What comes to mind when you hear the name Jordan? While Americans might reminisce about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, those outside the U.S. will think of a small country in the Middle East near nestled between Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the West Bank. Steeped in thousands of years of history, the Kingdom of Jordan is more recently known as the provisional home of millions of Palestinian refugees from various regional wars and the place where T.E. Lawrence fought alongside Arab fighters during the Arab Revolt of the early 20^th century, famously depicted in the film Lawrence of Arabia.

Since King Abdullah II ascended to the throne in 1999 many educational reforms have taken place, including the expansion of many universities to incorporate a concept which many groups like the World Bank have called a “knowledge based economy.”

Less than a quarter the size of its Southern neighbor Saudi Arabia and a much smaller population, the Kingdom lacks natural resources such as oil and has become heavily dependent on aid from the UN and USAID to fill the financial gap to sustain the growing population of almost 7 million people. But unlike Saudi with their abundant oil fields and other countries revenues from minerals and waterways, Jordan has used its aid money to invest in educating the young population, its human resource. Jordan has a very young population with 40%, approximately 2.2 million, between the ages of 12-30 and 74% of the entire country under 30 years of age [1]. It’s no wonder that such attention is paid to educating the future generation.

One morning during a cross-country trip to attend a training session at a branch office for one of Vittana’s upcoming partners, our car slowed to a crawl along the road. Prior to coming to Jordan I lived in Los Angeles, the traffic capital of the United States, so I was more than acclimated to such an occurrence. I notice a queue of yellow school buses and cars lining the side of the road with groups of smiling moms and dads walking faster than my car crept, heading to a destination not far in front of us. To my surprise I discovered the congestion began at Philadelphia University, just a few hundred meters from me. It’s hard to put into detail the joy I saw from parents and students rushing from the schools main gate as they met each other.

By the way some of the parents were dressed I could tell they came from a poorer section of the near-by town. I guessed that these parents, like all parents, were hoping that the education their children were getting at this university would allow them to overcome their disadvantaged surroundings. More likely than not, some of these students were the first in their families to achieve a college education. I had to wonder what the future held for them; I was glad that if nothing else, a friendly face was waiting for them at home.

More of those bright faces are now flocking to the 10 public and 12 private institutions all over the country where enrollment at 4-year universities has increased annually by 14% since 1999, just after King Abdullah I inherited the Kingdom after his fathers’ death.  The World Bank estimates that 92,000 students per year will be entering private schools by 2013, a leap in registration since the numbers were estimated at just over 55,000 in 2006. Public schools have also seen an increased demand for education as well. Between the 2000-2001 and 2006-2007 academic years the total enrollment grew from over 77,000 to 218,000 students [2].

Philadelphia University, which carries the ancient name of the capital city Amman, is an example of how the government has assisted schools by expanding the number of programs at many institutions while creating three new public universities in recent years to accommodate the growing numbers in matriculation.

Although the Ministry of Higher Education wants to create the ‘Student Loan Bank‘  project to help fund many youth, the hopes of a university education seem out of each for for students from poor families when adding in rising cost of living in the Kingdom. The Higher Council for Youth calculates that “by the age of 20, only 20.5% of women and 22% of men continue their education in pursuit of a university degree.” To many in Jordan desperately seeking a way to break out of poverty through education, the inability to afford their degree due to financial constraints can be a devastating reality.

Flag of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

I’ve only been in Jordan for two months, but I’ve already seen how the youth in Jordan would benefit from Vittana loans. There is so much potential in the people, but so little access to education. Considering the number of four year and vocational schools, the schools exists to empower youth in Jordan with education and end the cycle of poverty. I’m excited that Vittana is here to help make that happen.

The purpose of investing in an idea or product (or a person) is to enable it to eventually blossom into something bigger and better than what it is now, something that effects the lives of many. Education for young people, like any other product, is the perfect example of how an investment can have long term, large scale impact.

