RGEM Report

School systems reflect the highly unequal societies of the countries in which they are located. Latin America and the Caribbean continues to be the most unequal region in the world. In 21 countries, boys and girls from the richest 20% of the population are, on average, five times more likely to complete upper secondary than boys and girls from the poorest 20%. In Chile and Mexico, to achieve a uniform socioeconomic mix, half of the student body would have to be reassigned to other schools.

Identity, origin and ability determine educational opportunities. In Panama, in 2016, 21% of indigenous men between the ages of 20 and 24 had completed secondary school, compared to 61% of their non-indigenous peers. In Paraguay and Honduras, 32% of indigenous men and women are illiterate. In 2015, Afro-descendants were 14% less likely to complete secondary education than their non-Afro-descendant peers in Peru and 24% less likely in Uruguay. On average, adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 with disabilities were 10% less likely to attend school than those without any disability.

Mechanisms of discrimination, stereotypes and stigmatization affect all students at risk of exclusion in a similar way and affect their learning. Half of the 15-year-old students in Latin America did not reach the minimum level of proficiency in reading. In third grade, students who spoke the predominant language of their country at home were three times more likely to read and understand what they read than their peers. In seven countries, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people said they faced hostility at school; male and female students who suffered higher levels of victimization were at least twice as likely to skip school.

While some countries are moving towards inclusion, misperceptions and segregation still abound. About 60% of the countries in the region have a definition of inclusive education, but only 64% of those definitions cover multiple marginalized groups. That means most countries have yet to embrace a broader concept of inclusion. The ministries of education of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have been the most active in the formulation of laws related to individual groups, for example, in relation to disability (95%), gender (66%) and minorities ethnic and indigenous peoples (64%). But in the case of students with disabilities, in 42% of the countries the laws provide for providing education in separate facilities and only 16% promote inclusive education; the rest opt ​​for combinations of segregation and integration.

The region is a leader in financing initiatives focused on those who need it most. The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean not only give higher priority to spending on education than the rest of the world, but they have also been the first to allocate social aid to promote education. Since the 1990s, conditional cash transfers have extended school attendance by up to a year and a half. In addition, new programs that combine education with other social services, particularly in early childhood, have been initiated, as in certain programs in Chile, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic.

The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have committed to using data, but there is still much room for improvement. Surveys are key to disaggregating educational indicators by individual characteristics, but 57% of Latin American and Caribbean countries, especially those in the Caribbean that comprise 13% of the region’s population, do not provide survey data. Countries have improved their data on ethnicity and disability. But in nine countries, education management information systems do not collect data on the education of children and youth with disabilities.

Faculty need more support to meet the challenge of diversity. They are often not offered continuing professional development opportunities. Despite the fact that in 70% of the countries of the region there are laws or policies that provide for the training of teachers in matters of inclusion, more than 50% of the teachers in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico reported that they lacked professional training to teach students with special needs.