Tens of thousands of Chilean students are planning to occupy the streets of Santiago on Saturday to protest for free education and to stop the “for profit state policies.”
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The mass rally has been called for by the Confederation of Chilean Students or Confech and the coordinator of debtors and victims of the Chilean educational system, the NGO Deuda Educativa
Education has been at the center of the debate in Chile in recent years due to the country’s infamously expensive and poorly run system that has been steadily privatized.
Demonstrators say the government's promises of free education and an end to private profit in the sector have not been met and they have been protesting since.
“The problem is that many have not realized the problem it means to be indebted just for having studied a career, Nowadays there are about 1.5 million people who are debtors of banks and they will have to pay their credits till their death," spokesman of "Education Debt" Juan Pablo Rojas told teleSUR. “It is urgent to take to the streets to demonstrate dissatisfaction with the banks and they way they continue to profit with our education.”
When President Michelle Bachelet took office in 2014, she promised to implement a number of social measures to reduce inequality. She had served a first term between 2006 and 2010.
The unpopular president, who currently holds a 19 percent approval rating, has been carrying out several reforms to change the educational system. However, last year her government scaled down the reforms as Chile faced an economic downturn.