Chile’s Preferential School Subsidy has played a key role in providing more equitable learning opportunities to the country’s most disadvantaged students since its implementation in 2008. Schools receive additional funding based on their enrolment of students whose socio-economic conditions are likely to affect their learning outcomes, as well as for students from the poorest 80% of families. Schools use the funding to develop an educational improvement plan aimed at improving institutional management and learning outcomes for all students, but especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. In order to obtain the subsidy, schools must exempt disadvantaged students from any financial charges and maintain good retention rates for the least able students. The subsidy has helped rebalance what was previously a regressive funding system, and has significantly strengthened the relationship between the Ministry of Education and individual schools. There is also evidence that it has led to improved standardised test scores in subsidised schools with a high proportion of low-income students.
The number of disadvantaged students benefitting from the subsidy has increased significantly since the policy was introduced in 2008. In 2019, Chile’s Education Commission voted to extend the extra funding to all subsidised private schools. Previously, schools had been required to sign an Equal Opportunities and Educational Excellence agreement to access the subsidy. Some 700 subsidised private schools had not signed the agreement, meaning 200 000 children were not benefitting from the subsidy. The recent changes aim to ensure that all eligible students have access to the subsidy as well as giving greater autonomy to schools and principals (Diario Constitucional, 2019[6]). In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Superintendency of Education granted schools greater flexibility in terms of how they could use the subsidy. This gave schools additional funding for sanitation and other preventative measures (Ministry of Education of Chile - Los Rios Region, 2020[7]).
Further reading: OECD (2018[8]), Education Policy Outlook 2018: Putting Student Learning at the Centre, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264301528-en.