Global Development

Conclusions: the Challenge of Balancing Economic and Non-Economic Roles

From the time of their establishment, Canada’s colleges have had to balance their economic and non-economic roles. The former involved serving as engines of economic growth through provision of appropriately skilled workers, augmented recently by the provision of applied research and the development of a culture of entrepreneurship. The non-economic roles have included cultivating broader human development, providing opportunities for individuals to change their lives, enriching the quality of life, and generally contributing to the betterment of communities and society. The ways that these roles are balanced have varied over time and between provinces, but the last decade has witnessed substantial pressure everywhere for colleges to emphasize their economic role. The concern that the largely economically-driven entry of colleges into offering applied baccalaureate programs may result in less attention being given to the most disadvantaged learners is indicative of broader fears about a growing imbalance between these two roles. Other manifestations of that fear are the fact that it is generally much easier for colleges to obtain government and other external funding for “high end” activities than for literacy and basic skills education; and that whereas there used to be a considerable philanthropic component in colleges’ international activity, such activity now appears to be largely commercially driven. As Levin noted for colleges in both Canada and the United States, in the 1990s, “the mission of the community college had less emphasis on education and more on training,; less emphasis on community social needs and more on the economic needs of business and industry; less emphasis upon individual development and more on work-force preparation and retraining” (Levin, 2001, p. 171).

On the other hand, the record is not entirely one-sided. Recent issues of the ACCC publication on international activity of colleges show examples of philanthropic behavior in the overseas activities of Canadian colleges (Gupta, 2004); a recent report shows considerable activity in colleges to respond to the needs of the large numbers of immigrants who attend colleges (ACCC, 2004); colleges in areas with a large aboriginal population continue to develop and offer innovative programs to meet the needs of aboriginal students; and the enthusiasm with which Canadian colleges have embraced the principles of the Learning College is indicative of their strong commitment to maintaining what Dennison described as “an environment in which learning is revered and in which opportunities for personal advancement abound” (Dennison, 1995, p. 282).

The greatest challenge facing Canada’s colleges in the present era of globalization and excessive concern about competitiveness is to maintain their commitment to the values reflected in that quotation while at the same time performing the economic role that is expected of them and for which funding is so much more easily obtainable.

References
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Brown, G. (2002). Knowledge and Innovation through Workplace Learning, College

Canada, 7(1), 3.

Campbell, G. (1971). Community Colleges in Canada. Toronto: Ryerson Press McGraw-Hill Book Company of Canada Limited.

Canadian Foundation for Innovation. (2005) Summary of Projects Funded. Downloaded

from CFI website on October 16, 2005. http://www.innovation.ca/projects.

Davis, William G. (1966, June). Statement by the Minister in the Legislature, 21 May 1965. Reprinted in Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Basic Documents. Toronto: Ontario Department of Education, 5-16.

Dennison, J.D. (1995). Conclusion, in J.D. Dennison (ed.), Challenge and Opportunity: Canada’s Community Colleges at the Crossroads. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 275-284.

Dennison, J. D. and Gallagher, P. (1986). Canada’s Community Colleges: A Critical Analysis. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Fleming, W.G. (1971). Ontario’s Educative Society, Vol. IV, Postsecondary and Adult Education. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Gadd, J. (2005, September 26). Industry Links: The Rise of Teaching on Demand. Report on Colleges. The Globe and Mail (Toronto), E4.

Gallagher, P. and Dennison, J.D. (1995). Canada’s Community College Systems: A Study of Diversity, Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 19(5), 381-394.

Gupta, M. (2004). Canadian Colleges and Institutes Foster Relationships with the Private Sector in Support of Socioeconomic Development in Developing Countries, ACC International, 9(2), 4-7.

Ivany, R. (2004). Economic Development & a New Millennium Mandate for Canada’s

Community Colleges, College Canada, 9(1), 5-7.

Levin, J.S. (2001). Globalizing the Community College: Strategies for Change in the Twenty-first Century. New York: Palgrave.

