A/HRC/35/24/Add.1
of the General Education Act, which lay down the State’s obligation to fund an education
system that is free of charge and is aimed at ensuring access to all, including students up to
21 years of age in secondary education.
78.
A legal framework for financing education would make it possible to devote the
resources necessary to education on a durable and sustainable basis. Within the legal
framework, policies and schemes can be devised to encourage the corporate sector to
assume its social responsibility and to contribute to domestic resources for education, as is
the case in several countries.
IX. Regulating private educational establishments
79.
The Special Rapporteur welcomes the importance attached to eliminating for-profit
education in State-subsidized educational establishments, premised upon the principle of
education as a public good as part of the reform process.
A.
Banning subsidized private educational establishments from making a
profit through education
80.
The Inclusive Education Act contains a commitment to progressively and
completely eradicate for-profit education in State-subsidized schools by 31 December 2017.
In addition, it requires those schools to invest all the resources generated for educational
purposes and makes them subject to audit by the Office of the Superintendent of Education.
81.
However, the Act applies to compulsory education only; it does not prohibit forprofit education in the first years of preschool. Moreover, it does not prohibit schools from
making a profit from other areas linked to education, including consultancy, food,
textbooks and uniforms. Furthermore, national discussions have taken place on the forprofit nature of educational technical agencies, which were allowed to be legally
established as for-profit organizations.
B.
Obligation to pursue educational purposes
82.
One important element of the Inclusive Education Act is the development of the
concept of educational purposes through the definition of 11 categories of expenditure
associated with the Institutional Education Project of each school so that public resources
are used only for one of those categories. According to the Act, public resources and any
surplus should be reinvested in the Project, thus eliminating profit-making in subsidized
schools. As a result, all schools receiving State subsidies are required to become non-profit
entities no later than 31 December 2017 so that their operations have only educational
purposes.
83.
The Special Rapporteur deems it important to apply the criterion of “educational
purposes” equally to all education providers, irrespective of whether they receive a State
subsidy, in order to ensure that there is no place for for-profit education in the education
system.
C.
Banning profit-making in all private educational establishments
84.
While profit-making in subsidized private schools is progressively being banned in
Chile, profit-making private schools can still be established under Act No. 3.654 of 1982 on
compulsory primary education, as long as they do not receive a State subsidy. Such schools
remain outside the purview of the Inclusive Education Act and, as with for-profit
organizations, they collect fees from students. That constitutes a major limitation of the
education reforms, which do not cover the entire spectrum of private schools but thus far,
only schools receiving State subsidies.
14
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