Education in Latin America

In Mexico, access to education has increased with 87% of the population today completing their primary schooling compared to 46.6% in 1980. The countries of the region show wide differences in their averages and gaps in completion rates, especially at the secondary level. While on average 55% of youth in the region complete the first cycle of secondary education, in countries such as Guatemala and Nicaragua this estimation falls to 30%. In Chile, it approaches 80%. Desertion is also a challenge for Latin America. According to Inter-American Development Bank studies, 20% of students enter primary school with one or more lagging years. During this cycle, about 10% repeat 1st and 2nd grade, and 8% repeat grades 3 and 4. Only 40% of children enter secondary school at the expected age. At the secondary level, approximately 10% of youth in each grade level repeat their grade. On average, a child who attends 7.2 years of school completes only 6 years of education (primary), while a person attending 12 years of school only completes 9 years of education (high school). A study published by the Inter-American Development Bank also revealed that school dropout rates in Latin America can be significantly reduced by improving the quality of school's infrastructure, such as access to clean water and electricity. The study shows that, in Brazil, a universalization program focused on providing electricity to rural and indigenous schools (Light for All), reduced 27% the dropout rates of schools treated by the program when compared to schools without electricity. School-based feeding programs are widely used in Latin America to improve access to education, and at least 23 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean region have some large-scale school feeding activity. Altogether, 55% of school-age children (and 88% of primary school-age children) in the region benefit from school meal programs. This is the highest rate of school feeding coverage seen in any region of the world. In El Salvador, a reform known as the EDUCO (Educación y Cooperación Para el Desarrollo) system has been implemented by the El Salvadorian government with the support of the World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. This system was put in place to improve retention rates and student outcomes. EDUCO is a form of community-managed schools, in which the community is in charge of school administration, including the hiring and firing of teachers and decisions such as how long the students go to school for and for how many days. A study conducted from 1996 to 1998 found that students in EDUCO schools were 5% more likely to continue their education than those in traditional schools and that weekly visits by the community and parent organizations that run the schools increased probability of school retention by 19%. ==Education inputs==

The 2007 Teacher Evaluation Census in Peru and Chilean Teacher Evaluation System (DocenteMás), indicated that teacher quality in the region is very low. Other education inputs and services are equally inadequate. School infrastructure and access to basic services such as water, electricity, telecommunications and sewage systems are very poor in many Latin American schools. Approximately 40% of elementary schools lack libraries, 88% lack science labs, 63% lack a meeting space for teachers, 65% lack computer rooms, and 35% lack a gymnasium. On the other hand, 21% of schools have no access to potable water, 40% lack a drainage system, 53% lack phone lines, 32% have an inadequate number of bathrooms, and 11% have no access to electricity. The conditions of schools that hold students from the poorest quintile are highly unsuitable: approximately 50% have electricity and water, 19% have a drainage system and 4% have access to a telephone line; almost none have science labs, gymnasiums, computer rooms, and only 42% have libraries. Additionally, students who migrate to cities from rural areas generally live cheaply on the periphery of urban centers where they have little to no access to public services. Few schools can count on education inputs like textbooks and educational technologies. Second Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (SERCE) data indicate that, on average, 3rd and 6th grade students have access to only three books per student in the school library. Students from lower socioeconomic status have access to an average of one book per student, while students from higher socioeconomic status have access to eight books per student. A school's location is a high determinant of the number of books that a student will have, benefitting urban schools over rural schools. With regards to educational technologies, while there has been an increase in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) access for Latin American children and adolescents in the last decade, along with a widespread interest in One-to-One (1–1) computing models in the past 4 years, its access and use is still too limited to produce sufficient changes in the educational practices of teachers and students. Students in the region are reaching a rate of 100 students per computer, indicating that each student has access to a few minutes of computer time a week. The majority of Latin American countries have a shorter school year than Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries: while the school year in Japan lasts 240 days, it lasts 180 days in Argentina and only 125 days in Honduras. Furthermore, the average instruction time in the region is also short: two thirds of students in the region have less than 20 hours of instruction time per week (on average only 10% of Latin American students at the primary level attend school full-time). Student and teacher absence rates in the region are also high. ==Learning==

