These children have chronic malnutrition and an unfavorable environment for cognitive development. Therefore, the learning gap between rich and poor children is extensive.

In recent years, economic growth and employment generation have risen in Peru. But to maintain this positive trend is essential to a significant improvement in human capital.

But what is the reality of human capital? Very poor, the result of decades of neglect of the education sector. A recent World Bank publication says that despite the significant expansion of education services in the past two decades, the quality is still inadequate.

It is evident in the national scholastic achievement tests (second degree) and international measure cognitive skills (reading, mathematics). In these tests, the majority of Peruvian students reach a level still sufficient cognitive and occupy the last places in the regional and global context.

Unfortunately, this poor performance in the development of cognitive skills in Peruvian students begins at an early age, because of the high rate of chronic malnutrition (23.2%, according to the standard World Health Organization).

"Despite recent advances, today around 500 000 Peruvian children 5 years and younger suffering from chronic malnutrition (severe delays in growth and cognitive development) and, therefore, begin their lives in very adverse conditions to develop their full potential abilities, "says the study.

Inequality

So no surprise that in Peru the inequalities in the development of skills between rich and poor arising from birth, laying the foundations of social injustice. According to the project "Young Lives" at the University of Oxford, in Peru the difference of cognitive skills of children aged five years the richest quintile and the poorest is up to 200% higher than in countries like India, Vietnam and Ethiopia. Failure to correct these structural weaknesses, improved education and generic skills (cognitive and social-emotional) - will be bottlenecks for long-term development, and sources of inequality in access to employment and income distribution .

"International studies show that a person of generic skills is better able to acquire technical skills and specific professional work throughout life through formal tertiary education and training," says World Bank