Chile police clash with students, 150 arrested

Reuters

SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT: A demonstrator runs away from teargas released from a riot police vehicle during a rally in downtown Santiago. Groups of students and teachers have clashed with Chilean riot police to protest against a proposed education reform.

Reuters

SLIPPERY SLOPE: A demonstrator is hit by a police water cannon during a rally in downtown Santiago.

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Hundreds of Chilean students and teachers have fought riot police armed with tear gas and water cannons in the capital, the latest protest against an unpopular education reform bill.

Police said they arrested 150 people, 82 of them youths, after police were pelted with stones and two officers were injured.

Teachers and students want President Michelle Bachelet to withdraw an education bill from Congress under which an education superintendent would regulate government funds for public schools.

Protesters say the bill does not address concerns that Chile's education system is being privatized, and they believe that the education of poorer students will suffer at ill-funded state schools as a result of the measure.

"We are protesting against a bill that does not take into account or develop the aspirations of students or teachers," said history teacher Luis Vicencio, a protest leader.

"The responsibility of the state is to provide public education, so that the children of the poorest can study free," he added. "With this bill, that is lost."

As he spoke, medics tended to one protester lying on the capital's main artery, the Alameda, who suffered a head injury after he was doused by a water cannon.

Jaime Gajardo, president of Chile's National College of Teachers, said four professors were wounded.

"We are going to keep protesting," said Arturo Martinez, president of the CUT, Chile's largest umbrella workers' union, which joined the teachers' protest. He said his group was planning a two-day nationwide strike but did not announce a date.

"We will do everything we have to, responsibly, to block this reform."

A poll published this month showed Bachelet's approval rating fell in June for a third month due to protests by students and teachers against the education bill and quickening inflation that hit a 17-year high in June.

In June, thousands of teachers and students protested against the bill, which has been passed by the lower house of congress. The senate has yet to vote on it. The bill would replace a law in place since the end of Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship.