The future of the economist’s utopia in the Chilean school system

Abstract

The radical transformations of the Chilean education system carried out by the military dictatorship during the 1980s were designated as an “economist’s utopia” given that they converted an preferably public and centralized system into one governed by the rules of the free market. Under this assumption, we examine the new system’s development, which quickly defaulted on its promises of providing efficiency and high quality education. With this objective, this study demonstrates the deterioration of the aforementioned utopia and how the analogy to the free market proved false. The role of the state as a regulator, provider and guarantor of the education system is criticized, as well as the disparate and occasionally contradictory use of information regarding the educational reform. Lastly, we examine the participation of parents and how the role assigned to them by the reform differed from their actual participation in the system. We conclude by noting that, in order to overcome the aforementioned problems, it is necessary to replace the logic employed during the formulation of these policies three decades ago with a more expanded outlook that offers sound answers to the problems confronted by the Chilean education system in regard to its quality and equality.