Inter-American Development Bank
facebook
twitter
youtube
linkedin
instagram
Abierto al públicoBeyond BordersCaribbean Development TrendsCiudades SosteniblesEnergía para el FuturoEnfoque EducaciónFactor TrabajoGente SaludableGestión fiscalGobernarteIdeas MatterIdeas que CuentanIdeaçãoImpactoIndustrias CreativasLa Maleta AbiertaMoviliblogMás Allá de las FronterasNegocios SosteniblesPrimeros PasosPuntos sobre la iSeguridad CiudadanaSostenibilidadVolvamos a la fuente¿Y si hablamos de igualdad?Home
Citizen Security and Justice Creative Industries Development Effectiveness Early Childhood Development Education Energy Envirnment. Climate Change and Safeguards Fiscal policy and management Gender and Diversity Health Labor and pensions Open Knowledge Public management Science, Technology and Innovation  Trade and Regional Integration Urban Development and Housing Water and Sanitation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Enfoque Educación

  • HOME
  • CATEGORIES
    • Early childhood development and early education
    • Education and work
    • Educational systems
    • Financing
    • Gender and education
    • Infrastructure and educational technology
    • Teachers
  • Authors
  • English
    • Español

Private education in Latin America and the Caribbean in intensive care

June 8, 2020 por Horacio Álvarez Marinelli - Gregory Elacqua - Carolina Méndez Vargas Leave a Comment


The COVID-19 crisis is hitting families and educational systems in the region hard. The pandemic has also had a significant impact on private schools and their community. Many families have lost their jobs and income and have been unable to continue paying monthly school fees/tuition. Other families complain that the distance education their children receive today is of a lower quality service than face-to-face education and refuse to pay the full fees. Other families, especially those with preschool-aged children, have decided to withdraw their kids from school completely, since they are essentially receiving no educational instruction.

This represents a major challenge for school systems in the region. A challenge that goes beyond the discussion of whether private education is higher quality than public education (the evidence is mixed when controlling for variables such as the socioeconomic status of families) or whether it is a service that should only be provided by the public sector because it is a citizen’s right. At the end of the day, regardless of ideological or political views regarding educational provision by the private sector, the question that policy makers should ask is: “How do we guarantee that all children and adolescents receive a quality education?”.

This question is more relevant in countries where the private sector is an important educational provider. In Peru, for example, 2.1 million students attend a private school, and in the capital, Lima, 52% of students are enrolled in a public school. Most private institutions are small, enrolling less than 100 students, and are inexpensive, charging a monthly tuition of less than 200 soles ($ 58). Most students are from middle class families, but around one-third come from lower-income families, who make a significant effort to pay tuition at private schools for their children to receive what they consider to be a quality education.

Unfortunately, as a result of the crisis, many students are likely to migrate from the private to the public sector, and this situation could imply that many private educational institutions could go bankrupt. According to Edgardo Palomino, president of Lima’s Association of Private Schools, most parents  did not pay tuition in March and April.

Faced with this situation, governments must ensure that all children are enrolled in a school. To achieve this, there are a range of policy options. One option would be to ’absorb’ private school students who can no longer afford tuition in the public sector. For example, Peru is using a web based platform to facilitate the transfer of private school students into public schools.  In the first 5 days there were 69 thousand transfer requests, reaching 110 thousand requests within two weeks. This strategy can be effective if there are enough vacancies in local public schools to absorb private school transfer students. Otherwise, governments must expand their coverage and access, with the implications this may have on public spending and management.

Another alternative for governments would be to subsidize private schools, introducing a voucher, such as the universal voucher Chile instituted almost 4 decades ago, or subsidizing schooling inputs.  For instance, several provincial governments in Argentina pay teacher salaries in private schools. This would imply that the state recognizes private institutions as collaborators in the provision of the educational service as a public good and they agree to abide by the rules imposed by the governing body (Ministry of Education). Once the state decides to opt for this route, it must set the size of the voucher or subsidy, the minimum conditions to receive and maintain it (e.g. quality standards, transparency) to avoid the potential negative consequences of introducing a subsidy without having a system that guarantees transparency and equity. For example, the expansion of low-quality subsidized private schools.

Many educational systems in the region face the same challenges as Peru, with a high percentage of student enrollments in the private sector. For example, in Haiti the majority (85%) of schools are private, in Bogotá 72%, in Guayaquil this percentage reaches 52%, and in the City of Buenos Aires 50%. In Guatemala 8 of every 10 high school students are enrolled in a private school. In this context, many governments will have to make decisions with long-term implications for education policy, financing, and regulatory issues.

