Penguin Revolution

Christopher Vargas

English 100

    10/28/11

Penguin Revolution

The history of Chile is full of events. One event still affecting me in a special way is the student revolution also called “The Penguin Revolution”. The story of my history began in 1973, when a coup took place in Chile, and the government took control of the educational policy until 1981. In 1990, the government controlled just a few schools in the country, leaving the rest of the school and universities in the hands of third parties. However, the dictatorship left a hole in the school system. People that took loans for their studies were unable to pay the school loans back. Private schools would get richer, and low income families would have no future education for their children. That means that only the rich would have the chance to study while the poorest people would have no chance at all.  Revolutions became a problem for the state. Democratization was not helping, but instead, it was damaging the country’s education.

In 1990, Chile became a democratic state, and education became a business. When the government gave the green light for privatization, many universities and schools increased their tuition fees. As a result, low income families could no longer send their children to school, and graduate students were getting stuck with huge debts from their school loans because of the rising unemployment in the country. As a result, friends of my parents who were teachers or engineers had no jobs in their field, and had to work at gas stations or any other kind of jobs just to get by. The hole got wider and deeper making the government almost give up on public education.

Between the years 1995 - 2000, the job situation was getting worse. Low income families were left behind. Almost every university in the country had become private, and the few that were public were difficult to get into. People had to have extremely good grades and contacts to get in. One of the main reasons for the revolution was this situation. Students were paying plenty of money to get into good universities or get a good degree while others were getting in through contacts. The PSU (university selective test) test in Chile is quite expensive, and if students don’t get the points needed for the degree they want, they simply cannot study that field. Students must find another university that might accept them either by their grades or money. Now the school system was choosing for them what to study and charging them ridiculed prices.

 

The situation had deteriorated to such a degree that a revolution began. The Penguin Revolution, was given this name because of the student uniforms, and it is now a student revolution. It started back in 2006, when high school students went out in the street protesting for better changes in the education system. Now in 2011, the movement has become a student revolution. High school students, college students, teachers, and even parents are protesting. The students want changes like free education, which is a right for everyone, and free PSU tests, but the government won’t allow this. Now, they are answering by sending the police out. The revolution has indeed succeeded in some points. The education minister was fired from his position, and replaced while the president’s popularity has declined from 50% to 22%, which is a historic number in Chile’s history.

The whole country is fighting for their right to a better education. It’s the children and the country’s future. From April of this year, and still until now, there are no classes; everyone is protesting and clashing with the police. The revolution not only changed my family and me, but it’s changing the whole country. I feel somehow that our family, together with my friend’s and my brother’s friend’s. Families got all more united. The biggest effect on my family is the same effect for every family in Chile; they don’t want to pay a high amount of money for education that is not good or appropriate. More and more people are moving out of the country for study or work purposes, but privatization is everywhere. How long will it last until I’m in another hole, in a different country?