An Answer from a Latin American Perspective
Stuart Salazar has served as ACSI regional director for Latin America since 1990. Before collaborating with ACSI, he and his wife, Sheny, worked for several years as administrators and Bible teachers at Instituto Evangelico America Latina in Guatemala City.
“Our children need to walk 10 kilometers [about 6 miles] to attend the nearest public school, and the classrooms are packed to the limit. They told us there is no room for them until next year.” The group of desperate parents of La Tinta Presbyterian Church, up in the mountains of Baja Verapaz in Guatemala, decide that they will start their own school. They talk to Marcos and Andres, two Christian public school teachers who can teach their children in a church building in the afternoons. The reality of Latin America’s public school system is that “an estimated two million primary-age children and twenty million secondary-age children in Latin America don’t attend primary or secondary school” (UNESCO Press 2003).
Federal and local governments in Latin America are prone to acknowledge the contribution of Christian schools to the public good in their countries.
The Verapaz jungle is not the only place in Latin America where public school education is not an option. In many other places—such as the streets of São Paulo, the flat pampas of Argentina, and the Andino Mountains of Peru—Christian schools are started by courageous church people who believe there must be something other than public school education to meet the needs of children.
Illiteracy and Low Coverage: The Problems Are the Same
It is no secret that substantial illiteracy still exists in Latin America. The rate of 11.7 percent of illiteracy for Latin America becomes 31.5 percent in Guatemala. In many Latin American countries, half or more of high school–age children do not attend secondary school. The consequences of such levels of illiteracy and lack of education are dramatic. In Brazil, a literate man earns about 50 percent more than an illiterate one, a man with elementary school education earns about 130 percent more, and a man with at least a secondary school education earns almost 550 percent more (Anderson and Randall 1999, 3).
Teachers in Bolivia, for example, earn just $100 a month, so the educational goals set by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) will not be easily reached. These international organizations are encouraging Latino governments to pursue the following goals by the year 2015: provide preschool education for all children between the ages of three and five, achieve universal primary school coverage, achieve 75 percent secondary school coverage, and eradicate adult illiteracy. If they depend only on public funds or on public school education, most of the 22 countries of Latin America will not be able to achieve these goals (Cariboni 2004).
Federal and local governments in Latin America are prone to acknowledge the contribution of Christian schools to the public good in their countries. Christian education leaders like Edgar Villacis, president of the association of Christian schools in Ecuador (AIECE), and Julio Cesar Orozco, president of the Colombian association of Christian schools (OBED), sit at the table next to representatives from Catholic and other private schools to discuss the issues affecting private school education. They are some of the few voices that are declaring a fact that is not a secret anymore: Christian schools serve a relatively large student population. Today, 333 ACSI member schools in the region serve over 84,000 students. If we count the total number of students served by the more than 3,000 educational institutions that claim to have a Protestant identity, it would be around a million or more. Such numbers imply a significant savings for public education. A voice that is viable and authoritative has begun to be heard, speaking for these education institutions that are doing an admirable work in every nation of Latin America.
Dropout and Education Quality
Even more than our academics, it is our principles-based education that is driving government officials to look at Christian school education as a model.
The quality of education is another concern of local governments in Latin America, and they are pressed by international organizations to improve the results of their educational system. It is not only about coverage and enrollment. In Latin America, dropout rates in primary and secondary education are far higher and the quality of education much lower than the averages in industrialized countries. For example, in rural Latin America, “two out of every five children fail to finish primary school or are at least two years behind when they finally do so” (UNESCO Press 2003). Such failure costs the State of Guatemala at least four million dollars every year (Ministry of Education of Guatemala 1999). Jose Castellanos, associate director of ACSI Latin America, has been able to share about STAR, the ACSI school improvement program, with the Ministry of Education of Guatemala. As appears to be the case in South Africa, government officials seem desperate to find ways to certify schools, and the STAR program is the most complete instrument they have found to guide schools in a process of self-evaluation and continued improvement. They believe that programs like STAR help Christian schools reduce dropout rates.