The Jordanian government has an intense focus toward their human resources and their “Knowledge Economy”. And while more students are starting to reap the benefits of the Jordanian government’s investments, many are still left behind; and that’s why Vittana is here. Maybe one day when I return, that same road will be filled with the smiling faces from families who would have missed out on an education if not for others willing to invest in their children’s future.

Today is election day in Chile.

Candidate posters plaster the streets and buildings, and every single business in the city of Santiago is closed so that everyone can have the opportunity to vote. Sadly for us, even the lavenderia (the laundry) at our hostel is shut down for the day. No clean socks for me, I guess. Elections are a time of change, a time when folks can voice their opinion, try something (some one) new. And while elections always hold some energy, the fervor around voting day here led me to investigate why the democratic process in Chile holds such a thrill and importance.

Turns out, the Chileans have a lots of reasons to celebrate a free and valid election day, as this certainly hasn’t always been the case. In 1974, Augusto Pinochet led a coup d’etat after the former president (Salvador Allende) apparently committed suicide. Although Pinochet instituted many economic policies that had positive effects for the Chilean economy, during his brutal military dictatorship thousands of people were killed and “disappeared”, more than 30,000 people were tortured, and over 200,000 people went into exile. (Most of these atrocities were committed against people of differing political beliefs, many of them students.)

Yesterday I met university student, Ana, who’s working to become a special education teacher at one of Santiago’s universities. She mentioned that during Pinochet’s rule, Chile’s education system also took a serious blow. While Pinochet never invested much in education during his rule (between 1970 and 1989, government spending on education dropped by more than 20%), Pinochet’s last official act in office was to dismantle and privatize the Chilean education system. The result was effectively a two-tier education system in Chile: a world class school system for those with money, an almost non-existent system for those without.

Although Pinochet’s rule is over (he stepped down in 1990), some of his legacy still lives on in today’s current education systems. Unlike Chile’s neighbors, which have comprehensive public university systems to provide cheaper quality education, many of Chile’s schools and universities are still privatized. Reading between the lines here, this means that most can’t afford them. In addition, the public school system has been so chronically underfunded that, in most cases, the public schools that do exist aren’t even up to the standards of Chile’s poorest neighboring countries. For one of the wealthiest countries in South America, Chile is far behind many of its less affluent neighbors in terms of equal access to education.

I also found these sobering macro-economic facts about the ongoing distress caused by Pinochet’s education policy:

“Overall, the impact of neoliberal policies has reduced the total proportion of students in both public and private institutions in relation to the entire population, from 30 per cent in 1974 down to 25 per cent in 1990, and up only to 27 per cent today. If falling birth rates have made it possible today to attain full coverage at primary and secondary levels, the country has fallen seriously behind at tertiary level, where coverage, although now growing, is still only 32 per cent of the age group. The figure was twice as much in neighbouring Argentina and Uruguay, and even higher in developed countries—South Korea attaining a record 98 per cent coverage. Significantly, tertiary education for the upper-income fifth of the Chilean population, many of whom study in the new private universities, also reaches above 70 per cent.” [read full article]

Ana is trying to raise money for school by offering her poems (for a tip) to passers by on the street. Her program is about $400/month, and she has another 2 years before completing it. She was quick to point out that the $400/month is just tuition and doesn’t include books or school fees etc.

When I asked about scholarships, she said that they are only for the very poor, who also score very highly on their entrance exams. When I asked Ana about taking out a loan for school, her reply was one that I’ve heard a dozen times before. Yes, there are loans available, but only if your family has a house and/or a car and/or property to leverage for collateral. In truth, it’s really only the most well off who can qualify for loans in Chile’s traditional banking sector.

While she didn’t begrudge those who receive scholarships or whose families are well-off enough to qualify for bank loans, her situation does point to an troubling conundrum that many students find themselves in. There are “two Chile’s” in Chile. One for the “haves” and one for the “have nots”. In a world that is trying to shrink this gap, higher education is a fail-proof prescription. Sadly, students like Ana, who are part of the deserving middle tier of students, have been left to their own ingenuity to find a way to pay for school.

