11:39 PM May 2, 1996

(SAPS) HAVE A NEGATIVE EFFECT ON EDUCATION

The report concludes that SAPs simply aggravate poverty and inequality of incomes rather than the intended opposite. That in turn redounds to the detriment of education, with less favoured economic groups withdrawing their children from the school system, especially secondary institutions.

SAPs usually consist in corrections to a disequilibrium which has developed between the balance of payments position of a Third World country and its domestic consumption, as well as the adoption of deregulation and privatisation measures.

The negative effects of economic adjustment on education could not have come at a worse moment in the history of developing states, observes the study.

While the global economy and world society require more and more information, and hence more education, only those persons and countries possessing a superior level of education are in a position to deal intelligently with the profound changes in course.

This study, presented here last week at a meeting of specialists in education, noted that there was a marked correlation between cuts in general public expenditures determined by SAPs and reduction in expenditures on education.

In the period 1980-1990 the salaries of teachers were devalued. At the same time expenditure per pupil was reduced, the size of classes grew, and enrolment fell, as well as the quality and quantity of teaching material and equipment.

This study was prepared by a group of researchers headed by Martin Carnoy of the University of Stanford in the United States. Contributors included Thomas Popkewitz, Lynn Fendler, Robert Tabachnick and Kenneth Zeichner, from the University of Wisconsin.

The academics pointed out that in contrast, in those countries which increased public expenditures in general, budget appropriations for education also grew.

Between 1980 and 1990 in those states belonging to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and in the recently industrialised countries of Asia (NICs), where expenditure on education increased, a rise in the real incomes of teachers was generally registered.

There was a direct relation registered between total public expenditures and those budget appropriations earmarked specifically for education in almost all the developing countries and in all continents. Latin American countries, for example, like Colombia and Uruguay, which posted high rates of economic growth, generally increased their public expenditures as a percentage of gross national product (GNP), as well as their budget appropriations for education by respectively five and 4.3 percent annually.

But states like El Salvador, Guyana and Mexico, whose economies posted only slight or zero growth, consequently registered zero or even negative growth in public expenditures in general, and declines of 7.1, 7.6 and 2.5 percent respectively in their expenditures on education.

In Africa, countries like Botswana and Uganda, whose public expenditures as a percentage of GNP rose during the last decade, increased appropriations for education by more than 10 percent annually.

Other African states like Sierra Leone and Zaire, both with zero or negative growth rates in their public expenditures in general, posted respectively 12.1 and 10.6 percent reductions annually in their education budgets.

Over the past few years, the ILO report explained, the majority of African countries reduced expenditure per pupil or student at all levels of education, but especially at the secondary school level in general, and at the high school level in particular.

Teachers' salaries and resources spent per student were reduced by the relative size by which classes increased. Today it is common to find the ratio of students or pupils to teachers standing at 45 to one, and even higher, indicates the ILO education survey.

In certain urban regions of Africa this ratio frequently reaches as high as 60 and more students/pupils per teacher. In Guatemala pupil/teacher ratios of as much as 100 to one have even been reported, while in Bangladesh the survey finds ratios are on the increase, starting from 54 to one, which is already too high.

The study estimates school attendance rates fell in the decade of the '80s owing to strong financial pressure from multilateral lending agencies like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to reduce social expenditures.

Without including China and India, in low-income countries the rate of growth in enrolment in primary schools dropped from 5.2 percent annually in the period covering 1965-1975 to 2.7 percent in 1980-1985, when the recession grew worse as it gradually changed into depression and the effects of the SAPs began to make themselves felt.

If China and India are included in these calculations, the rate of growth in primary school enrolment fell to virtually nil, then dropped from 3.1 to 0.6 between the two periods.

The situation is more delicate in Africa, where the worsening of the process of impoverishment has had significant repercussions on the rate of school-leavers. Financial limitations have considerably restricted the progress of education among young people.

The most notable consequence has been a reduction in enrolment in those African countries which have registered negative rates of growth in incomes per inhabitant, and constant or decreasing values in public expenditures as a percentage of GNP.