The undoing of education: the corrupt takeover of the state and the dissolution of reform agendas in Peru (2011-2025)

• In Event: Latin America’s education policy from the mid 2010s to today: A fourth wave of educational reforms?

Proposal

The period between 2011-16 seemed to mark a definitive movement in both the styles and aims of education policies in Peru. The 4th wave of reforms in the region coincided with the consolidation of a technocratic style of policy making – an emphasis on targets, measurements and results – which was somewhat oddly paired with long-postponed justice-focused reforms and a shift towards ‘reclaiming’ public education as a public good. An increased public budget for education allowed for the rollout of reforms to strengthen the teaching career, improve classroom practice, regulate private education markets, promote gender equity and cultural diversity.
The year 2016 marked a drastic break with this trend. A new electoral cycle inaugurated a period of intense political instability, with education at the centre of many disputes. Between 2016-25 Peru had 6 presidents and 16 education ministers, and witnessed the increasing encroachment of private, often corrupt interests in the state apparatus. Reforms were halted and rolled back and a style of political leadership that is not only averse to deliberation and evidence-informed decision-making set in.
The paper will examine this process, showing how the technocratic approach to reforms, typical of the neoliberal era, left many key political processes untouched. It thus paved the way for the backtracking of key reform agendas, leaving the education sector adrift and hindering the possibilities of achieving key targets by 2030. The Peruvian case shows how education reforms in Latin America must now contend with a global postneoliberal regime shift (Davies & Gane, 2021) that has led to the rise of autocratic and criminal form of governance (Feldmann & Luna, 2022) and to cultural wars around educational aims.

Author

• Maria Balarin, GRADE