Page 61 - EducationWorld August 2022

ed. In 2018, the last year in which China provided official
data on international enrolments, it counted 492,000 for-
eign students in the country. The largest group was from
Korea, with about 50,000 — who have since been allowed
to re-enter the country.
But its next largest cohorts have yet to return. Some
29,000 Thai, 28,000 Pakistani students and 23,000 from
India are still waiting for the green light, as are sizeable con-
tingents from the US and Russia. In the meantime, China
should be working to ensure that foreign students are a pri-
ority once its borders do open up, advise analysts.
According to Wang, even before Covid, growth in new
international enrolments had slowed, prompting Beijing
to realise it needs to “further enhance degree programme
quality (and the) nationality mix of international students”,
to boost full-time degree enrolment. She is confident that President Gabriel Boric: radical tuition fees proposal
“more best-of-breed programmes, better job placement
pathways and visa policy” will attract more students from education as a right and give public institutions a stronger
abroad. role than they have enjoyed in the past 30 years, when the
expansion of Chile’s higher education sector was left mostly
CHILE to private institutions.
Key reform on knife edge GLOBAL

A VOTE ON WHETHER CHILE WILL ACCEPT A Learning outcomes neglect
radical new constitution that enshrines bold com-
mitments to higher education reform is on knife- F HISTORY IS “A RACE BETWEEN EDUCATION
edge as a crucial general election approaches. Public uni- and catastrophe”, as H.G. Wells once put it, educa-
versities become free-of-charge as part of the wide-ranging Ition seemed until recently to be winning. In 1950, only
changes to the system, which currently boasts some of the about half of adults globally had any schooling; now at
highest tuition fees in South America. least 85 percent do. Between 2000 and 2018, the propor-
A draft of the document was finalised by a constitution- tion of school-age children not enrolled in classes fell from
al assembly outside the formal political structure, but its 26 percent to 17 percent. But the rapid rise in attendance
acceptance is being inextricably linked to the fate of new masks an ugly truth: many pupils were spending years be-
president Gabriel Boric, one of the leaders of the 2011 stu- hind desks but learning very little. In 2019, the World Bank
dent movement that called for the market-based education started keeping count of the number of children who still
system installed by Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in the cannot read by the time they finish primary school. It found
1980s to be dismantled. Critics say it’s far from clear how that less than half of ten-year-olds in developing countries
the changes would work in practice, or how the cost of the (which grudgingly host 90 percent of the world’s children)
commitments could be met, particularly as the government can read and understand a simple story.
has also promised to cancel student debt and to increase Then the pandemic struck and hundreds of millions of
research funding from the current 0.4 percent of gross do- pupils were locked out of school. At first, when it was not
mestic product to 1 percent. yet known whether children were vulnerable to Covid-19
Under the gratuidad programme set up by Michelle or were likely to spread the virus to older people, school
Bachelet, Chile’s last left-wing leader, the poorest 60 per- closures were a prudent precaution. But in many countries
cent of society have their tuition fees paid by the govern- they continued long after it became clear that the risks of
ment, whether they attend public or private institutions, reopening classrooms were relatively small. During the first
and it is not clear which elements of this system will be two years of the pandemic, more than 80 percent of school-
retained. Other proposed changes include a commitment days in Latin America and South Asia were disrupted by
to set up at least one public university in every region of the closures of some sort. Even today, schools in some countries
country and a new state funding system under which money such as the Philippines, remain shut to most pupils, leaving
would be distributed to institutions via block grants rather their minds to atrophy.
than based on the number of students enrolled. Globally, the harm that school closures have done to
Maria Veronica Santelices, associate professor of educa- children has vastly outweighed any benefits they may have
tion at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, says had for public health. The World Bank says the share of
that if passed, the constitution will enshrine the idea of ten-year-olds in middle and low-income countries who can-

AUGUST 2022 EDUCATIONWORLD 61