The words of the President on higher Education, research, development, and innovation were considered insufficient in the academic world, after the speech on May 21. However, one of the announcements that attracted attention was the greater demands from scholarship holders to pursue studies abroad. The idea is to ensure their return to the country, but will the necessary conditions be in place? The Vicerrector de Investigación y Desarrollo of USACH, Dr. Mauricio Escudey, answers this question.

The first public account of Sebastián Piñera was eagerly awaited by the various agencies because the February 27 earthquake, added to the change of the conglomerate in charge of the country’s administration, generated many expectations among the population on the coming months and years of government.

One of the most anticipated announcements revolved around higher education. In the speech delivered by the President he emphasized that he would continue to improve the higher education system.

To achieve this, he announced a special contribution to those universities that improve the quality of teaching in the area of education and enhance the development of science and technology.

The Vicerrector de Investigación y Desarrollo of the Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Dr. Mauricio Escudey, considers that the proposals for this area do not represent a significant novelty and were rather unadorned, as no deadlines were set to implement the initiatives and no specific amounts were given. However, it cast light on how to resolve the deficiencies to ensure that professionals benefitting from Becas Chile return to the country.

“Actually, there are two short paragraphs in the speech related to higher education. One of them deals with the possible increase of the gross domestic product for research, development and innovation, which is something we have been hearing for at least four years, it is not new, and no deadline is given (…),” he comments.

Given the scenario left by the earthquake that struck the country on February 27, Dr. Escudey is prudent and admits that the changes cannot be expected to take place this year because of the unfavorable situation in which Chile is. “Obviously, not in 2010, but probably in 2011, during the talks that take place on the budget in the agencies that have resources available for the areas of research, development and innovation,” stresses the professor.

Regarding the benefits for studies leading to doctor’s or master’s degrees, the President, stressed that an ambitious program of graduate scholarships will be implemented, ensuring the excellence of the applicants and increasing the demands for their return to Chile.

This last point, announced by the President, has given rise to several comments in the academic world. According to the Vicerrector de Investigación y Desarrollo of the Universidad de Santiago de Chile, to ensure that students who get training abroad return to Chile, the country must provide appropriate conditions for them to develop their area of training. Therefore, he states that increasing the demands for their return is like “forcing them to take greater insurance.”

“Ultimately, what is most important to make them return to Chile is to have the right conditions for them to develop in accordance with their training, and that is what does not exist,” explains Dr. Escudey.

According to the Vicerrector it is imperative to make changes in the form of work related to the graduate study areas, strengthening conditions for professionals who have studied abroad to know that their work is relevant in Chile.

To achieve this, it would be necessary “to send students to get training in the thematic areas of importance for the country. Graduate training with a country target and not addressed to personal interest. This means having the conditions at home and making them appealing for the return of these people: resources for research, previous contacts so that they can have information about where to get reasonable jobs on their return, involving companies so that they are willing to hire people, and finding measures attractive to the companies themselves,” explains Dr. Escudey.

On the above, he specifies: “If a company hires a newly graduated doctor, it would be ideal if such person gets funding immediately for carrying out a project,” he says.
Finally, the Vicerrector de Investigación y Desarrollo points out that there are many alternatives to help all these people get in contact with the higher education institutions before leaving, allowing them to build a stronger link between a national university that is willing to receive the person who is doing graduate work abroad. “Then, there are several measures that could be implemented and would help to make the return more attractive to these people,” he stresses.

By Valeria Osorio U.

Four faculties and a study center participate in the 15 main and two associate projects submitted by USACH to the XVII Annual Competition for R & D. Areas such as information technology and communication, water, energy, education, among others, are addressed by the submitted research.

A total of 17 technology research projects, whose total budget amounts to $ 7,700 million, were submitted by the Universidad de Santiago de Chile to the sixteenth Annual R & D Competition of the Fondo de Fomento al Desarrollo Científico y Technológico (FONDEF).

Of all the papers presented, 15 were major investigations from four faculties and a study center of USACH. Science (3), Engineering (5), Chemistry and Biology (3), Facultad Tecnológica (3), and the Centro de Estudios USACH (CEUs) Llanquihue (1), were the faculties and the center that participated in the generation of technological research ideas.

Furthermore, USACH participated as associate in two projects that will be carried out jointly with Corporación Universidad Central de Chile and Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María.

