MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Chile
Index
The Department of Physical Sciences and Mathematics at the
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank
Chilean universities are widely recognized as being
among the
best in Latin America. Before the education reforms of
1980, Chile
had eight universities, two run by the state universities
and six
private ones, although all received most of their funding
from the
state. The state universities consisted of the University
of Chile
(Universidad de Chile), founded in Santiago in 1842 as the
successor to the University of San Felipe (Universidad de
San
Felipe), founded in 1758; and the State Technical
University
(Universidad Técnica del Estado), founded in Santiago in
1947. The
private universities consisted of the Pontifical Catholic
University of Chile (Pontífica Universidad Católica de
Chile),
founded in 1888; the University of Concepción (Universidad
de
Concepción), founded in 1919; the Catholic University of
Valparaíso
(Universidad Católica de Valparaíso), founded in 1928; the
Federico
Santa María Technical University (Universidad Técnica
Federico
Santa María), founded in Valparaíso in 1931; the Southern
University of Chile (Universidad Austral de Chile),
founded in
Valdivia in 1955; and the University of the North
(Universidad del
Norte) in Antofagasta, founded in 1956. The nation's
largest and
most important university, the University of Chile has the
authority to oversee the quality of professional training
programs
in important fields, such as medicine, in the other
universities.
The University of Chile, the Pontifical Catholic
University of
Chile, the Federico Santa María Technical University, and,
to a
lesser extent, the University of Concepción all developed
campuses
in other cities during the expansion of university
enrollments in
the late 1960s and early 1970s.
As noted previously, Chilean universities did not
charge
tuition, aside from minimal matriculation fees that were,
following
changes introduced in the mid- to late 1960s, higher for
students
of more affluent parents. In effect, the state used
general tax
revenues to subsidize a higher-education system whose
students were
drawn disproportionately from the middle and upper
classes. The
regressive impact of this policy on the nation's
distribution of
wealth had been noted repeatedly by economists and
sociologists
since at least the 1950s.
The military government took a highly critical view of
the
nation's university system. Persuaded by the notion that
state
funding for lower education is more efficient in terms of
generating the necessary human capital for economic
development,
the military decided to give priority in resource
allocation to
preprimary, primary, and secondary schools. In addition to
politically motivated purges of faculty members and
students, among
the first changes the military authorities made at the
highereducation level was to charge students substantially
higher
enrollment fees. Low-income students were supposed to
continue to
have access to higher education through an expanded system
of
student loans with generous repayment terms. Yet, as noted
earlier,
the expansion of higher-education enrollments that had
begun in the
1960s ceased after these new policies were put into place.
With the 1980 education reforms, the military
government split
the two state universities apart, creating separate
universities
out of what had been their regional provincial campuses.
In
addition, taking a dim view of increases in the numbers of
training
programs and degree programs at these universities since
the 1960s,
the regime limited the degrees that could be obtained in
the staterun universities to twelve of the most traditional fields,
such as
law, medicine, and engineering. Degrees in other areas
henceforth
had to be obtained from professional institutes; those
sections of
the state universities consequently were detached, with
some
attrition, and transformed into freestanding entities. The
large
School of Pedagogy of the University of Chile, for
example, became
the Pedagogical Institute.
The Pinochet government also fostered the formation of
new
private universities and professional institutes, allowing
them to
set tuition at whatever level they wished and promising to
give
them direct per-student subsidies, as well as funds for
loans to
low-income students, on an equal footing with older
institutions.
The education authorities hoped to stimulate competition
among the
universities and institutes for the best students by
granting the
per-student subsidies on the basis of schools' ability to
attract
the students with the highest scores in a national
aptitude test
required of all first-year applicants. This competition
was thought
to be an expeditious way to encourage efforts to increase
the
quality of higher education. Subsequently, the state
subsidies did
not become nearly as important as was expected because
funding for
universities and for student loans declined beginning with
the
economic crisis of 1982-83. The lower funding levels led
to
decreases in salaries for faculty and other personnel
across the
country.
As a result of the policies of breaking up the state
universities and stimulating the formation of private
institutions,
the number of universities increased to forty-one by 1989.
Only
half of these received state funding that year. In
addition, by
1989 there were fifty-six professional training
institutes, only
two of which received state funding that year. There was
also a
large increase in the numbers of centers for technical
training. In
1989 there were 150 such centers, none of which received
state
support. Relying entirely on tuition payments, these
centers had
responded to a demand for postsecondary education that the
universities and professional institutes, despite their
increased
number, had been unable to meet. However, the quality of
the
training these centers provided was questionable. Most of
them had
two-year training programs with few facilities other than
classrooms.
The changes introduced by the military government
increased the
number and variety of higher education institutions, but
the
reforms also led to much greater disparities among them,
as well as
to a likely decline in the overall quality of the nation's
higher
education system. There was an increase in part-time
faculty
teaching, a decline in full-time faculty salaries, and a
much
greater dispersion of resources needed by important
facilities,
such as laboratories and libraries. These changes also led
to the
creation of a considerable number of research institutes
with no
student training programs that were dependent on grants or
research
contracts from international or national sources for their
funding.
These institutes developed most prominently in the social
sciences
and became an important alternative source of employment
for
specialists who had been or would have been engaged by
universities. Consequently, in contrast to the period
before 1973,
most of the innovative thinking and writing in these areas
was no
longer being done at universities, and new generations of
students
were having less contact with the best specialists in
these fields.
The Aylwin government did not introduce fundamental
changes in
the higher education system handed down to it by the
military
regime. It continued to fund higher education in part by
allocating
per-student subsidies to institutions able to attract
students who
scored highest on the multiple-choice examination modeled
on the
Scholastic Aptitude Test used in the United States.
However, the
Alywin government was critical of what it considered an
excessive
disaggregation and dispersion of higher education
institutions.
Consequently, it concentrated more of its direct subsidies
on the
traditional universities and their offshoots and attempted
to
enhance their quality by making more funds available for
basic and
applied research. The government also increased funding
for lowincome student loans and scholarships, for studies at any
institution.
Data as of March 1994
|
|