños: el norte común. Una propuesta de políticas transformadoras centrada en la infancia”. UNICEF, sept 2018.
According to a study conducted by the IDB and UNICEF (2018), non-action in the first six years of life leads to an estimated loss of 6% of the Annual GDP. By not investing in childhood between 0 and 6 years, the chances of a poor school life and, later, of a precarious labor insertion is going to be an issue. Today the investments related to the early care of girls and boys between 0 and 3 years old, is of around 0.03% of GDP (2017). We can infer, that El Salvador has not been taking care of the early education of its kids. It is sad, isn´t it?
To be continued…. Stay tuned!
Source references utilized for this article:
https://www.unicef.org/elsalvador/invertir-en-nuestros-ninos-el-norte-comun-el-salvador-UNICEF.pdf
Disclaimer: All the presentation slides shown on this blog are prepared by Eleonora Escalante MBA-MEng. Nevertheless, all the pictures or videos shown on this blog are not mine. I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated
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