MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Thousands of Chilean students take to the streets to protest education reform proposal
Thousands of Chilean students marched in the capital Santiago on Tuesday to protest what they see as an inadequate proposal for education reform put forward by center-left President Michelle Bachelet, who took office in March. The second major student demonstration in two months was joined by many high school and university instructors. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesStill protesting!
Jun 11th, 2014 - 08:43 am - Link - Report abuse 0Seems the left isn't the panacea that so many gloated about.
Students are impatient. Bachelet did not do too much to reform the education system last time she was in power and to expect rapid change this time is expecting too much.
Jun 11th, 2014 - 10:33 am - Link - Report abuse 0It is going to take a long time to fix a system that has been so divided for so long. Demanding so much for free is not realistic. Accepting change by steps is.
Where is Think to defend her “mommy” now?
Jun 11th, 2014 - 12:49 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Reforms are not going to solve anything. The roots of the universitarian issue in Chile is totally undetected yet. There are TOO MANY students in Chile (33% of the population between 18 and 30, higher than in most Western European Nations), having to fight for a limited amount of adecuate jobs later on. Getting even more people to study is going to worsen the rivalry of the Situation.
What Chile needs, is a kind of institutionalised and official aprenticeship for technical Jobs, which do NOT require a University career. similar to the “Ausbildung” in Germany, which takes about 3 years.
If the cost education in Chile is going to be removed (and perhaps subsistence support provided) there will be many more “students”.
Jun 11th, 2014 - 01:03 pm - Link - Report abuse 0If no charge is made for anything then the users value it at ZERO. This is always the case due to human nature being what it is and education is no different.
@ManRod
Jun 11th, 2014 - 01:40 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I agree. Well focused funding for the right amount of the right professionals is what we need.
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Bachelet promised everything during the election and she is not going to deliver. By the time she is done we will have higher public spending, lower growth, higher taxes. That would be acceptable if in return we got an improved educational system, but that is looking less likely as ideological zeal starts to distort the reform process.
One of the first step of the education reform is to buy all the private-subsidised schools. ManRod or TCP might correct me on this, but I think I read the figure of US 4000 million as the cost of buying the private-subsidised schools!
So in one step they will purchase hundreds of empty buildings, destroy the budget, reduce choice and lose the financial contribution that millions of parents currently make (by choice) towards education.
I can't see an upside to this and I can't see it improving education.
The students should link with their compatriots in Venezuela, who are suffering from reppression daily;
Jun 11th, 2014 - 10:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Why is Mercopress NOT reporting on the chaos in Venezuela?
People are dying.
The Government is massively corrupt.
There is critical insecurity and constant danger in the streets.
A critical lack of medicine.
The World’s highest Inflation Rate.
A critical lack of basic goods and services.
An ideological take-over leading to a Vene-Cuban form of enforced indentured state-dependency.
Widespread media censorship.
Constant repression of political opposition.
THOUSANDS illegally jailed without trial.
Daily torture and abuse of the Human Rights of the population.
Why does Latin America remain silent?
Why is Mercopress NOT reporting on the chaos in Venezuela?
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