Back on the streets in Chile

Chilean students are back on the streets. More than 180,000 marched on 16 April under the slogan “Ni corruptos ni empresarios, que Chile decida su educación” (Neither corrupt politicians nor business, Chileans must decide their education).

The first major education march of the year called on students, teachers, parents and other social organisations to mobilise for real change in, not just band aid reforms on, the country’s broken university system.

Organisers estimate that 150,000 people marched in the capital, Santiago, and 10,000 each in Concepcion and Valparaiso. Demonstrations also took place in seven other cities. Unlike earlier marches, this protest was jointly called by the umbrella university student union (CONFECH) and the national teachers’ union (Colegio de Profesores). It was also supported by secondary students, parents’ organisations, trade unions and other groups such as environmental, local resident and feminist organisations.

The march rejected the current education reform processes. Specific demands focused on genuine student and community participation in political decision making and the implementation of promised reforms, such as recently approved corporate tax reforms to fund promised free universal higher education from 2016.

Already, a range of conservatives are talking about loans, limited scholarships and the like, while Bachelet’s minister for education has mentioned the need for strong economic reform to assist with footing the bill.

Such plans would involve further attacks on working people, students and the poor as Chile’s mining boom comes to an end. Other politicians have signalled that “tough decisions” will be needed, and have pitted reforms against each other – such as increased teacher wages against more funding for early childhood education.

Amid a wave of scandals facing corrupt politicians, people were also mobilised against the Chilean political establishment. Demonstrators demanded transparency and direct involvement with the budget.

There is a crisis of legitimacy for the ruling political-business elite. Among others, president Bachelet’s son and daughter-in-law have been implicated and are currently being investigated for conflict of interest. Chilean newspaper El Mostrador reported that secondary school union leader Claudia Arévalo yelled from the protest platform: “All politicians must go!”

Student leaders said that the mass protest was the first of many this year, urging a return to 2011 when Chilean students “owned the streets”.

Valentina Saavedra, spokesperson for the CONFECH, told online newspaper diaroUchile: “We see that it is not only the educational sector who is feeling the discomfort, but also different actors of organised society. Today we saw fathers, mothers, whole families marching, workers, residents through to students, and we believe that it is essential for progress...

“We have no business backing to give us the power to make changes, we have only the expression and mass presence in the streets that can finally deliver once we are ready to mobilise together.” The movement, she said, is “not interested in a policy tailored for the bosses, nor agreements imposed from above; what we want is the real participation of society”.

The size and character of this remobilisation of the student movement in Chile, on the back of a decade of organisation and protest, may well signal the beginning of a crisis for the increasingly discredited centre left government.