Berkley Center

Background: As part of the Education and Global Social Justice Project, in May 2012 undergraduate student Charlotte Markson interviewed Adriana Arisitmuño, who works in the Catholic University of Uruguay’s department of humanistic education. She is the main Uruguayan representative of a social justice network among Latin American universities, and at the same time is charged with developing the Catholic University’s mission and identity as a Jesuit institution. In this interview she discusses social justice and the state of public education in Uruguay.

Can you tell me about your education, and what your position in this university is?

I have a degree in education from the University of the Republic and a post-graduate degree from the University of Lovaina in Belgium. I also have a doctorate degree from Lovaina in educational policy and innovation.

I have worked at this university for the past 25 years. I have always worked in the area of education, and for the last six years I served as dean of the department of social sciences. So I am very new in the department of humanistic education, and I am charged with working on the university’s identity, ensuring that anthropology, ethics, and religion are more present in all the university’s courses of study. The university is going through an important curricular process, and is changing all of its curricula within the next one and a half to two years. So my work has a lot to do with social justice, and I believe my background in education helps me a lot in this area.

Can you tell me about the development of the “social justice and education” network in Latin America?

A year ago we were invited by the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Universidad Alberto Hurtado de Chile, which is a Jesuit university, to become a part of the social justice network which offered seminars on this topic and the option of students to write their thesis on this subject. We accepted because it is a topic area which interests us, and in which we have some experience through our work with Fe y Alegría as well as our interest in Uruguay’s public education, which is strongly linked to poverty in this country. We had worked academically in this area, but nothing was formal beyond individuals’ work.

Now there are seven countries and eight universities that form part of the network. In Uruguay four colleagues from the university joined, and I am the Uruguay coordinator.

One of the network’s goals is to anchor this topic in universities' work. We can see that in the northern hemisphere there is a significant wealth of research on this subject. Here in the southern hemisphere we talk mostly about inclusion and equality, which are distinct concepts from social justice—social justice is something much more comprehensive.

So since belonging to the network we have been working more formally in this subject area. We are trying to make students write their thesis on the subject, in order to expand research in this area. We are also buying relevant books for the library. We are trying to create a new realm of knowledge called “social justice and education knowledge,” because there has been some work done but it is dispersed between individuals who are studying them in isolation. So we are trying to unite them and strengthen this work.

What does social justice mean to you?

Social justice is an aspiration of societies to offer their population the highest possible amount of opportunities. Social justice works to break inequality, exclusion, and injustice.

I believe the afore mentioned opportunities need to come from education. Education is a social and public political tool, which has a large role to play in social justice.

In Uruguay I believe that education policy is currently going against social justice, because the educational system is very inequitable. The achievement results and dropout and repetition rates are worst in the lowest economic and social classes. Our dropout rate in secondary school lies at 20 percent, which is extremely high, and our repetition rate in the first year of secondary school is around 40 percent, with some schools at 50 percent or even 55 percent. On the other hand the results in the highest social classes are very good, even in international comparison in studies like PISA.

The Uruguayan society in general is more equal than its educational system. But this is a question of time, because the educational system shapes the country’s citizens. Once those citizens grow up, they will not work towards the social justice, which was so hard to achieve. So over time society will change for the worse. This is something that worries us a lot at this university, and something we are very interested in studying.

Has public education always been inequitable in Uruguay?

Primary education in Uruguay has a very strong history since 1870, when important educational reforms were enacted, and the results in primary education in terms of social justice are good. Ninety-six percent of students graduate from primary school.

Secondary education developed in the early twentieth century with a strong connection to university. It was education geared towards the elite, and only few went to university. In 1912 a law was passed which created public secondary schools and expanded access to education. Nonetheless very few made it to university. It was not until the 1980s that there was an explosion in enrollment, which coincided with Uruguay’s return to democracy in 1985.

Responding to this sudden increase in demand was difficult. Today we say public education is segmented and inequitable, but that is because there are many students there now that in earlier years would not have attended. Before, they were outside the system, and so the results were more homogeneous. So the social problems we now see are the result of a positive development. It is a great social accomplishment that many more children attend school, especially the children of poor backgrounds. The problem is that what we are offering them is not sufficient in order to have them pass their grades and stay in school. A quantitative increase has led to a qualitative problem.

Can you give me examples of the work the Catholic University is doing in the realm of social justice and education?

One of the things the university organizes is service opportunities for its students. On the one hand there are service and internship opportunities directly tied to majors. This is the case for the departments of psychology, law, nursing, and dentistry. There are also programs, which are not connected to the course of study, and these are run through the liberal arts department. Most of the students that take part there are education, educational policy, or communications majors. The service projects are very popular among students, even international exchange students.