Macdonald, J.B. (1962). Higher Education in British Columbia and a Plan for the Future. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

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Parent, Chairman. (1963-1966). Quebec: Government of Quebec.

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Skolnik, M.L. (2004). The Relationship of the Community College to Other Providers of Postsecondary and Adult Education in Canada and Implications for Public Policy, Higher Education Perspectives 1(1), pp. 36-59. Available online. http://aries.oise.utoronto.ca.

Skolnik, M.L. (2005a). From the 1960s to the 2000s: Reflections on the Difficulty of Maintaining Balance between the University’s Economic and Non-economic Objectives in Periods When its Economic Role is Highly Valued, in G.A. Jones, P.L. McCarney and M.L. Skolnik (eds.), Creating Knowledge, Strengthening Nations: The Changing Role of Higher Education. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 106-126.

Skolnik, M.L. (2005b). The Community College Baccalaureate in Canada: Addressing Accessibility and Workforce Needs, in D.L. Floyd, M.L. Skolnik and K.P. Walker (eds.), The Community College Baccalaureate: Emerging Trends and Policy Issues. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC, 49-72.

Smyth, D. M. (1970). Some Aspects of the Development of Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology. M. Phil. Thesis. Toronto: University of Toronto.

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The Chilean Experience in Technical and Further Education:

Public Policies and Private Providers
Marcelo Von Chrismar

Cristobal Silva

Mary Crabbe Gershwin

Shelley L. Wood

Philip Cary

Introduction

The history of Chilean education echoes a traditional belief in the primacy of academic over vocational studies. However, the story of Chilean education also includes active steps to bring vocational education to the people of Chile in order to aid the commercial advancement of the country. In 1981 academic and vocational education entered into their current structure. This structure designates a three-tiered hierarchy of educational institutions: Universities; Professional Institutes; and Technical Training Centers. This section will provide a background on the history and the current structure of secondary and post-secondary education in Chile.

 

Current Secondary Educational System in Chile

Chilean students begin their education with eight years of primary school, followed by four years of compulsory secondary education. Secondary education is taught in two branches: humanistic-scientific (EMHC) and technical-professional (EMTP). Students completing the former are granted a degree leading to Higher Education studies. The Technical-Professional students complete two years of a basic core curricula and two years of specialization in a trade.

Current Post-Secondary Options in Chile

In the Eighties, Chilean national law reinforced education as a right for all people, and developed a privatized state regulated system for higher learning educational initiatives. The guiding principle of the government was that any state action with regard to civil society would be as limited as possible. The principles of privatization were applied across all sectors of government including social security, health, and education. Services traditionally provided or administered by the State in past decades were transferred over to private institutions.

According to these new orientations or improvements, there was an important transformation of the Chilean Higher Education System in 1980. Among the innovations incorporated by these new regulations, the four constituent elements were: the transfer of financial responsibility from the State to the students; the diversification of the institutions according to levels and categories; comprehensive freedom from government regulations for establishing and founding new institutions, offering a broad spectrum of variety and quality and a high degree of discrimination in the way the financial support from the State is assigned.

The State no longer creates Universities by law, but rather limits itself to maintain on public record for 6 to 11 years, the operational statutes of those institutions which organize and monitor private entities. This monitoring is done by an autonomous public institution called Consejo Superior de Educación and in some cases directly by the Ministry of Education. Given this context Vocational Higher Education in Chile has been developed almost exclusively by Private Providers.