The results of the Second Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (SERCE) indicate that almost two-thirds of Latin American students do not achieve satisfactory reading and math scores. There is a significant learning gap between students from different socio-economic backgrounds, those who live in rural areas and those who belong to indigenous and Afro-descendant groups. Research shows that a 3rd-grade student from the poorest fifth of students has a 12% chance of achieving a satisfactory reading score, while a student from the wealthiest fifth has a 56% chance of doing so. In mathematics, the probability differs between 10% and 48%. From 2000 to 2012 the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tracked test scores on international math tests among 15 years, and revealed that several Latin American countries had mixed or declining trends over time, with Brazil and Chile being the only positive trending countries. Data from surveys conducted to employers in Argentina, Brazil and Chile developed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) show that a significant proportion of employers face difficulties in finding workers with relevant skills for good job performance, especially behavioral skills. ==PISA==

The 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results reveal that countries in the region have a low performance and high inequality level compared with other countries. 48% of Latin American students have difficulty performing rudimentary reading tasks and do not have the essential skills needed to participate effectively and productively in society (not achieving level 2), as measured by the 2009 PISA Assessment, compared with only 18% of students in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. This percentage is even more pronounced for low-income students in the region, where 62% do not demonstrate these essential skills. According to the Inter-American Development Bank's (IDB) analysis of the 2009 PISA Results, Chile, Colombia and Peru are among the countries that displayed the largest advancements when compared to previous versions of the test. Despite this, countries in the region are ranked among the lowest performing countries. Chile, which achieved the best reading scores at the regional level, is ranked number 44 out of 65 while Panama and Peru are located at numbers 62 and 63, respectively. The poor performance of Latin American students is also evident when compared to countries of similar income levels. The gap between the results obtained by the countries in the region and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (excluding Mexico and Chile) is enhanced when taking into account the level of income per capita of the countries in the sample. Latin America received systematically worse results than what their level of per capita income or expenditure on education would predict. == School bullying ==

Central America According to consistent PISA data collected in 2015 in Costa Rica and Mexico, globally, the Central America sub-region has the lowest prevalence of bullying, at 22.8% (range 19%–31.6%) and there is little difference in bullying prevalence between the sexes. Sexual bullying is the most frequent type of bullying for both boys (15.3%) and girls (10.8%). Physical bullying is the second most frequent type of bullying for boys (13.3%) and psychological bullying is the second most frequent type of bullying for girls (8.2%). Girls are far less likely to report physical bullying (4.5%) than boys. Overall, students in Central America report a higher prevalence of psychological bullying than the global median of 5.5%. Data from the Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (TERCE), conducted in 2013 in four countries in the sub-region, show that students report more psychological bullying than physical bullying. Physical appearance is reported to be the main driver for bullying by both boys (14.2%) and girls (24.2%), although the proportion of girls reporting this is far higher. Boys (11.2%) are more likely than girls (8.4%) to report that bullying is related to race, nationality or colour, while girls (4.8%) are more likely than boys (2.2%) to report that bullying is related to religion. The prevalence of physical violence in schools in Central America is low compared to other regions. The overall prevalence of physical fights, at 25.6% is the second lowest of all regions – only Asia has a lower prevalence. Central America also has the lowest proportion of students reporting being involved in a physical fight four or more times in the past year (4.9%). There is a significant difference in prevalence between the sexes. Boys (33.9%) are twice as likely to report involvement in a physical fight as girls (16.9%). The overall prevalence of physical attacks in schools in Central America, at 20.5%, is the lowest of any region. The difference between the sexes is less significant than for physical fights, with boys reporting only a slightly higher prevalence of physical attacks (21.7%) than girls (18%). In terms of trends, Central America has seen an overall decrease in bullying in schools. South America The prevalence of bullying in South America, at 30.2% (range 15.1%–47.4%), is slightly lower than the global median of 32%. The