Mark Hanson, a specialist in educational management, compares Venezuelan and Colombian efforts to modernize their educational administrations between 1968 and 1982. Venezuela wanted to decentralize a heavily centralized network of national schools, while Colombia’s Ministry of Education struggled to impose some order and uniformity on the numerous departmental and local schools. Drawing on official sources as well as school system visits and interviews, Hanson concludes that Colombia’s efforts partially succeeded because the two major parties compromised, established modest goals, listened to advice from local educators, and implemented a number of incremental reforms. By contrast, Venezuelan ministers of education began anew with each presidential term, failed to solicit suggestions from people at the lower levels, and preferred grandiose general models to less dramatic, gradual reforms. Hanson attributes failure in both cases to the Spanish colonial administrative legacy, to the primacy of political and clientelist concerns over those of efficiency, and—in the case of Venezuela—to the oil wealth which allowed politicians the luxury of abrogating any reforms associated with the other political party. The book devotes more space—seven chapters—to Colombian reforms than to the Venezuelan efforts—four chapters.
Hanson’s study makes a valuable contribution to the administrative history of Latin America. Still, the work might have been strengthened with a fuller consideration of the broader context. For example, Colombian department governors casually overcommitted funds for teachers’ wages and benefits with the certainty that the national government would pick up the bill in order to avoid strikes. From an administrative point of view, the national government properly resisted such political extortion. Yet a discussion of teachers’ salaries in the context of other national expenditures (such as defense?) might have led to a provocative question. As they thwarted efforts to enforce fiscal responsibility, did the governors serve a laudable goal of securing a larger share of national funds for education?
Hanson’s description and analysis of the factors which inhibited administrative reform in the 1970s is thorough and convincing. His brief survey of history before 1968 is less satisfying; for example, encomiendas are referred to as “large grants of land (p. 11). Happily, the historical material is brief and, although offered as a partial explanation for inept contemporary administration, it may safely be ignored in favor of Hanson’s other, more substantial analysis based on his research and observations.
Hanson’s work will especially appeal to students of politics and administration in Latin America. It raises some interesting questions. Both the Venezuelan and Colombian political systems rest on political pacts between the major parties. Hanson concludes that the Colombian politicians compromised effectively to achieve some educational reform, but that the Venezuelans did not. Is this comparison valid for the political systems in general? If so, why?
