The Deregulation of Teacher Education and the Role of Public Universities: Lessons From the Neoliberal Laboratory

• In Event: Teacher Education, Inc.: Attempts at Privatizing Teacher Preparation Systems Around the World

Abstract

This paper argues that the analysis of deregulation should not be centered on private universities but on the whole economic model behind these institutions. The threat to the higher education system is coming not only from for-profit, private institutions, but also from the institutions themselves. When self-funding and competition are the prevailing model, public teacher education faces the same issues and transformations that have ruled private initiatives. In that vein, we show how two public Chilean universities have amassed a great deal of teacher candidates, thus becoming leaders in the deregulation of the teacher education market.

During the 1980’s, Chile was the subject of a big social experiment, suffering a process of general privatization. “The Chicago Boys” installed a new economic concept: “neoliberalism” (Délano & Translaviña, 1989). The neoliberal agenda established by the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet also affected teacher education (Inzunza, Assael & Scherping, 2011). After the return of democracy in the 1990’s, most people were expecting a process of reversal. However, these policies continued in several areas. Although the deregulation process took place particularly in private universities’ teacher education programs, it also affected public universities.

Teacher education programs in this country have expanded as a result of deregulation of the “market,” what Monckeberg (2005) called the “factory of teachers,” as both public and private universities have taken a share of the “market” from the end of the 1990s.

Using statistical data and document analysis, it will be shown how from 2000 onwards deregulation of teacher training has been starred by both public and private universities. In those years and until the start of the mandatory accreditation process, special and regular programs supported the explosive expansion of teacher education programs (Cox, Meckes & Bascope, 2010). In this regard, it is important to think about the overall process of privatization beyond the growth of private institutions.

Authors

• Ilich Silva-Peña, Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez

• César Peña-Sandoval, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso