THE TRADITIONAL DILEMMAS OF EDUCATION IN PERU: A POLITICAL AND SOCIOCULTURAL LOOK BETWEEN THE COLONY AND THE REPUBLIC

Abstract

This article seeks to understand the evolution of Peruvian education and its various dilemmas from a historical appreciation. The objective is to understand educational deficiency from a political and cultural perspective. Therefore, we must go back to the past and contrast the changes and the permanencies. Peruvian education has been debated in constant dilemmas of choice and opposition: oral and written, reforms and counter-reforms, between liberals and conservatives, between rich and poor, preferences towards men and women, urban and rural, among others. Each approach responded to particular interests, in extreme cases to conservative religious beliefs rather than to a coherent educational policy of continuity. The various educational reforms undertaken from the Colony to part of the Republic will also be addressed. Consequently, only by revealing the shortcomings of this cultural formation will we be able to overcome the present educational crisis.