Privatization and educational inequality in Chile.

WRITTEN BY DAVID PEDIGO.

WEDNESDAY, 30 NOVEMBER 2011.

Editor@santiagotimes.cl.  Copyright 2011 - Los tiempos de Santiago

http://www.santiagotimes.cl/opinion/editorial/22998-privatization-and-educational-inequality-in-chile

In this article is questioned if implementing a tuition-free higher education system would be a smart policy for Chile. Perhaps the solution is a topic that has an origin elsewhere. What will solve the problems of Chile'seducation system if free university tuition won't do it?. For this this article consists of a more detailed analysis of the secondary school, universities, the voucher system, privatizing the education, etc.

The investigation by David Pedigo says that the inequalities of the education in Chile have origin in the socioeconomic inequalities. The problem comes from of basic and secondary education. Today is very big the inequality between the public and private schools and this is seen later in the university.

 Privatizing Education: In 1981 under the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet was set up a reform that set aside government subsidies of the privates and publics schools on the basis of their enrollment, this only allowed increased competition regardless of the quality.

A View from the Ground: David Pedigo visited many schools and universities of the country and the  differences are abysmal. The academic topic and the quality are very different between the public and private school with state contribution. There are few private schools where enrollment and monthly payment is 5 times more expensive than the average.

Attacking the Problem: In this article are shown a lot of national and international reserch from different years which show that inequality in the schools still goes on and we must do something about this, but the solution is much deeper than making eduacion free university, you must first improve things from the primary and secondary eduation.