Acceso usuarios
Eduardo Guzmán Utreras, Carmen Gloria Baeza Ugarte, Mario Morales Navarro, Constanza Lizama Vidal
No cabe duda de que uno de los mayores problemas educacionales en Chile es el acceso a la educación superior, particularmente de aquellos grupos denominados como vulnerables, desertores y que históricamente han sido marginados social, económica y educativamente. En este contexto, y situados bajo el alero del denominado Programa de Acompañamiento y Acceso a la Educación Superior (PACE), se presentan los resultados de una investigación cuyo objetivo fue conocer los motivos personales, académicos y familiares que constituyen la decisión de abandono universitario en estudiantes pertenecientes a este programa en las universidades chilenas. Por medio de una metodología cualitativa basada en Estudio de Casos y el uso de las técnicas de análisis de información de la Teoría Fundamentada -codificación abierta y axial-, se entrevistó en profundidad a catorce estudiantes voluntarios (todos ellos caracterizados como estudiantes vulnerables en el ámbito educacional nacional) que pertenecieron a este programa y que decidieron abandonar su proceso educativo universitario. Los principales hallazgos obtenidos a partir de las entrevistas en profundidad y su análisis, dan cuenta de un quiebre personal en la trayectoria educacional de los individuos al momento de entrar a la universidad, quienes pasan de un estatus escolarmente destacado a una condición universitaria académicamente minimizada, al apreciar que sus expectativas iniciales transitan inevitablemente hacia una percepción de fracaso académico. Este fracaso produce sentimientos de frustración y una profunda crisis académica que no solo involucra al individuo, sino también a su familia y a su trayectoria estudiantil como parte de la decisión definitiva de abandono.
There is no doubt that one of the greatest educational problems in Chile is the discussion on the access of rights in education. Although in recent decades the schooling has been guaranteed throughout the Chilean national territory, the same is not true for higher education and its access barriers, so the resolution of this problem is still pending for everyone. In this reality, the greatest controversy lies in the access to this type of education for those groups known as vulnerable who have been historically marginalized socially, economically, and educationally. Although in the 1970s there were some small efforts to overcome this discriminatory condition in access to higher education, the subsequent political contingency displaced this claim until after the twentieth century, so it was not until 2007 that the Propedéutico (in English: ‘Propaedeutic’) program was formally presented, focused on this problem and controversy, becoming the first major national benchmark in terms of inclusion, equity, and equality in the field of higher education institutions.
As a result of the above, in 2014 the so-called Programa de Acompañamiento y Acceso a la Educación Superior (Program for Accompaniment and Access to Higher Education - PACE) was launched, whose genesis is in a highly segregating, competitive, and selective environment in terms of admission to national higher education. The objective of PACE is to vindicate and promote the right to equitable and equal access to higher education for students considered vulnerable according to the national educational and social system. To fulfill its mission, PACE starts from the recognition of the student's academic and social trajectory, valuing their performance and academic talent against themselves and their own socio-educational and economic context of origin, assigning them a specific quota for admission to certain careers to students who meet their requirements. Today, PACE is a public policy in Chile. However, its evidence mainly reports on its administration, academic results and some research related to its teaching practices, student profiles and coverage, with no evidence regarding those who have dropped out of the program and the reasons behind this decision.
Therefore, this article presents the results of a research whose objective was to know the personal, academic, and family reasons that constitute the decision of university dropout in students belonging to the so-called Program of Accompaniment and Access to Higher Education (PACE) in Chilean universities. By means of a qualitative methodology based on Case Studies and the use of Grounded Theory information analysis techniques -open and axial coding-, fourteen volunteer students (all of them characterized as vulnerable students in the national educational environment) who belonged to this program and who decided to abandon their university educational process were interviewed in depth. The main findings obtained from the in-depth interviews and their analysis reveal a personal break in the educational trajectory of the individuals at the day of entering university, that go from an outstanding school status to an academically minimized university status, appreciating that their initial expectations inevitably move towards a perception of academic failure. This failure produces feelings of frustration, and a deep academic crisis not only involves the individual, but also their family and student career as part of the final decision to drop out.
