Challenges for secondary education in Latin America

In recent years, most Latin American countries have
committed themselves, implicitly or explicitly, to achieving
universal provision of a good-quality basic secondary
education. Despite the diversity of the situations to be found
in the region, it is possible to see that what this commitment
means for each of these countries is having to cope
simultaneously with educational deficiencies inherited from
the past -primarily, incomplete coverage that leaves some
adolescents outside the system- and the new challenges
raised by the exigencies of change in the organization of
work, culture and citizenship. The present article sets out
by recognizing this "surfeit of demands" on education, and
seeks to show some of the greatest dilemmas and tensions
faced by policies to achieve good-quality, universal
secondary education in the region.