The Economist - UK (2022-04-02)

The Economist April 2nd 2022 39

The Americas

EducationinChile

A lurch to the left

A

lexis marambiogrew up in a tiny flat
in La Pintana, a poor neighbourhood of
Santiago,  Chile’s  capital.  For  most  of  his
life he shared a room with his brother; his
sister  slept  in  her  parents’  bed  until  she
was  13.  Leak  stains  still  blotch  the  walls.
Bars on the windows keep out thieves and
most  sunshine.  “This  is  the  raw  side  of
Chile,” he says. 
But  Mr  Marambio,  who  is  now  30,  de­
fied the odds. He was the first in his family
to go to university. His parents worked day
and night to pay for some of his expenses,
and  he  owes  around  $20,000  in  student
loans. Education was his ladder out of pov­
erty. After working for the local mayor and
then for a polling firm, he moved to a nicer
part  of  town  and  bought  his  parents  a
house.  On  a  visit  to  La  Pintana  a  former
neighbour  greets  him:  “My  boy,  you’ve
come back to visit the poor!” 
His story reflects the success of Chile’s
education  system.  Since  the  country  re­
turned  to  democracy  in  1990,  the  number
of students enrolled in post­secondary in­

stitutions  has  quintupled  (see  chart  on

next page). By the mid 2000s seven in ten

newly  enrolled  students  were  from  the

first generation of their families to attend

university. Unsurprisingly, this expansion

has cost money. Fully 59% of spending on

tertiary  education  comes  from  house­

holds,  compared  with  an  average  of  30%

across  the  oecd,  a  club  mostly  of  rich

countries.  Tuition  fees  in  Chile  are  the

highest in the oecdrelative to purchasing

power  after  Britain  and  the  United  States

(but,  as  in  both  countries,  financial  sup­

port is hefty).

Yet  discontent  with  education  has  led

to  some  of  the  biggest  protests  in  Chile’s

history.  In  2006  children  demonstrated

against perceived inequality in schooling;

in  2011  university  students  did  the  same.

Large,  violent  protests  in  2019  were  partly

about college fees. It was as a student lead­

er that Gabriel Boric, the newly elected 36­

year­old  president,  rose  to  fame,  along

with  many  in  his  cabinet.  “The  fight  for

public,  free  and  good­quality  education

was a fight for a different model of society,”

he told a crowd in November. As president,

he says he wants to reform education. But

in  its  zeal  for  change,  his  government

could make Chile’s problems worse. 

Chile’s school system has long been un­

usual.  Under  the  dictatorship  of  Augusto

Pinochet, who ruled from 1973 to 1990, the

country  widened  the  use  of  standardised

tests  and  set  up  a  voucher  scheme  which

provided  public  funds  to  privately  run

schools  based  on  the  number  of  children

that  enrolled.  The  idea  was  to  increase

competition  and  choice.  Most  parents

chose  voucher  schools.  Between  1981  and

2020  the  share  of  children  in  voucher

schools shot up from 15% to 54%. The share

in  government­run  schools  fell  from  78%

to  33%;  the  share  in  expensive  private

schools  that  did  not  take  vouchers  re­

mained around 10%.

Some analysts credit the system for im­

proving results. Chile scores the highest in

Latin  America  on  a  test  conducted  by  the

oecdon  the  science,  maths  and  reading

skills of 15­year­olds around the world. Yet

others  fear  that  the  voucher  schools  in­

creased  the  gulf  between  rich  and  poor.

Until 2016, when Michelle Bachelet, a for­

S ANTIAGO
Gabriel Boric vows to forgive student loans and reduce testing in schools

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