( Published in The Counter August 6, 2008 )
about two years have passed so-called movement of the penguins, which manifestations secondary students opened a broad debate on the precariousness of basic and secondary education in Chile . Not surprisingly, the students have returned to the streets and demonstrations, and that the claims raised by these re- and remain a profit, the General Law of Education, the quality of education, full school day, school fee, among others. All this, despite the installation of the Presidential Advisory Council on Quality Education, pompously announced by Ms. Bachelet, who should have generated the appropriate proposals, but that only served to stop the student movement and not exceed great scourges of the educational system: financing, quality and equity.
is important to remember that one of the major problems facing the Chilean educational institutions is the bias that favors the replacement of public and private schools, which has resulted in the dismantling progressive of the former, the latter not supply them with adequate quality and results of fair coverage. For its part, the announced reforms and the educational framework agreement between the Government and the Right have failed to reverse this situation. As is known, the public system was built for about a century governments of all political and was a key factor in the progress and social transformation that the country experienced in the second half of the twentieth century. During the military dictatorship 1973/1990, underwent a severe decommissioning, which has only worsened during the governments of the Concertación.
One of the factors contributing to this situation is funding mechanism used, which, through subsidies per student, makes no distinction between public and private subsidized schools, helping to focus more resources on subsidized private schools end up being more competitive, attracting more tuition and, therefore increasingly enjoying the benefits granted to them by the state, although the north end of these schools is the profit of his supporters. That is, in large part, public resources for education have just finished helping to sustain the rates of return on investment in education.
None of this would be relevant whether or these significant changes had improved the quality of Chilean education. However, according to the TIMSS 2003 international test, applied to the knockout basis Chile averaged 387 in math, 5 points lower than before and far below the international average of 467. Just over countries like the Philippines, Botswana, Saudi Arabia, Ghana and South Africa. Science in Chile obtained 413 points, 7 points less than in 1999, while the international average was 474. Surpassed only in Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Lebanon, Philippines, Botswana, Ghana and South Africa. In this international measure, from the meager results Chile decided to retire.
These transformations have done nothing to improve inequalities and have not contributed anything to be a mechanism for social mobility. The diagnosis of equity is as bad or worse in quality.
The same can be observed in relation to the results of the University Selection Test, for example, the 2007 results, only 1% of the children of lower-income families exceeded 700 points, while the children of high-income families this percentage reaches 16%. These figures show that the poor condition of exclusion in education are very poor, which does not occur with high-income students. Hence the system college selection is not only a reflection of social reality in the country, why in the latest proposal submitted by the secondary to the Ministry of Education last December, raised its eventual elimination and its replacement by a mechanism to consider school systems and scientific humanism.
and wrong in the same direction can consider other mechanisms such as indirect tax contribution (AFI) which is now a public policy as regressive, since the assumption of promoting academic excellence awards to institutions of higher education hosting students from higher socioeconomic strata, are those who scored better on the PSU and come to a time, private schools show better results historically SIMCE. A vicious circle has more than 30 years without breaking, inherited from the dictatorship and the Concertación has ratified. Just remember the demands of the side of the second half of the eighties which were neither more nor less than the same on 24 April, when students again took to the streets in cities across the country and received the usual repression police.
An explanation of the problem comes because of the importance of public education over private. It is more or less well known that private education is not geared to become an instrument of social justice and advancement. Highly developed countries maintain significant levels of public education as a percentage of national wealth, while in Chile, the importance of private education is almost the same as the public.
Obviously, this allows us to infer a direct relationship between public education and development of peoples. This is for the simple reason that the criteria for access to quality education in these countries, there are socio-economic categories, but the qualitative and quantitative improvement of human capital. In addition to the justice factor social development is the factor, ie, when the people want to develop must necessarily involve the whole society and improve their productive capacities and professional. When it puts profit as the rationale of education, in order to achieve better standards of development is inevitably postponed. This, the economists should know very well, because resources are scarce and it is not possible, in most cases, profit and ensure quality, social justice and profit, profit and development. Normally one should choose and when people are too affected by the asymmetries of power in favor of the elites and oligarchies, tend to favor profits over any other goal social. This is the case of Chile.
In our country, we spend approximately, according to the Ministry of Education, about 150 thousand dollars per pupil average monthly private education, where he studied no more than 8% of the students, while spending per pupil in the sector age amounts to no more than 30 thousand pesos a month. That is, there is a huge difference between 5 times the investment per pupil in the public sector's spending per student versus the private sector. 90% of Chilean children have access to a poor quality of education they receive.
For purposes of tying or seek a certain balance, it would take about 60 thousand pesos a month investment per student in the world of public education to achieve the minimum rank of private fees 90 000 pesos per month for 3 million 294 thousand students in the public system and / or subsidized.
The answer that always gives the authority is that Chile is a poor country can not afford such luxuries. Therefore do not expect but the fruits of economic growth. However, this increase would mean an annual investment sum of an additional $ 3,500 million, which is a lower figure compared to the wealth available in Chile, not only from the perspective of the profits of banking, capital and economic groups considerable gains of corporations, but also from the perspective of our rich natural resources, the use and exploitation in Chile, is the sole benefit of private national and transnational capital.
box then we can see that the application of royalties to the use of critical resources such as copper, water, forest resources that large companies operate almost free of charge, leaving a surplus of more than 8 billion dollars year. Consequently, given the available natural resource endowment, Chile may well have the necessary financial resources for educational reform to alter substantially the asymmetries quality, equity and financing that shows the Chilean educational system.
Remember that these resources belong to Chile and charging for the use of these resources is entirely a matter of equity trading, where they are supposed to provide some capital-in this case Chile and its resources should be rewarded the economic contribution that capital generates. Natural resources in Chile and its economic value, representing approximately one third of the sales value of these productive sectors, but given the power of capital and the political imbalance that showcases our country today, these economic values \u200b\u200bare intended to swell the profits capital, rather than be reassigned to the development of the country. This is what made countries like Norway, Finland and other OECD countries that achieved higher standards of development and that is what Chile can do, since their governments are prisoners of the political and economic power of the oligarchy.
development of peoples is a political issue, not technical and this development requires heavy investment, is not free. The people who have achieved have invested significant development resources on that policy goal. In Chile, the choice is an economy based primarily on exporting natural resources whose income is appropriated by the capital, where human capital formation is contrary to the type of system economic is installed, as well-educated people not only become critical and independent citizens, but also would raise wage levels, which would reduce the profitability of capital.
The crisis of education in Chile is not the result of a country that does not have the necessary financial resources, but rather of an oligarchy that tightly taking positions of command and control, is not prepared to compromise, or as less, the distribution of surplus production is the result of collective work of the Chileans, but that is appropriated by the elites, by the power it exhibits incontestable in socioeconomic and political space of the country.
Marcel Claude, an economist.
