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Published: June 30th 2006
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No tests or quizes
Sign at the University- basically refering to all Humanities classes, for which classes were cancelled for a week This past week has been pretty intense in Chile, and I'm still trying to get a full grasp of what's going on.
Basically... Santiago's high school students have somehow organized to such an extent as to have all the high schools throughout the country go on strike, demanding better education. More specifically, they are demanding that the college entrance exam be free, and also that the government to away with the LOCE law, which was put in place by Pinochet and gives control of education over to the municipalities. The students say both of these two factors ultimately hurt the poorest students and contribute to a very weak education system in Chile.
The students have an amazing amount of support and are all over the media. Every night the news has been covering the strike, or "paro," and the main student leaders are getting interviewed and written about in the papers. I find them very mature, and am still amazed at the organization of this strike. From the southern tip of Chile in Punta Arenas to the very north, all the high schools are on strike! The student leaders have even been meeting with the Ministry of Education and
University faculties on strike
(Going down) Theology, history, geography, political science, sociology, letters, philosophy, theater, music, art, communications, aesthetics, social work, education members of the government. One thing I found interesting was that, last week, the Communist party wanted to meet with the students but they turned down the meeting, not wanting to make the demand for better education a partisan issue.
Beyond the high schools however, even Chile's universities are participating in the strike, in solidarity with the students. There have been signs all over La Católica, and all classes in the Humanities are on strike. That means that the teachers still go to class, but there have been no more than a handful of students. This has meant 2 days without history, and while the econ department is supposedly not on strike, one day hardly anyone came and instead of class we just went over some of the readings.
The student leaders have asked for a comination of a demonstrational strike, out in the street, and also more peaceful demonstrations just within the schools. Some of my friends went down to Santiago's main street, La Alameda, on the first main day of the strike (Tues, May 28), and were actually tear-gassed. The tear-gas continued Weds, and I went Thursday since I didn't have history that day anyway. There
Water tank
Would move up and down Santiago's principle street, La Alameda, shooting water at the kids. It was a cycle between the kids throwing rocks at the tanks and the tanks spraying them back with water was no tear gas, and there were much fewer students. According to what my friend told me from that Tuesday, the students on Thursday were much more haphazard, and no one was in school uniform, as all the students were on Tuesday. It seemed to be that the group was losing focus. Tanks were moving up and down La Alameda shooting water at the large groups of students when they began throwing rocks at the tanks, and trucks filled with policemen would also drive up and down, get out, and periodically bring someone back and put them in their truck.
I never felt like I was really in danger, although there were a few moments where we would catch ourselves in between the police and the students, which we quickly got out of. So while I never felt in danger, I still was in a weird, disturbed type mood all afternoon while watching all this happen. I know this is a very important time for Chile right now, and it's exciting to be here to witness such an incredible student movement, but it was strange to see it come down to students throwing rocks at policemen in the name
Locked up
All the stores along the main street closed up- but everyone stuck around to watch what was going on of a better education system... Granted, the students who were still out on the streets by the end of the week were probably those who identified more with the throwing of rocks than the unequal educational structure, while the other students had done their part already and were probably protesting within the school... In any case, it was disheartening and I felt sad leaving the protests, although very ready to leave.
The students are meeting with the President and the Ministry of Education on Friday to negotiate. If the government doesn't meet their wishes they are going to call a national strike on Monday.
UPDATE: Following the Friday meeting, the students did in fact call the national strike, and none of the high schools were in session. The "action" on La Alamenda was subdued. Since then, the strikes have been called off and the government has formed a committee to specifically address the demands of the students (students are included on the committee). Since they called off the strike, I have not heard anything on the news on the issue. It seemed to have dropped away as suddenly as it came about...
Here's a brief article on
The police
All over the area. The shields were needed to protect them from rocks, although the news showed the police also using the shields against the students it from 6/13/06: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/06/13/chile.students.ap/index.html
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