Chile's Students Strike for Free and Public Education

from The Nation:



Watch video: http://www.thenation.com/video/162843/chiles-students-strike-free-and-public-education


In Chile, the average monthly minimum wage is $385, while the average monthly college tuition costs $485. Upon graduating, Chilean students are on average saddled with $40,000 in debt.

But Chilean students are no longer willing to accept this state of affairs, and have taken over university campuses demanding accessible education for all of the country’s students. The students argue that the country has the resources to provide free public education for all Chileans, if only some of policies of neoliberal privatization begun under dictator Augusto Pinochet are reversed. High school and university students have taken to the streets, refusing to resume classes until the Ministry of Education approves the system of systematic changes that the Students Federation is demanding. Despite their radicalized movement, and a dangerous hunger strike by more than thirty students, President Sebastián Piñera has refused to meet their demands, saying that “nothing is free in this life.”


http://www.thenation.com/video/162843/chiles-students-strike-free-and-public-education

I can think of to describe his and a LOT of U.S. folk's attitudes. "Nothing is free" but they are expected to give more than they can ever make?? People like him will burn - if there IS a God.

loved Pinochet because he let them remake the country's economy in their own twisted, sociopathic image. Chickens are coming home to roost.

n/t

We in the Latin American Forum have been keeping an eye on the student movement for several weeks. There is no end in sight to the crisis that has Pinera's right-wing administration in a serious bind. In a poll several days ago, his approval rating was 26 percent, mostly because of the student crisis.

Read about Camila here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x54799

and about yesterday's (Aug. 18) March of the Umbrellas (the latest massive demonstration).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x55037

Next week, a two-day national strike to support the students. Stay tuned.