According to Cerna et al. (2021), governance includes educational goals for diversity, inclusion, and equity, as well as the regulatory framework and responsibilities for and administration of diversity to provide diversified education. Particularly in Chile, education is structured through a national curriculum. The highest authority in education is the Ministry of Education, which promulgates the national curriculum, organized into mandatory minimum objectives and contents that act as expected standards for school learning at all levels.

Law 20,845 establishes that the Undersecretary of Education, General Education Division, and in particular, the Education for All Unit, is responsible for providing guidelines to the educational system to promote the construction of inclusive educational communities (MINEDUC, 2020). However, several ministerial units issue guidelines linked to educational inclusion (e.g., inclusion of immigrants and belonging to indigenous peoples, coexistence program, citizenship policy, among others). For this reason, no single easily recognizable entity concentrates on delivering and evaluating the implementation of the guidelines to schools, resulting in high variability in the implementation and effectiveness of those guidelines across schools.

Cerna et al. (2021) recognizes the relevance of cross-sectoral collaboration in terms of responsibilities to ensure and provide inclusive education. Cross-sectoral responsibility needs to be implemented and monitored in Chile (Bedregal et al., 2014). It must be articulated at the national (i.e., Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Social Development and Family, and the National Service of Migration) and local levels (i.e., regions, districts, and municipalities) (UNESCO, 2005; Rieser, 2012). Even when the Law of Guarantees and the System of Comprehensive Protection of the Rights of Children and Adolescents are considered advances in this issue, the education sector does not have actual participation (Defensoría de la Niñez, 2023).

Regarding education provision, Chile needs to work on systems to provide curricular adjustments to satisfy the particular needs of specific student populations. For example, the identity and language of the indigenous population are included only in schools with 20% of students from native cultures (Ministry of Education, 2017a; Gutiérrez-Pezo, 2020). This reality limits the opportunity to satisfy the fundamental right of identity of indigenous students who do not attend these schools (Poblete, 2019).

According to Cerna et al. (2021), resourcing for inclusive education involves providing funding and human capital to develop educational responses to diversity. Particularly for students with special educational needs (SEN), Decree 170 (MINEDUC, 2009; Ministry of Education, 2017b) allows support for these students in school contexts. This coverage has been provided through the SIP implemented in each enrolled school (Decree 170 of 2009). In Chile, there are three kinds of school administration: Private schools,² subsidized schools –i.e., private schools that receive subsidies from the government–and public schools administered by municipalities (Mizala et al., 2002). Subsidies for inclusive education are provided only to schools that receive public resources. Private schools do not receive subsidies for inclusive education (Bas, 2021).

In addition to Decree 170, associated with student diversity beyond special education, the SEP law allocates an additional subsidy to students in vulnerable conditions (Law 20.248 of 2008). The resources are provided to each school’s administration, which commits to employing these resources in executing an education improvement plan for these students (Law 20.248 of 2008). According to the Ministry of Education’s website, based on 2023 data, 99% of public and 66% of subsidized schools receive this benefit.

Even when positive changes have been documented after the promulgation of these two policies, several challenges have been identified. Decree 170’s implementation at schools is voluntary, and the decision of school teams to implement the SIP depends on the estimated resources that SIP would give to schools (Peña, 2013). These resources are subject to the number of students with a diagnosis, even when the voucher systems have been demonstrated to be an ineffective policy (McEwan and Carnoy, 2000). For example, small schools usually do not implement SIP because they need access to more vouchers to hire professionals to support children with SEN. This situation causes unequal conditions for those who study in differently sourced schools. It is even more evident in private schools, in which they select students according to characteristics that the schools desire from their potential students (Guerra-Araya, 2018). In addition to human capital, inclusive education involves allocating resources to count on adequate physical space or facilities (Benavides-Moreno et al., 2021). Just the willingness to create inclusive school programs and the available resources make the coverage of this policy insufficient to give an educative response to all students with SEN in all schools independent of their administrations.

Because of the voucher system associated with the implementation of Decree 170, the human capital available for the SEN programs is also limited. Teams of educational assistant professionals must concentrate their efforts only on children officially diagnosed with some temporary or permanent SEN because those children are considered to have subsidized support (Peña, 2013; San Martín et al., 2020). It restricts the number of professionals hired to implement inclusive education (Peña, 2013; San Martín et al., 2020). Then, the time available to support different aspects of diversity is also limited (Sandoval et al., 2021). Like they have scarce human resources, teachers and educational assistant professionals do not have enough time to collaborate (González-Burboa et al. (2020)) nor co-teach (Rosas and Palacios, 2021).

