Peru’s education efforts

The World

These children seem happy to be at school but they’re also some of the lucky kids who are getting a decent education. More than 180,000 teachers took the test and more than 90% of them failed and the head teacher here is one of the few exceptions. She doesn’t think the scores tell the whole story: she says there are teachers who want to do better but haven’t been taught properly. She says investments is needed in terms of education and better pay. Low pay and poor training are some of the factors which are behind Peru’s low scores. The President has attempted to tackle the problem with efforts like the teachers’ test. He says for teachers that aren’t improving, the government will have to find a way to remove them from schools. Many teachers belong to unions which boycotted the tests, but the results seem to have silenced the union. But this analyst says the test is not a good way to evaluate teachers. Now the Peruvian government is focused on improving teacher training. They feel that poor education is a hindrance to development.

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