On Tuesday, Fundación Chile presented the public-private partnership “Sumar Saberes,” an initiative that brings together a wide range of stakeholders, including foundations specializing in educational improvement, international organizations, and private entities. This collaboration is based on the recognition of common goals and shared responsibility in education.
The purpose of “Sumar Saberes” is to support and accelerate the improvement of learning, particularly in fundamental areas such as mathematics, reading, and socio-emotional skills, by promoting evidence-based decision-making and the effective use of educational spending and investments. It aims to identify which educational improvement initiatives are effective, what conditions enable their success, how they are implemented in diverse contexts, how they can be scaled, and how to make them sustainable.
The alliance was presented at the Cineteca Nacional of the Centro Cultural La Moneda and was attended by the Minister of Education, Nicolás Cataldo; Undersecretary of Education, Alejandra Arratia; Undersecretary of Early Childhood Education, Claudia Lagos; Rodrigo Egaña, Director of Public Education; Miguel Farías, Superintendent of Education; Gino Cortez, Executive Secretary of the Agency for Educational Quality; Valtencir Mendes, Head of Education at UNESCO’s Multisectoral Office in Santiago; Paolo Mefalopulos, UNICEF Representative in Chile; Mario Aguilar, National President of the Teachers’ Union; Hernán Araneda, General Manager of Fundación Chile, and representatives from participating foundations, educational institutions, teachers, administrators, and students.
A Turning Point
In June 2023, the Council for Educational Reactivation, convened by the Ministry of Education, presented a report with recommendations to enhance the strategy to address the major challenges of the educational system exacerbated by the pandemic. One of the recommendations was to “develop an observatory to catalog and systematize experiences reported as effective for improving learning at all levels and subjects” nationally, and to “make these available to the educational system as recommendations for formative practices, creating an evidence-based repository.” This recommendation led the Ministry of Education and Fundación Chile to establish “Sumar Saberes.”
“We are at a very important moment, a turning point for what is to come. The challenge of reactivation is long-term, projecting this educational transformation process so that learning outcomes are consistent with the country’s investment capacities in education,” said the Minister of Education, Nicolás Cataldo.
“Sumar Saberes is an initiative that seeks public-private collaboration to address the challenges facing the educational system in the future. We are very interested in exploring all the good things happening in educational institutions and kindergartens, to understand the experience, study it, gather evidence, and based on that evidence, scale the most significant ones that can have a greater impact on learning outcomes,” added the minister.
Alejandra Arratia, Undersecretary of Education, noted that “from the Ministry of Education, we understand Educational Reactivation as a national cause, requiring the addition of efforts, knowledge, and the generation of collective intelligence, to identify initiatives that are making a difference, having a positive impact, and making them visible to contribute to education decision-making based on this evidence.”
“We are very happy about the launch of this alliance. Our goal is to generate evidence for decision-making that allows for significant improvement in learning and more equitable education, eliminating the persistent gaps in our educational system,” she added.
Joaquín Walker, Executive Secretary of the Educational Reactivation Plan, emphasized the urgency of reducing these gaps “through the identification, promotion, and scaling of evidence-based educational practices. We also aim for Chilean education to be more resilient and adaptive to future global and local challenges,” he said. To achieve this, “the expertise of various Sumar Saberes members will be essential, including the What Works Hub for Global Education from Oxford University, which aims to increase literacy, numeracy, and other key skills in low- and middle-income countries by determining what works to improve learning and how to scale it.”
Hernán Araneda, General Manager of Fundación Chile, stated that for the organization he leads, “this collaboration is fundamental. The name Sumar Saberes confirms that we are not starting from scratch, but that there is a lot of innovation happening in the educational system, in its various forms, in foundations, in think tanks, and of course at the level of school operators and municipalities. Today, the effort is to act with collective intelligence. This is a collaborative and radical innovation effort, of entities that put themselves at the service of a long-term national challenge.”
Phases and Governance
In the first phase, the alliance will create a national map of programs supporting learning improvement and identify which initiatives work and what conditions enable their success. Its methodology will include the perspectives of students and teachers, as their voices are crucial throughout the process. The alliance aims to project a subsequent phase, where it would develop an innovation lab to pilot the sustainable scaling of effective learning improvement initiatives, thereby influencing educational policies for greater impact.
The Strategic Council of the alliance includes the Ministry of Education (through the Undersecretary of Early Childhood Education and the Undersecretary of Education), the Agency for Educational Quality, the Directorate of Public Education, Fundación Chile, Fundación Anglo American, Fundación Luksic, Fundación BHP, Fundación MC, Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, UNESCO, UNICEF, Oxford University, IDB, CAF, the UC Center for Public Policies, and the Advanced Research Center in Education of the University of Chile (CIAE). Its goal is to ensure the strategic coordination of the Alliance and its sustainability over time. It also has the support of the What Works Hub for Global Education at Oxford University.
Meanwhile, the executive secretariat is formed by Martín Cáceres, Director of the Innovation Center at the Ministry of Education, and Valentina Quiroga, Human Development Manager at Fundación Chile. Their goal is to implement the strategic decisions of this initiative and develop the technical-financial execution derived from it.
Additionally, Sumar Saberes has a Network of Alliances that will collaborate to fulfill its mission. To date, it includes Acción Colectiva por la Educación, the network Por un Chile que Lee, the National Corporation of Private Schools of Chile (Conacep), Efecto Colectivo, Bien Público, Educación Inicial 2030, the Federation of Private Educational Institutions (FIDE), the Association of Regional Governors of Chile (Agorechi), the Chilean Association of Municipalities (ACHM), Fundación Arauco, and Instituto Natura. One of the objectives is for more entities to join this alliance.
