For at least the past fifty years, education has been considered an essential part of El Salvador’s development plans, since it: a) shapes values and self-identity; b) promotes basic skills; and c) develops scientific and technological knowledge.

Until a short time ago, the greatest effort in the area of education was made at the primary level, since very few reached secondary or university education. For many of those who attended school, education went no farther than a rudimentary knowledge of reading and writing, along with the simplest arithmetical operations. Over the past several years, however, it has become clear that development tied to globalization trends requires a much better-educated population.

As part of the educational reform, begun in the early 1990s, Salvadorans have recovered some of the ground lost over the previous decade because of budget cuts and closings of many schools located in war zones. Considerable efforts have been made to increase Ministry coverage, and the decentralization of the administrative aspect of education has placed a series of previously-concentrated functions and attributes in the hands of departmental managers.

In order to improve the quality of teaching, a policy was designed to ensure the production and distribution of free school texts, particularly for grades one through six. Efforts were also made to reform the secondary school curriculum, and teachers have received some training in new pedagogical methods and other aspects of the educational reform. However, repetition and memorization continue to prevail within teaching practices, and both are associated with classroom power relationships and disciplinary practices which do little to help train citizens skilled in democratic learning.[1]

If top-down teaching is not the best way to stimulate a spirit of learning among students, neither do current in-service teacher training activities (one-way and on a mass scale) do much to stimulate the capacity for lifelong learning among teachers. Thus, a learning society must generate ways to upgrade teachers’ skills in such a way that they themselves participate as protagonists, researchers, and evaluators.

Due to lack of time and resources, this circle was unable to address other important areas of education, and has limited itself to the issue of formal education; however, the recommendations presented at the end of the chapter offer some broader insights for the design of future projects.

II. Educational objectives related to a learning society

A learning society must be based on learning citizens, constantly willing to seek new information resources, new knowledge, and new skills to keep up with a changing world. In order to move in that direction, one of the principal challenges facing the new style of education in El Salvador –both public and private– is to adopt pedagogical methods strongly oriented toward strengthening learning skills. As a corollary, in an interconnected, changing world, it is more urgent than ever to ensure permanent upgrading of skills, and this depends largely on the constant updating of teachers’ knowledge.

Thus, any mechanism which promotes and stimulates ongoing learning among teachers in terms of methodology and knowledge –which makes teachers lifelong learners– will have a multiplying effect on the current and future generations of Salvadorans. This point is particularly critical since the formal educational system constitutes the chief agent which can either promote or frustrate the learning spirit during each citizen’s most critical years. In short, an actively learning and dynamic teacher corps is essential to the success of tomorrow’s education.

The goals and challenges for a learning society in terms of education involve the following fundamental aspects:

1. Educational processes centered on lifelong learning among Salvadorans, starting with the earliest levels of formal education.
2. Educational processes led by a corps of teachers which is anxious to learn, energetic, and which possesses a broad range of knowledge.
3. An educational effort which seeks to narrow the gap between urban and rural education, between public and private schools, and among different socio-economic groups.
4. An educational effort which seeks to narrow the gap between general knowledge and mathematical and scientific skills.
5. A constant and systematic availability of materials, resources, methodology, and contents to support lifelong learning.

 

The issue of education in El Salvador has been broadly studied. A series of research papers on specific points as well as on general issues offer a wide range of criteria useful to shaping an analysis of the different facets of the educational system.[2] Within the complex picture which characterizes probably any educational system, we can identify certain aspects which will need to be addressed directly in order to achieve significant improvements in educational results.

Efforts to improve the quality of educational services in El Salvador reveal several positive aspects. Although all the strengths mentioned below are relative and not absolute, the opportunities listed are certainly real and should be used as a starting-point in project design:

• Education is rated positively by the Salvadoran people as a way to obtain a higher standard of living, employment opportunities, and improved social status.

• Public education has received political support in the form of progressive increases in the national budget.

• International development and aid organizations currently place a priority on education in awarding financial and technical assistance.

• Teacher training in local universities has increased its emphasis on practice.

• Coverage of educational services has broadened considerably, particularly at the secondary education level –where private schools play a large role– and in rural areas through the Education with Community Participation (EDUCO) program.

