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According to a consultation carried out by the Gender Equality Commission, the schools that make up the Council are registering important advances in the implementation of units responsible for establishing policies in these areas and in the tri-sectoral participation in the definition of these guidelines.
Likewise, the need is raised to advance in aspects such as the design of mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the impact of policies and the incorporation of content on human rights and gender perspective in curricula.
Executive Vice President Emilio Rodríguez stated that “it is quite valuable that the work being done by the commission already has a series of results and others are in process (…) consequently, one could estimate that by September 15th all of the CRUCH institutions will be duly and fully complying with Law No. 21,639.”.
“Our institutions have been progressing, even though some challenges remain,” said Emilio Rodríguez, executive vice president of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH), regarding the implementation of the requirements of Law No. 21,369.
The law, which regulates sexual harassment, violence and gender discrimination in the field of higher education, was the central theme of the CRUCH session No. 636, which took place at the Sonesta Hotel in Osorno and was hosted by the University of Los Lagos.
On this occasion, the rector in charge of the CRUCH Gender Equality Commission, Natacha Pino (University of Aysén) and Lucía Saldaña, director of Gender Equity and Diversity at the University of Concepción, presented the results of a consultation applied to the universities of the Council, to learn about the progress in the implementation of the regulation.
The instrument considered 25 questions, applied through a questionnaire directed to the directors of the Gender Units of the 30 institutions that make up the Council.
In this regard, Rodríguez, rector of the University of Tarapacá, stated that “it is quite valuable that the work being done by the commission has already yielded a number of results, and others are in progress.” The executive vice president added that “consequently, one could estimate that by September 15th, all CRUCH institutions will be fully and properly complying with Law No. 21,639.”.
Meanwhile, Rector Pino stated that the measurement “is very important to know the complete picture of the CRUCH, to identify those that are more advanced and in some way, to organize the work from the commission to support those that require more support.”.
Previous progress
Regarding the progress, Rector Pino praised the work carried out by the CRUCH campuses prior to the enactment of the law in 2021.
“All universities have departments or units, all have protocols or mechanisms (for action). Many have policies already developed and the rest are definitely in the validation process; many are in the process of participatory, tri-partite feedback, and that will surely be very soon,” said Natacha Pino.
According to this measurement, 591% of schools have a comprehensive policy against sexual harassment, violence, and gender discrimination; while the remaining 411% are in the process of being developed. On the other hand, the 90% of universities that have a comprehensive policy were developed through a participatory, three-tiered process.
Meanwhile, the institutions' 72% includes prevention models in their policies, and the 83% considers sanction models. Furthermore, the universities' 90% has a unit responsible for implementing policies, plans, protocols, and regulations on sexual harassment, violence, and gender discrimination.
In addition, the 90% schools that had an investigation and sanction model prior to the enactment of Law 21.369 have made reforms to incorporate tri-estamental participation.
Areas for improvement
The consultation also identified areas for improvement. One of these relates to the incorporation of mechanisms for evaluating the impact of the policy, since only the 41% for universities considers this aspect, while the 55% is in the process of including it.
Rector Pino adds that one of the most delayed elements is related to the incorporation of human rights and gender perspective elements in curricular mainstreaming, an indicator that the 38% of the institutions meets, while the 48% is in implementation.
The rector of the University of Aysén argues that it is also necessary to "do a homogenization work in this regard, because some universities are doing curricular work career by career, others are simply including it in the general education or the fundamental training of some subject; and others as elective courses.".
Another shortcoming relates to the adaptation of internal regulations regarding sexual harassment, violence, and gender discrimination in the academic sphere, to be expressly incorporated into employment and service contracts. In this indicator, 651 institutions are in the process of incorporating these regulations, while 281 have already done so.
This CRUCH session also included the telematic participation of the acting superintendent of Higher Education, Gerardo Egaña, who spoke about the role, powers and actions developed by this institution in the context of Law No. 21,369.
Guidelines for Gender Equality Policies
In addition to the results of the consultation with the universities, the Gender Equality Commission presented the document “Guidelines to establish a Gender Equality Policy in the universities of the Council of Rectors and Rectors”.
Rector Pino highlighted that this is a “very clear and concrete contribution on how policy design can be guided in three fundamental areas – mainstreaming, institutionalization and eradication of violence – with concrete strategies, marking a very broad umbrella of actions.”.
Pino added that the initiative allows us to "highlight that what is written there comes from the experience of each of our Gender Directorates and Units"“
The document is available at this link.
New members of the plenary
In this August session, the plenary welcomed three new rectors: José Maripani Maripani (University of Magallanes), Rodrigo Vidal Rojas (University of Santiago de Chile) and Marcos Cikutovic Salas (University of Antofagasta).
Also, three authorities who will be leaving their posts in the coming days were bid farewell: Diego Durán Jara (Catholic University of Maule), Mauricio Cataldo Monsalves (University of Bío-Bío) and Celso Arias Mora (University of Atacama).
In another area, Leonor Varas, director of the Department of Educational Evaluation, Measurement and Registration (DEMRE) of the University of Chile, spoke to the plenary, addressing the 2023 Admission Process, the results of the Winter Transition Test and the new Higher Education Access Tests (PAES).
In addition, a commemorative video for the Council's 68th anniversary was presented, which included greetings from various national and university authorities.
*Photographs: Communications Department, University of Los Lagos.
Commemorative video for the 68th anniversary of CRUCH:
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