Post 6

 Education and public schools

Educational inequality is the unequal distribution of academic resources, including but not limited to; school funding, qualified and experienced teachers, books, and technologies to socially excluded communities. These communities tend to be historically disadvantaged and oppressed. More times than not, individuals belonging to these marginalized groups are also denied access to the schools with abundant resources. Inequality leads to major differences in the educational success or efficiency of these individuals and ultimately suppresses social and economic mobility.

In Chile the municipalization, promoted by the dictatorship from 1986, was a great dynamiter of public education. The municipalities were forced to support the educational centers with municipal budgets and state subsidies. The effect was immediate: the richest areas were strengthened, attracting -in addition- the best students, while the poorest were seriously damaged. Although now this has changed, also one of the great problems of Chilean education is in the socioeconomic level, since the rich continue to have better educational opportunities.

On the other hand, according to data published by the World Bank and the OECD, Chile leads the ranking of the most unequal countries among the main economies in the world.

I hope that in the not too distant future these educational differences that currently exist between rich and poor (because there is no other way to say it) will have an important improvement, since we should all have the possibility of having a good education, especially if it comes from a public school.