Career Guidance & Job Opportunities

Formal education included the primary, the secondary, and higher education levels. The six-year primary cycle was compulsory. Three years of preschool were offered in some areas, but not on a compulsory basis. There were several types of secondary school; most students (90 percent) attended the sixyear liceo, which awarded the bachillerato certificate upon completion and was geared toward university admission. Other secondary programs included teacher training schools, polytechnics, and vocational schools. All primary and secondary schools were under the formal jurisdiction of the Secretariat of State for Education and Culture (Secretaria de Estado de Educación y Cultura). In 1984 there were an estimated 5,684 primary schools and 1,664 secondary schools.

Despite the compulsory nature of primary education, only 17 percent of rural schools offered all six grades. This explained to some degree the lower levels of secondary enrollment. For those who did go on to the secondary level, academic standards were low, the drop-out rate reportedly was high, and all but the poorest students had to buy their textbooks--another disincentive to enrollment for many.

The government decreed major curriculum reforms at the primary and secondary levels in the 1970s in an effort to render schooling more relevant to students' lives and needs. Expanded vocational training in rural schools was called for as part of the reforms. Few changes had been fully implemented by the early 1980s, however. Primary school teachers were trained in specialized secondary schools; the universities trained secondary-school teachers. In 1982, however, roughly half of all teachers lacked the required academic background. A chronic shortage of teachers was attributable to low pay (especially in rural areas), the relatively low status of teaching as a career, and an apparent reluctance among men to enter the profession.

Education expanded at every level in the post-Trujillo era. Enrollment as a proportion of the primary school-aged population grew by more than twenty percentage points between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s, and that of the secondary school-aged population nearly quadrupled. By the mid-1980s, the primary school population was virtually fully enrolled, but only 45 percent of those of secondary school age were enrolled.