RESUMEN Este artículo analiza los conflictos y dilemas de la Educación Superior chilena, construi... more RESUMEN Este artículo analiza los conflictos y dilemas de la Educación Superior chilena, construida y masificada bajo políticas neoliberales desde 1980 hasta nuestros días. En particular, el trabajo se centra en los efectos de la reforma impulsada por el gobierno de Michelle Bachelet en 2016, la que tuvo como objetivo declarado quitar centralidad al mercado y garantizar la gratuidad de los estudios superiores, intentando con ello responder al movimiento social en 2011, protagonista del mayor ciclo de protestas conocido desde el retorno a la democracia en 1990 en Chile hasta ese momento. Basado en un análisis socio-histórico, con énfasis en el análisis de la transformación del Estado, se concluye que la Educación Superior mantiene su inercia mercantil, blindada por una burocracia estatal de estrecho vínculo con los poderes de mercado e ideológicos que controlan la enseñanza superior privada. En este arreglo, la crisis generada por la expansión de mercado -de legitimidad de la Educaci...
Este artículo aborda el desafío de promover el acceso y uso de información sobre compromiso y exp... more Este artículo aborda el desafío de promover el acceso y uso de información sobre compromiso y experiencia estudiantil para mejorar la gestión de la docencia de pregrado. Para lo anterior, se documentan las percepciones de especialistas en una muestra de instituciones pertenecientes al Consejo de Rectoras y Rectores de las Universidades Chilenas (CRUCh), respecto de las capacidades de generación, distribución y uso de la información obtenida en el proyecto ‘Encuesta Nacional de Compromiso Estudiantil (ENCE)’. A partir del análisis de un caso específico de levantamiento de evidencias sobre la experiencia y aprendizaje en los estudiantes, se identifican diversas brechas y dificultades organizacionales, al mismo tiempo que buenas prácticas y potencialidades en el uso de información para impactar en una formación universitaria de calidad. El estudio ofrece, finalmente, algunas orientaciones para fortalecer las capacidades de gestión de información y promover una cultura organizacional ba...
There is growing interest in investigating the student experience in higher education, particular... more There is growing interest in investigating the student experience in higher education, particularly given the considerable widening of access and, so, diversity. Chile's Encuesta Nacional de Compromiso Estudiantil (ENCE) has been applied since 2017 by a group 1 This study has been supported by the Consejo de Rectores de las Universidades Chilenas and the ANID Núcleo Milenio "Student Experiences in Higher Education in Chile: Expectations and Reality"-NCS17_020.
This study reviews the performance of the Improvement of Quality and Equity in Higher Education p... more This study reviews the performance of the Improvement of Quality and Equity in Higher Education programme (MECESUP). MECESUP was executed in three stages between 1999 and 2016 by Chile's Ministry of Education and its directly state-subsidised university sector, with World Bank financing and advisory. The account explores achievements and failures in pursuing the twin expansion and modernisation of Chilean universities under a New Public Management (NPM) consciousness. A review of primarily European understandings of policy rationalisation in the context of the massification of higher education informs and contrasts with the Chilean case, which in turn may be instructive for similar initiatives in other Latin American and developing world contexts. The study tables illustrative interview data from personnel contemporaneously embedded in government, quasiautonomous regulatory agencies and universities. The data falls into four key dimensions: first, participants' initial expectations of the programme; second, issues that stem from the throwing open of substantial contestable funding; third, how an NPM philosophy would be planted within universities through MECESUP's influence; and, lastly, the ways in which quality assurance attained centrality within Chilean higher education policy.
archivos analíticos de políticas educativas Revista académica evaluada por pares, independiente, ... more archivos analíticos de políticas educativas Revista académica evaluada por pares, independiente, de acceso abierto y multilingüe
Es más o menos evidente que la educación superior chilena presenta un alto nivel de “privatismo” ... more Es más o menos evidente que la educación superior chilena presenta un alto nivel de “privatismo” (Brunner, 2009), que la sitúan entre las más privatizadas del mundo, en términos de quien paga por ella, quien se beneficia directamente de su acción y quien detenta el control de las universidades. No es tan clara, sin embargo, la contribución de la política pública a ese estado de cosas. El análisis sistemático de la acción estatal en el campo de la educación terciaria es todavía un ejercicio inconcluso en Chile, a pesar de la revolucionaria transformación que ella ha experimentado durante las últimas décadas. Este estudio ofrece nuevas posibilidades de análisis para la revisión del caso chileno. Apoyándose en las orientaciones metodológicas de Smelser (2013), produce un marco integrado que observa el progresivo cambio de las políticas a propósito de las interacciones que se plantean entre sus principales dimensiones (de acceso, financiamiento y calidad, entre otras). Sobre esa base, d...
This study traces Chilean higher education policy’s trajectory over the past 50 years. It advance... more This study traces Chilean higher education policy’s trajectory over the past 50 years. It advances a new interpretation of the period by revisiting the chain of events and secondary sources. Unlike previous analyses, it stresses the tensions between the internal configuration of the policy agendas at each stage and the demands and realities in which they have operated. From that standpoint, it provides a comprehensive perspective for understanding the great challenges that Chilean higher education faces today .Desde un prisma histórico, este artículo interpreta la trayectoria de las políticas para la educación superior chilena durante los últimos 50 años. Usando fuentes secundarias, se propone una nueva organización del periodo y de las tensiones que emergen entre las diferentes etapas observadas. En vez de enfatizar los aspectos adjetivos de las políticas, el análisis se concentra en la configuración interna de las agendassectoriales y su relación con el entorno en que operan. El r...
