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Education Overview Technology in Education
Recent Education Reforms Comparison with the U.S. Analysis

Overview of Venezuelan Education

As a developing nation, Venezuela has very wealthy and very poor citizens. Children from
wealthy families have typically had more educational options, opportunities, and attended
school for a longer period of time than children from poor families, especially indigenous
families.

Venezuela’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) reports that the poorest 20% of the population studied for 3.72 years in 1998 and for 4.68 years in 2009, while the richest 20% also increased their enrolment, though by less. In 1998 they studied for 8.57 years and in 2009 for 8.82 years.

This reflects an increased attention towards the poorest sectors, but also shows that inequality as a result of income continues.

The strongest educational program in Venezuela is El Sistema, which is officially known as National System of Youth and Children's Orchestras of Venezuela. El Sistema was founded in 1975 by economist and musician José Antonio Abreu, which uses musical immersion to buoy the lives of hundreds of thousands of poor Venezuelan children.

El Sistema's mission is to systematize music education and to promote the collective practice of music through symphony orchestras and choruses in order to help children and young people in achieving their full potential and acquiring values that favor their growth and have a positive impact on their lives in society.

The State Foundation for the National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Venezuela (FESNOJIV - Fundación del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela) is an organization committed to social development through an innovative and hope-instilling music education program, distinguished by its excellence and for having a positive impact on the communities where it is implemented.

El Sistema performances can be found on YouTube. For instance, one YouTube video features the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra performing a sizzling, incredibly joyful rendition of Bernstein’s "Mambo" while orchestra members dance in their seats and twirl instruments in the air.

These YouTube videos have impressed musicians throughout the world. Many have traveled to Venezuela to meet the students and instructors. In fact, a new organization called El Sistema USA has been formed and based at New England Conservatory. It is dedicated to importing the principles of the Venezuelan program to this the United States. In June 2010, they graduated from the group’s one-year Abreu fellowship alongside eight others in the inaugural class.

Another El Sistema-inspired program is planned to launch at the Conservatory Lab Charter
School in Brighton, MA. Their stories are examples of the way the El Sistema phenomenon is creating what might be called an inspiration bump, for lifelong music educators like Mark Churchill, the director of El Sistema USA, and for a crop of new leaders who are gearing up to start bringing the Venezuelan vision to cities across the United States.

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Technology in Venezuelan Education

Several companies in the United States, seeing the extent of poverty and lack of resources for educational opportunities, have initiated programs to contribute to Venezuelan education and economic prosperity. One such program is Microsoft's "Broadening Horizons through Technology."

In the heart of the Venezuelan Guajira, Microsoft has sponsored computer centers where young Wayúu Indians learn to use a computer for the first time in their lives. The project, "Technology for indigenous girls and boys" is a joint effort of Microsoft and UNICEF.

Microsoft built two computer centers, with 12 computers each, and financed training for information and technology professors who speak the children’s language of Wayuunaiki. In addition to training more than 1,300 students, the computer centers are also available to members of the wider community.

Industry Developments In September 2009, the government said that it would start to assemble its own laptops as part of its educational programme, Canaima Educativo. The laptops will be manufactured at two plants in the Paraguana Peninsula, Falcon state, with production scheduled to start within eight months. The goal is to distributed 300,000 PCs manufactured under the programme, starting in September 2010.

Earlier in 2009, Venezuelan President Chavez had announced plans to supply schools with 350,000 low cost netbooks this year. The computers are being delivered from Portugal as part of a technology knowledge transference agreement signed in late 2008. As of the third quarter in 2009, around 50,000 laptops imported from Portugal had already been distributed under the plan. The government-manufactured laptops will come with 100% open source software.

Venezuelan NGO Aliadas en Cadenes (Allies in Chains) has created the program Aliadas en Tecnología (Allies in Technology), which sees in technology a window of opportunity for empowering women affected by poverty in Venezuela. Through classes and workshops, many women who saw computers as strange and intimidating objects now find in them a tool for work, learning and self-fulfillment.

The program recognizes the training of women as one of the main strategies for overcoming poverty. These "Allies" organize workshops that spread the use of new technologies, together with other self-improvement workshops to help fight violence against women and teach them about the importance of challenging and questioning the identity that tradition in Venezuela has given women.

While elementary and secondary education in Venezuela is nowa right that is offered equally to men and women, this was not always the case. The role of women as mothers and housewives has prevailed in culture. The basic education women had a right to at the beginning of the Venezuelan republic framed women as administrators in the home and underestimated their efforts in the workplace.

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Recent Educational Reforms

On August 14, 2010, the Venezuelan government passed the Organic Education Law, which does the following:

  • Makes education secular;
  • Expands community participation in schools and universities;
  • Establishes participatory democracy across universities;
  • Bases the curriculum on socialist and ecological ethics;
  • Connects university graduates with the socialist development plan of the nation;
  • Guarantees free education from primary school to university graduate level;
  • Aims to significantly increase the enrollment of poor people in the elite universities.

The government says changes to the law - which among other things, broadens state control over schools and makes the education system secular - were long overdue.

However, the Catholic Church and university authorities in Venezuela have opposed the law. Some parents have threatened to take their children out of school if there is any socialist material on the new curriculum, while teachers' unions warn that they will boycott classes, and university students say they will stage further protests.

On August 23, 2010, Venezuelan police had to fire teargas to stop thousands protesting against the new education law who were trying to break past a security cordon in the capital Caracas. Health officials said dozens of people were treated for minor injuries.

Rallies for and against the law, which passed last week, have been held for over a week. Earlier protests also met a tough response from police. Elsewhere in the capital on Sunday, thousands of Chavez supporters held a counter-rally. They say the new law will give everyone equal access to education, regardless of their economic position.

