TRADITION AND MODERNISM: THE UNIVERSITY IN CHILE

Chile is unique in many ways: about 40% of its U students are women, & contrary to other Latin Amer countries where the majority of students go into law or medicine, Chile's students focus on the modern sci's, ie, the soc sci's, engineering, technology. The number of students in law has been stabilized & the increase in Med students at the doctorate level has been slowed, while the growth at a lower level has been accelerated. Technical careers, such as agriculture & veterinary medicine are being developed, as are the soc sci's. Student dropout is found to affect the modern sector more than the traditional one. Chilean students seem less Inclined toward the sci's than European students. In employment, the services attract nearly 75% of the Chilean students, while Europeans are more likely to enter business & industry. A large % of students go into teaching, partly because teaching is a very prestigious profession. The Chilean U's have modernized much less than is believed, although they aimed at a greater equality in educ'al opportunity between the central area & the provinces from 1957-67, by creating places for 5,000 students in the provinces. This expansion has allowed more women to enter U educ, but this has been an inferior educ with a high dropout rate. Except for those women who go into teaching, most enter tertiary occup's. The U in Chile is more traditional than is generally thought & its decomposition is tied to a general crisis of the country. The student revolt is a general struggle against society & the existing pol'al order. The new educ'al structures have not changed the conditions of access, the actual class distribution of students, or the length of studies. M. Maxfield.