Summary Thousands of students marched in Santiago to demand changes in national educational mode in Chile.
SANTIAGO (Agencies) - Thousands of students took to the streets to demand profound changes in national educational mode, which has bases in the era of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
Students, both from high school and college, along with family, teachers, and others, set off from the Italia Square with banners and posters demanding free, high-quality education, and the State to assume a leadership role in this area .
On Wednesday, student leaders called on the students to be careful during the demonstration to prevent disorder.
They also urged the police to protect the students rather than repress them.
According to the president of the Student Federation of Chile, Andrés Fielbaum, "demonstrations are the best tools we have to transform Chile".
Also, the president of the Federation of Catholic University's Students, Diego Vela, said that this new protest against the government of Sebastián Piñera occurs only five days before the 40th anniversary of the coup against Salvador Allende.
A date that fractured the country and imposed through torture and killing of thousands of Chileans "a political, economic and social model that has had disastrous consequences", Vela stressed.
