Chile Forum

admin wrote:. . . . Essentially that first two years of general and elective exposure to subjects that are common in the United States and other University systems around the World. . . .

Common in the United States, but not in most "first-world" universities outside North America: primary and secondary education in most highly developed countries is itself well-developed enough that most students at good universities in England and western Europe can go straight into their subjects of concentration.

I do agree, though, that Chilean education seems limited and straitened. Aside from a handful of graduates of the UChile, most Chileans of my acquaintance with well-honed minds have been educated outside Latin America.

And you have to look at what types of jobs you will get once you graduate. Depending on your field of study it can vary a fair bit. When I was working at the LAN call centre in Santiago I would say that 80% of he people there had a university education. But they got stuck working at a job that pays 500.000 CLP a month at best.

I guess that is what happens when you send 80% of the graduation high school population to university and the other 20% to the military. Sending everyone to university is not the answer. Making those that to go experts in their field would be way better than trying to educate everyone.

You need people for the mundane jobs and if these people had just spent 4 years trying to better them selves then get stuck a crappy job because there are too many people competing for a limited number of positions you are going to have problems. People are not going to try to be any better and will loose inspiration.

So in part I will have to disagree with Charles… yes making the institutions better is a great way to spend money. But sending everyone to university for free for the sake of educating the population is a waste of money. Scholarships for those that show promise but could otherwise not afford to attend is a great idea, but not free university for those that get 4’s in high school.

Jason Roesler
ISH

Your right. I am speaking of higher education in general. The technical schools in Chile are fairly useless for training employees, but in many ways are less of a waist of money and time than a lot of the Universities. There are also a lot of University programs that are little more than vocational training.

I went to graduate school in Europe. Your right, but what I am getting at is university graduates that when they are done have more of a Swiss army knife education. Europeans get lots of options and support to go back to school, or go on as far as they want. Money should not be a limitation to those that can and want to improve. I am not talking about making it mandatory, just available. The European model for undergraduate work and high school is simply far superior. The Europeans however still say that the U.S. is far superior for the advance degrees and research, and I agree with them on that. I found the European graduate programs to be rather static and unimaginative. Too many tenured professors with no real reason do original research.