Primary instruction was improved by special programs and teacher training, and both benefited not only from educational influences coming from abroad but also from improvements resulting from the study of national problems. Today, primary-school teachers are trained in teachers’ colleges having the status of secondary schools.
Thanks to solid foundations laid during the 19th century, public education in Argentina and Chile reached a high level of competence. In other countries, because of such factors as a more heterogeneous population, a higher level of demographic growth, and greater geographical barriers, the results of great efforts have been less than impressive. Although all countries have declared primary instruction to be free and compulsory, the situation in reality is rather complex. Whereas in towns many children have gone from kindergarten to secondary schools since the beginning of the century, in the rural areas many schools have only one teacher to handle students of all levels. Furthermore, because many Indian citizens do not understand Spanish, special instruction is required.
In the 20th century, governments established special institutions for Indians. The first such cultural mission was created by the Mexican secretary of education, José Vasconcelos, in 1923. The idea was to send an elementary-school teacher, an expert in trades and crafts, a nurse, and a physical-education teacher to underdeveloped communities for a limited period of time to provide the population with some general education. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) helped in the training of teachers for these special areas through two regional centres of fundamental education for Latin America (CREFAL), one in Mexico and the other in Venezuela. Many countries tried to master the dropout problem by offering at least one free meal a day to those who continued their schooling.
Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile were able to multiply their schools and thus to provide facilities for their entire population of school age. In other countries the efforts may be gauged by comparing statistics. In Peru only 29,900 children went to school in 1845, but there were 59,000 in 1890 and 2,054,000 in 1965. In Brazil there were 115,000 pupils in 1869, 300,000 in 1889, and 9,923,000 in 1965. In Mexico there were 349,000 in 1874, 800,000 in 1895, and 7,813,000 in 1969. Unfortunately, the high population-growth rate made it difficult to keep up with the ever-increasing needs. Illiteracy was fought by various means in accordance with the political and socioeconomic situation. Secondary education
During the 19th century, many countries established new secondary schools on the basis of colonial institutions. Thus, in 1821 Argentina converted its College of San Carlos into its College of Moral Sciences. Mexico attempted a total reform in 1833 but would not complete it until 1867 with the founding of the National Preparatory School, which involved reforming the whole system on the basis of positivist philosophy. In Brazil the Royal Military Academy was established in 1810 and the Pedro II College in 1830, but secondary instruction did not prosper until the return of the Jesuits in 1845 and was to be supplemented later by gimnasios—that is, Gymnasien on the German model. Peru and Venezuela established national colleges, and Chile and Argentina created liceos (modeled on the French lycées) and, later, national colleges. (The term college in all cases here is used in the continental European sense to refer to secondary institutions, not institutions of higher education.)
In all countries (except perhaps Chile), secondary instruction was considered a preparation for the university. All attempts to make it more formative and practical failed, in spite of the fact that the government took charge. The secondary-preparatory course lasted from five to six years, with a degree of bachelor (bachillerato) usually awarded upon its completion. Its teachers came from the humanities departments of the universities and the superior normal schools (which existed from 1869 in Argentina, 1889 in Chile, and the 20th century in the other countries).
Polytechnical education—industrial, commercial, and agricultural—had been a concern of liberal governments since the end of the 19th century. Traditional prejudices against practical instruction were overcome only after industrialization began. It was emphasized in Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, and Mexico. Higher education
Imbued with a revolutionary spirit in which education was a vital element, Latin Americans founded 10 universities between 1821 and 1833, among them the University of Buenos Aires (1821). Bolívar himself established two in Peru, Trujillo (1824) and Arequipa (1828). With independence, practically all theological faculties had disappeared, and their position of preeminence was taken over by faculties of law.
Four universities were founded in the 1840s, Chile’s among them, and 10 more in the second half of the 19th century. In Mexico the new institutions called themselves institutes of arts and sciences, because the University of Mexico (founded in 1551) was associated with colonialism and had become a favourite target of the liberals. The University of Mexico was suppressed in 1865, not to be reopened until 1910, the year of the revolution. Argentine liberals solved their problem by passing the Avellaneda Law (1885), which allowed only national universities, prohibiting private universities (until the reform of 1955).
In Brazil the plans to open a university in 1823 failed. Several professional schools were established, but the first university opened its doors in 1912 in Paraná. In 1920 the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro was founded.
Almost all higher education in Latin America came to be secular and state-operated. The fact that Latin American governments, themselves unstable, generally took charge of higher education explains in part its uncertain existence.
Some colonial religious institutions nevertheless survived. During part of the 19th century, for instance, the University of the Republic in Montevideo maintained its ties with the church. In 1855 the University of San Carlos in Guatemala, through a concordat with Rome, reverted to pontifical status. But with the exception of the Catholic University in Chile (1888), the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (1917), and the Javeriana University in Colombia (1931), all religious universities were modern creations. The need for technical education was also recognized by the Mexican government when it founded, in 1936, the National Polytechnical Institute as its second national institution of higher learning, with several branches in the country (regional technological institutes) to serve the particular needs of each region.
Until the 20th century, universities were mainly professional schools. Often they also supervised primary and secondary education (Uruguay, 1833–37; Chile, 1842–47; Mexico, 1917–21). Today they also conduct research and try to encourage regional developments. Unofficially, they have sometimes played a role in political life. Since the reform movement for student representation at the University of Córdoba in Argentina in 1918, they have become involved in political controversies. The Mexican government tried to extricate the National University from political strife by giving it autonomy in 1929. Student demonstrations by the late 1960s, however, proved this measure to lack effectiveness. Reform trends