Venezuelan Vice-President telling lies about the real situation in the education system

[ChangoLoa]

Yesterday, a poster shared with us the good news about the amazingly fast increase in school registration in Venezuela since the beginning of the Chavez administration. Quoted by a Belorussian site, Ramon Carrizales (Vice-President of Venezuela) said, among other successful trends, that "school registration 'increased in 320%"...

http://www.export.by/en/?act=news&mode=view&id=2457

This number sounded strange to my ears because I work in that field, so I went to check the INE (Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas/Venezuelan State official statistics institute)

http://www.ine.gov.ve/condiciones/educacion.asp

And found that school registration had indeed increased... in 21.4% (public schools) or in 22,3% (all schools)

Preschool registration: public (total)
1998: 613,765 (759,372)
2007: 837,448 (1,047,811)
http://www.ine.gov.ve/condiciones/cuadro_educacion.asp?Tt=227-06&cuadro=Educacion_227_06&xls=22706

1st to 9th year
1998: 3,597,282 (4,367,857)
2007: 4,069,867 (4,984,453)
http://www.ine.gov.ve/condiciones/cuadro_educacion.asp?Tt=227-11&cuadro=Educacion_227_11&xls=22711

Mid, diversified and professional
1998: 251,938 (388,956)
2007: 510,721 (711,305)
http://www.ine.gov.ve/condiciones/cuadro_educacion.asp?Tt=227-19&cuadro=Educacion_227_19&xls=22719

Total
1998: 4,462,985 (5,516,185)
2007: 5,418,036 (6,743,569)

320% vs. 22,3%?!

:wow:

Now I wonder how many "statistical disturbances" such as this one have been used on this forum to reflect the situation in Venezuela.

[EFerrari]

1. Shouldn't you be out defending a golf course from communism?

Since you got the correct numbers from a government site, common sense says the wrong number is likely a typo. That article is badly translated and full of errors.

[Braulio]

2. Government Hype

Most of the guys around Chavez are incompetents. They don't even know how to get their numbers right.

[ChangoLoa]

3. You are talking about golf? Why? absurdity? zig zag again?

Oh... right! a typing error between 22% and 320%.
Why would this jackass announce it as a success in a country where the population in age of going to school has grown in around 20%?

"Look how good is our administration, we have increased school registration proportionally by 2% in 11 years!"

Common sense says he was trying to give an image different from the reality in front of the Ambassadors. The same they did with illiteracy rates.

Btw, did you notice that private school enrollment was increasing faster than the public school one? What does that tell to you?

[Downwinder]

4. I don't know, all private school graduates are not going to work

for the Government? How do you explain it, typo?

"Btw, did you notice that private school enrollment was increasing faster than the public service? What does that tell to you?"

[ChangoLoa]

5. What does it have to do with working for the government?

The point is that when private schools' registration grows faster than public schools ones, it's usually considered to be a bad signal of the quality and efficiency of the public school policies. It means that the government is not being able to follow the demand for education because of the quality of the education it proposes and/or the quantity of places it provides.

What's "typo"?

[Downwinder]

6. Read your copy.

"Btw, did you notice that private school enrollment was increasing faster than the public service? What does that tell to you?"

What does it have to do with public schools? To me "public service" indicates government employment. Have you got a different definition?

[ChangoLoa]

8. Nope, you're right, my fault... I'll correct this nonsense.

[Downwinder]

9. I learned 50 years ago, not to trust Government figures, theirs or ours.

According to the Department of Health, Department of Defense, and Department of Energy, radiation is not a hazard. 32 kiloton Dirty Harry exploded in the Upshot-Knothole series of nuclear shots in Nevada in 1953 was not a hazard.

[Judi Lynn]

10. God! They probably found it's good for you! Remember how long US Congressmen

have taken tobacco money, with special prosecutor Kenneth Starr even being a tobacco attorney, and the US governemnt has been completely fine with it? Holy smokes, apparently!

They have seen political prisoner boiling Islam Karimov as a fine ally, paid him boatloads of our money, too.

They never felt moved to acknowledge what kind of monster they've been supporting with OUR hard-earned money.

[Downwinder]

11. I'm sitting here reading a report, not yet on the web,

that the average age of death of Sandia National Laboratories workers was 50 between 2001 and 2008. The risk extends to family members.

