Imagine time as a line.
Each year is represented by one line.
And each colour represents one high school grade.
So, a timely high school trajectory in a country like Uruguay would look something like this: six grades of high school in six years.
Now let’s have a look at Camila’s educational trajectory.
It's 2019. Camila lives in Montevideo, Uruguay, with her mother, her aunt and her two older siblings.
She started attending high school this year.
“In 2019 I had my worst report card ever.
I started the year failing 11 subjects,
and finished the year failing 11 subjects”
In 2020, Camila repeated 1st grade.
Shortly after the start of the year, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. All students were sent home, and classes were held online.
Assessments and repetition were treated with flexibility during that year.
In 2021, Camila did 2nd grade.
But the pandemic hit its worst moment in the country, and classes were still online.
According to Camila, learning and attendance were both scarce.
In 2022, she repeated 2nd grade.
She felt judged by the institution for her siblings’ alleged misbehaviour years before.
For that reason, during that year, she barely went to class.
In 2023, she repeated 2nd grade, again.
But this time, she changed schools.
Now Camila is 18 years old.
She’s currently in 3rd grade.
This is what her educational trajectory looks like so far.
When faced with challenges and barriers, trajectories are anything but linear.
Camila's is just one of the eight educational trajectories investigated for this project.
But to understand why these trajectories look like this,
we need to take a step back.
Paths in Education
A visual essay about the state of secondary education in Uruguay,
driven by data and the human voices behind it.
by Paula Lago, MSc Narrative Futures
Edinburgh Futures Institute, University of Edinburgh
Embedded in the Southern Cone in Latin America, Uruguay emerges as a relatively small country, with a population of 3.4 million. Its history of progressiveness and democracy has made it a beacon of stability in the region.
Uruguay is:
3rd
in Latin America in the Human Development Index (HDI), which measures a country's development through health, education and standard of living. (1)
13th
strongest democracy in the world, 1st in Latin America. (2)
98.77%
of the population is literate, making it the 33rd most literate country in the world and 2nd in Latin America. (3)
While Uruguay stands at the forefront of many developmental and human rights indicators in Latin America, one of its most serious problems in the present resides in education, particularly in secondary education.
Education is instrumental for societies to have critical individuals who can exercise their citizenship informedly and aspire to better-paying jobs. “Quality Education” is the 4th of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), laid out by the United Nations in 2015, which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. (4) However, Uruguay is still far from ensuring the promises of SDG 4, when only a staggering 51.6 % of people aged 21 to 23 have finished upper secondary education. (5)
In contrast with Uruguay's high performance in developmental and human rights indicators in the region, this is how Uruguay has performed in secondary education completion rate over the past 10 years
Press the play or restart button on the bottom left to view the animation.
What kinds of futures are possible in a country with a scarcely educated population, where half the people haven't finished mandatory education? Why is this important? And how did a country like Uruguay get here?
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