Berkley Center

These experiences have given me a firsthand view of some of the challenges that plague the Chilean education system. One of the overarching themes I have been trying to understand is a general sense of apathy and disrespect towards education in general. In the public high school I volunteer at, many students purposefully do not show up to class on days when there is an exam, and rarely turn in their homework on time. I have seen students blatantly refuse to do work, and chat with their friends instead. When I asked why these students were not reprimanded and sent home, the teacher told me because unfortunately, being sent home sometimes leads to these adolescents getting into trouble on the streets.

The teacher I work with once showed me his grade book, and a third of his students were in danger of failing his class. When I asked him what was done to prevent this, he shrugged and said it was not unusual for teachers to change their students’ grades in order to pass them along, even if they were nowhere near the proficiency required. Thus, it is a vicious cycle where the problems feed on themselves.

These kinds of experiences really shocked me, so I once more turned to the teacher, and asked him why he thinks Chile has such a broken system. He told me that the outdated education policy coupled with a culture that lacks appreciation for education is the harmful formula at play. When Chile was under the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, a new constitution was written that privatized all education, meaning that families were now the main financiers of their children’s schooling. This implied that families with fewer resources were not afforded quality education. This created the notion in Chile that still exists today, that good education is a privilege, not a right.

To educate myself more on this issue, I interviewed Mario Diaz, a director of another public high school and an active protester against the education system for the past 35 years. He calls the education system a “classist, segregated, exclusive” for-profit enterprise, which allows the rich to send their kids to the top private schools, while ignoring the vast majority of students who also deserve quality education, but cannot afford Chile’s price tag. And now due to the disorder that is Chile’s education system, the respect for teachers has also plummeted. When I asked him what he thinks the solutions are to this fundamental problem, he echoed the theories I have heard stateside as well: raise teachers’ salaries and make teacher degrees more rigorous.

The most common reaction I have seen to these underlying problems in the education system has been protests from both students and educators alike. Huge waves of protests directed at secondary schools began in 2006, following with the protests towards universities that made worldwide news in 2011. The protests still continue today, as the demands for free, public, and quality education for all still have not been met. Education is also tangled with an economic and political system that dissatisfies a lot of citizens, so those topics equally must be confronted.

Chile, like many other countries unfortunately, still has a long way to go in the education sector. The system in this country is undoubtedly different than in the United States, which I expected. The reasons behind these differences are many and complex, ranging from the strands of socialism I have noticed to a seeming lack of incentives in the workforce for higher education. But these protests give me hope because it is clear the public is unhappy with the current state of education in Chile, and they are trying to find a solution. New reforms are currently in the process of being passed in Congress, so it remains to be seen if some of the protesters demands will be met. For now, the fight for quality education for all persists both in the classroom and on the streets.