To the Director of the Departamento de Gestión Tecnológica (DGT), Luis Magne, the most remarkable achievements in this opportunity are the increased generation of technological ideas and the large number of companies that are supporting the submitted projects.

“The generation of ideas to develop technological projects has increased exponentially in the University and that is important. Previously, with a similar number of researchers the number of ideas for technology projects was very low and specific. However, to actually submit 17 projects the number of generated ideas is almost double,” he says.

Also, Magne explains that project ideas that were not submitted this time have the option of maturing for other competitions or fitting other lines of financing.

For the XVIIth version of the FONDEF Project Contest there is also a significant increase in the number of companies supporting the submitted projects. This time there are 45 institutions, among labor associations, corporations, private companies, public companies, foundations and government agencies that have expressed their interest in the ideas to be developed. In 2008 the total number of companies was 22.

At this time there have been commitments of cash contributions from companies that amount to $ 623 million, which “reflects a high degree of commitment and trust in the Universidad de Santiago,” explains the director, Luis Magne.

The total contribution from industry, including the corresponding valuations, represents more than 1,400 million pesos, which is about 18% of the total cost of the submitted projects.

The amount of funding requested from Fondef amounts to almost $ 5 billion, while the contributions of USACH amount to 1,500 million pesos.

The development areas addressed by the projects include sectors such as information technology and communication, water and energy, manufacturing, agriculture, mining, fisheries and aquaculture, education (educational instruments and processes), and services (social).

Based on the characteristics and quality of the submitted projects, it is expected that the level of awards will be equivalent or greater than those obtained in the previous version of the competition. In 2008, USACH obtained the approval of 52% of the papers presented, five as main institution and one as associate.

Internet is always a bittersweet theme. While it brings about many benefits and is always in the forefront with its 2.0 platforms, it also involves various risks. Grooming or sexual harassment over the Internet is one of them and until now it had no penalty. A bill recently passed in the House seeks to punish harassers. Jaime Retamal, education expert, gives guidelines to detect and combat it.

Grooming is sexual harassment over the Internet. And precisely for this criminal conduct a bill was approved yesterday by the Lower Chamber which seeks to penalize adults who contact minors over the network for this purpose. Adults who harass children via the web could face prison sentences.

The project would also require cybercafes to keep track of their users, so prosecutors can investigate if there is a harasser,. Also, the initiative aims to incorporate the word grooming to the penal code and also to punish child pornography with youngsters under 18, among other measures.

Jaime Retamal, expert in education at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile, defines grooming as “the classic sexual harassment via the Internet. Preferentially it is an activity carried out by adults against adolescents or children. It consists in encouraging them to become engaged insexual activities online, either on camera or through photographs.”

To the professor and researcher they range from eroticism to physical abuse. “Early erotization must be faught once and for all by those of us involved in education, because as the media to relate among ourselves as human beings advance, the crimes also become more sophisticated. And we cannot allow the children’s intimacy to be violated by such perversions,” the professor states.

The specialist also explained that abusing a minor can be the beginning of a later larger abuse, so grooming should be removed early. “When we speak of victimization of this kind, later the person is probably at risk of being a victim of another kind, so we have to cut it short immediately,” says the professor.

In relation to what measures can be taken by schools, Jaime Retamal mentions that there are ‘cross-cutting fundamental objectives’ that consider the use of new technologies. For the researcher, the schools in one way or another will have to teach the students not only what is grooming and its dangers, but also educate them in this new reality, this new human ecology represented by the information and communication technologies .

“Do not focus directly on grooming, but do it from a more global standpoint that allows the student to comprehend and understand that the methods of communicating can in one way or another also be the place for adults to commit crimes against them,” said the expert.

Finally, Jaime Retamal says that there are signs that can help parents and adults to identify children who are victims of grooming (see box). Once detected, the abnormal situation must be reported immediately to the Policía de Investigaciones (PDI) or to Carabineros, who have specialized units to fight this online harassment.

Pay attention
• Changes in the child’s behavior, such as manifestations of aggressiveness.
• Spending many hours on the Internet.
• Decline in school performance.

By Rayén Valdebenito Ortega.

For years there has been a discussion in Chile on how many months a mother needs to be with her newborn child. Until now women are entitled to only three months of legal leave, but this could change with an amendment that would extend it for three more months. Vicente Espinoza, a researcher and professor at USACH, refers to this matter.

