Educación en Chile: entre la continuidad y las rupturas. Principales hitos de las políticas educativas

Abstract

In this article, we will try to go through the recent history of educational policies in Chile. We will mainly focus on the elements of continuity and of rupture that have been characteristic of this process. The inheritance left by the military government not only left a mark in the collective consciousness of the people, but also left a mark in the continuity of the macroeconomic model based on the principles of free market. This has systematically undermined the influence of the Commonwealth in issues like social security, health and education. The privatization of Chilean education has become one of the characteristic elements of our educative system, and it has widened the gap between the education available to sectors with higher income, and the education received by the unprivileged parts of society. Since the return of democracy, the need for an educative system that is able to ensure quality and equity has been underlined, trying to narrow the social gap by the means of education, without producing a rupture with the prevailing neoliberal structure. In this way, we face policies that aim at achieving considerable changes in learning, without entailing important reforms to the current managing structure. These policies make education responsible for narrowing the social gap that the economic model cannot rectify.