School in Chile: the provisional pupil number, placement and the school year

Your child can simply go to school in Chile. Article 17 of the migration law guarantees foreign minors living in Chile access to pre-school, primary and secondary school, under the same conditions as Chileans. That right does not depend on the residence status of the child or the parents. The first thing you need is a number: as long as your child has no RUN, the Ministry of Education, the Mineduc, issues an Identificador Provisorio Escolar, the IPE.

What	Where	Deadline or cost
IPE, the provisional pupil number	Mineduc, online or at Ayuda Mineduc	until your child has a RUN
Provisional enrolment	school, with Mineduc permission	until the level is determined
Class without papers	by age on 31 March of the year
Recognition for a treaty country	Mineduc	answer within 10 working days
Start of the 2026 school year	whole country	pupils on 4 March
End of the 2026 school year	most regions	between 4 and 18 December

What is the IPE?

The IPE is a unique number for children and young people without a Chilean RUN who want to go to school. According to ChileAtiende, your child can use it to take part in the school admission system, the Sistema de Admisión Escolar (SAE), be enrolled, get school reports and use textbooks, school meals, the school insurance and the student card.

You apply online with the Mineduc or at an Ayuda Mineduc office. For the child you bring an identity document, with proof of entry: the stamped passport or the Tarjeta Única Migratoria. The parent or carer also brings an identity document and proof of entry. Since 2026 the Mineduc no longer issues an IPE to anyone aged 18 or over. For pre-school you do not apply to the Mineduc but to JUNJI or the Integra foundation.

How is your child's level determined?

That depends on a treaty. ChileAtiende lists the countries with which Chile mutually recognises school levels: the countries of the Convenio Andrés Bello, a series of countries with their own treaty, mostly in Latin America, and for the secondary school diploma also Germany, France and Israel. The Netherlands is not among them. For a treaty country the answer comes within ten working days.

Without a treaty it goes through validación de estudios, under Decreto 2272 of 2007. Meanwhile the Mineduc gives the school permission for a matrícula provisoria, a provisional enrolment, even without the previous year's report. The class is determined by the report you bring, the years the child did not attend school, or age. If your child has no papers, age on 31 March of the year of enrolment counts. For prekinder, kinder and the first year of primary school no provisional enrolment is needed.

Bring the original reports and the latest diploma, with an apostille. Chile takes part in the Apostille Convention. According to ChileAtiende, notarised copies or scans are not accepted, and documents in another language need a translation. Without originals, age determines the class.