Education
Under the 1993 constitution, primary education is free and compulsory. The system is highly centralized, with the Ministry of Education appointing all public school teachers. Eighty-three percent of Peru's students attend public schools at all levels, but over 15 percent (usually the upper-classes) attend private schools if their parents can afford to pay for the tuition.
School enrollment has been rising sharply for years, due to a widening educational effort by the government and a growing school-age population. The illiteracy (2008) rate is estimated at 7.1% (10.6% for women), 19.0% in rural areas and 3.7% in urban areas . Quechua is mostly an oral language, so in some cases, in rural areas, people do not speak Spanish and therefore do not know how to read or write. Elementary and secondary school enrollment is about 7.7 million. Peru's 74 universities (1999), 39% public and 61% private institutions, enrolled about 322,000 students in 1999.
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Peru
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worth while. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“... education fails in so far as it does not stir in students a sharp awareness of their obligations to society and furnish at least a few guideposts pointing toward the implementation of these obligations.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“I prefer to finish my education at a different school.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)