Abstract: Education for sustainability (EfS) refers to education that builds the knowledge, skill... more Abstract: Education for sustainability (EfS) refers to education that builds the knowledge, skills and dispositions for living sustainably. It is bringing sustainability--for some time a prominent concern within higher education--firmly within the fold of teaching and learning, a key aspect of universities' core business. Is EfS an unstoppable juggernaut in higher education? The short answer is no; it is one of a gamut of policy considerations universities that currently face. This review has made it clear, however, that EfS is a vehicle for infusing ...
Chilean higher education has experienced vast, and in many ways groundbreaking, changes since 198... more Chilean higher education has experienced vast, and in many ways groundbreaking, changes since 1980. Certain policy developments have been subject to various studies, but the overarching principles and underlying assumptions have remained less explored. The same applies to transitional changes in state approaches to sector-specific regulation that, once established, would remain relatively stable. Through content analysis of policy statements over three decades, this study critically reviews past accounts of the evolution of policy, proposing a new reading of the steps involved in organizing policy settings and the general criteria underpinning these. Beyond allowing a better understanding of the transformation of higher education in Chile, the article concludes with some suggestions around the growing difficulties faced in forming sectoral policy.
Table of Contents List of Tables Abbreviations First Part Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 The study: ... more Table of Contents List of Tables Abbreviations First Part Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 The study: aim and scope 1.2 Quality assurance policy in Chilean higher education 1.3 Understanding quality assurance policy and its transformations 1.4 The structure of the study Chapter 2: The Context 2.1 A Latin American background 2.2 The origins of Chilean universities 2.3 The Reforma Universitaria movement and its aftermath 2.4 The 1980 reforms 2.4.1 Causes and aims 2.4.2 Effects on expansion, differentiation, and funding 2.4.3 The traditional/new private divide 2.4.4 Effects of the 1980 reforms on privatisation, competition, and deregulation Chapter 3: Methods 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Typifying policy change 3.3 Frameworks emerged from policy studies 3.4 Sociological perspectives and their limitations 3.4.1 Actor-centred approaches 3.4.2 Structural approaches 3.4.3 Post-structural approaches 3.4.4 Combined approaches 3.5 British social theory and its possibilities 3.6 Study design Second Part Chapter 4: Discovering quality assurance (1990-1998) 4.1 The 1990s: introduction and prehistory 4.2 The examination regime (or origins of licensing) 4.3 Policy players 4.3.1 University leaders 4.3.2 The Pinochet administration 4.3.3 Independent academic centres 4.3.4 Idle actors 4.4 Situating policy players within the policy process 4.4.1 Channels of policy circulation 4.4.2 Other structural and normative conditions 4.5 Adopting a new policy 4.6 Policy content 4.7 Implementing licensing 4.7.1 Searching for alternatives to LOCE 4.
Desde un prisma histórico, este artículo interpreta la trayectoria de las políticas para la educa... more Desde un prisma histórico, este artículo interpreta la trayectoria de las políticas para la educación superior chilena durante los últimos 50 años. Usando fuentes secundarias, se propone una nueva organización del periodo y de las tensiones que emergen entre las diferentes etapas observadas. En vez de enfatizar los aspectos adjetivos de las políticas, el análisis se concentra en la configuración interna de las agendas sectoriales y su relación con el entorno en que operan. El resultado permite poner en perspectiva los importantes desafíos que hoy enfrenta la educación superior.
An early adopter of external quality assessments, Chile stands out as an example of innovative re... more An early adopter of external quality assessments, Chile stands out as an example of innovative reforms in higher education policy across the developing world. Much less is known, however, about the local factors that affected the formation, implementation and consequences of quality assurance policies. This study examines the interplay of structural and agency factors, tracing variations in this policy domain from a longitudinal perspective. Through semi-structured interviews with policymakers, higher education leaders and experts who were directly involved in advancing reform at different stages, the study documents the rise and decline of quality assurance through a twenty-year span (1990-2009) covering four consecutive terms of government — from the reinstatement of Chilean democracy to the last year in power of the same centre-left coalition that conducted the political transition from military rule. The study begins tracing the origins of Chilean higher education and the revolutionary changes it started to experience from 1980 toward, embracing greater competition and privatisation. Later, the theories that inform the thesis — Anthony Giddens’s structuration and Margaret Archer’s morphogenesis — are presented along with the methodological design chosen for the study. Supported by this background, a case description is introduced in three parts, each of them pertaining to different reforms: the introduction of licensing in 1990, the formation of course accreditation pilots in 1999, and the creation of a comprehensive quality assurance scheme in 2003. The analysis provides a comprehensive exploration of the structural properties — enrolment expansion, competition among providers, an elitist policymaking style, and the quality assurance discourse — behind these reforms and their mutation over time. Likewise, the changing position of leading policy players is examined as well as their manipulation of existing structures to influence the design and implementation of policy changes. By confronting agency and structural interaction, policy trajectories emerge, allowing a better understanding of policy dynamics in Chilean higher education. The study unveils the growing centrality of quality assurance within the policy architecture and the substantial efforts universities have made to limit its impact in their core business and to maximise their competitive advantage in complex and dynamic environments. The analysis suggests that, incrementally, these tensions are highly correlated with the declining utility and legitimacy of the existing quality assurance scheme. It advances that quality assurance can, however, play a significant policy function in reassuring the fundamental values of higher education if greater participation in external assessments is granted and financial incentives attached to quality assurance are removed.