prevalence of bullying is similar in boys (31.7%) and girls (29.3%). Data collected through PISA in 2015 in five countries in the sub-region reveal a lower prevalence of bullying, ranging from 16.9% in Uruguay to 22.1% in Colombia. Physical bullying is the most frequent type of bullying reported by boys who have been bullied (13.6%), followed by sexual bullying (10.8%), and psychological bullying (5.6%). The situation is different for girls. Sexual bullying (9.4%) and psychological bullying (9.4%) are the most frequent types of bullying reported by girls who have been bullied, followed by physical bullying (5.4%). Students in South America report a higher prevalence of psychological bullying than the global median of 5.5%. The Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (TERCE), 2013 data from eight countries in the sub-region show that students report more psychological bullying than physical bullying. The most frequent driver of bullying is physical appearance. Differences between the sexes are small, with 14% of boys and 15.8% of girls reporting that they were bullied because of their physical appearance. Boys (8.4%) are more likely than girls (5.6%) to report that bullying is related to race, nationality or colour. Only 3.7% of boys and 3.9% of girls report that it is related to their religion. The overall prevalence of physical fights, at 31.3% (range 20.2%–39.4%), is below the global median of 36%, but this masks significant differences between the sexes. The prevalence of being involved in a physical fight is 45.3% among boys compared with 20.8% among girls. The overall prevalence of physical attacks, at 25.6%, is below the global median of 31.4%, and is the second lowest prevalence of any region. South America has an overall decrease in bullying in schools. Only one country, Uruguay, has shown a significant decline in bullying, physical fights and physical attacks. ==Education and growth==

When regions of the world are compared in terms of long run economic growth, Latin America ranks at the bottom along with Sub-Saharan Africa. This slow growth has been a puzzle, because education and human capital is frequently identified as an important element of growth. Yet, the relatively good performance of Latin America in terms of access and school attainment has not translated into good economic outcomes. Economic inequality was decreasing during the 20th century, while it was still extremely high during the first phase of globalization in the 18th and 19th century. For these reasons, many economists have argued that other factors such as economic institutions or financial crises must be responsible for the poor growth, and they have generally ignored any role for education in Latin American countries. On the other hand, Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann argue that the slow growth is directly related to the low achievement and poor learning that comes with each year of school in Latin America. Their analysis suggests that the long run growth of Latin America would improve significantly if the learning in schools were to improve. == Primary and secondary education ==

Primary education is compulsory throughout the region. The first phase of secondary education – or lower secondary according to UNESCO's International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) – is compulsory in all Latin American countries except in Nicaragua, while the final phase of secondary education (i.e. upper secondary) is compulsory in 12 of the 19 Latin American countries. At present, it is expected that all individuals gain access to and remain within the education system at least until completion of the secondary level. However, during the first years of the 2010s, there was a schooling deficit – understood as the gap observed between the theoretical and the actual school trajectory – corresponding to 2.5% among children aged 9 to 11 years; 21% among adolescents aged 15 to 17 years; 37% among youth aged 21 to 23 years; and around 46% among adults aged 31 to 33 years. Indeed, data show that 2.5% of boys and girls aged 9 to 11 years never entered the primary level or, in any case, do not attend school, with no considerable Gender Differences. In rural areas, this proportion is even higher. Yet, the biggest divide is associated with socio-economic levels, where the lack of schooling impacts the most underprivileged sectors hardest. The situation is most critical in Nicaragua, where this proportion rises to 8% and in Guatemala and Honduras, where more than 4% of the boys and girls are out of school. ==Higher education==

Overview Higher Education in Latin America has grown over the past forty years to comprise more than 3,000 higher education institutions. Out of 17 million students in higher education, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina account for 10 million. Access to higher education in Latin America shows a massive gap when it comes to income distribution in many Latin American countries. Although higher education is not new to the region; indeed, many institutions date back hundreds of years, but the noticeable growth spurt in the area of higher education has been more recent. Latin Americans value higher education in general, according to the Applicant survey of 2016/2017. The past four decades have been a time of tremendous change and growth for higher education in the region. Institutional growth has resulted in a diversification of degrees offered to include more graduate degrees (Master's degrees, professional degrees and