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Education Statistics - A Comparison with the United States
Ranking Category Definition Venezuela Result USA Result Venezuela Rank USA Rank
Average years of schooling of adults The years of formal schooling received, on average, by adults over age 15. 6.6 12 43rd of 100 1st of 100
Children out of school, primary The number of primary-school-age children not enrolled in primary or secondary school. 235,577 1,621,339 21st of 126 3rd of 126
Duration of compulsory education The number of grades (or years) that a child must legally be enrolled in school. 7 Years 12 Years 134th of 171 7th of 171
Duration of education after Primary level The number of grades (or years) in primary education. 6 6 102nd of 181 26th of 181
Duration of education after Secondary level The number of grades (or years) in general secondary education. 5 6 167th of 181 71st of 181
Education enrollment by level after Tertiary level The number of students enrolled in college or trade school 983,217 16,611,711 25th of 150 1st of 150
Education, primary completion rate Percent of students completing primary education requirements/font> 92% N/A 67th of 148 N/A
Enrollment ratio after Secondary level The ratio of the number of children of official secondary school age enrolled in school to the number of children of official secondary school age in the population. 50.40% 88.10% 87th of 135 21st of 135
Female enrollment share after Secondary level The number of girls enrolled in secondary school, expressed as a percentage of the total number of pupils in secondary school. 53.60% 49.00% 11th of 170 91st of 170
Geographical aptitude results Overall score based upon test results of the Geography Challenge, an online geography quiz game. 67.956 70.069 113rd of 191 96th of 191
Library Books Number of books available in the library system 3,690,000 N/A 24th of 81 N/A
Literacy Rate - Male This entry includes a definition of literacy and Census Bureau percentages for the total population, males, and females. There are no universal definitions and standards of literacy. Unless otherwise specified, all rates are based on the most common definition - the ability to read and write at a specified age. Detailing the standards that individual countries use to assess the ability to read and write is beyond the scope of our source. Information on literacy, while not a perfect measure of educational results, is probably the most easily available and valid for international comparisons. 93.80% 99.00% 74th of 156 32nd of 156
Literacy Rate - Female See definition for "Literacy Rate - Male" 93.40% 99.00% 65th of 160 25th of 160
Public spending on education, total > % of government expenditure Public expenditure on education consists of current and capital public expenditure on education plus subsidies to private education at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. 17.04% 15.25% 37th of 103 70th of 103
Public spending per student after Primary level total reported current spending by the government on primary education, divided by the total number of pupils in primary education, expressed as a percentage of per capita GDP. 2.1 17.9 121st of 126 36th of 126
Pupil-teacher ratio, primary number of pupils enrolled in primary school divided by the number of primary school teachers (regardless of their teaching assignment). 18.7 14.21 118th of 191 160th of 191
School life expectancy > Total School life expectancy and transition from primary to secondary for school years 1998/99 and 1999/00, published in www.uis.unesco.org 10.9 Years 15.2 Years 64th of 110 14th of 110
Spending on teaching materials Primary level is the amount spent on teaching materials expressed as a percentage of total public current spending on primary education. 0.6 N/A 24th of 29 N/A
Tertiary enrollment Gross enrolment ratio, tertiary level is the sum of all tertiary level students enrolled at the start of the school year, expressed as a percentage of the mid-year population in the 5 year age group after the official secondary school leaving age. 28.5% 72.6% 55th of 151 1st of 151
Women to men parity index, as ratio of literacy rates, aged 15-24 Women to men parity index, as ratio of literacy rates, aged 15-24 1.02 N/A 16th of 155 N/A

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Analysis

Schools' Access to Information and Communication Technologies:
Venezuelan schools are in Stage 3 of the CID Framework. Stage 3 is defined as:

Computers can be found at the university level as well as in primary and secondary schools. Up to 10 to 15 computers can be found in laboratories for classroom group work, with about four students per computer.

Computer labs are generally only open for computer studies during the day and closed after school, or may be open to teachers for class preparation but closed to students.

Computers tend to be older generation models, such as 486 PCs or higher, and they may be networked with a file and mail server. There may be an internal Local Area Network (LAN) in place.

If there are multiple computer labs, they may be connected through the school network. Where there are stand-alone PCs, they may have a limited CD-ROM library. The networked lab achieves connectivity through a dial-up connection to the Internet, which supports limited World Wide Web access.


The Internet is not readily available throughout the country, and most computers are the result of special government programs or through other countries' charitable causes.

Enhancing Education with Information and Communication Technologies:
The level in which technology is used to enhance education is at Stage 3 of the CID Framework.

Stage 3 is defined as:

Teachers and students use computers to support traditional work and study. Teachers who use computers are generally proficient with word processing applications and may access information offline from CD-ROMs.

They may employ computers in some basic drill-and-practice lessons. In
some cases, teachers access and organize information from the World Wide Web in their work, share information using e-mail, and create information in electronic format to share with others both inside and outside the school.
 

As technology and Internet access become more readily available, teachers are gaining computer skills and knowledge on instructional technologies through government-sponsored programs.

Developing the Information and Communication Technology Workforce:
Venezuelan schools are in Stage 3 of the CID Framework. Stage 3 is defined as:

Technical classes and programs on ICT-related subjects are available from a variety of public and private centers. Some limited online access to training is available. Some employers offer training in the use of information and communication technologies to their employees.

Special government-sponsored programs exist for specialized training. For instance, the
Venezuelan government started the "Mission Sucre," which offers degrees in plastic arts,
communications, civil construction, law, integral design, electricity, electronics, nursing,
systems and informatics, aquatic transportation, legal studies, teaching, geology, mining,
environmental management, hydrocarbons, information and documentation, community
integral medicine, chemical mechanics, technology of food production and tourism.

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References - Click here 

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