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Teachers, Local Communities, and National Government

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Education and the State in Modern Peru

Part of the book series: Historical Studies in Education ((HSE))

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Abstract

In this chapter I explain the political rationale underlying the organization of primary schooling during the period under study. I show that regional, provincial, and district elites attempted to use the growing educational apparatus as a means to gain and maintain political hegemony and that patronage was a key mechanism of equal importance in this enterprise. The search for political power and financial resources were crucial factors in the real and alleged deficiencies of primary education. Lack of organization, negligence of local officers, incompetence of teachers, and meddling of Catholic priests, were not the exclusive result of decentralization, corruption, and carelessness, as the existing scholarship has argued.1 In order to achieve a deeper understanding of the performance of educational officers and teachers, it is necessary to examine their socioeconomic conditions and the nature of their relationships with the local communities where they worked, and with the national government. These relationships were defined not only by official school regulations and the availability of financial resources, but also by patronage networks and political conjunctures.

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Notes

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© 2013 G. Antonio Espinoza

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Espinoza, G.A. (2013). Teachers, Local Communities, and National Government. In: Education and the State in Modern Peru. Historical Studies in Education. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137333032_4

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