This article offers a new approach to quality, focusing on the dimensions that gather around it. ... more This article offers a new approach to quality, focusing on the dimensions that gather around it. The mismatched goals of controlling and improving higher education continue to trouble the conceptual clarity of accountability. Quality in higher education emerges as something agreed upon (to varying efficacy) through accountability measures, rather than dictated or scheduled. A concept of purchase (the connectedness of accountability with quality) informs discussion. Following an overview of what quality means logically and in the operational context of high rates of access to and participation in higher education, the argument proceeds to a schema of complementary types, or personages, of accountability (transactional, political, bureaucratic, institutional and disciplinary). Throughout, the desire to be viewed well and self-awareness interplay, rendering the various approaches to quality assurance presences to be acknowledged in their own right. is about a woman, Phoebe, trying to secure a husband by pretending to be someone more attractive. The pathos lies in the gap between Phoebe's actual qualities and the notional qualities she is trying to pass off on the social scene of a provincial town. Higher education institutions and indeed quality assurance régimes parallel this bind; they have to live with themselves, even if there are obvious advantages in embellishing their charms. Here, the self-conscious ecology around higher education is termed 'Quality Street'; an enterprise in itself but answerable to the opportunities and groomable perceptions of the wider world. To acknowledge multiple perspectives that commune around quality is to move beyond formulations of quality control and the blind faith that quality improvement springs from
Resumen: Es más o menos evidente que la educación superior chilena presenta un alto nivel de "pri... more Resumen: Es más o menos evidente que la educación superior chilena presenta un alto nivel de "privatismo" 1 (Brunner, 2009), que la sitúan entre las más privatizadas del mundo, en términos de quien paga por ella, quien se beneficia directamente de su acción y quien detenta el control de las universidades. No es tan clara, sin embargo, la contribución de la política pública a ese estado de cosas. El análisis sistemático de la acción estatal en el campo de la educación terciaria es todavía un ejercicio inconcluso en Chile, a pesar de la revolucionaria transformación que ella ha experimentado durante las últimas décadas. Este estudio ofrece nuevas posibilidades de análisis para la revisión del caso chileno. Apoyándose en las orientaciones metodológicas de Smelser (2013), produce un marco integrado que observa el progresivo cambio de las políticas a propósito de las interacciones que se plantean entre sus principales dimensiones (de acceso, financiamiento y calidad, entre otras). Sobre esa base, describe la trayectoria de dos regímenes de regulación sectorial que se van integrando 1 Se trata de una idea original de . Es importante tener presente que él no observa lo público y lo privado como polos opuestos, sino como factores en tensión pero que se complementan.
Chilean higher education has expanded greatly in recent decades, primarily through drawing on the... more Chilean higher education has expanded greatly in recent decades, primarily through drawing on the private contributions of students and families, and an increased number and variety of institutions. In the context of attempts to address criticism that the sector is not free, public or high-quality enough, this article examines the association between education and its moral and ethical dimensions, and their separate yet complementary consideration alongside economic development, through the two centuries of the Chilean state's existence. Since the beginning of the current decade, discontent with the framing and performance of higher education as a whole has grown. The overview traces this process not as fresh crisis, but part of a social question pondered repeatedly in the past and supported with varying success through educational and political initiatives. This historical (and historiographic) approach illuminates the limits of conceiving of higher education as either an economic good or as a human right, and an overlooked need to support its benefits through policy. Not simply an interpenetration with economic thinking, but also a lack of sufficient appreciation of Chile's fundamental and singular character, present as challenges in understanding expanded access's function and its prospective contribution to growing debates around ethics and inequality. Prologue Inasmuch as anything is known abroad of Chilean society—including education—it is its vigorously, if divisively, capitalist underpinnings. Recent attempts to address popular demand for free higher education (HE) are an exception that proves the rule. Here, scant
El artículo explora las ideas asociadas a la reforma a la educación superior promovida por el gob... more El artículo explora las ideas asociadas a la reforma a la educación superior promovida por el gobierno de la Presidenta Bachelet. Más que enfocarse en los detalles, explora las nociones y tensiones que sugieren los pocos lineamientos que han sido socializados por el Ministerio de Educación. Además de situar el proceso de reforma y analizar sus características, se plantean diferentes sugerencias para considerar en una revisión que reoriente las bases que soportan su diseño.
El presente estudio revisa, desde el prisma del análisis histórico de las políticas, la evolución... more El presente estudio revisa, desde el prisma del análisis histórico de las políticas, la evolución del aseguramiento de la calidad en la educación superior chilena. Para eso, divide el periodo 1990-2012 en tres etapas diferentes (1990-1998; 1999-2002; 2003-2012), además de contextualizarlo con el régimen de examinación de instituciones privadas iniciado en 1981. Asimismo, analiza los factores estructurales y la acción de los actores que incidieron directamente en el diseño e implementación de los distintos instrumentos asociados a esta línea de política. En fin, el artículo concluye con una revisión de las consecuencias que estos instrumentos han tenido en la configuración de las dinámicas sectoriales, y los aprendizajes que deja esta experiencia, globalmente considerada. Todo ello con miras a apoyar la revisión que comienza sobre futura configuración del sistema de aseguramiento de la calidad.
