Restructuring Education through Economic Competition: The Case of Chile Available to Purchase

Although in the late 1960s Chile had already solved traditional problems such as basic literacy, and access to primary education and training of highly qualified university professionals, little advance was made by the military government in the 1970s. Thus in the early 1980s the military government introduced economic competition in the education system, hoping to increase the quality of education in spite of projected further cuts in public resources for education. The swift implementation of the market model in education was soon affected by unforeseen constraints and effects, and later on the economic crisis forced changes in initial regulations several times during the next decade. Economic competition eventually generated a substantial increment of private education; decentralised decisions increased cost recovery; but it also increased inequity in education outcomes; reduced the ability of the system to attract good candidates to an academic career; and reduced the share of education in the GNP.