A Discussion with Javier Lasida, Director of the Department of Educational Management and Policy, Catholic University of Uruguay

With: Javier Lasida Berkley Center Profile

June 2, 2012

Background: As part of the Education and Global Social Justice Project, in June 2012 undergraduate student Charlotte Markson interviewed Javier Lasida, director of the Department of Educational Management and Policy at the Catholic University of Uruguay. In this interview Lasida discusses the relationship between economic inequality and educational opportunity, his work in implementing and evaluating school improvement initiatives, and the education system in Uruguay.

Tell me about the education and social justice network.

The network for education and social justice includes 11 universities, one of which is Spanish and the rest are from different parts of Latin America. Several of the universities are Jesuit, some are public, and some are private and non-Catholic. The network seeks to generate cooperation between the universities in order to support academic work in the field of social justice in America. For us at the Catholic University [of Uruguay] this network is interesting because we were already doing a substantial amount of work in this field through the support we lend Fe y Alegría, the educational quality projects we undertake with schools in poorer areas, and the community education has a strong impact on equality and is often referenced in discussion on how to improve Latin America’s unequal societies. Latin America is the most unequal continent in terms of income distribution, and of course this is reinforced by educational patterns. Education is neither indifferent nor neutral—it either improves or worsens income distribution.

We think it is very interesting and also grounded in the Jesuit tradition not to think of this topic solely in terms of equality, which can be reduced to access or test results, but rather in terms of social justice. Inequality in Latin America not only has an economic dimension, but also a cultural one, which is possibly even more pertinent today. The inequality has become profound and multidimensional, making it difficult to approach solely from an equality lens. That’s why the network is trying to approach this from the more ample viewpoint of social justice. In more concrete terms we are trying to stimulate and support each other in this area of academic work. On the one hand we are encouraging students to write doctoral theses on this subject, and at the same time we are organizing an exchange of professors between the universities in order to teach seminars on this topic. I think leaving one’s own local context also helps to deepen the conceptual understanding of these issues. Additionally we publish a journal on this issue.

I would like to emphasize that this is not a new topic, but we are trying to change the perspective with which we consider it by using an approach that has more depth and is more global. Approximately two-thirds of all youth in Uruguay do not finish the 12 years of regular schooling. This leaves them with problems of income generation, problems of communicating with others, problems finding a meaning in life, and problems building social networks. It is difficult to consider all of these challenges solely in terms of equality, and it is much more powerful to consider them in terms of justice, which is a goal that is of course never completely reached. Justice does not have a clear index but is expressed in the relationships established between a society’s members.

Can you speak about the relationship between equality and the Latin American economy?

It is very important in Latin America to think about the relationship between justice and freedom. We have very fragile democracies and markets here, and it is very difficult for us to understand the relationship between markets and justice. Many people consider them two completely incompatible worlds, a view which I find rather naïve. I think it's the opposite—one manages to build just societies to the extent that one succeeds in building inclusive markets which incorporate the people.

What about public education?

A lot of people think of government-run education when they hear “public” education. But Fe y Alegría considers itself as a provider of public education also because the schools are open to everyone, and higher quality is combined with justice and equality.

Can you tell me about the quality improvement program you offer schools?

At the university we evaluated nine different educational quality improvement programs from around the world, including the one developed at the International Federation of Fe y Alegría. We chose to work with a system from the Basque country that was very standardized and well developed, called Project of Integrated Quality. Once we had chosen the program, we started looking for schools who would be interested in participating, and we were also contacted by some schools who had heard of our work.

The first thing we do when we arrive at a new school is to evaluate whether or not the school is generally able to apply the system. If it is, the second step is to help the school redefine its vision, mission, and what it considers to be educational quality in its specific context. The third step is to apply the defined standards. This process takes about a month and a half to two months.

After this time the school is in a place to define what improvements are necessary. We support them in implementing the changes, and meet every two weeks with the different quality improvement teams within the school. Our job is to help them work well as a team and be rigorous and effective.

After a year and a half we perform another evaluation; however, this time it is not only a self-evaluation by the school but also an evaluation by an outside observer. This evaluator helps determine whether the criteria and standards for improvement have been met. Then the school again determines new plans for improvement, and in some cases we are able to officially certify them as having reached a high level of educational quality. This official certification requires an even more rigorous four to five day evaluation, during which we interview staff and determine whether all standards have been met.

This kind of work is very important in this country compared to others, where educational centers have more means to do this on their own. In Uruguay, and in most other Latin American countries, secondary school teachers teach at several schools at the same time, earning the name “taxi teachers.” In addition they are not paid for any time they spend working on school matters that are not directly teaching. This is slowly changing, and teachers now receive an hour and a half every week to do work other than giving class. We are making use of that hour and a half in order to implement the quality improvement program.

Our ultimate goal is to develop a continuous process of quality improvement in schools and educational centers. Nowadays, quality is strongly linked to exclusion—the good schools are also the schools that are very expensive. So we wanted to find a system that was effective, affordable, and that would work in all different types of schools and centers. We have been running this program for seven years now and have worked with 25 different centers. We are also publishing information on this topic, and this has had an impact on public policy, which is very important. Last year the government developed a quality improvement program which incorporates a couple of our tools, and they have invited me and several other academics to observe and comment on their program.