Even more than our academics, it is our principles-based education that is driving government officials to look at Christian school education as a model. The surge of organized crime by the maras [gangs] of adolescents in Central American countries like Honduras and El Salvador is pushing governments to find solutions to attack the problem down to the root. There is no need to put all those kids in jail if we are able to instill Christian principles in their minds and hearts when they are in their early years. Mario Pilatti, secretary of education in the province of Neuquen, Argentina, said at an ACSI convention, “You Christians have a great advantage over public schools; you have a better base to teach values and moral principles to our children and youth.” It’s interesting that one of the directors of member school AMEN, Silvia Marquez, is one of the top aides for the secretary of education in Neuquen today. Latin American government officials are seeing the results of our education, and they want those results in their schools.
Who Needs Vouchers?
Favorable legislation in countries like Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and Venezuela has granted ACSI member schools access to public funds. For many years, only Catholic schools were entitled to receive these funds, but that changed a few years ago. Today, Bonito Bongarra’s Escuela Cristiana Evangelica Argentina lets the government pay for part of teachers’ salaries while the teachers educate students about Christ! Other ACSI member schools in Latin America—such as Manantial de Vida Eterna in Santiago, Chile, and Cristo Rey in Santa Cruz, Bolivia—readily claim government support without compromising their Christian mission.
We Are Doing Better, and Together We Can Do Much Better!
There are over 3,000 Christian schools in Latin America, and Guatemala has the highest concentration, with more than 400 in existence because of the vacuum created by the inadequate public school system. In 1990, opening its first overseas regional office, ACSI established an office in Guatemala to serve Christian schools of Latin America. Today, many of these schools enjoy the recognition of local governments. As Waleska Ortiz, director of MI-EL Christian School in the Dominican Republic, writes, “Our school was recently assessed by the secretary of education as part of an evaluation they do to all private schools, and we got a score of 820 out of 1,000 points. For the glory of God that means we are considered ‘an excellent school’ according to their chart.” It is no coincidence that MI-EL is one of the 46 schools in the region completing the ACSI STAR program!
Much of what we do in ACSI International Ministries is to share the successful model of Christian schooling in North America with national Christian schools in other countries.
Much of what we do in ACSI International Ministries is to share the successful model of Christian schooling in North America with national Christian schools in other countries. God blessed the United States and Canada with visionary leaders who a quarter century ago gave form to what we now know as the Association of Christian Schools International. National schools in Latin America continue looking at schools in North America that were—and still are—the pioneers of a movement that is telling the world a truth: Christian school education is the answer to today’s problems in education. We believe there is no better model to produce what society needs most—young men and women who have acquired the necessary wisdom, knowledge, and Christian worldview to transform culture and have an impact on society for Christ. There is no better way to fulfill the Great Commission!
Hollywood and MTV are not the only influences that the world is getting from North America today. You may have never thought about it, but every day that you do well in the Christian school classroom—no matter where you are—you are a silent influence on your peer educators in Latin America and around the world. Sooner or later, those responsible for making educational policies in all our countries will see the outcome of an education that puts Christ at its center. They have started to ask questions, and we must be ready to answer. They have started to ask us to run their schools, and we had better do it well. They are looking at our students; let them see Christ in each one of them!
References
Anderson, Joan B., and Laura Randall. 1999. Schooling for success: Preventing repetition and dropout in Latin American primary schools. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Cariboni, Diana. 2004. Education-Latin America: Another lost decade? Inter Press Service News Agency (January 7).
Ministry of Education of Guatemala. 1999. Information Services Unit. Based on statistic by MEDIR-USAID. UNESCO Press. 2003. High dropout and repetition rates show quality to be a concern in Latin American education systems.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (June 15).
Are We Really Doing Better? 8.2