Skill-Starved Chile To Overhaul Technical Education System With IDB Support

Chile is set to overhaul its technical education system with a $90 million loan borrowed from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The program aims to improve “the relevance, quality and efficiency” of Chile’s technical-professional education system,” the bank has stated in a press release.

Accessing quality education at a cost-effective price has never been easy in Chile. Over the past decade, as a result, technology firms in the country have been relying on foreign talent. With IDB’s money, Chile will now equip its youths with technical skills.

The program will bring together all the actors in the field. Moreover, it will coordinate with the labor market. The project features numerous other activities such as conducting studies to examine what students learn, developing a system of support for the state Centers for Technical Education and evaluating teachers and administrators.

Additionally, the project seeks to define the learning standards for students based on their skills and graduation profiles, as well as the performance standards for technical institutions.

“It is the fruit of an intense dialogue and effort to identify the possibilities of collaboration on these issues between the country and the bank,” said Marcelo Pérez, head of the IDB’s project team.

Chile has a history of subsidizing corporate efforts to bring in talent from foreign countries. Visas are more or less guaranteed for workers in high tech jobs. Today there are many foreign technology workers in the country.

The bank is persuading Chile to adapt certain mechanisms that will pave the way for children to access quality technical education easily in all regions across the country.

“One component of the project is designed to guarantee a macroeconomic context consistent with its objective, and another seeks the development of a management model and new offerings in the technical-professional education, supporting policies that contribute to its overall access, fairness, relevance and quality,” the IDB stated.

The project seeks to expand technical-professional education to selected regions and sectors, by linking it to the creation of state Centers for Technical Formation, the design of Technological Learning Centers and the Regional Advisers Committees for Technical Education.