RESUMEN Este artículo analiza los conflictos y dilemas de la Educación Superior chilena, construi... more RESUMEN Este artículo analiza los conflictos y dilemas de la Educación Superior chilena, construida y masificada bajo políticas neoliberales desde 1980 hasta nuestros días. En particular, el trabajo se centra en los efectos de la reforma impulsada por el gobierno de Michelle Bachelet en 2016, la que tuvo como objetivo declarado quitar centralidad al mercado y garantizar la gratuidad de los estudios superiores, intentando con ello responder al movimiento social en 2011, protagonista del mayor ciclo de protestas conocido desde el retorno a la democracia en 1990 en Chile hasta ese momento. Basado en un análisis socio-histórico, con énfasis en el análisis de la transformación del Estado, se concluye que la Educación Superior mantiene su inercia mercantil, blindada por una burocracia estatal de estrecho vínculo con los poderes de mercado e ideológicos que controlan la enseñanza superior privada. En este arreglo, la crisis generada por la expansión de mercado -de legitimidad de la Educaci...
Este artículo aborda el desafío de promover el acceso y uso de información sobre compromiso y exp... more Este artículo aborda el desafío de promover el acceso y uso de información sobre compromiso y experiencia estudiantil para mejorar la gestión de la docencia de pregrado. Para lo anterior, se documentan las percepciones de especialistas en una muestra de instituciones pertenecientes al Consejo de Rectoras y Rectores de las Universidades Chilenas (CRUCh), respecto de las capacidades de generación, distribución y uso de la información obtenida en el proyecto ‘Encuesta Nacional de Compromiso Estudiantil (ENCE)’. A partir del análisis de un caso específico de levantamiento de evidencias sobre la experiencia y aprendizaje en los estudiantes, se identifican diversas brechas y dificultades organizacionales, al mismo tiempo que buenas prácticas y potencialidades en el uso de información para impactar en una formación universitaria de calidad. El estudio ofrece, finalmente, algunas orientaciones para fortalecer las capacidades de gestión de información y promover una cultura organizacional ba...
There is growing interest in investigating the student experience in higher education, particular... more There is growing interest in investigating the student experience in higher education, particularly given the considerable widening of access and, so, diversity. Chile's Encuesta Nacional de Compromiso Estudiantil (ENCE) has been applied since 2017 by a group 1 This study has been supported by the Consejo de Rectores de las Universidades Chilenas and the ANID Núcleo Milenio "Student Experiences in Higher Education in Chile: Expectations and Reality"-NCS17_020.
This study reviews the performance of the Improvement of Quality and Equity in Higher Education p... more This study reviews the performance of the Improvement of Quality and Equity in Higher Education programme (MECESUP). MECESUP was executed in three stages between 1999 and 2016 by Chile's Ministry of Education and its directly state-subsidised university sector, with World Bank financing and advisory. The account explores achievements and failures in pursuing the twin expansion and modernisation of Chilean universities under a New Public Management (NPM) consciousness. A review of primarily European understandings of policy rationalisation in the context of the massification of higher education informs and contrasts with the Chilean case, which in turn may be instructive for similar initiatives in other Latin American and developing world contexts. The study tables illustrative interview data from personnel contemporaneously embedded in government, quasiautonomous regulatory agencies and universities. The data falls into four key dimensions: first, participants' initial expectations of the programme; second, issues that stem from the throwing open of substantial contestable funding; third, how an NPM philosophy would be planted within universities through MECESUP's influence; and, lastly, the ways in which quality assurance attained centrality within Chilean higher education policy.
archivos analíticos de políticas educativas Revista académica evaluada por pares, independiente, ... more archivos analíticos de políticas educativas Revista académica evaluada por pares, independiente, de acceso abierto y multilingüe
Es más o menos evidente que la educación superior chilena presenta un alto nivel de “privatismo” ... more Es más o menos evidente que la educación superior chilena presenta un alto nivel de “privatismo” (Brunner, 2009), que la sitúan entre las más privatizadas del mundo, en términos de quien paga por ella, quien se beneficia directamente de su acción y quien detenta el control de las universidades. No es tan clara, sin embargo, la contribución de la política pública a ese estado de cosas. El análisis sistemático de la acción estatal en el campo de la educación terciaria es todavía un ejercicio inconcluso en Chile, a pesar de la revolucionaria transformación que ella ha experimentado durante las últimas décadas. Este estudio ofrece nuevas posibilidades de análisis para la revisión del caso chileno. Apoyándose en las orientaciones metodológicas de Smelser (2013), produce un marco integrado que observa el progresivo cambio de las políticas a propósito de las interacciones que se plantean entre sus principales dimensiones (de acceso, financiamiento y calidad, entre otras). Sobre esa base, d...
