There is a lot that is good about Chilean higher education

I have carefully read the article by Professor Cristina González, posted by your prestigious publication, on Chilean higher education. The article provides an interpretation of the situation in Chile, based on González’ observations during her stay in the country and in the context of a series of lectures that she came to impart. Although the article is very interesting, it is necessary and appropriate to clarify some points.

Indeed, in the 1980s Chile underwent a profound transformation of its education at all levels. At the time, Chile was a country with many social demands, a low income per capita as 45% of the population lived in extreme poverty, with an impoverished economy closed to the outside world and with a productive sector making its first attempts to increase productivity.

In education, the situation was similar. The Chilean government assigned only 30% of its budget to primary and secondary education, catering for more than two-and-a-half million children.

The remaining 70% was allocated to the 100,000 university students belonging to the wealthiest families in the country. Actually, this meant that all Chileans financed these students’ studies through the payment of taxes. This reality was clearly socially regressive.

Additionally, there were only eight universities, two of which were state entities and six private ones, but 100% funded by the Chilean state.

In contrast, gigantic growth of secondary education was evident, with a growing number of young people realising that there were no educational alternatives after leaving school.

This, in turn, meant that there was a growing social crisis among the youth, either because the eight existing universities did not observe the new social reality or they did not believe it was important to provide higher education opportunities to all the youngsters.

Profound changes

These were the facts that motivated the state to make profound changes in education.

Firstly, it redistributed the investment in education by allocating 70% to the 2.5 million school children and 30% to cater for 100,000 university students.

Secondly, education at university level had to be paid by those who required it – in our country the income of a university graduate professional is between four and six times higher than a young person who does not have a professional degree. This means that it should be understood as a private investment by the family of the young person.

Thirdly, for the first time the state awarded the opportunity for the private sector to found universities, training colleges and technical training centres as a way to comply with the great demand for education at the time.

Fourthly, foreseeing that there could be intellectually capable young people to study in universities who could not access higher education for economic reasons, the state created a college credit system which was subsidised in order to ensure that everybody had the opportunity to study and to prevent students missing out due to economic reasons.

Fifthly, the state gave autonomy to the headquarters of both state universities existing at the time, and allocated a budget – as opposed to the view of González, in which they had historically been entitled to autonomy as headquarters. Over time, many of them have become true engines of regional development in Chile.

Finally, the management of schools was handed over to municipalities.

This was the historical reality and the decisions taken to bring forth the current Chilean educational model.

Education healthy and thriving

Today the Chilean educational system is healthy, thriving, growing and meeting the educational needs of society.

Of course, it can be improved – this can be done in all countries – but even so and without a doubt, Chilean education holds a privileged position within Latin America. If we were to carry out an analysis of this situation, we would certainly be able to conclude that this is positive.

Due to these profound changes, state universities increased from two to 18, private universities have gone up from six to 33, and 17 training colleges and approximately 100 technical training centres were created.

The number of students rose from 100,000 to 1.15 million. Today, seven out of every 10 young people entering higher education are the first member of their families to study at university level, and this is the basis for breaking the cycle of poverty.

Moreover, I quote Professor Jose Joaquin Brunner, an expert in comparative studies of education:

"The Chilean population has 11.6 years of schooling, against 9.4 in the rest of Latin America; 28.6 % of people complete at least one year of tertiary education compared to 15.8% in the rest of the region (IDB 2013). Among young adults between the ages of 25 and 34, Chile can boast that 41% are professionals, compared with 39% in OECD countries, to which we belong, and less than 20% in Latin America (UNESCO 2013).

“The net participation rate of young Chileans belonging to the lowest income quintile in tertiary education reaches 21.2%, the second best in Latin America, after Venezuela, whose statistics have been strongly questioned, whereas other Latin American countries have an average rate of 8.7% (SEDLAC, 2013).

“Furthermore, the distribution of years of education among young adults (21-30 year olds) is the most equitable of the region (with a Gini of 0.122), compared with Gini of 0.234 for the other countries (17) in the region with comparable data (SEDLAC, 2013).