doctorates) and less traditional areas of study. As Spanish Christianity was reformed in the 16th century by Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros, the Church was more under Crown control in Spain than any other European monarchy. File:Placa relativa a la Real y Pontificia Universidad de México.JPG|alt=Plaque relative to the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico|thumb|Plaque relative to the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico. Latin: "Ad Perennem Memoriam Pontifical Regiae Universitatis Caroli V Ivssv AB ExcMo [Excellency] ENTO [NIO] de Mendoza In Hoc Crazy III [3] IUNII MDCCCLXV VSQVE FLORVIT HOC MONVMENTVM Universitas Nationalis Mexican. DD [Dedicavit or dedit Dedicavit] ". English: To perpetuate the memory of the Royal University and Pontifical University of Carlos V. By order of the Excellency Antonio de Mendoza, in this place was erected on June 3, 1553. Who until year 1865 here flourished. Monument to the National Mexican University. He has given the dedication. Higher education in Latin America was heavily affected by the relationship between Church and State. "Spanish America's universities were created to serve the Church and state simultaneously. They often functioned by the authority of papal bulls and royal charters. The first to receive the papal bull was the Dominican Republic's University of Santo Domingo (1538). First to receive the royal authorization was Peru's University of San Marcos (1551). And considered to be the first founded in North America, is the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico (1551). The offerings of the three institutions were similar, including law, medicine, and economics, etc. "Spain enjoyed great success in transplanting its institutions and culture. These universities (Santo Domingo, San Marcos, and the Royal Pontifical) had state support but money was always a problem. The entering fees were small but rose the longer one stayed. This favored the rich upper class". Entitlement and access to education continued to be an issue throughout the history of higher education in Latin America. From a global perspective on the inception of the university, the oldest existing, and continually operating educational institution in the world is the University of Karueein, founded in 859 AD in Morocco, the University of Bologna, Italy, was founded in 1088, and England's University of Oxford was founded in 1167. Initially, the Church and State in Latin America granted authority to universities, and the position of maestrescuela was filled by one who served as a liaison among stakeholders. "Most of the universities were organized by religious orders, especially Jesuits and Dominicans, and these orders provided not only most of the administrators but also most of the teachers…Graduation was a religious as well as an academic event"; many students were trained to enter the clergy or to take on bureaucratic positions for the state. In the time of post-colonialism, "[Gregorio Weinberg] defined three successive stages up until the twentieth century: "imposed culture", "accepted culture" and "criticized or disputed culture". The phase of 'imposed culture', which was of a functional nature for the metropolis, corresponds to the colonial era, while the second phase, that of the "accepted culture", is associated with the organisation of the national societies... [and the] assimilation of foreign cultural and philosophical tendencies by Latin American countries, which adopted them due to their usefulness for solving the theoretical and practical problems involved in organizing the new nations." The export-led economic growth of the 19th and 20th centuries allowed for the increased availability of resources and urbanization, and together with the spirit of competition of the political elite, drove university expansion. Ultimately, control over university leadership, faculty, curriculum, and admissions led to the separation of state controlled and funded institutions from those which were privately run. "Social demand, however, was not the only cause of the proliferation of universities. To provide educational opportunity for working class youth who held jobs during the day, night schools run for profit were established by enterprising educators. Some universities were started because many traditional institutions remained unresponsive to national needs for new kinds of training. But, by far the most important added stimulus can be traced to the lack of criteria for the accreditation of new programs and institutions." Conflicts of power between liberals and conservatives and the promotion or opposition of secularism fueled the growth of separate public and private universities. The "philosophy of positivism powerfully reinforced the notion that scientific progress was inherently incompatible with religious interference". "The widening political gap between the autonomous public universities and democratically elected governments was made more critical by a radicalized student activism in the Cold War climate of the latter half of the 20th century. The most visible confrontations took place in the late 1960s, a time of student mobilization worldwide. These protests were very frequent throughout the period in most countries in Latin America, reinforcing the image of a politically involved student movement, even if it was often fostered by the mobilization of a minority of student activists with representation in university governance and closely linked to national political movements and parties. In