Chile's School Admission Reform Faces Widespread Criticism for Reverting to Past Practices

Chile's proposed reform to the School Admission System (SAE) has drawn rare, unified criticism from diverse educational stakeholders, including researchers from the Center for Public Studies and academics from the University of Chile, Catholic University, and University of the Andes. This opposition is particularly notable as a technical committee, convened in 2025 to evaluate the SAE, concluded after a decade of evidence that a structural replacement was unwarranted. The reform, however, moves in the opposite direction. The public debate has been oversimplified, often mischaracterizing the SAE as a mere "lottery." In reality, the system prioritizes family preferences and uses random selection only when demand exceeds capacity, after accounting for priorities like siblings or vulnerable students. Data shows that in pre-kindergarten, eight out of ten children are admitted to their first-choice school, and nearly all secure a spot in one of their preferred options. Under this system, school segregation in Chile has decreased to its lowest levels as of 2024, indicating a functioning public policy. The proposed reform introduces "mutual selection" for oversubscribed schools, involving criteria such as interviews, participation in educational project meetings, and geographical proximity. These criteria are reminiscent of past selection mechanisms, with interviews for parents having been a primary tool for class-based selection before the SAE, leading to their prohibition in countries like England. The core issue lies in the reversal of the fundamental right to education, which belongs to the child, not the family or the institution. Mutual selection shifts the final decision from the family's preference to the school's discretion. Since admission to sought-after schools is a zero-sum game, any advantage gained by a selected applicant comes at the expense of another, often a more vulnerable student. The government's stated objectives could be achieved within the current SAE framework; for instance, the technical committee proposed performance-based selection for highly demanding high schools from seventh grade, with equity safeguards. Issues like siblings attending different schools could be addressed by expanding existing priority criteria. The reform's introduction of a parallel selection system is thus seen as unnecessary. While the government must address families' genuine frustrations with the system, the root cause is the concentration of preferences in a few schools, not the admission mechanism itself. The reform maintains existing capacity limits, merely altering who is excluded. Furthermore, facilitating the opening of new schools, where subsidies follow enrollment, could exacerbate segregation by siphoning students and resources from existing lower-performing schools, disproportionately harming those most in need of improvement. The proposed solution is to support these institutions, particularly public schools, in raising their educational standards. The SAE can and should be improved with serious technical proposals, but reverting to discriminatory practices under a new name is unacceptable.