After learning Chile’s history, and hearing Ana’s story, it’s no wonder that Chileans are out in force today, voicing their opinions and making their democracy work. With any luck, the tides will continue to turn in favor of a more egalitarian education system, so that folks like Ana can not only afford school, but have lots of great quality schools to chose from.

It’s a tough uphill struggle for Ana, and for Chile.

I wish them well.

While in Ecuador, my eye was caught by news of students and professors rioting in the capital city of Quito, as well as in the other major urban centers of Guayaquil and Cuenca. After seeing this on the news for days at a time, and then after seeing hundreds of students throwing rocks at police in riot gear in the street just a few blocks from my hotel, I decided it was time to dig a little deeper into what exactly was going on.

Upon further investigation, I learned that the professors and teachers in all major cities and throughout the country were instituting huelgas (or strikes) in reaction to the Ecuadorian president’s new education policy. If I understand things correctly, the new policy requires all professors as well as all teachers to undergo a test to prove their competency. If they passed, they’d be assured their jobs. If not, they’d be given the opportunity to take further classes in order to get “up to snuff”. If teachers were unable to pass the test and unwilling or unable to complete further course work, they would be fired.

Now, from friends and acquaintances in Ecuador, I’ve heard both sides of this debate. Some feel that it’s an affront to the teachers; that they shouldn’t be made to take a test, and that they should just get on with the business of teaching the youth of Ecuador. The (very large) teacher’s organization in Ecuador (La Union National de Educadores) has obviously taken this up as their battle cry and teachers and professors are out in droves, marching in the streets and calling for a renegotiation of the policy.

On the other side of the debate, I’ve heard that many believe that a certain population of teachers and professors within Ecuador (many referred to these teachers as the “old guard” in the education system), who were not only using antiquainted teaching methods and theories, but who don’t fully understand the course material at all. Effectively, not only are there some who are poor teachers, but there are others who are actually teaching things incorrectly to their students. One Ecuadorian I met put a patriotic spin on this side of the debate: “How can our country improve if our teachers aren’t teaching our young people well? We can’t.”

As for the students rioting in the streets, some chalk this up to youthful vim and vigour. They seem to look upon the rioting as youthful mischief that kids are getting into when they have a day off of school due to the strikes. The Teachers’ Union has the opinion that the students are joining the marches and the riots because the policy is unjust and the students are standing on the side of the professors and universities. Others seem to have a darker view of things saying that so many students are proactively joining the riots because if, during the huelgas, a student was to show up for class, the students would be seen as not supporting the professors or the university. The student could be in deep trouble and have a hard time passing their classes from then on if they’re seen as disloyal to the school/teachers.

The conspiracy theories go deeper as well. I’ve also heard (though not been able to get any proof or factual information on this) that some believe that many of the “old guard” professors and teachers are in cahoots with the university administrations. After giving the university top dogs a little kick back, some teachers have been given kushy teaching spots without having to do much work, and that the reason that there is such a big backlash against taking these tests is that the professors wouldn’t be able to pass and their nice/easy job would be taken away and the administrations extra financing would dissapear. The accounting systems in universities have been notorious for their lack of transparency, and this testing of professors is supposedly the first step of many to try to bring light into this area.

The huelgas have now been going on for over a month in Ecuador. If nothing else, this is a month (on and off) of classes that the students have missed. The riots were getting progressively more violent (I saw youths as young as 14 handcuffed in the back of police trucks, and I’ve seen tear gas being shot into crowds of 80+ people) , but recent talks seem to have cooled things down for them moment.

It’s hard to know what is fact and what is fiction, but certainly this single policy issue brings to light the magnitude of grey area which young people must navigate in order to get an education in the developing world. If one is lucky enough to get through school and get into a university, then one must find a way to pay for it. And if one is lucky enough (and works hard enough) to find a way to pay for university, then one must worry about whether or not there will be classes to attend, whether or not the professors will be any good at teaching them the things they need to learn in order to “get ahead”, whether or not their administration will be transparent and bonafide, and whether or not their government will be willing to go bat to make education improvements.

The list goes on and on.