• The teaching method that has been adopted –at least formally– is constructivism, which stresses the development of learning skills above and beyond the mechanical accumulation of knowledge; constructivism assumes that learning will be stimulating, relevant, and gratifying, and will progress with relation to the student’s existing knowledge base.

• Available technology –audiovisual, electronic communication– opens new possibilities of support for teaching, including knowledge-sharing and electronic networking both domestically and internationally. The Ministry of Education’s current plans include a considerable investment in the purchase and installation of educational technology through the program to establish Learning Resource Centers (CRA).[3]

• Children are anxious to learn by nature, which gives them a huge advantage despite the limitations and obstacles they encounter during their years of schooling.

Limitations and obstacles

Despite the advances and achievements recorded over the past ten years, education in El Salvador must overcome serious obstacles in order to address the challenges of development. Some of these obstacles or deficiencies are generations old; others are of more recent origin. Together, they make up a complex of problems which must be addressed with a broad array of constant, coordinated efforts.

Some of the more long-standing problems are:

• Dropout and failure rates continue to be high, particularly during the first years of primary schools and in rural zones, where poverty is more acute. For example, in rural areas less than 40% of 15-year-olds attend school. [4]

• The introduction of new contents and learning resources clashes with outdated teaching methods, such as top-down and one-way teaching, memorization, and repetition.

• There is no tradition of ongoing skills updating among teachers, whether self-motivated or externally directed. If teachers demand little of themselves, they also demand little of their students.

• Many students, particularly in rural and poor urban areas, have serious difficulties learning on their own outside of school hours, due to work obligations, lack of incentives or appropriate settings at home, and lack of learning resources available outside of school.

• Teachers often hold two and three jobs, not always related to teaching, which limits their performance in the classroom (curricular planning, search for additional documentation, etc.).

• Many teachers who were trained for a certain grade level or subject end up teaching other subjects or grades, even though current legislation requires that teachers be assigned to the grade which corresponds to their training.

More recent problems include:

• Lack of clarity around the meaning or importance of the educational reform: some feel it is intended for the needs of globalization and offshore production [maquila], or a first step towards the privatization of public education, while others feel the changes are being imposed by international development organizations.

• Reform-related training sessions for in-service teachers have so far produced no significant changes in teaching methods, because their contents have been limited to the top-down and mass transmission of information related to reform guidelines; furthermore, they are held for short periods only.

• The teaching corps is made up of individuals who were trained in a wide variety of institutions (teacher training schools, institutes, universities), which makes it difficult to enact reforms which seek to have a homogenous effect on the supply of educational services. For example, a breakdown of fourth-grade teachers shows that 14% are graduated from teacher training schools, 28% have a high school degree with a teaching specialty, 35% have an associate degree in teaching, and 7% have a college degree.[5]

• No effort has been made to impart special training to school principals at any level, which limits their role in the changes required by the educational reform. School principals are currently overburdened with a wide variety of administrative tasks, which limits their ability to support and accompany teachers in the classroom. Nor do they have any salary incentive to improve their performance.

Inadequate results in national education –both public and private– are not a recent phenomenon, but instead have deep roots. Yet the critical situation we find in education today was exacerbated during the 1980s, when all social development indicators were depressed by the economic recession and the use of most public resources for the war effort. Nevertheless, education today would still continue to require priority attention, with or without the impact caused by the war.

The consequences of failing to reform the meaning and results of education are already apparent. El Salvador has had some of the least success in Central America in attracting foreign investment. This contrasts sharply with the case of Costa Rica, whose efforts in education have borne fruit in the form of enormous investments in advanced technology industries.[6] Furthermore, our country is hardly prepared to address its wide range of environmental and social problems with such a poorly-educated population.

In general terms, the educational system does not fulfill its role because the efforts made are inadequate, and its approach is deficient. Teachers do not receive adequate incentives, nor are they administratively compelled to fulfill all their obligations. Many students –particularly in rural and poor urban zones– have scheduling conflicts with home and work requirements; in other words, the actual time they have to learn is limited to their classroom time. Thus, the deficiencies seen in the educational system can be attributed to both the conditions which prevail in the schools and to the social and family environment in which students must grow, which should come as no surprise.

