Why are high school students mobilizing in Chile?

Massive evasions of public transportation, classes in the streets, protests, and marches to the Ministry of Education have become daily occurrences in Chile during the last weeks.

High school students have carried out all these actions. Sputnik talked to two student leaders to know the reasons for the mobilization.

A real déjà vu is being experienced in the streets of Santiago de Chile during the last weeks and with more force since the referendum of September 4, which buried the proposal for a new constitution.

Thousands of high school students have interrupted the service of the Santiago Metro, the primary means of transportation in the capital, with massive evasions. A situation that already occurred in October 2019 and triggered the social outbreak.

“We high school students have been actively mobilizing in the streets because we do not see real guarantees of obtaining won before our list of demands, and no government in office has had the political will to solve our historical problems,” Gael Palape, spokesman for the Coordinating Assembly of High School Students (ACES), told Sputnik.

Since the student demonstrations of the so-called “mochilazo” of 2001, high school students have been in constant mobilization to demand educational guarantees, such as, for example, a free school pass and quality public education.

“We have been mobilizing for years for the same shortcomings in our education, and all we have received are gestures and excuses but no solutions. They promise us heaven, sea, and land and leave us with the same misery,” commented the ACES spokesperson.

This time, internal demands are added to the historical demands of the students, mainly from public educational establishments, due to a lack of infrastructure and materials for classes.

Amanda Sepúlveda, vice-president of the student center of Liceo N°1 Javiera Carrera, an emblematic establishment of Chilean education, told Sputnik that her school has no infrastructure, not enough bathrooms, rooms with humidity problems, and even fungus.

The COVID-19 pandemic aggravated all this.

“With the pandemic, public education declined and worsened; almost nothing was learned in online classes. Students’ mental health worsened with the confinement and, with the return to classes, the experience of the abandonment and deterioration of public high schools became evident,” the student leader recounted.

“We demand better study and eating conditions, better infrastructure internally, and, obviously, we join the general demands for a better education”, concluded Sepúlveda.

BETWEEN EDUCATIONAL DEMANDS AND A NEW CONSTITUTION

On September 14, the Confederation of Students of Chile (Confech), Chile’s main university student organization, mobilized to demand a new constituent process.

“In this student call, we will march for the constituent process to be carried out with the conditions that the people of Chile demand”, they indicated on the social networks of the student organization.

Regarding the demand for a new constituent process, Sepúlveda explained to Sputnik that there are two currents in the secondary student mobilization of recent times.

“There is a sector that favors a new Constituent Assembly. But there is another branch of the mobilization that goes more than anything else for general demands and against the Government and the institutionality,” said the young leader.

“I would say that it is fought over in these terms. However, these two currents relate to each other, participate among themselves with their demands, and participate in social mobilization.

“But I would say that, more than anything else, the mobilization right now is focusing on general demands, not so much on the Constituent Assembly,” she finished.

“STREET PROTEST IS OUR ONLY GUARANTEE”

“Everyone has the right to education. Education is a primary and unavoidable duty of the State,” states the constitutional proposal rejected last September 4.

The proposal also defined education as “a process of formation and permanent learning throughout life, indispensable for the exercise of other rights and the country’s scientific, technological, economic, and cultural activity”.

ACES spokesman Gael Palape told Sputnik regarding the referendum that “in the face of this supposed triumph of rejection, we lose certain possibilities we had to change our education.”

“But then, on September 4, we realize again that street protest is our only guarantee at this time and that only we, taking control of our communities, will be able to make the real and great changes. Something we have been insisting on for years,” said Palape.

“The mobilization at this time is extremely important, both to demonstrate and show that we are organized and to stress and build together the society and education that we long for and deserve,” said the ACES spokesman.

For Sepúlveda, “with the triumph of the rejection, the students understood that in reality, the constituent process was important so that the demands we have could be resolved in the short, medium and long term, and that we could finally study as we should”.

Finally, the leader of Liceo N°1, Javiera Carrera, pointed out: “There will always be mobilization until the demands and petitions are met”.

With information from Sputnik

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