many cases, student confrontations with the authorities mixed radical demands for revolutionary change with more limited demands for organizational transformation and more generous funding". "The university reform movement in Argentina influenced university reform campaigns in Uruguay, Chile, and Peru, among others". The struggle for control of power within higher education has continued, however a number of reforms have attempted to address the problems. Examples of reforms in Colombia included following the North American Land Grant model, administrative reforms designed to target spending and asset waste, and employing more full-time professors. The Economist article lists the 2011 rankings of higher education institutions in Latin America. The article states, "Of the 200 top universities, 65 are in Brazil, 35 in Mexico, 25 apiece in Argentina and Chile and 20 in Colombia. The University of São Paulo (USP), the richest and biggest university in Brazil's richest state, came top". Most Latin American countries started from a European model (mostly modeled after the French or Spanish) and have adopted their own educational models differently in each region. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and Peru represent about 90 percent of the Latin American region's population. It's important to acknowledge that higher education in Latin America really only reflects on the elite few Latin American countries that can and do offer higher education options for their citizens. More research must be done in this area to bolster the information on some of the smaller countries in parts of Latin America that do not have higher education options. Or who do have higher education options but are limited in number and scope. In a 2002 publication on higher education institutions in Latin American and Caribbean Universities, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Uruguay, Venezuela, Mexico, Peru, Brazil and the Dominican Republic, 1,917 of them were considered private universities. More information on higher education specific to Brazil can be found here: Brazil. Alternatively, 1,023 universities are considered public in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and Peru. There are about 5,816 institutes that are considered private or public and even some were not deemed identifiable. Of both regions, Latin America and the Caribbean, there are nearly 14 million students enrolled in some type of higher education institution. Roughly 13,896,522 students are enrolled at institutions in Latin American where not quite 95,000 are enrolled in the Caribbean. Participation in higher education has seen an increase in enrollment from 1998 to 2001. In developed countries, the gross enrollment rate jumped from 45.6% to 54.6% in 2001. Additionally, female participation in enrollment jumped from 59.2% in 1998 to 64.3% in 2001. (unEsCo, 2005). Transitional and developing countries also saw a jump in gross enrollment rates from 1998 to 2001. Of the Latin American countries analyzed, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina had the highest distribution of enrollments. These top three countries accounted for about 60% of total enrollment in higher education. Students must be majoring in a Brazilian institution in a STEM field in order to participate in the program. Participants are awarded a grant/scholarship that allows them to student in the United States for up to one year at a university with a focus in STEM-related areas. The initiative hopes to grant scholarships to Brazil's 100,000 best students in STEM fields. Additionally 475 U.S. host institutions have been involved in hosting either academic or intensive English students or in some instance providing both programs. The primary area of study for Brazilian scholarship grantees is engineering where 65% of program grantees are engineering majors. Additionally, more outreach must be obtained among nearby societies and countries in order to build rapport and relationships that extend to higher education. This could improve teacher training, collaboration in curriculum development and support schools in difficult student and teacher interactions. Finally, Latin America must be able to compete with the increased demands that globalization places upon higher education. Latin America must adapt their higher education institutions to reflect the globalization trend affecting higher education throughout the entire world. In Latin American countries, nearly half of enrollment in tertiary education is concentrated in institutions whose main source of funding is tuition and fees. Therefore, students and their parents are already contributing heavily to finance higher education institutions. Moreover, some of these countries charge tuition and fees to students at public universities; a prime example is Chile's public university sector. In other countries where undergraduate programs in public institutions are free of charge and the majority of the enrollment is concentrated in the public sector (as in Argentina and Uruguay), the government is the principal source of funding. However, this is not the case with graduate degrees as students usually pay the tuition and fees at graduate schools. In most Latin American countries, with the exception of Chile, negotiating the funding model is still the most relevant mechanism to distribute core higher education funding to institutions. Additionally, since the late 1980s and 1990s, many of these governments have been allocating a small proportion of the total budget via