Historical Background on Technical Education in Chile

According to the historian Amanda Labarca, in her classic, The History of Teaching in Chile, the tradition of technical training originated with the founding of the San Luis Academy in 1797, by don Manuel de Salas y Corvalán. Clearly ahead of its time, the San Luis Academy was, “the only attempt that we know of in the Colony, of a school oriented toward the worker or laborer, industry and commerce of the country. It was ahead of its time by almost a half a century to similar institutions in America”.¹⁵

A Technical Education System is born

After Independence in 1810, in the year 1849, in response to pressing needs for technical and scientific development voiced by the National Society of Agriculture, the School of Arts and Trades was opened by the recently created University of Chile, making it the first formal institution devoted to technical education in the Republic of Chile. The project rapidly expanded to include Copiapó, La Serena and Antofagasta. The Industrial Schools of Concepción, Temuco and Valdivia soon came together with the goal of educating and training the human resources required for the industrial development in all regions of the country. All of the schools, springing forth from the original concept of the School of Arts and Trades, became branches of what would be called the Technical State University created in 1947.

Technical Training Institutes – focused on workforce development for industry

The first attempts to create “Commercial Institutes” occurred in 1898 with the founding of the Commercial Institute of Santiago.¹⁶ In 1925 there were 11 established commercial institutions in different cities throughout the country. The “Industrial and Mining Schools” began to spread with the offering of a course to train mechanical engineers and electricians for the armed forces, annexed to the School of Arts and Trades, which beginning in 1900, started to send promising students abroad. Similar to this project was the creation of the “Mining Practices Schools” in Copiapó, La Serena and Santiago. “Agriculture Schools” originated in a school annexed to the “Normal School” established in 1857 under the support and of the National Agricultural Society.¹⁷

Technical training institutes in Chile had a private origin as well. The Catholic Church played a key role, participating in the educational development of the country since the pioneering days of the Colony. The Don Bosco Brothers (Salesianos) were foremost in technical training, offering free professional training to disadvantaged youth starting in Concepcion around 1887. ¹⁸ The first private initiative in post-secondary technical education appears in 1888 with the Founding of the Universidad Católica de Chile, initially conceived at the time as both a University and a polytechnic institution. Abdón Cifuentes, one of the founding fathers of the new university, justified the technical mission of the university by declaring:

“It is accurate and correct to establish on a large scale and in a scientific manner the teaching of the arts and social sciences to the people, it is appropriate to open new and varied vocational and labor activities, and it is correct to augment the means to earn a living for those thousands upon thousands of youth whom might be literary bumpkins, but true geniuses in industry. Fewer walking encyclopedias and more work, less rhetoric and more industry, fewer sophists and more engineers, less theory and more applied sciences, this is what this new hard working country needs to increase its wealth, prosperity and well being.”¹⁹.

Lack of Public and Government Support Hinders Progress

However, the predisposition for the establishment of vocational education was not shared by all sectors of Chilean society in the 19th century. On the contrary, the prevailing tendency in defining educational policy aimed precisely in the opposite direction. Efforts to develop institutions, programs, and curriculum for technical education met with strong resistance from the “Estado Docente”: the guiding paradigm of all the public Chilean educational policies, right up to the end of the 20th century. The Constitution itself declared education to be a “Preferential State Priority”. The educational model which was based upon, and clearly inspired by, the French encyclopedic orientation did not consider Technical or Vocational Education sufficiently worthy to merit public interest.²⁰

Valentín Letelier, probably the most influential figure in public educational policy in both the 19^th and 20^th centuries, came to hold the opinion:

“All Special Instruction (which today we call vocational training), has a direct profit motive, tending individuals to sell their souls…This is what jumps out and disgusts one in the general culture of North America. In those souls educated in that manner, there is no more worry than becoming rich, and their nobler sentiments atrophy and they no longer understand as the politician and philanthropist devote themselves to less productive work and activity.”²¹

This view, in the judgment of a follower of Letelier, the historian Luis Galdames, largely explains the “social devaluation of technical training and corresponding professions.”²²

Taking these factors under consideration and with the State maintaining the main role in the entire educational system, Technical Training as such, hardly developed up until the mid part of the 20th century. In 1907 all the industrial oriented schools had no more than 200 students combined.²³ By 1920 technical training served no more than 4.5% of all individuals who received some form of education in the country.

