Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean...

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Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean earthquake Carmen Núñez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso

Transcript of Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean...

Page 1: Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean earthquake Carmen Núñez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean earthquake

Carmen NúñezPontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso

Page 2: Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean earthquake Carmen Núñez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

After the Earthquake

Big zones of our country were devastated after the earthquake and tsunami last February 28th 2010.

51% of publics schools were affected

Page 3: Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean earthquake Carmen Núñez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

The discourse of the“opportunity” of disaster

The closing of public schools begins before the earthquake, especially in rural zones

These schools have a low enrollment, and provide a bad quality education

Closing schools seems the reasonable thing to do.

Page 4: Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean earthquake Carmen Núñez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

Closing schools responds to a quality matter, and/or a policy for reducing expenses in education?

Teacher Union: “It is a policy of privatization”

Page 5: Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean earthquake Carmen Núñez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

An ethnographic research about closing of rural schools: the case of Chaimávida and Carlos Saenger (Las Pataguas)

Page 6: Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean earthquake Carmen Núñez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

Crossing the highway

Page 7: Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean earthquake Carmen Núñez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

The discourse imposes a rationality where the public school must be economically self -sustainable

¿Why a public institution must be self-sustainable? ¿It is a expense or an investment for the state?

The self-sustaintability of the public school

Page 8: Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean earthquake Carmen Núñez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

This rationality dominates what it is thinkable for the authorities

Even for teachers it is difficult to resist this rationality, it is hard for them not to agree.

But for the community, the financial argument for school closing seems not to be a legitimate raison

Page 9: Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean earthquake Carmen Núñez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

The role of rural teacher today

The role of rural teacher has changed

They don`t live in the local community. Their sense of belonging to the community and their identification with it, is becoming weak.

Their work begin to be seen as a service, diminishing the social function it had before

Page 10: Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean earthquake Carmen Núñez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

The Community

“We don’t know why they didn´t defend the school”

Page 11: Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean earthquake Carmen Núñez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

An Other Challenge for the TUThe closing and school

consolidation is a policy that became strong after the disaster

The Teacher Union haven`t placed successfully this matter in the public discussion yet

Page 12: Public Schools in Emergency Context: their transformation and/or closing after the chilean earthquake Carmen Núñez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

After the disaster…Similarities between Katrina in New Orleans, with what is happening in Chile after the earthquake:

The disaster represents an opportunity to take on interventions at the educational level.

These interventions are presented as an economical issue, leaving out or behind the educational implications.

There are strong social and cultural implications for the communities, who lose social and cultural capital through these decisions.