This study traces Chilean higher education policy’s trajectory over the past 50 years. It advance... more This study traces Chilean higher education policy’s trajectory over the past 50 years. It advances a new interpretation of the period by revisiting the chain of events and secondary sources. Unlike previous analyses, it stresses the tensions between the internal configuration of the policy agendas at each stage and the demands and realities in which they have operated. From that standpoint, it provides a comprehensive perspective for understanding the great challenges that Chilean higher education faces today .Desde un prisma histórico, este artículo interpreta la trayectoria de las políticas para la educación superior chilena durante los últimos 50 años. Usando fuentes secundarias, se propone una nueva organización del periodo y de las tensiones que emergen entre las diferentes etapas observadas. En vez de enfatizar los aspectos adjetivos de las políticas, el análisis se concentra en la configuración interna de las agendassectoriales y su relación con el entorno en que operan. El r...
Abstract: Education for sustainability (EfS) refers to education that builds the knowledge, skill... more Abstract: Education for sustainability (EfS) refers to education that builds the knowledge, skills and dispositions for living sustainably. It is bringing sustainability--for some time a prominent concern within higher education--firmly within the fold of teaching and learning, a key aspect of universities' core business. Is EfS an unstoppable juggernaut in higher education? The short answer is no; it is one of a gamut of policy considerations universities that currently face. This review has made it clear, however, that EfS is a vehicle for infusing ...
Chilean higher education has experienced vast, and in many ways groundbreaking, changes since 198... more Chilean higher education has experienced vast, and in many ways groundbreaking, changes since 1980. Certain policy developments have been subject to various studies, but the overarching principles and underlying assumptions have remained less explored. The same applies to transitional changes in state approaches to sector-specific regulation that, once established, would remain relatively stable. Through content analysis of policy statements over three decades, this study critically reviews past accounts of the evolution of policy, proposing a new reading of the steps involved in organizing policy settings and the general criteria underpinning these. Beyond allowing a better understanding of the transformation of higher education in Chile, the article concludes with some suggestions around the growing difficulties faced in forming sectoral policy.
Table of Contents List of Tables Abbreviations First Part Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 The study: ... more Table of Contents List of Tables Abbreviations First Part Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 The study: aim and scope 1.2 Quality assurance policy in Chilean higher education 1.3 Understanding quality assurance policy and its transformations 1.4 The structure of the study Chapter 2: The Context 2.1 A Latin American background 2.2 The origins of Chilean universities 2.3 The Reforma Universitaria movement and its aftermath 2.4 The 1980 reforms 2.4.1 Causes and aims 2.4.2 Effects on expansion, differentiation, and funding 2.4.3 The traditional/new private divide 2.4.4 Effects of the 1980 reforms on privatisation, competition, and deregulation Chapter 3: Methods 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Typifying policy change 3.3 Frameworks emerged from policy studies 3.4 Sociological perspectives and their limitations 3.4.1 Actor-centred approaches 3.4.2 Structural approaches 3.4.3 Post-structural approaches 3.4.4 Combined approaches 3.5 British social theory and its possibilities 3.6 Study design Second Part Chapter 4: Discovering quality assurance (1990-1998) 4.1 The 1990s: introduction and prehistory 4.2 The examination regime (or origins of licensing) 4.3 Policy players 4.3.1 University leaders 4.3.2 The Pinochet administration 4.3.3 Independent academic centres 4.3.4 Idle actors 4.4 Situating policy players within the policy process 4.4.1 Channels of policy circulation 4.4.2 Other structural and normative conditions 4.5 Adopting a new policy 4.6 Policy content 4.7 Implementing licensing 4.7.1 Searching for alternatives to LOCE 4.
Desde un prisma histórico, este artículo interpreta la trayectoria de las políticas para la educa... more Desde un prisma histórico, este artículo interpreta la trayectoria de las políticas para la educación superior chilena durante los últimos 50 años. Usando fuentes secundarias, se propone una nueva organización del periodo y de las tensiones que emergen entre las diferentes etapas observadas. En vez de enfatizar los aspectos adjetivos de las políticas, el análisis se concentra en la configuración interna de las agendas sectoriales y su relación con el entorno en que operan. El resultado permite poner en perspectiva los importantes desafíos que hoy enfrenta la educación superior.
An early adopter of external quality assessments, Chile stands out as an example of innovative re... more An early adopter of external quality assessments, Chile stands out as an example of innovative reforms in higher education policy across the developing world. Much less is known, however, about the local factors that affected the formation, implementation and consequences of quality assurance policies. This study examines the interplay of structural and agency factors, tracing variations in this policy domain from a longitudinal perspective. Through semi-structured interviews with policymakers, higher education leaders and experts who were directly involved in advancing reform at different stages, the study documents the rise and decline of quality assurance through a twenty-year span (1990-2009) covering four consecutive terms of government — from the reinstatement of Chilean democracy to the last year in power of the same centre-left coalition that conducted the political transition from military rule. The study begins tracing the origins of Chilean higher education and the revolutionary changes it started to experience from 1980 toward, embracing greater competition and privatisation. Later, the theories that inform the thesis — Anthony Giddens’s structuration and Margaret Archer’s morphogenesis — are presented along with the methodological design chosen for the study. Supported by this background, a case description is introduced in three parts, each of them pertaining to different reforms: the introduction of licensing in 1990, the formation of course accreditation pilots in 1999, and the creation of a comprehensive quality assurance scheme in 2003. The analysis provides a comprehensive exploration of the structural properties — enrolment expansion, competition among providers, an elitist policymaking style, and the quality assurance discourse — behind these reforms and their mutation over time. Likewise, the changing position of leading policy players is examined as well as their manipulation of existing structures to influence the design and implementation of policy changes. By confronting agency and structural interaction, policy trajectories emerge, allowing a better understanding of policy dynamics in Chilean higher education. The study unveils the growing centrality of quality assurance within the policy architecture and the substantial efforts universities have made to limit its impact in their core business and to maximise their competitive advantage in complex and dynamic environments. The analysis suggests that, incrementally, these tensions are highly correlated with the declining utility and legitimacy of the existing quality assurance scheme. It advances that quality assurance can, however, play a significant policy function in reassuring the fundamental values of higher education if greater participation in external assessments is granted and financial incentives attached to quality assurance are removed.
