Students Continue Strike in Chile

Almost 300 schools are closed
On May 19, the Instituto Nacional was occupied by students protesting that the Chilean government should spend windfall revenue earned from high copper prices on education. It was the third school occupied at that time.

Ten days later, almost 300 schools are either occupied or on strike because their demands haven't been heard by the government, according to the students.

On Monday, the students attempted to hold talks with the deputy minister of education. The minister didn't participate, although he had called the meeting.

The students abandoned the conference because some leaders that came from far away provinces, traveling more than 500 kilometers to Santiago, weren't allowed to enter the meeting, as the invitation written by the minister excluded them.

As the situation still goes unresolved, both public and private schools have asked their students to stay at home. Some student bodies are organizing cultural activities to give some meaning to this protest.

Some public universities, such as the Universidad de Chile and Universidad Tecnologica Metropolitana, are also joining the protest and will not attend classes this Tuesday in support to their fellow companions.

The demands:

- Free college entrance exams: The PSU is a test which every student applying to enter a university in Chile must take. It cost about $45, which is expensive for poor families whose children attend public schools where they pay no money to study. The students want that fee waived.

- Free transportation: Public transportation, such as the subway and buses, have a lower fee for public school students, almost 70 percent less. The demand is that transportation to school should be free because the poorest students sometimes don't have money to travel to school.

- Supress the "complete schedule": Public schools in Chile, in order to assure more pupils the chance to study, have a mid-schedule in which they attend school for five hours a day. The government obliged schools to change this from 2007 on, extending the school schedule to eight hours a day. The students think this is not the solution and they want to change this disposition.

- Change the law on education: A law that was implemented 16 years ago that students think has to be changed almost completely because it has failed to resolve problems in the public educational crisis.

This is the worst crisis in schools in Chile since 1972, where it had an ideological focus, much like this one 34 years later which struggles for a better education.

So far, the government's position is that it can not afford to sustain such cost-cutting measures for students if copper prices were to drop.