Toward High-quality Education in Peru: Standards, Accountability, and Capacity Building

Peru has made great strides in educational coverage. Although the gender balance is not perfect, it is at about the same level as that found in the rest of Latin America. However, Peru has an inequality problem which cannot be explained solely in economic terms. Other factors, such as linguistic or cultural discrimination or a lack of attention to pedagogical development for the poor, seem to be at work. This situation is a consequence of the lack of quality standards in education, no accountability and monitoring of the level of performance, and not enough teachers' training. This book has three main recommendations. First, it is necessary to generate basic standards, quality goals, and quality measurement systems. Second, once quality can be measured, a clear system of accountability should be implemented based on these standards and quality goals. The clients will play a central role in these systems by demanding their rights to quality services; this will only become possible once there are standards and goals that clarify clients' rights. Third, once there are standards and systems of accountability, investment is needed to strengthen the institutional capacity of the providers.