This article offers a new approach to quality, focusing on the dimensions that gather around it. ... more This article offers a new approach to quality, focusing on the dimensions that gather around it. The mismatched goals of controlling and improving higher education continue to trouble the conceptual clarity of accountability. Quality in higher education emerges as something agreed upon (to varying efficacy) through accountability measures, rather than dictated or scheduled. A concept of purchase (the connectedness of accountability with quality) informs discussion. Following an overview of what quality means logically and in the operational context of high rates of access to and participation in higher education, the argument proceeds to a schema of complementary types, or personages, of accountability (transactional, political, bureaucratic, institutional and disciplinary). Throughout, the desire to be viewed well and self-awareness interplay, rendering the various approaches to quality assurance presences to be acknowledged in their own right. is about a woman, Phoebe, trying to secure a husband by pretending to be someone more attractive. The pathos lies in the gap between Phoebe's actual qualities and the notional qualities she is trying to pass off on the social scene of a provincial town. Higher education institutions and indeed quality assurance régimes parallel this bind; they have to live with themselves, even if there are obvious advantages in embellishing their charms. Here, the self-conscious ecology around higher education is termed 'Quality Street'; an enterprise in itself but answerable to the opportunities and groomable perceptions of the wider world. To acknowledge multiple perspectives that commune around quality is to move beyond formulations of quality control and the blind faith that quality improvement springs from
Resumen: Es más o menos evidente que la educación superior chilena presenta un alto nivel de "pri... more Resumen: Es más o menos evidente que la educación superior chilena presenta un alto nivel de "privatismo" 1 (Brunner, 2009), que la sitúan entre las más privatizadas del mundo, en términos de quien paga por ella, quien se beneficia directamente de su acción y quien detenta el control de las universidades. No es tan clara, sin embargo, la contribución de la política pública a ese estado de cosas. El análisis sistemático de la acción estatal en el campo de la educación terciaria es todavía un ejercicio inconcluso en Chile, a pesar de la revolucionaria transformación que ella ha experimentado durante las últimas décadas. Este estudio ofrece nuevas posibilidades de análisis para la revisión del caso chileno. Apoyándose en las orientaciones metodológicas de Smelser (2013), produce un marco integrado que observa el progresivo cambio de las políticas a propósito de las interacciones que se plantean entre sus principales dimensiones (de acceso, financiamiento y calidad, entre otras). Sobre esa base, describe la trayectoria de dos regímenes de regulación sectorial que se van integrando 1 Se trata de una idea original de . Es importante tener presente que él no observa lo público y lo privado como polos opuestos, sino como factores en tensión pero que se complementan.
Chilean higher education has expanded greatly in recent decades, primarily through drawing on the... more Chilean higher education has expanded greatly in recent decades, primarily through drawing on the private contributions of students and families, and an increased number and variety of institutions. In the context of attempts to address criticism that the sector is not free, public or high-quality enough, this article examines the association between education and its moral and ethical dimensions, and their separate yet complementary consideration alongside economic development, through the two centuries of the Chilean state's existence. Since the beginning of the current decade, discontent with the framing and performance of higher education as a whole has grown. The overview traces this process not as fresh crisis, but part of a social question pondered repeatedly in the past and supported with varying success through educational and political initiatives. This historical (and historiographic) approach illuminates the limits of conceiving of higher education as either an economic good or as a human right, and an overlooked need to support its benefits through policy. Not simply an interpenetration with economic thinking, but also a lack of sufficient appreciation of Chile's fundamental and singular character, present as challenges in understanding expanded access's function and its prospective contribution to growing debates around ethics and inequality. Prologue Inasmuch as anything is known abroad of Chilean society—including education—it is its vigorously, if divisively, capitalist underpinnings. Recent attempts to address popular demand for free higher education (HE) are an exception that proves the rule. Here, scant
El artículo explora las ideas asociadas a la reforma a la educación superior promovida por el gob... more El artículo explora las ideas asociadas a la reforma a la educación superior promovida por el gobierno de la Presidenta Bachelet. Más que enfocarse en los detalles, explora las nociones y tensiones que sugieren los pocos lineamientos que han sido socializados por el Ministerio de Educación. Además de situar el proceso de reforma y analizar sus características, se plantean diferentes sugerencias para considerar en una revisión que reoriente las bases que soportan su diseño.
El presente estudio revisa, desde el prisma del análisis histórico de las políticas, la evolución... more El presente estudio revisa, desde el prisma del análisis histórico de las políticas, la evolución del aseguramiento de la calidad en la educación superior chilena. Para eso, divide el periodo 1990-2012 en tres etapas diferentes (1990-1998; 1999-2002; 2003-2012), además de contextualizarlo con el régimen de examinación de instituciones privadas iniciado en 1981. Asimismo, analiza los factores estructurales y la acción de los actores que incidieron directamente en el diseño e implementación de los distintos instrumentos asociados a esta línea de política. En fin, el artículo concluye con una revisión de las consecuencias que estos instrumentos han tenido en la configuración de las dinámicas sectoriales, y los aprendizajes que deja esta experiencia, globalmente considerada. Todo ello con miras a apoyar la revisión que comienza sobre futura configuración del sistema de aseguramiento de la calidad.
