On December 15 at 4:30 p.m, the Seminar “School Admission System (SAE)” was held in the Domeyko Room, Central House of the University of Chile. The event, which was organized by the MIPP Millennium Institute, was attended by prominent guests such as the former Minister of Education, Geraldo Varela or the Deputy of District 7, Camila Rojas.
Organized by the MIPP Millennium Institute and held at the Central House of the Universidad Chile, the “School Admission System (SAE)” Seminar was an opportunity for various public figures to discuss and give their point of view on how the SAE has worked since its implementation and what are the things to improve.
The School Admission System (SAE) was introduced within the framework of the School Inclusion Law (Law No. 20,845) that regulates the admission of students, eliminates shared financing and prohibits profit in educational establishments that receive contributions from the state.
This reform was carried out in an educational context that was highly segmented by socioeconomic level, largely due to the ability of establishments to select their students and also to collect shared financing from families. This generated enormous incentives to select students of higher socioeconomic status.
The SAE is a platform in which parents and guardians can apply for pupils to subsidized public and private establishments in the country, which represent a little more than 90% of the schools in Chile.
Within it, it is possible to find relevant information, such as the number of applications received in previous years, the type of teaching (scientific, humanist or professional technician), day, number of vacancies, etc.
Parents who apply for their children to public or private establishments subsidized through the SAE must take into account, among other factors, the available places.
In this sense, if there are available or sufficient vacancies, the establishment has the obligation to accept all applicants. The School Admissions System must carry out a random ordering by means of an algorithm, considering the following criteria:
The start of the Seminar was given by the Director of the MIPP Millennium Institute, Juan Escobar, who welcomed the discussion panel as well as the more than 30 people who were present in the audience. Then, the Provost of the University of Chile, Alejandra Mizala Salces, provided a context of what the SAE process has been from its implementation until today and opened the discussion.
The first to speak was Sylvia Eyzaguierre, a researcher at the Center for Public Studies (CEP), who began by stating that “technically this system is almost perfect, it ensures non-discrimination against children and equal opportunities among students, however To my great surprise, there is tremendous rejection from parents and schools, something that is hard to understand, but it is happening.”
In this sense, the researcher believes that if you want to “save this system, it is super important to address the question of how we can make it politically or democratically legitimate, even though it is technically the most robust, we have to find its popular legitimacy. ”
She added that “if we want greater equity in the system, we should aim to strengthen the issue of information for families, better inform the most vulnerable families.”
He ended his intervention by stating that “what this system has done and that is a great contribution but is a problem for the State, is that it has made visible the problems of the educational system, before the child who did not stay in a school was a problem of the family, now that child is a problem for the State.”
Along these lines, the former Undersecretary of Education, Valentina Quiroga, who was part of the process of the first implementation of the system in Magallanes, mentioned another element related to families that is very important from her point of view:
“We must also talk about the educational offer, what are the educational projects that families prefer, how these projects are strengthened. Something that could help is to ask families directly what they are looking for in schools. I think it is a wonderful opportunity to have that information, what their priorities are when choosing a school. From that, the platform could deliver an establishment proposal in a better way”.
Another of the guests at the seminar was the Deputy for the 7th District, Valparaíso Region, Camila Rojas, who stated that despite the fact that the SAE needs certain improvements, it is a very good system; however, she believes that the main focus of the problematic should be in the educational system as such:
“We have made a lot of progress by having a non-discriminatory mechanism that is clear and not arbitrary, therefore, I consider that the School Admissions System is very powerful in this sense. It is a system that can easily explain why one is not selected and another person is. However, the problem of segregation is still very important. The educational system continues to have extreme segregation unfortunately. The big issue right now is what families think of SAE. In this sense, the problem is based on the school system, not on the admission system, it is based on the poor conditions of certain schools to which parents see that the system determined that their children should go. You have to separate both things. There are several adjustments that can be made to the School Admissions System that could improve it, but the main problem is the educational system.”
Finally, the last one to give his point of view was the former Minister of Education Geraldo Varela, who spoke about his experience when he had to implement the SAE in the Metropolitan Region and about something that he considered important that has not been Taking into account:
“There is a factor that is not contained in the algorithm, which is security. Vulnerable families to a large extent do not choose so much for quality, which does interest them, but for security, personal security. In Santiago, 70% of the children of Providencia come from other communes. It is an issue that the algorithm does not pick up.”
To close, the professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Chile and researcher at the MIPP Millennium Institute, José Correa, gave his opinion regarding what this seminar was:
“The SAE is possibly one of the most relevant public policies in recent years. A little over 5 years after its implementation, the seminar was an excellent forum to discuss its achievements and potential improvements. Several of the authorities who were in charge of the system participated in the meeting, along with researchers. My impression is that the general opinion of the panel is that this has been a very successful policy and that we have a great opportunity, not only to continue to improve the SAE, but also to use the information it gives us to drive other necessary policies.”
MIPP Chile 2024