The educational system can do little in a direct way to improve students’ social and family environments, at least not immediately or in a significant fashion. By definition, education is expected to show results over the medium and long term. However, schools can –and should– improve the quality of the efforts being made by teachers and students in the classroom, as well as seek and receive support from the community. Otherwise, education will continue to produce results which are unrelated to the goals of globalized development.

Without setting aside the systemic nature of educational limitations in El Salvador, there is no doubt that improvements in the quality of education require better training among teachers. In the final analysis, a large part of the educational experience takes place in the classroom, by means of interactions between students and teachers. The introduction of textbooks, laboratory equipment, computers, and any other amount of learning resources cannot alter the critical importance of the teacher-student link, although they may play a crucial auxiliary role. What must change fundamentally is the role of techers: they must evolve from being the ultimate (and sometimes only) source of information and knowledge, to catalysts for developing learning skills among students who have a wide array of knowledge instruments at their disposal.

The current situation of teachers in the public school system reveals the following fundamental characteristics:

• Few incentives which help them value the importance of their work, combined with low self-esteem, which results in a culture of the least possible effort.

• Lack of ongoing teacher training programs and skills upgrading.

• Little communication among teachers on issues of professional interest.

• Poor acceptance of more active and participatory teaching methods, which require greater effort, flexibility, and mental openness on the part of teachers, as well as equipment and time which are not always available.

• Low level of mastery of the basic knowledge involved in the subjects being taught, which reflects both deficient initial teacher training and the lack of opportunities for in-service training.

• Insufficient support materials (learning resources) and little orientation and support for their proper use.

Causes of the principal problem:

The problems which undermine teacher performance can be divided into three categories: a) those related to the lack of resources (financial, material, intellectual); b) those related to social dynamics (attitudes, relationships, willingness to change); and c) those related to teacher training, both new and ongoing.

The national education budget has not increased proportionately to the general population. Furthermore, despite salary increases and additional resources provided by international organizations, teachers still display weaknesses in basic knowledge areas, particularly in mathematics and natural sciences.

Despite recognition that new and in-service teacher training are key activities for improving the quality of teaching, little has been done to promote them. On the one hand, attitudes towards teachers are still shaped by conflicts which occurred regularly in the sector over the past several decades, and by the lack of communication among educational authorities, technical staff, and teachers’ associations. On the other hand, teachers have no incentive to learn more than what is necessary to obtain a college degree, which is considered sufficient accreditation for the rest of their career.

Outside of the educational system strictly speaking, society as a whole –including parents– do not demand of teachers more than their traditional performance, and place a high value on discipline, obedience, and unquestioned acceptance of authority. The educational system is also commonly seen as a provider of diplomas which ensure jobs and income, rather than as an exercise to develop learning skills.

Teacher training today is the responsibility of universities, which are quite capable of imparting a mass of theoretical knowledge, but come up short in terms of practical knowledge and experience, which constitutes a serious limitation. Furthermore, the current pay scale for teachers provides incentives tied to degrees obtained, but there are no incentives related to job performance, nor are there any criteria for evaluating teacher performance above and beyond students’ grades and test scores. Finally, in-service teacher training is currently a very low priority in the public education system; there are also no channels for sharing best practices and innovations among the teaching corps.

Specific challenge:

Achieve a practice of constant learning and skills upgrading among the Salvadoran teaching profession.

A. Principal project proposed by the learning circle:

Justification:

The best way to address this challenge is based on leveraging the existing potential within the corps of teachers itself, in an attempt to generate new momentum which multiplies this potential throughout the profession. Among the mass of experience accumulated throughout the national education system, we believe that there are indeed teachers who:

• have developed good teaching practices in the classroom;
• would like to share their experiences and receive comments on them;
• need to acquire confidence in their abilities through recognition of a job well done, as well as support in those areas which are still deficient.

This proposal therefore aims to identify those areas and mechanisms which can leverage positive experiences (best practices) among in-service teachers, while at the same time creatively involve parents and the community in overcoming teaching problems.

