|
There are eight years of compulsory and free schooling in
Bolivia from the children are six years. The secondary
school is voluntary and lasts up to four years.
In 2000, 96% of children started primary school, while
just over 83% of them completed 4th grade. 68% of the age
group continued in high school. In 1996, 25% of the
population received higher education. Check topschoolsintheusa for test centers of ACT, SAT, and GRE as well high schools in the country of Bolivia.
There are major differences in the level of education in
cities and in the countryside. In rural areas, children
rarely complete schooling, partly because their parents need
help with farm work as animal husbandry. In addition, the
teaching is mostly in Spanish, a language the children may
have poor knowledge of. In the cities, schooling is common,
and poor results are often due to large classes and lack of
special education.
The country has eight state universities and two private.
Illiteracy was estimated at approx. 15% of adults in
2000.
In the spring of 2011, the government decided to build a
300km long highway from Villa Tunari to San Ignacio de Moxos
in the eastern part of the country. The main road was
budgeted to cost DKK 420 million. US $ and was to be funded
by Brazil who were interested in easier access to the
Pacific. The main road would go around Santa Cruz, thus
financially weakening Morales' political opponents in the
eastern part of the country. But at the same time it would
cross the Isiboro Sécure National Park, where 12,000
indigenous people from the Chimane, Yuracaré and
Mojeño-Trinitario tribes live. The project therefore quickly
sparked protests. The government saw them as an expression
of the bourgeoisie in the eastern part of the country
mobilizing the indigenous people against the government and
therefore called the opponents "American lackeys". The
indigenous people responded by calling Morales "facist."
During the fall, several protest marches were conducted for
La Paz, and on September 25 came a violent confrontation in
which police officers shot and killed 4 protesters. The
incident led to the resignation of Minister of Defense María
Chacón Rendón and Minister of the Interior Sacha Llorenti.
Morales had to apologize. The Bolivian national organization
COB launched a general strike on 28 September in protest
against the government's handling of the conflict. On
October 11, Parliament passed a law requiring the government
to involve the indigenous peoples in the decision-making
process, and on October 21, construction was put on hold.
Following amendments to the constitution, the first
election of judges to the country's courts was carried out
in October 2011. Judges were elected to the Supreme Court,
local courts and special courts. It was the first time in
the history of Latin America that the people could choose
their own judges.
In June 2012, the government passed a series of reforms
to combat the widespread police corruption. It sparked
violent protests from the police, broke into the police
stations to burn documents about the police's own offenses.
At the same time, the police demanded salary increases. The
protests scared the government, which canceled a large
number of reforms and approved wage increases.
In October 2012, Parliament passed a Mother Earth law
prohibiting GMO crops from being grown in the country -
respecting the country's biodiversity.
In July 2013, the president's aircraft was barred from
flying through European airspace and held back in Vienna for
14 hours. The reason was that a few weeks earlier Edward
Snowden had unveiled the US giant internet spy project
against the rest of the world and was now in Russia. The
United States believed that Snowden would be brought to
Bolivia aboard the president's plane, so the superpower
forced its allies in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal to
ban the Bolivian president's plane from passing through
their skies. The plane was forced to land in Vienna, where
the Spanish ambassador appeared and demanded access to
inspect the aircraft. There was no Snowden on board. In
Copenhagen, a CIA spy aircraft was waiting to kidnap Snowden
from Vienna to the United States. The President of France
subsequently apologized - as the only one - to Bolivia,
declaring that "he did not know Bolivia's president was on
board". The colossal attacks by the European colonial states
against Bolovia triggered widespread protests in Latin
America. The presidents of Argentina, Ecuador, Suriname,
Uruguay and Venezuela demanded an explanation for their
actions by the European colonial states.
In December, the government threw the Danish development
organization IBIS out of the country. The reason was
according to. the president's spokesperson was the backbone
of the decision that IBIS had demanded from its Bolivian
partners on a particular political act. In other words, the
development organization did not accept the autonomy of its
partners. By 2012, the government had, for similar reasons,
thrown USAID out of the country.
|
