Post-Pandemic Crisis in Chilean Education. The Challenge of Re-institutionalizing School Eduction

Abstract

In this chapter, we describe and analyze the available evidence (including our own research) about Chilean education during the COVID-19 pandemic and its efforts to recover once the health crisis was controlled. We show that the implementation of distance education produced markedly unequal experiences between schools and students, which essentially reinforced pre-existing inequalities and created new ones. This crisis was aggravated by the enormous difficulties encountered by the educational system to resume in-person activities, resulting in a massive and prolonged closure of Chilean schools. Additionally, the capacity to go back to school was very unevenly distributed, further harming the most disadvantaged students, both socioeconomically and socio-emotionally, as shown by the extreme difficulties of school reopening, teacher absenteeism and mental health problems, and student irregular attendance, learning losses and behavioral problems. Thus, the pandemic affected the very foundations of the regular operating of the Chilean education system triggering a multifaceted process of deinstitutionalization.