This study reviews the performance of the Improvement of Quality and Equity in Higher Education p... more This study reviews the performance of the Improvement of Quality and Equity in Higher Education programme (MECESUP). MECESUP was executed in three stages between 1999 and 2016 by Chile's Ministry of Education and its directly state-subsidised university sector, with World Bank financing and advisory. The account explores achievements and failures in pursuing the twin expansion and modernisation of Chilean universities under a New Public Management (NPM) consciousness. A review of primarily European understandings of policy rationalisation in the context of the massification of higher education informs and contrasts with the Chilean case, which in turn may be instructive for similar initiatives in other Latin American and developing world contexts. The study tables illustrative interview data from personnel contemporaneously embedded in government, quasiautonomous regulatory agencies and universities. The data falls into four key dimensions: first, participants' initial expectations of the programme; second, issues that stem from the throwing open of substantial contestable funding; third, how an NPM philosophy would be planted within universities through MECESUP's influence; and, lastly, the ways in which quality assurance attained centrality within Chilean higher education policy.
There is growing interest in investigating the student experience in higher education, particular... more There is growing interest in investigating the student experience in higher education, particularly given the considerable widening of access and, so, diversity. Chile's Encuesta Nacional de Compromiso Estudiantil (ENCE) has been applied since 2017 by a group of universities of the Council of Rectors of the Chilean Universities (CRUCh), eliciting a battery of evidence covering the student experience. This study documents current efforts to organize information about the student experience into student engagement profiles, reported here with reference to selected undergraduate disciplines. The results of ENCE 2019 are analyzed, as applied to 9869 undergraduates in their first year and in their fourth year since commencing, in nine universities. Cluster analysis of the entire sample of students in all fields, and subsets of those respondents in the fields of Civil Engineering, Law, Medicine and Teaching, yield diverse patterns of student engagement. Further consideration follows of the current and potential use of student engagement data in Chile and other countries, and the differences across different study fields and professional traditions.
La poética del mejoramiento: ¿Hacia dónde nos han traído las políticas de calidad de la educación... more La poética del mejoramiento: ¿Hacia dónde nos han traído las políticas de calidad de la educación superior? 126 estudios sociales Nº 122-2014 ISBN 0716-0321 corporación de promoción universitaria corporación de promoción universitaria corporación de promoción universitaria 157 corporación de promoción universitaria
This article offers a new approach to quality, focusing on the dimensions that gather around it. ... more This article offers a new approach to quality, focusing on the dimensions that gather around it. The mismatched goals of controlling and improving higher education continue to trouble the conceptual clarity of accountability. Quality in higher education emerges as something agreed upon (to varying efficacy) through accountability measures, rather than dictated or scheduled. A concept of purchase (the connectedness of accountability with quality) informs discussion. Following an overview of what quality means logically and in the operational context of high rates of access to and participation in higher education, the argument proceeds to a schema of complementary types, or personages, of accountability (transactional, political, bureaucratic, institutional and disciplinary). Throughout, the desire to be viewed well and self-awareness interplay, rendering the various approaches to quality assurance presences to be acknowledged in their own right. Market purchases JM Barrie's comedy of Georgian-period manners Quality Street (1901) is about a woman, Phoebe, trying to secure a husband by pretending to be someone more attractive. The pathos lies in the gap between Phoebe's actual qualities and the notional qualities she is trying to pass off on the social scene of a provincial town. Higher education institutions and indeed quality assurance régimes parallel this bind; they have to live with themselves, even if there are obvious advantages in embellishing their charms. Here, the self-conscious ecology around higher education is termed 'Quality Street'; an enterprise in itself but answerable to the opportunities and groomable perceptions of the wider world. To acknowledge multiple perspectives that commune around quality is to move beyond formulations of quality control and the blind faith that quality improvement springs from
Chilean higher education has expanded greatly in recent decades, primarily through drawing on the... more Chilean higher education has expanded greatly in recent decades, primarily through drawing on the private contributions of students and families, and an increased number and variety of institutions. In the context of attempts to address criticism that the sector is not free, public or high-quality enough, this article examines the association between education and its moral and ethical dimensions, and their separate yet complementary consideration alongside economic development, through the two centuries of the Chilean state's existence. Since the beginning of the current decade, discontent with the framing and performance of higher education as a whole has grown. The overview traces this process not as fresh crisis, but part of a social question pondered repeatedly in the past and supported with varying success through educational and political initiatives. This historical (and historiographic) approach illuminates the limits of conceiving of higher education as either an economic good or as a human right, and an overlooked need to support its benefits through policy. Not simply an interpenetration with economic thinking, but also a lack of sufficient appreciation of Chile's fundamental and singular character, present as challenges in understanding expanded access's function and its prospective contribution to growing debates around ethics and inequality.