formulas and funds to achieve specific objectives. Several Latin American countries took advantage of the boom years and raised their public and private investment in higher education. This also contributed to improving low-income students’ access to these institutions. The complexity of Higher Education in the region can be viewed in a series of historical and emerging trends, in its heterogeneity, its inequality, but above all in the role that public universities and some very outstanding institutions of higher education can assume to construct a new scenario that can aid in significant improvement in the living conditions of its populations, and provide the possibility of greater well-being, democracy, and equality coming from science, education, and culture. The rest of this section will take a look at how Higher Education institutions in Latin America are funded. Changes have been occurring and the funding models appear to be moving targets. Latin America is diverse with twenty sovereign states that stretch from the southern border of the United States to the southern tip of South America. With this much space and diversity, the funding for higher education can vary from state to state. There seem to be four prevalent models for the financing of higher education in Latin America. These four models apply indiscriminately and in different combinations in the countries of the region, thus reflecting the diversity one observes in the region in terms of financing and policies and outcomes. Student opportunities and future challenges Organizations which link higher education between Latin America and Europe include AlßAN (now ERASMUS Mundos), ALFA and AlInvest. The ALFA Program of co-operation between Higher Education Institutions (HEI's) of the European Union and Latin America "began in 1994 and sought to reinforce co-operation in the field of Higher Education. The program co-finances projects aimed at improving the capacity of individuals and institutions (universities and other relevant organizations) in the two regions". AlßAN provided scholarships to Latin American students, but was replaced in 2010 by ERASMUS Mundos, which provides avenues for Latin American students to study in Europe. ERASMUS Mundos also fosters community and cooperation between Latin America and the European Union. The program provides joint masters and doctoral programs, including a scholarship scheme. It has the aim of "mobility flows of students and academics between European and non-European higher education institutions [and the] promotion of excellence and attractiveness of European higher education worldwide...The European Commission informs potential applicants about funding opportunities through a program guide and regular calls for proposals published on the Erasmus Mundus website". Organizations exist to foster cooperation between Latin American and North American higher education, as well. The Ibero-American University Council (CUIB) and the Latin American Network for the Accreditation and Quality of Higher Education are two such organizations. "Latin American and North American cooperation is often labeled inter-American and is exemplified by organizations such as the Inter-American Organization for Higher Education (IOHE) and the Organization of American States (OAS )". According to the World Bank, the Latin American region is "defined in a cultural and geographical sense. It includes all the countries from Mexico to Argentina. Organizations such as the Latin American Universities Union and the Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and Caribbean are good examples of regional organizations. Sub-regional organizations include the Montevideo Group University Association (AUGM), the Association of Universities of the Amazon (UNAMAZ), and the Council of University presidents for the Integration of the West-Central Sub-Region of South America (CRISCO)". == Gender Gap ==

In the midst of an educational crisis in Latin America, there is a gender gap present within the schooling system. Various regions in Latin American countries are affected differently by the gap due to inter-sectional factors, such as economic state and societal beliefs. Generally, higher dropout rates plague rural regions, where children are pressured to work, opposed to suburban regions. Generally, rural areas lack the relative amount of resources that urban areas have, and families living in these areas experience poverty at greater frequencies. Their economic disadvantage leads these families to send their male children to school, rather than female children, when they are given the option. This decision has resulted in lower enrollment rates in school for female children. Similarly, female children in rural regions experience higher dropout rates after domestic emergencies, to care for the family and household. Contrarily, individuals who have access to education, and obtain an education in their native country, view the importance of education upon migration differently. These individuals believe that education will bring about more opportunities for them upon migration. First generation immigrant women are most influenced by the more liberal social norms in the United States; they are presented with higher availability of education and employment. Once in the United States, 54% are employed outside of their homes, and 87% of those who are employed outside the home work in jobs consistent with their gender roles. Typically, women working these jobs did not receive an education in their native country. Men are also influenced by the opportunities that women have in the country, as they are used to being granted the educational and employment opportunities back home. Upon migration to the United States, men long to go back to their native country earlier than women. Gender roles create a sense of power among men, and being presented with liberal gender roles for women often takes away the sense of power they may have felt back home. Factors such as income, cultural beliefs, and region influence how one experiences the gender differences that accompany education and migration. == Educational Labor Unions in Latin America ==

