For the past decades international organisations and governments have promoted and implemented analogous education policies on the grounds that education is the key factor to foster development and fight poverty. This article sets the context of these educational programmes and analyses their discourse on poverty in Argentina and Chile. Then, it shows how they institutionalise strict surveillance, institutional denigration of the poor and professional scepticism. In general, the conclusions underpin one hypothesis that leads the analysis: eventually, these targeted education policies "pedagogise" poverty alleviation in that they aim to "instil flexible identities" into the poor rather than open channels for social inclusion.