The Benefits Of Education In Latin America

Education tends to play a big role in life, especially in America. Though school supplies and uniforms tend to get expensive, by law, children are required to go to school. Americans send their children to school for an average of eight hours a day five days a week. Students learn mathematics, language arts, social studies and science as well as fine arts and health. Although students in America do get a good education in private and public schools, other countries are not as lucky. Latin American countries struggle every year due to insufficient funding for public and private schools. Most Latin American children receive little to no education, and if they do receive an education, it is not a very good one. On average very few students in

Spending money on public universities is a problem mainly because the students attending said universities come from families that could easily pay for private schooling. However, since families see that public universities are getting a large amount of funding they chose to send their students there and save their money instead of spending more on a private education. “In Brazil the public universities have just 2% of all pupils in the education system, but get 25% of its funds” (Education in Latin America: Cramming them in). Even though universities should get funding, it should not be receiving a significant amount if such a low percentage of students are attending. That money from the existing funds can be spent towards enhancing and remodeling school buildings for students in primary and secondary levels. To go along with classroom resources, schools in Latin American countries also has many “poorly trained teachers” which means “education spending in Latin America is wasted” (Education in Latin America: Cramming them in). Instead of paying someone who has a college degree or is qualified to teach, schools hire untrained and unqualified teachers to do the job. Unlike the United States, Latin American countries do not focus on training teachers or teacher aides in safety regulations, teaching strategies, classroom management, etc. Having a poorly trained teacher adds onto the school’s disorganization. To work in a school in the U.S one must have some sort of high school diploma if not some college education or college degree. Ham and Castillo write, “Honduran teachers had no more than a high school education, and about half had nine or fewer years of formal schooling.” Although