Noted economist Jeffrey Sachs has an op-ed piece in today's Miami Herald with some brief hostorical background as to Latin America's history of economic woes and some good ideas to lead to more prosperity:
Beyond this, a basic failure of economic strategy has largely been overlooked. Whereas Asian governments, for example, relentlessly act to raise their economies' scientific and technological capacities, national policies to promote science and technology rarely gain such prominence in Latin America.The result is a failure to benefit adequately from the global technological revolutions. Asian developing countries now produce computers, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and software. By contrast, even Latin America's star performer, Chile, remains largely a resource-based economy, concentrated on copper and agricultural exports. These sectors are technologically sophisticated, but form a narrow base for long-term development.
The situation is far from hopeless. Brazil now exports airplanes and many consumer durable goods. Mexico, too, has begun to mobilize significant technological prowess. Argentina, Chile and other countries could become high-tech agricultural producers in the forefront of agro-biotechnology, for example, if they put their minds to it.
[...]
In short, Latin American societies must invest more in their people, so that they can join the cutting edge of global productivity. If these investments reach all parts of Latin America, rich and poor, the region's prospects will brighten enormously.
In short, spend much more on societal infrastructure, including and especially education. Who can argue with that? The problems, unfortunately, are not easily solved in countries like Brazil for example. Among the best and most difficult universities to gain admission to in Brazil are the Federal Universities. They are tuition free, but not means tested, so if you are the child of a wealthy medical doctor, for example, you pay the same fees as the child of a favela dweller: nothing.
Where the advantage swings rapidly to the side of the wealthy is the series of entrance exams called vestibulares. There is a mini-industry in Brazil of courses to prepare for the vestibulares. The courses, of course, are not free and if one does not have the means to take a course, one must be an extraordinary student to pass the vestibular to qualify for entrance to one of the free Federal universities. If one does not qualify for one of these universities, the only other option is to go to a private college, and, of course pay tuition.
So while I agree with Sachs in principle, in Latin America's largest country, the gap between having people to do research and development and educating each generation to respond to new technology and new trends certainly seems to me to be the very definition of the cliché that the devil is in the details.
Actually, to pass the vestibular and qualify for entrance in one of the free public universities of Brazil you do have to be an extraordinary student no matter what, because we are talking about 20, 30 or even more people for each vacancy in the, may I say?, most important disputed courses (journalism in USP was something like 80 for each vacancy), although I do concede that it is almost an impossible mission to the people that comes from public school (but there were some in my class - law shool/USP).
My two main problems with the people that says that public college is for the wealth are: 1) what makes public college good in Brazil (and yes, it is very good, even more when we compare it with almost all of the paid ones - all the better courses that you can imagine are from a public college or other) is the quality of the students, and if we abolish vestibular that will end - we may end with worse professionals in the deal; 2) that when we say welth in Brazil what we really mean is the middle class, which sometimes does not have the money to pay private college, so if the system is changed, they will get shafted.
What we really need arround here, IMHO, is more money to finance people that want to go to college but can't get into a public one, this way everybody that really wants to go to college will go AND we won't mess the best colleges.
Posted by: Alves | July 06, 2004 at 10:13 PM
The general point is good: LA doesn't value human capital as much as it could be and, in general, understand why it should be. The question is, as always, what is the root cause, and what needs to be done to change this underlying value or complex of values?
Alves - First, what is the "middle class" in Brazil? In the US I would say that is anyone from the 40th to 90th percentile. In Brazil, isn't it much smaller, say roughly the 70th through the 90th? If so, then isn't the middle class getting a state provided benefit that the poorer 2/3s probably can't ever get because the poorer 2/3s doesn't get the primary and secondary education necessary to even hope to pass the vestibular? You more or less say this yourself: "although I do concede that it is almost an impossible mission to the people that comes from public school".
Second, I don't think Randy's advocating getting rid of the vestibular, just pointing out how an structurally unfair system filters entrants to these universities. Obviously, to remain good they need to both provide a good product and remain selective. But there may be other ways to be selective than the vestibulars.
Posted by: Tom DC/VA | July 07, 2004 at 12:32 AM
Tom's right, I'm not advocating the end of the vestibular.
One thing I do advocate is the idea of means testing those who are admitted to the free universities, and if they meet a threshhold to be determined, then they should pay something with perhaps this money going to finance education for those who don't have the means to pay for pre-vestibular courses. I also think that other factors should go into determining who should go into the federal universities: community involvement, interviews, extracurricular achievement, etc.
There are some excellent private universities (PUC Campinas comes to mind) and I would agree with you that more money should be made available to those who don't have the means to go otherwise.
Posted by: Randy Paul | July 07, 2004 at 10:11 AM
You guys made me visit the website os the ministry of education and the official statistics offices... I hate you! :D
What is middle class in Brazil? Let me give you an ideia: a 1999 research from IBGE on monthly family income (% by multiples of the minimum-wage - which is something like U$ 85 today):
no income: 3.5%
up to 2: 27,6%
between 2 and 5: 32,2%
between 5 and 10: 18,6%
between 10 and 20: 9,9%
more than 20: 5,9%
Considering that private college goes from something like U$ 150 up to something like U$ 1,000 (law schol/FGV-SP) a month (a good private college goes for something like U$ 300 to U$ 500 a month), IMHO, only 6% of brazilian families have money to pay for a good private college.
About good private colleges, sure there are lots of them (FGV-SP, FGV-RJ, PUC-SP, PUC-Campinas, PUC-BH comes to mind - heh, lots of catholic colleges...), but they aren't as good as the public ones, mostly because of the students, and the majority of the private colleges kind of suck.
When we stop to think about the income of those families, it is hard to find a good solution... perhaps making the richier pay something for the course in a public college...
About vestibular and alternatives, I don't think that community involvement, interviews or extracurricular achievement would really work in Brazil, because they aren't objective and they are way to open to fraud.
What the federal government did this year was a law that say that 50% of the vacancies in the federal colleges will be selected (via vestibular) among people who went to public high school. There are some vacancies to blacks and other minorities too.
I would say that most of the families in the three top brackets mentioned above don't put their kids in public high school or public basic school. Well, a lot of these kids just got shafted by the federal government.
USP, a state owned public college (our Harvard :D), insted of doing what the federal government did, created a preparatory course for the vestibular so the poor will have a better chance of entering a public college or any college at all. I remember that the law school students and engineering students from the same public college also gave similar courses.
Yeah, I know that stuff like that won't solve the problem, but it is a step in the right direction.
Posted by: Alves | July 07, 2004 at 08:43 PM
Alves - thanks for the feedback on the middle class.
I must say that mandating slots for groups in a high quality school is not the way to go. Outreach to disadvantaged groups - yes. A slight skewing of entrance requirements for disadvantaged groups, as in the US - yes. But mandating slots will just bring in a lot of people who aren't prepared for the high requirements and who will fail in disproportionate numbers. The USP's approach sounds good, as does means-testing. Still, the real problem is increasing the *supply* of students who are ready for the good schools....
Posted by: Tom DC/VA | July 08, 2004 at 01:11 AM