“It’s a national disgrace! There’s money for Pinochet and not for education!” With this angry message, the students of Santiago’s Metropolitan Technological University took to the streets in April 1999 to denounce the Chilean government’s generous financing of General Augusto Pinochet’s legal defense while it fails to provide sufficient funding for public universities.[1] The message, emblazoned across a huge banner blocking the entrance to the university’s Macul campus, signalled that the students had taken over the institution.
The students of the Metropolitan University joined students from the other 24 universities in Chile’s public university system in mass protests against inadequate state funding and the authoritarian laws—holdovers from the military dictatorship—that govern the university system. They were demanding greater democracy and transparency within the university, along with a long-term strategy for university development.
These demonstrations were an outgrowth of a wave of mobilizations in 1997. While the mobilizations of 1997 were more widespread in terms of student strikes and campus takeovers, police repression of the 1999 protests was much more violent. Daniel Menco, a University of Tarapacá student, was killed by police on May 21 while protesting in the northern city of Arica. At least six other students were wounded in clashes with police.[2]
It would seem that the student movement, which has been building momentum since the mid-1990s, is causing a great deal of anxiety among the authorities. The Student Federation of the University of Chile (FECH) has played a leading role in the struggle. Its leadership has been under control of the left and has won five consecutive elections.
The FECH was instrumental in the 1997 strikes, which initiated a process of democratization within the governing structures of many state universities. For example, the students of the University of Chile voted to establish a Normative Council, made up of students, professors and administrators, to govern the university. The University of Santiago and the Metropolitan Technological University are adopting similar tripartite commissions and debating which professors have the right to vote, who is considered an administrator, and the decision-making power of the commissions. The students’ struggle for greater democratization in the universities is spreading to other regions as well. In Valparaíso, for example, the University of Playa Ancha, the University of Valparaíso, Santa María University and the Catholic University have all held student congresses in 1999 to push forward internal democratization of the universities.
Current FECH president Alvaro Cabrera sees the root of the crisis in the government’s neoliberal concept of the shrinking state, which, he says, “does not consider education to be a right, especially university education.” According to Cabrera, the government “sees the issue of education in general as a product for consumption like any other.” The government’s funding policies and the legal framework for higher education that it promotes reflect a lack of vision for the universities and for the country, he argues. “That is what the students began to understand in 1995 and confront in a serious way in 1997,” says Cabrera.
The issue of funding is, of course, the major source of contention with the government. The amount of funding provided by the state has consistently failed to meet financial aid needs. In 1999, funds destined for the state university system amounted to 0.67% of GNP, which is below the historic rate of 1% and well under the 1972 rate of 2.2%.[3] The policies of the Concertación government continue to emphasize so-called “self-financing” of the universities, forcing them to become increasingly dependent on private loans and leading to unprecedented levels of indebtedness. The most indebted universities are the University of Chile (which must generate 70% of its own funding), the University of Santiago and the University of Concepción.[4] Students have been highly critical of the mechanisms used to distribute state funds. For example, the government has “borrowed” funds from the Fund for Institutional Development, created after the 1997 protests to finance infrastructure and research to cover deficits in the Solidarity Fund, which gives out scholarships and loans.
The democratization of the structures of government in the universities pushed forward by the students has made the laws regulating higher education inherited from the dictatorship obsolete. There is a need to legislate new laws which would recognize the gains of the student movement. The legislation proposed by the government, known as the “Framing Law,” seeks to limit the participation of the university community in internal decision making. The proposed law states that each of the public universities should be ruled by a superior council and dictates the terms of the council’s composition. It also restricts student participation in the council by limiting the number of student seats to two out of a total of 20.[5] Under this framework, the University of Chile’s Normative Council would be considered illegal. The student movement has successfully kept this law from being introduced in Congress, and the current administration has shelved the law until the next presidential term. “The government knows that when they raise the issue of the Framing Law,” says Cabrera, “the students take to the streets.”
Another problem with this proposed legislation is that it makes no mention of the state’s obligation to fund the public universities—a clear attempt to force state universities to become self-financing. Nor does it take into account the historic mission of the university to produce professionals with a social commitment. Though Cabrera refers to this as a “romantic issue,” he says that it is taken very seriously by student activists.
Another challenge for the student movement is to consolidate the national student federation, the Confederation of Student Federations of Chile (CONFECH)—often the focus of contentious debate—into a clear and more focused organization that addresses the needs of universities nationwide. So far, the CONFECH has agreed on the rejection of the Framing Law and on demanding a series of roundtable negotiations convening students, academics, university presidents, administrators and government authorities. The Concertación has only agreed to meet with each sector separately, however, and according to Cabrera, has not approached the students in a serious way. “The new government will be defining educational funding policies for the next six years,” says Cabrera. “It will find itself face to face with a massive mobilization of students united in their demand for a larger budget and a greater commitment from the state to the public universities.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margot Olavarría is a doctoral candidate in political science at the New School for Social Research. She is currently engaged in fieldwork on social movements in Chile.
NOTES
1. Guillermo Espinoza, “Crisis de financiamiento: Las claves del conflicto,” El Siglo (Santiago), May 28-June 3, 1999, p. 7.
2. “Universidades: La continuidad del conflicto,” El Siglo (Santiago), June 11-17, 1999, p.19.
3. Fernando Sepulveda, “El Gobierno quiere borregos y los estudiantes estamos por alzar la voz,” El Siglo (Santiago), May 21-27, 1999, p. 4.
4. Luis Klener and Claudio Muñoz, “La participación en el ojo de la tormenta,” Punto Final (Santiago), July 1999, p. 10.
5. Luis Klener and Cladio Muñoz, “La participación en el ojo de la tormenta,” p.11.
