Meanings and problems using the concept of quality in Chilean new public education: A critical interpretation from a Biesta’s theoretical framework

Abstract

This report addresses two key issues in Chilean educational policies: the pursuit of educational quality and the development of a new institutional framework for public education. The central focus of the article is the exploration and critical interpretation of the meanings, purposes, and values of the concept of educational quality at the central level (the Public Education Directorate) of New Public Education. The reconstruction of this approach to educational quality is organized into three dimensions: axiological, ontological, and praxeological, which highlight aspects of educational quality linked to purposes and values, the conception of school, systemic work, and the consideration of knowledge. This allows us to recognize, as a potential, a way of understanding educational quality more comprehensively, rather than linking it to the standardized result evaluation. At the same time, the problematic dimension of a possible dissociation between this more integral notion of quality and its systemic operationalization, which continues to operate in public education, emerges.