VALPARAISO: Riot police fired water cannons and hurled tear gas Thursday at protesters who rallied outside Chile's Congress demanding educational reforms.
Hooded youths jumped metal barriers near Congress and hurled rocks and clubs at the police, who responded by firing blasts of high-pressure water from armored trucks.
Thick clouds of tear gas lingered as protesters and police battled for nearly two hours.
The clashes broke out at the end of a peaceful demonstration, one of scores that have taken place since May demanding more government resources for public education and reforms to a system imposed during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Thousands of students and their supporters -- including 2,500 teachers who arrived in a caravan of 55 buses -- converged on this coastal city west of the capital Santiago to increase pressure on lawmakers to approve education reform.
Police said there were 7,000 protesters at the march, while demo organizers put the number at 40,000. Police did not say how many protesters had been arrested.
Protesters want more funds for education in the 2012 budget currently being discussed, and a law transferring control of public schools from towns to the central government to guarantee equal funding.
The measure, known as "demunicipalization," is scheduled to be discussed in Congress by the end of the month.
President Sebastan Pinera's government has promised to introduce an education reform bill in Congress, said Jaime Gajardo, who heads a leading teacher group.
"However, we are two weeks away from that deadline and we know nothing of this proposal," said Gajardo.
Schools have been in local hands since the Pinochet era, when government funds for public education were slashed in half and private education was encouraged.
The stage for protests moves back on Friday to Santiago, which will be the venue for another massive demonstration for education reform.
Classes have been on hold in many schools and universities since the start of the protests, which routinely draw tens of thousands of students into the streets.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.