This approach has several advantages over traditional systems of massively-attended seminars and conferences. In the first place, given the size, dispersion and heterogeneity of the national teaching corps –over 30,000 teachers employed by the Ministry of Education, still increasing– there is no possibility of equal, massive, and constant training which would involve all teachers simultaneously, unless there were abundant time and resources available. It would be much more effective to evolve a system adapted to teachers’ time availability, which means decentralizing in-service teacher training and making it more flexible.

In the second place, not all teachers have the same concerns, expectations, and needs in terms of in-service training. For example, there are crucial differences in the educational environments of rural and urban areas, humanities and math-science, public and private schools, and so forth. These differences require teachers to adapt their teaching practices and contents to special situations. Mass training cannot take into account all the variations teachers might face.

In the third place, mass trainings inhibit participation and individual practice. Just as constructivist methodology places a priority on student practice as an essential part of building and consolidating knowledge, so is teacher practice equally important in verifying the effectiveness of their own learning.

General objective:

Help build a learning society in El Salvador with regard to the quality and sustainability of school learning, by promoting lifelong, dynamic, and sustainable learning among groups of teachers in the public school system, accompanied by members of the community.

• Create and support pilot learning groups made up of in-service teachers in the public school system, accompanied by members of the community, who will work on enhancing their professional knowledge and teaching methods, and use their example to generate broader learning processes among the teaching profession.

• Promote dynamic, ongoing exchanges among the groups in order to enrich the learning process.

• Measure and evaluate the impact of the groups and the pilot network in terms of teachers’ learning, and of the quality of teaching-learning which takes place in the classroom.

• Systematize and disseminate the experiences and materials generated by the groups, in order to stimulate and support the future creation and development of other groups of teachers.

Considerations:

Within the context of the concerns which shape the challenge of building a learning society, this pilot network represents a modest but key effort to improve learning dynamics in the educational system, by placing a priority on knowledge-sharing and knowledge-creation among an initial set of teachers. Therefore, monitoring and evaluation of this effort must be detailed, so that the pilot can offer useful lessons for future learning efforts among teachers. If the experience is positive, therefore, its broader dissemination will be of fundamental importance to stimulate replication of the experiment.

A basic consideration which could influence the success of this project is the willingness of the educational authorities to support this type of effort and allow it to unfold without direct supervision, but rather through accompaniment and support. In the second place, the project could be more attractive to teachers if it were led by non-governmental organizations, who would maintain good coordination with the Ministry of Education. Third, problems of time and distance could limit teacher participation despite their best intentions, and thus it would be useful for principals and the local School Board (CDE) to lend their support and even for them to participate. Finally, electronic connectivity –for example, through Infocenters– would make the sharing of experiences among groups more dynamic and of a better quality.

Participants:

Candidates for participation, as direct beneficiaries of the project, should be voluntary groups of teachers set up informally (by affinity and interest in participating in the pilot but without institutional involvement) or formally (with the support or even participation of the principal), with additional participation by interested parents. If the principal participates, it is important to maintain a role of cooperation and learning. The choice of groups should be made on the basis of clarity of expressed purpose, and the willingness to contribute time and local resources.

The opportunity presented by the implementation of the Learning Resource Centers (CRA) in a large number of public secondary schools could stimulate the creation of groups in some of these. At the same time, the immense need for improvement in primary schools in rural areas constitutes a strong argument in favor of placing a priority on teachers working in those areas. Finally, in light of a recently designed program to promote study circles –directed by the Ministry of Education– among teachers at magnet schools, it would be interesting to include monitoring of their results as part of the overall program.

It may also be useful to select participating groups by region or department, in order to obtain more consistent results in the evaluation.

Activities:  [see implementation proposal]

• Select and train a group of facilititators who will accompany the pilot groups during 1-2 years.

• Establish and implement an appropriate monitoring and evaluation method from the start.

• Develop a flexible meeting schedule, set up to address aspects such as:

• recording and systematization of good practices in the classroom
• presentation and discussion of national and international experiences
• individual and group improvement in terms of mastery of subjects selected by the teachers
• improvement in teaching methods
• dissemination and discussion of teaching materials
• mutual observation in the classroom to evaluate progress made
• lessons learned and challenges faced
• production of teaching materials

• Permanent development and systematization of the methodology used in the groups.