“A report by McKinsey (2010) includes Chilean education as a case study for countries that at a global level show a significant improvement of learning outcomes, increasing from low to intermediate. As for higher education, the Universitas 21 ranking places the Chilean system in first place among the four Latin American systems taken into account (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico), considering resources, performance, connectivity and regional environment.”

Finally, Brunner states: “It should be noted that the total spending on education in Chile, public and private, relative to GDP is above the OECD average, while at the tertiary level it is one of the highest in the world: almost one percentage point above the average of these countries (OECD, 2013)."

Confusing quality system?

Another point that González negatively stressed in her article is the question of "the current confusing quality systems”. It should be mentioned that there is no confusion. Instead, there is a substantive discussion within Chilean society, the executive power of the state and the Chilean parliament, to improve quality systems of our institutions of higher education.

There has been a quality assurance model since 1990, protected by an Act of the Republic, which has been in force since 1994.

This model has been a pioneer in countries of the region and allowed an appropriate stratification of institutions, taking into consideration that, as in any other country in the world, there are different degrees of quality and types of institutions – not as a negative aspect, but rather as a finding of a reality that is universal. Not all universities can be Oxford or Harvard.

Some universities, such as Universidad Mayor, which I lead, have requested greater freedom of choice to choose the accrediting agency that certifies the quality of our institutions.

Today it can be done, but it is not legally valid. As a way to show the country that it was possible to be measured with the same indicators of quality that exist in other countries, our university voluntarily asked one of six accrediting agencies that exist in the United States for accreditation – the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, or MSCHE.

After five years of work, Universidad Mayor was accredited, thus becoming the first university in Latin America to prove its quality before the United States.

This not only brought undoubted internal improvements to our university, but it has also allowed for discussion at a national level in terms of the real possibility of incorporating foreign agencies to measure the quality of our institutions.

In fact, the government recently presented the Chilean parliament an amendment to the existing law of quality assurance for analysis, which incorporates this new international alternative.

Student access to aid

González posits that students have, in comparison with the United States, less access to financial aid systems. I honestly think that is incorrect.

In Chile, all students accessing higher education, whether it be public or private, have virtually automatic access to state-subsidised loans at very low rates and guaranteed by the university – prior to presentation of certain socio-economic background documents.

Once they graduate, they can also apply to the state financial aid, with a very favourable contingency payment for the student. Subsequently, the payment to be made cannot exceed 10% of income, regardless of the amount received; if there are periods of unemployment, payments are not made and the debt expires after 10 years, regardless of the amount that has been paid up to that point in time.

In addition, during the last 20 years, student scholarships have been increasing substantially, and now reach 60% of the first four quintiles. Therefore, I do not agree with González’s statement: "This has meant that families and students have been pushed to the limit and that there is a crisis of confidence affecting the entire nation".

In these 20 years, all our leaders, regardless of the political party to which they belong, have advanced systematically in making changes and improvements in form and substance to our higher education.

Advertising and entrepreneurship

Another aspect that drew the attention of González was university advertising. She says that while driving around the country, she saw a large sign of a traditional university that was trying to compete for students with new private institutions.

As a result, she concludes that confusion prevails over Chilean higher education. I believe the professor’s judgment to be mistaken. No one should come to the conclusion that by seeing publicity advertising a public university there is confusion in higher education.

Chile is a country with an open borders policy, devoted to the outside world, where entrepreneurship is a positive and well-accepted element in society. Higher education institutions were founded in a spirit of healthy competition, whereby each has the goal to attract the best students.

What is inappropriate about that aspiration? Are not all universities in the world trying to attract the best students to study there? Does this not occur in all countries? Does this not happen in the United States? I honestly think that one of the biggest attributes a university can have is its reputation and this, in part, is achieved by having the best students in its classrooms.

As can be seen in this article, not everything is so bad in Chilean higher education, at least not as bad as put forward by González, who I believe made a hasty judgment on our reality, which can surely be attributed to her short visit to the country while giving lectures.

* Ruben Covarrubias Giordano is president of Universidad Mayor in Chile.