Universities in Peru are, in a word, inadequate. I should know, I graduated from one. How bad is the situation? Well, the World University Rankings by Times Higher Education claims that there are only 2 ranked universities in the entire country, namely Cayetano Heredia and La Catolica, which aren’t even in the top 500 universities in the world. Ouch.
I wish this wasn’t the case. I would love for people to have access to high quality education in here in Peru. And I would love to see students come to Peru to study. But as things stand now, it’s unlikely to turn around any time soon.
Problems with Universities in Peru
The problem for so long has simply been a lack of oversight and enforcement of basic university norms. Most universities in Peru lack good infrastructure and, like many things, tend to operate somewhat informally. There are still many university teachers working on nothing more than a Bachelor’s degree in Peru.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in attitudes with teachers. Where teachers should be implementing the latest methods and approaches to learning, we see decades-old traditional teaching. A thesis paper elaborated on this in two national universities.
Poor Professor Compensation
Education worldwide tends to be relatively underfunded, but in Peru the situation is worse. The majority of university teachers, about 70%, work at another university or on their own to make ends meet. The result is overburdened teachers with little to give their students.
Even in nicer private universities, 78% of teachers are hired for part time work. There seems to be little commitment to having tenured teachers engaged in research. Peru ranks quite low on number of researchers per capita, and less than a quarter of a percent of GDP is invested into university research, more than 8 times less than that of the USA.
The SUNEDU Solution
The government passed the controversial “Ley Universitaria” a few years ago with the aim of reforming higher education and bringing it up to par with other countries in the region. So far, it’s been a mixed bag.
To address the investigation situation, the government decided to require a thesis paper for all undergrad students. However, in a culture where people outsource their theses to third parties, are Peruvian undergrad students really going to suddenly revolutionize science?
SUNEDU was created to monitor universities and certify them. To date, they’ve denied certification to dozens and approved many others. This did have a visible impact on the physical infrastructure in universities, and closed down several diploma mills. But it also left plenty of students hanging.
It also drove a nail in the coffin for online learning, besmirching it as “inferior” and “not comparable” to in-person classes. SUNEDU closed my mixed-model school just after I got my degree. Pretty hilarious how they went from bashing online learning to depending on it entirely in 2020.
Studying Abroad
If the local system isn’t going to cut it, then what should Peruvian students do? Well, the option to study abroad is actually a lot more viable than people realize. Especially if you’re looking to study at a private Peruvian university, the costs of studying abroad could actually end up being quite comparable.
A friend of mine got me thinking about this. She was so fed up with universities in Peru that she went to a community college in North Carolina. And she found it was still vastly superior. And I thought, well if she could do it coming from a Peruvian middle class family, plenty of other Peruvians can too.
Along with some friends we’ve started up SCORE Peru, a college counseling and exam prep business to help students find a path to studying abroad. We hope to give more people the opportunity to get an education that’s actually worth a damn. We’re off to a great start. And hopefully Peru can take the momentum it’s built so far and turn it into something the country can be proud of. Until then, get your passports ready.