• Sharing of experiences among groups, via the facilitators, electronic connections, and meetings; incentives and prizes for effort and quality; publication of teaching materials produced.

• Widespread dissemination of the results of the groups; promotion of new groups; systematization of information and resources in libraries, resource centers, related institutions, Web pages.

B. Recommendations to enhance ongoing projects:

The pilot project of learning groups among teachers will be strengthened by the network of "Infocenters" currently being promoted by the Infocenter Association of El Salvador, as well as by the network of Learning Resource Centers (CRA) which the Ministry of Education will begin setting up in public secondary schools throughout the nation. The Infocenters and some of the CRAs will have adequate facilities for e-mail and other electronic communications, which wil make them ideal vehicles for interconnecting groups of teachers. These two networks could also help enhance other initiatives, such as:

• Vocational and technical adult training, for example by designing and maintaining Websites which organize offerings of lifelong learning opportunities outside of the framework of formal education. This initiative would require participation by the most important training institutes, such as universities, institutes, INSAFORP, etc.

• On-line distance courses via Infocenters and CRAs, produced by the same institutions mentioned in #1. Such an initiative would require a special system of accreditation.

• In some areas of the pilot project set forth above, Infocenters could be set up locally to coordinate with an existing CRA, both managed by parents’ associations which are already in charge of the CRAs. Each would thus complement the work of the other, especially in situations of excess demand or specialized training needs.[7] The Infocenters and CRAs could also exchange information on administration and management of resources which could help both function better; this is of particular importance given local concern about long-term self-sustainability of the CRAs.

• The generation of electronic contents necessary to complement the school curriculum, for example history texts and Salvadoran literature, art and culture, national and municipal statistics, etc. Initiatives such as Infocenters and increased national connectivity will probably lead to efforts by others to build such contents, but this will require a special effort by educational authorities and champions to organize and update such information, through portals and index pages, according to grade level and subject.

C. Complementary policy recommendations:

The learning circle discussions produced a number of additional recommendations related to the public education system:

• Guarantee an emphasis on practice in new teacher training carried out at local universities.

• Organize professional training schools or institutes for principals and district supervisors, offering a special certificate instead of an additional degree, with an emphasis on practice and learning. This will help overcome a tendency toward improvisation in the appointment of directors and supervisors, and would enhance the decentralization of the educational system.

• Current educational legislation represents some progress over practices of the past, which rewarded teachers according to the grade level taught. Today’s pay scale rewards academic degrees, regardless of the grade level taught. However, there is no mechanism to either stimulate or accredit ongoing learning (courses, seminars, congresses, production of teaching materials, groups such as the ones proposed in this strategy, etc.) which would enhance teaching skills. It would be useful to include such criteria in the form of an amendment to current legislation.

1. Barillas, Juan Alberto et al., ¿Tu aprendes? ¿Yo enseño? (San Salvador: FEPADE, 1997).  [return]

2. See Reimers, Fernando, coordinador, La educación en El Salvador de cara al siglo XXI. Desafíos y oportunidades (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1995); Comisión Nacional de Educación, Ciencia y Desarrollo, Transformar la educación para la paz y el desarrollo de El Salvador (San Salvador: Ministerio de Educación, 1995); and soon to be published, Alvaro Carrasco y Agustín Fernández, Estudio sobre la situación de la educación nacional no superior antes de iniciarse el proceso de reforma educativa en El Salvador (Programa de Promoción de la Reforma Educativa en América Latina - PREAL, 1997).  [return]

3. The CRAs will be gradually set up in public high schools to support teachers and students in both teaching and learning. They wil be equipped with books and computers, among other items. There should be a total of 150 CRAs installed over a period of three years.  [return]

4. Reimers, Fernando, coordinador, La educación en El Salvador de cara al siglo XXI, pp. 222-226.  [return]

5. Ibid., p. 237.  [return]

6. In 1992, El Salvador spent 1.5% of its GDP on education, compared to 4.6% for Costa Rica and Honduras (1990), and 1.4% for Guatemala.  [return]