Chilean Traditional Universities
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In Chile, the term universidades tradicionales (traditional universities) is used to denote the group of universities founded before the 1980s. This term usually includes derivative universities, which are not really traditional but were derived from traditional ones. Therefore, a more precise term is Universidades del Consejo de Rectores (Universities from the Rectors Council of Chilean Universities).
[edit] Overview
It is not a very specific term since it only reflects the history of a given university and is not a valid description of the university itself and the way it is organized. For example, even though the Universidad Católica refers to itself as a Traditional university, the most correct way of describing it is as Private Catholic University (i.e. Catholic University of Leuven), since the government, and the people in extension, has no intervention in its governance.
This distinction, which cannot be found in most countries, was needed since the Pinochet dictatorship changed the higher education system, effectively dismembering public universities (like the Universidad de Chile or the Universidad Técnica del Estado) and Catholic universities. This decision, which can be seen as a punitive action against highly "unstable" institutions, or as a mean for better control, also included the opening of the education market, effectively allowing any private citizen to establish a higher education institution. Several small private universities arose after this, most of them directly linked to the dictatorship government members.
These "traditional" universities receive state financial support (in many ways)even though many of them are not public, since they receive most of the better students and make most of the overall research.
These universities can be divided into two groups
- Properly traditional universities, the 8 universities existing in 1981: Universidad de Chile, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Universidad Austral de Chile, Universidad Católica del Norte, Universidad de Concepción, Universidad de Santiago de Chile (formerly Universidad Técnica del Estado) and Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María.
- Derivative universities: universities formed by separating a faculty or campus from a traditional one or by merging two campuses, one belonging to Universidad de Chile and the other to Universidad Técnica del Estado. For example what now is Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación in 1981 was the Education Faculty of Universidad de Chile. What now is Universidad de La Frontera in 1981 were University of Chile, Temuco Campus and Universidad Técnica del Estado, Temuco Campus. What now is Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción in 1991 was the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Talcahuano campus.
Currently, there are three types of universities, according to their properties:
- Belonging to the Chilean State (estatales). These are the Universidad de Chile, Universidad de Santiago de Chile and derivative universities, which in the 1970s were constituted from the regional campuses of the former two.
- Universities of the Catholic Church. Similarly to the regional estatales, most of these were created from the regional campuses of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in the 1970s.
- Three private universities, which belong to non-profit foundations. These universities are the Universidad Austral de Chile,Universidad de Concepción founded by the citizens of Concepción and the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, created as testamentary will of Federico Santa María Carrera.
Today, there are twenty-five traditional universities that are grouped in the Consejo de Rectores (Rector's Council).
Since the 1970s, these universities have managed a common higher education admissions test known as the Prueba de Aptitud Académica (scholastic aptitude test) and, since 2001, Prueba de Selección Universitaria (university selection test).
