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While at the moment school children in Peru enjoy their summer holidays, the latest official survey in the area of education in Peru should make authorities and parents sit up and take notice. It confirms once more the bad reputation of Peru’s public education sector.
For the new school year starting in March more than 8 million children return to school in Peru; about 6 million of them attend public schools across the country. There are 82,354 public schools and 26,722 private schools in Peru where about half a million teachers educate our children.
While private education institutions are usually funded by school fees, public schooling in Peru is more or less free for the parents and financed by the state. In 2011 Peru only invested S/ 1,900 (about US$ 570) per student, in 2015 already S/ 4000 (US$ 1,200) and for 2016 this amount has further increased. Nevertheless, by far still not enough.
70% of Peru’s public schools are in extremely bad shape and need either renovations or have to be rebuilt completely. 2 out of 3 public schools don’t have basic infrastructure such as water, sewage or electricity; and we don’t even want to mention proper equipment or modern technology. And the sad thing is that even though regularly some prestige object makes the news, overall the numbers have stayed the same over the past few years.
But there is much more needed than millions of Soles to fix the educational infrastructure in Peru. The latest PISA study, an international student assessment comparison, once again ranked Peru on one of the bottom position demonstrating the overall low educational standard. Here urgently reforms are needed to ensure that Peruvian students can compete and be successful in today’s global economy.
So, parents, Peruvian and foreign, who can afford a private education for their children and want to pave the way for further studies abroad, choose private or even international schools in Peru for their kids.
