El Ciudadano
In a public statement, students from the Juan Gómez Millas Campus at the University of Chile proposed five structural demands for the current context, with the foremost being «real and universal free public education, without debt and without conditions».
«Since the beginning of José Antonio Kast’s government, we have witnessed a rapid resurgence of the student movement. Mobilizations have multiplied in response to budget cuts to public education, the ‘Protected Schools’ project, and the brutal police repression exercised during protests,» they stated as their primary point.
«However,» they added, «it would be irresponsible to be content with just that. Opposing current measures in the immediate sense without constructing alternatives for the future is a form of politics we have already experienced, and the costs have been paid.» They emphasized that «the cycle ending cannot find us the same as when it began.»
«Kast’s rise to power does not merely signify the victory of the far-right: it also marks the death certificate of a progressive project that failed (or did not want) to fulfill its historical promises. The former ruling coalition led by Gabriel Boric and the Broad Front, which came to power under the banners of the student movement, did not address any of the demands that drove us to the streets in 2006 or in 2011,» the statement clarified.
«Market-oriented education persists. Profit motives remain present. Student debt still exists. And today, we are also witnessing the active dismantling of the few advances that had been achieved. Recognizing this reality is not a coup nor complicity with the right: it is an exercise in honesty and political rigor. We cannot build a solid student project without clearly understanding the reasons for our defeats,» they added.
Demands
For the students at the Juan Gómez Millas Campus, «recovering the identity of the student movement means revisiting the debate on what kind of education we want.»
In this context, they formally presented the following structural demands: Real and universal free public education, without debt and without conditions; recognition of the social role of knowledge and the university serving the needs of the people, not the market; ending the precarization of labor for educational workers; a structural response to the mental health crisis among students, exacerbated by a competitive educational model; and explicit rejection of the ‘Protected Schools’ project and any policy that privatizes or militarizes educational spaces.
«Fragmentation is the primary weapon of neoliberalism. Therefore, our response cannot be individual or ephemeral. We need to rearticulate our organizational spaces that transcend the electoral cycles of student federations and the plenaries of Confech. Bonds of solidarity and cooperation must strengthen in the hallways, as well as in faculty assemblies and gatherings among students,» the statement emphasizes.
At this point, they called for discussions on these matters to be «broad and inclusive» and that «the desire to participate should not depend on the charisma of leaders but on the robustness of collective projects. Every student approaching a mobilization should find reasons to stay, contribute, and build community.»
«As mobilized students from the Juan Gómez Millas Campus of the University of Chile, we urge our peers to organize and rise together for better education. To those who are already mobilized: we invite you to come together, support each other, and build lasting ties that extend beyond this government and the ones to come,» they stated.
«It is not enough to oppose the current atrocity. It is necessary to raise a social project capable of confronting and overcoming it. That project is built collectively or it will not be built at all,» the statement concludes.
We will continue to provide updates.
La entrada Students at Juan Gómez Millas Campus Demand Real and Universal Free Public Education Without Debt or Conditions se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.
🔥 Ver noticia completa en ElCiudadano.cl 🔥