We are also developing a program specific to Jesuit schools, using the same criteria as we use for the other schools. This project is being developed in cooperation with the International Federation of Fe y Alegría as well as the University Alberto Hurtado in Chile. The pilot project will be launched in August, and here in Uruguay we will also apply it in a Fe y Alegría school, in order to make sure that it is not an elitist program.

We believe it is our responsibility in the academic world to standardize the knowledge we gain and make it applicable in society. That is why we work in three different ways: the quality improvement program for schools, the sharing of the tools we use with others, and the development of a program specific to Jesuit schools.

Where did the initiative come from to develop this program?

On the one hand this university has a long tradition of working on matters of management, and there is a strong conviction that quality education is achieved by the right curriculum and teaching, but also by effective management.

On the other hand there was an interest among academics to become more involved in this area. We are convinced that quality is not what differentiates public from private schools. It is not the case that all private schools are of higher quality than public schools, or that all public school are more just. There are private schools with bad educational quality, and private schools with good results in terms of social justice. At the same time there are public schools with high educational quality, and there are public schools that are very exclusive. So it was our goal to apply the program in different centers and show that the culture of the individual educational center is far more important than whether it is private or public.

What is the impact of the educational quality program and the attitude towards the value of education in Uruguay?

I am happy about the impact our program is having on public policy, but I think that considering the gravity of problems of quality and justice found in the Uruguayan educational system the program has had a much smaller effect than what we were hoping for. We started out with six centers and increased this to 26. But now the situation has become stagnant—no one is requesting us to apply our program anymore. I was hoping this could be a means of income generation for the department, but that is impossible. I think the lack of interest has to do with the fact that the entire educational system in Uruguay is stagnating—we offered, but no one is requesting our help.

This problem needs to be considered through a broad lens. The economic situation in Uruguay doesn’t demand quality from education and doesn’t reward higher education. A recent study on the labor market in Uruguay showed that there is no difference in terms of income between having had seven to eight or 12 to 13 years of education. This is not the case in other countries. In Uruguay the current focus is on increasing the coverage of education throughout the country. Instead I think we need to focus on increasing the market value of education. We aren’t going to increase the numbers of students in schools if people don’t understand what opportunities education gives them.

Uruguay benefits from its natural resources and is not increasing its overall competitiveness. It is seen as sufficient to have a very small group of highly educated people, either coming from abroad or from the Uruguayan elite, working on Uruguay’s international competitiveness, and I think this is very unsustainable.

At the same time the poorest among our population, who are a small group but live in extreme poverty, receive government handouts instead of education. I think it is very important to give these people money. But it needs to be given under the condition that the children attend school. Because if they don’t go to school they will end up on the streets, whether or not we give them money.

What are the problems in private and public schools?

Nowadays people send their children to private schools for security reasons, not necessarily because the education offered is better than in public schools. There is a lot of insecurity in public schools, and teachers are often absent. Nonetheless there are studies that show that children in public schools learn as much as children in private schools. But private schools also have a nice environment, security, sports, and a good organizational structure. That’s why private schools, which only comprise 20 percent of the total schools in the country, are not concerned about raising their educational quality. And since education has no market value, the families of the students are also not concerned. It’s a very complex problem, which needs a systematic assessment.

Could you talk about the beginnings of Fe y Alegría Uruguay?

Fe y Alegría was founded in Uruguay through a cooperation between the provincial of the Jesuits and this department of the university. I had been studying the development of Fe y Alegría in other countries, and the provincial was also familiar with the network and was interested in installing it in Uruguay. There were several people who did not think there was any sense in founding a Fe y Alegría here because the public school system in Uruguay, as opposed to other Latin American countries, has good coverage. But we believed that Fe y Alegría still had something to contribute, even though it would be a different contribution than in other countries. This topic was even debated amongst Jesuits, but now we have the full support of the Jesuit community. The current provincial and the principal of the university value Fe y Alegría’s work a lot, and the university supports the organization significantly.

What are the socioeconomic problems in Uruguay?

Uruguay is an old welfare state that has deteriorated. The country did very well until the 1960s, but since then has failed to recognize its decline. This does not mean that poverty rates have increased. Today about 15 percent of the population is poor, and 30 percent of all youth do not finish the mandatory nine years of schooling. This means we have a more profound problem than poverty, which is why it is interesting to evaluate the country under the lens of justice. Everyone is content because poverty rates have decreased, but the levels of exclusion and segmentation in society have not decreased. We have 15 percent of non-poor youth that do not attend basic education. Today we have two situations, which when combined are terrible. We have businesses that want to increase their competitiveness, develop internally and incorporate technology, and are unable to hire the people they need to do so. And at the same time we have many people who do not even have the most minimal training in order to acquire a dignified and qualified employment. They have work, but work that pays very poorly, does not have any options for progress, and is very unlikely to provide their children with a future. This is what creates social divides.

Uruguay’s unemployment rate is at approximately 5 to 6 percent right now. This is a historically low level, which we should be celebrating. But the problem is that this is counting jobs which do not offer any kind of skill acquisition and do not permit the people holding these jobs to improve their situation. And this kind of situation directly impacts people’s decision in regards to their children’s schooling.

So, from an international perspective, the country is doing rather well. But the macro-economy is not enough to encourage development—it’s a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. Productive development and social politics are also necessary. The way things are right now I think we will enter into a new crisis. The worst social politics in this country are educational politics. Even our health policies are better. In my opinion education and health policy are a country’s two most important policies. Health policies take care of the body. Education takes care of a person and empowers them.

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