• The delegation, led by the Head of the Higher Education Division of the Ministry of Education, Francisco Martínez Concha, sought to learn from experiences in situ to implement and operate the 15 state Technical Training Centres that the Government is promoting in the context of the Education Reform.
• The agenda included visits to Santa Monica College, Los Angeles Trade- Technical College and Berkeley City College, among others, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California, USA.
• According to President Zolezzi, learning about the experiences of these centres has been very interesting, especially because Universidad de Santiago will have the responsibility of implementing one of these state centres.

In order to collect information and experiences regarding the operation of some of the most renowned technical education institutions in USA, a delegation led by the Head of the Higher Education Division of the Ministry of Education, Francisco Martínez Concha, and formed by the President of Universidad de Santiago, Juan Manuel Zolezzi Cid, among others, visited a series of community colleges in California, USA, last week.

The program was directly managed by the Department of State of USA to support the Government of Chile in its initiative of implementing 15 technical training centres (CFT, in Spanish) associated to state universities- Universidad de Santiago de Chile will be responsible for one of them- in each region of our country. The program offered a wide and balanced variety of approaches to how this matter is included as a public policy in USA.

The Chilean delegation was also formed by Juan Oyarzo, President of Universidad de Magallanes; Álvaro Rojas, President of Universidad de Talca; and Marcela Arellano, Executive Secretary of the Vocational-Technical Division of the Ministry of Education. Last week, they visited Los Angeles Trade-Technical College; Santa Monica College; West Los Angeles College; Skyline College; Berkeley City College and the College of San Mateo, among other institutions in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California.

According to President Zolezzi, the experience was very valuable. “They invited us both to contribute from the situation in Chile and to learn about these “two-year colleges”, as they say, that area very similar to the idea of CFTs that the Chilean State will create. From this point of view, this is very relevant to what we are doing as University,” he said in a telephone interview from San Francisco, California.

The value of vocational-technical education

President Zolezzi said that, from his point of view, it was very interesting to learn of the experiences in areas like inclusion, teacher recruiting and the level of free education they have there.

He also found interesting the fact that “they serve a wide age range, including elderly people who want to pursue a specialization in two years and change their activity, or learn a trade.” “Here (in USA), I see that technical professions are more respected and more valued,” he added.

He highlighted that during the first part of the busy schedule that included the visit to almost 10 centres in 5 days, he saw community colleges that specialize in the transition of students to university programs, where they study two more years and get a first degree. Other centres are more focused on the working world

The Chilean delegation examined professional standards and qualifications, including skills certification and approaches that link education to the requirements of the country; best practices; curriculum flexibility; methodologies, and the linkage between the educational sector and the private sector, among other matters.

Translated by Marcela Contreras