[rabs]

12. Appc. you post the link when it is up

Folks in the NM Forum will be very interested in that report.

Thanks.

[Downwinder]

13. WILCO

[EFerrari]

14. That's a good point.

lol

[ChangoLoa]

17. Yes, judge and jury situations

Many people absorb the "statistical declarations" of Venezuelan govt officials as if they were proofs of the magnitude of the social progress. But when you go and check the numbers (illiteracy, school registration, for ex), you understand the situation is completely different from the announces. It's an important thing to understand, if one wants to have a clear image.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[EFerrari]

15. The same thing happened here when we integrated our schools.

It tells me the Guccis don't want to go to school with the little people.

[ChangoLoa]

16. It tells me the state is not providing enough school places to follow the demand

And I don't think that I need to convince you on how insane is the situation of public education in the richest, the "gucciest" country on earth.

[EFerrari]

18. Our system has a different problem. The government at both state

and federal level is privatizing the system. We were still building schools through the early 1970s. But Ronald Reagan's felons began privatizing most of our social programs and we're further down that road today. That's why there are demonstrations all over the UC system this week. The University makes most of its money providing parking, housing and medical care, not education. So despite the fact that last year was a boom year for the University, it's once again raising fees on students. Education is about at the bottom of its priorities.

Our neighborhood schools used to be a hub of community activity. Not any more. It's very sad, really.

[Downwinder]

19. By some obtuse reasoning.

Education, health, and jobs are not national security issues.

[ChangoLoa]

20. It's a mental conspiracy

They want us to ignore the fact that even in their own field of wealth production, they lose this reasoning.

Education and health produce a huge social value added that can easily be accounted in aggregated stats. The problem is that this social value is impossible to be cashed as private profits. This non-cashable-by-the-investor social value is about the extra quality of work, the physical and spiritual energy that people gain in a society that provides good-quality free healthcare and education, the extra time they're able to work when having a strong health, etc...

Private agents in this sectors don't give a damn about the real total value added which is produced by their activity, they just look at the value added that can be appropriated by them. They ignore social value and, from a global perspective, their activity is under-productive. Higher costs they make you pay and lower value added they produce for the economy.

So, even in the coldest reasoning about optimal equilibrium with the highest wealth production, they lose this argument. The state has to be the main agent in those fields for obtaining the biggest total value added. Private agents don't work for producing a social gain that they can't put in their pockets. The invisible hand doesn't work here.

And we're not even including the higher issue of social justice!

Why do Americans have this stupid aversion about demonstrating in huge numbers and forcing the hand of their politicians? If millions and millions of people went out in the streets for their healthcare to be reconsidered as it was promised, what would happen?

[Downwinder]

21. Probably be about the same as Honduras. The Police would

show up with batons and gas. The MSM would look the other way. After all organizers as in ACORN are a bad thing. Give it a little time, when they can't lie about the economy any more because the lies are obvious people will get out. A body at rest will remain at rest until acted on by a force. When enough people feel the economic force they will move.

[ChangoLoa]

22. A cultural trend needs to emerge in the US

The pressure from the Street, as a constant threat/reminder to the lawmakers. I was expecting Americans to be more active about healthcare. Massive popular revindication has a huge power. I'd love to see a million people in the streets of Manhattan like you get to see in Paris, for example. The french manage to make their state bend. WHY isn't that possible in the US?

[Downwinder]

23. Look how long the population in Latin America has been deprived

and they are just pushing their governments for better. When you look at the French you have to give credit for the revolution period and also for the time under an occupation government. The US citizen has never had to suffer. For the last 40 years The US has moved away from being a nation of doers to being a nation of marketers, button pushers and paper clerks. You are in Education, I grew up going to a two room school, two teachers, no principal, no superintendent. Paperwork was at a minimum. If you have ever read Zena Henderson's books, thats where I went to school. What we kids didn't do to help out the teachers had to do. Do you know any machinists that can set up a turret lathe? All of the equipment now is computer operated with an emphasis on replacing knowledge with electronics. How many store clerks can make change without looking at a screen? People are going to have to learn how to walk again before they can march. They are too soft.

[Braulio]

24. You have got to be a real American

Only an American can start a discussion about Venezuelan education and spend all the time discussing American education. You guys are a riot.

[Downwinder]

25. I take that as a complement, are you implying that Venezuela is not American.