There is a risk of simplifying the issue, assuming that a vacancy in the private sector is immediately equivalent to a new vacancy in the public sector, and even if this is possible, the transfers are not trivial to introduce. These families had selected a private school, choosing to pay for a service that they could have received  for free in the public sector.  In the interest of the millions of students in the region that currently attend a private school, governments should not ignore the issue, and weigh the tradeoffs of the alternatives (ex. absorb students in the public sector or subsidize private schools) before they make a decision. In a future blog we will explore in more detail the policy options

Do you know of any family that is thinking of transferring their child from a private to a public school? Or someone who has not been able to pay the monthly fees/tuition over the last few months? Tell us in the comments section below or by mentioning @BIDEducacion on Twitter.


Filed Under: Educational systems, Financing

Horacio Álvarez Marinelli

Horacio Álvarez Marinelli is a senior education specialist. He joined the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in July 2008 and is currently working at the IDB Country Office in Panama. Before being assigned to Panama, he was in charge of the education portfolios of Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. Horacio served as Financial Director of the Programa Nacional de Autogestión para el Desarrollo Educativo of the Ministry of Education of Guatemala. He has also served as Officer in Charge of Finance and Accounting and Secretary of the Pension Fund of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, based in Geneva, Switzerland. Subsequently, from 2004 to 2008, he was Advisor to the Office of the Minister of Education, in charge of the modernization of the Planning and Finance Area and Director of Educational Planning of the Ministry of Education of Guatemala. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics and a Master's degree in Administration and Public Policy from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, under the auspices of the Fullbright scholarship.

Gregory Elacqua

Gregory Elacqua es economista principal de la División de Educación en el Sector Social del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID). Ha sido profesor de políticas públicas en la Universidad Diego Portales y en la Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez de Chile. Tiene amplia experiencia en investigación en temas de educación y ha escrito libros, artículos académicos, monografías y reportes técnicos sobre educación en América Latina. También ha participado en reformas de política educativa. Ha sido asesor de tres ministros de Educación y de un senador en la Comisión de Educación del Senado de Chile. Tiene un doctorado en Políticas Públicas de la Universidad de Princeton.

Carolina Méndez Vargas

Carolina Méndez is an education specialist at the IDB’s Peru office. She holds a BA in Economics and an MA in public policy from the University of Chile, and a Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Chicago. Her area of ​​specialization is the evaluation of public policies and issues related to the financing and management of education. Before joining the IDB, she worked at the Chilean Ministry of Education.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Follow Us

Subscribe

Search

Education In Focus

"Education In Focus" is the Education Division's blog, a space where our specialists and guest authors share their reflections, experiences and knowledge to promote informed discussions on educational issues among policy makers, experts, teachers, parents, and other stakeholders. Our goal: to provide insights to public policies that guarantee effective and quality education for all children and young people in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Recent Posts

  • From Digital Doppelgänger to the Real Philosopher: Interviewing “the Real” Peter Singer on AI and Ethics in Education 
  • AI and Education: How to Make a True Educational Revolution Possible 
  • Exploring AI Ethics in Education: A Conversation with Peter Singer’s chatbot 
  • Students as Global Citizens: 4 Ways to Build AI Readiness for Future-Ready Learners 
  • Education Policy and Results: It’s (almost) All in the Implementation

Footer

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo
facebook
twitter
youtube
youtube
youtube

    Blog posts written by Bank employees:

    Copyright © Inter-American Development Bank ("IDB"). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives. (CC-IGO 3.0 BY-NC-ND) license and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose. No derivative work is allowed. Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC- IGO license. Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license.


    For blogs written by external parties:

    For questions concerning copyright for authors that are not IADB employees please complete the contact form for this blog.

    The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDB, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent.

    Attribution: in addition to giving attribution to the respective author and copyright owner, as appropriate, we would appreciate if you could include a link that remits back the IDB Blogs website.



    Privacy Policy

    Derechos de autor © 2025 · Magazine Pro en Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

    Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo

    Aviso Legal

    Las opiniones expresadas en estos blogs son las de los autores y no necesariamente reflejan las opiniones del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, sus directivas, la Asamblea de Gobernadores o sus países miembros.

    facebook
    twitter
    youtube
    This site uses cookies to optimize functionality and give you the best possible experience. If you continue to navigate this website beyond this page, cookies will be placed on your browser.
    To learn more about cookies, click here
    X
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT