After the increase in the supply of universities and the problems in the quality of its management and services, Peru had the urgent need to implement reform.
When the reform was designed by the Peruvian Ministry of Education, the team in charge of its implementation realized they had plenty of questions that needed to be answered but no information to do so. Although an information system was initially considered as a separate component of the reform, in practice measures had to be carried out to answer key questions.
How was data-driven decision making carried out?
Considering an information system was not existent… What did the Peruvian Ministry of Education do?
1.Defined key questions that needed to be asked
2.Looked for possible sources of information: (i) Approached the owners of the information and followed bureaucratic procedures to have access to data; (ii) Used and aggregated already public information; (iii) implemented ways to gather new information (ex. Ad hoc surveys)
3.Analyzed data
In the attached presentation you are going to find the three examples of how information allowed the Ministry to design better initiatives that were part of the higher education reform.
*** I was particularly involved in data visualization initiatives like the implementation of ponteencarrera.pe and a business intelligence dashboard. If you have questions on these matters, I will be happy to talk to you.
Dear Maria Jose
Thank you for sharing your slides with us! I see that Angelica and Hiro have asked about public responses and criticisms of higher education reforms in Peru, and you mentioned that the majority of the population have expressed their agreement with the reform based on surveys conducted by the media.
I am interested to find out more please if Peru’s Ministry of Education has any particular process or approach when they discuss with the public on issues regarding policy reforms? How actively do they consult the public before making decisions, or does it depend on the nature of each policy? Thank you.
If I can jump it to answer Tim’s question, I would say that it really depends on the nature of the policy.
The most recent example of reform that involved the participation of different stakeholders and consulting the public was the new national curriculum. The process involved round tables with different regions of the country, technical discussion tables, consulting process both in Lima (capital) and regions, and a national conference, all this started in 2012 and last year 2016 it was approved. The last part of the process was a virtual citizen consultation where everyone could revise the curriculum and participate. I would say this is a very special example where there was a lot of public involvement.
Other reforms are mostly implemented by the government. Yes with prior engagement of the different groups of interest, but with few or no direct involvement of the general public.
Hope this answers to your question!
*if you want to know a little bit more about the new curriculum process (though the page is in Spanish, hope you can translate it)
The link was not included:
http://www.minedu.gob.pe/curriculo/actualizacion.php
Hello,
Thanks again for a great presentation. I particularly enjoyed the process for incorporating data-driven decision making and I’m curious about it. How did you manage to get the data you needed? Did the Ministry have the “band-width” to create and execute new surveys? And also, was the public responsive? Did the Peruvian people notice a change in HE policy or on HE performance?
Hi!
– Since an information system was not available, data was gathered the old fashioned way. By asking for the collaboration of different gov. institutions to share their data and by taking the maximum advantage of the already public information (e.g. financial information).
– Regarding higher education, one big survey was executed. However, it was not well designed and thus, the conclusions that we could take out if it were very limited. Moreover, it was very hard to make this a survey that could be periodically repeated. I worked on designing a new survey that could become one key input of the develioping information system.
– Regarding public response, it is too soon to tell. However, surveys conducted by media have shown how the majority of the population are in favor of the reform. Most of the opposition has come from the owners of private universities, authorities of the public ones and politicians who have personal interests in the sector.
Thank for Maho for your great presentation!
Just one question – while implementing this data-disclosure policy, is there any opposition within or outside the government?
Because in Japan some people might criticize the government for implicitly encouraging students to major in particular areas by comparing their future income (well, it sounds silly, but such kind of things sometimes happen in Japan…)
While working on ponteencarrera.pe we had to definitely face a lot of opposition. For instance, the educational institutions refused to disclose information such as the costs of their programs or how many applications they received every year. The best institutions did not feel the need to share the information and indirectly help their competitors. The worst institutions did not want to be ranked because they knew they were going to be in the bottom of the list.
Regarding critics, it does not sound silly. This was the case in Peru too. This is why in ponteencarrera.pe nothing that says “better or worse” universities is included. It is only about the numbers.
“Only” about the numbers is “all” about the possibility of comparing and ranking…
you do not rank, you do not qualify, yet you give the tools for others to do it.
Same at OCDE.
Totally agree. Letting the numbers talk for themselves it is very powerful. Even more, if data visualization is used to enhance the results we want to show.
Hi,
First, great presentation, I really enjoyed it.
I would like to know if the HE reform includes a reform on the quality of Higher Technical Education, since around 30 percent of the HE students in Peru go to Institutes and the other 70 percent to Universities. I think thesis key since the return of low quality higher technical education is typically low or even negative.
Hi.
Yes. Higher Technical Education is also being reformed. Although the Ministry will not say this, I believe they are prioritizing short-term policies to improve the universities’ system; while trying to build a more relevant supply of technical education. In fact, in ponteencarrera.pe the information available includes all types of higher education. In addition, data that shows how much more profitable some technical programs are in comparison to some programs in universities was also included and shared with the media in order to encourage news that would improve the perception the population has of higher technical education.