STEAM IMPROVE THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE LOW EDUCATIONAL QUALITY 1

¿How to make STEAM improve the factors that influence the low educational quality of

the rural highlands of Peru?

Piero A. Zela

Private University

Piero A. Zela, Department of Engineering, Private University.

Piero A. Zela is now at Department of Mechatronic, University of Engineering and

Technology.

This research was supported by Stephen H. Corey.

STEAM IMPROVE THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE LOW EDUCATIONAL QUALITY 2

Abstract

This document explores the causes of the deficient education that is offered in rural

areas of Peru; and thus, through STEAM, to be able to formulate a solution that helps

mitigate one of the problems. One of the observable factors is how the poor conditions

in which students live in rural areas, such as malnutrition, lack of sanitation (access to

drinking water and sewage) cause the educational quality they reflect to be so low; In

addition, we can say that the low education budget of the rural highlands is divided into

two problems, poor educational infrastructure and lack of teachers; which in turn cause

problems such as insecurity for students and lack of basic services that impede efficient

development of student learning. On the other hand, teenage pregnancy in rural areas

is also a factor that has an impact on the low quality of education, as it causes students

to drop out of the student's life or not to have a priority focus on study. As a basis to

apply STEAM, it was decided to propose a solution to malnutrition in rural areas.

Keywords: education quality, rural zone, inefficient, deficit.

STEAM IMPROVE THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE LOW EDUCATIONAL QUALITY 3

¿How to make STEAM improve the factors that influence the low educational quality of

the rural highlands of Peru?

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD (2016: 5) through

the results of the 2015 PISA test reported that basic education in Peru is ranked 63 out of

69 nations. These results reveal that there is a large educational deficit in the country and

that the current model is not working. An interesting point comes from statistical data

made by the MINEDU (2018), where it states that:

According to the Census Evaluation of Students (ECE), made by the Ministry of

Education to students of Second Grade of Secondary, gave the results 2018 where: in

Reading, in the urban sector approved 17.9% while in rural only 2.9%; and in

Mathematics, in the urban sector it approved 15.4% while in the rural sector only 3.1%.

This information shows that, although the urban area is not close to an excellent result, it

is in the rural area where there is a greater educational decline in the country. For this

reason, this research will try to show a broader state of the question about what might be

the main factors that influence and cause a low educational quality to be present in the

rural area of the country, specifically in the mountains since it is there where major

complications of various kinds occur. Therefore, this research will allow having a clear

and precise idea of the main factors that influence the low educational quality in the rural

highlands and thus seek solutions with STEAM to solve the national problem of rural

education. Next, we will list the main factors mentioned above and proceed to define and

explain them one by one, in order to have a broader knowledge of the current status they

have and how they affect the educational quality of the rural highlands.
STEAM IMPROVE THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE LOW EDUCATIONAL QUALITY 4

Literature Review

A first factor that affects the low educational quality of the rural highlands is the poor

living conditions of the students. In the first place, there is a lack of electrical service that

is not only a very serious problem for children but for the family in general; this lack is

due to the rugged geography of the rural highlands that makes it difficult to implement

an electricity network; This means that students do not have a properly lit space to study

and rely solely on sunlight to carry out their academic activities. Second, there is a lack

of potable water and sewage services; this is due to the poor implementation of water

treatment systems by the State. This causes stomach and diarrheal diseases to be the

common denominator in these places, which prevents many students from continuously

attending their educational institutions. Third, the lack of internet connectivity, mainly

due to the poor dissemination of these technologies in the rural sectors of Peru and also

due to the lack of an electricity network. The consequences are that both teachers and

students cannot access multiples sources of information on the Internet, which slows

down their learning and prevents them from developing self-taught skills. And fourth,

student malnutrition; due to lack of food in areas of poverty or ignorance of a balanced

diet, which causes the learning and attention capacity of students in these areas to decrease

drastically, since, without good nutrition, the development of the child's brain he would

be affected.

The second factor that influences the low educational quality is the low budget that is

available for education, according to a study conducted by the World Bank Group (WBG)

(2017) until 2018 the maximum annual educational investment by the Peruvian

government reached only 3.92% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), thus achieving

the emergence of two major problems that affect, unusually, Peruvian education and, in

particular, that of the rural sierra, which are: the poor educational infrastructure and the
STEAM IMPROVE THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE LOW EDUCATIONAL QUALITY 5

lack of teachers. In the first place, there is the bad educational infrastructure; The partial

abandonment of the government in response to the needs of the rural student is reflected

quantitatively by the Statistics on Educational Quality (ESCALE, 2018) where it points

out 2 important figures found last year. First, 50.5% of the schools require maintenance,

this means that a large part of the spaces (classrooms, laboratories, sports fields and

toilets) is no longer used because the students would not be in an adequate and

comfortable environment for both your education as for your well-being. Second, 15% of

all school buildings require a total repair, this directly affects the safety of students,

because the student may suffer an accident either by a natural disaster or by the collapse

of the infrastructure, as a result, It would cause the student to miss weeks of class and that

parents have a reason not to send their child to school, this makes the lack of security is

a consequence of the poor educational infrastructure. In second place is the lack of

teachers. According to the Ministry of Education (MINEDU) (2016: 18):

Exercising teaching in institutions located in rural areas adds complexity to the exercise

of the profession, both by the necessary displacements, the separation of the family

nucleus, and the limitations to access basic services. Two out of every five teachers of

rural educational institutions say they have to live far from their family and stay to sleep

elsewhere to be able to carry out their duties. This is consistent with the fact that teaching

positions in more remote rural educational institutions are not very demanded. Thus, for

example, in the 2015 appointment contest, 81% of them were deserted.

