By Pablo Alonso, Pedro Pablo Ortúñez and José L. Tangara
The role that education has played in the economic growth process of countries is a very suggestive research topic that began to be investigated decades ago. The theory of human capital, which was established as a theory within economic science in the 1960s, is the one that deals with measuring the relationship between both variables: education and growth. In spite of the debate that has existed and continues to exist, there is a certain unanimity in admitting that education has had a positive influence on the economic and social progress of countries over the last two centuries or so.
In spite of the greater prominence of research that has approached this topic from an economic perspective, those that do so from the perspective of economic, educational and social history are also very relevant. The advantage of these disciplines for analysis is that they provide the long-term perspective necessary to empirically test the hypotheses developed by economic theories on the value of education. In addition, they allow a more complete and transversal analysis of the phenomenon under study.
Our research aims to study the role that technical education played in Bolivia’s development. For many researchers, this type of education, technical or professional, is the one that can best influence the industrial fabric of countries and, consequently, their economic development.
Why study Bolivia?
Most research has focused on Western Europe and the United States. Very few have focused on Latin America, and within this region, Bolivia is one of the countries most neglected by the specialized literature on the subject.
The choice of Bolivia is due to some additional reasons, among which we can point out the opportunity provided by the event of the two hundred years of independence. But also, because there are very few works on education for the nineteenth century, which do not explain technical education specifically. Or because of the economic trajectory followed by the country, in which education could be among the factors that explain its relative backwardness. In contrast to the economic dynamism of the pre-Hispanic and Hispanic eras, since the beginning of the 21st century Bolivia has been one of the least developed countries in the Americas. And, finally, because its global relevance in the production and export of minerals (silver and tin) could have given it an advantage over other countries in the training of mining professionals (foremen, surveyors, engineers, etc.), but this was not the case.
What evidence has been found?
The exhaustive analysis of archival sources (Annual Education Reports, Bolivian Legislative Yearbooks) has made it possible to determine the chronology in the development of technical education in the country and to analyse what types of education were tried to be implemented; as well as to verify that the educational offer did not adjust to the demand for qualified workers that some Bolivian productive sectors had in that period, especially the mining sector.
The chronology shows that Bolivia did not lag behind other Latin American countries, or Spain, in the development of technical education to train skilled workers, but it did lag behind in the training of specialized technicians and engineers. The teaching of arts and crafts to train workers began with the first republican government after independence, that of Antonio José de Sucre (1826-1828). However, despite the efforts, the educational offer of arts and crafts was limited until the 1890s to several centres in only two cities, La Paz and Cochabamba, which operated irregularly.
Higher level technical education for the training of engineers and specialized technicians, although it tried to be implemented early on, did not achieve its purpose of training engineers or commercial or agricultural technicians. In practice, its curriculum was limited to that of a secondary education because there were no teachers with the capacity to teach the planned subjects and because the level of education of the few students was very poor. Bolivia did not have engineering studies until the early years of the 20th century.
The supply of technical education was very scarce in Bolivia during the 19th century and, despite the fact that the demand for skilled workers by the productive sector was also scarce, the former did not adjust to the latter, especially in important sectors such as mining. It has been proven that there were certain activities -textile and mining- that may have required workers with some kind of technical training. For example, a textile specialty was not conceived within the arts and crafts studies despite the importance of Bolivian textile activity in the Andean region. Nor was the educational system able to train workers or engineers specialized in mining, despite the fact that this activity did have a demand for skilled labour when it expanded in the last third of the 19th century.
This situation is due, among other factors, to Bolivian educational policy, which rarely defined technical education curricula and did not meet the country’s need for skilled labour.
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Sources:
– Annual Education Reports, 1827-1900, of the of the Ministries that had educational responsibilities throughout the 19th century (Interior y Relaciones Exteriores; Justicia, Instrucción Pública y Culto; Instrucción y Agricultura; Instrucción Pública y Fomento; Instrucción Pública y Colonización). Library and Historical Archive of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly of Bolivia, in La Paz
– Bolivian Legislative Yearbooks, 1827-1900. Library and Historical Archive of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly of Bolivia, in La Paz.
Blog Writer Biographies:
Pablo Alonso is Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Economic Institutions at the University of Valladolid. Degree in Economics, M.A. in Economic Research and a PhD in Economics. He did a research stay at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. He has published numerous articles in indexed journals (JCR and Scopus) and book chapters in first quartile publishers (Routledge, Peter Lang, Palgrave, Tirant Lo Blanch, Pirámide and Dykinson). He has participated as a speaker and coordinator of sessions in national and international scientific congresses. He has two lines of investigation. One focuses on the industrial history of Spain and especially on the development of the metallurgical sector and its connections with the automobile industry. The other focuses on the development of technical education in Iberoamerica since the end of the 19th century.
Pedro Pablo Ortúñez is PhD in Economics from the University of Valladolid, 1999. He is a full professor of Economic History at the University of Valladolid (Spain). His research interests include the Spanish railway system and the public sector before the nationalization of the railway and its regulation and business history. He has published his research in books (in first quartile publishers such as Oxford University Press, Ariel, Pirámide and Comares) and specialized journals (indexed in JCR or Scopus) and has participated in conferences in these fields. He did research stays at the London School of Economics and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris). He is Treasurer of the Council of the International Railway History Association. Member of the Governing Council of the Iberian Association of Railway History, Secretary of the Editorial Board of the Transport, Services and Telecommunications Magazine and member of the advisory committee of Ediciones Universidad de Valladolid. He is currently director of the Department of Fundamentals of Economic Analysis and History and Economic Institutions at the University of Valladolid.