Berkley Center

Background: As part of the Education and Global Social Justice Project, in summer 2013 undergraduate student Nick Dirago interviewed Fr. Jeffery L. Klaiber, S.J., a professor of history at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. In this interview Klaiber discusses the value of education, the effects of globalization on Peru, and the impact of the socioeconomic divisions that are present in Lima on education at the university level.

What is social justice, and how does education relate to it?

Without real education, you can’t have real justice. People can’t really get ahead in life if they don’t have a good education, one that gives them the tools they need to function. The Fujimori [President of Peru from 1990-2000] regime understood that as a technical education. They thought that the social sciences and humanities were simply a waste of time. The kids think that knowing how to use a computer is the key to success, but the key to success is knowing how to read and write. That’s old-fashioned. If you can’t read and write and speak well, then you’re already at a disadvantage.
Kids from private schools in Lima generally do pretty well. But more and more we have kids from the poorer districts who are enthusiastic about education but who are at a disadvantage. What has globalization meant for Lima?

It’s a provincial city, and globalization has been dumped on it. A provincial city means that people in Lima have little consciousness of the rest of Peru. That’s a central point in all of Latin American history. For many years, Peruvians were just not aware of the rest of their country, and that’s still true.
Lima has become a major connecting link in Latin America. It’s becoming a pretty central point, as if it were the New York of Latin America. When I first came here in 1963, it was about two million people. It’s now eight million, who knows exactly how many? In the 1960s, they called [the settlers] invaders. In English they would call them squatter villages. With little reed huts. They would squat on empty property, sometimes public property, and then the old term was barriadas. But they were never slums; “slum” is not the correct word. The military in 1968 gave them a new name: young towns—pueblos jóvenes. Uplifting. They actually sort of took over these towns in the good sense—incorporate them, build them up. So actually some of them look pretty good today. But there are always new groups coming in. Now they use a more neutral word, like “human settlements.” But there are always new ones coming up. Usually they don’t have water, they don’t have electricity, even today.

Is an A-B-C-D-E division a good way to understand class in Lima?

Just to say rich and poor isn’t helpful. You have several—two or three—middle classes. Nowadays, some [young towns] can be real poor, and some can be just getting out of poverty. So they would be, D maybe—because you can still have an E. So getting into D would be people who don’t have cars, but they might have a TV.

And D is where the Fe y Alegría [Faith and Joy] schools are hitting?

Yes.

You talked about a tension between meeting first-world academic standards and serving Peru. What is that tension?

Most Peruvians are aware that they’re part of a larger world. So they want to raise the standards in Peru. But Peru, like all of Latin America, is caught in a tension between the first world and the poverty of their own country. For example, my university, la Católica, would be a more middle-class university, and [the University of the Pacific] would be a more upper-class university. We try not to be an upper-class university, but then you have the problem of standards. You’re accepting students with a not-very-good background. We try to have high standards without being economically elitist. [It’s about] access but also about trying to raise the level of the students in the university.

Can you see the differences in how students are prepared?

Yeah. And keep in mind, our university is already on a higher level than other private universities and state universities. It’s more selective.

Do the Fe y Alegría kids still come into college behind?

Well that’s a good question because it’s still a new thing. Some Fe y Alegría kids have already been all through the university and are doing very well in doctoral programs and all that. But a complete study has not been done on that. Just about two years ago, they started offering scholarships to Fe y Alegría kids at the Catholic University. But at [Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University], they’ve had that for several years, and they do seem to do well.

What are the prospects for integrating the various socioeconomic classes in the classroom?

We did that, and it’s always a problem because a student from a poor background can become very frustrated. This was way back at the school we have in Arequipa. In the 1960s, we had a program of scholarships in which we had kids from poor areas… some did very well, but we began to notice that others were very frustrated, both socially and academically. It’s always a bad situation when you have someone from a middle-class family and someone who is obviously from a poor background; they just don’t get together well. Even if the middle-class kid is well-intentioned, there’s always that tension over their background. The poor kid feels embarrassed or self-conscious. The middle class kids would try to be kind and all that, but it’s just embarrassing.

Are younger students mature enough to engage in any real dialogue about that, or does it have to wait?

I think that has to wait. At a university level, it probably could [happen]. A lot depends on who is the person creating the dialogue.
The teachers can talk about those realities easily amongst themselves. It’s more difficult when you’re with students themselves who are very conscious of the different kinds of backgrounds. I think that a person from a poor background will be able to talk more easily once he or she has got ahead in life—has a sense of success. Until they’re successful, I think they’re uncomfortable talking about their background. It’s a process. It can’t be done at any particular moment. It’s going to take years.