Background: As part of the Education and Global Social Justice Project, in August 2010 undergraduate student Cindy Shuck interviewed Jorge Radic, affiliate professor of education and acting director of the School of Education, Alberto Hurtado University, Santiago, Chile. In this interview Radic offers his thoughts on the types of education available in Chile, the role of the Catholic Church in education, and the amount and type of education required to be successful in modern Chile. He also reviews different models of school/community partnership.
Compiled August 2, 2010
On the “threshold” of education in order to be successful in Chile:
The matter is not about the threshold of education, but if education can help people come out of poverty. Many children of poor families can go to college with loans or scholarships, whatever it is, but that doesn’t necessarily change their situation of poverty. Here in Chile, our literacy and retention rates in schools are quite good. For example, less than 4 percent of Chilean society is illiterate, and we have a higher rate of participation in secondary education than the U.S. (60 percent in the U.S. versus 90 percent in Chile). So the problem is not educational access, but rather the type of education, meaning the quality of the education that is received. The quality of the education that is imparted has more to do with the development of superior abilities of thought, the offering of learning opportunities that permit the use of tools to analyze and criticize social realities, that is to say, a more useful education that can really help people understand and change things.
On the role of the Church:
The role of the Church in education in Chile is to promote a type of education that incorporates these elements and creates a commitment to the community. That is the role of Catholic education, to defend the dignity of the person. To be a testimony in the middle of a system that seems to be more concerned with forming the labor force to enter the commercial market than dedicated to forming men and women conscious and prepared to understand and change society in the direction of social justice.
On education in Chile:
We have a very different situation in Chile because education began very tied to private institutions and the Church, so historically the majority of education was private. Until today, the Church and the State have maintained a very close relationship, think about how for many centuries, even the salaries of priests were paid by the State and the government had direct participation in many decisions of the Church. Only from the beginning of the twentieth century did things change.
On the types of education in Chile:
1. Municipal schools (approximately 44 percent): These schools receive financing from the central government (it is important to remember that we do not have a federal system in Chile and the country is much more concentrated, primarily in Santiago, so the central government manages a great amount. The state subsidizes a percentage of the costs of education for every student, which is around $80 per month per student. It is supposed that the rest is paid by the municipality [where the school is located], but in many cases the municipalities are too poor to contribute, thus students are left without much support and the differences between one municipality and another are important.
2. Private-subsidized schools (approximately 48 percent): These are directed by private entities (like the Church or another organization, similar to charter schools in the U.S.) and they receive subsidies from the government, which contributes for each student (also $80 monthly per student). But many of these institutions also receive contributions from the student’s families or acquire other resources, so there are more resources for each student. Around 60 percent of institutions of this type are directed by the Church.
3. Private schools (approximately 8 percent): These are located in the richest areas of Santiago and other Chilean cities. They do not receive financial support from the government. The traditional Jesuit schools belong to this group.
*School selection: muncipal and private-subsidized schools give spots primarily to students who live in the area where the school is located, and later they can reject students from other areas if there are not spaces for them.
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Interview conducted on August 6, 2010
Conversation about the involvement of schools in the community:
The idea in municipal schools is that they try to give the curriculum the same in all school, but many times this does not succeed for various reasons. One is because the resources are very limited, so their programs are oriented toward formal education and it’s hard for them to open to the community of their students. The bureaucracy in schools makes it difficult as well. Another reason is because they lack a plan, they don’t take the curriculum that they have to impart as their own, rather they only see it as something they have to pass on to their students.
Of the Church’s schools, in general they are of three different types. The first is the school that emphasizes the equity of the students, and they deliver the same education in a rich neighborhood as in a poor neighborhood. For example, there is a school run by Opus Dei that has one school in a high-class neighborhood and one in a low-class neighborhood, and the schools are exactly the same: the books, the uniforms, everything. However, this school has practically no contact with the community. The school is converted into a form of elite in the neighborhood where it works. From their point of view, “the family is not the school’s problem.”
Another type is like the schools of the Archbishopric, of Belén Educa, or the Marists. These schools are more linked to the community, but they have a more traditional perspective. The Marist school you have seen in La Pintana was the first of theirs in a poor community, and for that school they transferred the model that they knew from the schools they have had forever, so it ended up being very traditional. For those schools of the Archbishopric, their focus is school; there is a lot of State control and few additional resources. And those of Belén Educa are also very focused on the quality of the education and emphasize the SIMCE and other academic tests. They also work in the poorest communities, in places where not even the police go. They try to create an effective school that is very organized and where results are tested.
San Luis Beltrán School has yet another different model, and has a much clearer relationship with the community than other schools. But with this type of school, there is not one model. In multiple cases, the schools of Fe y Alegría were not schools, but were community centers for a long time that later developed into school. They have worked extensively with the women of the community and offer many workshops, and therefore have become an integral part of the community.
What is the reason for the formation of these different models?
They are different for each strategy. For example, in the case of Fe y Alegría, in other countries it is not as concentrated in formal education and in some countries there is not a single school linked to the Fe y Alegría network. Instead, Fe y Alegría is the source of the radio or the press in some communities. And in some countries there are public schools tied to Fe y Alegría. It depends on the educational model in each situation.
For example, Fundación Emmanuel is a very unique case because they have a great influence, but they do not have any property of their own. However, there are 50 schools associated with them for the service they deliver, and the majority of them are municipal schools. Before, their work was more concrete and basic to work with an administrative team or with professors, but now it’s a more integral work for assessments and strategies for the entire school. What is most interesting about their work is that is an initiative financed by the Archbishopric, but to help municipal schools that are not dependent on the Church.