Optimizing location and size of rural schools in Chile

Abstract

The Chilean Ministry of Education oversees preschool, primary, and secondary education in both urban and rural areas. Many parts of Chile are sparsely populated and there are currently over 4,000 rural schools (almost 38% of all schools in Chile) educating 9.5% of the students in the country. Many of the rural schools are small with only one teacher responsible for instruction of all local students (multigrade schools). The geographical distribution of the rural schools has not been coordinated and this has resulted in unequal utilization of existing schools and some unreasonably long travel distances by students. Good management of the rural schools is fundamental to meeting Chile's goal of providing quality education to its citizens. Seeking to improve the situation, the Ministry of Education ordered a study of the optimal location and size of rural schools with the general goals of reducing the number of lesser quality multigrade schools and reducing student travel distances while maintaining reasonable costs. This paper presents results of this study obtained using an integer linear program that has been embedded in a geographical information system. We present computational results for the entire country. Recommendations include where to open new rural schools as well as where to expand, reduce, close, or leave unchanged existing schools. We show how recommendations are sensitive to key parameters such as the cost of transportation.

Priorización de territorios para la gestión educativa en la Araucanía (Chile)

“…Así, el desarrollo puede volverse crítico cuando el acceso a las oportunidades se distribuye de manera desigual en el espacio, y cuando las buenas escuelas se concentran en áreas urbanas, donde se obtienen mejores educación y empleos (Pizarro, 2005;Redondo, 2009;Yamauchi, 2011). Por ejemplo, en el espacio rural en Chile, se han documentado distancias de viaje no razonables de los estudiantes y una inadecuada distribución de las escuelas, lo que tiene un efecto negativo en la calidad de vida de aquellos y de sus familias (Araya et al, 2012). Si bien se reconoce que deben considerarse factores como la capacidad individual, el contexto familiar de los estudiantes y la propia gestión de las escuelas (Peters & Hall, 2004;Espinoza et al, 2011;Yamauchi, 2011), los principales elementos pueden responder al espacio de forma que consideren los grandes patrones y se contribuya así a la toma de decisiones orientadas al desarrollo territorial, en particular de las zonas rurales.…”

Educational Psychology in rural contexts: are we ready? Notes on the Chilean case

“…En el caso de Chile, actualmente la red escolar cuenta con aproximadamente 3,835 escuelas rurales distribuidas en todo el país (Araya et al, 2012;Ministerio de Educación de Chile, 2010a;Nuñez et al, 2014). Entre ellas funcionan escuelas uni y bidocentes, tridocentes y polidocentes de distinto tamaño; grandes, medianas y pequeñas.…”

“…Pese a los avances logrados en los últimos años, la educación rural continúa siendo la modalidad y sector educacional más desaventajado (San Miguel, 2005, Thomas y Hernández, 2005Williamson, 2004). A esto se suma el cuestionamiento respecto de su escaso equipamiento (Atchoarena & Gasperini, 2004), su menor tamaño (Araya et al, 2012;Kearns, Lewis, McCreanor & Witten, 2009) y su reducido número de matrícula producto de la disminución de la población en zonas rurales, fenómeno que se repite en varios países del mundo (Donoso & Arias, 2012;Hargreaves, 2009;Kearns, et al, 2009;Nuñez, et al, 2014;Smit & Humpert, 2012).…”

Capacity management in public service facility networks: a model, computational tests and a case study

“…Dell (1998) Araya et al (2012) It has to be noticed that most of the surveyed models represent facilities that are able to provide only one type of service. In various applications this assumption is not adequate.…”

“…The only contributions related with this class of models can be retrieved in Dell (1998), who developed an approach for dealing with a multi-year programme of army sites closures and downsizing in the US, and Araya et al (2012), who constructed a model for the rationalization of the Chilean school system.…”