Chilean University Students’ Call for Participation and Engagement in What Matters to Them: Is It Possible to Achieve a Shared Decision Making Process in Education Policy?

Abstract

Chile is facing one of its major intellectual revolutions in the last century: organised high school, college and university students have led the most salient educational reform since the one that took place during the dictatorship period. This phenomenon is a pacific revolution based on the power of sound, evidence-based, clear and robust ideas. The purpose of this short essay is to reflect some ideas on the conceptualisation of a shared decision making (SDM) process and how they could be transferred to the current students’ educational revolution in Chile. It provides a reflection on how SDM might concretely contribute to this educational reform and on what future steps could be taken to truly achieves a “participatory” democracy in Chile. According to the authors, this debate illustrates the extent to which the level of participation must rely not on particular individuals but on the establishment of a partnership between parties.