Chilean Students Clash with Police, Destroy Jesus Statue

A student march in Chile's capital Thursday ended with violent confrontations with police and the sacking of a Catholic church as pressure continues to mount on the government of President Michelle Bachelet to fulfill promises of free higher education for all.

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At the end of the march on Thursday, masked protesters entered a church in downtown Santiago and destroyed a 3-meter (9.84 ft) tall statue of Jesus Christ.

But Gabriel Iturra, spokesman for the student union Confech, said the act was inappropriate and had been committed by a fringe group with little understanding of the movement's principles.

Thursday’s marches, the latest in a long series of mobilizations demanding an overhaul to education, focus on three key demands of calling for expansion of the public education system, financing, a new regulatory framework for public institutions.

Student unions and movements across the country pledged their participation in the march on social media and prepared for the national day of action with banners bearing calls for “Non-profit education” and other demands.

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Waves of student protests in recent months, which have sometimes turned violent as demonstrators clashed with police, have slammed the government for moving too slowly to implement pledged education reforms.

Under pressure from massive student protests that erupted in 2011, Bachelet signed off on a plan to provide free university education last year.

But according to a study by the Federation of University Students of Chile, or FECH, just 14 of percent of tuition costs are covered so far. The protesters argue that reforms have to go deeper than the plan proposed by the government.

“Free education implemented by the government doesn’t change the root problems that have mobilized us, but deepens debt, doesn’t strengthen public education, and maintains the education,” FECH argued on its Facebook page. “It is necessary to heed our demands as a whole: we need reform that brings free, public, and quality education!”

The dim statistics have prompted protests over the minimal progress toward big promises that social movements fought hard to win in a series of mass mobilizations between 2011 and 2013, dubbed the Chilean Education Conflict in local media. Aside from education reform, discontent over high levels of inequality was a key theme of the protests.

Youth have also taken to the streets to protests rising levels of student debt, reiterating the urgent need for increased funding and broadened access to free university. Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet tore down public education in 1981.