Where are digital abilities within Chile’s State technical formation centres? A discourse analysis of public policy

ABSTRACT

There is a sedimented understanding that developing digital abilities is key for today’s knowledge society. Accordingly, governments have invested vastly in formal education aimed at developing them. Policies and directives driving this venture need to be examined. Otherwise, their potential risks being thwarted. By means of a post-foundational discourse analysis, six moments central to the political enablement of Chile’s State Technical Formation Centres underwent a synchronic heuristic discourse analysis as understood under relational-ontology. These Centres are part of Chile’s tertiary Technical and Vocational Education and Training system and were created as a means for the State to regain presence within such a system. Findings show unquestioned facts which lead to the articulation of two prominent myths. Added, two salient discourses are articulated to the myth: education is either articulated with statements that would frame education as a right or with development statements. Furthermore, despite these documents articulating today’s world as being driven by information and technological developments, there is no mention, definition or even acknowledgement of digital abilities. Accordingly, the development of these rhetorically articulated indispensable abilities, within these Centres, is left to chance. Findings shed light on how mythification of discourses can lead to hindering consequences.

KEYWORDS:

• Technical and vocational education and training
• discourse analysis
• educational technology
• digital abilities

Acknowledgments

We want to thank the Universidad de Chile’s aRPa (Activando la Resolución de Problemas en las Aulas) Initiative. Conversations held with researchers and practitioners from aRPa provided valuable insights.

Authors’ contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis as well as the writing of the manuscript was performed by both Fernando Bolaños and Ola Pilerot.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Geolocation

Santiago de Chile, Chile.

Availability of data and material

Public Policy documents used for analysis are publicly available on the Internet as cited in the reference list.

Notes

1. Including but not limited to Information Communications Technologies (ICT).

2. In this study, DA are understood to be abilities that enable the purposeful use of digital tools (hardware and software); communication and collaboration abilities in digital environments; information searching and retrieving abilities in digital environments; and content creation abilities in digital environments. See section Literature review for a more detailed overview.

3. An unquestioned assumption (cf., Marttila 2015).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Chile’s National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) under a postdoctoral grant (Fondecyt-Postdoc 2022, Nº3220299). Equally so, this research was supported by the Centro de Modelamiento Matemático (CMM) under a fund for centers of excellence from ANID (FB210005 BASAL).