Industrial Development in Chile Pushes Government to Rethink the Role of Technical Education—1930s – 70s

It was not until the government of Pedro Aguirre Cerda (1938-1941), and the creation of CORFO (Corporación de Fomento de la Producción), combined with the great industrial push within the country, that technical training came to have a real priority role for the Chilean State. By 1956 state establishments of technical and vocational education at various levels counted a respectable enrollment of 70,663 students.²⁴ Meanwhile, in 1947 the government merged several independent vocational mining, engineering, arts and trades schools into the Industrial Engineering School in Santiago and the Technical Pedagogic Institute with the goal of creating a new public university. The aforementioned Technical State University was exclusively oriented toward technical education.²⁵

At the same time, several diverse and relatively autonomous private centers developed under the academic supervision of the University of Chile, which reserved the right to issue diplomas and certificates. Among these groups the Catholic University was one of the most active centers, making a big effort to develop courses in electronics and telegraphy, taught at the Electro Technical Institute, “Manuel Francisco Irarrázaval.” In 1920, it became known as the Industry, Commercial and Polytechnic Institute. The Institute offered programs in: Assistant Electrician, Assistant Industrial Engineer, and Assistant Construction Engineer, all with three year programs. One of its most well known rectors, Monsignor Carlos Casanueva said, “Today’s civil engineers lack, not strong backs, but rather a collaborator or technical interpreter capable of interpreting and discerning his thoughts…”. Education for assistant engineers was provided by the Institute, which enjoyed notable success up until 1950, when the Catholic University created the new “Facultad de Tecnología”²⁶.

An equivalent effort was undertaken by another private entity but with a secular orientation, established in 1932 by the philanthropist Federico Santa María,²⁷ creating the School of Arts and Trades and the José Miguel Carrera College of Engineers (currently known as the Federico Santa María Technical University). This university is still operating and offers three year technical programs.

From the 1960’s on, universities that offered short term technical education, as Universidad Técnica del Estado, Universidad Federico Santa María and Universidad Católica de Chile, started to expand the length of the technical and professional programs, making them increasingly similar to the traditional academic programs. Simultaneously, new educational initiatives were generated, based on short training courses mainly geared towards workers and employees. These initiatives would become the origins of the current vocational-type tertiary education institutions. Two current leading examples are the Instituto Nacional de Capacitación (INACAP) and Departamento Universitario Obrero Campesino (DUOC) from Universidad Católica.
Current Legal Background for Chilean Higher Education

Until late 1970’s, the higher education system in Chile was made up of nine universities, two of them state owned with 60% of the enrollment distributed over various regional campuses. The rest of the universities were private. All of them, however, had a highly public orientation; they were either created or recognized by a special law and completely financed by the State. Nevertheless, such corporations were completely autonomous, both economically and academically speaking, being totally exempt from providing open-book academic and financial results. Many of the privates were highly selective institutions that provided education to a total of 7% of youth (20-24 years old) –a small percentage of the population. ²⁸

The Educational Reforms of the 1980’s – Deregulation and New Structures for Higher Education

In 1980, Chile passed a new Political Constitution whose structure remains basically intact in spite of having undergone some amendments, the most recent of which were passed during the Office of Ricardo Lagos. Following the political currents of the Reagan-Thatcher era, the new Constitution introduced significant changes into the political and economic organization of the country. The “subsidiary principle” was to articulate all relations between the state and civil society. The essence of this principle is that the State limits its intervention only to activities which private parties are not interested in or incapable of assuming, and in establishing minimum rules and regulations which guarantee the rights and fundamental privileges of individuals.

Services traditionally administered by the State in past decades, such as social security, health, and education, were transferred over to private institutions. In education, the old paradigm of a “Estado Docente” (the idea of an all encompassing role of the State in education; education is considered a State function in all aspects) is substituted by the concept of a “Estado Subsidiario” (a subsidiary state). In this case, the State transfers educational responsibility to non-governmental providers with the fullest guarantee of educational freedom, but setting minimal standards in all aspects of the educational activity.