Six months. That is the extension of postnatal leave aimed for Chilean women. At least that was the promise made by President Piñera’s campaign, which replicates the proposal of congressman Mariano Ruiz-Esquide (DC). This measure is cross-cutting because both the governments of the Concertación and the administration of the Coalition for Change have sought to achieve changes in favor of motherhood.

Already in 1992 RN senator Sebastián Piñera introduced a bill proposing the reduction of prenatal weeks provided they were used to extend postnatal leave. On the other hand, Mariano Ruiz-Esquide has been trying for more than seven years to get the support of congressmen to put in practice a six-month postnatal leave.

Now everyone seems to agree on the importance of mothers spending more time with their children during the first months of life. Vicente Espinoza, social policy expert at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile, speaks on the possible adoption of this reform of the Labor Code and its importance as public policy.

The researcher believes that this legislative initiative can succeed, since there are many people supporting this initiative from different angles. “Some people think that it is better for children to be with their father and mother, others because it is a matter of labor fairness, and others to put an end to the fraud with medical leave,” he explains.

Regarding this last point, he considered that the view that there is about medical leave is biased because a direct association is made between postnatal leave and leaves due to diseases of infants.

For Espinoza, about 30% of Chilean women could benefit from this initiative. “It is a law that favors part of the women belonging to the middle or higher classes,” he explains.

This refers to “women performing tasks that are associated with higher schooling, high school, technical, or university education, who are those more continuously involved in the labor force and have jobs that allow paying for this leave” he says.

Despite the benefits that such change could bring, the professor is emphatic in presenting the reality of the country’s low income women. “The poorest stop working when they have children and they have jobs in which it is very hard to grant them leave because they are informal occupations,” said the specialist.

Regarding the reluctance of the business world, the professor states that “employers have so far rejected any kind of additional expense of the labor force. But insofar as in the short or middle term they stop finding women to do the qualified work, they will have to hire them and pay for postnatal leave.”

One possible consequence of this situation is that Chilean women will have to make more clear-cut decisions. “(…) A woman who wants to have a career will have to make more drastic decisions: delay childbearing, have fewer children, or simply not have any,” says the USACH professor.

Finally, Vicente Espinoza believes that a point that must be added to the discussion is the incorporation of fathers in the care of children. “In that sense, we must think of an interchangeable postnatal leave between men and women.”

By Valeria Osorio and Rayén Valdebenito.

A matter of numbers. This is how the last Adimark survey was thought of at La Moneda. Yesterday the well known national survey presented a report on the approval of the president and his government. Disapproval of Sebastián Piñera increased 13 points, while Government approval fell 9 points, reaching 51%. For Olga Ulianova, a researcher at the Instituto de Estudios Avanzados (IDEA) of USACH, every figure has its reason.

Adimark’s April survey showed a drop in the approval of the Government of Sebastián Piñera. Disapproval of the president’s figure increased 13 points, from 18% to 31%, while approval of the president dropped two points, reaching 50%. Although the figures show a decline in popularity, Rodrigo Hinzpeter, Minister of the Interior, said that in La Moneda they are not concerned, since no decisions are taken based on a survey.

Beyond the figures, the government believes that the results are directly related to the fact that this is the first post-earthquake survey, so the consequences of the event are attributed to government handling. Therefore, they expect to rebound in the coming polls.

The director of the doctorate in American Studies of the Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Olga Ulianova, considers that it is too soon to draw conclusions from the results of Adimark’s public opinion survey, since previous evaluations were made under other circumstances.

“The President came to power in a very benevolent setting with high expectations. The level of approval before being promoted to the position was extremely high, reflecting the state of optimism in Chilean society, because the outgoing president as well as the incoming president, who represents a different coalition, had a very high approval,” explains the researcher.

This perception by the citizens, according to the professor, was impossible to maintain over time, because once the responsibility of the presidency is assumed the panorama is different.

“It was quite inevitable that as the government began to function, these approval levels would start falling, because they no longer reflect the expectations, but the senior management. Then, there is always a drop after this first moment of joy of the democratic celebration,” stated the professor.

She further adds that “government representatives explained this decline as caused by the post-earthquake conditions, while the opposition brought up the errors in the government’s conduction. (But) both factors have an influence.”

Finally, Dr. Ulianova stresses that no hasty conclusions should be reached, but attention should be given to the citizens. “It is still early to reach definitive conclusions, because we dealing with short-term indicators, but still such a large drop should be taken as a kind of yellow light by the government.”

By Valeria Osorio