The education system in Chile has been enriched by the promotion of citizenship training. Since 2016, with Law 20,911, all educational communities had to have a Citizen Training Plan and with the latest curricular adjustments and the promotion of the real exercise of Decree 524, more spaces have been generated for citizenship education and the student organization strengthened so that it has a formal and recognized space (teaching hours, student centres, course councils and school councils). However, there is still the challenge that this environment and other public policy mechanisms can demonstrate that they can influence the promotion of student leadership that projects itself into citizen leaders.
Leadership and citizenship relate to critical thinking skills, higher skills that can strengthen not only the education system, but also democracy as a whole. In this sense, to apply quality education, achieving high standards of opportunity in highly vulnerable sectors is key. This translates not only into traditional knowledge, but also into the development of skills for citizenship and for a democratic coexistence that allows those who are less favored to influence and have better tools for the exercise of their citizenship.
For UNICEF this point is crucial: “Children and adolescents are excluded from education for many reasons. Poverty remains one of the most difficult barriers: children from the poorest households are five times more likely to go to school than children from the richest households. (2022)”.
The development of leadership skills around democratic values allows us to face the effects of exclusion, the lack of learning environments and the increase in dropout indicators. Experiences such as the Summits of Student Centers carried out by the Belén Educa Foundation with the support of our Foundation, allow us to observe and work on these effects, contributing through that conversion and work, a concrete response for the educational system, and that this can be a tool for social integration that contributes to the strengthening of democratic citizenship.
That is why it is necessary to expand the promotion of citizenship training, because if many educational communities fostered in their students, from childhood to adulthood, these citizen and democratic values, surely, we would have a more cohesive society and with many more leaders of tomorrow, which allow combating anomie, lack of participation and indifference to common issues of citizenship.
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