Latin America is far from its educational goals for 2030, according to UNESCO

A new report published by the Institute of Statistics of the Unesco and the Global Education Monitoring Report concludes that most countries will miss global education targets by 2030, including 17 of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Based on the references and data of each country, the report establishes that the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) to guarantee an inclusive and equitable quality education, in addition to guaranteeing lifelong learning opportunities for all population, will be far away by 2030, even before taking into account the consequences caused by the pandemic.

In particular, Latin America and the Caribbean, along with Central and South Asia, “are on track to achieve universal early childhood education,” but countries like El Salvador, Haiti, Jamaica, and Suriname will only reach 80% enrollment in preschool stage to 2030.

Regarding the rate of out-of-school youth of secondary school age, the region believes it can only reduce it from 19% to 12%, the point where the goal was to reach universality.

“It is a real step forward that some two-thirds of countries realistically assess their chances of achieving the SDG 4 targets. However, almost halfway through our deadline, the process has shown that, even by their own assessment, It is not anticipated that most countries will approach the 2030 goal, “said the director of the UNESCO statistics institute, Silvia Montoya.

Globally, 26% of students are expected to lack basic math skills in early grades, 32% by the end of primary school, and 34% by the end of junior high school.

The figure skyrockets in Paraguay, where 74% of boys and girls will not have basic math skills by the end of primary school, the highest percentage of the countries in the region with available data, followed by Uruguay with 65%. .

Regarding teacher training, the percentage is above or close to 90% at all educational levels and countries such as Cuba, Colombia and Nicaragua stand out with excellent performances in this indicator.

Panama, Paraguay and Guatemala had rates equal to or close to 3% in 2015, while in Venezuela this figure was only 1.3% in 2015. In the case of Venezuela, spending on education is expected to increase in 2025 and reaches 4% of GDP.

“These nationally determined goals still do not take into account the possible impact of COVID-19 on education, which we know has considerably slowed, and may even have reversed, progress in education,” said the director. of the Global Education Monitoring Report.

“It is also worrying that a fifth of the countries do not have plans with targets, so there is still work to be done before we have a complete and realistic picture of where we want to be in 2030,” he added.

The report in turn anticipates that the countries will review the data this 2022 to see if it is necessary to reconsider educational expectations as a result of the massive closure of schools derived from the health emergency, a measure that affected the entire continent.