School Admissions System 2027 could jeopardize migrant’s children access to education

Our Alternate Director, Andrea Alvarado, and Principal Investigator, Antonia Mardones, published a Letter to the Editor in El Mostrador. In it, they expressed concerns regarding the access of foreign children and adolescents to education in the ongoing SAE process. They argue that two regulatory innovations jeopardize access and require a careful monitoring. The first is article 51 in the Budget Law of 2026, which establishes that places in schools will first be given to national students and regular migrant students, over undocumented migrant students.  The second is the application of article 44 of the Migration Law, that establishes that undocumented migrants require a provisory identification number, different to the one they have been receiving, the IPE. The main difference of this process with the IPE is the complexity: it had numerous stages and bureaucratic errands, which are not compatible with working schedules.

Both of these new aspects that have been introduced in the school admissions process could have a desincentivising effect on enrolling undocumented migrant children and adolescents in school, jeopardizing their access to education. That is why the researches emphasise that academia and civil society must be vigilant, and supervise the process.