More than 150,000 take part in Chilean education march

Tens of thousands of students flooded the streets of Chile on Thursday in one of the largest demonstrations demanding free education.

Student organizers estimated the crowd in the Chilean capital on Thursday at about 150,000 people.

Chilean students have been organising these demonstrations for two years, protesting poor public schools, expensive private universities, unprepared teachers and unaffordable loans.

Thursday's protests were mostly peaceful. Students waved flags, chanted slogans and danced in the streets in a festive atmosphere recalling the creative marches of 2011. But the marches, which are often infiltrated by violent anarchist groups, also ended with clashes between police and hooded vandals. Police arrested 109 people, including 24 minors, and at least six police agents were injured.

The size of the protest showed the strength of the student movement in an election year, said student leader Camila Vallejo.

"This symbolizes that the student and social movement didn't go home and that that the movement is here to stay," student leader Vallejo told local ADN radio.

Chile's higher education burden is the toughest of nearly any nation surveyed by the multi-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, or the OECD. While families in Scandinavian countries pay less than 5 percent of the costs and U.S. families pay more than 40 percent, Chilean households must pay more than 75 percent from their own pockets. The government's share has been enough to provide only the brightest and poorest students with scholarships and grants.
Student leaders want to change the tax system so the rich pay more. They also want the state back in control of the mostly privatized public universities to ensure quality. They say change will come when the private sector is regulated and education is no longer a for-profit business.