A/HRC/35/24/Add.1 I. Introduction 1. The Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Kishore Singh, carried out an official visit to Chile from 28 March to 4 April 2016, at the invitation of the Government. 2. On the first day of the visit, he had a highly enriching dialogue on education reforms with the President, Michelle Bachelet. The discussion centred on major initiatives and new policy approaches in education. He would like to express his deep gratitude to the President for giving him that opportunity. 3. During the eight-day visit, the Special Rapporteur held in-depth discussions with the Minister of Education and her team, the Minister of Social Development and senior officials from the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. He had an extensive dialogue with the President and members of the Constitutional Court and with representatives of the Education Commissions of both Congressional chambers. 4. The Special Rapporteur had the opportunity to visit a preschool, a public primary school, a technical secondary school and a high school and met with university professors and management, administrators, students, parents and teachers in Santiago and Antofagasta. Moreover, he met with several representatives from the international community, including representatives of United Nations bodies based in Santiago. He also met with members of the National Human Rights Institute and civil society organizations. 5. The Special Rapporteur expresses his gratitude to the Government for its invitation and full cooperation throughout the mission. He also extends his thanks to the staff of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Santiago and in Geneva. He would like to thank all those who welcomed him and took time to share their experiences in a spirit of dialogue and cooperation. II. Dismantling the legacy of market-based policies in education 6. Chile has been significantly marked by the 17 years of military dictatorship (19731990) led by General Augusto Pinochet. His Government pursued a liberal economic policy leading to a path of privatization in education on the basis of market oriented principles. The education system that evolved over that period developed mechanisms of selection, allowing schools to charge fees which, de facto, divided society according to families’ economic capacity and created a system that reinforced the existing inequalities. 7. That must be appraised against the alarming expansion of private schools in Chile; 94 per cent of enrolment in those schools is from the wealthiest quintile, while two thirds of those in public schools are from the poorest half of the population. 1 8. At present, as a result of the vision embraced by the President, Chile is going through a historic period of transition in education. The Government has embarked on the process of remedying the devastation caused by almost 30 years of market-based approaches in education, which led to educational disparities, with high levels of school segregation and stratification fraught with structural discrimination.2 9. The current reforms seek to dismantle the grossly inequitable education system that resulted from the pursuit of liberal economic policies in the field of education and to restore education as a public good, putting an end to for-profit education. A series of new education laws is being adopted in Chile and new bills are under discussion with the aim of 1 2 Education for All, “Global Monitoring Report 2013/4: Teaching and learning: achieving quality for all”, p. 10. Available at http://fr.unesco.org/gem-report/sites/gemreport/files/UNESCO_LAC_Factsheet_EN_new.pdf. See “Decommodifying education in Chile? Bachelet’s reforms in the face of persistent educational inequalities”, Education in Crisis, 5 May 2014. Available at www.educationincrisis.net/blog/item/1122-decommodifying-education-in-chile?-bachelets-reformsin-the-face-of-persistent-educational-inequalities. 3