ABSTRACT
Chile's educational curriculum in primary school does not assume that students have attended preschool, since national coverage in 1995 was 34 percent, with an avemge annual growth rate in coverage of7.5 percent since 1990. The structure of the curriculum is that in the first grade, 20 percent of time is devoted to the area of language (both reading and writing), and 17 percent to mathematics. Other subjects included are science, and its share of the curriculum is around 8 percent. By the eighth grade, basic literacy, ability to write, and numeracy are expected to have been achieved; class time devoted to language and mathematics is maintained, but the skill level is raised. For example, in the area of language, students study grammar and Spanish literature in the later years of primary school.