Conversely, evidence shows that SEP law has reduced the learning gap between schools with minors versus better socioeconomic conditions measured with the SIMCE test,³ but only at the middle levels (Treviño et al., 2023). Adverse consequences are reported on the autonomy and well-being of the teams due to the highly bureaucratic demand for accountability associated with allocating these resources (Treviño et al., 2023). In addition, the expenditure of resources related to this law is discretionary based on the priorities established by the school’s administrative manager. Even when part of these resources is oriented to hire professionals to support mainly socioemotional development, the work is isolated within an institutional policy with a lack of comprehension of these professionals’ approaches (López et al., 2011). Because of this, the remaining educational team has limited collaboration and support with these professionals (Gatica, 2015; Obando and Lamas, 2017). In sum, despite the financial efforts made by the Chilean regulations to support inclusive education practices at national and local levels, the voucher modality limits its underlying purpose of equity, and the system still lacks accurate knowledge on how to implement this policy to succeed.

Schools must have aware communities and trained personnel to attend to the diversity in school settings appropriately (Cerna et al., 2021). In terms of awareness, an inclusive school and classroom requires a particular focus on the recognition and appraisal of the diversity of its students, both in the considerations for the achievement of learning goals as well as in the use of materials, methods, and assessment to achieve learning and participation (Sánchez-Gómez and López, 2020). Policies previously discussed were developed to favor the achievement of an inclusive classroom, providing better opportunities and scenarios to support vulnerable students during their school trajectories. At the school level, teachers have opportunities for training through the Center for Improvement, Experimentation, and Pedagogical Research of the Ministry of Education (CPEIP), which looks to enrich the knowledge and skills needed for professional practice (CPEIP, n.d.). Although the regulations mentioned above would favor this, the significant obstacle, again, is the implementation of inclusion at this level.

Besides the practical and political challenges of coordinating and implementing an inclusive education policy, there are often local challenges at the school level related to cultural beliefs and attitudes of families and teachers, which can sometimes be hard to change (Zoniou-Sideri and Vlachou, 2006; Hwang and Evans, 2011; Tiwari et al., 2015). Particularly in Latin American culture, there is a strong-rooted belief that children need hardship in education to develop strength and life skills and that equality for all is fair, just, and proper (Cheshire, 2019). These notions make inclusion hard for some community members, including secondary teachers, with a robust disciplinary background but fewer years of teaching and preparation for diverse students than early childhood or primary teachers (Boe et al., 2007; San Martin et al., 2021). Traditional Latin American beliefs of education can be particularly challenging when incorporating adaptations for students whose needs are not observable or evident to the bare eye (c.f., Morina, 2022). This may represent a solid invisible barrier that will make implementing an inclusion policy much harder (Morina, 2022).

In addition to the general belief that hard work in schools is a means to learning for life, specifically for students with SEN, school communities’ attitudes and beliefs usually align with a medicalized/deficit-based approach (Shakespeare, 2013; Vidal et al., 2023). Accordingly, schools focus on skills development rather than inclusion as education for all (Chieppa et al., 2023). Particularly for the Chilean case, Decree 170 perpetuates a medical and integrative model of support for educational needs by establishing clinical diagnostic criteria that orient the resources to support and maintain the stigma and segregation of these students (Sandoval et al., 2021; Zuñiga and Mansilla, 2023). In addition to students with SEN, available literature has documented gaps in cultural beliefs that negatively impact the requirements of other diverse groups such as LGTBQ and nonnative Spanish speakers’ students (Rojas Fabris et al., 2019; Jaramillo and Córdova, 2023). These areas call for enhanced awareness and targeted strategies to ensure inclusivity and effective education for all individuals, regardless of their background or identity.

Identified challenges for teachers’ training. Teachers in Chile have few tools and knowledge about inclusive education from their initial training and the formative support program offered by the CPEIP (Ministry of Education, 2016, 2017; OECD, 2019). The lack of specific training impacts the classroom because, even when teachers might believe in the relevance of inclusive education and be willing to apply strategies, teachers need to learn to use the most suitable approach to promote an inclusive environment appropriately (Crispel and Kasperski, 2021). An example of this issue is Universal Design for Learning (UDL). UDL implementation in teaching is mandated by decree, but not all teachers are trained to apply UDL principles in their teaching (Berríos Armijo et al., 2021). In addition, there is a need for a national entity that certifies the quality of in-service teacher professional development offerings that schools autonomously (Blanco, 2015). Therefore, teachers in its professional development and the whole educational teams require better appropriation of UDL (Berríos Armijo et al., 2021).

Another challenge is the knowledge needed to develop curriculum adjustments to address the needs of specific groups. For example, in Chile, offering education in indigenous languages, in addition to Spanish, is restricted to schools with 20% of children of a specific indigenous origin (Morales, 2021). Thus, the possibility of addressing the right of identity of indigenous children is not guaranteed for those who attend schools with a reduced percentage of this origin (Poblete, 2019).

