The Big Issue: The Chilean School System

Until 1981, the Chilean school system was comprised of public schools, private subsidised schools, and private independent schools. The system was strongly centralised, coordinated by the Ministry of Education, and teachers were public servants. The reforms transferred school’s supervision to provincial bodies, public schools’ administration to local governments (municipalities), and set a plain voucher system to public and non-fee paying private schools on the basis of pupils’ attendance. Additionally, in 1982, the Government set a national standardised test to measure school performance (SIMCE). This quasi-market setting was supposed to increase coverage, foster competition among schools, introduce choice, and increase the quality of education. Unfortunately, the main assumptions required for a quasi-market to work do not hold in this system (Mizala 2007).

In the 1990s, centre-left governments roughly maintained the system structure but made strong investments in infrastructure and increased funding, which the dictatorship had left at historical minimums. Massive programmes to improve quality and equity of the school system, a re-engineering of the teaching career, as well as targeted interventions for the poorest and lowest-performing schools were the distinctive characteristics of that period.

The Chilean school system has become increasingly privatised since the 1981 reform. In 1981, 15 per cent of students attended subsidised private schools. In the 1981 to 1986 period, more than 1,000 new schools entered the market, and by 1990, 31 per cent of school children attended subsidised private schools. Private participation increased during the 2000s, reaching 47 per cent of total enrolment in 2008. Most of this growth has been at the expense of public school enrolment (Elacqua, 2009), which represent a modest 37 per cent of school enrolment nowadays.

38 A high-impact policy was implemented in 1994. The government allowed private subsidised schools to charge fees without losing voucher financing. Many private schools began charging fees at the maximum allowed in order to keep vouchers to maximise funding. This policy is perhaps the most controversial in the Chilean education system introduced in the last 25 years, and is deemed as highly segregating.

The core issue concerning school education in Chile is that it is one of the most socially segregated in the world. According to Elacqua (2009), more vulnerable students attend public schools that are more socially integrated than private voucher ones. As private schools select students by academic performance or other characteristics, public schools end up receiving most of the academically disadvantaged students.

On the other hand, PISA results show an almost perfect stratification according to SES. Only a 3 per cent of examinees from low SES score in level 4 or above compared to 30 per cent for the upper group. The graph below is unsurprising, but convincing, as the correlation between SES and performance is very high.

Graph 2.2. PISA score levels in reading by SES (%)

Source: MINEDUC (2010)

A very similar situation can be seen when breaking down PISA scores by school type. Differences in average scores are significant, with public school (Municipal) students being the most disadvantaged and private independent school (Particular Pagado)

39 students scoring as high as those in high-performance educational systems (see Graph 2.3).

Graph 2.3 PISA reading score average by type of school

Source: (MINEDUC 2011)

Regarding access to HE, both low SES students and those who have attended public schools perform lower in PSU, as shown in Table 2.3. Only 9.4 per cent of public school students score 600 or more points in PSU, compared with 14.9 per cent from private voucher schools and 53.9 per cent from private independent schools. This means that the majority of students coming from subsidised schools do not score enough to be admitted to a selective HEI, which is feasible only with scores of 600 points or above (see Table 2.3 below).

Table 2.3. PSU scores statistics by type of school (*)

Score Public Private Subsidised Private Independent

Less than 200 23 15 8 200-449.5 38,749 40,869 2,131 450-599.5 39,431 75,380 10,102 600-850 8,157 20,521 14,284 Total 86,360 136,785 26,525 Mean 469.3 501.7 598.5 StDev 93.2 92.4 95.5

(*) PSU Scores have an average of 500 points and a 100 points SD. Source: DEMRE, 2015.

The consequence of low performance in PSU is that poorer students end up attending low-quality institutions. This has an impact on student persistence, studies completion, and income expectations, which ends up reproducing inequalities coming

40 from schools. The correlation between either PSU or SIMCE score and social background is high.

A relevant relationship between SES and student performance is unsurprising from an international perspective. In fact, according to OECD (2010), in Chile, a near 20 per cent of variation in PISA reading scores is explained by socio-economic background, close to that of countries such as Germany and the US; far from OECD’s average, which is 14 per cent, and even farther from countries like Finland (8 per cent), Japan (9 per cent), and Canada (9 per cent).

The high level of inequity in the school system leaves HE policy no room to manoeuvre beyond remediation. Though HE participation of low SES students has improved significantly in Chile, the distribution of educational opportunities remains unfair. The implications of these levels of inequity drive attention to the performance and development of the school system, as policies aiming at levelling the field need to be implemented at that level.

In the next section, I shall carry out a study testing whether and how inequality of school achievement affects HE participation.

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