UNIVERSITY OF CALOOCAN CITY

Graduate School Department

Ph. D. 1B
Comparative Educational Management
(DEM 405)
Dr. Henry Davalos

Name: Eliza C. Sorianosos

Topic to be Reviewed: Educational System of Brazil, Canada, Mexico and Chille

Reflections from Brazil and Canada’s Educational System

Brazil

In my overview about the background and key data of Brazil, I have learned that Brazil is South
America’s most influential country, an economic giant, one of the world’s biggest democracies and one of
the rising economic powers that has made major strides in its efforts to raise millions out of poverty. This
means that Brazil belonged to developing countries and strive its effort to achieve its highest goal.
Historically has had to face many internal problems, such as the lack of political and economic stability,
long periods of high inflation, and an unplanned population growth. These factors led Brazil to major
educational problems.

Significant to these educational problems due to lack of political and economic stability, the
development of educational institutions was very late, primary education was neglected and there is
educational exclusion.

Furthermore, as I analyzed the educational system of Brazil, I have learned that the key
challenges in education in Brazil are access and retention, literacy, quality, infrastructure and planning
and teacher training and development. For teachers, they are also facing contests such as low salaries, bad
work conditions, not enough money for infrastructure, too many students in class, expensive books, hard
access to materials, lack of access to educational information, and lack of awareness of educational
possibilities. Therefore, just like the educational issues and challenges in the Philippines, the government
and educational authorities and stakeholders should work hand in hand to overcome these challenges and
do their responsibilities and duties religiously.

Canada
As I have reviewed the educational system of Canada, I have significantly realized that Education
in Canada is a very high priority of the government. The country displays a state-run system of public
education, one that is provided, funded, and administered by federal, provincial, and local governments.
Jurisdiction of the public education system, as well its curriculum, is overseen by each province. Canada
is a highly developed country, with an excellent system of education since it is one of the world’s
wealthiest nations. Having these apprehensions, I concluded that Canada belongs to most educated
countries across the world.

Canada’s Educational system is a perfect and ideal way to ensure that students will live
successful lives. As I have glimpsed their curriculum and study habits, Canadian students study both
compulsory and elective courses together. In the meantime, they take pre-requisite courses that are related
to their university studies. Hence, they know the fundamentals of that course before getting in the
universities. As I have remembered from the reporter, he said that students can work in leisure time,
because they can easily study in the highest level of education because even if their averages are low
there are still universities that don’t require high averages. Moreover, Canadian students study in a way of
comfort. They do not have much pressure from anyone. Parents do not force their children to do over the
limitation on the children’s academic studies. However, school is a very competitive place for them.

Therefore, based on my analysis on the Canadian Educational System, I have appreciated that
Canada is a wonderful and relaxed place to study.

Reflections from Mexico and Chile’s Educational System

Mexico
In my analysis in the Mexican Educational System, one thing that caught my attention is their
rank in the assessment of OECD. Mexican children leave school with the worst among OECD partner
countries in literacy, math, science skills, with around half failing to meet the most basic standards. So,
what do you think is the dependable reason behind that. Although education is Mexico’s president
flagship policy or priority, education failed because of the undying corruption issues in which education
is not provided well with funds, teachers are not well compensated, and they can’t strive to the needs of
the 21st century teaching since there is no available ICT materials and the worst those funds were actually
used and misspent to paid to people who never enter classroom or what we called “ghost employee”.

From these arising situations, we can say that Mexicans face many barriers to receiving a quality
education. To improve the quality of education, these barriers should be considered. The first one is
poverty. Poverty and wealth inequality are huge challenges in Mexico. Since most of the communities
live in extreme poverty, school dropout rates, absences, and grade repetition are serious problems. They
have the lowest rate in enrollment possibly because poverty drives them to find jobs rather than complete
their education. Second is the indigeneity. Indigenous communities are disproportionately poorer than
non-indigenous communities, which impacts their access to education.  Probably since they are living in
the mountain ranges far away from civilization, they have cultural gaps, may suffer discrimination and
they have less relevant education that seems to be their barriers in accessing education. The third one is
the gender inequality, because of the culture that women are likely to do the household chores than men
therefore women will be most likely to drop out and will be given less opportunity to attend college and
finished their studies. Lastly, is the shrinking budget which was mention a while ago,  economic pressures
have caused the Mexican government to cut their education budget specifically the textbooks and teacher
training programs. This will only worsen an existing problem. Finally, these existing conditions affirmed
this quotation from Schmelkes “Where people live in the poorest conditions, the education always arrives
last and is the poorest in every aspect – funding, materials, preparation of teachers – which means
inequality is perpetuated”.

