Report Card on Ignorance

Latin America's troubles are not only of today but of tomorrow. Everybody knows that the schooling is generally bad, but nobody has had accurate statistics. The Organization of American States recently surveyed 19 Latin American republics (not including Cuba) and compiled some melancholy figures:

> In the cities, only 56% of the children in the 7-to-14 age bracket go to school. In rural areas, things are worse --only one in four gets to class.

> One out of every two children who start school drops out in the first three grades, and four out of five drop out before finishing primary school.

> Among youngsters of high school age (15-19), only 15% are in school, as against 90% in the U.S.

> Only about 3% of the young men and women of college age are in college, as against 35% in the U.S.

In waging a belated and uphill struggle against ignorance, Latin American countries have, on the average, more than doubled education expenditures in the past five years. Peru and Colombia have undertaken extensive programs to train teachers and build new schools. In Mexico, education is now the biggest single item in the federal budget. In Venezuela, since President Romulo Betancourt took office in 1959, the government has doubled primary-school enrollment, built 4,000 new schools, set up night classes for adults, sent soldiers into the slums to teach reading and writing. Result so far: a reduction in the illiteracy rate from 56% to 18%.

A little overwhelmed by the obstacles, but encouraged by promising starts, education ministers of 19 Latin American nations and the U.S. met in Bogota last week to exchange ideas on how to get the most from the estimated $30 billion their governments will spend on education during the 1960s. The conference's minimum objective for 1970: to provide at least six years of education for every child in Latin America.

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