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In light of the ongoing debate surrounding the quality of public education in Chile, a group of alumni from the Federico Santa María Technical University, civil engineers from various fields, published a study analyzing the results of all university entrance exams administered over the past 20 years. One of their main conclusions is that, despite changes in the tests administered, the public-private gap persists.

It also reveals the dropout rate of the highest-scoring students from the municipal system, which is particularly evident in the results of flagship high schools.

The research is based on public data from Chile's Department of Evaluation, Measurement, and Educational Registration (Demre). Specifically, it deals with the results of the tests used to access higher education in Chile. The period considered ranges from the 2004 Admission Process (test administered at the end of 2003) to the 2025 Admission Process (test administered at the end of 2024). 

That is, it considered everything from the University Selection Test (PSU) and the Transition Test (PDT), to the current Higher Education Access Test (PAES).

Can we see an impact of the end of school selection on these results? Is there a significant decline in public education in Chile? Can improvements be seen in certain groups of schools or by geographic location? These are some of the questions raised by the "Analysis of the Results of the 2004-2025 Admission Tests in Chile" study.

Educational gap, a familiar story

The study indicates that students from private schools lead the scores over the 20 years analyzed; while, in contrast, progress in public and subsidized schools "has been modest."

"Performance gaps between public and private agencies persist, reflecting structural inequalities that require priority attention," the document adds.

Indeed, the gap is clear in the following heat maps, which show that fewer municipal school students are among the top 20% in reading and math scores over the two decades analyzed.

"We believe the study's methodology meets the standards for research of this nature. What this study, and many others as well, identify is that in education, we observe persistent structural inequalities over time, and if we conducted studies that went back even further, we would likely also see phenomena of exclusion, inequalities that have existed for a long time," notes Undersecretary of Higher Education Víctor Orellana.

"At one time, we thought as a country that simply increasing access to education, first secondary and then higher education, would solve these problems. Of course, there was progress, but inequalities persist, even once you gain access," he adds.

The undersecretary indicates that to advance equality, a set of policies must be implemented that go beyond the government's mandate and across multiple areas, since inequality is not limited to education.

Orellana also states that "the PSU was a test that was still designed to detect the high-performance segment, that is, it was a test that was not adequately calibrated for a massive higher education system, where more than detecting which high-performance sectors, I have to establish for each person what their best possible trajectory is, in which area they have more facility and therefore where they will perform best in higher education, considering that we have a massive system. Therefore, what the PAES test does... I would say that its main achievement is that it is a test adequately calibrated for massive higher education."

The authority reports that work is also being done to modernize higher education, actions that hope to make processes and outcomes much more equitable. "In true Chilean terms, you don't just have to get into university, you also have to leave (...), and you don't just have to finish it, you also have to have, and as a country, be capable of providing spaces in the occupational structure for people so that they don't feel like they studied something that, for various reasons, wasn't useful to them or was less useful than they expected."

In this second aspect, he asserts that work is being done on support policies and special access pathways that are linked to greater support, such as the PACE (Higher Education Access Program) program or the program to attract pedagogical talent in the case of pedagogies.

"This phase of policies for equity in processes and outcomes, while maintaining democratized access, are policies that yield results in the long term, but you can never evaluate them outside of a set of real phenomena that maintain inequalities," the undersecretary emphasizes.

The executive director of Education 2020, Ingrid Olea Sepúlveda, emphasizes the debate that the tests are not intended to reduce educational gaps, despite maintaining that "the results (of the study) are consistent with other measurements that confirm the gaps that continue to exist in the educational system, which have not yet been corrected with sufficiently comprehensive or sustained policies."

"This confirms that inequalities in access to educational opportunities remain profound and that the policies implemented in the last two decades have not been sufficient to transform students' backgrounds. This diagnosis leads us to insist on the need to move toward a more equitable education system, one that focuses on equity in learning and access to meaningful educational paths, from early childhood to higher education. Furthermore, it is essential to continue and improve the implementation of the New Public Education Program, strengthening the quality of education in institutions within this department and reflecting the upward trend shown by learning outcomes in standardized assessments such as the SIMCE (Higher Education Admissions Test)."

