The panorama of coverage and performance in tertiary education in Latin America presents multiple challenges. Despite the significant increase in participation at this education level in the last two decades (in particular in Brazil and Paraguay), most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean continue to have tertiary education enrolment rates below 40%. There is also a high level of heterogeneity in the region: in some countries enrolment is over 60% (Argentina, Cuba and Uruguay), while in others it is below 30% (Honduras, el Salvador, Nicaragua, Jamaica and Mexico).² These percentages are well below those found in OECD economies, where Finland, the united States and the republic of Korea all reach coverage of over 80%.

In the last few decades, the demand for higher education has been increasing in the region, reflecting changes in the economic and social structure. An essential component in this increase in demand has been the rise in per capita income, but also significant is the growing awareness of the importance of scientific and technical knowledge and skills to boost competitiveness and long-term development.³ in higher education, which is aspired to by a much wider section of society than in the past, there is a more important social value, which has contributed to increase its demand. One positive aspect of this increase in enrolment is that in several countries more than half of the university students are the first members of their families to attend university, giving them greater socio-occupational mobility than what their parents had.

Although PISA scores remain low, the performance of Latin American countries has shown a slight improvement in the past 10 years. Recent results confirm two important facts: first, Latin American countries are among those with the lowest scores in the PISA group; and second, the region’s performance is improving in comparison to earlier assessments (Figure 4.2).⁴ Average reading scores for the five Latin American countries that participated in 2000 and 2009 (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru) reveal that over the course of the decade there was a slight reduction in the gap with OECD economies from 23% to 19%.⁵ The OECD average increased by 2 points during that period (from 485 to 487), while the average of the Latin American countries increased by 16 points (from 395 to 411). In various countries this progress is the result of improvements among lower-scoring students:

In Chile and Mexico the proportion of low-performing students fell by almost 15%; in Brazil, the best students improved their performance (with skill levels of 5 and 6), and results among low-performing students remained stable. Chile and Peru showed significant improvements in all skill levels.⁶ Despite this progress, Latin America continues to be among the countries with the lowest scores on the test. Mexico remains the OECD country with the lowest results, with an average difference equivalent to two years of schooling (114 points) compared to Korea, which had the highest score in 2009. This gap is greater than with other emerging regions, such as South-east Asia.⁷

As in a number of OECD economies, students in state and private schools in Latin America perform similarly. A first glance at the data on student performance shows that students from private schools perform better than those from state schools. However, this result does not take into account socio-demographic and economic factors. Once these factors are considered, students from private schools do not perform significantly better than those from public schools. This confirms, on the one hand, the persistent effect of socio-economic status as a factor explaining performance (more important than public or private management of schools), and on the other, the strong segmentation of public and private schools by socio-economic status.⁸

Performance by gender and region continues to show important differences. as with global trends, in Latin America women are making greater strides than men in terms of enrolment, retention and graduation.⁹ On the PISA reading test, girls performed significantly better than boys in all member countries, including Latin America.¹⁰ This gap has at times increased due to improvements in female performance not being matched by improvements among males. On the other hand, geographic differences in performance are also noticeable. Analysis of urban and rural schools reveals higher PISA scores in cities in most OECD economies (after controlling for socio-economic differences) and in countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Chile.