In addition, Chilean classrooms are characterized as spaces where teaching practice is usually based on an Interrogation-Response-Evaluation type of interaction with limited student participation (Preiss, 2009; Radovic and Preiss, 2010). These rigid and sometimes authoritarian practices and physical barriers hinder inclusive classrooms (Zwane and Malale, 2018; Ireri et al., 2020). Accordingly, a change from a teacher-centered to a child-centered pedagogical perspective is needed.

At the school level, providing inclusive education requires making available the existing resources to meet the individual student’s needs. Current Chilean regulations limit the resources available to students. Resources oriented to assess and meet the needs of students with SEN at schools are described in Decree 170, which states the professionals and roles that these professionals play for each kind of diagnosed condition. Aligned with this reality, counting on cross-sectoral support outside the school is essential. To optimize the available resources and provide a comprehensive response to student needs, coordinated and articulate work between the school and primary health care services is relevant (Defensoría de la Niñez, 2023). Chile has developed policies to address cross-sectoral collaboration to support inclusive education, including Chile Crece Contigo, the Law of Guarantees, and the system of comprehensive protection of the rights of children and adolescents (Defensoría de la Niñez, 2023).

Even when policies focusing on cross-collaboration toward inclusive education exist in Chile, in practice, there is a scarce collaboration between the school and primary health care services. Policies have been regulated and implemented independently by each sector. An example of a lack of cross-sectoral collaboration is how Decree 170 is implemented. In this case, the health sector participates in medical evaluations focused on diagnosis without the time and working conditions that encourage collaboration with teachers, which effectively may enhance learning (cf. Peña, 2013).

In addition, the theoretical and practical approaches that professionals working in these two contexts need to be better aligned (Bronstein, 2003; Peña, 2013; Duk et al., 2019). Health professionals working in a primary care service conceptualize students’ needs from a medicalized perspective, and they do not usually include intervention goals oriented to school readiness and performance (Torres et al., 2015). This clinical approach has clear disadvantages. Health professionals working with school-age children are more focused on treating the individual diagnosis than on essential skills to promote their learning. The objectives are decontextualized and unnatural, making it difficult to generalize these new skills in the pedagogical environment, everyday learning, and social and communicative situations. Besides, this model makes interprofessional collaboration unlikely (Smart and Smart, 2006). Thus, all of these characteristics generate segregation of children, leading to dissatisfaction in the support delivery based on this clinical model.

Another related issue is the integrality of the services provided at schools. According to de Decree 170, the diagnosis is essential to incorporate students into the SIP. However, only one diagnosis can be considered per child. The system does not allow an intersectional approach with support based on a student’s requirements or unrelated to their disability. For example, a student with a diagnosis of language disorder and socio-affective challenges due to the complexity of her family situation may only receive specialized support based on the language disorder diagnosis. This over-specificity restricts the hours of support and the kind of professionals this student can access weekly at schools. Therefore, opportunities for applying collaborative models with regular classroom teachers and holistic approaches focused on student well-being are scarce (Zuñiga and Mansilla, 2023).

According to Cerna et al. (2021), monitoring of inclusive education should occur at different levels, including government authorities, school level, and student performance. This allows us to ensure the progress of the educational system toward becoming a real inclusive education. In Chile, systemic monitoring in schools is centralized in the Ministry of Education. Through the Regional Ministerial Secretariats (its acronym in Spanish: SEREMI), the Ministry of Education organizes and supervises schools in their jurisdictional territory, ensuring compliance with educational objectives and policies. At the school level, standardized monitoring systems have yet to be developed.

Governmental monitoring at schools has focused on accountability rather than quality. An example of this practice is that subsidized schools are funded through a voucher system based on student attendance (López et al., 2018). This means the school administration receives funding according to the number of students attending. That funding is tied to access rather than the quality of education provided.

Similarly, policy mechanisms for inclusion in schools must be improved to guide practice or assess the quality of educational interventions for students participating in SIP (Zuñiga and Mancilla, 2023). Then, the school administration can use the funding to cover essential expenses, not necessarily those related to guaranteeing the quality of teaching or educational programs. In the case of private schools, since they do not receive public resources, monitoring is even less than in the other kind of schools. Therefore, more information is needed regarding how this portion of the educational system fosters inclusiveness and how effective it is. In such a scenario, developing more robust mechanisms to tie up resource allocation with procedures for its expenditure and quality monitoring to secure further funds is critical.

Another issue related to monitoring is the need to count with assessments focused on measuring the quality of inclusive education programs. This issue affects national and local-level decision-making due to insufficient evidence about the programs. Having bottom-up data developed at the school level offers possibilities for adapting policy to the needs of local contexts. In addition, this data provides information on the suitability of inclusive education programs to meet students’ needs appropriately (Chomba et al., 2014).