According to Cooperativa, the Fourth Joint Budget Subcommittee rejected the Ministry of Education’s budget allocation for 2027. This leaves funding for the Local Public Education Services (SLEP), the bodies that replace municipalities in administering public schools, in doubt.
The education allocation is one of the largest in the national budget, at more than 17 trillion pesos. To put that in perspective, that is 17 million million pesos. According to the outlet, discontent in Congress stemmed from adjustments and cuts affecting both school programs and higher education.
The main sticking point is that the government decided to fund only six of the eleven SLEP scheduled to begin operating on January 1, 2027. They are Antofagasta, Valle Cachapoal, Hanga Roa, La Quebrada, Talagante and Reloncaví.
Those left out are Los Cerezos, Los Copihues, Chacabuco, Los Viñedos and El Litoral. The ministry argued that the necessary administrative and operational conditions are lacking. In practice, if you live in those areas, your public schools would remain under municipal administration for now.
Beyond the SLEP, cuts to tuition-free higher education, school computers and universities’ core budgets, the fixed funding institutions receive for their operations, also drew criticism.
From the governing coalition, Republican Senator Renzo Trisotti attributed the rejection to differences among mayors. "Some mayors only want to hand them over to the SLEP, while others would love to keep them, and those differences clearly played a part in the rejection," he said.
Trisotti proposed separating the issues: securing funding to keep schools running and handling the transfer through another, more specific bill.
In the opposition, Liberal Senator Vlado Mirosevic backed the rejection and warned about teachers’ employment situation. "Next year the situation could be worse. There will be teacher layoffs, and quite a few," he said. He also warned of insufficient funding for SLEP already in operation.
Mirosevic said "it is welcome that the subcommittee rejected a bad budget" and called for dialogue. He added that, for this to happen, "Minister Quiroz must be willing to engage in dialogue."
The president of the University of Chile Student Federation (FECh), Laura Mlynarz, said they had unsuccessfully sought a meeting with Education Minister María Paz Arzola since the government took office. She listed the withdrawal of computers for seventh-grade students in 2027, cuts to state universities’ core funding and reductions in working hours for teachers and early childhood educators.
Mlynarz announced that the student movement is coordinating with various professional and trade organizations to "defend what we have already achieved through mobilization."
The discussion now moves to the next stages in the Joint Budget Committee. Municipalities and school communities are calling for a swift resolution to set the school calendar before January 1, 2027, when the new services were due to launch.