Apart from teaching in rural areas requires a certain degree of complexity, the lack of

remuneration is another cause of the lack of teaching because the government only gives

them a specific salary depending on the rural area in which they are. For example,

information given by the director of Pedagogical Management Education Management,

Jhon Sardón, (Hanco N., 2016) reported that the salary of teachers is differentiated and
STEAM IMPROVE THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE LOW EDUCATIONAL QUALITY 6

runs in merit to the scale of payment that depends from the area where he works; If the

teacher is in Rural I (a single institution without water, without drainage and without

light) his salary will be S/. 2000 soles with a bonus of S/.500, if the teacher is in Rural II

(joint institution with water and drainage but without light) the salary would be S/.1500

soles with a bonus of S/.100 soles and if the teacher is in Rural III (single-member

institution that has all the basic services) the salary would be S/.1200 soles with a bonus

of S/.70 soles.

The third factor that influences the low educational quality of the rural highlands of Peru

is adolescent pregnancy, which can be caused by two specific reasons: rape or lack of

sexual education. The INEI (2015) reported that approximately 7.9% of women in rural

areas suffered from rape, of which 2.7% were between 15 and 19 years old. Likewise, it

also indicates that of the sexually active women between 15 and 19 years old, 14.0% do

not use contraceptive methods (367,141). This information clearly shows the risk of

students in general and especially of the rural area of getting pregnant prematurely, which

generates two problems for their education. First of all, the dropout rate that causes

several students, both parents, and mothers, to leave school prematurely to take charge of

their children; as indicated by Mendoza and Subiria (2013) "In our country, school

dropout due to pregnancy, marriage or to care for children varies, [...] from 10 to 20% of

women aged 15 to 24 years left school for one of those reasons. "(474). This statistic is

alarming and clearly demonstrates the reason for the inefficient education in the country

and especially in the rural area, since after retiring from school they do not return to finish

their studies. Second, the imposition of additional responsibilities is another factor that

influences the educational quality of the rural highlands; although as mentioned by

Mendoza and Subiria (2013) "nine out of ten adolescent mothers do not attend any

educational center" (474), the latter who decides to stay will not focus 100% of their
STEAM IMPROVE THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE LOW EDUCATIONAL QUALITY 7

efforts on learning; but it will be easily deconcentrated due to the high pressure of the

new responsibilities that have been imposed for motherhood; which in the end will result

in inefficient and low-quality learning.

Discussion

Taking into account the 3 factors discussed above and focusing on possible solutions

applying STEAM, we were able to choose 1 theme of the "poor student living conditions"

factor, which focuses on malnutrition.

"Implementation of a harvest plan in schools and homes reusing unharvested areas"

The plan consists of focusing the cultivation of own foods in schools and homes; in order

to reduce the malnutrition rate that currently stands at 17.1% in a chronic state and 36.9%

in chronic risk (SIEN, 2018); It is also known that the percentage of arable land in 2016

is 3,508,000 hectares compared to 2000, which had 4,410,000 hectares, is low (WBG,

2018). Therefore, applying a method of integration of the new areas is that they can

provide the space either for farming or animal breeding. It should be noted that the type

of food the school needs is necessary since all crops cannot be harvested at any time of

the year; due to such situation is that it seeks to give knowledge of foods such as:

tomatoes, peppers, okra, eggplant, squash, artichoke, radish, onions, radicchio or kale that

are perennial during the year. At the same time, strengthen those foods that are already

planted but that contribute a lot to the nutrition of the students; They are also rich in

vitamins, proteins and fiber. In spite of this, it is also necessary to take into account the

days that can be harvested because during school hours it is not feasible because the task

of extracting food from the soil is arduous and tiresome, which would affect the student's

performance. One of the cases that may concern the implementation of the plan is that it

does not reach the integration of all students or in any case of parents and finds no
STEAM IMPROVE THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE LOW EDUCATIONAL QUALITY 8

commitment on both sides; it is a challenge that must be faced and both qualitative and

quantitative results will be reflected over 15 years.

An example of this is:

The FAO (United Nations Food Organization) together with the WHO (World Health

Organization) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in 1950 began to

implement a project called "Program of applied nutrition (ANP) "which consisted of

providing knowledge of essential agriculture and primary animal husbandry to families

who are in rural areas and so they can themselves grow their food and practice aquaculture

by improving notably the diet of families rural This project had a term of 20 years, so at

the end of the 70s it was possible to verify how productive the program was.

The results were varied because not all the places involved were successful, for example,

in the Republic of Korea the project promoted some practices that the target farmers

adopted easily; however, only 1 percent of the villages participated in the project. This

emphasizes that the integration of all those involved in the problem must be guaranteed.

Conclusion

These are the factors that currently cause the problem of low educational quality in the

rural area of the highlands of Peru; however, they should not be taken only as

investigative points but try to give them greater importance to give them a solution.

Somehow, if you want to change the education of the country you must first start to

change the education of each of the vulnerable sectors, it would be totally impossible and

utopian to think about solving the whole problem with one action.
STEAM IMPROVE THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE LOW EDUCATIONAL QUALITY 9

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