Chilean students protest education system

Students carried various signs and chanted their demands for education
reform in Chile at the student protest Thursday evening.

A heterogenous crowd of 5,000 students, parents, teachers and grandparents joined forces on Thursday evening in a march as part of the ongoing student struggle for education reform in Chile.


The march was called partly in response to the events on Tuesday when 21-year-old Anyelo Estrada was accidentally shot in the head while watching a student protest from a fourth story balcony. Police had fired shots into the air hoping to disperse the crowd.

High school student leader Eloisa González denounced police action at Thursday’s march.


Though the march was organized by students, many older protesters came to lend their support.

"The government isn't listening to us so we have to persist and persist," Norma Carvajo, a grandmother at the protest, told The Santiago Times. "We've been at every march since the first one last year."

Despite the claims that the student movement is losing steam after the widespread support it received in 2011, those gathered Thursday still seemed confident in the movement's momentum this year.

"I know I'm as insignificant as a grain of sand. But the masses are still here and so is the desire for change," university student Humberto Sanguineri told The Santiago Times.

-  http://santiagotimes.cl