❏ Aunque mucho se ha discutido sobre educación superior, particularmente en el contexto de su rec... more ❏ Aunque mucho se ha discutido sobre educación superior, particularmente en el contexto de su reciente reforma, no existe aún un diagnóstico compartido ni suficientemente actualizado, que permita trazar una visión de largo plazo, indispensable para enfrentar los nuevos desafíos que enfrenta el sector. ❏ Este documento tiene por objetivo revisar la situación actual de la educación superior en Chile. Para esto, se enfoca tanto en los efectos asociados a los cambios en la regulación y las políticas, así como en aquellos relacionados con las movilizaciones sociales y la crisis sanitaria. Asimismo, considera que la sostenibilidad financiera constituye un aspecto central en el futuro de la educación superior, que requiere de un examen cuidadoso y realista, que facilite abordar los importantes desafíos del sector haciéndose cargo del complejo escenario económico y social actual. ❏ Este policy brief presenta una síntesis de las principales tendencias observadas en el sector, al mismo tiempo que destaca los avances y desafíos más relevantes. Luego, discute las transformaciones que ha traído la reforma a la educación superior, junto con los nuevos problemas que la crisis social y la pandemia han puesto en evidencia. ❏ Es urgente re-pensar la educación superior desde una perspectiva de largo plazo, en conexión con la sociedad civil y el aparato institucional del Estado. Por ello, este documento también plantea sugerencias y orientaciones de política pública, que debieran apuntar al establecimiento de una estrategia nacional para proyectar sosteniblemente el desarrollo del sistema y el logro de sus objetivos.
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Papers by Jose Salazar
The study begins tracing the origins of Chilean higher education and the revolutionary changes it started to experience from 1980 toward, embracing greater competition and privatisation. Later, the theories that inform the thesis — Anthony Giddens’s structuration and Margaret Archer’s morphogenesis — are presented along with the methodological design chosen for the study. Supported by this background, a case description is introduced in three parts, each of them pertaining to different reforms: the introduction of licensing in 1990, the formation of course accreditation pilots in 1999, and the creation of a comprehensive quality assurance scheme in 2003.
The analysis provides a comprehensive exploration of the structural properties — enrolment expansion, competition among providers, an elitist policymaking style, and the quality assurance discourse — behind these reforms and their mutation over time. Likewise, the changing position of leading policy players is examined as well as their manipulation of existing structures to influence the design and implementation of policy changes. By confronting agency and structural interaction, policy trajectories emerge, allowing a better understanding of policy dynamics in Chilean higher education.
The study unveils the growing centrality of quality assurance within the policy architecture and the substantial efforts universities have made to limit its impact in their core business and to maximise their competitive advantage in complex and dynamic environments. The analysis suggests that, incrementally, these tensions are highly correlated with the declining utility and legitimacy of the existing quality assurance scheme. It advances that quality assurance can, however, play a significant policy function in reassuring the fundamental values of higher education if greater participation in external assessments is granted and financial incentives attached to quality assurance are removed.
The study begins tracing the origins of Chilean higher education and the revolutionary changes it started to experience from 1980 toward, embracing greater competition and privatisation. Later, the theories that inform the thesis — Anthony Giddens’s structuration and Margaret Archer’s morphogenesis — are presented along with the methodological design chosen for the study. Supported by this background, a case description is introduced in three parts, each of them pertaining to different reforms: the introduction of licensing in 1990, the formation of course accreditation pilots in 1999, and the creation of a comprehensive quality assurance scheme in 2003.
The analysis provides a comprehensive exploration of the structural properties — enrolment expansion, competition among providers, an elitist policymaking style, and the quality assurance discourse — behind these reforms and their mutation over time. Likewise, the changing position of leading policy players is examined as well as their manipulation of existing structures to influence the design and implementation of policy changes. By confronting agency and structural interaction, policy trajectories emerge, allowing a better understanding of policy dynamics in Chilean higher education.
The study unveils the growing centrality of quality assurance within the policy architecture and the substantial efforts universities have made to limit its impact in their core business and to maximise their competitive advantage in complex and dynamic environments. The analysis suggests that, incrementally, these tensions are highly correlated with the declining utility and legitimacy of the existing quality assurance scheme. It advances that quality assurance can, however, play a significant policy function in reassuring the fundamental values of higher education if greater participation in external assessments is granted and financial incentives attached to quality assurance are removed.
❏ Este documento tiene por objetivo revisar la situación actual de la educación superior en Chile. Para esto, se enfoca tanto en los efectos asociados a los cambios en la regulación y las políticas, así como en aquellos relacionados con las movilizaciones sociales y la crisis sanitaria. Asimismo, considera que la sostenibilidad financiera constituye un aspecto central en el futuro de la educación superior, que requiere de un examen cuidadoso y realista, que facilite abordar los importantes desafíos del sector haciéndose cargo del complejo escenario económico y social actual.
❏ Este policy brief presenta una síntesis de las principales tendencias observadas en el sector, al mismo tiempo que destaca los avances y desafíos más relevantes. Luego, discute las transformaciones que ha traído la reforma a la educación superior, junto con los nuevos problemas que la crisis social y la pandemia han puesto en evidencia.
❏ Es urgente re-pensar la educación superior desde una perspectiva de largo plazo, en conexión con la sociedad civil y el aparato institucional del Estado. Por ello, este documento también plantea sugerencias y orientaciones de política pública, que debieran apuntar al establecimiento de una estrategia nacional para proyectar sosteniblemente el desarrollo del sistema y el logro de sus objetivos.