Under the framework of the 1980 Constitution, in 1981 legislation was passed establishing a general reform for the Higher Education System. The four constituent elements of this general reform are as follows:

1. 
   Transfer of financial responsibility for education from the State to the students;
   
2. 
   Diversification of the institutions, according to levels and categories;
   
3. 
   Total freedom from government interference for newly created, private institutions
   
4. 
   High level of discrimination in the way financial support from the State is assigned.
   

In 1990 the Ley Orgánica Constitucional de Enseñanza (LOCE) was passed, gathering all substantial characteristics and structures of the 1980 amendment. The State ceased to create Universities by law and instead limited itself to maintain on public record for 6 to 11 years, the operational statutes of those institutions which organize and monitor private entities. This monitoring is done by an autonomous public organism called “Consejo Superior de Educación”, or the Ministry of Education.

The current organization of Chilean post-secondary education is structured in 3 institutional categories:

• 
  Universities,
  
• 
  Professional Institutes (IP)
  
• 
  Technical Training Centers (CFT).
  

The hierarchy of the institutions, according to LOCE, depends on the type of degrees they can grant, in ascending order of difficulty: CFT can only grant a “Título Técnico de Nivel Superior”, equivalent to the typical licencing, degrees, or diplomas offered by 2 year programs in an American Community College. IP grant a “Título Técnico” and Professional Degrees that would not require a Baccalaureate or Bachelor degree (they generally correspond to 4 year programs). At the top of the system, Universities grant Professional degrees both with or without a Baccalaureate or Bachelor, (programs that will generally last 5 to 7 years), and other academic degrees recognized by law, including Master and PhDs. In addition, the 17 professional degrees that require at least a Baccalaureate (e.g. medicine, law, architecture, etc) exclusively belong to Universities.²⁹

Peculiarities of the New, Reformed System

The post-secondary educational system in Chile is not only structured by new reforms and regulations of the 1980’s. Some of its characteristics have been generated through regulatory exceptions, political decisions, or simply, common practices from the private institutions that have been accepted or tolerated by authorities.

In fact, there are still some former public and private universities or ‘traditional’ universities that were created before 1981 and have been ‘grandfathered’ into the new system. There are new ones, several of which grew out from those that were already in existence. These 25 universities maintain traditional functions, as they were either created or recognized by the State through special laws. Among some of their privileges, these institutions still receive important and direct financial support from the State, which is not available for the rest of the institutions. At the same time, the students who enroll in any of the universities belonging to this group of ‘traditional universities’ are entitled to economic support from the State under exceptionally favorable terms and conditions, either as a scholarship or subsidiary loan. A recent law established a State Guaranteed Credit System which benefits some private institutional students, however, with less favorable conditions than the aforementioned.

Thus, there are two coexisting sub-systems of higher education that operate independently from one another: the one with the 25 ‘traditional’ universities, that enrolls 41% of the students within the system and the rest of the higher educational institutions, composed of 204 entities which enroll 59% of the students. This dichotomy, which is not articulated in the general structure of the reforms, is one of the most relevant elements in the segmentation of the system.

Another peculiarity of the post-secondary education system in Chile is that by law universities “would always be non-profit private corporations.”³⁰ By contrast, IP and CFT institutions can be established as for-profit corporations. However, in reality, most of the universities that were formed after 1981 (private universities) correspond to individual or organizational, for-profit entrepreneurs that have established operational models that allow return on investment for owners by using indirect control formulas and complex legal strategies³¹.

A third peculiarity of the system is that all State institutions devoted to vocational or technical education, that were originally derived from Universidad Técnica del Estado, and that were originally established as Professional Institutes in 1981, were transformed into Universities in the 90’s. In this way, the State is currently in charge of Universities, and most post-secondary technical education is provided by private IP and private CFT³².