[Marxism] Chilean high-schoolers strike for more teachers, schools, and end of education fees

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The students seem inspired by the French students, but also quite
affected by the rising priority of education characterizing Cuba and
Venezuela.  The Times report oozes hope that Bachelet will
simultaneously admit "there is no alternative" and discredit herself by
cracking down.
Fred Feldman

June 5, 2006

Chilean Promised a New Deal; Now Striking Youth Demand It

By
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/larry_roht
er/index.html?inline=nyt-per> LARRY ROHTER

SANTIAGO,
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritorie
s/chile/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> Chile, June 4 - Less than three
months after she took office promising to lead a government that
welcomed greater citizen participation, President Michelle Bachelet is
facing her first domestic crisis. To the surprise of many here, the
challenge comes not from the right but from a group expected to be
sympathetic to her center-left coalition: high school students.

In protests that began in mid-May, more than 700,000 teenagers have
walked out of classes at public high schools, demanding the overhaul of
an education system they say is inferior and discriminatory. They have
occupied several hundred schools, sleeping there overnight with
sympathetic parents bringing them meals, and last week thousands marched
in the streets of the capital here and in other cities in this nation of
16 million.

Ms. Bachelet, a 54-year-old pediatrician and a survivor of Gen.
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/augusto_pi
nochet/index.html?inline=nyt-per> Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, took
office March 11 as the first woman to be elected president of Chile and
as a symbol of its reconciliation with its dark past. She campaigned on
the promise of more tolerant and nurturing leadership, and the students
- teenagers with no memories of the Pinochet era and its political
repression - seem to have taken her at her word.

Their demands include more teachers and school construction, so as to
reduce class sizes, and also the elimination of fees for the national
college entrance exam and free bus fare. With prices of copper, the
country's chief export, at record highs and government coffers bulging
with years of budget surpluses, the students maintain that the state can
afford to invest more in education.

The protesters are clearly idealistic, as evidenced by a banner of
solidarity hanging outside an elite private school that evokes the May
1968 student uprising in France: "Be realistic, demand the impossible."

In his last act before stepping down in 1990 after almost 17 years in
power, General Pinochet issued a decree greatly reducing the central
government's involvement in and supervision of education. Instead,
authority was shifted to communities and education was opened to free
market forces, with private companies allowed to compete with the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/rom
an_catholic_church/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Roman Catholic Church,
traditionally the main provider source of private schooling.

Since the return of democracy, financing for public education has
tripled and poverty has been reduced by half. But inequalities persist,
both among regions and between public and private schools. On average,
according to one recent study, private schools spend at least five times
more per pupil than the poorest public schools do.

The student movement enjoys widespread popular support here. The backing
increased last week after the national police beat some marchers and
sprayed others, a few as young as 12 and many dressed in black and white
school uniforms, with tear gas and water cannons. The head of the police
special forces unit has since been fired, and Ms. Bachelet has condemned
what she described as the "excesses, abuses and unjustified violence."

In a speech to the nation on Thursday night, Ms. Bachelet, who is
scheduled to visit the United States later this week, announced a
$135-million-a-year package that includes a free lunch program for the
poorest students, the repair or renovation of up to 1,200 public schools
and the elimination of the $40 college exam fee. "The state will be the
guarantor of a quality education for all Chileans," she promised, adding
that the nation's youth deserved "to be able to study in dignified
conditions."

But on Friday, the main student leaders rejected the proposal, saying it
was not generous enough. They said they would renew their protests on
Monday, and teachers and university students and professors have pledged
to join them.

"In a democracy, everyone has the right to mobilize," Ms. Bachelet
responded Saturday in a radio interview in which she referred to the
striking students as "los chiquillos," which translates as the kids or
youngsters. "But the truth is that this is the maximum the government
can offer."

She added, "The reforms will go ahead with or without a strike."


 <http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html> Copyright
2006  <http://www.nytco.com/> The New York Times Company
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