The 2006 student protests in Chile (also known as the Penguins' Revolution or The March of the Penguins, because of the students' uniform) were a series of ongoing student voice protests carried out by high school students across Chile (from late April to early June 2006) against the privatization of the Chilean education system, implemented by dictator Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s. The protests peaked on May 30, when 790,000 students adhered to strikes and protests throughout the country, becoming Chile's largest student demonstration in three decades and the first political crisis of president Michelle Bachelet's administration.
Over 400 educational establishments adhered to the protests and paralyzed all classes and extracurricular activities. The protests started with the early and organized support of 100 establishments (schools) that started taking action on Friday, May 26.
Amongst the students' short-term demands were free travel passes on buses and the waiving of the university admissions test (PSU) fee, while the longer term demands included: the abolition of the Organic Constitutional Act of Teaching (LOCE), the end to municipalization of subsidized education, a reform to the Full-time School Day policy (JEC) and a quality education for all.
On June 1, Bachelet addressed the nation by television, announcing several new measures for education that met most of the students' demands. On June 7 the president announced a 73-member presidential advisory committee – promised by Bachelet on her speech to discuss the students' long-term demands – which included six seats reserved for high school students. Initially hesitant to join the committee, on June 9 the student assembly finally accepted the invitation and called for an immediate end to strikes and school take-overs.
On August 23, around 2,000 students were marching in Santiago and other cities in the country, in protest of the slow speed that the reforms were taking place. The rally eventually got violent when small groups turned away from the peaceful demonstrations and started throwing rocks at the police. The police responded with tear gas and water cannons. More than 200 of the demonstrators were arrested and over a dozen were injured.
Background
The Organic Constitutional Act of Teaching or LOCE (Act Nº 18,962) was enacted on March 7, 1990, and came into force on March 10, the last day of Pinochet's 16 year dictatorship. Despite being widely criticized by both students and teachers as well as the ruling coalition (Concertación), it has remained largely unmodified since the restoration of democracy.
Critics of LOCE point out that it reduces the state's participation in education to a solely regulatory and protective role, whilst the true responsibility of education has been transferred to private and public corporations (public schools being managed by local governments — Municipalidades), thus reducing the participation that students, parents, teachers and non-academic employees had previously enjoyed in their schools.
During the 1990s, one of the main objectives of the Concertación administration was a so-called Educational Reform. One of the main pillars of this reform, launched during the Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle administration, was the Jornada Escolar Completa, JEC (Full-time School Day policy) — a plan to increase the hours that high school students actually spend in classrooms (in many cases not increasing the number of additional classrooms and other infrastructure required). However, many consider that the quality of education has dropped to worrying levels despite the high level of government spending on public education. Studies have shown that the JEC still has not been correctly implemented nor has it achieved the desired results.La Tercera, 2 October 2005, «Colegios subvencionados critican jornada escolar completa»
Since 2000 a new demand has emerged with respect to the transport system's school pass and the new University Selection Test, and although much progress was made in some areas, the core of the students' demands have remained unsolved as of 2006.
The Penguin Movements were not a new phenomenon: its roots lie in the nineteenth century. Modern Chile has one of the highest levels of inequality in the world. Yet the country enjoyed a remarkable political stability since the return to democracy in 1990. In October 2019, though, what had seemed to be an oasis within Latin America erupted as the most intense and dramatic social unrest in Chilean recent history. Inequality is at the root of this social earthquake. The President and his advisors seemed to be puzzled: they thought that the negative consequences of inequality on well-being had been counterbalanced by the high average income of Chileans. If Chile wants to continue human-capital based development following the model of high-income countries, stronger redistribution elements in the tax system are necessary to reduce inequality.
Initial demonstrations
On April 25, 2006, the first mobilization took place at the A-45 Carlos Cousiño high school in Lota, the students took over the school demanding better infrastructure conditions. Every year the school was flooded by the rains.
Following the announcement on April 26 of a new increase in fees for the PSU (up to $28,000 Chilean Pesos or around US$50) and the rumored introduction of a new restriction in the students' transport pass (Pase Escolar) that would limit reduced bus fares to only two travels per day, several public schools in Santiago organized demonstrations in the Alameda Avenue (Santiago's main street) demanding gratuity for transport passes, bus fares and university admissions tests. These demonstrations ended in some outbursts of violence — the Carabineros (the uniformed police) subsequently arrested 47 secondary students on April 26.«Con 47 detenidos termina marcha de escolares al Mineduc»
(HTML). La Tercera. 26 April 2006. Archived from the original on March 21, 2008. Accessed 19 June 2011.