Chile
As for my reflection in Chile’s Educational System, I have learned that Chile has enjoyed a long
period of economic growth and prosperity, which today makes it the most affluent country in Latin
America by most economic measurements, even if that wealth is spread unevenly throughout society.
With regards to education, this growing national prosperity has in part led to rapidly increasing
enrollments at the tertiary level and an opening of access to all segments of society. However, this
enrollment growth has almost exclusively been within the private sector and led primarily by market
forces. This has led to concerns over quality, affordability, and to increasingly vocal and violent calls for
reform. Because of these issues, students are demanding an end to tuition fees, increased public funding,
improvement of quality standards, and the elimination of profiteering within higher education.

With the status of Chile as one of developed countries, Chilean universities are among the most
expensive in the world when measured against per capita income, which is no doubt a factor in the
nation’s high dropout rate. From these, Chilean education adopted a great level of inflexibility reflected
on social and geographical inequalities. The most disadvantaged children were those of poor level who
lived in rural areas where authority did not enforce matriculation and access to schools was difficult due
to distance.
Emphasis on education for the economically disadvantaged and rural zones of the country was given.
To prevent, school dropout rate, social strategies were implemented to reduce this rate by offering free
nutritionally balanced breakfast and lunch to assist school-age children who fell below the poverty level
and had no significant assets. They are also offered health and dental care treatment which is free of
charge.

Significant educational reform in Chile’s Education is the single shift schedule which refers to the
extension of the number of pedagogical hours students remain in school to solidify the learning process
leading to expand curricular content areas. This reform was questioned by school professionals arguing
the need for more school buildings to contain all students and teachers to keep low teacher-student ratio.
Existing facilities do not have the capacity to absorb the demand for education under these conditions.
Aware of the magnitude of this change, gradual implementation was planned; for this purpose, the
government allocated extra funds exclusively to build new school buildings as a first step. Another
concern that afflicted educators and administrators was a shortage of teachers who previously worked two
shifts to cope with low salaries, as compared to other professions. The new schedule load increase did not
financially compensate the second shift teachers held in the previous system. This reform was not
accepted by everyone in the educational system. Private school professionals argued that they lacked
funds to hire teachers for longer hours, additionally, private educators argued that extending the number
of hours in schools not necessarily would improve the quality of education, remarking that quality and
quantity not necessarily correlated. Another argument posed by opponents was centered on traditionally
under-funded zones, which ultimately led to displaced students. From these existing situations, reforms,
and issues in education, concludingly the Chilean educational system has been considered as a regulated
market, one ruled by the principle of financial profitability.

Conclusions and Recommendations

 First, teachers are key. Their careers need to be structured to attract talent, to incentivize good
practices, and to punish poor performance.
 Second, school administrators must make sure that teachers get the support and are held
accountable for classroom results. Schools can be tough places, and some students require special
attention. If school wants to scale up successes, teachers cannot be left alone to deal with these problems.
Sadly, many school principals are political appointees rather education experts. As affirmed by a
quotation, “One key recipe for success is to keep politicians out of schools.”.
 Third, teachers and administrators need to be supported with an adequate curriculum.
 Fourth, while politicians should not be educators, to sustain improvements and overcome the
potential resistance to a more performance-oriented approach to school management, a broad political
coalition around the goal of learning is necessary.
 Finally, countries have already taken to heart; what it now needs is to distill its own experiences,
copy and adapt what works, and stop what does not.