The year of unrest is global; La Croix: In Chile, the students clamor for equality in education

Very rough translation:

Chilean students demand a massive revision of the education system.

Protests continue in strength, three months after the first demonstrations.

We hear again the "cacerolazos" in Santiago. Each evening at nine o'clock one hears the banging of pots and pans- a ritual of protest born during the Pinochet dictatorship- resonate throughout the streets of the Chilean capital.

This din of discontent is lead by university students and their supporters (their families, chiefly), who are attempting to convince the government to loosen its grip in an interminable contest of wills over reform to the education system.

"The educational system of Pinochet will fall"

The mobilization of the Chilean students is one of unprecedented scope and resolute commitment. For three months the "Marches for Education", in Santiago, Valparaiso and Concepcion, have left the public universities largely paralyzed.

Tuesday, August 9, despite forceful police pressure at the previous week's protest, tens of thousands marched down the Alameda, the central artery of Santiago, chanting "it will fall, it will fall, the education of Pinochet!"

This revolt, supported by 80% of Chileans, according to the daily newspaper El Pais, does not so much target the current educational policy of the conservative government of Presdent Pinera as it does the entire legacy of the past.

Successive Governments Accused of Favoring Private Education

The current policy is a distinguishing feature of the depth of neoliberalism during the Pinochet years which the return of democracy has not corrected, and which the young generations are made to bear the mark of. The succeeding governments are accused themselves of favoring private education- and at an increasing cost.

Chile, which devotes 3.4% of its GDP to education (2008), is one of the few countries in the world where the public sector accounts for less than half of the students. 61.8% of higher education students attend, at great cost, private universities whose tuition is not subsidized by the state. By way of comparison, the rate is 20% in neighboring Argentina, and 1% in France. Obliged to take out loans, young graduates arrive on the employment market weakened by a Sword of Damocles of indebtedness that sometimes hangs menacingly overhead a full fifteen years.

"For 35 years, the private education sector has been strengthened by tax-exemptions from the state which, at the same time, freed this sector from all obligations as an institution," contends Bruno Córdova, in his last year as an advertising student at the University of Santiago.

He deplores that "the losses are socialized and the profits privatized. People are outraged by this model."

Mobilisation For Social Rights

The protests express a structural malaise. For Matías Bianchi, a political scientist with the Latin American think tank Asuntos del Sur, "it is not an act of ideological warfare against the Pinera government, but a complex movement, organized and mature, which demands social rights appropriate to the country's thriving economy" (9.8% growth in the first quarter of 2011).

But the negotiations do not advance. "There is a certain intransigence on both sides," notes Ismaël Calabrán, an architecture student at the University of Santiago. "The government refuses to consider a modification to the constitution- which dates to 1980 and the Pinochet era- while the students insist that the principle of equity and free education be inscribed in the text of the law."

The Students Organizations are Tenacious

As the standoff continues, last Tuesday the students of the prestigious Universidad Católica, a private university, shut down their campus for the first time. "Some students want to get back to work, above all so as not to lose a school year that their parents pay dearly for: when this cost is exactly why the other students are in the streets!" notes Ismaël ironically.

As for the government, President Pinera has seen his popularity plummet (his approval rating of 26% is the lowest of any president since the return of democracy), weighed down by the conflict with the students and discontent among the country's copper miners.  

The heat will only rise. With characteristic tenacity the student organizations have announced a new demonstration: on September 3rd, they hope to bring 500,000 people into the streets of Santiago.

Article in the original French here.

Photo: AFP?Daniel Caselli; Latin-American's protest before the Chilean embassy in Montevideo, Uruguay, in support of Chilean university students, August 10, 2011.