In the following days, new demonstrations took place without the permission of the regional authority. Despite the Ministry of Education acceding to minor demands, the students were left unsatisfied.La Tercera, 7 May 2006, «Estudiantes secundarios convocan movilización nacional para el 10 de mayo»
On May Day, secondary students of Santiago took part in a massive demonstration on Parque Almagro, near downtown Santiago. Violence again erupted and 1,024 students were arrested by the police in Santiago as well as in other cities throughout the country.La Tercera, 10 May 2006, «Más de mil detenidos dejan protestas estudiantiles en todo el país» The violence was consequently condemned by the Government.
Take-overs
Following three weeks of protests, little progress for the students' demands had been achieved. A turning point arose when students of the prestigious school Instituto Nacional and Liceo de Aplicación overran the school campuses during the night of May 19, 2006Radio W, 19 May 2006, «Alumnos del Instituto Nacional y Liceo de Aplicación se declararon en toma» demanding an improvement in the educational reform including: the ending of the system of schools being run by municipalities (present since 1982), the abolition of the LOCE, as well as a clear declaration by President Bachelet in her traditional May 21 speech to the National Congress. In her speech, the President only indirectly referred to the students' demands and instead focused in condemning the students' recent acts of violence.
The government's reply did not satisfy the students' leaders who called for the continuation of demonstrations, even though the Instituto Nacional students desisted in its school take-over in exchange for a school strike which was supported by teachers, parents and the school administrators alike.Radio Cooperativa, 22 May 2006, Occupations of several Liceos (public high schools) continued — among others Liceo A-13 (formerly, Confederación Suiza) and Liceo Carmela Carvajal — and two failed attempts to occupy the Liceo José Victorino Lastarria in Providencia.Radio Cooperativa, 22 May 2006, «Alumnos terminaron toma del Lastarria tras acuerdo con alcalde» Although peaceful, the occupations were rejected by the government and the Education Minister Martín Zilic, broke off negotiations stating that he would not come back to the table as long as the mobilizations continued.La Tercera, 23 May 2006 «Ministro de Educación insiste en un diálogo con los estudiantes pero sin tomas»
However, the ministerial strategy of avoiding dialogue did not work out. Since April 24, there were fourteen schools either occupied or on strike including the Liceo Nº1 de Niñas — the school that President Bachelet herself attended as a student.La Tercera, 24 May 2006, «A catorce aumentan los liceos que protagonizan movilizaciones escolares»
That same night, eleven schools in Santiago downtown, Ñuñoa, Estación Central, La Cisterna, Maipú, Providencia and Recoleta were occupied by students.Radio Cooperativa, 25 May 2006, The students received political support from deputies from the governing coalition, the College of Teachers and other institutions, leaving Minister Zilic in a fragile position. He finally called for a new round of negotiations with "all representatives of schools in conflict" which was scheduled for the following Monday May 29.La Tercera, 25 May 2006 «Zilic se abre a negociar con liceos movilizados» Throughout the day, more schools were occupied in Arica, Iquique, Valparaíso, Rancagua and Concepción.
+School movementDateOccupiedOn StrikeTotalFriday 19202Sunday 21202Monday 22145Tuesday 236814Wednesday 24171027Thursday 25241640Friday 26~30> 70> 100Tuesday 30320> 100> 420 On May 26, the situation escalated, as students from Maipú, San Miguel, Las Condes, Puente Alto and Pudahuel carried out peaceful marches and private schools adhered to the events. One-hundred thousand students (and up to a 100 schools) were on mass demonstrations throughout the country. Meanwhile, the ACES called for a national strike on Tuesday May 30,La Tercera, 26 May 2006, «Cerca de 100 mil estudiantes se movilizan y confirman paro nacional para el martes» which was supported by the Student Federation of the University of Chile (FECH),FECH.cl, 26 May 2006, «Pleno FECH convoca a movilizaciones para el martes 30 de mayo» and the Teachers National Union.La Tercera, 27 May 2006, «Co docentes convocan a paro en apoyo a estudiantes y por reivindicaciones propias»
Public opinion became increasingly critical of the government and its mishandling of the crisis, forcing President Bachelet to express her will to reestablish a dialogue "in an agenda without exclusions" but reaffirming that this new stand was not a contradiction nor a defeat: "What we have here is the decision to sit down to talk and listen. There will be things which we agree on and there will be others which we do not".La Tercera, 26 May 2006, «Bachelet: Los estudiantes secundarios "no le han doblado la mano al gobierno"»
The last opportunity to avoid a nationwide strike was the meeting called by the Minister Zilic with the representatives of the schools in conflict. However, this meeting was not presided by the minister himself but rather by the deputy minister Pilar Romaguera, a situation which was rejected by the students. In addition, the site chosen for the negotiations did not have the capacity for the approximately one hundred student representatives, leading to the secondary students refusing to continue the negotiations unless all school representatives were in one room.El Mercurio, 29 May 2006, «Estudiantes acusan "falta de respeto" y rompen mesa de diálogo» The government maintained confidence in continuing negotiations, refusing to consider the situation as a failure and insisting that a small step had been achieved.