Documentos de Análisis: Gasto Social en el Ministerio de Educación y Cultura (MEC)

This subprogram aims to distribute texts and educational materials to students in official and private institutions, as well as those in the education initial and preschool levels, the three cycles of basic education, secondary education, and permanent education for young and adult people. The objectives of the subprogram are to increase access, improve efficiency, and quality of education at different levels and modalities, and contribute to the improvement of equity and school retention. The subprogram was established in 1994 as part of the Educational Reform, which included the provision of school texts to students from socio-economically vulnerable institutions in the framework of programs that received loans from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Since then, the purchase of books produced by private publishers has been contracted through public bidding. The allocation of basic baskets of school supplies between 2007 and 2009 was made according to the proportion of poor population by department, based on data provided by the General Directorate of Educational Planning of the Ministry of Education and Culture. From 2010, the delivery of basic baskets was made to all registered students, in all levels and educational modalities in public institutions and in addition to those from subsidized schools. This expansion meant an increase of 239% in the number of students benefited in 2010 compared to 2007. The mechanism of budget allocation is based on the requests made by the MEC through the annual project proposals presented, where the target population and the content of the goods to be delivered to each student are established. The evolution of the component of the basic basket in the analyzed period indicates that a high percentage of budget execution has been maintained. The subprogram of provision of texts and educational materials is suitable for monitoring public expenditure, as it is a relevant program that provides essential inputs for educational tasks that are inaccessible to many families due to poverty and lack of resources. It is a concrete action, identifiable in terms of budget and with clear and specific objectives. Despite the various experiences of delivering school supplies, in recent years the MEC has institutionalized this action by including it in the national budget and establishing a mechanism for its execution. The subprogram has maintained its presence in recent years, despite changes in politics and personnel responsible for the MEC, which allows for a temporal analysis that is difficult to achieve with other programs and projects. The access to education in Paraguay has increased between 2000 and 2010 in most levels of the educational system. The growth was more visible in the third cycle of basic education and in secondary education, where increases of 10 percentage points or more were reached. This growth is consistent with the expansion of access to secondary education in the region, although Paraguay still has one of the lowest rates. Less than half of young people between 15 and 17 years old are enrolled in secondary education, which is the level corresponding to their age. The performance of students in Paraguay is a concern, as the country participates in the Laboratory of Evaluation of the Quality of Education (LLECE) of UNESCO-OREALC, along with most countries in the region, and has participated in the three regional applications of the test - in 1997, 2006, and 2012. The results are challenging, as Paraguay was one of the five countries (along with the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama) that obtained scores below the regional average in mathematics and Spanish in the 2012 TERCE. More than half of students in third and sixth grade were classified in the lowest levels of the 2012 mathematics test, where Chile, the state of Nuevo León in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Uruguay had the best scores. This situation is repeated when analyzing the data related to Spanish tests. Less than 1 in 10 students in third and sixth grade in Paraguay achieved high scores in mathematics or reading. The investment in education in Paraguay shows a reduction as a percentage of GDP, which is registered in the framework of a sustained growth of GDP, especially between 2001 and 2007 (Graph 1). This may indicate that public expenditure in education has not been able to grow at the same rate as GDP, despite important decisions to invest in the free distribution of school supplies to the population of lower resources, expanding to the entire population from 2008, as well as the declaration of the free education of secondary public education in 2010. The public expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP has decreased in the analyzed period, from 4.1% in 1999 to 3.94% in 2013. Controlling for differences in the cost of living, public expenditure per student is considered low compared to other countries in the region. For example, it is almost five times lower than the expenditure made by Argentina. Additionally, public expenditure per student has decreased in the analyzed period (Graph 2). A similar fact can be observed in public expenditure per student in secondary