Educational resilience in Latin America: divergent post-pandemic trajectories

Education in Latin America faces historical structural inequalities that were deepened by the COVID-19 pandemic, a period during which the region recorded school closures significantly higher than the global average. This study analyses the heterogeneity of the responses of Latin American educational systems to this shock, investigating why some systems showed a greater capacity for response than others in terms of performance and equity. Under a conceptual framework of systemic educational resilience, a quantitative design using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and K-Means clustering was employed. PISA 2022 data were analysed in comparison with 2018 to evaluate changes in academic performance and equity gaps. The findings reveal a marked intraregional variation. The phenomenon of "apparent resilience" is identified, where the stability in the scores of some nations could be a consequence of the exclusion of vulnerable students (increase in the lower secondary out-of-school rate) rather than real educational progress. It is concluded that systemic resilience must be evaluated multidimensionally, integrating school access and retention. The study provides critical evidence for the design of public policies aimed at educational recovery in developing contexts.