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Chile
Index
Primary and Secondary Education
Until 1980, authority over all primary and secondary
schools
was concentrated in the national government's Ministry of
Public
Education. In addition to allocating funds to schools, the
ministry
certified the qualifications of all teachers and employed
those in
the state-run system. It developed all basic course
content, even
for private schools, and approved all textbooks to be used
throughout the country.
Primary school teachers were trained mainly in normal
schools,
most of which were independent entities, although a few of
these
institutions were attached to universities. Secondary
school
teachers generally were graduates of pedagogical schools
or
university institutes, where students would be trained in
the
different disciplines they would later teach. Primary and
secondary
school teachers opting to work in the state-run system
were
assigned to schools during the first three years of their
careers,
a procedure that was meant to ensure that all rural and
provincial
schools had the requisite staffing. The careers of primary
and
secondary school teachers employed by the state were
controlled by
a national statute that determined promotions according to
a point
system and salaries according to a fixed scale. Salary
supplements
were given to those who taught in areas that were
geographically
isolated or had severe climates. Teachers also had job
tenure
beyond a certain probationary period. The Ministry of
Public
Education sponsored regular winter- and summer-vacation
training
programs for teachers that were designed to bring them up
to date
with curriculum changes and with new thinking in their
disciplines.
Merit increases were given to those who participated in
these
programs.
The Ministry of Public Education gave subsidies to
private
schools that did not charge tuition. These subsidies,
amounting to
about half the per-student cost of public education, were
based on
calculations of salary and other fixed costs. They were
given
primarily to schools sponsored by the Roman Catholic
Church, as
well as by Protestant churches. The teachers of these
schools
(except those who were in religious orders or in the
clergy) were
supposed to have the same salary and working conditions as
teachers
in the public system. Many teachers in the state-run
system
supplemented their salaries by taking on additional hours
in the
private schools, which were supposed to follow the
national
curriculum whether or not they received state subsidies,
although
they were free to add supplementary courses. All state-run
primary
and secondary schools were visited regularly by
supervisors
employed by the Ministry of Public Education, who would
observe
classes and monitor many final examinations. For purposes
of
certification, the final examinations of all private
secondary
schools were conducted by committees of teachers employed
by the
Ministry of Public Education.
Despite the successes of this education system in terms
of
expanding enrollments and ensuring a uniform standard of
quality
across the nation, the military regime's social and
economic
planners thought it gave the government too much influence
over
education, stifling parents' and local communities'
freedom of
choice. They also thought the administration of the system
was too
bureaucratic and inefficient.
The regime's education authorities decided to
decentralize the
administration of state schools by turning them over to
the
municipal governments. Presumably, the schools would thus
become
more responsive to local demands and needs, although the
Ministry
of Public Education continued to issue the basic
guidelines to be
followed in the curricula, to approve textbooks, and, in
principle,
to require the certification of teachers, although the
standards
became more flexible. Moreover, the national program of
school
breakfasts and lunches was transferred, along with the
necessary
resources, to the municipalities. The authorities
committed the
necessary funding to maintain universal primary
enrollments and,
after 1980, to continue to increase the size of secondary
enrollments, despite the severe economic downturn of
1982-83.
With the 1980 reforms, all teachers in the state-run
system
became municipal employees, effectively ending the
national system
controlling teachers' careers. The result was new
inequalities in
terms of income and benefits for teachers. Despite
increased
education subsidies from the central government to poorer
municipalities, the richer school systems were able to
afford
better teacher salaries and educational facilities. In
addition,
beginning in 1988 municipal authorities were permitted to
fire
teachers, ending the tenure they had enjoyed in the
national career
system, a measure that generated widespread manifestations
of
teacher discontent, including strikes.
The military government fostered the growth of
privately run
schools by further facilitating the process through which
they
could obtain subsidies. Moreover, tuition-free public and
private
schools were put on an equal footing in terms of access to
state
funding when both began to receive amounts calculated on a
similar
per-student basis. This amount was prorated on the basis
of student
attendance records, a measure that put the public systems
at a
disadvantage because private schools could be selective in
their
admissions; they could therefore draw their student body
from those
with more stable family backgrounds and hence could
require more
regular attendance and better behavior. As a result of
these new
incentives, enrollments in the publicly funded but
privately
administered system increased at the expense of the
state-owned
schools. In 1980, before the beginning of the reform
program, the
state-run schools had enrolled about 79 percent of primary
and
secondary students, private but state-subsidized schools
enrolled
14 percent, and fully private schools (those that charged
tuition)
enrolled 7 percent. By the end of 1988, the proportion of
students
in the state-run schools (by then under municipal control)
had
dropped to 60 percent, the private but state-subsidized
schools'
proportion had increased to 33 percent, and the fully
private
schools continued to enroll 7 percent. Other data suggest
that the
number of primary and secondary students in private
schools
increased from 27 percent in 1981 to 56 percent in 1986
(see
table 15, Appendix). The authorities also transferred
administration of
the state's vocational, industrial, and agricultural
schools to
employer associations, although the public funding of
these schools
continued.
The Aylwin government doubled funding for education by
1992 and
began to address the new challenge the nation confronted
to
increase the quality of education. As part of this effort,
the
government examined with renewed interest the issues of
teacher
morale, training, and careers. It decided to reinvigorate
the
national continuing education programs for teachers and to
reintroduce a National Statute for Teachers. This
recreated in part
the previous national career system, with a minimum
starting salary
of about US$250 per month for primary school teachers and
promotions and raises based on years of service, merit,
additional
training, and premiums for teaching in areas that were
isolated or
had harsh climates. However, because of the Aylwin
government's
commitment to the decentralization of authority,
administration of
the system of primary and secondary schools remained to a
significant extent in the hands of local governments, with
continued efforts to provide increased funding to the
poorer
municipalities and regions. An initiative by the Aylwin
government
also committed it to increasing technical training of
workers and
of youth who had already left the education system. By the
end of
1993, about 100,000 people, principally youth, had
graduated from
such training programs.
Data as of March 1994
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