Although Chile has high net participation rates at kindergarten level (91% in 2015), that participation has been declining between 2007 and 2012 (from 97.5% to 93.1%, UNESCO). In terms of the quality of the services provided, kindergartens are generally under-resourced, resulting, for example, in poorly trained educators. This general diagnosis hides very different realities between private and public establishments. There is a large body of literature that converges to say that, finally, the Chilean education system (and even initial education) tends to reproduce initial social and economic inequalities (MINEDUC, 2015).

Between 2008 and 2011, the Center for Comparative Policy in Education (CPCE) at Universidad Diego Portales, in collaboration with Harvard University, led an experimental study with a control group to evaluate the quality of teaching practices. It focused on its knowledge of the UBC methodology, the children’s language skills and their social behaviour. The randomized controlled trial included 1,876 children, 140 educators and 110 technicians in 64 schools in the Metropolitan Region. This study began the project itself, which has been in operation for 10 years.

The latest results delivered belong to Cohorte Cachapoal 2014-2015, which already incorporated the Continuous Improvement Methodology. Data were analyzed by researcher Ernesto Treviño and his team. It was developed in the Province of Cachapoal in the VI Region: 9 communes, 23 schools, 23 rooms.

In the words of the researcher in charge of the analysis, “to improve pedagogical practices through the construction of teaching capabilities in classroom and school teams; increasing effective teaching and learning time throughout the school day and increasing child attendance (…) UBC achieved significant impacts on language, social-emotional development and executive function.” This is because the intervention was continuously improved, because the program matured, and because, like the school teams and supporters, the UBC project itself implemented continuous improvement for itself.

The results of UBC (Cohorte Cachapoal 2014-2015) are outstanding in all areas. Results in language as in the identification of letters and words show an average effect of 0.3 SD. In emergent writing and text comprehension it is 0.3 and 0.2 SD respectively. The results in executive function, i.e. inhibitory control and motor self-regulation, there is an effect of 0.2 SD. Finally, as regards to social-emotional development, an effect of 0.2 SD was observed in externalizing behaviour and 0.5 in internalizing behaviour, pro-social behaviour, attention and impulse control. As a result, UBC children, to a greater extent than those in the comparison group, wait for their turn, think before acting, can be calm and do not interrupt course activities.