Universities: Latin America’s Classroom Chaos

Higher education in Latin America gains world attention only when students riot, which they seem to do somewhere at least once a month, or when governments crack down on them. Lately, the schools in the news have been those of Argentina, where President Juan Carlos Ongania has attempted to curb the universities’ tradition of freedom from government control.

After Ongania imposed strict new rules on Argentina’s nine national universities last month, students rioted, six rectors resigned, and nearly half of the 2,000 teachers at the big (81,000 students) University of Buenos Aires said they would quit rather than take an oath of loyalty to the regime. Last week, when Ongania attempted to reopen the university under a new, pro-government rector, students paraded through the streets chanting “Books si, boots no!” Police arrested 85 of the rioters, and Ongania banned the country’s student federation, which promptly called a nationwide strike.

Although political turmoil may be the spice of life at South American universities, it is far from being their most serious problem. Judged solely by academic considerations, the quality of the education they offer is shockingly low. Dr. Luis Alberto Sanchez, rector of the University of San Marcos in Peru, goes so far as to say that some of his country’s 22 universities are in danger of becoming “intellectual slums.”

Part-Time Professors. Mainly because of dismally low salaries, most Latin American faculties consist of part-time teachers whose main interest is in their outside jobs in law, medicine or politics. At San Marcos, only 57 of 1,344 professors teach fulltime, have little opportunity or incentive to do scholarly research. In inflation-ridden Brazil, where professors seldom make more than $200 a month, university teachers moonlight on two or three different jobs to make ends meet. Understandably, a Buenos Aires student complains: “It is very difficult to study with professors who very often have less knowledge than those being educated.”

Until World War I, many universities were little more than liberal arts colleges or professional schools for a wealthy elite; now they cannot find nearly enough teachers, part-time or not, to handle expanding enrollments. At Buenos Aires, enrollment in economics alone has nearly quadrupled in the past ten years, to 22,400 students—yet to teach them all, there are only 205 professors, who sometimes handle 800 students each. Lectures at San Marcos are such sporadic affairs that students often assemble in classrooms with nothing more than a wistful hope that a professor will show up.

Jealous Faculties. Latin American universities are further plagued by inefficient administration. Most schools are loose-knit amalgamations of once-separate faculties that jealously cling to their own identities and offer duplicate courses. At the University of São Paulo, which consists of 16 separate institutes and 68 affiliated units, chemistry courses are taught in 22 different buildings. Costs consequently multiply. Some third-rate regional universities in Brazil spend up to $4,000 per student for each year of study—about the annual cost of an education at Harvard.

Under the circumstances, it is no surprise that students have little incentive to study, find it more interesting to organize riots or bait their professors. At many schools, students can take exams over and over until they manage to pass. Even so, the number who bother to graduate is amazingly small. Of the 1,184 science students at San Marcos last year, only 22 took their degrees-at a cost per graduate of $14,000. Too often, those who do graduate are not the kind of specialists that underdeveloped nations need most. Although Argentina’s major industry is agriculture and livestock, the University of Buenos Aires produces a mere 250 agriculture or veterinary specialists per year, compared with 1,100 students who choose a more prestigious career in law.

Instead of striving for better faculties and teaching aids, many universities have frittered away their income on grandiose but nonfunctional campuses. One example is São Paulo’s mammoth “university city,” which has been under construction for 22 years; today, a majority of classes are still held in an assortment of buildings scattered about downtown São Paulo, since students and teachers alike complain that the new campus is too far from the city.

Catholics & Medics. There are some exceptions to the pattern of bleakness. Roman Catholic institutions, such as Buenos Aires’ Catholic University and Colombia’s Jesuit-run Javeriana Pontifical University, generally offer better and more disciplined education. The continent’s medical schools—notably those at São Paulo and at Mexico’s National Autonomous University—are often topflight. Mexico’s Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education is excellent.

Another hopeful sign is the widespread awareness of the need for further improvement. Last month Chile observed a national “University Reform Week,” and Brazil’s National Education Council recently proposed a law requiring the country’s 18 federal universities to present plans for reorganization or lose federal funds. Until these programs bear results, concludes Alberto Lleras Camargo, former President of Colombia, Latin American schools will continue “on a chaotic path that is almost classic in the world—universities of authorities without authority and students who do not want to study, locked in a constant and sterile battle.”