In Chile, a 23-year-old woman has been leading student protests against the government of President Sebastian Piñera. Her high-profile actions are posing a serious challenge to the government — and may lead to a significant overhaul of the country’s education system, explains César Chelala.
In countries around the world, students have become
increasingly active participants in protests against governments, as recent
events in London and Madrid have shown.
The discontent is not limited to Europe. In March of
2010, student protests led to the cancellation of classes in universities in
San Francisco de Macorís, in the northeast of the Dominican Republic, and in
the country's capital, Santo Domingo. Last December, students in Venezuela,
angered at new laws that they thought tightened the government’s control over
universities, also led several protests.
However, the most widespread student protests are taking
place in Chile. Camila Vallejo Dowling, unknown until a few months ago,
recently became the second female leader in the 105-year history of the
University of Chile’s student union. When student protests gradually started in
May 2011, she quickly became their face and voice, and has led popular protests
and cacerolazos — a kind of popular protest during which participants
bang pots and pans.
The student leader said that the government's strategy of
repressing violence by the students only aggravated the situation by bringing
dialogue to a halt and worsening the political climate in the country.
Students’ demonstrations provoked a drastic fall in popularity of the
government of Chilean billionaire Sebastian Piñera — whose favorability rating
fell to 26% — and obliged him to take emergency measures to confront the
crisis.
Although Vallejo preaches non-violence, she has received
several death threats and has been given police protection. Vallejo wants the
government to assume responsibility for education at the universities which,
according to her, are no longer accessible to the general population. She
acknowledged, however, that it is very difficult to obtain structural reforms
with a rightist government, saying that she and her fellow protestors are
seeking long-term political and educational reform.
Students are demanding a new framework for education in
Chile — in particular, an end to the Chilean school voucher system and its replacement
by a public education system managed by the state. Today in Chile, only 45% of
high school students are in traditional public schools. Most universities are
in private hands.
According to the OECD, college costs in Chile are among
the world's highest. Chilean economist Marcel Claude has found that student
debt is close to 174% of Chilean students’ annual salary upon graduation — and
50% among them are heavily indebted. The average Chilean university student
graduates with $45,000 in debt — a larger burden than even in the United
States, where the comparable figure is about $27,000.
In both countries, this situation threatens to worsen
income inequality — a troubling prospect considering that Chile already ranks
as the world’s 16th-most-unequal country (on par with fellow Latin American
countries El Salvador and Panama), while the United States places 39th (between
Jamaica and Cameroon).
The fact that college is increasingly out of reach for
all but the well-to-do in Chile and the United States threatens to cement the
countries’ unequal socio-economic structures by limiting social mobility and
fostering the "self-replication" of elites. Such entrenched
stratification undercuts an aspirational ethos of politics and society in both
countries: that with a good education, hard work and determination, anybody can
get ahead.
As a response to student demands, President Piñera said
that the government would improve education financing by cutting interest rates
on student loans from 6.4% to 2%, helping indebted students and providing
fellowships. But the government promises did little to control the uprising.
President Piñera’s response to new demonstrations was to
announce $4 billion in new education funds through a new proposal called GANE
(Great National Accord for Education), which was also rejected. Should popular
demonstrations gather further momentum, the government may confront a situation
very difficult to deal with, particularly after workers joined the student
protests.
The majority of Chileans (an estimated 70-80%) support
the student movement, which has been energized by a 48-hour nationwide strike
by the Workers United Center of Chile (CUT). Although Deputy Interior Minister
Rodrigo Ubilla stated that the strike was a “great failure,” the CUT released a
press statement saying that 82 social and labor union organizations had joined
the strike.
When Camila Vallejo was recently asked about the effect
on people of her striking good looks, she responded, “I am attractive and don’t
have any problems in acknowledging it, but I didn’t decide, when I was born,
how I was going to look like. What I decided was which was going to be my
political project and my work with the people.”
In the unstable political situation of present-day Chile,
the leadership of a 23-year-old woman could help chart a new course for her
country.