Effects of Labor Union on Latin American education Given the increased trend of children enrolling into schools, the resources of Latin American educational systems have become increasingly strained with poor students who require additional public resources for success., These problems are combatted through the formation of teachers labor unions. Effects of Labor Unions From 1989 to 1997, the number of countries with national testing systems has increased 2 to 21. These reforms have continued throughout the 2000s, several countries starting in 2006 have set national standards including Nicaragua, Colombia, and Argentina. The changing policies have brought teachers’ union under the light as important policy actors. Studies conducted by Murillo on labor unions in Peru have shown that labor unions have improved student achievement overall by retaining experienced teachers and lowering class sizes; although strikes, a key means by which unions exert power over policy, negatively impacts students affected by them. It was found that school days that were lost to strikes consequently lowered the exam scores of the students. It was also found that tenure, a common demand of teachers' unions, has increased student achievement in classes, even despite increased days of teacher absence because of the job security which these teachers felt. There has also been evidence that formation of unions has allowed in a decrease of classroom sizes. On average there is one less student per every teacher which allows for teachers to spend more time with an individual student. Professionalization of Teachers in Unions Specifically in Argentina the union has played an important role in the formation of accredited professional development courses. In 1994 CTERA signed an agreement with UNC and started a series of teacher training programs. In 2000, two graduate tracks were developed and more than 1600 teachers were trained. Teachers who are actively involved in the union develop a sense of professionalism through the experience of organizing. Because teachers’ union activity centers on particular education projects formed by the union itself, involvement in the formation of education goals and initiatives shapes teachers’ sense of their worth as practitioners. Therefore, participation in the union allows teachers to deepen their knowledge, commitment and practice. In Brazil, from 1998 to 2002 the union published their enrolled members final assignments for the class. Peruvian education is characterized by high coverage and extremely low expenditures per student. Specific programs such as MECEP has increased inputs and training for teachers hoping to enhance education system. Addition of Incentives In countries like Brazil and Chile "incentive schemes" were initiated. An incentive scheme is a policy which financially awards the teachers. However resistance has been noticed depending on the type of the incentive. Teachers from many Latin American countries have opposed incentives based on the evaluations of teachers themselves (Ecuador, Peru, Chile and partially Mexico) or of student's test scores (Ecuador, Peru, Chile and partially Mexico). The addition of incentives can lead to both positive and negative impacts. Some of the positive factors will include a teacher's dedication towards their work to improve the overall level of education of all students. These methods also help filter out teachers who are not the best teachers. If a teacher's performance is not meeting the set standards then it is a sign that something is wrong and a change is required. If incentives involve rewards then high scores among a few students can boost the overall average. In such cases a teacher might focus the bulk of their attention towards the brighter students and neglecting the other kids. As another example, in September 2019, Argentinian -affiliated teachers launched a one-day national strike to protest a violent attack by civil gangs, followed by police repression, on teachers striking for a pay rise in the province of Chubut. Difficulty in Assessing Effect of Labor Union on Education There is a lot of difficulty in analyzing the effect of Labor Unions on Education. There are many other factors that go into affecting the educational efficiency of a school. Violence of the area, parental influence or income of the school and the students families. It is possible that there are areas of affluent children in schools in which unions exist. Further studies are being conducted to precisely determine the direct effects of labor unions on the quality of education of students in Latin American schools. However the implementation of unions has been demonstrated to increase the professionalism among teachers, and unions can also lead to creation of competitive policies that can lead to a better education. Formation of unions also increase the number of teachers who are more dedicated towards their jobs. == See also ==