Another thing the university offers is scholarships for students who would otherwise not be able to attend to the cost of tuition. We have both merit and need based scholarships, which cover between 50 percent and 80 percent of the cost of tuition. The scholarships improve the diversity of our student body, which I think is important for a university which has an obligations towards the entire society, and not just the small group which can afford to pay its tuition.

Finally, the university is working on deepening its identity. This is a Jesuit university, and so justice forms a profound part of the identity we are trying to strengthen. So now we are working on more actively integrating the theme of social justice into all curricula and courses of study. This involves the lesson plans, professors, research, and management of the university.

We have agreed on our ideals for a long time. The challenge is to ground, concretize, and put them into effect.

What is your opinion on the development of private education in Uruguay?

I think the development of private education in Uruguay is a very good thing. Uruguay has a history of a very monopolizing public education, and we believe this goes against parents’ right to choose their children’s education, and the freedom of education in general.

Private education can be a good thing, but one has to be watchful of what kind of education it is, what its vision and ideals are, and what segment of the population it is serving. In this sense Uruguay is a very regulated country, and the fact that there is a lot of private education does not mean there is a lack of knowledge or quality control. Educational quality I think is seen as very important in this society.

Before there were universities like the Catholic University, a student did not have the option of choosing where to go, the only option was the University of the Republic. No matter what career one was interested in, one had to study it at this one university, and I think that is a bad thing.

At the Catholic University we are invested in developing our university’s identity, because the number of non-Catholic private universities has increased significantly in Latin America. This is why we believe the Catholic universities need to develop a more firm identity, in order to make their contribution to society. If not, they are just another private university and that is not what we want.

How does being Catholic impact the type of education this university offers?

There are certain concepts, which are very strong in the Catholic tradition and which we also strive towards, such as developing a plural society in which there are many different ways of thinking and openness to topics such as faith, transcendence, and spirituality.

Justice is also a part of the identity we are trying to strengthen. The Jesuits’ mandate to promote social justice and service to faith is part of that identity. The actual mission of this university speaks of excellence and transforming society to become more just, humane and open to faith. So there are strong connections between the ideals of the Jesuit order and that which the university is trying to achieve.

We want to investigate, teach and think about society from the paradigm of more justice, and all the difficulties and diversity this implies.

How does the social justice network support the university’s work?

Everyone has a lot of responsibilities in their daily work, and the network is a way to create a more formal space for this topic. The network forces us to take concrete action, and helps us come together with other people who are also working on this subject area.

I am more motivated to have students work on this subject area since I know they have international support. We are looking for books on the topic, as well as people who we can connect with in the northern and southern hemisphere in order to organize projects together. It is hard to do this work alone. It is not impossible, but it takes a lot of determination and discipline. So being part of the network makes you participate and gives you a perspective on what other countries are doing.

How do you see the future of education in Uruguay?

Hopefully Uruguay can move towards more social integration and greater social justice. I think the university has good preconditions to work in this area, and some high schools are also contributing to the discussion. I am very worried about public education in this country, because its quality has decreased and this is punishing the poorest segments of our society.

So I have to give a divided answer. There is a group of people who are working on this issue with interest and the right tools. The Catholic University is among them. But there is another group of people who, even though they work in public education and are concerned about the situation, do not have alternatives. They are basically trapped, knowing there is a problem but not knowing what to do.

What is the problem in public education?

In the last years it has been lacking leadership and a vision of where it wants to go. It has been very caught up in itself.

Up until four or five years ago it was also lacking resources, but today Uruguayan public education as more resources than ever before. It has received an increased part of the GDP, and in addition the GDP has doubled in the past years, so we have never had these kinds of resources.

I think there is also a problem with the quality of the educators who all received their education through old and antiquated models. In addition there is a problem with the management of the schools. The curricular layout and setup of the school system is very antiquated, especially in secondary education. But problems in secondary education also stem from problems in primary education. So one needs to see that the problems in the Uruguayan educational system are multi-causal.

Can students choose where to attend school or is this determined by where they live?

In public school it is determined by geographic proximity. So the poorest in our population do not have the option of attending school in another district. They could, but it involves receiving special permission, or lying about one’s place of residence. Parallel to the decline in educational quality there has also been a territorial decline. The society is more divided, and so the poor live more and more among the poor, while the rich live among the rich. The integrated and yet heterogeneous society of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s no longer exists. Education is impacted by this deterioration, and has been worsening it due to its own layout. There have been many suggestions on how to address this problem, ranging form vouchers to charter schools. There are no clear right and wrong paths; it all depends on how it is realized in the specific context. But there has been a lot of inertia and not a lot of profound change in public education.