However, Ingrid Olea warns that "creating rankings of educational outcomes based on standardized tests can be risky, as it tends to simplify the reality of school communities and can stigmatize those institutions that face greater challenges. This not only obscures the social and structural contexts in which they operate, but can also discourage continuous improvement processes."

"The PAES won't improve the quality of education, but it will discriminate less," says José Allende, author of the study, who also believes that data analysis allows for differentiated and targeted strategies across territories.

The regions improve, but the emblematic ones worsen

On the positive side, the document indicates significant improvements in the highest scores among municipal establishments in the Arica and Parinacota, Atacama, Coquimbo, O'Higgins, Ñuble, and Aysén regions.

Although this contrasts with the Metropolitan and Maule regions, where a relative decline is observed, the public sector's scores actually dropped the most in the capital, dropping from 55% of the highest scores to 41%.

At the municipal level, some towns such as Colina, Maipú, and Las Condes recorded increases in the number of students with the highest scores. However, " Santiago and Providencia have negative trends in their results, reflecting changes in the composition of educational talent." This is primarily reflected in flagship high schools.

"We're faced with a real scenario: in certain regions, such as the Metropolitan Area, there's a talent drain from the municipal sector. We see there, unlike in less geographically concentrated areas, in communes like Santiago Centro and Providencia, a very clear effect over time, where students with the highest scores are no longer there, not even speaking of the national score, but rather the highest," Allende explains.

In this regard, he maintains that the reasons could be several. From students moving to the subsidized system, to people in Santiago Centro and Providencia who were part of emblematic schools but had resources, leaving; now there's no longer any selection at those schools.

The data expert also points out that the School Admission System (SAE) sought to spread the positive influence more evenly across the board for selection purposes, "which actually happened. Previously, almost all the high scores were concentrated in Santiago and Providencia, but now they seem much more evenly distributed."

Regarding the SAE, also popularly known as "the raffle," the engineer comments that it cannot be said that this system worsened public education. What is "evident is that the positive result didn't occur either."

Education 2020 maintains that the study "is consistent with other research showing that the elimination of selection in flagship public schools generated a redistribution of 'academic talent' toward subsidized private schools, which was more pronounced in some municipalities."

However, the organization's executive director comments, " we believe it is necessary to be careful with the responsibility attributed to the admissions system in this regard , because rather than talking about a brain drain - as if this were fixed or innate - it is more about a readjustment in the distribution of students with high previous performance, associated with family decisions and the available educational offer. At Education 2020, we have historically maintained that the end of selection was a necessary measure to advance inclusion and equity, but that it should have been accompanied by a robust plan to strengthen the educational project, leadership, and pedagogical resources of high-demand public high schools."

Dispersion of talents

Another relevant conclusion of the study concerns how the top 5% of scores in municipal schools have been distributed. The data is clear: the number of municipalities with the best results increased from 23% to 46%.

"A greater number of rural communities now have at least one student in the top 5% of scores. This suggests progress in territorial equity and the distribution of academic talent in the country," the document states.

Education 2020 emphasizes that these results require "further analysis" to account for effective causality, but that "from these correlations, it can be seen that it could be related to the School Admission System (SAE), to the extent that it limits selection and redistributes high-performing students to different types of schools.

" We find this to be one of the study's most encouraging findings: today, more communities have public school students in the top 5% to 20% of the national academic achievement scale.This indicates that academic talent isn't concentrated solely in urban areas or elite schools; that talent exists across all regions, often rendered invisible by years of segregation and low expectations. The SAE can be an effective tool to support this dispersion. The challenge now is to ensure that this translates into effective trajectories for students, from the moment they enter school through higher education," the executive director maintains.